“You’ll get your lucky streak, sooner or later.”
Marcel Guilbeau

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Elysium could have been anywhere else.

The New Orleans Museum of Art is an imposing white rectangular structure whose entrance is supported by four Corinthian pillars. It’s located at the end of a tree-lined avenue surrounded by lagoons and majestic oaks. The neoclassical building feels inspired by ancient Greece, but sufficiently modified to give a subtropical appearance.




It’s also located in City Park.

Mere minutes away from the fight with Carolla.

Every creole in the city is going to be here.

Jade parks her car and gets out, heels clicking against the asphalt leading up to the museum. There’s a few other licks similarly making their way down the avenue.

Celia: It’s unfortunate, but there’s little reason for the Kindred of the city to look into the spot where Carolla had been last seen. She and Roderick had given the pair of Gangrel who discovered them a show, even if they do: Carolla and the nameless whoever-the-fuck he’d been playing Nines with and possibly banging. He hasn’t been missing nearly long enough for anyone to notice he’s gone, though.

Jade pushes the thought of him from her mind as she strolls down the avenue toward the museum proper, though her heels don’t click against the ground so much as swish.

Ordinarily it’s the gown that draws the eye: always high fashion, fitted, flowing. Some elegant color or another, paired with nude or black heels and understated jewelry. Nothing to detract from the girl who wears it. That’s the problem with most women and fashion—they pick outfits who wear them, not the other way around. Jade doesn’t make that mistake.

Tonight, though, it’s not the dress that draws the eye. The gown itself is understated. Still couture, but merely an accompaniment and backdrop to the rest of what she wears. One shoulder, black, floor-length tulle, with lace applique across the bodice to conserve her modesty through chest and groin. It’s fitted through the torso and hips and flares out once it hits mid-thigh, sweeping behind her with every step. The tulle material is translucent at best; it doesn’t hide an inch of her toned, shapely legs.

Nor does it obscure the star of the show. Not around her neck, not dangling from her ears, not on any of her fingers or clasped around her slender wrists. No, the star of the show this evening is at the base of the outfit itself, peeking out from beneath the sheer black lace with every step that Jade takes across the floor.

Vibrant. That’s one way to describe them. Fragrant, too; each time the short train of her gown swishes the floral scent emanating from them gets a little bit stronger, though it’s never even close to overwhelming. It’s a delicate hint of spring, sunshine, and rain. Not the ugly rain of New Orleans, but the sunkissed rain of summer showers and blooming romance.

Long, verdant leaves tie together across the milk-pale skin of her feet beneath the gown. The back of her feet are cradled by a pink and purple lily petal, its stem extending to the ground to serve as heel and point. The green leaves follow the natural arch of her foot, secured by more vines and tendrils that swirl across her skin, the balls of her feet cushioned by petals. Colorful pansies adhere to the natural toebox, her own nails polished to a lustrous sheen to compliment the overall effect. The hue shifts beneath the light, at once turquoise, fushia, or the golden-hued red of a summer sunset.

Jade’s eyes scan the swiftly assembling Kindred, looking for both familiar and unfamiliar faces: Elyse, though her message will be conveyed with eyes and tiny gestures. Amandine, for all that she serves the Baron. Elysium, at least, might be enough to draw her from… whatever she gets up to. The detective as well; perhaps he has pulled himself from work. Her favorite cowboy, though she’ll see him tomorrow if she can find others with whom to occupy her time. The new boytoy from the boat. Her sire, both fictional and true—though she won’t approach the latter, will barely let her eyes skim his form before darting away to find her lover, another resting place her gaze will avoid if it can at all be helped, facial muscles schooled into disdaining neutrality if not.

Any of them will do before the festivities begin.

GM: Jade catches several licks looking at her distinctive footwear.

Some appreciatively. Some jealously.

Another perk of living in the Quarter. She supposes another lick could procure some ‘flower shoes’ if they were willing to send an agent during the day, but just wearing them here would give away what they’d been up to, and this evening the Toreador appears to be the only Kindred sporting one of Dahlia Rose’s designs.

Jade does not see her sire.

He has little need to arrive by foot.

Lebeaux seemingly has not pulled himself from his work, but she espies the boytoy getting out of a car with Marcel and Brodowski, dressed up from his usual jeans and t-shirt in a white blazer, matching pants, and black shirt that he makes look effortlessly stylish and chic, next to the Ventrue in their darker suits (even casual as they may be).

Elyse is approaching alongside her sire and his four masked ghouls. The Malkavian’s flaring-hemmed black dress with its gray collar and belt (no skin visible anywhere on the chest) looks painfully plain next to Harlequin’s domino mask and costume right out of Mardi Gras. Then again, almost everyone looks plain next to Harlequin.

But at least he’s not pretty like she is. Just noticeable. Like a peacock.

Gui, dressed in a sports coat and his signature hat, makes his way up to the museum alone.

Celia: Jade isn’t so gauche as to preen, but she does toss her hair back when her floral footwear catches the eye of several licks, and those with whom she’s on even marginally friendly terms get a wink if they happen to meet her gaze.

She doesn’t let her eyes linger for long on her admirers. They bounce from lick to lick (and sweep across Harlequin’s ghouls as they no doubt desire with their getup this evening) before settling on the exiled prince and his entourage. No doubt Marcel would rather she not approach him directly, and with his Toreador boytoy still unreleased she’d have to feign a reason to approach. Perhaps she’ll just text him later.

No sign of her lover in the cursory sweep of those making their way inside. Now is the perfect time to get a little flirty with someone else to avoid a scene. The others—the masked harpy, the cowboy, the dollmaker—are all approachable on their own, the last of whom she only needs give a long look to get her message across. Years of their secret friendship has let even the simplest gesture convey meaning.

Jade sets her feet on an intercept path toward the Ventrue cowboy, sliding easily into stride beside him.

“Good evening, Mr. Gui.”

GM: “Evening, Miss Kalani.”

Gui looks her over. His eyes rest on her shoes for a moment before returning to her eyes.

“Those look like you plucked them fresh from the botanical garden.”

Celia: “Perhaps I did,” Jade says with a coy smile. “Maybe I’ve moved on from leather to florals.”

He knows just what sort of leather she means, too. Just last week he’d watched her cut open Tantal to fill his body with more muscle.

Jade slides her arm through his, hand resting lightly atop the sports coat that covers his forearm.

“You look dashing, as always. How did that project of yours turn out?” The club. The video. The thin-blood.

GM: “Flowers for the Rose Clan,” Gui remarks amusedly as the two hook arms. “I’d thought leather was more your bailiwick, but I won’t argue with the results.”

“Plants must be less messy, too.”

Celia: Less messy than the blood and viscera that she yanks out of people’s bodies. Quieter than the screaming when her subjects aren’t dead. Jade offers him a smile.

“Dirt under the fingernails, though nothing a little rinse won’t fix.” Her thoughts turn their brief would-be interlude in the shower before the convenient timing of his phone call.

There’s a hint of fang behind that smile now.

GM: There’s fangs behind all smiles, with their kind.

Some are just more obvious about it.

“It’s too bad I wasn’t around,” says Gui. “I could have helped.”

“Especially after last time.”

Celia: “No one likes a tease, Mr. Gui.” But there’s teasing and satisfaction in her tone rather than heat, and she hasn’t forgotten his promise to make her toes curl. She bats her lashes at him to let him know she’s not too put out with his abrupt departure.

GM: “They certainly don’t,” he smiles back. “I find the best way to deal with teases is to charge them interest, once they’re in a position to pay out.”

Celia: “A tease tax?” she muses. “Perhaps I’ll adopt your methods. Consider yourself taxed.”

GM: “And yourself equally taxed,” he rejoinds.

“I checked with Lord Savoy about a few things, so far as the project. You’ll forgive my playing dumb during our last talk.”

Celia: Jade lifts her shoulders in a shrug.

“I’d assumed. How did that go?”

GM: Gui glances briefly at some nearby Kindred.

“I’ll tell you someplace out of the way, lush. Leave the prying eyes and ears guessing.”

Celia: “Perfect. I have a little something for you as well.”

GM: “A mutual exchange is always the best one.”

Jade’s phone gives a buzz.

Celia: Jade favors him with a smile that promises to rock his world, then glances at her phone.

GM: The text is from Celia’s mom.

Youre my cut lil bunny ;)

Celia: It looks like someone hit the bottle tonight. Celia would giggle or smile, but Celia isn’t here right now. Jade only smirks, silences the device, and slides it out of sight.

“Tomorrow?” she asks Gui.

GM: “Tomorrow,” he agrees. “Good time with the party.”

Celia: “Looking forward to it. Did you pick the theme?”

GM: “Yes. I figured the older crowd would enjoy something retro. They always do.”

Celia: “I imagine so. My sire will have a ball with it.”

Celia: “Yours too, I bet.” A slight tilt of her head as she looks up at him.

GM: “He’s not here, sadly. But I think he would.”

“He could just come as himself.”

Celia: “That’d be a sight.” Jade’s gaze sweeps the assembled licks once more. It lingers on Elyse for a moment, though with the way her body has turned toward Gui perhaps it looks as if she is merely caught up in his company. “Sounds like he’d be interesting to meet.”

GM: Elyse, Harlequin, and the latter’s entourage are headed inside the art museum as they speak. Gui and Jade stand surveying the outdoors sculpture garden.

“Maybe you’ll get to see him some night. I still go back to Chicago from time to time.”

Celia: Well. Perhaps she doesn’t catch the Malkavian’s eye as intended. She has the next few hours to do so.

“Are you offering to take me home to meet pops? I didn’t realize we were there yet.”

GM: There’s a faint smirk. “I don’t think he’d read too much into it. Pops has seen me with a lot of girls.”

Celia: Jade huffs at him. “You’re supposed to pretend I’m special, darling. But I’d like to see Kindred Chicago.”

GM: “Not special wouldn’t get an invite back to the Second City, lush. First lick I’ve offered that to.”

“It’s interesting, next to New Orleans.”

“Things there are… angrier, in some ways. Worse Anarch revolts. But there’s not the same sense of decline, of looking backwards.”

“The licks in charge are looking towards the future.”

Celia: Jade can’t deny the flutter that his words bring. She drops her mock scowl to replace it with a smile.

“It sounds like a city worth seeing. I’d be happy to join you on your next visit.”

GM: “Pack some silver and bring a renfield who can handle himself. The road’s always dangerous.”

Celia: “How often have you made the trip?”

GM: “Enough times it’s familiar. Not so many I get cocky. Phones exist for a reason. But there are some things you can only talk about in person.”

Celia: “And the road is safer than flying?”

GM: “Flying is a terrible idea.”

Celia: Jade waits for him to explain further.

GM: “Too high security, especially since 9/11. Too many variables outside of your control. Flight delays can be the final death of any lick if your plane’s grounded until sunup.”

Celia: Well fuck. There goes her plan to fly to LA.

“So you’ve fought them before and survived to talk about it?” The loops, she means.

GM: Gui just gives an enigmatic smile.

“I’ve tussled with some dangerous things on the road.”

“But I prefer to avoid them. Winning gains nothing and losing can lose everything.”

Celia: Jade runs a hand down his arm, fangs once more long in her mouth at the thought of Gui fighting and winning.

“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.”

GM: The Ventrue’s faint smile widens slightly at the thought so plainly on her mind.

“Visit the Dark, and you’ll come back with stories.”

“That’s just the way of it.”

“That’s the one thing that never changes.”

“Hearst knows it better than I do, and he says he usually sees something new, when he goes back out.”

Celia: “What, every time?”

GM: “That’s what he says.”

“It’s a strange place out there.”

Celia: “You believe him? That he’s been as far as he says?”

GM: “I don’t know if he’s telling the truth about that town at the bottom of South America, but I know for a fact that he’s been farther than me. There’s worse licks for anyone traveling into the Dark to have at their side.”

Celia: She’ll have to see if he can come to her with LA, if things come to that. She’s already fantasized about being on the back of his bike. Doesn’t leave room for a ghoul, but maybe they can skip the bike…

“Maybe he’ll come with us.”

GM: Gui chuckles.

“Wiser to make plans outside of Elysium, lush. What if someone heard and tried to take us out?”

Celia: Jade rolls her eyes.

“I didn’t say when.”

“But point taken, darling, I’ll stay mum.”

“Though I’ll have you know that taking out two licks as cute as us is definitely a crime. Beyond the Traditions.”

GM: “Yes, it would be. But if other licks can’t be as attractive as us, I suppose they can’t be as civilized either.”

Celia: That earns a smirk from Jade.

“Perhaps we should head inside and grace them with our presence.”

GM: Gui glances to the side at the assorted Kindred entering the building.

“Yes, let’s. We’re already going to be some of the last in.”

Celia: Jade trails a hand down his chest before she pulls away with a smile, pleased with her get for the evening. They have more to discuss, but tomorrow is another night.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Another night sees another Elysium.




The New Orleans Museum of Art, the city’s oldest fine arts institution, has a magnificent permanent collection of almost 40,000 art objects spanning 5,000 years of art, including the Italian Renaissance to the modern era. The collection, noted for its extraordinary strengths in French and American art, photography, glass, and African and Japanese works, continues to grow. Its furniture collection includes important examples of 18th and 19th century American furniture and a small group of exquisite 18th century French pieces. Highlights include The Rosemonde E. and Emile Kuntz Rooms, exhibiting choice examples of America’s fine and decorative arts heritage in New Orleans. Its collection of European and American works includes works by Degas, Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Pissarro, Rodin, Braque, Dufy, Miró, Jackson Pollock, Mary Cassatt, and Georgia O’Keeffe. The museum features a comprehensive survey of French art, including several important works painted by the French Impressionist Edgar Degas during his time living with his mother’s family in New Orleans between 1871 and 1872.








Among the permanent exhibition is a survey of local Louisiana artists, as well as other American artists. The museum also features a significant collection of art photography with over 12,000 works from the beginnings of photography to the present. Other holdings include collections of glass, ceramics, portrait miniatures, Native American Art, Central American art from pre-Columbian and Spanish eras, Chinese ceramics, Japanese painting, Indian sculpture and folk arts from Africa, Indonesia, and the South Pacific.

And like any place of value and beauty, it cannot help but call Caine’s children.

They cannot do aught but seek to claim it.

Caine’s damned children descend upon the museum in droves, like carrion flies drawn to a corpse. Some hide their natures underneath bespoke suits, haute couture gowns, and fashions so cutting that they would hardly seem to need fangs with which to feed. Other Kindred revel in their sinful natures, adorning their eternally young and nubile bodies in the most head-turning extremities of dark couture: dresses made of knives, jackets constructed of barbed wire, and shining black PVC garments that cater to the wildest fetish. Others simply don’t bother dressing up: some wear leather jackets, torn hoodies, and denim jeans. The especially slovenly and monstrous-looking (or simply pathetic) garb themselves in little more than moldering rags and the dirtiest, dumpster-scavenged grunge fashions.

They flaunt their ownership of the museum and its treasures.

Here, they may dress and comport themselves as they like.

Here, the Masquerade falls away.

Here, any mortal to trespass the museum’s confines will enter a nightmare world they may never leave.

It pleases the Damned to claim such a place, to make it so totally theirs. To carve out their little gilded piece of eternity, just for a night, and proclaim, ‘here, we rule.’

GM: Gus Elgin stands before the crowd of Kindred gathered in the museum’s entrance hall, an almost all-white affair dominated by Corinthian pillars, a sweeping central staircase, potted palms, and assorted works of art previewing the ones contained further in. The Nosferatu master of elysium is a stunted creature with a rounded, crushed-in head—crushed in by the same streetcar he operated during his mortal life, and the origin of his nickname ‘Gutterball.’ His block-like nose and pudgy jowls remind people of a bulldog’s, and his large frame hovers in a nebulous area between fat and muscled, like a retired prizefighter who’s spent too many hours channel-surfing and guzzling beer on the couch, but still hasn’t completely let himself go. He stands a full head below somewhat tall men, which together with his girth and triangular-shaped frame, make him seem built like a dwarf—short and stout. He’s dressed in a leather jacket, black pair of slacks, and plain shoes—forgettable and unobtrusive clothes amidst the sea of shark-like fashions. A rosary ending in a lance rather than crucifix dangles from his neck.

GM: Beside him, but over foot taller than him (and over a head taller than most other men), stands Philip Maldonato. The seneschal’s frame is slender and his skin dusky and smooth, with only the merest hint of the wrinkles of age around his deep-set almond eyes. Tonight, without the need to hide his true self before mortalkind, he wears a galabiyya and almaizar: traditional gray Arabic men’s robes with a shoulder scarf and head covering.

GM: Whispers abuzz among the crowd of Kindred. There’s talk of vanished licks, snatched up by the Guard de Ville on no apparent pretext—licks like Sterling and Tina Baker, some of them chosen from among Vidal’s enemies, others from friendly factions.

And the bishop. Gone now for so many nights. Incommunicado.

This bodes ill.

GM: Yet most such rumor-mongers number among the young, and their elders swiftly shush them. Elysium is a place of reflection, discourse, and contemplation—not a gossip house. Gus Elgin smiles faintly and adds his own calm voice to the discourse, humbling requesting that the gathered Kindred lend him their attentions.

He begins, as ever, with a brief prayer to Longinus. Most of the gathered Kindred silently bow their heads. The Nosferatu then announces the time and location of next week’s Elysium Primo—a practice done, all of the attendees know, to discourage tardiness. Anyone who arrives late must beg the information from another vampire. Rarely is their kind charitable.

Celia: Gui had said that they would be among the last to arrive. Perhaps Jade had planned it that way, loitering outside with him until the other licks of the city were all present and accounted for to make her grand entrance with carefully selected gown, heels, accessories… including the lick on her arm. Reynaldo Gui and Jade Kalani arm in arm, and what a statement that makes: a power couple of enterprising and upwardly mobile neonates in service to Lord Savoy, both of them eye catching in their own right. Together they’re a statement.

They say the prince’s time is over.

They say that he has suffered significant losses these past months.

They say that their own losses are marginal, that Savoy’s star is on the rise.

They say look how glamorous things are in the Quarter.

They say don’t you want to be with us? To be us?

It’s the heart of every marketing campaign and they pull it off flawlessly, as if they’d been created for this moment, this entrance, this statement. Jade takes a second to smile up at her cowboy—hadn’t they heard the whispers about him taking her home?—before the pair part ways, Gui to his associates and Jade to her adoptive sire’s clique. She’s just in time to not give anyone a moment to ask a thing about her before Elgin draws the murmuring to a close to begin the evening’s festivities.

GM: They really do make a gorgeous pair.

Though some might say she makes a gorgeous anything.

GM: More than a few eyes survey the pair.

Some appreciatively.

Some jealously.

One most of all.

He’s not obvious about it. Not standing as he is by his sire’s side. Someone who isn’t looking probably doesn’t see it.

But Roderick Durant is one of the licks who watches Jade Kalani enter Elysium arm in arm with Reynaldo Gui.

He lets nothing cross his face.

He just looks at them, long enough to be sure, then looks back towards Gus Elgin.

Celia: Jade’s eyes dance across Roderick in their sweep of the hall. She doesn’t let it stop the slow spread of the smile across her face, or the very satisfied sway in her step as she takes her spot near Veronica.

Like him, she has a mask to wear. A role to play.

Like him, she’s smart enough to know that’s all it is: a mask. A role.

Perhaps he’ll give her the opportunity to explain before he puts her head through a wall and breaks her jaw. Perhaps he’ll believe her when she tells him that she isn’t fucking Reynaldo.

Or perhaps he’ll simply rip out her tongue for the effort, just like he had in that vision of the future.

GM: Some masks, worn enough, become more than masks.

GM: The harpies are there. Veronica. Katherine. Marguerite. Adelais. Sundown. Harlequin. All of their hangs-on, including Elyse.

Jade’s alleged sire wears a ‘dress’ made out of strategically placed scarlet feathers, each one seemingly dipped in blood, that reveal more than they hide. Rows of talons are covetously positioned around her half-visible breasts and womanhood. Her strappy high heels are made from mummified bird feet. Most prominently of all, however, a full set of wings made from the same red feathers unfurls from her back. She looks like a bird of prey almost ready to take flight. A too-familiar faint sneer rests upon her face.

It’s directed at the newcomers.

Or at least one of them.

He’s a tall and young-looking African-American man with good posture and a clean-shaven face dressed in a crisp navy suit and leather shoes. Jade hasn’t ever seen him before.

Celia: Jade takes a moment to appreciate her sire’s choice in attire before following her gaze to the black lick and his chosen company, if any. You can tell a lot about a person from the company they keep.

GM: He stands by himself.

The second newcomer, though, Jade recalls from John Harley Matheson’s trial. The female ‘prosecutor.’

GM: She’s beautiful, if one judges the symmetry of her features and he fullness and richness of her long brown hair. But her eyes are dark cool, her features unsmiling, and her skin is deathly pale. She does not look as if she has smiled in a very long time. She’s dressed in a conservative black evening gown that gives away little of who she is.

She is cold but beautiful. Not entirely unlike Jade’s real sire.

She, though, does not stand alone, but near Marcel Guilbeau and Pierpont McGinn.

Celia: You are the company you keep. Jade doesn’t think it’s one hundred percent accurate (it’s not like she’s a Mafia doll because she hangs out with Gui), but a brief glance at the woman lets her dismiss the more wild claims that had circulated about her after her last appearance in the city. No doubt the tongues will continue to wag with her reappearance, much as they do about everyone.

GM: Many eyes rests upon the newcomers, too. They are natural subjects for gossip. Whereas the woman simply stares ahead unconcernedly, the lone man meets those eyes and returns a few with faint nods and professional smiles.

He feels green.

Celia: Green can be fun. Jade winks when she catches his eye.

Julius: Less green—but some would say no less fun—is the attending Caitiff, Julius B. Baudoin. In contrast to Jade and Gui’s fashionably late, head-turning entrance, Papa Bleu was one of the very first Kindred to arrive at tonight’s gathering. Nominally a Sanctified rather than Unconquered, Julius has, particularly since Katrina, largely adopted the byzantine etiquette of the Invictus, including those pertaining to precedence—which, among other things, means showing up before all of the formally accepted Unconquered. It also means he continues to stand, attentive and otherwise silent as his ‘betters’ speak—which for the clanless jazzman, includes almost all in attendance, and most definitely the currently officiating Master Elgin.

Julius: Tonight, like most Elysia, the gorilla-girthed man is dressed in a 3-piece suit. This one’s an Ermenegildo Zegna that would easily fetch several thousand dollars—assuming it’s real, which it certainly looks to be, but which means nothing given its owner is a counterfeit king. Either way, the exceptionally made suit has an understated elegance, especially against the backdrop of Elysium’s more avant garde fashions. Still, its striated black pattern gives the suit an almost raven-like iridescence. Perhaps as a nod to his alleged sire’s current avian-inspired dress? Perhaps.

Julius: His dress shirt, however, is the color of sweet corn, accented with a slightly loose white tie adorned with gilded fleurs-de-lis. The tie’s former color matches Papa Juju’s beignet-powdered hair, while the latter matches his golden Bvlgari sunglasses and Patek Philippe timepiece that may or may not be knockoffs.

Julius: These are complimented by his shoes, a pair of burnished yellow alligator loafers allegedly by Mauri’s designer brand. Those shoes silently tap out a beat, as do Julius’ idle hands which tonight do not heft a musical instrument (as Juju Bleu and the Hawt Licks only play inside the Quarter), but rather a box gift-wrapped in a way that uncannily resembles a slice of angel food cake.

Julius: The Caitiff’s immediate company straddles that of the ‘fresh faces’ in tonight’s Elysium. Namely, he stands neither alone like the unknown newcomer nor surrounded like Cingolai by ex- and would-be princes. Instead, Julius has at his side the Sabbat-driven Canadian transplant, Laura Melton.

GM: * alone like the newcomer (he doesn’t look like David Hansen)

GM: Julius’ ‘krewemate’ is a short Caucasian woman in seemingly her early 20s with a heavily freckled face, pug nose, and unruly dark hair she keeps too short to get in the way but long enough to let it run a little wild. Large gold hoops dangle from her ears. The Gangrel is one of the fashionistas whose approach can be summed up as ‘not trying.’ She’s dressed in torn and shredded clothes that look like she was attacked by a wild animal. They amply display her supple curves, smooth stomach, and the undersides of her breasts—and more, if one views them at the right angle. She walks barefoot.

GM: Julius’ earlier entrance is noticed by rather fewer eyes than Jade’s later one—but many of those Kindred who do notice Julius have the same look he’s so accustomed to receiving. The one that says, ‘he should be grateful he’s allowed here.’ It’s a look that says his carefully considered fashions and all the effort he puts into them are merely so much polish over copper in a room full of gold—but they’ll allow it here, in their magnanimity.

It’s a look he’s seen since his very first nights.

And perhaps he wonders now, though he certainly has wondered before: how many more nights will he see that look? A few more decades? A century? Several?

Forever?

When will tolerance become respect?

GM: Gus Elgin, meanwhile, enumerates what exhibitions the museum is currently showcasing, and what rooms they may be found in. They include Ancestors in Stone, whose theme is West African ancestor worship; Arte Sacra: Roman Catholic Art from Portuguese India; NEW at NOMA: Recent Acquisitions in Contemporary Art; Marta Rodriguez Maleck: Morir es Vivir (“To Die Is to Live”), a sound and light installation that weaves together voices from across the New Orleans community; and A Brief History of Photography and Transmission.

The master of elysium will conduct ‘tours’ of these exhibitions at fixed times throughout the evening, and enumerates these times. Present Kindred are free to attend any number of these, to peruse the museum’s permanent collections on their own, or both.

“I would be remiss, too, not to include the sculpture garden,” Gus Elgin smiles. It’s located just outside the museum and features more than 90 works on a picturesque trail through City Park. It, too, is considered Elysium.

Elgin closes with a brief final prayer and declares the evening’s Elysium Primo has begun. Kindred cliques begin to file off throughout the museum. Some walks outside to view the sculpture garden. Others move to accompany the Nosferatu on his first tour.

Other Kindred, however, stay behind to watch when the newcomer approaches Philip Maldonato and declares,

“Your Majesty, my name is James Thibodeaux. I am here to present myself before you.”

Smirks flash and titters sound across viewing fanged faces.

“You address me erroneously, Mr. Thibodeaux. I am not a prince,” Maldonato answers.

Celia: Jade’s lips pull upwards in the corners at the newcomer’s mistake. Green indeed, though he wouldn’t be the first to assume Maldonado is the prince. She uses it as an excuse to glance around the harpies and their hanger-ons, as if to share the mirth, and catch Elyse’s eye.

Julius: Julius for his part, remains behind, his face hard at the newcomer’s blunder. It’s not his place to guffaw—but perhaps he inwardly smiles. After all, condescending tolerance is a step higher than open derision. And for one who’s death involved by lynched by a mob, tolerance presently contents the Caitiff.

As for the future, who knows when contentment might lose its shine.

A few more decades? A century? Several?

But not forever.

That much is sure.

Also, there’s a wide gulf that divides contentment from satisfaction. Seeking the latter, Julius scans the room, looking to see if Duval is still present.

GM: There’s nothing hidden about the contempt on Veronica’s or Adelais’ faces. Or most of the harpies’. Elyse’s face alone retains its doll-like stillness, though she meets Jade’s eye. Nothing further changes on her face.

Laura smirks besides Julius and whispers, “What an idiot.”

“Too bad Arte’s not here.”

Duval is present, standing alongside Harlequin and Elyse. She isn’t laughing or sneering like some of the other Kindred, but her pale face shows little sympathy too.

Mr. Thibodeux looks caught off-guard at the seneschal’s reply. “My apologies, sir. I heard the prince would be the tallest man here. Can you direct me to Prince Vidal?”

There’s more smirks and snickers at his words.

Julius: Watching the scene, Julius whispers back to his krewemate. “All erstas cain’t ’ave pearls, dawlin.” Still, a smile finally teases his powdered goatee as he adds, “But dat don’t mean dey cain’t be cooked rite into something gud.”

GM: The Gangrel grins. “They’re gonna fucking eat this guy.”

“I cannot, Mr. Thibodeux,” Maldonato answers the newcomer without elaboration.

“But whether foreknowledge or serendipity has led you before me, I am the correct Kindred to present yourself to.”

Julius: Keeping his sunglassess-hid eyes on the seneschal and newcomer, Julius whispers back to the Gangrel, “Ain’t gonna bet on uh diff’rent pony in dat race, hon, but if dey eat dere dinnuh an’ leave any ‘o him left, maybe we’s can make him woik to da Lord of da Quartuh’s favor.”

“From wot you’s told me ‘bout dem Sabbat, e’en shovelheads have der uses.”

GM: Laura nods. “Think we should try to keep them from eating…. all of him?”

Julius: “Maybe dat,” he says, “but let’s lissen ‘ere uh lil mo’.”

GM: Thibodeux just nods at the seneschal’s words and goes on, “My name is James Thibodeux of Clan Gangrel. I was born in New Orleans, served abroad in the Navy as a nuclear electrician, and received an honorable discharge. I’d like to return to the city I was born, because I heard it’s going to need a new prince. I’d like to serve my city, work my way through the ranks, and show I’ve got what it takes.”

Julius: Julius all but winces at the clusterfuck exploding before his eyes. He mouths a whistle, then whispers to Laura, “Ne’ermind, dat ship done sunk ‘fo it e’en got a cap’.

Celia: Her friendship with Elyse over the years has given both of them an understanding: they don’t converse in public. The pair plays for opposite sides and no matter how well they get along in private it wouldn’t do for either of them to be seen in the other’s company. So Jade doesn’t smile. She doesn’t wink. She doesn’t say hello. She just looks, meeting the Malkavian’s blank stare, and knows that her message is received.

Jade returns her attention to the newcomer.

“That’s certainly… bold,” she murmurs to those nearest her, the pregnant pause in the midst of her sentence conveying the true meaning behind her words: literally fucking insane.

GM: Elysium’s looks and whispers aren’t as unkind as they were before.

They are much worse.

Thibodeux seems to notice this time, if only by volume alone. A frown faintly creases his face, but he doesn’t remove his eyes from the seneschal.

Laura laughs with her mouth open at Julius’ words.

“Wow.”

“Not even shovelhead material, you think?”

Veronica, the Kindred nearest to Jade, just sneers.

The rest of the murder is eying the newcomer like a juicy piece of meat.

Celia: Jade has had her fill of the newcomer. Anyone who blunders that badly their first evening in the city doesn’t bode well for business, and she has some idea of how this will go.

“Dead in the water,” she says with an effected sigh. “Even if he weren’t, wrong tree.” She doesn’t need to practice such human gestures as rolling her eyes; the scorn in her voice is more than enough. It’s altogether too easy.

She moves off with a mutter of “low hanging fruit.” It’s not even worth her time. He’ll be ripped to shreds and picked clean over before his blood is even cold.

Julius: Julius, meanwhile, watches a little. Perhaps he wants to witness the terminus of Thibodeux’s implosion. Or perhaps he’s waiting for a better opportunity to deliver his package. Perhaps both.

GM: No one stops Jade as she leaves.

Indeed, perhaps the true competition will be who gets to make the kill.

Predators appreciate fewer rivals.

Maldonato’s face could be carved from wood. The severity of his gaze bears down on the newcomer like an anvil. The focused stare of a Cainite elder is no small thing to weather, and Thibodeux visibly flinches backwards—but doesn’t dare tear his eyes away.

“You have three nights to arrange your departure from New Orleans, Mr. Thibodeux,” the seneschal intones gravely.

The Gangrel gives a slow, silent nod.

Julius: Julius watches the exchange like an eye-deep gator in a bayou. Still. Patient. Waiting for currents to shift, for prey to come just a little closer.

GM: Subdued laughter sounds from Kindred spectators as Maldonato turns his back upon the newcomer and proceeds deeper into the museum.

Julius doesn’t wait for long. Thibodeux seems to know enough to avoid the harpies. He passes by Julius still in somewhat of a daze.

Julius: “Tree nights was long ‘nough fo’ Jesus to die an’ come back from da cross,” Julius clucks at the passing Gangrel, then adds with a softer whisper that might be part jibe or part invitation, “So wot you’s gonna do wit yo tree-day leave, sailor bo’?”

GM: “Guy who ordered him dead got a bad end, too,” adds Laura.

Julius: Julius smiles at that, then adds, “Wot wuz yo’ ship?”

“As fo’ me, I did most my time on uh cutter, Ol’ Minnetonka. She wuz one o’ dem eidy-doo footers.”

GM: “Last one was the Columbia,” says James, looking a little more at ease over the subject matter.

“The Minnetonka? Wasn’t that in… Vietnam?”

Julius: Julius somehow smiles wider, and begins walking, silently motioning Laura to flank James’ other side. Away from the other sharks that scent blood. “Bingo, git dis dawg uh bone,” he says with a light chuckle, before giving his krewemate a wink, “Maybe dis ’ere ersta does have uh pearl.”

Turning back to James, he adds, “Columbia. Dat’s uh… sub or uh cruiser?”

GM: “Sailor boys,” Laura smiles, contently following along.

Many, many other sharks scent blood, if the following stares anything to go by. Some more obviously than others.

But for now, they watch.

“Cruiser,” says James. “It’s in the Seventh Fleet.”

“You were in ‘Nam, though? Wasn’t that… when the Coast Guard actually got deployed?”

Julius: “Yessir, Long Blue Line all da way in Nam.”

And then as if struck by an idle curiosity, he adds, “Thibodeux. Dat’s uh mighty fine name. Where’s yamamma’n’em from ‘ere in N’walins?” On da Wes’ Bank, Backatown?"

GM: “Thanks,” James smiles. “And neither, actually, I grew up in the Upper Ninth. Could see all the ships around the canal.”

“You must have figured that would be a good career, then,” Laura nods. “Did that help with the homesickness when you were away?”

“They weren’t the same kinds of ships, but it did, yeah. I already knew ships.”

Julius: “Ah, da Nint,” Julius says, as if James has solved some great puzzle. If they were kine, this would be the point where he’d but his long arm around James’ shoulder in a paternal grip. But they aren’t kine, and so he doesn’t. Still, his voice takes on a quiet mien, as if letting James in on a secret:

“Lissen ‘ere, Mr. Thibodeux. I cain’t say wot ya ‘eard f’sure, but dis is da gospel truth. Folks like us aren’t much liked by da prince and his Fronatown frenz. Uptown’s still where dey got all dem shoits wid da lil’ gators on ‘em, an’ everyone has 59 rows o’ teeth. But dem teeth ain’t fo’ smilin’, not da friendly kind, no.”

“I ain’t lyin’ ta ya now, jus’ like it’s true dat da prince an’ his frenz ain’t got no love fo’ Gangrel,” he adds before jutting his head to his krewemate, “Ain’t dat rite, boo?”

GM: “We don’t have it as bad as the sewer rats,” Laura nods, “but we don’t even have our own primogen.”

“Even the sewer rats have a primogen.”

James looks slowly between the two. “Ah, so… this is more of the same Uptown bullshit.”

Julius: Julius’ leather balloon cheeks puff up, then blow out a whistle that lowers in pitch before turning into a gravely ‘boom’.

“Shootin’ straight as a guided missile. Mo’ of da same, yessir. Yep, da primogen was off’d, an’ da prince blamed it on yo clan’s whip, had him off’d, and ain’t never seen fit to allow ‘nuther. But da smart folks know he wus framed, the whip dat is. Now, Laura—dat’s dis dawl ’ere—she was real close to da primogen, so she knows da real culprit.”

Julius waits to see his ‘fish’ bites the bait.

GM: Laura smiles obligingly, her eyes briefly scanning the nearby faces. More than a few other Kindred are attentively watching the ongoing ‘entertainment.’

The other ‘Gangrel’ leans in close and whispers into James’ ear,

“It was the prince.”

James’ brow bunches. His mouth doesn’t fall open, but it opens. His expression looks fairly outraged as it cuts back to Julius.

“She’s kidding.”

Julius: “A little—,” Julius says, shooting Laura a lightly chiding look if not quizzical brow, “—which wus none too nice.”

“Nah, Laura’s long told me dat da real culprit is dis cat who calls hisself da Baron, Baron Cimitière. His krewe wus behind it, as his right hand cap, or dawl to be precise, is dis Gangrel, uh Lidia Kendall, by da Nint, see? Da Baron probably wants her by da Cabildo, wot we ’ere call da primogen council.”

Throughout the exchange, Julius leads the trio further away from the spectators, subtly seeking a spot more suiting a conspiracy.

GM: Laura smiles breezily.

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“Julius is right, though. Kendall’s the oldest Gangrel after Meadows, see, who probably wouldn’t want the seat. So that puts her in line, if the Baron gets his way. She and him are real tight.”

James looks a bit confused at the purpose of the ‘joke,’ but frowns, “Okay. So the Baron killed the primogen. Why hasn’t the prince done anything?”

Christopher Guilbeau and Amaryllis DeCuir happen to follow in the same direction as the three.

Julius: Julius gives a shrug, “As I dun said, da prince don’t seem to care much fo’ Gangrel, ‘specially dose dat ain’t from Uptown an’ da like. But dere is somebody who does care, ain’t dat rite, boo?” The question is clearly aimed at Laura—whom he hopes provides the ‘right’ answer this time.

GM: “There sure is,” Laura smiles back. “He’s not an Uptown man himself, not really—prince won’t even let him in to that part of the city.”

“The prince does that?” asks James.

Laura’s eyebrows don’t raise. “Sure does, handsome. Prince decides who gets to go where—and he don’t much like licks who stray outside their lane. You’re not from Uptown, you best stay outside of Uptown.”

“Our man included.”

“His name’s Antoine Savoy. He runs the French Quarter.”

Julius: “Lawd of da Quartuh, dat’s ‘im. Nicest Creole in all da Crescent City. Fren’ of da Gangrel too. Like Laura ‘ere, who ain’t from round ‘ere, but also folks like Roxy Adrieux, who wus born an’ raised in N’walins. He’s jus’ like da Quartuh, ‘cepts all kinds, frenz to both po’ an’ rich; crackers, niggers, an’ gooks, and throws da best God-damned parties in N’walins and nort of anywhere.”

Julius continues strolling while giving his car salesman pitch, “An’ unlike da prince, who only likes Catlicks, or da Baron who only ‘cepts folks dat are into gris-gris, Lord Savoy, he lets folks pick der own fait. Catlick, Voodoo, Invictus, e’en Anarchs. City’s got mo’ den a few Anarchs, but most and mo’ have joined Lord Savoy, ‘specially after one of da prince’s Uptown elder fren wus drinkin’ young licks fo’ dinnuh, and supposedly mind-fuckin’ so dey didn’t ’member.”

“Why, Amaryllis ’ere—,” he says, gesturing casually at the following Toreador, with a volume clearly loud enough for the two Anarchs to hear, “-wus one of dem, allegedly, might e’en still be, according to her blood-mama, a harpy and new fren of Savoy.”

“But I can see dey’re comin’ to recruit yo ass to da Anarchs, cap, or what’s left of dem dat still kisses da prince’s ring. So we’ll let dem,” he says, making a sauntering backstep as if permitting the other Kindred to approach, before slipping down his glasses to give James look eye-to-eye, “But jus’ mind wot we told ya about who’s frenz with da Uptowners, and who ain’t wit da Gangrels.”

Julius: Still hefting the wrapped box, Julius smoothly reaches into his suit to flourish a business card for the Evergreen Planatation’s jazz club. “But if you wanna see fo’ yoself, swing by dis address, ‘morrow night fo’ one of Savoy’s parties. I’ll introduce you an’ all, so no… slips like you had tonight.”

“After all, you got tree nights—and if you play yo cards right, maybe mo’,” he adds with a parting wink.

GM: The sales pitch rolls from Julius’ glib tongue like notes from a well-maintained trombone. His audience can do naught but follow along—one seemingly wholly enspelled by the music, the other in conscious appreciation of that music’s enspelling quality.

James only looks away to look at Amaryllis, who pretends to be talking with Christopher. He frowns at her.

“Damn,” says James when the ‘music’ finishes. “I’d heard a thing about the masked city in New Orleans, but I didn’t have any idea about all of… that. I figured being vampires made Uptown and Back o’ Town moot.”

He looks at the card and tucks it into his jacket’s inner pocket.

“And I was going to ask, yeah,” says James. “That… other Kindred seemed pretty serious about only three nights.”

“Philip Maldonato,” supplies Laura. “He’s the seneschal.”

She runs a hand along James’ shoulder and winks.

“All laws got loopholes, handsome. You worry about three nights in three nights. I might not be from here, but I know: nothing is difficult here, unless it has to be. Ain’t that right, Jules?”

Julius: “Dey don’t call it da Big Easy fo’ nuttin,” the Caitiff replies with a hearty laugh that can’t help but flash his fangs.

“Hope to see you’s by the club ‘morrow, Mr. Thibodeux—an’ if you do, tell ’em Papa Juju sent ya.”

GM: “Papa Juju,” repeats James. “I think I’ll do just that.” He extends a hand for the Caitiff to shake.

The two Anarchs continue to act like they’re only talking among themselves.

Julius: Julius returns it with a bass-drum shake of his own.

GM: James’ grip is firm, but has nothing on the quarterback turned decades-old Caitiff.

“That’s some grip,” he remarks, eyebrows raised.

He turns to Laura after Julius lets go. “And y-”

“I’m Laura. Want to fuck?”

She looks him over with an appreciative smile.

James raises his eyebrows, then says,

“Okay.”

Laura’s smile widens. She gives him a beckoning look, then heads outdoors to the sculpture garden. He follows after.

Julius: Julius laughs with a prurient grin. “Yo dink ma grip is tight, jus’ wait till you feel hers.” He then smoothly pushes his glasses back up, before returning the way the trio came, so his path crosses right by the young Anarchs. As he and Laura do so, Julius widely smiles at the Anarchs, as if he’s a Creole Kris Kringle delivering a present. “Course, you’s two is also invited. Always got an invitation waitin’ fo’ y’all by da Quartuh. I know yo mama, Ms. DeCuir, wud be jus’ peaches an’ cream to see y’all, as would Shep an’ da rest of da Anarchs dere.”

“Either way, you’s lookin’ as fine as Friday, Ms. DeCuir—as usual.”

Glancing at the ex-prince’s ex-scion, he adds, “Mr. Guilbeau, hope yo family’s doin’ well.”

GM: The tall, blond-haired, broad-shouldered, and handsome Ventrue just gives the Caitiff an aloof and faintly contemptuous look. Like ‘the help’ at a posh hotel is trying to start a conversation with him.

“Funny,” says Amaryllis. She’s a lovely-faced and dark-skinned young woman with long hair and suggestive curves. Let it not be said her own sire would Embrace a 50-plus old man.

She looks his clothes up and down.

“So how many of those are knockoffs?”

Julius: Except some do say that her sire embraced a 50-plus old man. Namely the one standing before her right now.

Nevertheless, Julius flashes a congenial smile: “If you’s gotta ask, Ms. Amaryllis, den it means I don’t wear ‘em cuz I cain’t afford da real thang. Some of us jus’ love da Masquerade a lil’ mo’ den others. Foolin’ an’ farce. In da end, we all wear masks, some jus’ not on our faces. Like yo mama’s wings tonight, or Mr. Guilbeau pretendin’ to be an Anarch cus his daddy don’t need him ‘board da Alystra. Den ’gain, I lots of folks dink his high-clan talents are wasted dere too. Why, I coulda swore Mr. Gui wus jus’ talkin’ bout dat da udder day, how he could see Mr. Guilbeau finally gittin’ to shine wid da High Rollers.” He shrugs, “But wot da hell I know? I’m jus’ a po’ ass clanless.”

At that half-truth, his smiles returns four-fold. And just like his clothes, that smile might be the genuine article or just an uncannily convincing mask.

He then dances away, leaving that mystery for them to ponder. Also, the Caitiff knows it’s best not to linger amongst lions without your own pride, especially when you’re a Caitiff.

GM: Christopher steps in front of him.

He’s a big man. Thick muscles on top of his already tall and wide frame.

The Ventrue’s expression is still disdainful, but it’s no longer a cool disdain.

“I challenge you, trash.”

His voice is loud. Numerous nearby Kindred swivel their heads.

“Dueling Oak.”

“After Elysium.”

Christopher doesn’t quite smile. Or anything even close to it. But it feels like someone else could, when he says,

“Or you can apologize for those words.”

Julius: Julius’ smile thins, as do his gator-red eyes behind his shades. The dimeback sizes up his competition across the scrimmage line. Christopher’s a touch taller, but Julius has the longer reach and bulkier frame. Neither is a stranger to fistfighting, nor is either a true master. Christopher’s blood is of princely lineage, but the Caitiff—likely due to his longer Requiem—has better honed his Cainite gifts. Luck would tip the scales, but Julius knows the odds—the real ones—would be in his favor. Yet, as Vũng Rô Bay had taught him, you can win a fight but lose the war.

Then again, not all battles are fought with fists.

As such, the congenial mien doesn’t entirely leave Julius’ face. He does pause, though, to allow the crowd to clearly turn and watch the show. Then he replies, his voice clear and sharp as a trumpet:

“An’ which woids were dose? When I called myself po’? Okay, I ‘pologize fo’ lyin’. I ain’t po’. I’m rich, actually, got millions that I earned wid my own knuckles an’ brains. No handouts from daddy or such.”

“Or wus it when I said you’s had high-clan talents? Dat be a shame to apologize fo’ dat, cuz it’s gottah be true. How could it not, wot wid you being childe of His Grace, da Most Marvelous Marcel Guilbeau, Duke of Baton Rouge, Interpreter and Librettist? I an’ udders look fo’ward to seein’ great dings from you’s.”

“An’ surely you cain’t be sayin’ I should apologize fo’ saying His Grace needs you’s or any other neonate to run the Alysta? Why, he wus a prince, an’ uh great one of uh great city, an’ surely will be once more! He’s a pillar of da Invictus and Camarilla, an’ a delight to dis city. So I’ll not apologize fo’ dat, for dat would be besmirchin’ his great dignitas—an’ not I no’ nobody else should dare do such uh thing, for dat would make one lower den trash.”

Julius then waits for the Ventrue’s answer—and he is no longer smiling.

GM: Elysium watches avidly.

A duel can only end in one of two ways: one Kindred wins, the other loses.

Easy path to glory, at someone else’s expense. One bridge forward and another bridge burned.

So Julius ripostes.

Dig becomes flattery. Slight becomes praise—and Christopher finds himself disarmed of his own weapon.

He quickly raises a shield to fend off the Caitiff’s advance.

“Hmph. I suppose you didn’t know what you were saying,” he declares loftily, in a somewhat bored tone. Like he’s doing Julius a favor.

“You should be more careful how you say things, though. You could offend somebody.”

Yet, though such words may salve the Ventrue’s pride, and save some measure of face, there is little of Julius’ same grace or cleverness in them—and few of Elysium’s ever-watchful eyes can deny that the Caitiff’s words were chosen with great care.

Julius: Julius’ smile returns like an encore. Strong. Hot. Confident. Far more subtle, though, is how he waits for Christopher to move first. Perhaps he’s being polite—after all, shouldn’t the “trash” defer and wait for the blue blood? Perhaps. But the reality is that it means that Christopher is the one to physically back away, and thus back down. It’s a subtle chord, but it harmonizes well with the melody of their verbal exchange.

He doesn’t push it further, though. Some crowds like ‘unnecessary roughness’, but refs don’t. And in the Camarilla, the refs are dirty as the Ninth Ward’s sewers. Maybe dirtier.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

Celia: The halls of Elysium have rarely fallen so silent, filled as they are by the chattering gossip-mongers, their hanger-ons, and the would-be crowd. Even the noise from the night’s usual games and intrigues isn’t enough to distract from the sudden hush, and Jade’s head turns in the direction of the two whose conversation has drawn enough attention to bring dozens of eyes their way.

A duel.

Or not, perhaps, when the glib-tongued Caitiff’s words go over well enough.

Guilbeau backpedals so hard that it’s a wonder his foot hasn’t become lodged in his throat.

Jade wants to know how a tantrum-throwing Brujah became the most well-spoken of the Golds, but she keeps the thought to herself. She’s rather fond of the boy’s sire for all that his childe turned out to be nothing but a braying ass. She smirks at the display, looking past where Guilbeau stands to the dark-haired beauty behind him.

Ryllie.

Long-lost sister. She’s had a lot of those, hasn’t she? Isabel. Roxanne. Whatever she wants to go by. Emily, if she finds out the bitch slept with her boyfriend. Dani, for all that it was never official. Another one, too. A cold one. Like her sire, only this one doesn’t know that she exists.

She remembers what Roderick had said about Ryllie that night he found out about Dani. Remembers how she pines for someone she can’t have. The bond, presumably, and Jade—or one of the girls inside of Jade—knows what that is like. She’d willingly taken the bond, but to be forced into slavery, to be used like nothing but a juicebag?

Not a hint of emotion crosses her marble face.

She meets her sister’s eye.

And then she lets it show, just for Ryllie, as if she cannot help herself. Pity, mingled with something like genuine remorse. Her eyes swim.

But just for a flash.

Just long enough to look like a crack in the mask.

It’s a look that says, “I know something you don’t, and you wouldn’t like it if you did.” It’s the sort of look fathers give their sons when they take them fishing for the first time and help the boy reel in their catch, knowing that just moments from now their hands will be stained red with the blood and guts of that wriggling, gasping fish, that soon there will be a knife in its side while they slice it down the belly, strip its bones from its flesh, and sautée it over a hot flame.

It’s only there for a instant.

Then she turns her face away.

GM: She really does have so many long-lost sisters.

Biological sisters. Adoptive sisters. In-law-to-be sisters. Kindred sisters. Pretend Kindred sisters. Biological and Kindred sisters.

About half of them hate her.

Well, maybe not ‘hate.’

Does Camilla even spare her enough thought to hate?

Ryllie just gives her a haughty look in response. That same lip-curling sneer learned from their sire.

The younger Toreador doesn’t do it as well, though.

And for all the disdain in expression, Jade feels sure of one thing:

She definitely got under this sister’s skin.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

Julius: Julius can’t help but nod and smile as he passes through the crowd, even as he knows each and every one of them would’ve gladly lapped up his blood if he had lost. Then again, a musician’s audience is little different—though their bloodlust tends to be more figurative. Usually.

With that thought, he saunters away, seeking Marceline Duval. He finds her in the company of Accou, and ironically enough, Marcel Guilbeau. He stays a respectable distance from the two former princes, but does saunter over to a far more friendly, or at least familiar, face when he spots Jade, a fellow Bourbon Sanctified, in the group’s periphery.

Celia: Jade’s eyes move from the elders and their game of chance to the new face in the crowd that has come to observe. Newish, at least; he’s been around years longer than her few for all that he doesn’t have the clout to back it up. A step sideways and she’s near enough to him that she can converse in a lowered voice, though not so close that she appears friendly. Veronica has told her not to bother with the riffraff.

“Shame their PR ended up in Houston.”

Julius: “Whose PR is dat, sug?” the Caitiff asks quietly, keeping his gaze ahead at the ex-princes.

Celia: “The Golds,” Jade tells him with a vague gesture over her shoulder toward the junior Guilbeau and Veronica’s other childe.

Julius: “Ah, dem,” Julius replies softly with his sousaphone timbre. “Thought you’s wus talkin bout da Navy’s Public Affairs. Cuz Mr. Thibodeux coulda used der help.”

He shifts. “But we done lost uh lotta folks to Houston.”

“And uh helluva lot more to da hurricane itself.”

There’s a bitter chord to that last statement, but it’s not directed at the Toreador.

Celia: “Mm, there’s been a lot of foot in mouth tonight,” Jade agrees with a smirk. “But this was after the hurricane. Apparently he tried to stop a massacre and was exiled for the trouble.”

Julius: No stranger to the minor key, the jazz funeral leader follows the rhythm. “Oh, dat’s rite. Da hound’s kid, Hez… somethin. Didn’t know he wus der PR. Figure’d it’d be der rose, or da Big Sis kid.”

Celia: “Certainly isn’t your new friend there.” Amusement dances across Jade’s face. “And it certainly couldn’t be the thrall.”

Jade shrugs, one point made. The other worm wiggles free of the hook, but there are fish yet to be had.

“I’m sure he landed on his feet. Make the right friends and things become less bleak.”

Julius: “Speakin’ of makin da rite frenz,” Julius adds in a low voice, “Mr. Thibodeux might be joinin da party tomorrow.”

Celia: She gives Julius a tiny nod in answer, the barest dip of her chin.

“A good host would tell him the theme,” she murmurs in response.

Julius: “Mmhmm,” Julius says, like a bullfrog savoring a fly. “Gotta first see if he survives Ms. Melton’s jelly-roll. Ain’t too often somebody beats you’s to uh sossidge shoot-da-chute.”

Julius: To those close or keen enough to hear the low-spoken remark, it’s clear Julius’ words have no acrimony or venom, but are rather matter-of-fact if not blasé, like someone idly commenting on the shortness of a rain-shower or an early blossomed hydrangea.

Celia: Good thing a certain someone isn’t around, or the Caitiff might be told to eat his words once more.

“I only pursue attractive things, Papa Juju,” Jade remarks idly. “Desperation isn’t attractive.”

Julius: Julius smiles like the rain-shower has past: “Ah, you rite, f’sure, though some like Mr. Silvestri say dat pursuit is attractive in an’ of itself.” He shrugs, then adds, “Den ‘gain, what’s attractive in uh lover versus uh shovelhead are mighty diff’rent. For most folks at least. Dose at da Dungeon might disagree.”

He shrugs once more. “Anywho, da seventh ward has mo’ need of shovelheads den lovers dese days,” he says in reference to the one of the main fronts between Savoy and the Baron’s factions.

Celia: “Pursuit is attractive. My sire would agree; we both enjoy a challenge.”

At the mention of Silvestri she sweeps her eyes through the crowd of assembled licks, looking for the thief. She has something to speak to him about. She doesn’t touch the subject of the Dungeon, just notes its mention and doubles down on her resolve to look into it further.

Later, where there are less inquisitive ears about.

“No doubt Miss Melton will be able to show him where things go.” Easy convert, she means, now that they’ve extended such a personal welcome. “I’m certain he’ll be grateful for the lesson.” And stick around in the Quarter to make himself useful on that front.

Julius: “Mmhmm.”

The jazzman inspects his fingernails. They’re clean. He doesn’t bother checking his hands, though. He knows they’re dirty. Not physically, but dirty all the same.

“Bin meanin to axe you’s,” he whispers with a slow pour of his liquid-deep voice. “But if it crosses da line, jus tell me to git lost an’ I will.”

He pauses a moment, then, before proceeding, “You got dat Turk crib, rite, da Gardette? If you evah consider subinfeudin it, let’s jus say I might know uh buyer willin’ to pay mo’ den uh few dollahs.”

Celia: “I do,” she confirms. An interesting bit of history in her little slice of the Quarter. All sorts of ghost stories surround the building—though that’s true of most places in New Orleans, particularly in the Quarter.

“I’ll hear out your contact.”

Julius: Julius continues his facade of idly watching Marcel and Accou converse, but Jade does not have to wait long before the trombonist replies:

“Dat party is a bit shy. Wants to sus’ out if der offer is acceptable, don’t wunna risk upsettin one of der fellow Bourbons. Makes me da middleman.”

Julius’ face then turns slightly toward Jade as he adds, “Lissenin to udder lil’ birdies, woid is you’d like to git a vacation or two or ten to da Windy City. Drivin’ uh thousand miles ain’t no gud, an’ flyin ain’t much bettah—an’ sometimes a lot mo’ worse. But da rivuh? Ain’t as fast as flyin, but less oversight, an’ way mo’ shade an’ comfort den uh car, van, or wotnot. Especially if you’s git a private yacht. Dey cost mo’ den uh few dollahs, though, half uh mil or mo’, and den dere’s all da paperwoik. Lots of it. An’ knowin which ports an’ folks to grease or avoid an’ how.”

“Now you could do uh private charter, but dere’s mo’ paperwoik, mo’ oversight, an’ you’s cain’t jus up an’ git goin whenevah you be wantin.”

“So I’m authorized to offer you’s a private yacht wid all da paperwork, complete wid membership in da Lakeview Southern Yacht Club wid all of dose perks. Probably could use it to rub shoulders, reel in some whales to Flawless, too. An’ all da vacations to da Windy City or beyond. Da Crescent City is one of da biggest ports in da world.”

“An’ in return, dey want Gardette. A lil’ secret jus between you’s, me, dem, and Lord Savoy, who’s gud wid it, or will be if you are.”

Julius: And then, as if sharing an almost irrevelant afterthought, he adds, “Yacht is uh ’03, uh 65 footah. Used to belong to Rich Towers, da famous kine actor.” He shrugs at the last factoid.

Celia: And how, she wonders, did he already hear that she is looking to make a trip to the Windy City with Reynaldo? She doesn’t bother asking; the pair had had their conversation just moments ago outside the doors of Elysium and entered together like the belles of the ball. Whoever had overheard his offer to take her home must have been quick to spread it, and their proximity had only confirmed the rumor.

No wonder her lover looks like he’s one wrong word away from tearing someone’s head off.

“Our little secret,” Jade muses. That he’d just dropped in front of all the ears of Elysium. Surely he realizes the irony when she finally turns to face him fully, one brow lifted.

She’d have preferred to discuss this offer privately—no need to let the licks of the city know that she has a yacht and can come and go as she pleases. But here it stands. Rich Towers’ yacht. A direct line to wherever she wants to go in the world.

Tempting.

But she lets him sweat. Metaphorically.

“I’ll think about it.”

Julius: Julius nods. If his gossip-alleged ‘sister’ wishes to contact him, she knows how—even beyond their regular co-appearances at Savoy’s club. And he’s willing to sweat. Metaphorically. If history predicts the future, Gardette manse isn’t going anywhere—unlike the yacht. Then again, that’s one of its main draws. Freedom. Its high-class status symbol and hedonic comforts don’t hurt, either.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Marcel Guilbeau publicly challenges Accou Poincaré to a game of chance. The wager he proposes is Accou’s casquette girl, a potent status symbol among the city’s elders. The challenge draws the interest of many Kindred. Marcel has been lagging behind Accou’s in the horse race to position himself as Vidal’s heir: he is no doubt seeking to advance his position through besting the Toreador primogen, even despite the friendly setting.

Accou stands less to gain from the water. He’s already ahead of Marcel.

On the other hand, refusal will cost him face, and he is behind Donovan himself in the ‘race’.

Accou glibly questions the growing audience of nearby Kindred what prize he should ask from Marcel, if he wins the game.

Celia: A game of chance. As if the casino owner ever actually chances anything.

Jade doesn’t say a word when she slips into the crowd of Kindred around the elders, though she makes sure that she’s seen by the exiled Ventrue prince without drawing overt attention to herself.

He knows that she knows.

“What’s the worth of a casquette girl?” Jade drawls in an undertone to the lick beside her. “His boat?”

GM: “The Alystra is worth around $150 million,” answers Anthony Brodowski. “Which one would you take, if you had the choice?”

Celia: The boat. There are always more casquette girls. Money can buy all sorts of useful things… and people.

“Seems rather obvious.”

GM: “I’d take the casquette girl,” answers Brodowski. “You can always make more money.”

Celia: A status symbol would be useful to a nobody like him. Jade smiles and inclines her head as if they’d reached the same conclusion.

GM: “I’d take the $150 million,” says Duke Elmhearst with a vaguely scornful look.

Julius: “Material worth ain’t da matter at hand,” offers Julius in his low, liquidy thunderous voice. “Da filles la casquette are livin history, uh part of da past dat has outlived it, much like da Kindred. But so too is da Alystra. It’s far mo’ dan simply money. Dat ship done carries wid it a noble past, an in her wake, she remembers wot wus an wot wus lost, jus like da girls.”

Celia: He would. No doubt that empty head of his can’t think of anything worth doing with a casquette girl in his employ.

Or he’s just a sexist fuck.

Leave it to the Caitiff to outspeak them both.

GM: “Well-spoken, Mr. Baudoin,” replies Marcel.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over my Requiem, it’s that material things are easy to acquire and easy to lose. But unless you’re worried about dying soon,” and here the ex-prince cracks a smile echoed on a few of the watching faces, “there’s little point in getting impatient over when fate will deal you a winning hand. You’ll get your lucky streak, sooner or later.”

“But history? Once that’s gone, it’s gone forever. They say everything has a price, but to me it feels disrespectful to assign a monetary worth to a casquette girl. Perhaps the only fair thing to wager would be another piece of history.”

GM: “Soundly reasoned, Lord Librettist,” Accou smiles back. “I, too, believe it would be only fair to wager one piece of history for another. Are all here of like mind that the Alystra is of equivalent historic value to a fille à la cassette, or would another piece of history be a more suitable wager?”

Celia: She’ll never get credit for it.

Jade tilts her head to one side, as if considering the offer.

“Where will you go without the Alystra?” Jade quietly asks Anthony, as if the game is already won. Everyone nearby has considered the implications, haven’t they? It’d knock Marcel right out of the line if he can’t hold onto a boat.

Surely that is a worthy prize in and of itself.

Clever, clever grandsire.

GM: “They probably have money outside the Alystra, Miss Kalani,” says Amaryllis DeCuir in a vaguely patronizing tone. “I’m sure they’d manage.”

Celia: “You’re missing the point, darling.”

Jade smiles at her, as if it’s to be expected.

GM: Amaryllis smiles back, like Jade’s too stupid to have considered her own point.

Celia: Hadn’t she just gotten under her little sister’s skin? No doubt this is some petty little thing she thinks she’s won in the wake of that.

What’s it like to be used as a breather? Ryllie could dazzle them all with her stories.

GM: “We’d likely go somewhere on dry land, for one,” Brodowski answers with a smile of his own. “Perhaps we’d even enjoy the change of scenery.”

Julius: Julius listens to the spiraling conversations. He’s already spoken up once and acquitted himself well. The Caitiff knows better than to push his luck. Again. But that doesn’t mean he can’t watch and listen. Learning typically requires both—and he wagers there are lessons to be learned from the sociopolitical dance of his elders as well as juniors.

Celia: Jade doesn’t bother pointing out that New Orleans is a sinking city, or that it sees almost sixty-five inches of rain per year, or that only a decade ago the whole city had flooded.

She’d played her part.

GM: “I would require someone to manage the Alystra, should fortune smile upon me,” declares Acc…“Perhaps you would be interested in continuing to, Lord Librettist.”

“Very generous of you, Alder Councilor,” answers Marcel. “I suppose since my household and I aren’t in any danger of being left homeless, that settles it. Will you accept the Alystra against your casquette girl, Alder Councilor?”

“I shall,” answers Accou. “What game, then, we are to play for these wagers? I would normally propose chess, but you asked for a game of chance, Lord Librettist.”

GM: “So I did, Alder Councilor. Perhaps our audience has further suggestions?” he inquires.

Celia: Few enough actual games of chance to be had in a place like this. Not with all the tricks their kind possess. With Sterling picked up by the hounds she doubts anyone has a pair of dice or cards on hand.

Coins, though. Plenty to be had, aren’t there. Odds are 50-50, each player has an equal chance, and even the professionals in the sports world use them to kick off games.

“Have a quarter, Mr. Browdowski?” Old as they are, she doubts they’d consent to a game of Bingo.

GM: A few calls go out for baccarat, poker, and other casino games before the Ventrue produces a quarter and flips it in the air towards Jade.

The action draws some stares and quiets down the Kindred offering suggestions.

Everyone prefers to watch something happen.

Celia: Oh fuck no. She’s not going to be accused of anything or blamed because she flips the coin.

Still, deft fingers pluck it out of the air, and she winks at the stiff as she moves to a more prominent locale.

“50/50 odds. Best two of three? Three of five? Or just a single flip?”

GM: “I wonder, is a coin toss really a game?” asks Ryllie. “Games take a while. There’s strategy, interplay, back and forth between the players.”

The audience’s eyes settle on Jade.

Celia: “Tell me, Mr. Guilbeau. Is the coin flip offered as a game at your casino?”

She waits for the expected “no,” and nods her head.

“And why is that, Mr. Guilbeau? I know we’re all looking for razzle dazzle, or at least my sister is based on her open scorn, but I’m sure there’s a mathematical reason, isn’t there? Something to do with house odds, isn’t it? Because in baccarat, blackjack, and roulette the odds favor the house, don’t they? And people have this grand debate about luck versus skill in poker, but all the professionals—those are the ones who know more about it than us, Ryllie—they agree that it isn’t luck at all. The casinos only let them play because they take a rake from every hand, so it’s guaranteed money in their pockets.”

Jade considers her little sis.

“You know what a coin flip has? Even probability. I can ask Papa Juju to belt us out a tune if you need something more invigorating, though. Maybe get some smoke machines or sequins for you.”

GM: Titters, low laughs, and condescending smirks greet the Toreador’s barbed words.

GM: Ryllie’s eyes smolder with scorn as she assumes an equally warmthless smile.

“A coin flip’s not actually even, Jade. You do know that too, right… that fast enough Kindred can basically decide, what side turns up?”

She considers her alleged broodmate ‘thoughtfully’ with a nailed hand raised to her lips.

“Hmm… maybe not. And you know, baccarat does have even odds—between the players, and not the banker? That game seems a lot more fair to me, unless you were volunteering to do the coin flip. I guess with a Kindred who’s graceless enough, it’d be close enough to random…”

More smirks and subdued laughs ripple across the predatory faces as they shift back to Jade.

Celia: “Darling, do you really think we can influence a coin toss and not any of the other suggestions? That we can’t stack a deck the same way? What limited imagination.”

Amusement dances across her face.

“I was going to say that I shouldn’t flip the coin because of my shared blood with a contender. I was going to say that you shouldn’t either, for the same reason. But I’ve heard you still have your fangs planted in a certain someone’s back end, so I guess that’d make you an unbiased party.”

“And it’s not,” Jade says, inspecting a nail, “as if our sire considers you blood anymore.”

GM: Veronica, watching silently as her ‘childer’ feud, only sneers at Jade’s words.

“Funny hearing that from the city’s biggest slut,” Ryllie retorts furiously, eyes flashing as her fangs lengthen in her mouth. “I bet if he’d approached you, you’d have sunk your fangs around his cock and begged for seconds. If half the Kindred here even knew what you did behind closed doors, and with w-!”

“Enough,” Accou preempts. The elder’s face is still as marble, and his eyes equally cool as they fall upon Jade’s ‘broodmate.’

“Many call Elysium a place of reflection and contemplation. And so it is—your actions here reflect upon those beyond yourselves.” His unblinking eyes rest long upon Ryllie, then momentarily take in Jade as well.

“Comport yourselves appropriately.”

Ryllie grits her fangs but inclines her head.

“Yes, grandsire.”

She stares at Jade too, though, and something ugly burns within her eyes.

More titters, sneers, and whispers ripple throughout the crowd of spectating Kindred.

Celia: Calling her a whore. That’s a new one. If Jade had a dollar for every time someone tried to get under her skin that way she’d be as rich as the exiled prince on his boat.

“Yes, grandsire.”

She smirks openly at her broodmate while the laughter trickles in.

Julius: The jazzman, in contrast, does not smirk. There’s blood in the water, and far too many sharks. Not a safe place for one of the clanless. Still, he’s glad more of the blood is Amaryllis’ rather than Jade’s. As Remy used to say: “When one Bourbon bleeds, so do all the rest.” Then again, his former krewemate and priest is now ash on the wind.

But jus cuz da music stops, it don’t mean da memory cain’t keep it goin.

With that thought in mind, Julius steps forward. Time to distract the sharks, even if it means he has to play the bait. Briefly, or so he hopes.

He moves towards the pair of ex-princes. Not too close, but close enough to be seen waiting. Attentively. Expectantly. Respectfully. He’s paid and bled enough to learn that Invictus etiquette demands he wait to be recognized before speaking to such ‘betters’. And given Accou’s recently raised ire, he does not wish to foolishly tempt the elder’s wrath.

GM: The Toreador primogen regards Julius with that same initially cool look.

But Father Albright liked to say, too, that sometimes saying nothing is better than saying anything. When Clarice was in one of “her moods”, sometimes saying anything just made things worse. “All it does is give the cat some string to chase after. Better just to not give it any.”

A brief moment passes, as the ‘cat’ looks for signs of motion, but finds none.

“Would you speak, Mr. Baudoin?” invites Accou.

Julius: Step 1. Get the sharks’ attention.

Check.

Step 2. Don’t get eaten by the sharks.

Well, here’s I go, me.

“Only if it pleases da rite most gallant Alder Councilor Poincaré and mighty fine Lord Librettist Guilbeau—an only wid da aim of pleasing y’all.”

“Da latter did graciously ax fo’ further suggestions from da likes of lil’ ol’ us. So given mo’ contemplation, I might humbly propose uh game dressed wid both coins and cards. After all, since you’s both wagerin fo’ uh piece of history, it wud only seem fittin to play uh game of chance steeped in one too, no?”

“Jus like da filles la casquette, dis game rite came from France, an wus often played by sailors to determine who had to stay behind on da boat or go git da company of da ladies ova by da sho’. Like da owners of da casquette girls’ an da fortunes which flow through da Alystra, dis game’s had lots of names. Vieux garçon, le Pouilleux, Le Puant, Pierre Noir, Le Valet Noir, or wot caps wid da vulgar tongue call, Old Boy.”

“It’s uh rite propah game of chance, though some bluffin cain’t hurt. You’s can play it wid jus two, too. An if y’all want to make it uh bit spicier wid some mo’ suspense, git somebody to randomly choose uh card as da Pouilleux by removin it from da pack face down. But who shud git dat honor, hmm? Seems to me dat might be where da coin—or coins—come in.”

He turns to fully face Marcel, praying to Clarice’s ghost—or at least memory—that he’s not about to join her just yet.

“Lord Librettist Guilbeau, yo childe has already done got uh coin an given to one of Alder Councilor Poincaré’s bloodline. If dat wud still please you’s, den Alder Councilor Poincaré might have one of his bloodline rite do da same to one of yo’s. At dat point da coins by chance cud tell us who gits to pick da Pouilleux. Uh game widdin uh game, if it pleases y’all.”

The jazzman’s solo hopefully done, he bows to the ex-princes as any stage performer should, and steps back, waiting to see if he’s lauded, deadpanned, or just made dead. Again.

GM: Silence hangs over Elysium as the two ex-princes consider Julius’ words.

Veronica isn’t the only harpy present. Defallier is there, too. And Beaumont. Plus their hangers-on. They, and so many other Kindred, stare at Julius. Silently. Expectantly. Pitilessly. Perhaps—no, assuredly—already thinking cruel words and sharpening their knives in anticipation of the Caitiff being declared open season.

Their eyes return to the ex-princes. Like a coliseum crowd seeking an emperor’s thumbs up or thumbs down.

“They call it Mistigri and Le Pissous too,” says Marcel. “It’s also Svarte Petter, Černý Petr, Black Peter, Pit Hitam, Swarte Pyt, Svarti Pétur, Musta Pekka, Piotruś, Zwarte Piet, Sorteper, Mutzuris, and Asinello, though some of those names are just ‘Pierre Noir’ in other languages. Personally, I think the most apt name for it is a Dutch one—pijkezotjagen, or ‘chasing the jack of spades’.”

He cracks a smile. “Sometimes I think the game has more names than cards.”

“But Mr. Baudoin speaks truly. It’s an older game than most of the Kindred here. There can be skill as well as chance involved, and to my mind the best games use some of both. I’m hard-pressed to think of any more appropriate for us to play tonight—or of a more appropriate gesture than for my other childe to pass your other grandchilde a second coin, Alder Councilor.”

He, too, pauses as he awaits the the elder ex-prince’s reaction.

But he does not wait overlong.

“Symmetry is the mother of all beauty,” concurs Accou.

He smiles faintly. He does not look at Julius.

“Perhaps we might retire briefly, Lord Librettist, to collect your other childe, some playing cards, and my casquette girl.”

“Splendid, Alder Councilor,” agrees Marcel. “Shall we reconvene here in half an hour?”

“With pleasure, Lord Librettist. Perhaps we might seek Master Elgin’s input, as well, on an appropriate venue in which to play.”

“A splendid idea, Alder Councilor. I’ll see to the cards.”

“Very good, Lord Librettist. I shall see you again soon.”

The two Kindred incline their heads towards one another, then depart. A few hangers-on trail after both. Other Kindred disperse, the entertainment temporarily over, though many of them gossiping among themselves: either Marcel is going to lose his boat, or Accou his casquette girl. What spectacle this will be! Neither Marcel nor Accou look at Julius. In fact, from the chatter, it sounds as if the various Kindred are somehow attributing Julius’ idea to the Ventrue ex-prince.

Still, Marcel pauses to murmur something to Brodowski.

The younger Ventrue meets Julius’ gaze as his sire departs, then invitingly glances towards the route leading outside.

The ex-prince doubtlessly doesn’t want to be seen as too friendly towards the Bourbon Caitiff.

Julius: It’s a familiar song. It might as well be his personal anthem. He heard it constantly as a black boy growing up in the dark heart of the Jim Crow era. Segregated schools. Back of the bus. Color lines cutting across bathrooms, drinking fountains, pools, neighborhoods, jobs, lives.

Ain’t no ‘Caitiff Only’ rooms at Elysium, e’en rite here in da South’s dank jockstrap, so dat’s sayin somethin mighty gawddamn bad bout da kine.

He heard it in the military. Off in Nam. Come up with a good idea? Save the ship from going down? Ain’t gonna be the draft-skirting black seaman who gets the credit, but a sonavabitch NCO or captain who gets the promotion, the medal, the praise.

Gawddamn, I wus Caitiff ‘fore I wus Caitiff, me. Fuck if death’s gonna change dat.

Julius gives a slow, slight nod to the blue blood’s unspoken invitation, then heads for the exit.

And fuck if death’s gonna change wot I do.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Brodowski walks outside. The twelve-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA is one of the most important sculpture installations in the United States, with over 90 sculptures situated on a beautifully landscaped site amongst meandering footpaths, reflecting lagoons, Spanish moss-laden 200-year-old live oaks, mature pines, magnolias, camellias, and pedestrian bridges.

Some other Kindred are about too, admiring their own sculptures and conversing amongst themselves.

Anthony Brodowski is an emaciated, rail-thin boy in his mid- or late teens. He is exceptionally gaunt even for a vampire, with hollow cheeks and dark discoloration under his watery gray-blue eyes. His neck-length brown hair is thin and wispy. He’s fairly short for a man and stands somewhere between a head and half a head under Julius. He’s dressed in a casual suit gray suit and white button-up shirt without a necktie. The tailored fit complements his bony, stick-like limbs surprisingly well.

“Prince Guilbeau was pleased by your suggestion, Mr. Baudoin,” the Ventrue declares as they walk.

Julius: Julius sips on that preciously scant praise like a snow-cone amidst a heat wave. Taking in the ex-prince’s youngest childe, Julius once again decides he likes him. Few Invictus neonates come from a low-class background, but here Anthony is. Death becomes him. The black working class turned counterfeit mogul respects that, even if the Caitiff can’t help but envy Anthony’s prestigious bloodline and public access to a powerful sire. But the black man doesn’t linger long on such covetous thoughts. He’s long used to others having more, or just having it easier, than him.

Consequently, his smile is sincere as he replies, “Lissenin to dat pleases me plenty, Lord Commissioner Brodowski, specially when such uh message is delivered by one who rite well so pleases Prince Guilbeau an da city’s Unconquered.”

GM: Brodowski smiles back, perhaps also as a result of Julius using his proper title.

“That’s most kind of you to say, Mr. Baudoin. I’m impressed you know the First Estate’s modes of address.”

Today’s kine might call it a ‘microaggression’, but the compliment sounds sincere for what it is.

“Plenty of Kindred pick up a few of them, but you’ve made enough of a study to know mine, my sire’s, and the alder councilor’s.”

Julius: Julius’ smiles holds like a long, bright cornet note. It’s not just that the compliment sound sincere. More important to him, it’s hard-earned. Over his Requiem, it cost a lot to learn those titles—even as it cost him a lot more not to know them. So how can a businessman not smile when an investment pays its first dividend?

“All dis buttah, Lord Commissioner Brodowski, an I’m gonna git thinkin’ I’m uh slice of cornbread.”

His smile only slightly dims as his next words take on a more serious, if still cordial, to…“But if uh street-hustlin entrepreneur is legit bout dealin wid uh Fortune 500, he bettah learn who’s da CFO, CMO, CPO, an uh whole lotta mo’.”

“Or as ma parraine done said, if you’s wantin to earn uh seat at da table, you’s best be knowin who’s already sittin in its chairs.”

And there it is. His ambition, sauntering out naked save for a see-through slip of modesty.

GM: “So you’d like to join the Invictus,” says Brodowski thoughtfully as they walk.

“You won’t find many friends on the Prima Invicta,” he answers, frankly.

“But my sire is more open-minded, and inclined towards the view that potential is potential, no matter where it comes from. I was homeless, scavenging out of garbage bins, and dying of AIDS when he found me.”

“And he is mindful of the fact you could have escalated rather than deescalated things with my brother-in-blood.”

It’s a milder way of phrasing things than “refrained from further embarrassing my brother-in-blood”, but the words again sound sincere enough.

Julius: Julius takes those comments in stride, both literal and figurative. He’s silent, however, for some time, as the musician well knows that the pause helps define the note.

When he does eventually speak, his smile is subdued like a cloud-sobered sun:

“Unconquered or not, wot is worthy of honor should be honored.”

GM: “Honor exists outside of the First Estate,” Brodowski concurs.

“In some ways, one could argue the covenant came into being as caretakers for another society’s honor. Have you made any study of Invictus history as well, Mr. Baudoin?”

Julius: “Uh lil, Lawd Commissioner, though not as much as I’d binlookin to, wot widdout uh gracious sire an mentor like yo own. F’sure, I heard my namesake Caesar done struck uh deal wid da covenant, fo’ his mortal kin to rule da day an da Invictus to rite rule da nite.”

GM: Brodowski nods.

“Each one an emperor of their respective domains. But what’s interesting is that some sources say this was truly meant to be an arrangement of equals—or at least something closer to one than Kindred tonight might envision. The Kindred who made up the early Invictus viewed themselves as Romans first and Kindred second. The Invictus and the Roman state, to these Kindred, were the same institution, and one could not exist without the other. The Invictus saw themselves as filling a function within the empire that the Caesars could not.”

“Obviously, this view changed over time when the Invictus outlasted the Caesars. Tonight’s Kindred predominately view themselves as Kindred first and citizens of mortal nations second. After all, even here in New Orleans, Prince Vidal’s praxis has existed under the rule of three different sovereign countries—Spain, briefly France, and the United States. But to early Invictus Kindred, such a thing would have been inconceivable. Without the Roman state, the Invictus served no purpose—no more than the Praetorian Guard served a purpose without an emperor to protect.”

Julius: ‘Papa’ Juju considers that revelation in context of his own state or people ‘ova da rivah in da Pernt till da bridge’.

“Jus as bin uh king widdout subjects ain’t mean nuttin.”

GM: “Indeed. Regardless, Mr. Baudoin, this was a somewhat long-winded way of agreeing with your point—that honorable things should be honored, even outside the First Estate. Because when the covenant was established, its honor was not an end unto itself. The Roman state’s was.”

Julius: The Vet-turned-vampire gives a respectful bow. “Ma gratitude, Lawd Commissioner, as dere ain’t really no such thang as long-winded when we cain’t rite get winded no mo’.”

GM: Brodowski chuckles.

“True enough, Mr. Baudoin.”

“Prince Guilbeau will be interested in speaking with you himself, should his wager with the alder councilor go well. What’s a method of contact we might use to reach you?”

Julius: “Yo sire is most magnanimous, Lawd Commissioner,” the Caitiff says with another bow, even as he produces a pair of business cards. The first is soft-touch satin, solid black with the raised black lettering of_Black Vyper Vaping, LCC_ and its equally dark smoke-serpent logo. The second is the first’s opposite, a white matte, hard-plastic card featuring a riotously colored painting reminiscent of Picasso’s Ronde au Soleil, complete with abstract, bright-hued dancers, plants, and sun. Its contact information is on its reverse, alongside the bright green lettering for Vonce & Bacci Advocacy Strategies Group.

Julius provides the briefest exposition of both (“rulin a lil bit of da day an nite cain’t hurt”), before explaining to have Marcel’s representative call either of the listed numbers, enter the code 1217 at the automated interactive response system, and leave a voice message for “Mark” to call back at whatever number or address Marcel wishes.

Thereafter, he favors the younger neonate with a renewed smile:

“An should fortune be favorin us all tonite, Lawd Commissioner, wud you’s be havin any recommendations of a house-boat-warmin gift for Prince Guilbeau?”

GM: Brodowski accepts the two business cards, concurs that “things have changed since the Invictus’ early nights” with a faint smile, and even compliments the “colorful” (figurative and literal) nature of the cards. Casinos, he adds, can have “colorful” ones of their own. The business card he returns Julius, seemingly as a matter of courtesy, resembles a playing card but with crowns in place of diamonds, hearts, clubs, or jacks. It’s got a dark gray background with stylish pale gold lettering that reads:

THE ALYSTRA
Anthony Brodowski
Chief Financial Officer

A phone number, website, email address, and street address are included beneath.

The younger neonate is still young enough to use the same name.

Julius: The art and manufacturing aficionado gives an appreciative whistle at Anthony’s card, which he appraisingly rubs between his fingers.

“Dat’s rite gud-lookin, Lawd Commissioner. Ain’t no common 14 or 16 pernt stock dere. Gotta’s be… 22, hmm, or 24 pernt, jus like uh pack of Bicycle. High quality PVC plastic finish. Ain’t gotta worry bout no water, wear, tear, or time. Tough. High-class. Premium.”

His smiles becomes a higher Watt.

“Suits you’s f’sure.”

GM: Brodowski raises his eyebrows.

“You know your way around business cards, Mr. Baudoin. I’d be curious what else you do.”

As far as housewarming gifts, Prince Guilbeau’s latest paramour, Josua Cambridge, has recently developed a fondness for wearing (sexualized) women’s clothing and accessories, which Prince Guilbeau enjoys seeing him in. Clearly impressed by the extent of Julius’ manufacturing knowledge, Brodowski supplies Josua’s measurements. The Toreador neonate has started to enjoy crossdressing only recently, so his wardrobe is still limited.

Gambling-related gifts are also always a safe “bet”, as are ones culturally, aesthetically, or historically linked to Baton Rouge. Marcel particularly enjoys a portrait he keeps in his office of the Old State Capitol building (which resembles a medieval castle located square in the middle of the city).

The ex-prince also has a taste for artistic depictions of Carthage, the ancient Phoenician city-state.

Julius: “Well den—,” the mogul replies with a grateful, if not altogether surprise-snuffed, smile, “—dat is most helpful, Lawd Commissioner, an most ’ppreciated, now.”

Not trusting himself to remember all the measurements by hand, he slides Anthony’s card in his pocket, from which he fishes out a phone, and one-handed uses its touchscreen and Grafitti-enabled shorthand to jot down the sartorial dimensions. So finished, he stows the phone.

Then, with a third bow, he says:

“Lawd Commissioner, I think yo sire is deservin an will be gittin many uh gifts, regardless of da wager’s outcome tonite. As are you, fo’ all you’s done fo’ me.”

“Wot is worthy of honor should f’sure be honored.”

GM: Brodowski offers an inclination of his head in return.

“And through honoring what is worthy of honor does oneself prove oneself worthy of honor, Mr. Baudoin.”

“My sire and I shall look to seeing what comes of this new association.”

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Natasha Preston gets into another argument with her own patron, Antoine Savoy, by publicly speaking out against the latest examples of Vidal’s tyranny.

“What do we think happened to Sterling? Tina Baker?”

Celia: Again? Hadn’t Jade just diffused some of the tension last week when they’d done the same thing? She lingers nearby to listen in.

GM: Savoy raises that very same fact. They did do this last week. Preston doesn’t mince words. The prince has gotten even worse since last week. Sterling was snatched up by the Guard de Ville. Desirae Wells, unusually, hasn’t shown up to Elysium this week. Two hounds just took away Tina Baker.

“Come now, Nat,” Savoy says amiably. “We’re all here to unwind and appreciate some fine art. We can talk politics elsewhere.”

“Who is going to be next?” the Malkavian asks bluntly. “They were not even charged with anything!”

The pair’s ‘discussion’ has drawn more than a few spectators.

Celia: Well. It’s not like the missing persons are actually anybody. But that’s how it starts, isn’t it?

First they came for the thin-bloods, and I did not speak out because I was not a thin-blood. Then they came for the Caitiff, and I did not speak out because I was not a Caitiff. Then they came for the Bourbons, and I did not speak out because I was not a Bourbon.

“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Julius: Similar thoughts run through Julius’ mind. Similar, but worse. After all, he’s not only a Bourbon, but a Caitiff. Clanless. Trash. One rung lower, one step lower to the chopping block. And the black man’s already been on that block. On in his case, a tree. Swinging as strange fruit. Not a soul raised a hand to help him. And that was just the kine.

He doesn’t expect better from Kindred. Far worse, actually.

Which is why he doesn’t speak up. Not here. Not now.

But he listens.

It’s not a new refrain, but each time he listens to it, he picks up new notes. Tonight, he’s struck again by how Preston can say what Savoy cannot—or does not politically want to say. It’s a savvy trick.

GM: Marcel might say something about quitting while one is ahead.

“Correct, Miss Kalani,” says Preston. “Self-interest should compel other Kindred to speak—for themselves. Anyone who commits a negative behavior will continue it if there are no consequences. It’s useful for the prince, isn’t it? Just ‘disappear’ anyone he wants to disappear! Forget explaining it, at this point! It’s much more convenient when he doesn’t have to, isn’t it? Stop abiding by any kind of rules. Just kill anyone he decides is better off dead.”

The Malkavian looks around the watching Kindred.

“How many of you could he decide are more useful dead than alive? Remember, he doesn’t have to catch you for anything anymore. He can just send his jack-booted thugs to snatch you up, anywhere, if he decides you’re a ‘problem.’ Including Elysium!”

No one who’s watching says anything. The Kindred more sympathetic to Vidal. Or the Kindred more sympathetic to Savoy.

Some are flat. Some are offended.

Some are thoughtful.

The watching harpies, though, look displeased. Sundown and Adelais and Harlequin.

Savoy watches his servant with a patiently humoring expression.

Celia: Jade shares a look with her fellow Kindred, catching the eye of the young, the unprotected, the impoverished. The Caitiff. The Bourbons. The Anarchs, even. No one had stopped Tina Baker from being snatched up by Wright and Rocco. No one had raised a hand to Sterling’s defense when the Guard de Ville infiltrated the Quarter to pluck him from his krewe mate’s club. No explanation about what he’d done wrong—just there, then gone.

“How many are missing tonight?” An innocent question, as if she does not know the answer, as if she challenges Preston’s stance for all that she’d recited old sayings.

Another lie. Another ruse. Another night as a lick.

Does she need to put a name to all the absent faces? Carolla. Bourelle. Gerlette. Wade. Jenkins. Malveaux. Polk. Some of them Hardliners. What was their crime?

GM: “I suppose our prince considers turnabout fair play, after losing his bishop and so many of his other bootlickers,” says Preston. “I suppose this will be par for course, now. Every time a Hardliner disappears, he’ll just disappear however many other Kindred it takes to balance out the scales.”

“I wonder if he considers them balanced yet? Is Malveaux worth Sterling, Baker, and Wells? How about Malveaux and the Storyvilles? Is he even finished yet, or is this just the start of the butcher-”

Looks pass among the gathered harpies. Adelais moves to approach, flanked by Elyse Benson and Camilla Doriocourt.

Julius: The approaching hound—especially that one—makes the black man freeze in his tracks. It’s a reflex born from decades of prejudicial police treatment. ‘Random’ traffic stops for broken tail-lights. Frisks, shakedowns, and worse for being the wrong color on the wrong streets. The hound doesn’t wear NOPD’s blue and badge, but she might as well have a squad-car siren blaring with each of her foot-falls.

GM: The NOPD works for the Guard de Ville anyway, if one asks Savoy’s or the Baron’s people.

Doriocourt, however, ignores Julius altogether. Her cool gaze rests squarely upon Preston.

Julius: Bettuh her den me, the Caitiff considers with a silent, uneasy sigh.

Celia: Jade’s brow furrows, as if in confusion.

“I think you speak in error, Madam Preston. Isn’t the lead suspect in Malveaux’s disappearance a Hardliner?”

Surely the Malkavian isn’t crazy enough to suggest that the Sanctified would harbor a fugitive and use it as a thin pretext to come after the Bourbons.

She feigns surprise at the sight of Doriocourt striding forward and locks gazes with the hound.

“Perhaps you could clarify while you’re here. Or is it one of those need-to-know, open investigation sort of things?” A tilt of her head, a little smile, like she’s just so dumb she doesn’t know any better.

GM: “What a curious conclusion for you to have reached, Miss Kalani,” replies the hound. “The Guard de Ville typically does not keep the general public apprised as to the nature or existence of its investigations.”

Nothing shows on the impassive face of the sheriff’s childe.

Jade’s remark, though, draws more than a few curious or bemused stares from the onlooking Kindred.

Adelais, Benson, and Preston all silently survey her, too.

Savoy just smiles like they’re discussing favorite menu items at Antoine’s.

Celia: “Of course not, Madam Hound—it wouldn’t do for any of us to know the well has been poisoned.”

Or that even the loyal aren’t safe. That Vidal’s faction is being purged—from the inside. Discontent in the house of the prince, is it?

This sheriff’s childe doesn’t need to hide behind a mask of ice. She has a soul still, and she favors her true sister with a genial smile.

Sisters always were trouble for her.

“Mum’s the word, then.” An exaggerated wink, a miming of a zipper across her lips and a key tossed away.

GM: “I would call this rumor-mongering, but for how there is nothing of sufficient substance to even label a rumor,” the hound replies coolly. “Stick to makeup, Miss Kalani.”

Celia: Jade pauses. Lifts her brows. “Undoes” the zipper, all with exaggerated movements.

“I guess if I were you I’d be more concerned about the leak. But I’m not a dog on a leash, far be it from me to tell you how to do your job. I’ll stick to makeup.”

A pretty smile from the pretty Toreador.

GM: A cold look from the cold Toreador.

“Perhaps the Guard de Ville will soon have cause to interview you, Miss Kalani, if you are so confident of your knowledge as to its inner workings. One should never take chances with leaks.”

The hound’s lip doesn’t curl. Her face and affect remain flat.

But it feels like it could.

“And should such an interview leave you in no state to spread further rumors, I believe the cost to the archdiocese would be minimal.”

There’s a few smiles, from some of the more Vidal-sympathetic Kindred.

But they are faint ones.

Far more onlookers look disconcerted by the hound’s all-too real threat.

There’s a few considering glances at Preston.

The Sanctified aren’t even denying it.

More ‘disappearances.’

Over… rumors?

Celia: Only a fool tries to smother hearsay with threats. If the words were empty the hound wouldn’t bother.

Didn’t her daddy teach her that?

Jade knows when she’s ahead, though. She sketches a mocking curtsy to the lady hound, resisting the very real temptation to needle her further, and blows the bitch a kiss.

Maybe Donovan will bend her over his knee.

GM: Savoy smiles and rests an arm around Jade’s shoulders.

“Nothing would please Miss Kalani and I more, Hound Doriocourt, than to assist the Guard de Ville in ensuring its investigative findings remain classified. You and the rest of the Guard are the Kindred who keep us all safe. Stop by the Evergreen anytime, and you can interview Miss Kalani and I at your leisure—and in comfort and style, no less!”

The French Quarter lord chuckles to himself. “Or so I like to presume about my home. You’ll have our full and complete cooperation. I’d be too happy to place my own resources at the Guard de Ville’s disposal in uncovering any intelligence leaks.”

“The security of the archdiocese is paramount to me—as paramount as the welfare of its Kindred.” He turns from Doriocourt’s face to smile at Jade. “For is not the archdiocese the sum of its subjects?”

GM: :: Magnanimity, my dear, :: sounds the elder Toreador’s voice within her thoughts. :: I may shield you within my walls, but the hounds’ threats are not idle ones. ::

Celia: Jade smiles up at her grandsire, as if she had never made mockery of her broodmate.

“Of course, Lord Savoy. I’d be happy to share with the Guard de Ville so that they might plug the leak themselves. No doubt we’ll all enjoy your hospitality.”

Jade turns her head once more to take in her elder sister, nodding her head to echo Savoy’s words.

“I look forward to assisting, Hound Doriocourt. Until then I’ll keep in mind the security of the archdiocese.” Another pretty but vacant smile, like she has no idea what she’s just done. Like it was all a happy little accident.

GM: “Your offer is generous, Mr. Savoy. The Guard de Ville will be mindful of your cooperation,” Doriocourt answers her elder without accepting.

She turns back towards Jade.

“I look forward to our interview as well, Miss Kalani.”

She does not smile back at her sister.

She does not look as if she has ever smiled.

“I am confident you will serve our prince, one way or another.”

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Half an hour later later, the formerly assembled vampires return to one of the museum’s rooms. Accou and Marcel are the focus of everyone’s stares as the two ex-princes smile courteously towards one another. There are more Kindred than there were last time. Four of the five harpies are present now, along with Pierpont McGinn and the ex-princes’ various hangers-on, descendants, allies, and the simply curious.

The casquette girl is present too. She’s a soft-faced young woman in seemingly her late teenage years. Her milk-pale features are beautiful and unblemished, while her gaze is placid and tranquil. She’s garbed in a flowing white gown that complements her waist-length blonde hair and gives her an almost ethereal appearance. She silently shuffles and re-shuffles a deck of antique playing cards.

“So who’s up for some Black Pete?” Marcel smiles at the audience.

In mind of Julius’ suggestion of a “game within a game,” Accou declares that he picks Jade to flip his coin. Ryllie shoots her a none-too-pleased look over not getting pick. Marcel makes a show of tossing a coin over to Jade that she nimbly catches, paralleling the coin Brodowski possesses from Accou.

“Heads gets to pick Pouilleux?” Accou half-asks, half-suggests to Marcel with a smile.

“Heads it is, Alder Councilor,” Marcel agrees amiably.

Jade and Brodowski flip their coins. Both of them get heads.

“Best two of three,” smiles Accou.

The neonates flip again. This time, Jade gets heads and Brodowski tails. The honor goes to her. Brodowski inclines his head as if to accept the ‘loss’ gracefully, and then the casquette girl shuffles the deck of cards. Jade makes a show of picking a card. She gets the two of cards.

That will be Pouilleux. Black Pete.

Jade makes a further show of holding the card up for all to see, then inserts it back into the deck. The casquette girl re-shuffles the cards and deals them out. First to Accou, perhaps because he is eldest, and then to Marcel. The two Kindred look over the cards in their hands, then place the matching pairs on the table. Elysium’s attendees look over the players’ shoulders. Accou has the Black Pete card. The losing card. No one tries to hide their murmurs and exclamations: Marcel knows he doesn’t have it.

But will it stay that way?

With their pairs exhausted, Marcel reaches out to pluck a card from Accou’s deck. The ex-prince milks the spectacle for all it’s worth, holding just away and drifting between, then closes his eyes so as not to give himself “an unfair advantage.” Accou responds graciously.

Finally, he plucks a card.

It’s not Black Pete.

Accou draws a card too. He sets his matched pair aside. The players continue to draw from one another’s hands. Luck is with Marcel, though. The two’s hands shrink and shrink, and the Ventrue does not once pick Black Pete. Finally, they’re down to a single card, held in Accou’s hand.

Black Pete.

Exclamations, congratulations, and a few dirty looks. It looks as if no small number of Kindred placed their own bets on who would win. One even questions whether Marcel was cheating. He doesn’t once look at Jade.

Accou’s casquette girl is duly handed over. One doesn’t need to be a genius to realize it’s not the best look for the Toreador… in the running competition among Vidal’s would-be heirs, Marcel clearly just scored a few points, and at the older Invicta’s expense.

For all that, Marcel is gracious in his victory. He tells everyone that luck is a fickle patron—he knows that much from running a casino. He praises Accou’s accomplishments, reminding everyone that the Toreador primogen used to be a prince too, and freely abdicated his praxis to return to New Orleans. Marcel says he hopes to equal the Toreador primogen’s achievements by the time he’s the same age. The words sound sincere enough and Accou responds that the casquette girls are like casino chips—they come and go. Every elder has won them before, lost them before, and doubtless will again. He tells Marcel to enjoy his gift while fortune is with him, "for as you say, Lord Marcel, ". The Ventrue responds that it rather well is.

The ex-prince does not make direct eye contact with Jade or Julius, but his gaze passes over both of theirs. Their parts, that fleeting glimpse seems to say, may not be publicly acknowledged, but will not be forgotten.

All told, it looks like several licks’ lucky nights.

____________________________

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Jade thinks to seek out Harlequin.

The masked Malkavian finds her first.

He cups her face in his velvet-gloved hands, tilting it upwards to the light.

“Yes… very close, now,” he proclaims.

Four mouths behind four masked faces echo:

“Very close.”

“Very close.”

“Very close.”

“Very close.”

Celia: Very close? To what? Elyse had said she’s pregnant with another doll (or rather another handful of dolls), but her sire’s words come back to her: Harlequin can see through many deceptions.

Close to her own mask being lifted?

Jade summons a smile for the Malkavian.

“Another?” she asks.

GM: Harlequin giggles.

As one, his entourage hold hands to their masks.

As one, they giggle.

The harpy tilts her face slightly to the side and runs a finger along where her jawbone meets her neck.

“See, all you have to do is look at it from the right angle.”

He tilts her face to its other side, then runs another finger under her jaw.

“Ah! Just look at them!”

Celia: This certainly isn’t the right venue.

“Did you receive my message, Regent Harlequin? I’d love to discuss this with you when we both have a free moment. Perhaps tomorrow night we can reconvene at the party?”

GM: “You are a precious thing, Miss Kalani,” he proclaims, and pats her head. “The whole family is eager to see what happens next.”

“It’s not going to happen tomorrow, though. You aren’t that close, darling.”

“Be patient. It will still be very soon.”

Celia: Her smile never falters.

“Then perhaps just a dance.”

GM: There’s another giggle.

“You lead. I don’t like playing the man.”

Celia: “It’s a date.”

GM: :: Sometimes a broken mask needs a helping hand to loosen it. ::

Celia: :: Which mask, Regent, and where do they go when they die? ::

GM: :: How should I know? ::

Harlequin runs his hands along Jade’s body, feeling her from her shoulders to her breasts to her stomach. The Malkavian’s touch feels oddly non-sexual, though. It’s like he’s handling plastic or resin rather than a woman’s body.

Jade knows the difference. She’s had more than her share of people touching her with lust on their minds.

:: When a mask is broken apart, sometimes the edges are too sharp to fit them all back together, and you’ll just cut your fingers. So you need to sand the edges down before you glue them back together. It’s like how you have to cut someone open to perform surgery. ::

Celia: :: One of your descendants implied I should speak to you about it. Perhaps she was mistaken. ::

She does not shy from his touch, though she can’t help but wonder what this looks like to those around them. Particularly—no, he belongs to someone else. The thought stops before it can begin.

GM: “Miss Kalani, my dear, people are either charming or tedious,” Harlequin pronounces. "Everyone says you are very charming, but right now, you are being very tedious. You are supposed to be good at masks and you aren’t even getting dressed up for me. "

“It’s affecting me too, you know. You should think about others more. I don’t feel like my best self around you. Hound Agnello always brings out the best parts of me, the darling. Such a shame for his poor mask!”

His ghouls each place hands to their masks.

“Shame.”

“Shame.”

“Shame.”

“Shame.”

Celia: “You’re right, Regent. I’ve been particularly selfish this evening.” Jade cups the velvet hands that linger over her stomach, giving the masked harpy a private smile. A mother’s smile.

“The same object that caused such tedium should be used to soothe, no?”

GM: “Mask the tedium,” Harlequin giggles.

Celia: “A word game?” she asks. She waits for confirmation before reciting:

“Broken, bleeding, don the gown,
Smiling, crying, upside-down.
Shattered, fractured, it adheres,
Simple, complex, everywhere.”

GM: “Glass,” ventures the Malkavian.

Each of his ghouls looks towards him, then towards Jade.

Celia: Jade gives a shake of her head.

“Shall I give you a hint, Regent?”

GM: “No.”

“The game is yours, Miss Kalani, and fairly won.”

Celia: Jade accepts the victory with a dip of her head.

“Thank you for playing.”

GM: “Don’t thank me, darling, violate and exploit me. For what have we played?”

Celia: “You’ve already promised a dance,” Jade muses, “and I look forward to twirling you about the floor. Walk with me through the garden. I’d like to see your favorite sculpture.”

GM: Harlequin titters at her description and leads her outside. The twelve-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA is one of the most important sculpture installations in the United States, with over 90 sculptures situated on a beautifully landscaped site amongst meandering footpaths, reflecting lagoons, Spanish moss-laden 200-year-old live oaks, mature pines, magnolias, camellias, and pedestrian bridges.


Some other Kindred are about too, admiring their own sculptures and conversing among themselves.

“That one,” Harlequin declares.


Celia: Jade walks beside the masked regent, observing the Kindred outside as surely as she observes the art itself. She stops beside him, turning her eyes to the sculpture.

“Striding Figure,” she reads from the plaque. “Because you’re always on the move, Regent?”

GM: The Malkavian tsks. “Everyone is on the move until they stop moving.”

He tilts his head back towards the sculpture.

“The face.”

“He wears the scenery as his mask.”

“Walk here. Walk there. Stand upon your tiptoes. Crouch down. He dons a new mask.”

Celia: Jade follows his direction, crouching and moving and taking his hand to step onto a short ledge to view the sculpture from different angles. Each new one sees a change to the mask he wears, and Jade marvels at how effortlessly he slips from one to the other. Effortless, because he does nothing.

“We see what we want to see,” she breathes, “we see based on our own perceptions. Colored by our vantage point.”

GM: “He does nothing,” the Malkavian echoes. “He turns our perceptions back upon us. Our own perceptions become the mask that he wears.”

“He does not fashion his mask.”

“We do.”

“There is much to be learned from him.”

Celia: Had Jade been fashioned from what other people expected to see, or had she been inside all along and only forced out into the open when Celia had need of her? Now, she knows, she plays the game and lets others see what they want, but she had given them the mold. Don’t they all? Isn’t every man, woman, and lick a canvas in their own right that others splatter their paint across? They start as infants, black or white or brown, and the world shapes them. The cleverest subvert or live those expectations as they need.

And here she is with the power to be truly blank. To be nothing. To start new.

“They see what they want. He expends no energy to pour himself into that shape. He simply _is.”_

Jade stares at the art a moment longer before she looks to the masked Kindred beside her.

“He’s marvelous. Thank you for showing me.”

GM: The harpy inclines his head.

“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. Perhaps he does both.”

“What of your favorite among the collection, Miss Kalani?”

Celia: Would the harpy say that he wears art or that he is art? Jade doesn’t ask. But she smiles at his question, linking her arm through his (if he’s amenable) to lead him further down the path.

The sculpture that they stop at is multiple sculptures in truth, but all grouped together in one large piece. From afar they look like jagged shards of glass, but as the pair approach both Jade and Harlequin can see their faces—or at least their masks—reflected back from dozens of different surfaces.

The Mirror Labyrinth.


This late at night there are no guards to keep them out, and Jade leads Harlequin through the labyrinth. It spirals around and around and around until it deposits them in the very center of the ring of mirrors, showing them all the sides of themselves. Front. Back. Side. Everything in between. Nothing escapes the gaze of the stationary mirrors. There is nowhere to hide. When Jade gestures, a dozen Jades gesture with her. When she smiles it appears on the face of every reflection in the vicinity.

GM: Harlequin doesn’t.

Not completely.

There are as many Harlequins as there are Jades.

But the eyes are different.

In one reflection, they’re green.

In another, they’re gold.

In another, purple.

Green-, gold-, and purple-eyed Harlequins all titter at once.

“This is, perhaps, how the world looks through Striding Figure’s eyes.”

Celia: Jade doesn’t ask about the eyes. She observes them, her own staring back at her, but that mystery will wait for another evening.

He’d find the asking tedious.

“How he views what he has become,” she offers instead. “Multiple, but one.”

GM: Harlequin smiles and touches Jade’s reflection, pressing his palm to the glass.

“The self is fluid here, but that means the self can drown too, you know. In the fluid.”

Her reflection smiles at her all the same.

Celia: “That’s why I come. To remind myself.”

GM: He presses a second hand to the grass, laying it upon the shoulder of Jade’s reflection.

“They have things to say.”

“All of them.”

Celia: Jade’s eyes find Harlequin’s in the mirror.

“They clamor to be heard.”

“But it’s faint. Far away.”

GM: Harlequin touches the reflection’s lips.

“Shhh.”

“They will speak. The time will come.”

“Don’t force them. Give them space.”

“I had thought to coax them, but I don’t need to. It’s always better when they come out on their own.”

Celia: Jade’s head tilts to one side and a dozen other Jades echo the movement.

“Do you hear them?”

GM: “I know masks, darling.”

“That is my gift.”

“Masks are easier to know than faces.”

Celia: “There is another.” Jade touches a hand to her chest. “Here. Waiting.”

“She’s come out before. But not fully. Not like the others.”

Jade’s slender shoulders lift in a shrug. “She will when she’s ready.”

“Thank you for the company this evening, Regent. You’ve given me much to think about.”

GM: Harlequin giggles.

“You’ll have to decide, too.”

“Tonight?”

“Soon, either way.”

“Make your choice, adventurous stranger;
Strike the bell and chance the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad
What would have followed if you had.”

Celia: Jade favors the masked regent with a wry smile.

“No hints?” she teases.

GM: Harlequin’s eyes look boreder again at the direct request.

Celia: She laughs, dismissing the notion with a wave of her hand. She had assumed as much.

“We should rejoin the rest of them before they miss us overmuch.”

GM: “Some cause joy wherever they go. Others, whenever they go.”

“Don’t be the second, darling.”

Celia: “You never asked,” Jade says to him as they move back through the maze of mirrors, “why it’s my favorite.”

“Someone cruel, someone less observant, might think it makes sense that the vapid Toreador favors the sculpture that lets her see herself.”

She looks up at him as they go.

“But you know, don’t you.”

GM: The Malkavian titters.

“I’m very clever. Sometimes I don’t understand half the things I say!”

“You shouldn’t pay too much heed to them, you know. Sometimes I lie about completely random and pointless little things.”

Celia: “Lies are art. Didn’t you say one should be art or wear art? That’s what it does. Deceives. Teases.”

GM: “What is truth? Some say truth is relative. Lies are truth’s relative, too. Lies are truth’s estranged and misbegotten daughter, for one cannot lie without a truth to lie over. But lies are much better at dolling themselves up in the mirror to be pretty.”

Celia: “I had a conversation once about gamblers. I was told I’d never get anything useful out of them. Liars, the lot.” Jade considers him. “But people are most honest when they lie. You learn what they’re afraid of.”

“The kine have a game,” she presses on. “Two truths and a lie. Are you familiar?”

GM: “No, our percentage of lies to truths is much higher.”

“How frightened we Kindred must be!”

Celia: “Many have much to lose.”

GM: “Many have little to lose. But they’re already losers. Only winners can really lose.”

“You’re frightened, too. Will you unleash a terror or the version you always wanted?”

Celia: Jade has never claimed to not be frightened. There is only one place in this world where she is not afraid.

The truth, now. Green steel. Poise and grace and sharp lines, façade pulled free. Corruption incarnate. Reverent, resourceful, resolved. An ornate mirror wrapped in silver filigree and red roses, and on its surface her monster:

Beauty. Beast.

They howl and fight like wolves inside of her, growling and scrambling for every morsel. Nails rake their sides. Teeth scrape their necks, jaws closing around their throat, claws slicing open their soft bellies.

They shred her to pieces.

“I no longer know what that is.”

GM: Harlequin stares at her intently. His gold eyes crinkle as if he is smiling. She feels as if his four ghouls are smiling too.

His gloved hands cup her face again.

“A question to answer your dilemma.”

“Does it matter?”

Celia: “To them.”

GM: “A leopard cannot change its spots, except when it can.”

“Does a changed leopard miss its old spots?”

Celia: “Not if they no longer served it. If it adapted to something new. Something better.”

GM: The Malkavian nods sagely.

“You begin to understand.”

Celia: “Like a snake shedding skin it has outgrown. It’s painful at first, but once it’s free it’s relieved. It knows this is how it should be.”

Her eyes search his masked face, looking for an answer he might not have or want to give.

“It can’t go back in once it’s off. It won’t fit. You said it earlier, to sand the edges down or I’ll only bleed for the effort.”

GM: His eyes are smiling inside the mask. The edges are just faintly crinkled. They’re green now.

“But of which leopard do we speak?”

“Which leopard with its bleeding mask?”

“There are at least three.”

Celia: “Two of them bleed. Two of them war. They want different things. They both can’t win.”

Can they?

GM: “One cannot wear two masks at once,” the Malkavian concurs.

“Well, I suppose one could, but that really defeats the point! Others cannot see more than one mask at once.”

Celia: “Sometimes I wonder if they’re more than masks,” Jade says quietly.

GM: “‘All masks, worn long enough, cease to become masks.’”

“It’s a trite quote. All masks are more than masks.”

“To wear masks around others is the natural state of being.”

“One is a different person around one’s elders, around one’s inferiors, around one’s peers.”

“A mask only becomes ‘more’ than a mask when its presence ceases to cause one discomfort.”

“When one no longer notices it is there.”

Celia: They’re not masks, then. They’re part of her. Three different girls look out at Harlequin through Jade’s eyes. Wide and innocent. Haunted and vulnerable. Wicked and shining.

The masks slip. The brown eyed, brown haired dead girl touches her hand to his chest to show him where it hurts the most.

Then she’s gone, and a blue eyed beauty shows him dimples when she smiles. She touches the edge of his mask, eyes curious, but doesn’t tug. It’s not her place to know.

“It’s pretty.”

GM: The domino mask is white and traced with vine-like patterns. There’s gold and silver to do with the white, jewels around the eyes, and sparkles on the lips.

It is pretty.


“Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated,” smiles the Malkavian. “For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.”

Celia: This is the sort of girl who still believes in fairytales. Who made friends with a fairy and twirled around her workshop in flower shoes and a flowing dress. She likes the jewels around the eyes and the sparkles on the lips, likes the velvet gloves and matching ghouls. And she likes the smiling eyes gazing out at her from behind the mask.

The girl in Jade’s body can hear the emphasis on his final word.

“She broke her beautiful thing,” she whispers in his ear, “trying to make it practical.”

GM: “Maybe things were meant to be this way,” says Harlequin. “If you bring an ice mask somewhere hot—and there are some marvelous ice masks—what’s going to happen?”

Celia: “It melts.”

GM: “There you go, darling. Maybe the beautiful thing wasn’t meant to be.”

“At least where it was.”

“Or maybe its broken self isn’t broken. Maybe it’s beautiful.”

Celia: “Kintsugi,” she says. “It’s different. But it’s still beautiful.”

GM: “Then you must love its mask now for what it is—or you must take better care if you loved what it was.”

Celia: If they broke you, you must know that you can never go back. It doesn’t matter how much you love them or think that this time will be different. The fact is they didn’t care enough to keep you intact.

“Stars form from collapsing nebulae,” she says. “It crumbles so something better can begin.”

GM: “Stars wear masks too. They’re more subtle, but they’re there if you look for them.”

Celia: The dimples are back.

“I’ve never seen a star in a mask.” She looks up, as if to survey the sky above him, exposing the long line of her throat. “I’ll look again, and tell you what I find.”

GM: “Everything is in a mask, darling. Everything.”

He leans in close and whispers, “There are turning points for two masks you know tonight. Not just one!”

Celia: It’s an intimate position, her eyes skyward while he leans in close, their bodies almost touching. Another girl might flush and wonder at his motivation, but this one only revels in the familiarity. She closes her eyes at his words, wondering which of the masks the other girl wears will crack, or if they’re hers at all.

As he said, everyone wears masks.

Leila accompanies Harlequin back through the winding paths of the sculpture garden to the museum itself, her eyes moving across the art—exhibits and Kindred alike. She searches for the boy whose heart has been twice broken, though she knows that she shouldn’t be the one to speak to him. Especially not here. He isn’t enlightened like her companion… and the thought makes her stop in her tracks.

Just for a moment. She catches up quickly.

She’d wanted to tell him. She’d wanted to show him all the pieces and parts of herself. The boy he’d once been might have taken care of them, kept them safe. She’s worried that this new one will be too rough with her fragile edges.

“Not everyone will understand,” she ventures, not quite a question.

GM: Harlequin merely dips his head somberly.

“Enlightenment is often called madness by the ignorant.”

“Madness,” echoes his first ghoul.

“Madness.”

“Madness.”

“Madness.”

Celia: He’ll call her crazy.

The dimples disappear when her smile dims.

“You can’t force them to see.” It’s not a question, not really, but she looks to him all the same. He understands. His childe. The librarian. The boy from the boat. That’s enough.

GM: “No,” agrees Harlequin. “One can persuade. One can appeal. One can bare one’s heart with pretty speeches.”

“But one cannot force them to accept.”

“One cannot force them to understand.”

Celia: “She’ll be sad. But she has us.”

GM: “Yes. All of the Family Malkavian understands.”

Celia: Maybe that’s enough. A whole clan of people who know and accept. Maybe this is her place.

“Thank you for the stroll. We look forward to our dance tomorrow.”

GM: The broken-hearted boy, meanwhile, is talking with Maxzille Babineaux.

“Oh, so I am, darling,” answers the Malkavian. “I can hardly wait to share a dance with you.”

A smile spreads across his purple eyes.

:: With all of you! ::

---

Saturday night, 19 March 2016, AM

Celia: One of the girls inside of Jade takes her time moving past the pair of Anarchs once the masked harpy takes his leave. She occupies herself with other art, other conversations, looks for all the world as if she is not watching him. As if she has not noticed him. As if his mere proximity has not left her dead heart racing.

She broke him.

But they can still be beautiful.

She waits for an opening. She makes idle chatter with one of the Baron’s girls, the one she’d needed to speak to anyway, and through veiled comments and clever word play sets up a meeting outside of Elysium where the pair of them can let their hair down.

She speaks to the thief about something similar.

She sends a text to a cabin boy about a party and a new friend his friend might like to meet, and maybe they should set them up. She’d love to bring her by.

And another text to a jock with a smile worthy of a rattler asking if he has a moment to “chill.”

The broken-hearted boy stays in her peripheral.

GM: Amandine is sour but at the prospect of meeting with one of Savoy’s people, but willing to do so in return for an owed boon.

The thief, in contrast, is happy to do so. They can talk after Elysium tonight or at the party tomorrow.

The cabin boy texts back that he’s always happy the meet new friends. Especially fuckable ones.

Well, more like only fuckable ones.

Ditto attending parties.

The jock does have a free moment that chill.

The broken-hearted boy is keeping her in his peripheral.

And beneath the carefully neutral mask, he does not look happy.

Celia: Jade agrees to the boon with a tight smile and says she’ll see the girl later. She’s happy the thief is happy to see her, at least, but opts for tomorrow. She has another meeting this evening, unfortunately. She lets the cabinboy know that the theme is the ’20s and asks if he wants her to doll him up to be a fuckable little bitch again. Maybe Joy would like to go. She can meet him beforehand. The jock gets a time and place.

At some point Jade excuses herself from her present company to take a final stroll. Alone. Maybe towards the car lot, if no one is going that way, or deeper into the park if so. The bait is set if the boy wants to follow.

GM: It’s a date with the first too.

The cabin boy is happy to go as a cabin girl. Easier to get with, too.

The jock will see her there.

The boy waits a good amount of time, so they don’t seem to be leaving together.

Then he follows her off.

The mask drops away. His face is angry.

Celia: When isn’t it?

Jade disappears, the coward, and Leila has already decided that this isn’t her talk. Celia meanders toward her car, but there’s nowhere to have this conversation. Even the appearance of being alone doesn’t actually mean anything. She’d thought she was alone in the shower, too, and the shadow dancer had shown her the error there.

GM: That’s why Veronica had chastised her for not learning to soul scry. Does she want to be caught with her pants down?

Celia: It’s so boring. Her mind has much more going on than the normal person’s. There are so many of her. But she’d be happy to learn that trick her sire and Harlequin can do.

Celia pulls her phone from her pocket as if it had rung, answering with a brief, “hello?” A pause. A smile. Then, “Hey, babe. Yeah, I have a free minute. I’ll swing by. Talk to you soon.”

Surely he knows she means him. He can follow her to another location and they can have it out. She gets into her car and starts to drive, trusting that he’ll follow. There’s only one road out of here; nothing suspicious about that.

GM: Her trust proves aptly placed. He gets in and follows with his own car.

Celia: Celia sends a text to Reggie that she’s on her way to his place. Might as well stop by while she’s already in the area. And it’s less weird if Roderick stays in Mid-City. He doesn’t want to be seen entering the Quarter, but Jade’s face isn’t unwelcome here. She drives in the general direction of Legal Wings, then pulls her car into an out of the way spot and turns off her lights. She unlocks her passenger door for him.

GM: He gets out of the car, seizes her by the throat, lifts her off her heels, and slams her hard against the vehicle’s side.

“Not what it looks like?” he asks conversationally, vice-like fingers cutting off the air supply she doesn’t need.

Celia: This is certainly not how she thought it would go.

Perhaps that was stupid of her.

The last of her air is forced from her lungs when he slams her against her own car, hands flying to his wrist as if to pry him off of her. But she stops before she even starts, simply holding onto his wrist. There’s no fear in her eyes. She knows how much he hates the scared woman act. Still, pinned as she is, she can’t speak. There’s no air left for her. Her lips move soundlessly, then she finally gives a tiny nod. She taps against his fingers to silently ask him to release her.

GM: His fingers un-clench. Slightly.

But he doesn’t release her.

Her Beast snarls in her ears.

Celia: There’s a lot of snarling in her ears these nights. From Beasts and masks and personalities. From her sire and Harlequin and Alana, all of them clamoring for something else. Another piece of her. Another part of her.

And now Roderick has come to demand his piece, too.

She sucks down what air she can. Not to breathe, just to speak.

“Set up,” she gets out. The sound is tiny; it’s an effort to keep it from sounding strangled. “Cover up. Can explain.”

GM: He just waits.

Just holds her.

Crushed against her car.

Helpless.

His expression is flat.

Celia: Jade wriggles her pinky between his fingers and her throat. She doesn’t otherwise move, eyes locked on his face.

“Taking down Agnello. Needed assistance. He has reason to help. Once he’s gone, two down. Just him. Shift the blame his way. Get him out too. Easier to take down the rest of who you want. Meantime, gather intel. Who, what, where. For you. It’s for you.”

GM: “Really,” he says.

“Working with Mafia scum.”

“For me.”

“Without asking me.”

Celia: Her Beast snarls at that, too. She doesn’t need his permission.

There’s another part of her that likes it, though. Her throat bobs against his palm when she swallows.

“You have other things on your mind. I wanted to help.”

GM: Lightning-fast, a stake appears in Rod’s hand and rams towards her heart.

She feels her limbs go completely stiff as the wood pierces bone like flesh.

Her lover just looks at her with that same calm-faced expression.

Celia: All she can do is stare back.

GM: Roderick picks her up, returns to his car, and unlocks the trunk, and lays her inside. He doesn’t dump her in, but neither is he gentle. She gets a last look at his face, as he removes her car keys, and then the lid slams down.

A short while passes, and then she feels movement underneath as the car drives.

Maybe this was how her mom felt, seven years ago.

Trussed up and helpless in the back of a car.

Being driven off towards an unknown fate.

Celia can even see the glow-in-the-dark release lever.

Did her mom see one, too?

Celia: Terror takes her firmly in its grasp. She can’t move. Can’t see. Can’t cry for help or press the release button or shift forms.

She’s trapped.

Helpless.

And unlike when her sire has hold of her, the fear of this new, unknown Roderick is very, very real. Thick and cloying, it fills the trunk.

Where is he taking her?

What is he going to do to her?

Her mind races with possibilities: leaving her for the sun. Dumping her in a fire, or trash compactor, or saw mill. Turning her in for her bastard blood. Taking her to his sire to rip apart.

The tears come but they don’t fall. Nothing in her body works. She can only lie where he set her, eyes on the glowing lever, and pray that something inside of him still cares for her.

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XVI
Next, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Louis I

Previous, by Celia: Story Thirteen, Celia XVI
Next, by Celia: Story Thirteen, Celia XVIII

Previous, by Julius: Story Thirteen, Julius III
Next, by Julius: Story Thirteen, Celia XXI, Cletus II, Julius V

“Show me that you are strong.”
Donovan

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

Celia: Her sire can fuck off. She’s busy.

That’s what she wants to say. That’s what she wants to feel. That she’s busy. That she doesn’t need him. That she doesn’t want him.

She can taste the lie.

“Never mind,” she mutters to Emily, because walking off without a word is worse than suspicious. “Enjoy the pie.”

GM: Her feet are already carrying her away as she takes off in a brisk jog.

Emily awkwardly catches the dropped pie plate. Some of the whipped cream spills over her hand.

“Celia, are-” she calls, but Celia’s no longer looking at her. She’s darting off into the rain.

Celia: Why is he here. Why now. What does he want that couldn’t wait for the next few hours when she sees him at Elysium?

Her eyes dart to the house, where Dani, Henry, and her mother wait. And behind her, unprotected, Lucy and Emily. Fear takes hold of her heart, killing whatever had been there before. He can’t be here. She doesn’t have anything for him. There’s no news, no momentum, no anything for her to share.

He’s going to be mad.

He’s going to hit her.

Celia ducks around the corner, out of Emily’s sight.

He came. Why? Does that mean he…? She can’t even finish the thought.

How does he even expect her to get up there? She can’t fly, and she’s hardly about to scale the side of the house. Not in the rain. Not in these shoes.

GM: Celia’s eyes aren’t the first thing to dart to the house.

And she is scaling the house.

She’s taking off at a running jump. Grabbing the gutter. Rain pours over her. She kicks with her shoes, the heels making poor purchase against the house’s side, then kicks them off. She grasps and pulls. Her hands slip in the rain. She pulls. It’s good she weighs so little as the drain groans in protest. She hauls herself up, crawling onto the roof on her belly like a dog.

“Celia!” yells Emily. She quickly sets down the plate inside, closes the door, and takes off after her.

“Wh-”

She whirls to face the dark figure suddenly beside her. He’s dressed in the black, double-breasted trench coat she saw him in last, its style vaguely reminiscent of a Gestapo officer’s. He carries no umbrella. The rain pours down over his corpse-like, pitiless marble face, and finds it colder still. He still does not blink as the moisture runs down his eyes in tears he will never shed.

Those stormy orbs bore into hers.

“I was never here.”

“Your exchange with Celia upset you.”

“Return inside.”

Emily’s eyes glaze over as she walks away.

Celia: The sound of her name passing his lips makes her dead heart flutter.

GM: Then he’s gone from the courtyard.

He’s on the roof again.

Staring down at Celia, shoe-less and lying on her belly in wet clothes as the rain weeps over her.

:: Explain. ::

Celia: She’d had to get up somehow. And she’d almost started down after him when he’d appeared beside Emily.

She rises now, her eyes finding his face.

Wet clothing presses against her skin. The brief exposure to the rain flattens her hair, plastering it across the back of her neck, down her shoulders. Even her wild mane is no match for New Orleans weather.

Explain.

Explain what?

GM: His frigid gaze bores into hers, eyes as cold and lifeless as any shark’s.

She screamed out all her grief.

All her pain.

She summoned him here.

Through their blood tie.

His time is valuable.

She has not called him without purpose.

Has she?

Celia: She never feels so small as when she’s next to him.

Maybe it’s the bond that makes her take a step. Then another. Maybe it’s the bond that makes her reach out, fingers brushing against the fabric of his coat. The bond again that makes her close the distance.

Hit her.

He’s going to hit her.

He’s going to be mad that she called out to him. She didn’t mean to. She didn’t mean to summon him.

She might as well give him something to be mad about.

Celia presses her face against his wet chest. Her arms slide around the back of him. If he breaks them, at least she’ll have gotten to use them first.

She smooths over the fear of his anger when she addresses him within her mind. He doesn’t need to know how much doing this has cost her. How much it hurts.

:: Duquette’s childe has turned against her. Your sire is pleased with me. He wants me to take on an expanded role within his court. We’re meeting tomorrow to discuss. ::

A question dances through her mind—how can she best serve him with this step?

GM: Roderick’s chest is warm.

His hands gentle, for all their strength.

Her sire’s chest is not warm.

And his hands are not gentle.

His cold, rain-slick hands seize her wrists and pull them apart. His grip makes her want to cry out. It’s as vice-like as Carolla’s ever was. He holds her arms out to their fullest extent, leaving her torso splayed out to the rain. Vulnerable. Exposed.

:: You did not call me to relay this information. ::

:: You offer it in placation. ::

Celia: Why ask then.

Why ask if he already knows.

Anger flares inside her chest, hot and heavy despite his cool, close proximity. The grip on her wrists makes her arms scream; she presses her lips together to keep it inside. A thousand and one lies flash through her mind: reasons she called out, things she could tell him, plots she could offer. But the rain drops steadily down upon her throat and chest, exposed as they are, chipping away at the edges of her rage to reveal the deep, all-consuming grief beneath it.

He doesn’t want to hear about her pain. He doesn’t want to know that he could be—it doesn’t matter. She stops the thought before it can take hold, ripping it out root and stem. He could be. But he won’t be.

She doesn’t deny his accusation. She doesn’t tell him that it was the pain of breaking her lover that she sent spiraling down the line to him. That she did it anyway. For him.

It’s what he expects from her. Always.

Better to admit the truth and let him decide what he wants to do to her because of it. Better to not waste his time making him sift through lies. He will punish her for it or he won’t; all she can do now is lessen the blow.

:: Yes, sire. ::

She needed to see him tonight. She’d planned on it. But she can’t run into him in the halls of Elysium. Not now, with his sire’s favor hanging in the balance. The game of cat and mouse she might have played another night would not be tolerated this evening; they’d sniff it out for the clumsy attempt to reach him that it is. People would talk. His sire would doubt her. Doubt the place he has intended for her. She’d ruin everything if she tried to reach out to him at Elysium. Better that she called out, that he’s here now instead of then.

Helpless, she dangles in his grip, the tips of her toes the only part of her that touch the roof. How easily he could tear her literally limb from limb. She pushes through the pain of his hands on her body. Pushes through the pain of breaking her lover. Pushes through the pain of the knowledge that she will never be to him what he is to her. She searches for the bit of him he’d left inside of her that night, the ice cold, merciless side that blunts her emotions until they, too, fall like rain to splash against the roof in tiny little puddles. They can’t matter. She finds her anchor. Not the girl who died with her weak, uncontrollable outbursts and broken heart. Not the harpy’s childe with her barbed tongue and casual cruelty. No, not Celia. Not Jade.

Someone Else.

:: To try to catch your eye this evening at Elysium would tip our hand, as would calling upon you in your domain. There are other updates. ::

The method was crude. But effective. His presence before her now proves that. Not that she’ll ever try it again; she lets him know as much, sending a wordless apology spinning down the connection between their minds for the interruption to his evening.

GM: Perhaps her sire starts to reply. Perhaps he buys it, or at least overlooks it. Perhaps thoughts start to travel down the mental link.

Or perhaps Someone Else’s cold heart will be needed.

Her sire’s stormy eyes flicker away from her face at the sudden impact against the roof.

It’s Roderick.

There’s something about his face that looks worse than when she last saw him. Physically it looks the same. Maybe it’s the rain. Maybe it’s the dark. It reminds Celia of the shadow over his own father’s face. He’s wearing his own overcoat, umbrella held in hand against the rain.

He looks and sees Celia held helplessly in the sheriff’s grip.

Without a word, he drops the umbrella and balls his fists.

He charges.

Celia: Ice grips her heart. Harder and colder than it had when her sire had summoned her to the roof. It takes hold and she sees the events play out:

Roderick charges the sheriff. Donovan takes his head off with the weapons she had given him. His body falls, crumbling to ash before it ever hits the ground. Celia is left alone to pick up the pieces of her broken Requiem.

No.

She doesn’t care how angry she is at him. She doesn’t care how crippled she has become by the pain of recent nights. She won’t let it happen. The bond makes her act: protect her sire.

But her heart makes her act too: protect her lover.

Her form twists, blurs, shifts. She’s a cat, and the sheriff’s grip slackens. She’s free. Luna lands on four paws, darting around the sheriff to launch herself forward—

And turns back into Celia halfway through the leap, momentum carrying her rain-slick form into Roderick before he can cross the distance between the pair of them.

GM: But it’s just like at the Dollhouse.

Too slow.

Slower than both of them.

Roderick’s form blurs across the roof, almost too fast for her to see.

Celia feels the release of pressure around her wrists, before she’s even finished transforming.

But she doesn’t see her sire’s move.

Just the results.

Suddenly, pale hands clasp around Roderick’s wrist.

Celia’s seen her dad do that martial arts move. You grab their whole arm, put your back to their chest, and hurl them over your shoulder to land back-first on the ground.

The sheriff only grabs Roderick’s wrist, and without any chest-to-back contact, uses the momentum of his charge to send him flying through the air like a ragdoll. The extra distance between their bodies is sure to give his impact that much extra force—made all the worse when she sees it’s Roderick’s chest slamming towards the roof, her sire having executed an impossible mid-air twist of the flying man’s arm that her father probably only wishes he had the reflexes and upper body strength to execute. Celia can already see what will happen next when Roderick’s chest hits the ground. The sheriff’s boot will stomp down mid-back, he’ll hold the Brujah’s arms pinned behind him, and the fight will already be over. He can stomp Roderick’s head apart like a pumpkin under his boots. Celia remembers the brutal power of those kicks her lover used to literally smash apart Carolla’s ribs, when he was buried under the tiger’s bulk. Is her sire that strong, too? Stronger? Just like that, one move, and Roderick is dead. The sheriff won’t even need to use his sword or bracers.

Celia: Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

For all the brains he claims to possess he’s nothing but an idiot when it comes to her and what he thinks he can do. Charging the sheriff. Why. Why?

The rain makes slick the roof beneath her bare feet. Her bare feet slip; rather than get between them she goes down hard to one knee, helpless to do anything but watch while her sire effortlessly pins the Brujah to the ground.

She knows well those heavy boots.

Remembers the crunch of the green-haired punk from what feels like a lifetime ago. His lifeless eyes. Her sire’s silent command to dispose of the body.

He can’t.

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

But he can. That’s the god awful truth. He can. And he will.

“No! Don’t, please—”

GM: But the Roderick so summarily staked at Cypress Grove was still a babe in the night.

It all happens too fast for Celia to follow, but the anatomy expert can surmise what did—that her lover executed his own mid-air contortion and somersault, this time one to make her ballerina parent green with envy, and sends his foot kicking into Donovan’s chest at an upward angle as he falls. It connects square with the sheriff’s center of gravity, sending him flying as Roderick hits the ground and spring-rolls into a fighting stance—except his foe already is flying. He hasn’t been thrown back at all. Donovan’s stiffened fingers drive into Roderick’s throat, seizing the opening from his split-second instinctive surprise at seeing the laws of gravity fail to affect his opponent. Celia’s lover gags under the crunch of bone but keeps his feet as he blurs backwards, fists raised in a boxer’s stance. Celia can see it in his defensive posture, in the look in his eyes. This is not a fight he thinks he can win.

“Ge… ou’! I’ll hol… ’im off!” Roderick rasps past his half-shattered throat.

Celia: He won’t, though. He’ll die. He’ll die trying, and the sheriff will catch her anyway, and then they’re both dead. Or maybe she’s not dead, maybe she’s just beaten to within an inch of her (un)life, maybe he just strings her up and uses her body as target practice, maybe he lets his ghouls have another go at her, but the result is the same: dead Roderick. Broken Celia.

But she runs.

She runs, because she can’t just stand there and watch. She runs, feet moving nimbly across the roof, blurring past her sire, throwing herself in his path in the momentary pause while the two size each other up.

Caroline had said he’s the worst sort of monster.

But he had shown her mercy once. Had shown her kindness. Compassion when she did not expect it. He had rescued her. Saved her.

It has to mean something.

It has to.

She’s not a fighter. Even on her best night. Even with the help of her tiger skin. And she can’t raise her fists against her sire; her very soul rebels at the thought.

But she can put herself between them. She can keep Roderick from launching an offensive assault against the sheriff. She can keep her sire from destroying him without destroying her too.

So she runs. She launches herself at Roderick. Not to attack, but to prevent him from it.

She puts herself between them. She puts her back to Roderick. She turns to face her sire, arms outstretched to protect the lick behind her.

“Mercy, Sheriff Donovan. Quarter, for the primogen’s childe.” For him, not for her. Roderick doesn’t know what he’d wandered into. What punishment is it to attack the sheriff? Whatever it is, she’ll take it in his stead. It’s not something she has to say. He knows.

It’s a gamble. Risking everything on the idea that somewhere inside of him there’s something that cares enough for her not to destroy her. That no matter his anger in this moment, no matter how disappointed he might be with her, he won’t strike that final blow to take her fully from the world. There’s something inside of him. Some part that wants her around. That wants her whole. Not broken.

Please. There has to be.

And then to Roderick, her very words a plea, “stand down. Go.”

GM: But pleas have so rarely moved either of them.

Pleas for Roderick to abandon his lover to the sheriff’s cold mercies.

Pleas at all to the sheriff’s stone-like heart.

“GO!!!!” Roderick yells, and then suddenly Celia’s sailing through the air as he flings her. The Toreador’s last sight is of her sire’s dark form streaking towards Roderick, and then she hits the brick courtyard with a painful thump. The rain pours down around her as sounds of violence distantly echo from above, drowned out by the wind and the rain.

Just past the windows, she sees Dani, her mother, and Mr. Garrison eating pie around the dinner table. The dining room looks so warm and bright and dry as water patters against the glass. It looks a world away from the midnight battle raging between monsters atop the roof.

Mr. Garrison has no idea his son is up there, fighting for his unlife.

For her unlife.

Celia: Sometimes gamblers lose.

Celia feels the loss when her back hits the brick courtyard. If she were mortal the landing would be enough to force the air from her lungs. But she’s not. She’s dead. She’s on her feet immediately, springing upward, sprinting through the rain to the front of the house.

Stupid, to think that she could stop the sheriff from attacking Roderick, or stop Roderick from protecting her. No, she probably can’t stop the fight on her own, but she still needs to find a way to stop it. She can find a way to weather her sire’s anger at a later date; losing Roderick tonight means she loses everything, and not even the pull of the bond will stop her from seeing that he makes it out.

Her eyes dart down the block. Tours by NOLA Locals is just around the corner, and they close soon. Now, if she’s not mistaken. Which means their last tour and all their customers should be leaving… now. There they are, a whole group of them. No refunds, and everyone expects rain in New Orleans: it’s part of the experience. No excuses to not go.

Celia rounds the corner, waving her arms in excitement as the group and shouting out, “dollar shots! They’re giving out dollar shots at Cosimo’s!” Who can resist cheap booze? But she puts the power of her charm behind the words, pulling out all the stops. Cosimo’s Bar is a block away, right down Burgundy. They’ll have to pass the feuding licks on the roof. And she’ll be there, loudly amping them up, making their large group presence known to the two vampires on the roof who surely don’t want to be seen.

That’s the first rule of being a vampire: you don’t get caught being a vampire.

GM: Emily always found that strange. “Why is there a tour group here, this far from the Disneyland area of the Quarter? This is where people are supposed to fucking live in peace!” She did not like living near them or all the noise they made. She’d cynically speculated that the tour group was located here to cash in on the “by locals” angle. “Because they can say, look at us, we’re located where locals actually live.” Diana thought they weren’t so bad, but tried to plan Lucy’s naps and feedings around when a tour group wasn’t likely to pass by. The family eventually learned to predict it.

So did Celia.

Rain is part of the local experience, but the umbrella-holding crowd of tourists doesn’t seem to like it judging by their faces. Celia overhears the tour guide talking about an “ovulus” that can be used to commune with ghosts in VR, but the Toreador’s commanding sales pitch swiftly rolls over the woman’s tall tales, and none of the kine seem to care she’s running around barefoot without an umbrella as Arikel’s powers of bewitchment roll off of her in waves. Who can resist cheap shots. The tour guide shoots Celia and irritated starts trying to corral the tourists back onto their planned route, but far more of them look like they’re listening to the Toreador than to her. Actually, pretty much all of them.

The only question is whether Celia can bring them past the Flores house faster than her sire can take off Roderick’s head.

That’s also when Celia notices her mother—out looking for her?—clad in a red raincoat and carrying an umbrella. Diana doesn’t question what her daughter is doing, but just starts calling out, “Dollar shots this way, y’all! Come get ’em! Come get ’em!” while smiling and waving. She doesn’t jump around, not in heels and with her leg. But the schoolteacher’s long-practiced voice at corralling large groups of kids turns the eager flow of drink-seeking tourists into a practical stampede. The tour guide gives up and starts following the derailed tour group too. The dozen-odd gaggle of loudly and excitedly talking people are soon all around the Flores house.

“Oh, my goodness, sweetie, your shoes!” Celia’s mother frets as she gets the umbrella over her daughter’s head, then frowns. “Is something goin’ on…?”

Celia looks towards the house’s roof, her nocturnal vision cutting easily through the gloom. She sees Roderick’s horrifically destroyed, blood-crusted face rapidly mending itself back to pristine wholeness as he leaps down. Her sire is nowhere in sight.

For now.

Celia: For now.

Celia smiles at her mom as if nothing is wrong, moving the spotlight off of her and onto someone else in the group. The tour guide, maybe; she can tell who it is by how the woman is scowling, and with any luck the little boost Celia supplies will give them the chance to re-wrangle her group.

Either way, it’s not Celia’s problem anymore.

“Fighting,” she says in a low voice to her mother. “Go inside, I’ll be in. Two minutes. Friend is in the back.”

Her clothes are ruined. Soaked.

“Tell them the cat got out,” Celia suggests. It’ll explain her disappearance, the wet clothing. Good thing she and her mother are the same size; she can find something in her closet.

She ducks away, moving into the backyard to find Roderick.

GM: “Ok, I’ll keep them busy!” Celia’s mom nods, heading back in.

But she passes her daughter the umbrella anyway.

Celia: Little late for it to keep her dry, but she takes it all the same on her way into the back with a rueful smile.

She looks up towards the night sky and wherever her sire is.

That’s all she needs. Gone for now.

She’ll figure something out for later.

She always does.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: Roderick waits until the seemingly kine woman has disappeared. He doesn’t look much better than Celia. His soaked clothes are also torn, his hair is a complete mess, and even the rain can’t fall fast enough to wipe off the blood over his face, but he tries his best.

“Sheriff took off,” he says shortly. “Too much attention. But he can fly. He’ll be back.”

“We’re outclassed enough he can afford to let us go for a little.”

Celia: Celia agrees with a nod.

“Come inside. Mom keeps spare clothes for Logan. She won’t mind. Dani and your dad are here.”

GM: He shakes his head. “We don’t have time. We can’t stay here.”

“Also, our parents both think I’m dead.”

Celia: Celia gestures at his face. They’d never changed it back.

“Oh look, problem solved.”

“Attacked the fucking sheriff,” she mutters. “You’re an idiot.”

GM: He touches it as if remembering.

“This is going to take some getting used to.”

“Figured I’d abandon you to him and run away. You’re a bigger idiot.”

Celia: “I would have handled it.”

GM: He shakes his head.

“We need to go. Right now. Take everyone to the Evergreen. It’s a full house on Friday nights. Even better that the usual Kindred crowd won’t be there.”

Celia: “How are we explaining that to your dad?”

GM: “Figure something out. Right now, it’s the safest place in the Quarter from the sheriff. Even he won’t just barge in there.”

Celia: “Can we send him home? Sheriff has no beef with him.”

GM: “Sure. Hurry.”

Celia: “Come inside,” Celia says again. “So you’re not a sitting duck out here.”

She’s already moving towards the door.

GM: “This is going to take longer if you’re introducing everyone to your boyfriend. You need to get them out. Right now.”

Celia: “Don’t die.”

Then she’s gone, slipping into the house with an apologetic smile as she drips all over the floor.

GM: “…she wasn’t kidding about you chasing down Victor,” says Dani as a soaked Celia enters the dining room.

Celia: “I’m so sorry,” she says to the gathering at large. “Went to give Emi the pie and the cat ran right past me. Had to climb a tree to get it back. Poor Lucy was bawling her eyes out.”

“So much for this dress,” she says with a laugh. “Mom, I’m gonna grab something from your closet.”

She waits until Mr. Garrison looks away to make a face at Dani, a nod to follow her out.

GM: “You should’ve let us know,” says Mr. Garrison critically. “You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“Oh, you’re such a gentleman, Henry,” smiles Diana. “At your age.”

“And feel free, sweetie! My closet’s yours.” Her eyes look the slightest bit fretful, but she turns back to their guest.

“Danielle, why are you leaving our host’s table?” Mr. Garrison asks, even more critically.

“Oh, I just thought I’d help Celia pick something. Mrs. Flores, do you mind? I’ve had enough pie anyways, I think,” answers Dani.

“Please, go on! We can clean up here,” says Diana, her eyes briefly meeting Celia’s as if to confirm.

Celia: Celia waves a hand.

“Didn’t think it’d take quite that long, Mr. Garrison. But next time I’ll leave the cat rescuing to you.” She smiles, meets her mother’s eyes with a tiny nod, and moves off.

GM: “…the cats hate you. What’s going on?” asks Dani.

Celia: “Trouble,” Celia says tightly. She pulls off her wet dress as soon as she’s out of eyesight of the table, picking up the pace. “We need to evacuate. Get your dad to go home. I’m taking my family to the Evergreen. Tell him… you’re sick. Go with him.”

GM: “I want to help,” says Dani. “He can get home on his own. Unless it’s after him?”

“In which case, I want you with us. Because I’m a useless abortion.”

Celia: “No. I just don’t have a better way of getting him to leave.”

“You’re not useless,” Celia says. But she doesn’t have time to argue. She grabs the first dress she sees—a floral-printed sundress—and pulls it on.

“I don’t think he’s going to want to go to the Evergreen.”

GM: Flower-themed clothes are a common staple in her mother’s closet.

“The Evergreen… that’s that VIP club, right?”

Celia: “Yeah. I don’t even know if you’ll be able to get in.”

“Not many licks there tonight.”

“But it’s Savoy’s stronghold. Trouble won’t reach us there.”

GM: “Tattoo makes me mortal, doesn’t it? I’m the DA’s daughter.”

“But you’re right. He hates clubs.”

“He just wants to go home now and go to bed early.”

Celia: “It’s just your brother and I in trouble. I think we should just go. I just don’t want to leave everyone unprotected.”

GM: “I guess that won’t hurt. I’ll get my dad out and tell your mom you’ll fill her in?”

Celia: “Yeah. Fuck. Fuck me. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t gone outside. Jesus.”

No time.

GM: “How’s this your faul… never mind, I’ll get my dad out.”

Dani heads back out.

Celia: Celia finds a pair of flats to slip on. Easier to run in. She rummages through the dresser for the spare clothes she’d told Roderick about. Hardly his usual fare, but it’ll do. She shoves it into a bag.

She follows Dani back out to the dining room.

GM: She finds their parents saying a hurried good night as Dani rubs her forehead with a bleary look.

Celia: “Oh no,” Celia murmurs, “feel better, Dani. Mr. Garrison, it was so nice to see you. I hope we can do this again soon.”

GM: Diana nods along. “…I’m so sorry to end the night so abruptly, Henry, maybe we can finish Stephen’s story over another dinner?”

“I’ll look at my schedule,” says Mr. Garrison. “Thank you for your hospitality, Diana, Celia. It was an excellent dinner.”

“You’re very welcome, we’d be happy to make y’all another,” winks Celia’s mom as she shows the pair out. “Dani, get better soon.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Flores.”

“All right, good night, y’all.”

“Good night.”

Celia: Celia echoes the sentiments on their way out.

GM: Diana turns back to Celia as she closes the door.

“Okay, sweetie, what do we need to do?”

“And Lucy. Is Lucy in danger.” Her face grows immediately grave.

Celia: “Get out. Rod says Evergreen, but—” Celia shakes her head. “I don’t know how to explain that to anyone. Emily. Lucy. I think… hotel? Or I have a safe house…”

GM: “I’m not sure how I’d explain a hotel, sweetie.” Celia’s mom thinks. “Maybe for some last night drinks at the bar, then we stay the night after we have too many to drive back?”

“But, darn, she knows I don’t drink.”

“And taking Lucy out for that seems odd.”

Celia: “Tell her Henry made you feel pretty and it ended early and you want to go out?”

“Girls night?”

GM: “Okay. Girls means all girls. Any men who want to hit on me should know exactly what they’re gettin’ into?”

Celia: “Yeah. That should do it.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. It’s not normally like this.”

GM: “It’s okay, sweetie! Better safe than sorry!”

“How’s the Monteleone, with its carousel bar?”

Celia: She considers, then nods.

“Should work. I don’t think they’re looking for you. Just me.”

“Stephen is here. I’m going to bring him in to change. His face is different.”

GM: “All right. Feel free to take any clothes or whatever you need. I’ve got some of Logan’s I was mending for him.”

Celia: “Got ’em. Go get the girls. We need to hurry.”

Celia does just that, moving toward the door to wave Roderick inside.

GM: “Okay! Text me when you’re there, sweetie!” her mom calls, then heads out to Emily’s room.

She does not see her lover outside.

Celia: Her eyes take on the telltale glow of the Beast within while she scans the darkness. He has to be here.

“Roderick,” she hisses.

GM: She sees nothing.

Celia: “Roderick!”

GM: Her only answer is the pounding rain.

Celia: He can’t be gone. He can’t be.

She steps out into the night.

GM: The rain falls over her newly-dry dress.

Celia: No, no, no.

She was only inside for a minute.

He can’t have come and gone in that time. He can’t have.

She shakes her head, denying what she knows is true: he did.

Celia’s newly dry dress is only exposed to the rain for a minute, just long enough for her fingers to blur across her face to turn her back into Jade. Then it disappears with the rest of her as her entire form shifts, taking on the form of the nightjar.

Her sire isn’t the only one who can fly.

Her wings beat against the air to lift her into the sky, sending the bird sailing through the rain.

She’ll find him.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: The nightjar takes to the skies. The bird notes several details.

First, the extra car that had been parked near her mother’s house is gone.

Second, the car is driving through the Quarter, a grimly resolved look on Roderick’s already grimmer face.

Third, the sheriff is flying after the car from dozens of feet up, like an enormous black bat.

Celia: That stupid motherfucker.

She’s going to kill him. She’s going to save him from the sheriff and then she’s going to kill him.

The nightjar soars after the car and her sire, beating its wings furiously through the air to keep up. It rips through the options in its mind: dive bomb the sheriff. Distract him. Get Roderick to safety. Weather his anger. Dive bomb the car. Take on the sheriff together.

Roderick has to be going to the Evergreen. That’s what he said, right? Evergreen.

And what is he going to do when he gets there? Who will he run his mouth to?

Idiots, the both of them, she could have handled it.

The nightjar makes its decision. It tucks its wings and dives through the storm toward the lick flying after the car, swooping down with the intent to land upon his back or shoulder, wherever it can find purchase with its tiny claws.

GM: Too fast to follow, Donovan seizes the bird out of mid-air. Pale and rain-slick hands mercilessly crush in the tiny avian’s throat. His flight does not slow.

:: Prove you are more useful alive than dead. ::

Celia: The bird might trill, but the hand around its body prevents the noise from escaping its newly savaged throat. Her wings beat ineffectually against the hand that holds her.

:: I will handle him. Let me handle him. ::

She already has a lie prepared.

:: I will keep him quiet. ::

She just needs him to back off so she can talk to Roderick without the threat of attack looming.

:: I’ll deliver us both to you if I fail. ::

She won’t, though. Not with their unlives hanging in the balance.

GM: Silence is the nightjar’s only answer as the sheriff’s dark form races through the air.

Celia: She doesn’t know if that’s acceptance of her proposal or not. But there’s little the nightjar can do trapped in his grasp as it is. It’s along for the ride now, desperately aware of how fragile this form it wears is. One clenched fist…

:: He’s afraid. For me. He trusts me. I can handle him. ::

Break something. If he breaks something on her, something more than what he has, it’ll send a message that the sheriff came back for her, not for Roderick. She’ll say his new face saved him, that he didn’t know who Roderick is, that he got away, that Celia was too slow. Got caught. She won’t make him look bad. She’d never make him look bad. Primogen’s childe could be anyone. Maybe he didn’t hear over the rain. Maybe it was a bluff. Why would Donovan know that Jade can fleshcraft? Why would he assume that Roderick and Jade had anything to do with each other? She’ll know how to spin it when Roderick talks to her about it. He’ll buy it. He’s bonded to her. He’s been swallowing her lies for years.

And there are so many reasons she could give him for the sheriff’s visit, none of which make it look like they have anything to do with each other. He interrupted what looked like a punishment anyway. He didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything.

It will work.

Her sire just needs to trust her.

And if she’s wrong, well, she’d already promised to deliver the pair of them. She’ll use force if she has to. She has plenty of blood to burn through to subdue the already injured Brujah.

Unless he just wants her to catch Roderick so he can wipe clean what he saw, put someone else’s face in there, maybe delete it completely. She’ll do that. She’ll take him to the haven to ambush. He knows the one.

But don’t kill him. Please don’t kill him.

GM: Wind and rain whips past. The sheriff’s vice-like hand squeezes. More bones crunch throughout the tiny bird’s body.

Celia: Terror grips the nightjar. It’s not an answer. That’s not an answer. It doesn’t know what he wants, which parts are unacceptable to him. Its wings flutter, trapped as they are within his hand.

No one has ever accused Celia’s thoughts of moving too quickly. No, not too quickly, but perhaps too sporadically for someone else to make sense of it. Perhaps her shielding has payed off in dividends and her sire is no deeper in her mind now than anyone else who had ever given her a cursory scan. Or perhaps it is simply the pursuit that has his attention divided, and he spares no more than the small bit of focus that it takes to wordlessly communicate with her.

She thought that he knew everything, but when she gives herself a moment to put herself in his shoes she realizes that maybe… maybe he doesn’t.

Slowly, the terror abates. It won’t serve her well. She reaches again for the ice inside her veins, the reason he had chosen her that evening in 2009. It’s inside of her somewhere; all she has to do is bring it to the surface. She slows her thoughts, sending them his way only once she has gotten a handle on them.

The lick they’re chasing is Roderick Durant, Coco’s childe, and he has known about “Celia” since shortly after their release in 2010. He knows her as Veronica’s childe. As far as Roderick knows the only “connection” between Celia and Sheriff Donovan is that she grew up in Audubon and went to Tulane with thousands of other students. He has no reason to suspect there’s anything deeper there. She has never, would never, tell him otherwise. She knew him in her mortal life; they had been lovers then, together until her Embrace, and recently rekindled their romance as Kindred. No one is supposed to know. They play for opposite teams, so they had kept it secret, and his facial reconstruction had been to sneak him into the Quarter last night and for their plans this evening.

He wasn’t supposed to see her sire. They were never supposed to run into each other; it had been unfortunate timing.

Roderick is her… what had Mélissaire called it? Morality pet. And she’d broken him so she could further Savoy’s goals. So she could further her sire’s goals. She’d done it to him. For them.

She’d broken him so she could turn him away from his sire. Savoy has his ear on the Cabildo so he can further disrupt the prince’s plots. She has been working on it for weeks and it finally came to fruition. She repeats the line about his sire offering her an expanded role in his court. Tomorrow. They’re meeting tomorrow to discuss. Her role will better serve her sire; she will be closer to the action, will be privy to more sensitive information, both through Savoy and through Roderick himself. She is more than capable of pulling Cabildo secrets from Roderick if Donovan so wishes. She has ways of getting inside people’s heads with them none the wiser and will use it for him.

And she can handle him tonight. Her sire doesn’t need to waste his time chasing down Roderick. She has a series of lies already prepared for him, and she’ll twist them to accommodate whatever he says to her. Roderick has been swallowing her lies for years; what’s another handful? She’ll tell him the sheriff found out she’d been meddling with the Flores still in Audubon. She’ll tell him he knows that she has been asking questions about Maxen, and that he forced her to give up her plans to derail him, tell him that the injuries she has sustained were after she tried to run. She’ll say that Roderick’s mask had saved him. Why would the sheriff think to look into Roderick when no one knows that Jade and Roderick are anything more than two young licks on opposite sides with sires that hate each other? This new face can disappear. She’ll spin it to preserve his image. She’d never make him look bad.

She’ll lie. Because she’s so good at lying and knows exactly how to play Roderick. She’ll keep him quiet.

And tonight, tomorrow, Sunday: whenever he wants her to answer for the waste of his time this evening she will. She’ll have a better report for him once she finishes with Roderick, probably better when she finishes with Savoy tomorrow. She’ll meet him wherever he wants and tell him everything she’s gathered since their last time together. The hunters, and what she’s found that threatens them all. Caroline, her progress bringing the girl to heel. Savoy’s plans to corral two of the prince’s “loyal Ventrue” to his side. The lick behind the fiasco at the zoo. Intel about his pawns, or a way to help them move forward.

There’s more she can give him. But not in this narrow window of time if he doesn’t let her stop Roderick right now, tonight, like she knows that she can.

GM: Her sire’s cold hands release the nightjar with its crushed wings. Only by grace of the same gift that saved her mother and impressed Caroline does the bird not plummet like a stone.

:: I will know all that transpires between you. Your punishment will be commensurate to your success. ::

Celia: There’s only one thing left to say in this situation.

:: Yes, sire. ::

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: It’s not a long flight to catch up with Roderick. It’s a fall, as much as anything. His head whips to the side as he sees the bird approach by the window.

Celia: She can hardly shift into her cat or human form here. And she lacks her sire’s (and her clan’s) ability to contact him mind-to-mind. But she has other tools at her disposal, things that will (hopefully) clue him in to her identity. Even in this form she smells like a lick. But she kills the aura, dampening it until she’s just a bird again, and then drops the power to project her predatory nature. Again she kills it, and again she lets the cloaking take effect.

Like a beacon in the night, she flickers her aura between mortal and lick, hoping he knows her well enough to know its her. He’s seen her shift. He knows she can cloak. How many licks in the city are looking for him and can both shift and shadow dance?

And how many random licks that can is he bonded to? Who else would he feel the pull toward?

GM: Roderick rolls down the window, then his hand blurs towards the bird.

Celia: The nightjar makes no effort to avoid his hand. It collapses into his palm, half-broken wings tucked against its tiny body. She trusts that the large brain of his clued him in to who she is. If not, well, she supposes she has suffered worse at his hands.

GM: Roderick sets the bird down at the foot of the adjacent passenger seat and rolls the window back up.

“You can turn back to confirm you’re who I’m presuming you are.”

Celia: The change is instant: nightjar to Jade. The shift in physique makes her wince; she grits her teeth against the feeling of bone grinding on bone, but there’s nothing to be done for it. She’s already riding the edge and doesn’t want to lose it in the car with him if she risks mending.

She looks up at him from her spot on the floor. It feels like too much effort to climb into the seat. Has her night really just begun?

“Thanks for not…” she makes a fist to demonstrate. Crushing her. “Family is out. Your dad. Dani. Safe. Mine too.”

If her body wasn’t half broken maybe she’d be able to form longer sentences. The pain distracts her. Fuck him for squeezing after he’d confirmed her identity.

“Spa,” she gets out. “Blood. Need blood. No people.”

GM: “The sheriff’s probably following me,” he says tightly. “You shouldn’t have come after me. Don’t get up on the seat.”

“You shouldn’t be wearing your Jade face, either.”

Celia: “Stupid,” she mutters, more to herself than him. “Need to change your face. Back to Rod. Spa. Or haven. Pick one. Not following. Bought us time.”

GM: “How?” he asks sharply.

Celia: “I’ll explain,” she promises, voice pitching into a whine. “Hurts. Please.”

GM: “If we go back to Flawless, and he follows us, it could all be over.”

“For both of us.”

Celia: “Haven. No connection to us.”

GM: Roderick drives.

“What the fuck was he even doing at your family’s house!?”

Celia: She giggles, the sound reminiscent of the noise he’d made last night when he found out about Carolla. There’s a hysterical edge to it.

“Daddy.”

“Found out. What I was doing.”

GM: “So he knows Celia is a lick.”

“Because he wouldn’t give a fuck if Celia the breather has dinner with her father.”

Celia: “Told you. Years ago. Knows Celia.”

GM: “So why hasn’t he ashed you?”

Celia: “For what? Existing?”

GM: “For being a nobody in larger Kindred society and infringing on his domain.”

“He absolutely would ash you for those reasons.”

“But he hasn’t. And you say you’ve delayed him. You wanted me to drive back to Flawless when he’s on my tail!”

“Celia, what the hell is going on here?”

Celia: “I traded. Bargained. For my life. Unlife. Whatever. Bought time. Promise. Trust me. Won’t kill. Not yet.”

“Rod, it hurts,” she tries again. “Spa or haven, let mend. Please. Tell you.” It’s an effort to shift across the floor, but she does so, laying her cheek on his knee and blinking up at him with eyes fogged by pain.

If they don’t get back to her haven or spa so she can fix his face and mend she’s going to be worse than useless if she’s wrong about her trade. She tells him so in fragmented sentences.

GM: Roderick stares down at her.

“Okay. I trust you.”

He turns the car around.

“We’ll go back to Flawless. Instead of my old place.”

Celia: She nods her head and closes her eyes, leaning against him.

GM: He touches her head, but keeps his other hand on the wheel. He parks at Flawless. He carries her in his arms to Jade’s suite. He grimaces several times himself as he walks, though, and Celia smells blood on him.

Celia: “You’re hurt,” she murmurs once he sets her down. “How bad?”

GM: “I fought the sheriff on my own,” he says frankly. “I’ve healed the worst of it. Healed more during the fight. But I’m hungry. Right now would be a good time for the rest of… his juice.”

Celia: Celia nods. That had been her thought as well.

“Are you gonna lose it?”

“Room for that,” she adds, jerking her chin toward the door in question.

GM: He shakes his head. “That’s why I haven’t completely healed.”

Celia: “Oh. I might,” she admits.

GM: “Ok. You can drink in the room.”

“What about your ghouls?”

“Be useful to send them hunting right now.”

Celia: Celia nods. She brings her heel against the underside of the table, where she’d set aside the blood from Carolla and the other guy. Thin-blood. Ghoul. Whoever it once belonged to, it’s hers now.

“’Lana busy. Could send boys.”

Could call her mom, too.

GM: “’Lana looks way better at picking up people than either of them.”

“It’s a Friday night in the Quarter.”

Celia: “Busy,” Celia repeats.

“Dani could.”

“Have seven pints, though.”

“Could hunt after, us.”

GM: Roderick looks a little stiff at the thought of his sister doing that.

“I don’t know if we’ll have time before Elysium, with everything else.”

Celia: God, fuck Elysium. She hates that she has to go or lose face with those stuck up cunts.

No, that’s not fair. She’s just annoyed right now that things are unraveling.

GM: “But seven pints. Okay. That should help take the edge off.”

“You’ll need to fix my face, too. Some of the ‘everything else.’”

“Might as well text your ghouls now.”

Celia: “Dani?” Celia asks again.

GM: “…how has she been feeding?”

Celia: “Club.”

GM: “I actually never asked.”

Celia: “Gave her access.”

GM: “I don’t like her picking up guys at clubs.”

Celia: “You gonna baby bird her?”

GM: A scowl.

Celia: “Have a whole block. Could sneak instead.”

“Sleepers.”

GM: “That’s hard without veiling or burglary skills.”

Celia: “Blood’s here,” Celia says, nudging the door with her foot again. “Heat up. Don’t want to risk.”

GM: He takes the containers and sticks them in the microwave.

Celia: Celia pulls out her phone to send a series of texts while he busies himself with that.

The first to her mom, telling her everything is okay, but that she got held up at the spa and might not make it to ladies night.

The second to Randy, asking if he and his brother want to stop for a pizza and swing by.

GM: The response back is immediate.

Oh good, I’m so relieved! Maybe you’d like to stop by after everyone’s gone to bed? I still have your favorite treat… :)

Celia: Might be late. Party tonight. Thanks for saving some for me, you’re the best.

GM: Ok, I’ll let you know our room numbers! Have a feeling we might have too many to make it back. Lucy and Emi can have a sleepover in a room together!

Celia: Wild night? I’ll try to stop by before I head out. ;)

GM: Oh you! Hopefully not too wild with Lucy as our chaperon! :)

Celia: “Fam safe,” she announces after she sends a final heart to her mom.

GM: Randy responds shortly later that it’ll be a sure thing as far as that pizza.

Celia: She sends him a heart, too.

GM: Roderick takes out the heated blood with a long look.

“Drink up and we’ll talk about that.”

Celia: Celia slips into the “panic room” to take her share.

She’s glad she did. The moment the blood touches her tongue her Beast comes snarling to the surface, howling its unhappiness to the world at large. Her claws come out—they always come out when her Beast has its way—but there’s little to be destroyed in the bare, steel room.

By design.

Roderick’s design, actually. It’s his doing that there’s a room like this in her spa to begin with; all those years ago she’d discussed the idea of it with him while he still thought she was Jade, that her Brujah and other unruly clients needed a place to “let it out” prior to her treatments. A portion of the money from her mother had gone to making sure that she and her Kindred clients would have a space to give in to their more primal urges.

Her Beast’s claws swipe uselessly at the wall, enraged that much more that there’s nothing soft or breakable to dig into. That there’s no warm body. It’s like a solitary wank after years of the best sex imaginable: absolutely awful and unfulfilling. It slavers and howls and otherwise makes a nuisance of itself inside the steel box, safely contained in here if not in her.

She doesn’t know how long it takes over, only that when it’s gone her clothes are shredded and hang in tatters from her frame.

She scowls at no one in particular. That’s her mother’s dress.

Some snide side of her argues that her mother has plenty of floral print dresses and won’t miss this one.

Either way, Celia finishes her blood once the Beast’s tantrum has run its course.

GM: She comes out to find Roderick waiting near the door. The scent of blood wafting from him doesn’t smell as strong.

He looks over her torn clothes.

“Guess you needed that.”

Celia: “Thought I got off with a couple of broken bones?”

GM: He lays down on the table where Carolla used to be.

“You can tell me where things stand with the sheriff while you fix my face.”

Celia: His face isn’t the only thing that needs fixed. Celia’s body needs fixed, too. She sends the blood pumping through herself to the affected areas, letting it heal her broken bones and torn muscles before she begins to work on Roderick’s face. Only when it’s done does she begin her work to turn him from the Italian-esque man from last night to the Roderick the world knows him as.

Donovan will know everything that she says to him, and everything he says back. She’ll have to make sure she doesn’t fuck it up.

“He found out about my dad. Not dinner. I don’t think he cares about dinner. You keep bringing up the fact that Savoy hasn’t helped me with him, but I didn’t need his help. I was handling it on my own.”

GM: “Then all the less reason to let you live.”

Celia: “Sure. If I was a nobody, sure. But I’m not a nobody, and what I did I’ll have to be the one to undo. What’re they called, dead drops?”

GM: He winces as she starts to rearrange his flesh, moving the muscle like it can never move on its own.

“Yes. What about them?”

Celia: “Someone told me about them a long time ago,” she says, thinking of her ghost-turned-lick cousin. He still hasn’t called. “Told me if I was ever going to try to fuck someone over, to avoid getting fucked myself, set it up. So I did. Won’t stop him if he really wants to ash me, mind.”

She gives a brief warning before twisting a muscle in his cheek.

GM: He growls at the sensation.

“Celia, you’re telling this in pieces that don’t make any sense by themselves.”

Celia: Celia finally sighs.

“Yeah. Okay. I was trying to save face. I threw someone under the bus so he’d lay off me while I took care of the dead drops.”

GM: “That still doesn’t make sense.”

“He could just ash them and then you.”

Celia: “Sure. He could ash whoever. I just watched him try to ash you.”

“By the way,” she says, pausing her movements, “if you ever do anything that dumb again I’m going to stake you and stash you in a basement somewhere.”

“I’ll come down for cuddles. Maybe we’ll fuck. But stop trying to get yourself killed on my account.”

“Second time you’ve done that.”

“Wonder if you can still get hard if you’re staked,” she muses, resuming her work.

GM: Roderick does not look very aroused between the pain he’s in and the topic at hand.

“Yes. He can ash whoever. So why not you?”

Celia: “Because there would be no clear winner for the cutest lick in the city contest, and everyone would be so busy trying to figure that out that nothing else would ever get done.”

She smirks.

GM: “I’m not in the mood, Celia,” her lover growls as she reshapes his nose. His jaw twitches with pain as flint dances in his eyes.

Celia: “What do you want from me, Roderick? Do you want to hear that I’m scared shitless? Do you want to hear that I think he’s going to find me more useful dead than alive and once I finish fixing the mess I caused with my dad he’s absolutely going to ash me, then take my mom, Emily, and Lucy for the trouble? Do you want me to say I am so absolutely terrified of him that all I can think about is going out with a fucking bang if he’s going to get rid of me anyway? Is that what you want? Do you want me to cry on your shoulder a little bit so you can feel like a man comforting a woman in her time of need?”

“Do you think it helped that a random lick showed up at my house to fight him when I had it handled and now I have to find some way to spin that so he doesn’t know it was you, so that you don’t die too you big, dumb, fucking _idiot?”_

GM: Roderick suddenly leaps up from the table, seizes Celia’s throat between his hands, and slams her against the wall. His eyes flash as fangs jut from his mouth.

“I SEE now, Celia!”

“I have had a bad fucking week!”

“My sire’s a fucking liar! My sister’s an abortion! My dad’s the walking dead! I have a new brother, lucky me, who’s scum of the earth!”

He laughs.

“Well, I see now! Savoy and I had a good long talk!”

“I see a lot more now! I’m seeing a LOT of pieces that don’t add up, RIGHT HERE!”

He breaks off in laughter again, like she’s just told a funny joke.

“It’s so funny.”

“Savoy’s the only one who makes sense, these nights…”

Celia: Celia wraps her fingers around the hands holding her up, pressing her back as far against the wall as she can go. She makes a choking sound around his grip. Face half finished as he is, he only looks that much more monstrous.

“Ss—stah—ple—”

GM: He gives her a good hard shake.

“Oh, you stop it! The scared woman act!”

“I told you, Celia… I see MORE now!”

“This has been a real eye-opener!”

Celia: Her head slams back against the wall with the shake. When she looks at him again the fear has left her eyes.

“Let… go,” she growls at him, the words half a wheeze.

GM: “See, there we go! There’s the real Celia!” he laughs. “Let’s have it out, real Celia! Let’s have it all out! Let truth reign! Let the truth have its day… when we aren’t spewing SHIT!”

“Dead drops! ’I’ll handle the sheriff!’ HA! HA HA HA HA!”

“Everyone lies… all the fucking time… you were good at lying, weren’t you, even before you died? ‘I never slept with anyone but you,’ except I didn’t… except I did… HA! Had me wrapped around your finger!”

“Back and forth, back and forth, I can’t even keep straight how many times!”

Celia: Celia works a hand between his palm and her throat, giving herself enough room to breathe so she can speak.

She starts to open her mouth.

And then she remembers the vision, the way the Stephen there had ripped out her tongue, and thinks better of it.

GM: He patiently lets her make some more room.

He smiles and waits.

Celia: What does she say here? I can explain? He’ll never trust a word she says.

She can’t bear to look at him. And even though he is scaring her, even though she does want to curl into a ball and weep for the boy she used to know, she knows how that’ll look: like she’s just playing the same old tune as always.

Her sire really is going to kill her.

“I’ll tell you,” she finally says, “no lies, no bullshit. I’ll tell you. Everything.”

GM: He makes a sweeping motion with his other hand.

Celia: “Let me down.” A pause. “Please.”

GM: He releases his hand. Her feet hit the ground in their borrowed flats.

She remembers how he looked on the roof, in his false face, the rain beating down around him with his fists balled, Celia held helplessly in her sire’s grip. He looked ready to charge her sire. He did charge her sire. The right thing, no matter how dangerous or what it threatened to cost.

Here, in Jade’s suite, talking to Jade the liar, his face is neither one man nor another’s, its features monstrously twisted out of shape. There’s a cool look in his eyes under the equally cold light of the monster’s playhouse.

But Celia the innocent damsel was another lie too, wasn’t it? How likely was her sire to kill her right there? He risked his unlife for a stupid thing, thinking it was the right thing.

Celia: She stares up at him. Part of her—the Celia part, probably—doesn’t want to move from where he’d dropped her. That part of her still thinks that Stephen is in there somewhere, that she can salvage this, that she can get him back before he turns into the monster she saw him become. The other part—the Jade part—demands that she take control.

So she does.

She swallows her fear. She straightens her spine. She moves from where he dropped her, aware that he is faster than her, stronger than her, that distance only creates the illusion of safety—no, that’s Celia again.

Why won’t the bitch stay dead?

“Will you hear me out? All of it?” Celia again. Jade wouldn’t ask.

GM: “Go on.”

It might be Stephen answering.

Or Roderick.

Or whoever the man with half a face is.

Celia: “You’re right. I didn’t handle the sheriff. I couldn’t handle the sheriff. He was following your car. You bought me time to get away. To get us all away. It was… brave. And selfless. I thought I took too long inside, getting them all out. You weren’t out there when I came back. I thought he took you. Without your face, you were a nobody that had attacked him. Even if you were Roderick, you still attacked him.”

She—who is she anymore?—looks away.

“I can fly. You saw. I was… going to do something really stupid. I thought he maybe took you back to Audubon, and I was going to fly in as Jade.” A gesture to her face. “I don’t know what I’d have done when I got there. It was a half-baked plan. Then I saw you. Saw him. I flew towards him. He caught me.”

Her voice lacks any emotion. She keeps it as flat as possible lest he accuse her of playing the scared woman again.

“He was still following you. I thought he was going to kill you. I said you were my lover. That it was a misunderstanding. I begged him not to kill you. Then he started squeezing. Crushing me. So I told him… I told him if it was ‘you’ or me, I’d pick me every time. Save my own skin. Licks expect it. I said you trust me. That I’d handle you. That I’d deliver you, if needed. That he didn’t need to waste his time, that I’d do it. Everyone thinks I’m a whore; why wouldn’t I sell you out. I’d have another boyfriend by Elysium. He didn’t have a reason to trust me, so I gave him one. And I piled it on, on top of that. I’ve been working on a lot of projects lately, been looking into a lot of things. I offered to share with him. Anything he wanted.”

She finally looks back up at him.

“I thought I could lie to you to keep you from asking questions. That we could change your face back. I could tell him I’d handled it. We’d never see the other face again. No one would know what happened. He’d save face. I’d sell out whoever he wanted. We’d call it a done deal. One time thing. Debt disclosed.”

GM: Roderick listens.

Whoever listens.

“And what about you and the sheriff on the roof?” he asks flatly.

Celia: She swallows. It’s a reflexive action, completely unnecessary to her dead state. All it does is display her discomfort.

“You told me once that I could trust you. That you’re not like every other lick. That you won’t use what I tell you against me. Is that still true?”

GM: “Yes,” he answers tightly.

Celia: “I’m a bastard. Veronica didn’t get permission to ‘Embrace’ me until I was already dead.”

She drops her gaze.

“There’s no statue of limitations on Kindred crimes against the Traditions. I don’t actually know if I can get in trouble for it. I can hardly ask someone about it. And I think… sometimes I think I was an accident.”

GM: “You can get in trouble for it. So can she.”

Celia: Celia—Celia, she’s Celia—closes her eyes and gives a faint nod.

GM: “What does that have to do with the sheriff being at your mom’s house?”

Celia: Celia finds his face with her eyes.

“He knows. He’s known since the beginning. He called it in.”

GM: “To do, what?”

Celia: “At the risk of angering you,” Celia says quietly, “I can’t tell you. But it’s nothing against you. Or Dani. Or your dad. Your family is safe. I promise.”

“I trust you. I do. I wouldn’t have told you any of this if I didn’t. But I don’t trust him not to hurt me, or my family, or anyone else I care about, if I say anything else.”

GM: That takes a while to play out on his half-face.

“You better not complain about any secrets I keep,” he finally mutters.

Celia: For a moment, Celia turns her face away. She does it to hide the way her lip trembles, the relief that his words bring her, the fear in her eyes that he wouldn’t accept her answer.

Or her.

She looks up again and takes a halting step toward him. Then another. Approaching him like a dog that has been kicked too many times, that expects the boot before a gentle hand.

She used to play at being skittish around him. Now, though, there’s nothing coy or deceitful in the slight rounding of her spine, the way her eyes kiss the floor, then his face, then his chest, and finally the floor again, the way her weight shifts and the edge of her shoe drags slightly against the ground. Wary. But controlled. He might not notice it if he’s not looking for it.

Then she’s in front of him, folding herself against him without a word, pressing her face against his chest. His warm chest. His strong—so strong, by turns gentle and cruel—hands right there. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t tremble. She keeps it inside where no one can see, unable or unwilling to admit even to herself that some part of her is afraid of this new Roderick.

GM: His hands wrap around her back and hold her close. Slowly, like it’s a motion they haven’t done in a long time. But it’s still familiar.

His chest isn’t warm, though.

It’s cool.

No steady heartbeat greets her ears.

That’s not familiar.

Celia: Somehow, that’s worse than anything else he could have said or done.

She broke him.

And here’s the proof.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: Roderick lies still as Celia twists the rest of his face back to its old features. He doesn’t seem to feel like talking. Maybe from the pain. Maybe not.

“I wonder if this is a fully accurate recreation, if you’re working from visual memory,” he says, looking his face over in the mirror when she’s done.

His tone is bland.

Celia: There’s a time or two when she opens her mouth to say something, but seems to lose her nerve or think better of it. She doesn’t speak until he does.

“Memory is fallible.”

GM: “I suppose I’m probably not the same person anymore.”

“Oh well.”

Celia: “No,” she says quietly. “You’re not.”

GM: He shrugs and pulls on his coat.

Celia: She doesn’t know how to act around him anymore. She doesn’t know what to say. What do to with her hands. She reaches for him, but there’s no warmth anymore, and she doesn’t find the comfort she’s looking for.

“Roderick.”

GM: He turns and looks.

Celia: “We’re… are we..?” She gestures between the pair of them.

GM: He waits as if for her to finish.

Celia: “…are we okay?”

GM: “No.”

Celia: “No,” she echoes, as if she has never heard the word before.

GM: “You won. My sire’s a lying piece of shit after all.”

Celia: Why is that her fault? She hadn’t made Coco Embrace Carolla.

Or lie about it.

“I didn’t… that’s not what I wanted. That’s never what I wanted. I didn’t win.”

GM: “It’s so inconvenient how my sister’s an abortion.”

Celia: “…why?”

GM: “Because she’s weak.”

Celia: “Why does that matter?”

GM: “I’m going to kill him. The sheriff.”

Celia: “Wha—why?”

GM: “I can’t win against him by myself, but I can fight him without dying like chaff. Give me a smart and competent coterie, and we could probably pull it off. With acceptable casualties if we had a tactical advantage, and probably heavy ones if we didn’t.”

Roderick’s voice is calm.

“So, too bad my sister’s an abortion. She’d just be a burden.”

Celia: “What do you gain,” she asks, “by killing him?” She doesn’t even know how to begin to touch the topic of his sister.

GM: He looks at her like she’s asked a stupid question.

Celia: She stares back at him.

GM: “Preston said you were spoiled, you know. That you just wanted to play house and paint faces in your spa, and never think about the silly war going on.”

Celia: That doesn’t surprise her.

Preston doesn’t know about half the shit she gets up to, though.

GM: “Use your head. Why would I want him ashed?”

“How does that change the political situation and why is that change desirable to me?”

Celia: “I see.”

GM: “Good. Savoy at least thinks you do.”

Celia: “Weird that you’d talk about me in a meeting for you.”

GM: “I’m sure you never talked about me with them at all.”

Celia: She has never felt more alone than she does right now. She stares, covering the hurt, shoving it deep inside.

GM: “You could help kill him too,” he considers. “Eventually. You need more training, first. We’ll work on that.”

Celia: “Tonight?” she asks. “Like usual?”

GM: “I’m busy tonight.” He looks at the security monitor. “There’s your ghoul. That’s my cue.”

Celia: “Roderick. Wait.”

GM: He waits.

Celia: It’s like one of those movies where someone calls out for the other one to stop but they keep going. Somehow she thought he’d keep going. That’s a good sign, isn’t it, that he stopped?

She takes a step toward him. Then another.

“You said we’re not okay. And you’re busy tonight. You have other things on your mind. That’s fine. But when? When are we going to talk? When can we sit down to discuss everything?”

When does she get him back?

GM: “Talk about what?”

“I’m not breaking up with you, if that’s what you’re worried over.”

Celia: It is.

And it seems like such a stupid thing to worry about.

But she nods all the same.

“Okay,” is all she says. Then, “I love you. That hasn’t changed. Whatever else changes. That hasn’t.”

GM: “Dani said you were insecure, but I suppose it beats being an abortion.”

Celia: “Did Dani tell you why I’m insecure?”

GM: He turns to go.

“Later. Your ghoul’s here. Love you too.”

He gives a faint snicker. “Tell Dani to stop being an abortion, also.”

Celia: Sure. She’ll get right on that.

For a dead body, her heart certainly hurts a whole hell of a lot.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

GM: Randy comes in by himself, not a vessel in sight.

“Sorry, babe,” he says sheepishly.

“Early hour at the clubs, and Reggie wanted to do some… skeezy stuff.”

Celia: “I’m not hungry,” Celia mutters.

She is. She’s always hungry. But it’s a psychosomatic response to the altercation with Roderick. She isn’t in the mood for a writhing, squirming vessel.

GM: “Told me to tell you himself if I wasn’t up for it, so…”

“But I brought you something else!”

Celia: “Hm?”

GM: That’s when her sire’s sword gorily cleaves through Randy’s arms and legs like a knife through butter. The newly quadriplegic ghoul’s raw-throated screams echo off the suite’s soundproofed walls as his torso hits the floor in a gory heap. The stench of his voided bowels fills Celia’s nostrils as his eyes roll back in his head.

He screams.

He screams.

He screams.

Her sire’s cool voice sounds within her head.

:: You have endangered the secrecy of our association twice in as many weeks. Continued carelessness will endanger those for whom you care. ::

Randy screams.

Celia: She hadn’t even been looking.

That’s the worst part, isn’t it, that she hadn’t been looking at her ghoul while he addressed her because she’d been so busy turning over the Roderick problem in her mind, wondering if and when he’d ever go back to his normal self.

It’s the blood that makes her look. Already too late to do anything but stare in mute horror as the blade cleaves once, twice, three times. How many times? She doesn’t know. She wasn’t really looking. But she smells it. And she hears it.

She thought she’d had time. That’s the only absurd thought that goes through her mind. That she thought she’d had more time.

But here he is.

Randy’s screams echo through the suite, reverberating off the walls, filling her head. Is there enough blood in her body to fix that? Where would she even begin? She stares. She stares because she’d just been thinking that he’s at least warm. That he could hold her for just a moment. That he could stand in for the boyfriend she’d just lost. That she can go home to Alana tonight and tell her everything is okay and spend the day with her.

How many parts can a person be cut into before they stop being a person anymore?

She drags her eyes up to his face. His cold, cruel face. How had she ever thought she loved him?

She darts forward, tearing into her wrist with her teeth, bringing the blood to the boy on the ground.

Not too late. Please let it not be too late.

GM: Her sire’s booted foot kicks aside what’s left of Randy. The quadriplegic man’s face audibly crunches against the wall.

His screams get fainter.

:: Little life remains in him. It will take time to regenerate his limbs. He will cost vitae for no practical returns. ::

Her sire’s cool hand cups Celia’s chin, tilting up her eyes to meet his.

:: Show me that you are strong. ::

Randy screams.

Celia: Celia has waited years for him to touch her like this. For his hands to cup her chin, for him to lift her gaze to his, for his lips to—

No. He’s missing that part.

He’s always missing that part.

He will never love her.

Not like Stephen had.

Not like Roderick did.

Not even like Randy does.

Randy, whose screams echo in her ears. Randy, who she’d teased for years because he’s so cute when he’s flustered. Randy, who is never too busy to answer her calls. Who is always there for her. Who is brave to the point of stupidity, and would never let anything bad happen to her. Not while he’s around. She still lies to him about killing people. Still protects him from the worst side of herself. Because he was her Stephen stand-in for all those years. Warm. Strong. Gentle.

Innocent.

With Roderick cracked, who is left to take that role?

She stares into the lifeless eyes of her sire and knows the truth: he’s more monstrous than any of the rest of their kind. How long does it take to get that way? How many hundreds of years? How old is he, or what was wrong with him in his mortal life that he turned into this?

Who hurt him?

And how had she ever thought she’d be enough to fix it?

The words from that night come back to her. “Great evil… upon this child… curse… this child.”

Him, the cursed child. The demonic presence. And he’d chosen her. What does that say about her? What does that say about what he saw inside of her? Is Caroline right, that their histories made them ideal candidates for their Embrace: beaten, weak, submissive. Or is there more to it than that?

They will kill him. Savoy, Roderick, Caroline, Pete. The whole city wants him dead. She will be the only one who misses him. The only one who mourns him.

And still he tortures her.

No practical returns, he says, as if there is nothing practical in the way that the ghoul has held her together these long years through long nights of loneliness and isolation. As if his ability to regenerate and her ability to sculpt the flesh back onto his bones will leave him down and out. As if she cares that she’ll need to slaughter a dozen people to give him what he needs to survive.

All these people around her and no one she can be herself with. Always a mask. Always another lie. Another part of her she hides to be what they want her to be, who they want her to be. Her mother’s daughter. Her father’s daughter. Donovan’s childe. Savoy’s grandchilde. Veronica’s childe. The damsel. The doctor. The healer. The helper. The liar.

Jade.

Celia.

Someone Else.

Someone Else stares out from Celia’s eyes and Jade’s face.

:: All she ever wanted was to love you. ::

The collar chafes. Even now, with her ghoul bleeding out on the ground, with the remnants of her sanity slipping away, she wants his approval. Wants him to pat her on the head. Wants him to bring her into his arms when it’s done.

And he won’t.

He never will.

He’s not that guy.

She’s not that girl.

Maybe she never was. Maybe that’s why he had taken her. Or maybe it was all an accident, and her presumed loyalty is just an advantageous byproduct. Years of watching her mother go through it and she turned out just the same: accepting his abuse because she thinks she deserves it. Broken cycle? No. Not for her.

Someone Else reaches for his sword, closing her fingers around the handle. She tugs. It’s too big for her. Too heavy. She doesn’t have much experience with swords. But who needs experience when all she’s doing is cleaving a head from a body?

She swings.

GM: The saber isn’t as heavy as perhaps she expected. Randy and Reggie only ever showed her how to practice with knives, but Emily had passed on that fact from Robbie. Robby said historic swords actually aren’t that heavy. They’re meant to be used, after all.

Then again, it’s not like she’s picking this up for a fight.

Randy’s limbless body flops onto its back. The smell of blood is so strong. She can drink from him. He’ll have delivered a vessel after all.

He was never much good at that, hunting for her.

Was never much good at a lot of stuff, next to his brothers. What the fuck was she going to use a race car driver for anyway? Cars to Mélissaire are just a hobby.

Randy flops onto his back. His face is a mosaic of raw, uncomprehending agony. Every line deepened a thousandfold. Tears stream from his bloodshot eyes. Blood freely leaks from his broken nose. He smells like piss and shit, past the blood. He looks up at Celia with wide, delirious eyes. Boy’s eyes, blue or green or hazel, once bright with life and unearned confidence. For a moment, he does not even seem to see the sword. A fragile smile touches his lips as he whispers,

“…babe…?”

Then the steel parts his head from his neck.

Blood sprays over Celia’s face.

The severed head rolls across the floor. It hits the wall with a light thump. It rolls over onto its side, fragile smile frozen eternally in place.

Boy’s eyes stare up at her.

Celia: His screams echo in her ears long after the noise itself dies.

Long after he dies.

One of the girls inside of her had once told another person how the sound of screaming is what sticks with someone when the rest of the memory has faded. How the smell of blood and the sight of gore will be the first thing to go, drifting into the obscurity of long-lost thoughts. Hazy. You can tug at it when you want, force yourself to see it again, let your brain fill in the details that you forget over the years.

But it’s the screaming that haunts your sleep. She’ll never forget the sound of his death rattle. Dozens of lives taken with her own hand and this will be the one that sticks. She’ll add it to the raw, throat-bleeding pitch her mother had reached the night Maxen sawed through her leg. The ragged, throaty gasps when she’d been transported high above the city in the arms of a monster.

Funny. He’d been there for all three of the screams in her collection.

The saber drips blood when she’s done with it. One of the girls’ mother had once said that you should clean something when you’re done with it, before you give it back. Or if it’s an empty container you fill it. Bake a pie. Make a casserole. Et cetera.

It’s just good manners.

Someone Else wipes the bloody blade across the remnants of her dress. The steel comes away gleaming. Wordlessly, she offers it back to Donovan.

GM: Her sire accepts the clean blade, opens his coat, and sheaths it in the scabbard hanging from his hip. All like she’s returning one of her mom’s rinsed-out tupperware containers.

He cups her face in his pale, mercilessly strong hands. She wonders if he could crack her skull like an egg between them.

:: You have shown strength. ::

:: I am pleased. ::

Corpse-cold lips meet hers.

Celia: Corpse-cold. Like Roderick’s now. Like Randy’s, if she were to pluck his head from the ground and press her lips against his.

No, Dicentra whispers, he was mortal. It takes longer than that for his body to cool. Randy would still be warm.

She’ll never be warm.

She’ll never sleep with him now. Seven years of promises, date finally set, and it ends with the swing of a sword.

She’ll see that fragile, broken smile every time she closes her eyes. Hear that final “…babe…” playing on loop.

Something gives.

That’s the thing about ice: it cracks under pressure.

It starts as a giggle. He touches his lips to hers and she giggles. And then she isn’t Someone Else anymore, she’s Jade and she has the sheriff in her grasp, and she’s not the passive lover that Celia had once been, letting him kiss her and leave her with nothing but a smear of blood on her lips.

Her hands seize his coat, pulling herself closer to him because she’s under no illusion that he’ll move toward her. She’s empty, but he can fill her. Her lips part beneath his brutal assault, fangs flashing. Him?

The blood.

And the whore inside of her.

She lies with her body rather than her tongue—though she lies with that too. Eager. Like nothing has changed, like it hasn’t broken. She nips at him with her fangs. He’d made her kill her boy. He will give her this.

GM: So he does.

Winter-cold fangs trail down her throat, then stab into her neck. The ice has cracked. He flows in. Strong arms seize up Celia, Jade, whoever in their grasp. Her back smashes against the wall, hard enough to crack bone. She didn’t see either of them move. Rapture shudders through her as his frigid kiss takes hold, an orgasm rippling through her neck. There’s another gory crunch. She sees his foot has stomped in Randy’s skull. The fragile smile is only half a smile. The other side of his face is blood and gore and messy shards of bone. Her sire picks it up by the hair, then pulls away from her, retracting his fangs. The bliss ends, but crimson fills her nose. A low slurp sounds as the sheriff drinks his fill from what’s left of Randy. Holding it out for her, too, to claim her fill.

Waste not, want not.

Celia: Waste not.

She would have had her fill later. But she’s pleased that he offers. That they’re sharing a meal together.

It’s all so normal.

The collar she had tugged so hard at earlier this evening suddenly doesn’t feel so tight anymore.

Suspended in the air with her sire’s body holding her up, her legs around his waist and back against the wall, all she has to do is lean in to move her fangs from her sire to Randy’s corpse. She does so, the already-cooling blood a familiar taste across her tongue. She meets his eyes over their shared “vessel.” There’s something inherently intimate about drinking together.

She’s not done with him when it’s over. When they drain the body she leans in to lick the blood from his lips and the sound she makes isn’t entirely human.

It’s a feline sound. A purr. Her whole form vibrates with the sound, eyes alight in sated desire.

She was never so bold with him before. She always let him lead, only accepted what he offered. Tonight, though, she took what she wanted.

She doesn’t wiggle when they’re done, content to hold the position against him. She rests a cheek on his shoulder.

He said he’d hear everything. That he’d see everything. Was he in her head? Or lying about it? Or following, invisible, undetected by either of them? No wonder he prefers the mind to mind contact. She should learn.

If he was, though, then she doesn’t need to waste his time repeating it.

And Roderick… she doesn’t know how to fix him, but she won’t betray him by actively spilling about him. She’d done that once and look where she’d ended up for it: with a boyfriend as fucked in the head as she is. Unbalanced. He’d told her to drop the scared woman act, but those hands around her throat had been too convincing, too similar to another raging Brujah, to leave her as anything other than distinctly nervous.

He said she could trust him. It goes both ways.

GM: Her sire drinks what’s left of Randy with her. He picks up each of the ghoul’s four severed limbs, sucks from them like drumsticks while she does the same, then tosses them aside once they’re spent. Randy’s torso gets the same treatment. The neck is still the best place to feed. Her sire rolls up his sleeve, extends the blade from her bracer, and carves open Randy’s chest. There’s even more to drink there. He pries open the ribcage with his pale, brutally strong fingers, and squeezes the heart to make the blood flow.

They drain what’s left of her ghoul until nothing remains.

Her sire lets the exsanguinated body parts hit the floor like emptied beer cans.

Perhaps, on another occasion, they might fuck all night long.

But sharing a meal is nice.

For Jade. For Someone Else.

Celia alone feels for what’s become of Randy.

Feels enough to tug against the collar.

To tug, and tug, and tug until—

But that’s not a face she can wear. Those aren’t thoughts she can think. Not here.

Her other selves can handle this.

It’s like she said to Clairmont.

They keep her safe.

It’s her sire who finally breaks contact. Randy’s hand gorily crunches apart under the uncaring tread of his feet as he makes his way to the sink. He cleans the blood from his waterproofed coat.

Celia: It’s the heart that makes her realize maybe they are cut from the same cloth after all. When he rips open the chest with no regard for the fact that it was once a living, breathing person and drains the blood, squeezing the heart to get out every last drop. She can almost forget that it’s Randy, caught up in appreciating that they have a similar style of consumption.

But only almost.

Reggie had done something similar last night, when she’d drained the mortal and the thin-blood. Stomped across them. She’d thought it was hot when he’d done it. Had turned it into a flirty little game. “Make me cum right when he dies.”

It’s less fun when it’s her ghoul who died. Her boy who is trod upon.

She watches the brisk, meticulous movements of her sire. She almost offers the shower in the other room, idly wondering what he looks like beneath the coat. She’s never seen. Just the forearm. Like some sort of Victorian-era ankle glimpse.

GM: He cleans the blood from that same forearm. It may as well be chiseled from white stone for all the life and fleshy softness that Celia sees.

He cleans the blood from his bracer. She had wondered if he would care what the leather was made from, then decided he would not.

Her sire finishes, then strides towards the door.

Celia: She had told Roderick to trust her. And her sire had said he will know everything. A waste, isn’t it, to repeat what he already knows? Will he think that she doubts him? That she doesn’t believe him capable of attaining it?

He’s capable. He knows. He has to know.

…unless he doesn’t know. If he didn’t hear. If he wasn’t in her head the whole time.

She has so many questions, and the taste on her tongue tells her that now is the time. But first… she has to tell. Her heart demands it. She cannot sit idly by while a threat to her sire looms in the darkness.

:: He’s going to try to kill you. ::

GM: :: He will die. ::

Celia:: :: He’s bringing friends. ::

It’s not that she doesn’t think he can handle them. It’s that she’s concerned. For him. And for the boy she used to know.

:: He wants me to help. ::

The offer is implicit: to keep abreast of their plans.

GM: :: Do so. ::

Celia: She nods.

:: Report? Or wait until after Savoy? ::

She’d rather not waste his time by making him meet with her twice, but she’ll have a better idea of things after she meets with his sire.

GM: :: Wait. ::

Celia: Celia nods. She waits a beat, putting aside the things that she will share with him on their next rendezvous. Still, fragments of thoughts race through her mind, things that demand her attention. Things that demand his attention. Wait, he said.

But the collar tugs. Celia stops fighting it.

:: Saw Malveaux-Devillers again. Recon. Threatened ‘Jade.’ Said she has ‘ended older and more powerful licks.’ Said she took on many at once. Wouldn’t have paid it much attention—bragging—but Savoy and Preston said she’s lethal. ::

There’s a momentary pause. Celia knows her sire can handle himself. But it’s a nagging feeling. Souls for power. Like mother, like daughter.

:: She’s suspicious of you. Said she’s going away soon. Might make a move against you with time limited as it is. She met with Savoy. ::

Apprehension gnaws at her. Souls for power. Secret. She’s not supposed to know.

:: Something is strange there. Friend, prior to my Embrace, warned me her mother isn’t human. Saw him again, ghost. Was collecting souls for Devillers matriarch. Savoy told me… clan that consumes souls. Souls for power. ::

She doesn’t say the word. She can’t say the word.

:: Lebeaux said it’s the blackest sort of magic. ::

She waits again. Then, her voice faint in his mind,

:: Malveaux-Devillers said it. Knows about the act. Souls for power. ::

GM: Her sire’s frigid gaze bores into Celia.

He does not speak.

Then:

:: Caroline Malveaux-Devillers is now the prime suspect in the bishop’s disappearance. ::

Celia: Celia does not flinch before her sire’s gaze. Perhaps even more intimate than his fangs in her neck is his eyes on hers.

But his voice in her head… that is certainly news. It fits, doesn’t it? Older, stronger. Ended. She took his soul? Celia hadn’t thought he was dead, only disappeared.

Is she going after his allies? That’s the rumor, that the bishop would have been Donovan’s seneschal. Even Roderick had heard that one.

Her lips press together. She does not like this idea of people after her sire. She does not want that self-serving, conniving cunt to eat her way into power, or to cheat her way into besting the sheriff so that she can consume his soul. He is hers, just as she is his. Celia pushes the anger aside. There is no room here for anger, only a steady flow of information. She sends him the images of Caroline’s rooftop, the Giani Building, with her retinue of armed guards. How many had been there with Jade? Too many. Too many guns. Tight security. Assault rifles aimed at the elevator, a funnel and death trap.

The ghouls. Roger’s face. Whitney’s. The seasonal one, Winter or Spring or… Autumn, that’s it. The bald one. The other men and women she surrounds herself with, some of them unblooded. Her security team.

A pause, then another slew of images. The inside of an elevator, floor number selected. A hallway. A door, a number on the door. Caroline’s haven. The layout Celia had been shown during her time with the girl.

No doubt Caroline had kept more secrets from her, but this, at least, will give her sire some idea of what to expect.

GM: Her sire is silent as he receives the telepathic flow of intelligence.

:: The bishop was last seen upon the night of March 7th, PM. Investigate Malveaux-Devillers’ whereabouts and activities upon this night and subsequent nights. Investigate the same for these ghouls and kine. If she is guilty, she will suspect investigation by the Guard de Ville that she will not suspect from you. ::

Celia: :: Yes, sire. ::

She will help find the bishop’s killer. He was not her friend, but he was her sire’s. That is enough for her.

His lack of anger at her reveal—souls for power—gives her an opening to press further. She does.

:: Can it be undone? Safeguarded against? ::

There’s a book about a teenage boy who had a fragment of someone else’s soul inside of him. It prevented the owner of the soul from ever really dying until all the fragments of his soul had been destroyed. Their kind has shed their mortal coils… but souls, those can be split, can’t they? Diana’s had been. Her father’s had been. Was that what it was, a fragment of her sire’s soul inside of Maxen? And Paul… the bloodshot eyes, that hiss.

GM: :: Yes. ::

:: Savoy and his agents are otherwise the primary suspects. Ascertain whether his hand was involved. Peter Lebeaux and Rongeur would have been directly involved in the assassination cover-up if the task was not outsourced to third parties. Ascertain these individuals’ activities and whereabouts upon March 7th. ::

:: I have already investigated Peter Lebeaux’s activities. He has an alibi. You will corroborate it. ::

Celia: Yes what? That it can be undone? Prevented? Is he protected?

Celia nods at his orders—she needs to speak to Lebeaux anyway, and the other is… well, he’s something—but isn’t willing to let the other subject drop. If he were anyone but who he is she would touch a hand to his cheek, step into the circle of his arms, tell him… tell him what burns inside of her heart. But he is who he is.

:: Are you protected against it? And if not… can I assist? ::

He’s a big boy. He can handle himself. But what she feels for him? That pushes her.

GM: :: Malveaux-Devillers will be framed for the bishop’s destruction if she is not guilty and apprehended for it if she is. Cause problems for her. Cause problems for her allies. Poison Kindred against her. Poison Savoy’s followers against her. Discover the nature of her meeting with my sire. Undermine its fruits, if any. ::

:: Do not yet leak the truth of her sire. It will draw other Kindred to her banner. Leak that she is Matheson’s bastard. ::

:: The Anarchs despise me. You may approach them where I may not. They bear no love for her. Turn them further against her. ::

Celia: She will. She has been. These are good plans, all of them. She has friends in the Anarchs, as he says, and can turn them away from her. But none of that matters if Caroline makes some play against him. Roderick had said she’s alone, friendless, desperate.

:: Yes, sire. I will. As you say. In addition to what you said… I’d thought to frame her for a breach of the Masquerade. With my ability. ::

He knows what ability. And Harlequin is supposed to be neutral. So is the Krewe of Janus. If no one knows who Caroline is there’s no reason not to take her out if she’s so sloppy that she’s making rookie mistakes, especially if she’s Matheson’s bastard. His is the most hated name in the city these nights.

GM: Moments pass. Her sire’s face remains as opaque as ever.

:: Do so. ::

:: Harlequin suspects she is more than she appears. The mistake must stem from arrogance or misfortune. Not ignorance. ::

:: Harlequin sees through many deceptions. Ensure he is not the Krewe member to personally respond or investigate. ::

Celia: That long silence makes her wonder if she overstepped. If her offer to blatantly breach the Masquerade as Caroline sounds… stupid. But she waits for a rebuke that never comes. He gives her guidance instead.

She wonders for a moment if she will ever be this capable and intelligent. If she will ever be as conniving as her sire and grandsire. If she will ever be able to pull the strings and be as manipulative as her grandsire—because while she’s perfectly capable of pushing around a thin-blood and a neonate, she knows that he has pulled off things on a much larger scale than she’s ever considered. Her sire, too.

What she’d give to be able to learn from him.

:: Yes, sire. I understand. ::

A tall order to take on Caroline on her own if she has been practicing that sort of soul stealing. If she has truly ended licks that old and powerful. Celia has never been a fighter; this will be a war from the shadows, cloak and dagger and poison smiles.

:: If she did as you said… if she took his soul for power… you know whose childe she is. How strong her blood. Stronger, with his death. ::

Her eyes search his face. She doesn’t doubt him. But desperation can turn even the lowliest hare into a fighter.

Celia finally reaches out. She touches her hand to his chest, just above where his heart should beat. His chest is cold and still beneath her palm.

:: She’s feral. Desperate. Willing to take on whoever, whatever. You know the rumors about her and Meadows. She can’t afford to be sloppy again. ::

He’s stronger than her. Stronger than she has ever been. Every time he has touched her she has marveled at it, at the restraint he shows, at how easily he could crush her with barely a thought. He can handle himself. But still she worries. Still she recoils from the idea of him losing, his soul consumed, lost to her forever.

:: If there is a way to prevent it… name it, the price, name it and I’ll do it. Whatever it is. For you, I’ll do it. ::

She has been his since the moment he entered her life.

:: I won’t take chances. Not with you. ::

GM: Celia would.

She would pay any price.

Anything to keep him safe.

Anything to keep his soul his own.

Surely he sees that.

Perhaps he does.

Her sire turns away.

He steps out into the rain.

Then he’s gone in an eyeblink.

Celia: He’s there.

Then he’s not.

Her heart lurches at his abrupt departure. Unsaid words linger in her mind. She only wanted to help. Of course she thinks he can take care of himself. And he has always taken care of her. The hunters. The dollhouse. He has looked out for her, slain enemies for her, hunted down the hunters for her.

She’d only wanted to return the favor.

Celia pulls her phone from her pocket, scrolling through her list of contacts until she finds three letters: MCH. She taps a quick message, warning him to stay alert near CO, that she expects trouble. It’s an old code between part time lovers, if they could even be called that. After it’s sent she slips the phone back into her pocket.

She doesn’t care how little the chance of his demise, she would do anything to reduce it to zero. To ensure his survival, no matter what.

Her Requiem means nothing if he’s not with her.

I love you, she thinks, and the skies weep at the silence.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, PM

Celia: There’s little enough time for her to do any of the fifteen tasks she would like to do before Elysium starts. She’d like to skip it, if she’s being honest with herself, but fuck if she doesn’t want to hear about not being there again. And with Roderick pissed at her, who is going to tell her what she missed? He’s going to be like every other lick, determining how useful she is to him or dropping her like last month’s old news.

So she multitasks.

She starts stripping the body—body, she has to think of it like a body, not like the living, breathing person he once was, not the warm boy she’d shielded from the worst sides of herself, not the boy she had planned on falling into bed with tonight because she needs the comfort—

She can’t think about what she’s doing.

It’s a body. Like anyone else on her table. She reduces who he was to a series of muscles, bones, tendons. That’s all he is now. That’s all he can be or she’s going to start spiraling down a dark path that she can’t—she can’t, she can’t, she can’t.

For one long moment she closes her eyes, breathing in hard through her nose. It still doesn’t do anything for her. She gets back to work.

And while she works she calls his brother.

GM: “Yeah?” he asks after picking up.

Celia: “Hey.” What do you say to someone whose twin you just killed? Triplet. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know yet. She has time. It’s just a body.

“Manage to catch up with your friend today?”

GM: “Yep. You want me to stop by?”

Celia: “I don’t have time. Have to meet someone. Can meet you after?”

GM: “Randy couldn’t find a pizza he was okay with. I’d scoped out a million places. Fucking idiot.”

Celia: “Oh. I was wondering what happened there.”

“Forgot how picky he is.”

GM: “Randy happened.”

Celia: Is. Not was. That’s good. Good cover.

GM: “He’s just such an idiot.”

Celia: “He was helpful today, though? With your friend?”

GM: “Yeah, he was okay there. How’s in a couple hours?”

“Flawless or LegalWings, whatever.”

Celia: “Sure. I’ll give you a buzz. You guys still hanging?”

GM: “Who, Randy?”

Celia: “No, your buddy.”

GM: “He’s an idiot, but he’s not going anywhere.”

“Brother and all.”

Celia: “Meant your friend,” she says with a laugh. “I didn’t know if it was an all day affair. I assume Randy isn’t going anywhere.”

That’s natural, right?

Is it?

Would she say that?

GM: “No way, with how obsessed with you he is. You’ll be the death of him.”

Celia: Yeah.

She will.

GM: “We aren’t, anyway. Had to take off.”

Celia: “Oh?”

GM: The clock is ticking.

Celia: “Never mind, tell me later.”

“I’ll see you in a bit.”

GM: “A’ight. I’ll fuck your brains out.”

Celia: “Looking forward to it.”

GM: Click.

Celia: There isn’t much left of Randy to strip into parts. She’s done with him by the time the call ends, already reaching for a spare set of clothes so she can get home, change, and head to Elysium. She pulls the battery out of his phone and takes a spare minute to delete the security footage showing his appearance. Then she’s out the door with the rest of his personal effects to dispose of them.

She has a feeling it’s going to be a long night.

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Julius I
Next, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XVII, Julius II

Previous, by Character: Story Thirteen, Celia XV
Next, by Character: Story Thirteen, Celia XVII, Julius II

“You cain’t swim ‘gainst its current, as dat don’t woik. No, yo gotta dive in, dive in all da way an’ make yo own melodic waves, make ‘em so gud an’ shugah-sweet da river cain’t help but swim wid yoself.”
Julius B. Baudoin

---

Thursday night, 25 February 2016, PM

GM: The trombone echoes over the Mississippi’s dark waters, long, slow, and mournful.

Brother I’m hungry
I can’t afford to eat
Brother it’s cold outside
Living rough on the streets

---

---

GM: Julius’ landlord hasn’t asked him to “play for Misha Sipokni” in a little while. He hasn’t had to. The musician is perfectly happy to play for the river himself. His father and grandfather worked the shipyards. He served in the Coast Guard. So much of his present empire is water-borne. He owes much to the river, or at least the Atlantic. He is glad his landlord seemingly recognizes that fact, or at least holds his own respect for the Mississippi, and still asks Julius to demonstrate his respect for the river from time to time.

In the land of milk and honey
Its hard to understand
Them that hold the power
In the palm of their hand

It’s easier rent than his other tasks.

It’s an easier task than tonight.

And have no comprehension
Of what it means to be
Standing at the mercy
Of begging and defeat

They say music soothes the savage beast. Julius has yet to see if it can soothe the savage Beast, at least tonight.

His people had disappointing reports. The long-awaited deal with the Vietnamese Triad fell through. The promised organ shipment was seized by law enforcement agents. Now the precious, life-rich organs are who knows where—nowhere that Julius can feast upon them. And there have been no recent funerals in Algiers. The kine aren’t dying fast enough. The subject came up, once, with his other patron. The infrequency of jazz funerals. The older vampire had smiled his supple fanged smile and told Julius that the kine are like bugs as well as cattle. Sure, their lifespan is infinitesimal compared to yours. But you usually can’t wait for them to die, when their imminent deaths suit your needs. It’s not practical.

No, he’d said. When they get in your ear, when they buzz and they need to die, you need to squash them.

And when a predator hungers, they cannot hope to stumble upon prey already dead.

So all you unworthy sinners
Without a pin to your name
Looking up at someone new
Writes the rules to the game

Twice-cursed, some have called him.

Curse enough to hunger for blood.

How much greater is the curse to hunger for flesh as well? The kine will not part with that so easily.

So Julius, twice-cursed, broods before the river.

And plays.

But we stand with no one among us
And watch without a tear
What’s becoming of our brothers
Every time, every time that we hear

The lyrics are from Family Dinner—Volume 2, by jazz fusion group Snarky Puppy, released only a month or so ago.

Brother I’m hungry
I can’t afford to eat
Brother it’s cold outside
Living rough on the streets

Yet, as Julius’ mighty lungs pump the trombone’s mournful music into the night air, he is not without an audience tonight.


The big cat’s tread is utterly silent. Julius does not hear the creature approach. He only sees it—and only, he is certain, because it wishes to be seen.

Qua. His landlord’s favorite servant. Perhaps more than him.

After all, the last reported sighting of a wild jaguar in Louisiana was in June 1886. Qua is quite possibly the last of his kind. A relic of the past preserved into the present through his undying master’s blood.

Caitiff, on the other hand, remain all too abundant.

The great cat silently sits down on its haunches.

Then it speaks. Its voice is soft and faint, like a ripple over the Mississippi at midnight, but with a distinctly feline undercurrent. Like a low growl.

“Therrre is a trespasserrr rrrithin my domain.”

“Rrremove him and yourrr corrrvée this rrrreek rrrill be fulfilled.”

The jaguar bares its teeth, so very long and sharp, and for a moment Julius thinks it means to attack. But the creature instead hacks a glob of blood over the ground. The coppery tang, event faint as it is, assails Julius’ nose and sends his Beast hungrily pacing behind its cage.

The cat speaks again.

“Taste it and you rrrill knorr the rrray to him.”

Julius: Behind Julius, the Mississippi sings its old familiar song, its waves a moonlit cascade of drum brushes softly caressing the snare-drum shoreline. He hears it, smells it, and feels it in his bones. But the blood before him… its notes burn brighter, louder, hotter. A soloing trumpet that cuts through city’s nighttime cacophony.

Following those notes, Julius sets down his trombone—tonight’s is a purple plastic affair he played on K&B’s ‘97 swan-song float—and approaches. At home inside “Algiers Pernt”, Julius has shed his faux-Zegna pinstripe and Uggo Vasare wingtips for a faded tee emblazoned with Circinus’ OPEC-era logo, baggy gym shorts, and knockoff Yeezy hightops. So dressed, he half-creeps, half-saunters towards the deadly, rosette-furred beast, carefully eyeing it through his counterfeit Gucci aviators. Glancing away only briefly to check the time on his Fauxlex Submariner, he then squats down before the globule and hums more to Misha Sipokni than to Qua.

“Awrite, I’ll lookit wot da cat dragged in den.”

Still, he gives the beast a respectful chin-nod before pinching the sanguine glob between his fingers.

Julius never needed his mama to tell him twice to eat his turnip greens, and he sure doesn’t need a cat to tell him twice to drink blood.

And so, without further ado, he sucks down the globule like a crawfish’s head.

GM: The taste hits him like a crawdaddy’s closing pincers.

Red.

Hot.

Heady.

And like a tune in a jazz musician’s heart, there’s something inside Julius that wants out.

The Caitiff forces it down with all his will, wrestling the Beast back into its cage. He cannot lose it against his landlord’s favorite pet. Whoever wins that fight, he still loses.

Like so much else that comes with being clanless.

Lose even if you win.

But the struggle is not an easy one. He feels his fangs protruding in his mouth. He hears the Beast roaring in his ears. He feels its claws raking the bars of its cage with every moment the vitae’s taste lingers on his tongue. That undeniable Brujah fire, even weak-blooded as it is. Julius hungers. His Beast hungers. He wants more.

But he doesn’t want just blood. Oh no.

No, there has only ever been one thing that can truly slake Julius’ hunger.

Not thirst.

Never thirst.

The jaguar, meanwhile, stares at Julius in that patiently knowing way only cats can. The beast flicks its tail once, then bounds off into the night.

But the Caitiff smells it.

From a thousand miles away.

An irresistible pull towards the rest of that blood.

Julius: Julius staggers as his tongue burns like noon-day asphalt. He grinds his jaws, as if trying to crush the itch he has to scratch. But the bruxism only makes it worse. The desire to gnash, rip, and chew. The hunger.

He steps back, and forces himself to turn towards the river. Away from where Qua sat, and away from the lingering aroma of its tantalizingly vitae-soaked organs. He knows he could follow that scent trail, or at least he could try. But his hunger hasn’t stripped him of all sanity, not yet at least. After all, he has another scent trail to follow, whose source promises a similarly visceral temptation—and one he can literally taste. He can’t deny the Beast inside his soul, but he can redirect it.

Picking up his trombone, he pauses briefly to regarding Ol’ Miss and her unceasing, yet ever-changing song. “It’s jass,” he murmurs like liquid thunder, “you don’t fight da rhythm, no. You cain’t swim ‘gainst its current, as dat don’t woik. No, yo gotta dive in, dive in all da way an’ make yo own melodic waves, make ‘em so gud an’ shugah-sweet da river cain’t help but swim wid yoself.”

The sentiment makes him smile. It’s a hungry smile. Hot and growling, but still a smile.

That smile lingers as the former Bleu Devil dimeback turns again—this time toward his quarry. His prey.

“Jass-time, it is den.”

And with that happy, hungry thought, the predator dances off into the darkness.

---

Thursday night, 25 February 2016, PM

GM: Julius dances through the night, and the ‘melody’ carries him along.

It’s like any dance, when good music is playing.

You just have to open your heart and let the music do the dancing for you.

Papa Juju’s sharp nose carries him through the homey pubs, small art galleries, and quaint Creole cottages of Algiers Point, until he reaches the border and its barbed wire fence. Security guards look askance when he wants to leave for the well-to-do neighborhood’s safety for the urban junglescape beyond, but they don’t stop him. It’s his funeral.

Or, if he has anything to say, someone else’s.

It’s just too bad theirs probably won’t get a jazz band.

Algiers Point is a neighborhood within a neighborhood. The divide becomes apparent the moment Julius crosses Opelousas Avenue. On one side of the six-foot wall, there are immaculately maintained 150-year-old homes. Almost every resident is white. On the other side, Julius sees boards and tarps over broken windows, graffiti ranging from gang tags to crudely-etched genitalia, trash littering the streets, and run-down homes that look like Katrina hit them yesterday. Practically everyone here is black. The occasional gunshot and car alarm provides a soundtrack.

One side is ’hood. The other is suburbs. Total opposites. Muddy and clean.

Julius: Julius breathes in the muddy scent. It smells like home—because it is. He would love to carouse in this jungle, his jungle, but his tongue still burns with the siren-hot tang of the Brujah’s blood. And then there’s the Hunger.

It’s like an old school phone constantly ringing in his head. He doesn’t dare pick up, not here, not now, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t rip the cord out of its jack. It just keeps ringing. And ringing. And ringing.

“Damn gooks,” he grouses at the organ-belated Triad.

GM: Julius traipses through the familiar urban jungle. Few people are visible on the streets at this late hour, and few of them for any good purpose.

His own included.

He follows his nose like a broke musician chasing his promised pay.

But unlike a musician, his payday soon materializes.

He’s a Latino man in maybe his late 20s with a shaved head. He looks awful. His throat has a mass of uneven, savage scars, like it was torn apart by a wild animal, and there’s a deep-looking gash on one side of his neck. His wifebeater and pants are spattered with dried blood, but they do nothing to detract from his bulging biceps, ripped chest, and full-sleeve tattoos of a skull-faced woman with chains for hair. A gold cross glints from around his neck, along with a necklace threaded through two vampire-sized fangs. His knuckles are thick and scarred.

And, Julius can tell at a glance, they are Kindred.


Rage and pain waft off him like the Mississippi’s stench off a foolish swimmer. His eyes are enormous and bloodshot, and his fangs distended. But he does not move rashly. He’s creeping behind a one-story single-family house. Getting a look through the windows.

Julius: The sight of the trespasser caught mid-poaching in his hood enrages the already hunger-grated Caitiff. And the bloody scent of him… it just makes matters worse. Far worse.

Julius almost charges like it’s 4th down in Dillard Stadium, and the Latino just caught the pigskin. But the taste on Julius’ tongue reminds him of the trespasser’s clan: Brujah. If the tattooed thug knows the secrets of velocitas, then a blitz by the Caitiff likely won’t lead to a sack. Or a meal. And Julius—and his Beast—wants that meal ticket. Badly.

Thus, the hunter uses his damned blood to transform into a far smaller, stealthier predator, hoping to slink up and ambush the distracted Brujah.

Bones shrink. Skin follows with it, hardening to leathery scales. Limbs twist and contort, joints bending at new angles, and a tail sprouts. Only the fanged smile remains, though its number of fangs have multipled.

So transformed into a baby alligator, Julius hungrily creeps across the dog-piss-stained grass, using whatever foliage exists to conceal his approach.

GM: And so distracted by his own hunger, the tattooed Brujah appears not to notice the nearby and stealthily concealed young alligator.

That’s when he finishes jimmying with the window and lifts it up to slip inside.

Julius: And that’s when the cute but unseen baby gator transforms in the blink of an eye, not only rapidly accelerating in a fully grown bull, but also making a species-lateral metamorphosis from a Alligator mississippiensis into a Crocodylus acutus. The massive 15-foot American crocodile—seldom seen along the northern Gulf Coast—weighs close to a ton and has a 3,700 psi bite strength—the strongest of any living animal.

But this croc isn’t living.

But he’s hungry all the same.

Hungrier, actually, especially now that he is so very, very close to his already bloodied prey.

The phone’s ring is deafening now. So loud and demanding that it rings itself right off the receiving and pours out its salivating music. It’s hot, like when Julius finally directs his funeral band to cease its sombre melodies and “cut loose the corpse”. Except in this case, he’s the corpse. Or maybe the Brujah is. Either way, the Beast is free, and it enjoys its superhumanly strong, inhumanly large puppet.

So possessed, the 1-ton croc bull lunges at the unsuspecting Brujah with a wide-open maw. He half-hisses, half-growls as that maw frighteningly bites down with steel-shattering strength, fangs clamping onto and into the Brujah’s organ-rich torso.

GM: The crocodile feels something beneath it. Hard. Painful. But not debilitating. It doesn’t matter. It moves like a ghost.

One moment it’s crawling towards its prey. The next, its great jaws are clamping onto flesh. Bliss floods its mouth, hot and red and so much more of it, than the mere taste the juzz musician got. The crocodile will not settle for a mere taste. It’ll have it all.

Julius: Consumed by that sanguine fixation, the undead croc’s rational brain is clocked off, leaving dumb instinct to drive the cockpit. That instinct—which is part gridiron and part crocodilian—attempts to sweep the Brujah off his feet. But takedowns require arms, and death-rolls need water. All in all, it’s an awkward, ungainly set of reptilian movements that devolves into sod, tearing thrashing. Throughout it all though, the massive croc never releases its jaws, but merely continues to savagely bite down with cement-crushing force. More and more. Drinking, swallowing. More and more. Caring not what abuse it receives, only what gore it can gorge on. It closes its eyes, shielding its orbs underneath hard scales and just savors each swallow. More and more. It’s what the Beast wants. More and more. And that’s all that matters now. And maybe all that ever did. Or will.

GM: Abuse it receives—and dispenses—in spades.

To witness the death roll of a crocodile is to witness sheer power and force. Julius saw that firsthand, when he drained the beast and consumed its life to steal its shape. Crocodiles will “build up” before the roll; almost like the way sprinters tense up before bounding off into the race. He remembers how he could actually feel the crocodile as it tensed up. And when it exploded, like his mawla told him, he either wanted to be very far away from it—or on top of it. Preferably with other people piled up on it.

And being far away wasn’t an option.

It isn’t for the Brujah, either.

Massive jaws seize and tear as the crocodile tucks its legs in and rolls as best it can on dry land, shredding through muscle and bone. Flesh as well as blood vanishes down the great reptile’s gullet. Distantly, the crocodile registers blows raining down upon it, crushingly hard and brutally fast, one after another after another. Bones snap. The crocodile knows pain.

But it does not care. It just holds fast onto with its great jaws, tucks its legs, and rolls. Death roll is aptly named, for the crocodile’s roll can only end in one death—predator’s or prey’s.

No. That’s not true.

It can’t only end in one death.

The red haze eventually recedes, like it always does. The Man wins out over the Beast, like it always does—until the Beast returns.

Everything hurts. Everywhere. Everything is broken. Agony screams through the crocodile’s shattered bones as it tries to move. Knocked-out fangs litter the floor.

Agony screams through the crocodile’s jaws as it tries to open them. It can’t. It hurts too much. The Brujah snapped its upper jaw clean in half. It might never use it again, if the crocodile’s blood ran merely cold, and not room temperature.

The beast might never leave this place alive, if only it lived.

But it does not live.

And for all its pains and torments, its adversary has fared worse.

What’s left is barely recognizable as the Latino man it once was—there’s nothing left but shredded meat and equally shattered bone. The crocodile cannot even make out the face. Even the full sleeve tattoos on the bulging muscles are gone, sent to fill the beast’s hungry gullet. Only the pungent scent of the meat’s blood indicates it was once more (or less) than human.

But something is amiss.

Maybe it’s the coppery scent of the blood spattering the bedroom’s when did they get inside?) walls. The weak, piss-like stuff against the liquid fire that flows in the veins of Troile’s childer.

But more obvious is the extra leg—a dark-skinned leg, not a Latino man’s paler leg—lying in a grisly, silent heap at the food of a bed. There’s a sock on the leg. A simple white sock with a black stripe around the top.

Around where calf should connect to thigh is shredded flesh and naked bone lying in a pool of steadily spreading red.

The crocodile feels heavy.

And very, very full.

Julius: The croc bull gives a gluttonous belch that sours into a pain-wracked hiss. With the Beast sated—for now—Julius wills his gore-fed vitae to flow through his undead flesh in a restorative torrent that heals him and makes the agony recede in one scarlet wave.

As the red fog of Beast and pain twice-over wane, the croc regards anew his surroundings. And his victims, both intended and not.

He also scents the air, scanning for survivors and witnesses. As hellish as his home is, Julius knows that the screams of the crocodile-slaughtered are not regular contributors to Algiers’ night-track.

GM: Julius knows his people well… but not enough to identify them by just their feet. There is so little of his meal left.

He looks like he is in a bedroom. Or at least what’s left of one.

Everything has been completely trashed by the two vampires’ midnight battle.

Julius: The croc quickly scans the rest of the room, and the area outside it. He waddles, searching for portraits on the walls, nightstands, or otherwise, even as he tries to recall the home’s owners by its address. The rising guilt isn’t like the raging Beast’s hunger, but it’s gnawing on him all the same. Time is fleeting, but his half-dead conscious compels him to look. He doesn’t expect he’ll like any answer he finds—which is why he has to know.

Yet, even at the same time, the croc’s mind touches all it sees, gauging whether he thinks he could reasonably pass off the slaughter and destruction on a real, living croc. A bizarre, freak tragedy, yes, but a ‘natural’ one all the same. After all, Dashonte had told his cut-krewe plenty of tales of loose anacondas slithering into Floridian homes and swallowing whole families. Then again, maybe those were just urban legends—or Masquerade cover-ups…

GM: That’s when the door bursts open.

The crocodile lurches to the side as the baseball bat smashes down against the carpeted floor with a resounding crack. The holder is a man. Black. Middle-aged. Dressed in pajamas. His face is a mask of shock, incredulity, and horror—but above all, it’s two things.

Rage.

Grief.

The man bellows another wordless scream and swings the bat back towards the croc’s head.

Julius: Inside that croc’s head, Julius’ psyche recognizes the man. Yes, he’s the electrician who just finished wiring up one of Julius’ newest local businesses, an Algereen po’ boy bistro called The Sandwich Machine. Which definitely makes this Lamarque St, and the man… Townes, something Townes. Chaquille? Darius? Lamonte? Perhaps it would be easier to remember if the man wasn’t presently trying to brain Julius with a bat—just as it might be easier if most of the the man’s family wasn’t inside Julius’ belly.

Either way, it’s past time for Julius to leave. And not just to protect the Masquerade, but to avoid his neighbor from waking the now slumbering Beast inside the croc and subsequently buying a one-way ticket to see his family—or what’s left of them.

Grief sits heavy in the croc’s soul, almost as heavy as the bloody organs in his gut, but he quickly turns, away from Townes and towards Carlos. Or what remains of the Brujah. Julius snatches that hunk in his crocodilian maw and then attempts to flee.

GM: What’s left of Carlos is like a rag doll in the crocodile’s massive jaws. The beast rapidly clambers up the windowsill, dives through, and flees into the night. The crack of a baseball bat echoes behind him, along with Townes’ raw cries. The bereaved electrician chases after the crocodile, barefoot and clad only sleepwear as he runs down the street with his brandished bat. He screams and curses for his neighbors to come help him. To “stop the gator!” He sounds like a lunatic.

But Townes is but a man. He cannot keep up. Even normal crocodiles can out-sprint healthy human males by around 5 mph, and Julius knows this is no ordinary crocodile. Perhaps, in some part of his soul, Townes does too.

Townes shouts after the beast, a raw-throated and wordless sound bereft of any meaning save pain—and challenge. But the monster is gone like a half-remembered nightmare. Townes is but a barefoot man in pajamas, screaming into the night at the top of his lungs.

For a long moment, he just stares ahead.

Then he collapses to his knees.

And he weeps.

Helpless.

Impotent.

Kine.

Clanless Julius may be.

But for all that his own kind might scorn his vitae, he is still a child of Caine.

He is still a lord of the night.

He is still a predator.

And these kine shall ever be his prey.

Julius: These kine

These people. His people.

Clanless, Julius may be, but he is not without a community. He knows from whence he’s come. More saliently, his relationship with the mortals in his domain is very different than that of most Kindred’s. And that difference has naught to do with Julius’ clanlessness, but rather all to do with his diet.

Namely, Julius’ peculiar appetites mean that he, by and large, does not feed from those within his domain. Thus, he does not look upon the mortals in his community as kine, or cattle being maintained for the slaughter. A mortal man might eat his cat and derive sustenance, but a sane one does not keep and maintain a cat for such a purpose. Ergo, he wouldn’t regard one as food, but rather as a source of affection, idle amusement, and perhaps even companionship and love. As such, the creature would be viewed as worthy of protection and care—not the same afforded to oneself or one’s kin, but a relationship invoking duty and responsibility all the same. And should a sane man by unfortunate accident or urgency kill and eat such a ‘pet’…

And so, as Julius flees westward along Lamarque, passing Teche and Brooklyn on his way to the river, such thoughts sit uneasily in his soul.

The gore inside his crocodilian stomach, however, rests just fine.

Which makes Julius not just a predator—but a monster.

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XV
Next, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XVI

Previous, by Character: -
Next, by Character: Story Thirteen, Celia XVII, Julius II

“Just say you slept with him. Say you gave me your leftovers, say that our entire relationship was built on a lie.”
Celia Flores

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: Dani is gone when Celia wakes up, but she’s left a note saying she’s at Diana’s house for the dinner with Henry. That’s still on.

There’s no texts from Roderick.

There’s one from Alana, though, about how much she misses Celia.

Dinner is pretty soon, and already a later one by kine standards. Any hunting looks like it will take place after that’s over.

There’s a text from her mom, though, saying she’s also prepared a helping of “your new favorite food! :)” to serve tonight.

Celia: She didn’t expect a message from Roderick. She tells herself it’s okay. He’d done this once when they were kine, too. Didn’t answer. Then just showed up. Maybe he’s doing that again.

She tries to ignore the fact that it’s the night her mom was kidnapped.

Celia keeps scrolling, looking for an answer from Mel. She checks in on the boys while she’s at it.

GM: Mel has responded in an affirmative, Put you on the schedule.

Reggie says there’s good news and asks where and when she wants to meet.

Celia: She breathes a sigh of relief on both counts.

Her mother gets a heart response back. Alana does as well. Reggie gets a comment about after dinner.

She should have time before Elysium, she thinks.

Speaking of time… not much to waste before she’s late. She rises, showers, and dresses, keeping it elegant but casual. A nice dress. Nothing crazy. Nothing that Jade would wear, but still cute. Perfume. Heels.

It’s as she’s putting the finishing touches on her jewelry that she realizes she has the wrong face on. She huffs, fixing it, and touches up her makeup.

GM: It’s not the first time she’d have forgotten who she’s supposed to be.

Who even is she, anyway?

Celia: Celia, tonight.

That’s what the mirror says.

GM: Mirrors lie too.

She drives to her mom’s house and arrives to find the table set. Emily greets at the door with a hug and a “Damn, you look nice.” The smell of garlic and other savory scents hangs heavy in the warm, oven-heated air. Some windows are open to let it out. Diana and Lucy have kitchen aprons on as they toss a fruit salad together.

“Oh good, you’re here!” smiles her mom. “Hey Goose, let’s say hi to…”

The six-year-old hops off the kitchen stool, runs up to Celia, and seizes handfuls of her dress as she tries to clamber up the Toreador’s body like she’s scaling a rock wall.

“Hiiiiiiiii!”

“Oh, Luce, careful with her dress,” says Emily, scooping up the child to pass her to Celia.

“Dani’s arriving with her dad,” adds Diana with a smile for Lucy. “Say, sweetie, where’s your beau? Is he arriving on his own?”

Celia: It’s hard not to smile at the warm welcome, even if the oven makes her wary after everything she has found out and the thick smell of spices reminds her that she’s on a liquid diet for the rest of her unlife. Her Beast whines at her, reminding her that it wants blood, that she can play at being human all she wants but they both know the truth.

And these kine! They put themselves so close to her. Hugging. Holding. Smiling.

She smiles back, greeting her adoptive sister, accepting the offer of the child into her arms. How easy it would be to—

No, Celia reminds herself. Not them.

She spins the girl around with her, the hem of her dress lifting to swirl outward, and smothers the child’s face with kisses.

“Mwah, mwah, mwah!” She finds the tickle spot on her belly. “Here’s my little artist. I’ve gotten a whole bunch of compliments on that picture you drew me, you know. Gonna need to commission another.”

She keeps the child in her arms as her attention turns to her mother, offering a wry half-smile.

“I think so,” she says with an effected sigh. “He might be caught up at work, some big case I guess.”

GM: Lucy giggles and holds out her arms as Celia spins her around.

“Okay! I can draw lots more! Did ’Lana like it? And Landen?”

Alana didn’t have a word to say on it. Piper, Landen, Madison, and Natalie always have the most compliments for Lucy-related things.

Celia: “‘Lana was jealous I don’t hang her art,” Celia confides in a whisper.

GM: Lucy giggles some more. “Mine’s better.”

“It sure is, Goose. Best artist in the salon,” says Emily, tussling the girl’s hair.

“Best artist in this house, too,” adds Diana, smiling at Celia’s news. “Okay, good. We’re all really looking forward to meeting him!”

“Are you an’ Randy still friends?” asks Lucy.

Celia: “Maybe,” Celia says to her daughter. “We still have a place together that I need to discuss with him. Figure some things out. We might still be friends. I think we both knew it wasn’t going anywhere, but we were comfortable.”

GM: “Oh,” says Lucy in a not quite understanding tone.

“Are he an’ your boyfriend gonna be friends?”

“That’s usually tricky,” Emily answers wryly.

“That usually is,” Diana echoes. “Say, sweetie, would you like to do my makeup? Doesn’t need to be anythin’ too fancy, home dinner and all, but Stephen’s dad is an important man and I want to look good!”

Celia: They certainly won’t be friends if Roderick tries to kill Reggie again.

“I’d love to,” Celia says to her mom. “No harm lookin’ good for the cute man coming over, right Emi?” Celia winks at her adoptive sister as she sets Lucy back on the ground so she can follow her mom down the hall to her room.

GM: “Yep. Knock him dead, Mom,” smirks Emily.

“Oh, you two,” says Diana with an amused roll of her eyes.

“They should just hold hands,” says Lucy.

Emily scoops up the child and carries her back to the kitchen area while Diana leads Celia back to the vanity in her bedroom. Dani’s clearly taken much of it over, though, judging by the presence of her various personal effects.

“I thought I’d feed you once dinner is over, sweetie,” says Diana as she sits down before the mirror. “So it’s like dessert, after a so-so meal.”

“And it usually makes me a lil’ woozy, so better after company’s gone.”

“I feel good, though! Energy levels were just fine at work. I think we can make this a nightly thing,” she smiles.

Celia: She’s hardly going to say no to the offer of blood. Especially if it doesn’t bother her mother at all.

“If you’re sure,” she says after a moment of looking the woman up and down, as if for signs of illness. “Okay. I’d like that. Thanks, Mom.”

GM: Diana looks more than fine to her.

“Thank you, sweetie. I want to feed you,” she says, taking off her apron and draping it nearby.

Celia: “I don’t know if Stephen is coming.” She turns away, gathering her mother’s makeup supplies. It’s not a full kit like Celia’s, but the mother of an esthetician still has plenty to choose from.

GM: The mother of an esthetician indeed has plenty of cosmetics (every last one a Flawless-recommended brand), though the disappointment on her face is plain at Celia’s news.

“Oh. Why not?”

Celia: The disappointment is echoed in her daughter’s.

“We got some bad news last night. He didn’t come home. Dani and I spent the night together, and she said he got like this last time. Withdrawn.”

GM: “Oh, no. I’m so sorry!” exclaims her mom. “Is there anything we can do for him?”

Celia: “I don’t think so,” Celia says with a long sigh and shake of her head. “But if there is I’ll let you know.”

GM: “Please, do. How are things between the two of you? Still okay?”

Celia: “I think so.”

She hopes so.

GM: Her mom rubs her arm. “Okay. That’s good. I think that will mean a lot to him. Bad news is a little less bad when you have a love of your life to help you past it, at least.”

Celia: “Can’t be there for him if I can’t find him.”

“Was going to look after dinner.”

GM: “Oh. You don’t know where he is?” her mom asks with a worried look.

Celia: “No. I mean. I have a few places. I’m sure he does too.”

GM: “Do you still want to stay for dinner? I’m more than happy to have you over, but if you want to use the time for your beau, I completely understand.”

Celia: “There’s a function tonight, I’m sure he’ll be there if nothing else.”

Except he can’t be there as “Roderick” since his face is different.

Which means he has to seek her out if he wants her to change it back.

“I’m not blowing off dinner. He’s a big boy. He can handle himself.”

“I don’t need Mr. Garrison thinking I’m afraid of him or something.”

GM: “Okay,” her mom nods, “just thought I’d offer. I want your two’s relationship to work.”

Celia: “Kind of hoping he just shows up. I know he wants to see his dad again.”

GM: “I hope so too, I’d love to see him again! Is there anything in particular I should do around him, since, you know, vampire?”

Celia: “Don’t bleed, mostly. I didn’t tell him about you, either. I don’t want to lie to him, but Pe—er, my friend doesn’t think it’s safe.”

“But his clan is the angry clan.”

Celia works on her mother while they talk, using an array of brushes, powders, and pigments to give her a casual but flirty look. She keeps it toned down and suitable for her mother’s age and the fact that they’re staying in. One of those, “oh I just threw this on” looks.

GM: “Okay, don’t bleed or bring up vampire things,” her mom nods, sitting still before the mirror as her daughter does her face. “Oh, this looks very nice, sweetie. Pretty, but doesn’t look like we’re tryin’ too hard to be pretty either.”

Celia: “I’m glad you like it.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her mother’s ear. “Would it bother you if I told him about you?”

“And maybe… Dad?”

GM: “That I’m an, ah, ‘ghoul’,” her mom starts, then gives a little laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry, it just feels like such a funny name, still.”

“But no, I’d be fine if Stephen knows! I think he already knows all the dirty details when it comes to your father too, anyway.”

“I mean, he was there back when I was livin’ in that cruddy lil’ apartment.”

Celia: “He thinks it’s a bad idea to have him over on Sunday.”

GM: Her mom purses her lips slightly. “Emi thinks so too, I know.”

Celia: “I’m worried he’s going to try something with Lucy. Because of that vision you had.”

“If she wasn’t on the line I’d risk it, but now I’m just… nervous.”

GM: “You seemed to think it was a good idea earlier, sweetie. Did somethin’ happen to change your mind?”

Celia: “No. I guess not. I’m talking to someone tonight who knows more about it. And I’ll see the guy who, uh, claimed him at this event, so maybe I can… talk to him.”

As if she’d dare.

GM: “Okay, that all sounds good,” nods her mom. “Oh, say! I looked into that ‘glinko’ thing for you while I was at work, sweetie.”

Celia: “Oh? How’d that go?”

GM: “Well, I realized I wasn’t sure how you spelled it. Was it ‘g-l-i-n-k-o,’ or was it a ‘c’ instead of a ‘k’, or was it a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’, or was it both. Because I didn’t find all that much for ‘glinco’ with an ‘i’ and a ‘k.’”

Celia: “…hm. I’m not sure, actually, I heard it said.”

Had she been spelling it wrong? Like an idiot?

GM: “So, I looked around for all four spellings. And the one I actually found a lot of stuff for was ‘glynco’ with a ‘y’ and a ‘c.’”

Celia: “Glynco,” Celia echoes.

GM: Diana nods. “It’s a place, in Georgia.”

Celia: “Where in Georgia?”

“Or rather, tell me what you found and I won’t interrupt. I hate when people do that when I’m trying to explain things, sorry.”

GM: “It’s okay,” her mom smiles. “It’s in Glynn County. Or rather, it is Glynn County, ‘Glynco’ is the acronym. You can look it up, there’s basically only one thing there beyond the usual small Southern county stuff. It’s where the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers is located. It’s where basically every federal law enforcement agency except the FBI sends their recruits to learn the ropes of bein’ a fed. Like boot camp or OCS, but for cops. State and local agencies sometimes send people there, too. It’s a really big place. It has its own zip code!”

Celia: “…huh.”

What does that mean? That the government has its own little band of hunters running around? That would make sense, wouldn’t it, with how they’d acted? She’s seen the movies, she knows the tropes; all those “feds” hate the “local guys” and vice versa. No wonder they hadn’t wanted any help.

“That’s… a lot. Thank you. I was going the wrong direction with everything.”

“Thank you,” she says again, pulling her mom in for a hug.

GM: Her mom gives her a happy squeeze back. “You’re welcome, sweetie! I’m really glad I could help you!”

Celia: “I know it’s been rocky lately, but you’re really the best mom a lick could ask for, you know that?”

GM: “Sorry, a lick?” she smiles as she lets Celia go. “Well, whatever it is, I’m glad. And you’re the best daughter any mom could ask for, makin’ me look so pretty for this nice dinner!”

Celia: “Vampire slang,” Celia says with a laugh. “And you’re already pretty. I just polished you up a little.”

GM: “That’s what you’re so good at, bringin’ out the best in everyone,” her mom smiles.

“Oh, by the way! I completely forgot to show you!”

She turns around on her seat and pulls up her dress, showing off Dicentra’s tattoo.

Celia: “Ooooh,” Celia enthuses, running a hand over the ink. “Very pretty, Mom.”

GM: “This is the tattoo Dr. Dicentra did for me! It really is, isn’t it? Ballerina bouquet!”

“I admit I wasn’t keen on the tattoo idea, but this really is just so pretty. And feels a little… rebellious,” she says with a low chuckle.

Celia: “It’s very fitting, Mom. Very you. I love it.”

GM: “I do, too!” says Diana, lowering her dress and turning back around. “I was stuck, you know, between flowers and a ballerina, so she suggested we just do both. So all those parts of me are on there.”

Celia: The hellebore is on there, too, thanks to Celia. The cure for insanity if you believe the old legends.

GM: “Oh, speakin’ of my body. I noticed lately that, ah, my tah-tahs are perkier,” says her mom in a low whisper, as if someone might overhear. “Is that because of anything to do with the blood, or just Flawless keepin’ me pretty?”

Celia: “Ah… that… um.”

“Kind of both?”

Technically it’s a thing with the blood.

And technically she runs Flawless.

So technically she’s not even lying.

“You won’t age while you have the blood.”

“And I’ve been doing some tricks on you when you come in, because you kind of implied I could, and I thought you wouldn’t mind…?”

“There’s things I can do that, like, a human can’t.”

Her mom has already seen it: Celia turning herself into Jade and back.

GM: “Oh, no, I don’t mind! Thank you very much, in fact. Like I said, sweetie, I’m play-doh in your hands on the spa table. You can do whatever you like to my body, I know you’ll make me pretty. I just wanted to know if this was due to you.” Her mom smiles. “I guess in hindsight it should’ve been obvious.”

Celia: “Well I’d hope not obvious. Can’t let people know,” Celia winks.

GM: “Oh, it wasn’t! I mean, people at work commented how pretty I looked, but I figured it was just more spa treatments. That’s what I told them, too. Recommendin’ your business wherever I can.” Her mom winks back. “But I wouldn’t have wondered if it was more if I hadn’t known about vampires and things.”

Celia: “Good. I’m glad. I try to keep it subtle.”

“I actually have some lick clients I make less attractive and age.” One client.

GM: “Now that sure is funny. Why would they want that?” Diana asks with a frown.

Celia: “Better for the Masquerade. That’s why I’ve continued to age and can stick around in your life, because I can change my appearance. A lot of us can’t. And it’s a dead giveaway. Stephen had to fake his death. I would have had to too, eventually.”

GM: “Oh. That is true. I guess I took it for granted, that all vampires did,” her mom says thoughtfully.

Celia: “We have mortal identities sometimes. But they never stick around for long. Or they’re reclusive.”

GM: “I’m glad you can. Dani told me about what losing Stephen did to their father. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

Celia: Celia nods.

“I know. I fought to keep you in my life. I wasn’t going to disappear if I didn’t have to.”

“And I’m… you know, I try to be better about it. I don’t feed on Emily or Lucy or anything. Or you, until you, uh, offered.”

“And with the second identity not many people could trace me back to you.”

GM: “Oh. I don’t think that would be a good idea at all, to feed on them,” her mother says concernedly. “They can’t consent. I know how important that is for you, with spa treatments.”

“And Lucy’s just a kid. She can’t even donate blood, legally. She still needs all of hers.”

“So I think you made the right decision there.”

“I know what I’m gettin’ into and have the blood to spare. I used to give at the hospital with Emi, every so often. Obviously not anymore now with you.”

Celia: “A lot of people like me don’t see it like that. Older you get, the less you care. Lose touch with mortals and stuff. They can be awful.”

“So I try to keep a clear divide.”

“And wouldn’t put you guys at risk like that.”

GM: “I think that… you did a bit, with Jade,” her mother ventures quietly.

“But I’m sorry, don’t mean to belabor the point. You walked back and that’s what matters.”

Celia: “I did. I put you at risk coming to you that night. I was hungry and it was close to dawn and I’d just gotten into two fights.” One-sided fights, both of them, but fights all the same. “It was irresponsible. And that night, with Jade… I was struggling to figure out what to do with you because I messed up bringing you into this, and I was mad. I lashed out.”

“I’m sorry.”

GM: Her mom hugs her. “It’s okay, baby. You fixed it, and that’s, that’s what counts. You saved me from goin’ back to… her, too, and leavin’ Lucy to grow up without her mother. I don’t think I even thanked you for that, did I?” she asks with a sniff.

Celia: “You don’t need to, Momma. I’d do anything for you and Luce, you know that.”

GM: “Well, thank you anyway. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. Goin’ back there would have been…” her mom shudders, “like that… that moment in your office with Jade. With you as Jade. Just… forever…”

Celia: “I’m not gonna let that happen.”

“I’ve gone up against bigger, scarier things than her to keep you safe.”

GM: “I know you won’t, sweetie. I feel safe with you. And Emi and I still have that next lesson with Robby on Sunday, too, so… you won’t always have to do the heavy liftin’, hopefully.”

Celia: “When you’re ready, if you’re open to it, I can find another teacher for you. And there are tricks of the blood I can show you. Make you faster. Sturdier. I know you don’t want this life, but there’s nothin’ wrong with bein’ prepared.”

GM: “You’re right, there definitely isn’t,” her mom nods. “I actually have felt… lighter on my feet, already. More flexible. I actually did a couple positions lately that made Emi’s jaw drop, and she’d been sayin’ for years before that I had slinkies for joints,” she chuckles. “That’s the blood?”

Celia: “That’s the blood,” Celia confirms.

“My sire shared her skills with me once. Speed, strength, durability. All of it. I felt… like a god. Like I could do anything.”

GM: “They say to treat your body like a temple. Take good care of it, and I guess you’ll really feel the divine.”

“Though I guess that’s more than just takin’ good care.”

Celia: “Not much you can’t do with it. I’ve seen and heard of some crazy things.”

GM: “I’ll take your word for it,” Diana nods. “If there’s more tricks you want to teach me, I’d be happy to learn. There’s obviously a lot of ways bein’ faster and sturdier can come in handy with ballet.”

Celia: “What, you don’t want to be a cat like me?” Celia teases.

GM: Her mom laughs. “I’m sure that’d be… interesting! Little out there for me, but I’d be happy to give you belly rubs. Lucy, too.”

Celia: Celia makes a sound that’s almost a purr. Then she is purring, stretched out on her mother’s lap with her belly exposed, tail flicking in quiet contentment.

Luna does so love her belly rubs.

GM: “Oh my, goodness!” her mother laughs again, then proceeds to do just that, rubbing and scratching her fingers along the cat’s exposed furry belly. It’s a heavenly feeling for Luna, though there is an instinctive urge to claw at the laughing woman’s hands. Every cat owner knows the belly might always be a trap.

“Who’s a happy lil’ kitty, huh?”

Celia: Luna is a happy little kitty. She shows it with how her whole body vibrates while she purrs, pawing at her mother’s hands with sheathed claws. She blinks long and slow at Diana, conveying her feline affection.

Yeah, she thinks, life as a cat might not be so bad.

GM: “Oh, yes, Lucy would just love to play with you,” Diana murmurs, keeping one hand busy along the cat’s belly while her other moves up, scratching Luna’s chest and neck, and finally the underside of her head. These hands know how to please a cat.

“Huh? Huh? Who wikes sum scwatches on the chinny-chin-chin, huh?” Diana asks in her kitty voice.

Celia: Luna is content to enjoy the attention of Celia’s mother for a few long moments, purring and meowing and otherwise showing her appreciation for the physical affection. Soon, though, she knows that the girl inside has to come back out and deal with the rest of the evening. She finishes the session by rubbing her face on Diana’s cheek to mark the human as hers and leaps to the side, shifting to regain her form before her paws ever touch the ground.

GM: “That’s just… so…” Celia’s mom murmurs, smiling and shaking her head.

Celia: “Awesome,” Celia supplies.

GM: Diana laughs. “I guess that’s a good word.”

“I’m happier to pet a kitty than be a kitty, anyway, but I’d love to learn any tricks that help with ballet!”

“Sturdier would help just as much as bein’ faster. It is a very demanding activity on your body.” There’s a rueful smile. “And I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Celia: “I’ll show you some,” Celia says, “once life calms down a little. Randy might have to show you some of the stoneskin stuff, though, I never learned myself.”

GM: “Okay, that sounds good,” her mom nods. “Randy’s okay with you guys breaking up?”

“Or, well. I guess you said you’d just been pretending.”

“That still seems just so strange to me, sweetie, no offense,” she chuckles.

Celia: “There’s a pretty blurred line with my ghouls and I. I think because I’m young, they’re still… people to me. Most of us wouldn’t even pretend to date one, but he was a good cover.”

GM: “Well, we were startin’ to wonder why he hadn’t put a ring on your finger yet,” winks Diana. “Anyway, we’ve taken up enough time, I bet our guests will be here soon.”

Celia: “Probably. We should get back out there.”

GM: Her mom nods and squeezes her hand. “This has had challenges, sweetie. But I’m glad I know the real you. Tellin’ the truth always feels just so much better.”

Celia: It seems like that sentiment has been popping up everywhere lately.

Still, she’s seen what it had done to Roderick, and she’s wondering if everyone’s “wise advice” isn’t as wise as all that.

Time will tell.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: Celia gets a text from Dani saying she and her dad are a little ways away. Hadn’t she wanted to speak with him private? Before he comes inside would be a good time.

Celia’s mother insists on equipping her with an umbrella. “I think it’s goin’ to rain, sweetie! Don’t get wet!”

Celia: It’s always going to rain in this city.

Celia sends Dani a quick thanks and snags the umbrella from her mom.

“Just a quick chat with him,” she says to Diana, “but better safe than sorry.” She heads outside to wait.

GM: Her mom nods in agreement as she heads out.

It’s not long before the Garrisons’ car pulls up to the house’s to the small courtyard. It’s been seven years since Celia last saw Roderick’s father. Mr. Garrison has not aged well.

There are much deeper wrinkles under his eyes and lines along his jaw than Celia remembers. None of them look from smiling. His hair is thinner and has gone almost completely gray with a few strands of white. Celia can see why her father decided to just shave his all off. In comparison to her mother, who looks like she’s aged maybe half the years since Celia’s Embrace, Roderick’s father looks like those years have been twice as long for him.

The spa treatments are undoubtedly part of it.

But there is a shadow to the older man’s eyes that all the facials and waxings and body wraps in the world can’t take away. The experienced esthetician doesn’t need long to make that assessment.

“Celia,” Mr. Garrison greets perfunctorily. The words aren’t cool, but he doesn’t smile either. He’s dressed in dark slacks with a pale blue button-up shirt. He has a light coat and umbrella against the now-drizzling rain, which he’s holding over Dani. She has on a light purple shirt and black skirt.

“I told him the gist of the story,” says Dani, rubbing her dad’s shoulder.

“I’ll head inside if you two want to talk privately?”

Celia: It’s not the years. Not the spa treatments. Not the blood.

It’s the loss. The grief. Losing a child. No parent should ever have to bury their children. She can’t imagine the amount of pain that puts someone through. She’s lost people before—her sister, for all that they weren’t close at the end—and sometimes still feels a pang of hurt for what had happened to them. What she’d done.

But it’s nothing compared to what she sees in his face.

Haunted.

Celia finds a subdued smile for Dani, nodding her head in agreement at the girl’s offer.

“Thanks, Dani. We’ll just be a minute.”

She watches the girl go. Only once the door closes does Celia turn to look back at Henry. Mr. Garrison. Her should-be father-in-law. Would-be.

Will-be.

“Mr. Garrison,” Celia begins, “thank you for coming tonight. I guess Dani already told you most of it, but I wanted to… explain.”

GM: She supposes it’s no surprise her own parent has weathered the years so much better.

After all, Diana got a new child.

Mr. Garrison walks his daughter up to the house’s front steps, umbrella held overhead, and opens the door for her. Dani nods her thanks as she heads inside.

He turns to face Celia when they’re alone.

“Go ahead.”

Celia: “I don’t know how much she told you,” Celia says after a quiet moment, “but I’d like to tell you the rest of it. All of it.”

Rain patters across the umbrella, the water dripping to the ground below.

“I loved your son, Mr. Garrison. More than anything. We met and he… he changed my life. My family’s life. I don’t know if he told you about the abuse, or the time he met my father, or the things he used to do to me. To my mom. To my siblings. I don’t know that I would have been able to get out on my own. Stephen gave me courage. And hope. He was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“We’d spoken about going away together. Getting out of the shadow that my father cast across us. He wanted to wait until he finished undergrad; he said he could go to law school anywhere. We’d briefly discussed a future together. Marriage. Kids.”

“It was all years off. He had to finish school. I was only nineteen. Neither of us were ready for that commitment. We’d had a, a scare, actually,” Celia flushes, looking away before she gathers herself. “I was late. And he’d said he wasn’t ready yet. That if I was, he’d rather… he wanted to wait. To find a solution to that.” Abortion, she means; she hopes he understands without the need to spell it out.

“So I said okay, if that happened we’d take care of it. It turned out to be nothing. We were both relieved.”

She pauses.

“The… there was a night when I had to go to the ER because of something that happened at home. The following night I was out. It was late. I was stupid. I was assaulted.” She takes a breath. “Raped, Mr. Garrison. I was raped. And with everything going on with my dad at the time, it didn’t occur to me to take a pill. So by the time I found out what had happened, it was too late to take the easy out. I went to a clinic.”

“I thought it would be easy. Suck it out. No problem.”

“It wasn’t. I don’t know if you know this, but they do an ultra-sound. Make you look at what you’re getting rid of before they’ll do the procedure. Talk about it like it’s already alive. I think that’s the point. Make young girls like me reconsider. Play on our feelings. Hormones.”

“It worked.”

“I knew Stephen wasn’t ready for that. And I knew he’d want to be. To do the right thing. Because that was who he was. Always doing the right thing for everyone. So I did what I thought was the right thing for him. I told him that I cheated on him so he didn’t… so he didn’t throw his life away on me.”

She doesn’t need to force the emotion. The way her voice cracks at the end is very, very real.

She wants to cry. She wants to, but she can’t, not in front of Mr. Garrison. So the world does it for her. The clouds loose the tears that she refuses to let fall, plinking off the umbrella, landing against the ground. Water splashes over her shoes.

“I thought it was right, and I wish I could take it back, and I’m sorry that things ended the way that they did.”

“I never thought it would turn out this way.”

GM: Mr. Garrison listens.

He doesn’t smile, or frown. He just listens. Intently. His knuckles whiten around the umbrella. His eyes don’t once leave Celia’s. He scarcely seems to even blink.

What’s it like, to receive personal news about a dead child? Is it like they’re still doing things, living a life of sorts, past the grave? Does it bring them back for a moment, in a way, to hear news about them?

But the news runs out. There won’t be any more. Mr. Garrison could query Celia for details all night long, ask for recollections of every word and conversation, but eventually, even with a flawless memory, she would run out.

Because Stephen is still dead. At least to his father.

There won’t ever be more news.

She can see the look in Mr. Garrison’s eyes. Simultaneously so close and so far away. Longing. Like he sees his dead son on the other side of a pane of glass, and for all that he might wish to pull Stephen through, can only brush his hands against it.

Forever out of reach.

Several moments pass after Celia finishes before he replies.

“My son was hurt by what you told him, Celia.” The man’s voice is a rasp.

“Badly. He never recovered from it. It took something out of him that he never got back. He dated no other girls. Then he died.”

Rain steadily plunks against the umbrellas.

“The truth would have been kinder. He could have decided for himself. I would have supported him in whatever decision he made.”

Celia: The words fall like blows against her body. It’s an effort not to flinch. Celia looks away. She could have told him the truth. Given him her blood. Let him come over to this world with her, picked a fight with the sire who had already been eyeing him for her own. Blood doll or ghoul, but they’d have been together, wouldn’t they. Like her and Randy.

She thought he’d be better off.

“I know that now,” she says to Mr. Garrison. She finds his face with her eyes once more. “It wasn’t my decision to make. I should… should have told him the truth. All of it. He deserved that.”

She could spin a story here about the abuse. Play up her age, inexperience, fear. And while it’s true, it’s not the truth. She doesn’t need to turn herself into a victim, paint herself as the “good guy” in the situation. None of it will bring Stephen back. Not for his father.

“I saw him once,” she says, whisper-quiet. “Before he died. I saw him. He came to the spa. He wanted to know. About Lucy.” The words tumble out of their own volition. She hadn’t meant to say this part. Half-formed, fragmented sentences pour from her lips. “I told him then. What happened. How it happened. Why I lied.”

Her lips twist.

“He said the same. That I should have told him. That things could have been different. We thought…” She sighs. “We thought we might try again. I told him I’d never lie to him again, and now he’s gone. You’re right. He was right. I was wrong.”

The timelines blur together, but the sentiment remains the same. She said she’d stop lying to him, that she’d tell him everything.

And now he’s gone.

GM: Being a ghoul seems to agree with Randy. With Alana. With Diana, as Mélissaire has always been so keen to remind her.

Would it have with Stephen? Always so ready, so eager, to fight for what he believed?

Mr. Garrison looks at Celia as she struggles with everything she hears. As she whispers. As she holds back tears. As she looks away.

When she looks back, Mr. Garrison is still staring at her. He doesn’t reach out to touch her. He doesn’t yell or look mad, either. His face looks like a tombstone. All these years later.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Who was right. Who was wrong.”

“He’s dead.”

The plunking rain and light from the house cast long, wavering shadows over Mr. Garrison’s aged face.

He really looks so much older.

Celia: She wishes he would yell.

Tell her it was her fault.

Because it was, even if he doesn’t know the truth. If she hadn’t broken up with Stephen he might still be alive. Not just saved from the “car crash,” but from the woman who had come to him after Celia had finished ripping out his heart.

Stephen hadn’t blamed her for it. His sire hadn’t blamed her for it. All sorts of people had a hand in Stephen’s Embrace. Even his father, standing here in front of her, face carved of marble; if he hadn’t raised such a good, decent person.

Celia doesn’t tell him any of it. She can’t. Stephen doesn’t want to involve his father in this life.

She remembers the way he’d cried in the car, years ago. How terrible she’d felt at being too much of a coward to offer to give him a new face so he could keep his lives separate.

But she couldn’t, could she? She hadn’t known of his Embrace until his release, and at that point everyone already knew that face as Roderick Durant.

It’s not her fault.

Even though it is.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Garrison. I’m very, very sorry that I hurt him. I wish that I could bring him back. I’d give anything to undo what happened to him.”

GM: “It doesn’t matter,” repeats the marble-faced man.

He still doesn’t yell.

He still doesn’t cry.

“You hurt him. You didn’t kill him. He died in a completely random accident that had no bearing upon anything that anyone in his life did or didn’t do.”

Rain dribbles off their umbrellas.

“I’d planned to give the two of you my house to raise your family in. To raise Lucy in, if that had been his decision. I’d have stayed to help, while he finished law school and prepared for the Bar, and moved out once he was financially self-sufficient.”

Her mom had offered to help with childcare too, that night when they discussed the possibility. Said she’d love to help.

And Stephen had been so freaked out they couldn’t raise a kid together, after that pregnancy scare. That they couldn’t manage it at that point in their lives.

Their parents didn’t seem to think so.

Celia: She knows.

Roderick had told her.

But Stephen had never told Celia, so Celia has to play her role. Her eyes flash in very real pain, lips parting slightly. She looks away once more. She hates them all over again. Hates them for killing her. For killing him. For existing. For breaking her to the point that she’d been perfectly willing to break him. The only decent one among them and she’d snapped him like a twig.

She hates them.

All of them.

She doesn’t want this life anymore. She’s tired of being a pet. Tired of being a slave. Tired of being bound to someone who will never care about her as much as Stephen did. As much as Roderick does.

No. Did. Past tense. How could he now when she’s broken him again?

She tugs at the bond. Digs her claws into it. Inside, where the DA can’t see, she fights a very real battle with herself. Nothing to do with him, right?

Except it’s everything to do with him.

He’d come for her father. Turned him into a monster. Protected him. Murdered her. Taken her from Stephen. Forced her to go to her grandsire, who had forced her into this. Flip Roderick.

Flip him, and break him in the meantime.

She hates them.

So she digs. Because it hurts. And it’s all she can do right now. Dig. Hurt herself further so she doesn’t hurt him. Dig again. Again. Again.

GM: It’s not his fault.

He didn’t tell her to do this.

He didn’t tell her to break Stephen.

He didn’t know any of the details.

He didn’t know what would happen.

He probably barely even knows Roderick. Much less Stephen.

Does he even know where they were to one another?

Does he even know what they still are?

Besides. He has been good to her.

He saved her from Elyse.

When has Roderick saved her? All he’s been is a source of problems. He’s not offered her a place at his side. He’s not promised her a future.

Besides.

She wanted this.

She caused this.

She asked for the bond.

She picked him.

Like always.

Celia: She did. She picked him. She wants him. He has long been a balm to her hurts. Even now, not present, he soothes them.

So she fights.

And she loses.

It’s a bitter feeling, that loss. Like she’s helpless. Bound in chains, held captive by a monster in the darkness, treated like some sort of animal. She lashes out the only way she knows how: she finds the bond and sends her pain reeling along it.

Maybe he’ll hear her wordless shriek of rage and grief. Maybe he won’t. Maybe he doesn’t care.

Inside her chest her Beast purrs; it hates this show of emotional, human weakness. It’s pleased that she’s sending it elsewhere.

But she sees his eyes swimming in front of her, face pale in the night. Cold. Stern. Unaffected by her pitiful display of defiance. It shifts. Becomes his. Roderick’s. Not the Roderick from her memories, but the Roderick from the vision. Dark and cold. So much smarter than everyone else in the room. So much better than everyone else. The only one who can make the right decisions, isn’t he.

When had their features become so intertwined?

…and who had she sent that to?

His father said something. No doubt he expects an answer.

The perfect life had been waiting for her… if she hadn’t died. If he hadn’t died. If she’d been honest. Gone to him for help. Stopped playing with fire in an attempt to solve her own problems.

She cracks. The floodgates loosen. Celia turns away, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes where the blood threatens to fall.

Just for a moment.

Just until she pulls herself back together. Seconds later. She wipes at her eyes. She turns to face his father. She knows how much men hate the emotional side of women. Stephen had told her as much.

So she kills it. Buries it deep. She’d shared the pain. She doesn’t need it anymore.

“That would have meant the world to us.”

“Some children hate it, you know. Following in their parent’s footsteps. They resent the expectations pushed upon them by their families. I asked him about it once, if he did. But he didn’t. He never did. He loved you, and Dani, and your father.”

GM: Mr. Garrison watches as Celia weeps. Weeps below her umbrella while the sky pours down its own grief overhead. It’s not so hard to catch some rainwater and pretend it’s tears, around the kine man with his dull senses.

He’s still staring at Celia when she looks back. He’s not reached out to comfort her. He doesn’t look disgusted either. There’s just that some marble-like expression on his too-old face.

“He was the brightest light in my life. He would have been an extraordinary attorney and public servant. He would have had a happy, loving family with many children and grandchildren. He would have done great things with his life.”

Mr. Garrison doesn’t smile at the words. They’re delivered with all the warmth of a tombstone.

“He’s dead and gone.”

Those ones are too.

Stephen’s father looks at the door.

“We should go inside.”

Celia: He’s just as broken as the rest of them.

As dead and buried as his child.

“Yes, Mr. Garrison.”

There’s nothing left to say. Celia opens the door for him.

GM: He preempts her and opens the door instead. She is the woman.

Celia: “Thank you,” she says as she slips past him.

For the door. For listening.

GM: Mr. Garrison follows behind her, closes his umbrella, and shakes it off over the mat before closing the door. Dani and Celia’s family are gathered inside. The night beyond the house feels very dark, very wet, and very cold.

Celia: She leaves the night at her back.

She’s here with her family.

Whatever lurks outside, the cold and the dark doesn’t touch them here.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

Celia: Celia follows suit with her wet umbrella, gesturing vaguely toward the stand for him to put his in. She leads the way down the hall.

GM: He does so and follows her to the living room, where everyone is gathered. Diana is the first to rise. She’s put on a pair of pink heels to go with her rose-printed dress since Celia saw her last.

“Mr. Garrison, hello. I’m Diana. It’s so good to finally meet you,” she says, extending a hand. Her voice is quiet and her smile gentle rather than wide as she meets his eyes.

“You can call me Henry, Mrs. Flores,” he answers as he slowly shakes the hand.

“Well, to that I’ll also say you can call me Diana,” answers Celia’s mother with a note of mirth. But no more than a note. “And this is my other daughter Emily.”

“Stephen was a friend to me too, sir,” greets Emily as she shakes hands too. Her grip looks firmer than Diana’s, like always. “Dani might have mentioned we were classmates.”

Celia: Celia watches the introductions silently from her spot near Mr. Garrison. Near, but not next to. Part of the group, but away from it.

“Emily introduced us,” she adds quietly. A step takes her over to Lucy. She holds her arms out for the girl and picks her up, for once not spinning her around.

“This is Lucy. My daughter.”

GM: Lucy stares at Mr. Garrison without saying anything. There’s a curious and slightly afraid look on the child’s face.

Her held body tenses against Celia’s.

Celia: Celia doesn’t force an interaction. She steps back, as if the weight of the child is becoming too much for her small frame, and takes a seat on a free chair with a vaguely apologetic look.

GM: Diana sits down next to her. “Lucy, can you say hello?” she asks with a gentle smile, touching her ’granddaughter’s’ back as she looks between the child and Mr. Garrison.

“Hello,” Lucy repeats quietly.

Celia: She tries to see him through Lucy’s eyes, this tall man with his solemn eyes and haunted face, who no doubt sees Lucy as the reason his son died so unhappily. Celia runs a soothing hand down the child’s back.

GM: She hears the girl’s faster heartbeat in her ears, but it slows slightly at Diana’s and Celia’s combined touches.

“Hello, Lucy,” Mr. Garrison returns. He doesn’t manage a smile.

Celia: “This is Dani’s dad,” Celia tells her. “And Stephen’s.”

GM: Lucy just watches him without saying anything. She still looks a little afraid.

Celia: Celia shoots a helpless look at her mother.

GM: “Say, Henry, can I impose on you for a moment, before we start dinner?” Diana asks, patting Lucy’s head as she stands up. “My car’s been actin’ up and I’m wondering if I should take it in to the mechanic. If you know anything about cars, I’d be mighty obliged if you could lend an opinion.”

“I do,” says Mr. Garrison. “We can take a look.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” smiles Diana, briefly turning back to her daughters. “And Celia, Emily, maybe you can get Lucy off to bed, now that she’s said hello? She is up past her bedtime.”

She mouths ‘food’ from where Mr. Garrison can’t see.

Celia: Celia gives a tiny nod to her mother, rising to her feet as they leave.

“Grab her a plate, Emi, I’ll get her settled.”

GM: “Sorry,” Dani whispers after their parents’ forms recede. “Dad isn’t… he isn’t really social, these days.”

Celia: “He hates me,” Celia sighs.

GM: “He doesn’t hate you,” assures Dani. “He’s… he’s like this to most people.”

“I guess losing your kid will do that,” sighs Emily.

“Yeah. I meant it… he never got over Stephen,” says Dani.

Lucy silently follows the adults’ conversation as she clings to Celia.

“Listen, Lucy shouldn’t have to eat alone,” says Emily. “Bring her to my room, I’ll get plates for us both.” She turns to Lucy and smiles. “We can have dinner together in my bed, Goose, how’s that sound?”

Lucy gives a nod.

Celia: “How magnanimous,” Celia grumbles at her half-heartedly, “avoiding awkward dinners.”

“Come on, Goose. Let’s set up a picnic in Em’s room.”

GM: “I think Dad would prefer fewer people anyway,” says Dani. “And he doesn’t really know you, Emily, no offense.”

Celia: Celia rises, the child tucked against her.

GM: “Isn’t any to take,” says Emily. “Come on, you can help me with the plates.”

“Sure,” says Dani.

The two head off to the kitchen.

Celia: Celia starts towards Emily’s room.

“You okay, Luce?”

GM: Lucy’s face quavers.

“He looked really sad…”

Celia: “He is really sad.”

“His son passed away.”

GM: “Can you make him happy…?”

Celia: She can. She can take his pain, too.

But only temporarily.

“I don’t think so, Lucy. Not in a healthy way.”

GM: “Huh?” Lucy asks.

Celia: “No,” Celia clarifies.

GM: It’s a brief walk through the rain to the ‘carriage house,’ or rather, ‘carriage room’ where Emily stays, as it has only one room. She sees her mother and Stephen’s dad looking over her pink Beetle together with umbrellas out. Henry is bent over and talking indistinctly while he inspects something. Diana nods along with an ‘oh I see’ expression.

Celia: Good of her, Celia thinks, to give him a purpose. Something to do with his hands. She’s heard that it helps.

She turns the light on as she enters, looking around the room.

“Picnic on the floor? Or the bed?”

GM: “So he… says sad forever?” Lucy asks instead. Her face looks confused. And upset.

Celia: “I don’t know, Luce. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and it makes them really sad, and it takes a long time to be happy again.”

GM: Lucy sniffs several times, then starts quietly crying.

Celia: “Oh, sweetie…” Celia murmurs soft, soothing things to the girl, holding her close. “It’s okay, Lucy, it’s okay.”

Celia takes a seat on the bed and holds the crying Lucy against her, rocking her slowly back and forth.

There’s a song her mom used to sing to she and her siblings when they came to her with their childish woes. An old lullaby, a soft melody that Celia hums now for the daughter in her arms.

GM: The soothing lyrics and gentle motions eventually cause Lucy’s sniffles to trail off. She dabs at her eyes.

“I’d like… a picnic.”

Celia: “Picnics make everything better,” Celia agrees.

GM: Emily and Dani arrive with full plates of still-steaming food.

“Uh oh, we get upset?” asks Emily, looking at the child’s reddened eyes.

Celia: “She’s sad that Mr. Garrison is sad.”

“And wants us to make him happy.”

GM: “I wish we could too, Luce,” says Emily. She sets down the plates and kneels down on the floor to stroke Lucy’s back.

Celia: Celia takes the opportunity to look up at Dani, brows raised.

GM: Dani just has a sadly knowing look.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve… mentioned how he’s not very good company.”

“These days, when he thinks about Stephen.”

Celia: “I was just wondering if there’s something we can do.”

GM: “I wish there was.”

There’s a knowing lilt to her voice as she looks at Celia. Partly questioning.

“Mommy was quiet,” says Lucy. “With Mr. Garrison.”

Celia: “She was, Goose. Mommy is good at knowing how to act around people that are sad or mad or not feeling their best.”

Celia gives a tiny nod to Dani.

She could do something. Take it away. If that’s what his daughter wants.

She’ll talk about it on the way back. Warn her it’s temporary.

She wishes Stephen were here. That he could see… the love, maybe. The pain his absence causes. So he’d know that the world isn’t all bad. That there are still people who love him. Who miss him. Who need him.

GM: Dani looks a little gladder.

“Oh,” says Lucy.

“Did I hear something about a picnic?” asks Emily.

“Uh huh,” says Lucy.

Celia: “Should we send the kitties in? Make it a party?”

GM: “Ooh, good idea,” says Emily, then frowns. “Wait, Victor and Shadow should be in here. This is where we normally keep them when you’re over.”

Celia: “Maybe they got out when I opened the door?”

GM: “You’d have seen them, wouldn’t you?” says Emily, shaking her head.

“They must be in here still,” says Dani. “If you’re sure they were here?”

“Yeah, positive,” says Emily.

Celia: “Sleeping?”

“I can check the courtyard, though.”

Just listen for the hissing.

GM: Emily shakes her head again. “They’re in here. Door was closed the whole time.”

Celia: “Maybe they’re napping in your panty drawer.”

Celia wiggles her brows at Emily.

GM: “The pussies want to smell my pussy, huh?” smirks Emily.

Celia: “Who doesn’t?”

GM: “Maxen, probably, mongrel that I am.”

Celia: “That’s an image I don’t need,” Celia mutters.

GM: Emily gets down on her belly and looks under the bed.

“Oh. There they are.”

Celia: “Oh, good.”

That’s her cue to leave.

GM: “Jesus, they look spooked.”

“Their tails are huge.”

Celia: Definitely her cue to leave.

“They never liked me much,” Celia says with a shrug. She rises.

GM: “Why not?” asks Lucy.

Celia: “I’m cuter than them. They hate it.”

GM: “So they’re cuter than the rest of us? Or co-equal?” asks Emily, getting up from her belly.

Dani watches Celia as if to see how she handles this.

Celia: “Me, then the cats, then you.”

“Obviously.”

GM: “Ice cold, Celia. Ice cold.”

Celia: Celia winks at her.

GM: “How cute am I?” asks Lucy.

Celia: “Cuter than all of us combined.”

“That’s why they like you so much.”

GM: “Cuter than all of us and… beat me to it,” smirks Emily. “Kitties included.”

Celia: “They know they don’t stand a chance against you, Goose, so they have to love you.”

GM: A low growl goes up from under the bed.

Celia: “That’s them claiming their territory.”

GM: Lucy looks worried.

“They’re being scary…”

Celia: Celia takes a step toward the door.

GM: Dani follows her. “All right, we’ll leave you two to set up the picnic. Hopefully the kitties will calm down.”

Celia: Celia hesitates, then takes a knee to peer under the bed. Just in case.

She keeps her distance.

GM: She’s greeted by two furious hisses as the cats’ ears go flat. Lower growls go up from their throats.

Celia: “Yeah, yeah,” Celia mutters, “screw you too.”

GM: “Make them stop!” pleads Lucy.

She doesn’t fool them.

Celia: Stupid cats.

Celia moves away from the bed.

GM: Smart cats.

Very smart cats.

She fools everyone else.

Celia: “They’ll calm down if you share some dinner with them, I bet. Just don’t tell Mommy.”

GM: “That’s an idea,” says Emily, patting Lucy’s back. “I bet they’ll just love some chicken. Mommy Celia will be by later to tuck you in, won’t she?”

Celia: “I will,” Celia promises.

“Love you, Goose.”

“Enjoy your picnic.”

“You too I guess, uggo.”

GM: “Love you, Mommy,” Lucy repeats.

Emily smiles at her, then removes the top-most blanket from her bed. “All right, this should be a good picnic blankie…”

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: Dani follows Celia back into the main house.

“Wow, so… animals really hate licks?”

Celia: “Most of us.”

“They can sense the Beast, I guess.”

GM: “They like me, like I’ve said.”

Celia: “Some of you are lucky.”

“They all hate me, though.”

“Stephen doesn’t have a problem with animals.”

GM: “Huh. He was always a big pet lover.”

Celia: “Could be that.”

GM: “So about my dad…”

Celia: “Yeah. I can take it from him. His grief. Just temporarily, though. It’ll be back.”

GM: “Really? Are there side effects?”

Celia: “Not really. It’s fake, though. It kind of… numbs him. Like really strong meds.”

GM: “Oh. Would we be able to cheer him up?”

“I mean, only so much, obviously.”

Celia: Celia shakes her head.

“I can manipulate a lot of emotions. Happiness isn’t one of them.”

“Probably because I’m an undead abomination that true happiness escapes.”

“But who’s counting.”

GM: “Well, I guess I’m half one,” Dani remarks. “But I meant if you do it, numb his pain, could anything we do still cheer him up?”

Celia: “I think so. It just takes away what’s there, so if we introduce something on top of it…”

“Stephen… doesn’t like it. Using powers like this. On family.”

GM: “Oh? The use here sounds pretty ethical.”

“Though you could raise questions of consent.”

Celia: “That’s the problem. Slippery slope.”

GM: “Maybe better not, then.”

“I mean, if it’s only for an evening anyway…”

Celia: “I’m sorry, Dani. I wish I could help.”

GM: Dani looks sad. “Thanks. Me too.”

“He isn’t always… this bad.”

Celia: “I think it’s me, honestly.”

GM: “I think it’s Stephen.”

Celia: “I guess it’s a good thing he isn’t here, you know.”

“As my new partner. Rubbing it in your dad’s face, basically.”

GM: “Ah. Yeah. I guess maybe that’s worked out, actually.”

Celia: “Did you hear from him…?”

GM: Dani shakes her head.

Celia: “I’ll find him. When we’re done here.”

“C’mon, then. Let’s go have dinner.”

GM: Dani nods and follows her to the dining room. The click of Diana’s heels soon announces her and Mr. Garrison.

“We ended up talkin’ about cars for a while,” she smiles. Still fainter and quieter than her usual self.

“But okay, food’s all out, let’s eat. Did Emi decide to stay with Lucy?”

Celia: “She did,” Celia tells her mom as she takes a seat. “Car okay?”

GM: Diana nods. “We’re going to hold off on taking it in. It’s just an older car, no gettin’ around that. I’m very fond of it, though. Still the same one I got you for college!”

Celia: “I remember,” Celia says with a smile.

“Thank you for taking a look, Mr. Garrison.”

GM: “You’re welcome, Celia.”

Her mom smiles back at her. “All right, so for dinner tonight we’ve got slow-cooked lemon chicken, collard greens, and citrus salad. There’s shoofly pie for dessert, that’s still in the kitchen.”

Celia: “Looks great, Ma.”

GM: The chicken thighs are cooked up tender and juicy in a buttery lemon garlic sauce, probably made with broth too, judging by how they’re all but swimming in it. They also smell of onion powder, paprika, chili pepper flakes, and Italian seasoning. Parsley flakes and lemon wedges provide a finishing touch.




The first side dish is drunken collard greens, made with bourbon, bacon bits, diced sweet onion, and a few tablespoons of bacon grease in place of butter for extra decadence.


A fruit salad of diced strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries provides a contrast in colors and temperates. A light sauce of honey, poppyseed, and lime enhances the fruits’ natural sweetness.


“Thank you, sweetie, I’m so glad it does,” her mom smiles back at her, though with a hint of apology. They both know she isn’t going to enjoy it.

“Henry, would you like to lead us in prayer?” she asks.

Celia: Is Mr. Garrison religious?

Celia casts a glance his way.

GM: Henry merely holds his hands together and closes his eyes. Diana and Dani do the same and bow their heads.

“Lord God, Heavenly Father, bless us and these Thy gifts which we receive from Thy bountiful goodness, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen,” he recites.

“Amen,” echoes Celia’s mom.

“Amen,” murmurs Dani.

Celia: “Amen,” Celia says.

GM: “Henry, w-” Diana starts before the chime of the doorbell.

There’s another chime.

Then another.

Then another.

The person at the door is barely pausing before hitting the bell again.

“Oh, who could that be,” Celia’s mom frowns.

“Oh! Celia, didn’t you say this might be someone you were expectin’? Would you like to get it?” she asks.

Dani looks hopeful, as if having the same thought.

Celia: Celia slides immediately from her seat to answer the door.

GM: It’s Alana. The ghoul looks on the verge of tears under her umbrella.

Celia: Celia closes the door behind her as she steps outside.

GM: “You ignored my text,” she says sullenly.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

“With them.”

Celia: “I sent you a text,” she says, confused.

GM: “You’ve shut me out!” exclaims the ghoul, breathing hard.

“You think I don’t notice how we aren’t sleeping together anymore!?”

“We just stopped!”

Celia: “Alana,” Celia says sharply, “pull yourself together. I literally said that I’d be with you tonight.”

GM: “You weren’t at the spa! I was going to surprise you! I’d spent HOURS!”

“They come first, every single time! Always!”

She casts a hateful glare at the house.

Celia: “Alana. Knock it off. I’ve been walking a tight line lately, this is not helping.”

GM: “That’s what you always say!” The ghoul’s eyes are wide. “I tried to bring it up and you blew me off! You keep saying later! You said you’d reward me, and you never did! You just forget about me! For your stupid family! THEY ALWAYS COME FIRST!” The last words are exclaimed with a half-gulp, half-sob.

Celia: Celia seizes the ghoul by the throat and slams her bodily against the side of the house. Fangs bared, she leans in.

“My Masquerade comes before everything. You get rewarded when you earn rewards, not when you show up and cause a scene,” Celia hisses at her.

GM: Alana starts full-on crying. She doesn’t try to force away Celia’s hands.

“You don’t love me, you’re bored with me, I knew it, I knew it…”

Celia: “I’m bored of the emotional outbreaks.”

“I’m bored of not knowing whether you can stay by my side.”

“I’m bored when you make me think you can’t handle this.”

GM: Alana chokes past the grip on her neck.

“You’re lying! You kept saying how good I was doing! You kept and kept and kept saying it, and we’ve only had sex once!”

Celia: “We literally had sex yesterday.”

GM: “We used to have sex EVERY DAY!”

Celia: “I’m about to take you to LA with me for months so we can fuck.”

“Alana.”

“I am on a very, very delicate missive for Lord Savoy. Being here is part of it. If we fuck it up, do you want to answer to him?”

GM: “Why don’t we SLEEP TOGETHER ANYMORE?!” the ghoul sobs.

Celia: There’s nothing nice in the expression that crosses Celia’s face. There’s nothing human in her eyes, not narrowed the way they are with her lips pulled back and teeth bared in silent snarl at the sniveling bitch in front of her. The tips of her nails dig into Alana’s neck. Not claws, not yet, but close.

“Don’t you ever show up at my door and throw a fit like some sort of child. I have been nice to you. I have been patient with you. I have been good to you, better than you’d find with any other domitor in the city. I will not tolerate this sort of pathetic, whimpering, tantrum-throwing behavior because you didn’t get what you want.”

“You know my schedule. You knew I wouldn’t be at the spa tonight, not before this dinner, maybe not even before Elysium. Don’t you dare act shocked that I followed my schedule.”

“You want sex?” Celia hisses at her. “I want competence. And right now you’re nothing but a liability. You know what we do to liabilities, ’Lana?”

She leans in, her face filling the ghoul’s vision.

GM: Alana chokes past the grip around her neck, a stifled and gasp-like sound together with her sniffling. She still doesn’t try to push Jade away, but fear starts to edge out the anger in her eyes as she feels the sharpening nails’ bite.

“I’m s-sorry, mistress, I jus, just want to sleep with y-you, not even sex, that’s a-all.”

The ghoul’s voice quavers.

“Mistress, I miss you…”

Celia: “And what,” Celia growls at her, “happened to waiting until tonight, like we’d talked about? Did you forget how calendars work? Can you no longer recall the days of the week? What happened to tonight?”

GM: “I’m sorry, mistress, I just, I thought you’d leave again, after we had sex, and I just… I thought about where you were, and I lost it.” She makes several more sounds past the near-claws around her throat. “I’m sorry, mistress, do you want to punish me…?”

Celia: Jesus fucking christ.

Celia squeezes. Squeezes, because she’s been on the other side of that grip and she knows what it’s like to think that the person with their hands around your throat isn’t going to stop. Squeezes, because the pain that’s bottled up inside of her needs an outlet and the stupid but pretty whore in front of her is close. Squeezes, because she’d rather choke the life from her than listen to another minute of her whimpering.

She waits until Alana’s hands grow limp. Until the fear in her eyes turns to terror. Until the black spots begin to swim in her vision.

GM: Alana doesn’t struggle at first. She makes choking sounds as the rain patters against her increasingly blue face, but she doesn’t raise her hands. It’s not until Jade doesn’t let go, until she keeps squeezing and squeezing and squeezing, that she finally tries to pry her domitor’s fingers off. Jade sees it in her eyes, amidst the terror. That primal urge in all forms of life. To live. To survive, just another day.

But Alana’s limp fingers are no match for the furious Toreador’s ruthless grip.

Celia: And then she stops. She eases up. She leans in, fangs long in her mouth.

“Go. Home. Go home and handcuff yourself to the bed and I will deal with you when I get there.”

GM: Alana collapses to her domitor’s feet, knees painfully hitting the courtyard’s rain-slick bricks. She gags in pain for several moments, hands massaging her throat before she falteringly rasps out,

“Do you… want me… naked, mis… tress?”

Celia: “Get out of my sight.”

GM: Alana looks into her domitor’s eyes for a moment, then picks up her dropped umbrella, ambles to her feet, and retreats to her parked car. She stops at the door, turns back, and weakly calls out,

“I just want to get your orders right, m-mistress…”

Celia: Celia stares silently through the rain at the ghoul. She offers no further guidance.

Without a word she turns back to the house and steps inside, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Ghouls.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: She hears the car’s ignition starting before she walks back into the dining room. Her mother and Dani looks somewhat surprised, and disappointed, to see her return by herself.

“Oh. Who was that at the door, sweetie?” her mom asks.

“They were really bangin’ that bell.”

Celia: No one, she almost tells them. But that’s both rude and not true, and not an answer any of them is likely to accept.

“Alana,” she says as she slides into her chair. “Problem at the spa and she got worried when I didn’t answer my phone.”

Vampire thing, Dani and Diana should realize.

GM: “Oh no,” says her mom. “Wasn’t anything too serious, I hope?”

Celia: “The break-in,” Celia says with a forced sigh. Then, looking up at Henry, she gives an apologetic smile.

“My spa was broken into earlier in the week. My manager and I had plans to meet to run over some numbers today but my appointments ran long, and she let her imagination get the best of her. My apologies for the interruption.”

GM: “Unfortunate,” frowns Mr. Garrison. It looks like no one’s touched their food while Celia excused herself, but they start their meal in earnest now that she’s back. Mr. Garrison starts to cut a chicken thigh. “Did you find the person responsible?”

Celia: Celia shakes her head.

“No.” Not technically. “That’s the weird part, though, nothing was missing. Nothing was stolen.” She looks down at her plate, beginning to cut into one of the pieces of chicken someone had laid out for her. A small portion; she assumes Diana is responsible and smiles at her mother.

“So the alarm went off and we filed a police report, but they basically said there’s nothing to be done since they didn’t find anything and nothing was missing. They did use it as an excuse to shake down my other manager for protection money.”

“One of my girls said it sounded like someone from the Insta community trying to send a message, I guess they do that on other platforms? Swatting? But no one was hurt so I don’t really understand it, I guess.”

GM: There’s also some greens and fruit salad on the plate. But the portions look as small as they can be without prompting questions, and her mom smiles back at her.

Mr. Garrison’s frown remains in place. “Do you know the names or badge numbers of the officers responsible?”

Celia: “Yes, I wrote them down when they told me what happened. She made it sound like there wasn’t much I could do…?”

GM: “Give them to me before I head out. I’ll have someone at my office take it up with Internal Affairs.”

Celia: “Oh, yes, okay. I will. Thank you, Mr. Garrison. That’s—thank you.”

GM: “Consider investing in cameras if you haven’t, or better cameras if you have. Alarms only catch faces if someone arrives in time.”

Celia: Celia nods. Better cameras, she can do that. She’ll have Rusty take a look. And Randy. His cameras had caught the would-be bugger, but who knows what might happen in the future.

She looks to her plate, unable to put off forcing the food down her throat anymore. Hopefully this stomach thing works. A nudge to her Beast, just in case, and Celia finally takes a bite.

Still awful.

Still tastes like literal shit.

Still an effort to chew, letting it roll around in her mouth like humans do.

Bit of a giveaway if she swallows her food whole, isn’t it.

GM: Diana tries not to look too obviously sympathetic as Celia forces herself to chew.

“I was starting to tell Henry the story of the situation we were in before Stephen came along,” says her mom. “You know it all, of course. You want to tell him how cruddy that old apartment of mine was?” she asks with a rueful smile.

Celia: She swallows the masticated chicken carcass.

“With the, ah, shared bathroom? Where one of your neighbors liked to shoot up?”

GM: “Oh my lord,” Diana murmurs. “Technically not even a neighbor. She was evicted. But she still came in to the bathroom to shoot up. I remember knockin’ on the door once, after someone was in there for a while, and hearin’ ‘present!’ in this breathless voice. I asked if she’d be out soon, she said yes, and the whole place was completely trashed when I came in. Just…” She shakes her head. “I feel sorry for the folks who still have to live there.”

Celia: “I always tried to make sure I didn’t have to use it when I was there. Stopped on the way if I needed to.”

“When Stephen came over…” Celia glances at Dani, then Mr. Garrison. “I imagine he told you about dinner with my father?”

GM: “Yes, I always laid down strips of toilet paper over the toilet seat,” her mother nods grimly. “And I felt just so embarrassed, sweetie. And bad for you. That you saw me livin’ like that, that you couldn’t even use the loo without feeling grossed out.”

Celia: “I think, more than that, what stuck with me was the way you’d been cut out completely. The photos you had to take from Facemash because he wouldn’t… let you have anything.”

GM: “Facemash photos?” Dani asks.

“Of my kids,” says Diana. “That was the only way I could have pictures of them.”

Celia: “‘Clean break.’”

GM: “That’s awful,” says Dani. “And yes. Stephen told us all about… ‘the worst dinner ever.’ That’s what he called it.”

Celia: “It was.”

“So going from that to introducing him to my mom… it was night and day.”

GM: “He said your dad basically made you be a servant.”

Celia: Celia nods her head, her eyes clouding with the memory of mortification.

GM: “He did say the second dinner was better, though. That how different it was almost gave him whiplash.”

“He said you and your mom seemed happy together. That the food ‘tasted less like fear and more like love.’ I told him that was corny.”

“I think that’s very sweet,” smiles Diana.

Celia: “It sounds like something he would say.” There’s a warmth to her smile that has been missing since last night.

GM: Mr. Garrison doesn’t say anything. Just listens and eats.

Celia: “I think without him we’d still be there. In that apartment. He’s the one who pushed my mom to do something about it.”

GM: “He gave us the number for an attorney, to call about an insurance settlement and regaining custody of my kids,” Diana nods. “But my goodness, sweetie, if he hadn’t… where do you think you’d be now, at 27?”

Celia: “Married to someone Dad picked for me.”

GM: “I know I’d still be drowning in medical debt and getting my wages garnished. Livin’ in that crummy apartment.”

“We wouldn’t have met Emily, either.”

Celia: Celia shakes her head.

“Emily introduced Stephen and I, actually.”

“They… I think they had some classes together?”

“I told her to introduce me to someone cute and nice in exchange for some makeup tips, I think. She knocked it out of the park.”

GM: Dani nods. “They went out on two dates, but she said she was too busy with work and school to make a regular thing of it. So things never went anywhere with them.”

Celia: Celia’s smile tightens. She busies herself with the food on her plate.

“They never mentioned.”

GM: “Maybe she thought that would complicate things, sweetie,” says Diana. “Since he was your first boy.”

Celia: It shouldn’t bother her. It was years ago. Stephen is dead, and she has Roderick, and Roderick chose her.

But it does.

She makes a vague sound and cuts another piece of meat to shove into her mouth.

That’s the benefit of being mortal, she supposes: the built in excuse that she can’t talk with her mouth full.

GM: “Stephen had other girlfriends, too, in the past. But none he was as into as you,” says Dani.

Celia: Ah, well, that makes her feel better about breaking his heart.

Twice.

Three times?

She can’t keep track anymore.

Maybe he should have tried harder with Emily. She’s going to be a doctor soon. She’s so smart.

They can go be smart together.

GM: Doctor and lawyer. Sounds like a more natural pairing than esthetician and lawyer.

Celia: Esthetician with an online medical degree, which is almost like it’s fake.

GM: The corpses she dissected (and created) are real enough.

But that might be worse than fake in his eyes.

Celia: All those issues with “lying” and he’d never told her that he’d fucked her sister.

Who’s the fucking liar now.

Maybe he even put it in Roxanne, too.

And Ryllie. Why not.

She’ll throw Lucy at him next time he comes over to see if he wants to complete the Flores Girls.

GM: “You okay, sweetie?” her mom asks, rubbing her shoulder.

Celia: “Didn’t realize he and Emily hooked up.”

GM: “I don’t know if they did,” says Dani. “Just that they went on two dates.”

Celia: He’d hooked up with her on their first.

“Not the sort of thing he’d tell you though,” Celia points out.

Another bite.

She swallows more shit.

And it sits, like a lead weight, in the pit of her borrowed stomach.

She doesn’t miss this feeling.

GM: “I guess not,” says Dani. “Athough-”

“I don’t think we need to discuss your brother’s history in that area, Danielle,” says Mr. Garrison over some greens.

“Right. Sorry, Daddy.”

Celia: Maybe she’ll fuck his sister.

Let him see how it feels.

Celia spears a piece of fruit with the tines of her fork and brings it to her mouth.

GM: It’s squishier.

But tastes just as ashen.

Celia: It joins the rest of the garbage she’ll need to evacuate later.

She lets her mother find a new topic of discussion, her thoughts on her missing boyfriend.

GM: Diana continues to tell the story and brings up all the help that Vivian and Stephen were with her and Celia’s assorted legal travails. Mr. Garrison listens, attentively but largely silently. Danielle finally asks, “Can I ask something, Mrs. Flores?”

“Oh of course, Danielle.”

“Your mom is a judge, Payton Underwood. Why didn’t you just go to her, at any point?”

Celia: Celia glances at her mother.

GM: “We weren’t on good terms, unfortunately,” Diana answers. She keeps her voice more sad than cool.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” says Dani.

“Me too. But Celia went to her for help too, I’ll get to that later in the story, and she sees Lucy semi-regularly these days.”

It’s technically not a lie. Just leaves out the ‘still are.’

“That’s good,” says Dani.

“I’ve worked with her. She’s a decent woman,” says Mr. Garrison.

“Tough. Won’t be intimidated.”

Celia: “I’ve always found her so.” Celia pushes another berry around on her plate. She hasn’t seen her since she learned that she’d sent her mother to the Dollhouse.

GM: She’ll want to see Lucy again at some point.

Celia: The second Lucy, anyway.

Celia still hasn’t decided what she’ll say.

Or how she should feel.

Stephen would know.

But Stephen is dead.

GM: Roderick, too.

Celia: Probably.

Missing, anyway.

She’ll find him.

GM: Diana continues the story. How Stephen was patient and understanding, but also unrelenting when he realized the full depth of the Flores family’s situation. How he gave his and Viv’s numbers even when Diana didn’t seem like she wanted to use them, and how he turned out to be right when Diana finally set up the meeting after more encouragement from Celia. How nervous she was for that first consultation. How she brought Celia along, “Even though she couldn’t sit in, privilege and all, and mainly wound up sittin’ in the waiting room to make her mom feel less scared,” she describes ruefully.

Celia: “All we had to do was file a police report after that,” Celia adds. Her brow furrows. “Oh, Grandma did help there. She gave us the number to call. Told us to ask for someone specific, someone like her that wouldn’t be afraid of Dad.”

GM: There’s slower chewing as Celia brings up Richard Gettis.

“He was definitely that,” Diana murmurs.

Celia: Celia watches Mr. Garrison, though she’s as unobtrusive about it as she can be.

GM: “It’s a tragedy,” says Stephen’s father. “Stephen told me the details. Detective Gettis was one of the NOPD’s finest officers before he became a murderer.”

Celia: “Did you know him, Mr. Garrison?”

GM: “In passing. We had more contact when I was an ADA.”

“He helped put a lot of bad people behind bars.”

Celia: Another nod.

“Grandma said the same.”

GM: “It’s just such a tragedy,” Diana repeats. “I taught both of those girls, in my classes. Just such sweet girls.”

“One of my co-workers lost her job, too, in the fallout.”

“Oh, who?” asks Dani.

“Ms. Perry,” answers Diana. “You wouldn’t have had any classes with her, though, Dani. She started at McGehee after your time.”

“That’s too bad,” frowns Dani. “I suppose it beats being shot, though. I had some classes with one of the Devillers. Adeline. I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for the families.”

Celia: “I’m friends with her sister. The oldest. Cécilia.”

And Caroline. Sort of. Are they friends? She’s not quite sure. Hard to be, sires who they are.

“She implied the, erm, pressures of the job got to him when we spoke about it.”

GM: “There has been extensive investigation into Richard Gettis,” says Mr. Garrison. “I am inclined to agree with your grandmother. The man had no family, friends, or interests outside of his job.”

“Frontline police work is highly stressful. Homicide work is even more so. These people are exposed to the worst of humanity on a regular basis.”

“Richard Gettis did not have any stabilizing influences in his life.”

Celia: Like Mr. Garrison himself, if Dani’s words can be believed. She glances at the girl, then back to her dad.

“Aren’t you as well, Mr. Garrison? Stephen used to tell me about the pressures of your position as well. The danger, with who you go after.”

Easy to see Mr. Garrison going down that same road, isn’t it. Son dead. Daughter dead, technically.

GM: “My job is not easy, but I am more insulated than Detective Gettis from many of the stresses he faced. Death threats against judges and prosecutors have grown increasingly common in recent years, and are most commonly leveled by organized crime groups, but actual murders remain rare. The Prosecutors Memorial at the Ernest F. Hollings National Advocacy Center, which honors prosecutors killed during the performance of their duties, has fewer than 20 names.”

“Oh, when did that go up?” asks Diana.

“2004,” Mr. Garrison answers. “The first name is from 1982.”

“The number of police officers killed in the line of duty is far higher.”

Celia: “That isn’t quite what I meant, Mr. Garrison. I know you’re not on the ground level like an officer, but it’s still a high stress, high stakes world, and Stephen mentioned…” she trails off for a moment, then finally plunges forward. “Well, he mentioned things the organized crime families would try to do to intimidate your family, your father’s family. And, forgive me if this is overstepping, but Dani mentioned that your life has become mostly work and sleep.”

She offers a gentle smile.

“I’m not saying that you might crack. You strike me as a hard man to crack, personally. But if you’d like an outlet, something to do outside of work, somewhere you can… I hate to say relax, but…”

“There’s always a chair open for you, I guess is what I’m saying.”

GM: “There is only one organized crime family with a grudge against mine,” Mr. Garrison corrects. “Their attempts at intimidation have never amounted to anything more than scare tactics. None of us have been placed in physical danger or lost our lives. I am too prominent a public official to be safely killed. The prosecution of my murder would dominate the focus of my successor’s term.”

He casts a faintly reproachful look at his daughter when Celia talks about his life, then turns back to her.

“I will have to decline. My available free time is extremely limited.”

“Well, we’re just glad to have you here tonight,” Diana smiles. “And that does explain why you don’t have a protective detail. Lucky us, not needing to prepare extra food.” She doesn’t chuckle, but she does smile a little wider.

“I receive details on an as-needed basis. Only the mayor has a permanent one,” says Mr. Garrison.

“But they eat while they are off-duty.”

Celia: He wasn’t this cold when she’d met him the first time. Maybe she’d pushed too soon.

GM: “I read about the ex-wife of India’s prime minister needing to cook meals for her protective detail,” says Dani. “All the time. The article also said they’d sleep in her house, be slobs in the bathroom, and basically bum free room and board off of her.”

Celia: “Sounds kind of like a cultural thing. Isn’t India a little backwards in their treatment of women in general?”

GM: “She said she didn’t even want them, they were such a pain to put up with. But yeah. Just a lot more corruption and… sleaziness. And sexism.”

Celia: “We’re still guilty of that here, to some degree.”

GM: “I guess the Pavaghis have brought over a taste of that, though,” says Dani.

“I think they owned my old apartment, actually,” says Diana.

Dani shakes her head. “Guess that’s no surprise. Slumlords.”

“Hasn’t Rich Pavaghi’s wife gone to your spa a few times, actually?” asks Celia’s mom.

Celia: “She has, yes. She’s a regular, actually.”

“Well, since they moved back here, anyway.”

GM: “Oh, I thought they lived in Kenner?” says Dani. “That’s, what, a 40 minute drive both ways?”

“Well, my baby’s very talented at what she does,” Diana smiles proudly, wrapping an arm around Celia.

Celia: Celia laughs.

“I doubt I’m the only reason she makes the drive.”

“But I’d meant moving closer from Baton Rouge, anyway.”

GM: “Ah, true. She’s got a million kids and grandkids in the city,” says Dani. “Probably comes over for them too.”

“She’s devoted to her kids, I’ll give her that,” nods Diana. “She moved in with her son when he was elected governor, to help out, as I remember.”

“Basically sidelined his wife in the media, though,” says Dani. “Strikes me more as controlling than devoted. I guess lucky for her kids and grandkids she has so many. Diffuses attention.”

Celia: “One of them is over at Bloom Couture. Have you been, Mr. Garrison?”

GM: “I have not,” he answers.

“It’s a very pretty place,” smiles Diana. “I get a lot of my gardening supplies there. But I doubt you have time for that sort of thing, with your job.”

Mr. Garrison simply nods as he cuts up another chicken thigh.

“Does it feel skeezy working on your mom’s old slumlord?” asks Dani. “The whole family is just so… scummy.”

Celia: “Honestly? No. I can’t let it get to me. Once someone is on my table it’s really just their body I’m looking at, and I put everything else away. There was someone once… early, I was still kind of new to it, but I knew him from college. He was kind of… I hate to say bully, but he was. I don’t think he recognized me, but I remembered him, and I just had to ignore it and deal with the fact that he was on my table. It’s a shift in power dynamics for sure, and it was weird for a minute, but then I just let it go.”

It had helped that she was a vampire and he was still kine, but she doesn’t mention that to Mr. Garrison.

GM: “Oh. What’d he do to you?” asks Dani.

“As a bully.”

Celia: “Before I met Stephen I was invited to a party by some of the people from one of my dance classes. Was supposed to just be a small thing, a break from the production, and I figured no big. They said no alcohol, it wouldn’t be wild. But, ah, one of them brought a flask they started passing around, and then they got bored of hanging out with just our small group and wanted to go to a ‘real’ party, so we ended up on Greek Row. You ever meet someone and just know they’re bad news? He was that kind of person.” Celia shakes her head. She doesn’t look like she wants to get into the rest of it.

GM: Her mother looks at her concernedly.

“I’m sorry,” says Dani. “The parties at Tulane can get… out of hand.”

“But you don’t see anything when someone is on your table,” says Diana, changing the subject for her. “You’ve said that to me, how they become just a body you need to work on, and pretty much all bodies are the same.”

Celia: “Basically.”

GM: “What do you think you’ll want to do with me when I come in?” asks Dani. “Or is that better as a surprise?”

Celia: “Mmm, depends on what you’re looking for. We could keep it simple, with a massage or facial, or get into some other things. If you want to relax and unwind, though, nothing really beats a massage. I generally tailor things to the client, though.”

She doesn’t pointedly look at Mr. Garrison , but she does sweep her gaze past him all the same.

“Dessert?” she asks at large. “Should I get the pie, Momma?”

“You can finish telling Mr. Garrison without me interrupting,” she adds with a slight smile.

GM: “I think a massage sounds good, then,” says Dani.

“That also sounds good, sweetie, you can find it in the oven,” her mom smiles back. “There’s whipped cream in the fridge, too!”

“I’ll help,” says Dani, rising from her seat and gathering up some of the plates.

“Oh, Dani, you’re a guest,” starts Diana.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Flores. You can tell my dad the rest of the story yourself.”

“All right, if you’re sure.”

Celia supposes she’s spent enough time talking about her boyfriend for one night.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

GM: Dani carries out plates and serving containers with Celia.

“So Stephen said something about you two wanting to set our parents up?”

Celia: Celia gathers what she can, moving into the kitchen to scrape things into the compost bin, rinse plates, put some of the dishes away, and fill the dishwasher.

“Mm, he mentioned it. I don’t think I’m helping.”

GM: “Oh, why not?”

Celia: “I’m pretty sure your dad hates me and every time I open my mouth he’s reminded that I left Stephen.”

GM: “I don’t think he hates you,” says Dani as she helps out. “Believe me, you’d know if he did.”

Celia: “‘Always have a plate open,’” Celia mutters. “Idiot.”

GM: “Plate open?”

Celia: Celia gives a disgusted sigh.

“Exactly. It makes no sense. Why would I say that. Because I’m an idiot, Dani.”

GM: “Oh. You meant chair.”

“Yeah, sorry. Dad is just… really business-focused. I don’t know if he’s ever been to a spa.”

Celia: “The sentiment remains the same, he blew it off.”

“I was talking about inviting him back to dinner again.”

GM: “That might be better, actually. Since he still has to eat.”

Celia: “I already did, Dani. Didn’t you hear him? He said no.”

GM: “Sorry? You just invited him to the spa, if I wasn’t zoning out?”

Celia: “No. Before that. When you asked about my grandma and he mentioned the cop. I invited him back.”

GM: “Oh. I thought you meant the spa.”

Celia: “I didn’t invite him to the spa at all.”

“I mean if he wants to come, sure, but it doesn’t seem like his groove.”

GM: “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

“Maybe we can clarify?”

“I think it would be good for him to get out more.”

“Or at least, get in, somewhere else with different people.”

Celia: She thought she’d been perfectly clear.

GM: “I think it’d be good for him to date again too. He just doesn’t have any patience for it.”

Celia: “I think it would be weird to date my stepbrother, but… my mom would be good for him. Your dad.”

“She’s got a lot of love and patience.”

GM: “I think so. She made him feel all manly with the car, too.”

Celia: “Yeah. Like that. Give him something to do with his hands. Makes them feel needed.”

GM: “You also did that with the cops who shook you down. When he said he’d do something about it.”

Celia: Celia smiles at her.

“Yes.”

GM: “I hope he does, too. I can’t believe they tried to extort you.”

“Well, I can. It’s just awful.”

Celia: “They’re all awful.”

“Your dad is one of the last few remaining good ones.”

“Him and… well. Stephen.”

GM: Dani shakes her head. “There are plenty of good cops, lawyers, and judges. It’s just… a lot of things are rigged against them.”

“But that’s a bigger topic.”

“What do you think we can do to set them up?”

Celia: “What does he like to do? Or used to like to do?”

GM: “He might be if he went there. He just… isn’t that interested in trying new things, anymore.”

“He used to be. Before Stephen.”

Celia: “If he were around I’d just suggest a double date.”

GM: “Oh, that’s an idea.”

“Though I’ll call it a victory just to get him to go.”

“Maybe try not to frame it as a date, too.”

Celia: “Well. Maybe Mom can say she wants to check out the new exhibit or something.”

“And I’ll offer to watch Lucy.”

GM: “Maybe we could all go? That feels less like a date. Explains why your mom wants to go, too, show Lucy a museum.”

Celia: “Oh, that’s better.”

“Maybe they have a late night?”

GM: “He’s busy during the day, anyway, so. And your mom knows you can only do nights.”

Celia: “Alright. We’ll make it work, then. Maybe Stephen will be able to make it.”

GM: “I hope so. For him.”

“Dad, at least, I don’t think would mind one less stranger.”

“Should your mom know we’re trying to set them up?”

Celia: “I dunno. She’s kind of set on seeing Maxen again.”

“Might just put my foot down there.”

“Trying to see how it goes tonight with some leads I have to follow.”

GM: “Leads with your dad?”

Celia: “Yeah.”

GM: “I dunno that you can stop her from seeing him if she wants to. I mean, she’s your mom.”

Celia: “I can if I tell her the truth.”

“And make it a lick politics thing.”

“Which it is.”

GM: “I dunno, if there was a guy I loved… did lick politics stop you and Stephen?”

Celia: It might have.

GM: “I mean, you aren’t supposed to be seeing each other, but it’s not gotten in the way.”

Celia: “Hasn’t it? We have to hide from everyone. Someone touched me last week and he was going to challenge him to a duel for the insult.”

GM: “That’s kinda romantic,” Dani smiles.

Celia: “We got jumped by hunters and everyone thinks he’s the only one who did anything to stop them.”

“It was, yeah.”

Celia can’t help but smile too.

GM: “I bet he’d win, too. You guys were incredible against those mobsters.”

Celia: “Yeah, well, it didn’t end up happening.”

“Next time, I guess.”

GM: “Yeah. So, you wanna set up the WWII museum outing?”

Celia: “Guess so. Wanna grab the pie? Ovens don’t always agree with my kind. I’ll get the whipped cream.”

GM: “Okay,” says Dani, getting some mitts and opening the oven. “Why don’t they?”

Celia: “Fire.”

“Rather not risk it with this many people around.”

GM: “Can’t hurt,” Dani agrees as she hefts the pie dish.

Celia: Celia locates the whipped cream and serving utensils and starts towards the door. She stops, though, before she crosses the threshold, and turns to look at Dani once more.

“Did he sleep with her?” she asks in a low voice. “Emily. Did he?”

GM: “Um. I’m honestly not sure,” Dani answers. “Does it matter, though? It was forever ago. And I can definitely tell you he was nowhere nearly as into her.”

Celia: “I don’t know why I care,” she mutters.

GM: “You seemed, well… insecure about the relationship, honestly, when we talked,” says Dani. “This feels like more of that.”

Celia: “He’s smarter than me. Stronger than me. Faster than me. Better than me. He called me a whore. What’s not to be insecure about?”

“And now he’s gone, and I can’t find him. And it’s my fault he’s a vampire, and probably my fault he’s gone.”

GM: Dani sets down the pie and rests her hands on Celia’s shoulders.

“Look. He’s not better than you, and he doesn’t think so. He’s sorry he hurt you. Really sorry. He wants your guys’ relationship to work. It means the world to him.”

Celia: “He left.”

“He didn’t come back.”

GM: “He’s left me too.”

“But he’s gonna come back.”

“I mean, what, is he going to just disappear forever?”

Celia: “Maybe.”

GM: “He didn’t before, when you broke up. He just… wanted space.”

Celia: “What if he’s dead? What if he didn’t make it somewhere safe this morning? What if more hunters picked him up? What if Carolla’s goons found him?”

What if Savoy did something to him?

What if he went to confront Coco and she smacked him back down to size?

GM: “He’s tough and smart. Isn’t he?” says Dani.

Celia: “He was also angry and hurt.”

GM: “All right, so, what can we do, besides worry?”

Celia: “Get through dinner and find him.”

GM: “Okay. You want to go look for him?”

Celia: “I have a loose end to tie up. Then yes, before Elysium, I’d like to look.”

GM: “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

Celia: Celia nods.

“Dessert first, though.”

GM: “He’s not in love with Emily, by the way. He took it pretty casually when they had to stop seeing each other. And that was seven years ago, when he was human.”

Celia: “They still fucked. And he never told me. And she never told me.”

“Whatever. I don’t care.”

The more she thinks about it the more she realizes it’s true. She doesn’t care. Celia is dead. Stephen is dead. Roderick is probably dead, too. What’s left to cherish? Why not take the last of her happy memories from her, tarnish them with the idea that Emily and Stephen hooked up and she got her sister’s sloppy seconds? Everything else is already ruined, anyway.

GM: “I don’t think they were trying to lie to you. I think it just never registered as important. It was two dates. Ending things with Emily basically got a ‘too bad’ and then he moved on to other girls. Ending things with you destroyed his world.”

Celia: “I don’t care,” Celia says again.

GM: “You do care. I just don’t want this to hurt you more.”

Celia: “You brought it up."

GM: “You’re being defensive.”

Celia: “Of course I’m being defensive! I was supposed to be a one night stand. He told me that. He said that to me, that’s all I was supposed to be. Emily introduced us because he was looking to get laid and she wanted to show me a good first time and had already sampled the goods. And I’d never been with anyone, and he offered to make it special, and he did. And it was a lie. The whole thing was a lie. And years later I’m still in love with him and he’s not. He left. And he didn’t come back.”

“We were supposed to talk. We were supposed to clear the air between us so we could be together. And he never came back. He doesn’t care.”

“So don’t. Don’t tell me that our relationship is important to him when he couldn’t be bothered to show up.”

GM: “Celia, do you really think your relationship doesn’t matter to him? That boom, just like that, he dropped something with seven years of history?”

Celia: Celia sighs down at her.

“You didn’t see his face last night, Dani. You didn’t hear his voice.”

GM: “How does that even matter if they slept together? How does that make what you had a lie? He had girlfriends before you! Long-term ones, even.”

Celia: Celia doesn’t expect her to understand. She’s never had a boyfriend. Never been through anything to do with the heart. Doesn’t know Stephen, not like Celia does, not that way. The romantic way. The “on the other end of his fists” way. The broken way. Twice broken, her fault both times, isn’t it? Explaining it to her isn’t going to make her understand any better. It’s like the frenzy thing: she had to see it to get it.

“Come on,” she says, “the story isn’t that long.”

Dani doesn’t know the truth, anyway.

But Emily does.

Roderick does.

She’ll find it when she finds him.

---

Friday evening, 18 March 2016

Celia: She leads the way back into the dining room, forcing a smile.

“Dessert has arrived.”

GM:

“Oh, th-thank you, you two,” Diana smiles as the two arrive. She looks a little emotional as they set the pie down and dabs at her eyes.

Celia: Celia touches a hand to her shoulder after she sets the whipped cream down on the table, brows lifted.

GM: “Just retellin’ the whole story, baby, and what a brave, sweet, kind-hearted boy Stephen was,” answers her mom, laying a hand on top of Celia’s. “Gets me a little emotional.”

“Me as well, Diana,” answers Mr. Garrison. His voice is slightly uneven.

Celia: Celia nods in understanding. She gives her mom’s shoulder a squeeze.

GM: Her mom smiles at her and turns to the dessert.


“So this is a mostly classic shoofly pie, it’s got molasses and crumbs and pie crust, pretty much, but I added some chocolate chips too. Thought we’d experiment and see how the flavors combine.”

“Celia, I know how much you want to watch your figure for those Instagram posts, do you still want any?”

Celia: “I might pass, if that’s all right. Molasses is a little heavy for me. I can take a slice to Emi, though.”

GM: Her mom nods. “It’s okay. There’s nothin’ healthy in dessert. And that would be very thoughtful, sweetie, though with Victor and Shadow…”

Celia: “I’ll make it quick.” Celia cuts a piece, then a smaller one for Lucy, and heaps a mountain of whipped cream atop them both. She nabs two forks and is out the door before anyone can ask if she’s allergic to cats or what.

Quick steps take her across the yard to the carriage house, where she knocks twice on the door and says, “Hey it’s Celia, brought dessert, wanna come out a sec, Em?”

GM: Carriage room, technically, as Emily enjoys calling it. Her voice answers, “Sure, out in a sec,” a moment later. The door opens before too much rain can patter against her umbrella.

“Thanks, pie wouldn’t have been Instagram-worthy if we’d cut slices earlier.”

Celia: “Can’t have that.”

“Hey, so it came up at dinner that you and Stephen used to date. Why didn’t you tell me you’d hooked up?”

Smooth.

“Didn’t realize we were eskimo sisters.” Celia wiggles her eyebrows.

GM: Emily laughs. “Well, we only went out a couple times before I told him it wouldn’t work. He took it pretty well.”

Celia: “But you did. Hook up.”

“Right?”

GM: “Ah, geez. Are you feeling grossed out?”

Celia: “Tell me.”

“Tell me if you slept with him.”

“It doesn’t matter, it was before we were together, he’s dead and gone, but I’d like to know.”

“So did you?”

Celia waits. Expectant.

It shouldn’t take this long to get an answer. The pie is probably getting cold. It’s a yes or no question. One syllable. That’s all it is. Three letters at most. Just say it, Emily. Just say you slept with him. Say you gave me your leftovers, say that our entire relationship was built on a lie, that I’ve never even had my own boyfriend because someone else got to him first. Did you tell him I’d be easy? Did you say that I’d be down for a one night stand because I was curious about sex? Did you tell him he could pop my cherry? And, what, he stayed because I was too stupid to realize what the two of you had done? Did you laugh about it afterwards? Was it like one of those shitty teenage movies where you set a dude up with a girl as a joke and he falls for her and then she finds out and it ruins everything?

Because that’s what this will do. Ruin everything. Them sleeping together kills everything she’d ever felt for him. Everything. There’s not an ounce of it left if they slept together. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. It doesn’t matter that he’s dead. It doesn’t matter that she’s dead.

She had this. This one thing that was special. This one thing she could cherish from her mortal life.

It’s just one word.

One word.

Just say it.

GM: That’s when Celia feels it. Descending like a shadow over the moon.

The familiar icy hand locked in sudden death grip around her heart.

Squeezing.

Crushing.

Pulling.

Her head whips to the house’s roof, as though grabbed by a magnet.

He’s there. Perched on it like some enormous black bat come home to roost.


Her sire has arrived.

---

Previous, by Narrative: Story Thirteen, Celia XIV
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Next, by Character: Story Thirteen, Celia XVI

“She lied to me.”
Roderick Durant

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, AM

GM: The pair drive back to Flawless. Dani and the brothers are there, in Jade’s suite. Carolla lies on the central table with a stake pounded into him. Somewhat needlessly, given his torpid state.

Celia: Better safe than sorry, though.

“Where’s the ghoul?” she asks Dani.

GM: “You need him for anything? ‘Cuz to me he sounded like a giant headache she couldn’t work up the stones to take care of,” answers Reggie.

Celia: Surely he’s not talking about her.

Jade gives him a sharp look.

“I do.”

GM: “Well, that’s too bad. I already killed him.”

Celia: “You what?!”

GM: Dani’s mouth falls open.

Roderick seizes the ghoul by the throat and slams him back-first into the wall.

Celia: “Don’t!”

Celia is at his side in an instant, hands on the arm holding up the ghoul, pulling him back.

Or attempting to.

GM: She finds the Brujah’s grip quite implacable. Randy yells, “Hey!” and tries to pry him off too, but Roderick just shoves him hard enough to send the ghoul sprawling over his face. Reggie gives a pained grunt past the vice-like hand around his throat, but doesn’t struggle.

Celia: “Rod! Stop it!”

There’s not much room between the pair, but she worms her way in what space exists all the same, shoving at Rod with the flats of her palms.

“Stop it. Stop it! Let him go.”

GM: “I could… read this whole thing…” grunts Reggie. “Princess throwin’ a fit… ‘oh, no, don’t be the bad guy!‘… pissed at you, if you did it… but scared shitless he’d remember… giant fuckin’ liability…”

He manages a grin.

“So Mr. Bad Guy took care of it…”

Celia: He’s right.

GM: “Go on… Mr. Tough Guy… you gonna kill me instead?”

Celia: “Shut UP, Reggie!” Celia snaps at him. She turns back to Roderick.

“Roderick, please, let him go.”

GM: Roderick doesn’t answer. His fangs are distended, his eyes wide and furious. A choked half-growl escapes his throat.

Dani turns from staring daggers at Reggie to looking Celia with fear. She starts to edge away.

“Is he gonna lose it…?”

Celia: “Get out, Dani. Go. Randy, go. Now.”

Celia waits until she hears the door close, then reaches for Roderick, hands on either side of his face.

“Stop it,” she says to him. There’s no fear in her voice or face, just a gentle command. Soft, like the rest of her, but there’s steel in her spine now. She’s not going to let her boyfriend become a murderer. “Reel it in. You don’t want to hurt him. You don’t want to be like him. Let him go. Let him go, and we’ll deal with this. You are not a murderer.”

GM: The ghoul and thin-blood give the two vampires a long look, but edge their way out.

Roderick squeezes Reggie until his smirk is completely gone and he starts to turn blue. Survival instincts overtake the smugness in his eyes as he starts to fight back. The Blood enhances his muscles too, and for a moment it looks like he might throw Roderick off before the Brujah clamps a second hand around his throat. The two struggle for several moments, but in the end, it isn’t physical strength that decides Reggie’s life, but Celia’s gentle yet unwavering implorations. The burgeoning fury in Roderick’s eyes wavers like a torch under heavy rain, then finally gutters out as he drops the ghoul to his feet. Reggie gags and massages his neck.

Roderick stares down at him.

“Get out of my sight, you trash.”

The ghoul silently picks himself up, hand still to his neck, and retreats from the room.

Celia: Celia helps him to his feet if he lets her, moving with him to the edge of the room to see him out. He doesn’t need her, but she needs him; she needs to make sure he’s okay, that he’s breathing, that he isn’t about to keel over. She locks the door behind him and turns to face the Brujah.

GM: Roderick slowly shakes his head.

“I’d have killed him if you hadn’t talked me down.”

“He should have known better.”

Celia: “He should have. And he didn’t. And you didn’t.”

GM: “I do know better. That’s what’s so fucking awful about it.”

“Because it doesn’t matter.”

Celia: “It does matter. We don’t judge other people by their intentions, just by their actions. And you didn’t do anything. That is what matters.”

GM: “This time.”

Celia: “Yeah? So you’re going to mope about it because you might maybe one day lose it again?”

“You’re going to beat yourself up about it because this time you didn’t but you have the potential to?”

“You know what, Roderick? So do I. Every time I go out and feed I have the potential to murder someone, and I don’t, and I’m not going to sit here being mad about it because I might.”

GM: He shakes his head again. “I’m not going to mope. I’m just wondering how long I’ll last before I lose it.”

“Really lose it.”

“Your clan likes to say they don’t have a curse. Mine finds that harder to spin.”

Celia: “Of course we have a fucking curse. We all do. And we all have a Beast.”

GM: “Ours is worse. But that’s nothing new.” He looks at the door. “Your ghoul needs to face justice.”

“He murdered a defenseless man.”

Celia: “Yeah? What do you propose I do to him?”

GM: “I’m sure he’s done a lot of illegal things. Let him go to prison.”

Celia: “He’s a ghoul. You know that’s a terrible idea.”

GM: “Abandoned ghouls exist. Independents. But I suppose he might come after you,” Roderick relents.

“Trade him to another domitor.”

Celia: “…why?”

GM: “Because I doubt they’ll be as kind as you.”

Celia: “Hand him off to get abused. Do you hear yourself?”

“Why, knowing what I’ve been through, do you think that I would willingly do that to someone?”

“You think smacking him around some is going to make him a better person?”

“You think it worked on my mom, Roderick? Made her better when my dad hit her?”

“Think it made me smarter when he knocked me around?”

“You think that time he beat me until I could barely walk was for my benefit?”

GM: “My god no, Celia! But there was a critical difference. He’s a murderer. You and your mom weren’t. Should he just get away with that? Should there be no accountability? He obviously doesn’t regret what he’s done.”

Celia: “Of course he doesn’t! You think I don’t know that? That he absolutely thinks he did the right thing? You heard him. And he’s right. He did do the right thing. He got his hands dirty so I didn’t have to. So you didn’t have to. That guy was absolutely a liability.”

“He did what he did to protect me.”

“To protect you.”

“Us.”

“Our families.”

GM: Roderick shakes his head. “I won’t ever condone murder, Celia, except in direct self-defense. We could have found another way, like we have with Carolla. Maybe gotten a lick good at mind control to erase his memories. That’s off the table now.”

Celia: “Yeah. So is finding out what he knew. So are all of the answers I’d have gotten from him. It sucks. I’m mad at him too. And I can’t bring him back to life. So unless you can, we’re moving on.”

“Because unless you’re secretly friends with the prince or someone else who can erase years worth of memories, Reggie isn’t going anywhere. He knows everything about me. I will deal with him.”

GM: “Your ghoul can’t just get away with murder, Celia. There needs to be a consequence for his actions.”

Celia: “And, as his domitor, I will handle it.”

“I don’t tell you what to do with your ghouls. Don’t tell me what to do with mine.”

GM: “I hope you would tell me, actually, if they did something awful and my response seemed inadequate.”

“But fine. He is your ghoul. I trust you’ll handle it.”

Celia: Celia stares at him a moment longer, as if waiting for another argument. When it doesn’t come she finally nods.

“I’ll get rid of it.” The body, she means.

GM: “Okay.” He raises no objection.

He looks at Carolla.

Celia: “His, too.” She jerks her chin at the torpid lick.

GM: “I have things I’d like to ask him. But our blood isn’t strong enough to revive him.”

Celia: “No,” she agrees.

GM: “And I don’t want to bring in anyone else.”

Celia: “I was thinking the same.”

GM: “I’ll take care of him. Bury him somewhere no one will ever unearth him.”

Celia: Celia shakes her head.

“I have a better idea.”

GM: Roderick thinks.

“Wait. Could you change his body?”

Celia: “…for what purpose?”

GM: “Hiding who he is when we transport him. Just in case someone gets a look.”

Celia: “I mean, yeah. Skin is skin. I can change it.”

GM: “Extra layer of security.”

“Maybe take away his muscles, too.”

Celia: “Yeah? Graft them on you?”

GM: “God, no. I’m happy with mine. I don’t want anything from his body on me. I just like the idea of a tough Mafia thug being made weak.”

“Further helps conceal who he is, too.”

Celia: “Yeah. I can. Ask Randy to get me a cup. And a bag.”

GM: “Too bad he’s not awake. I’d like to see how he reacts to being the weak and helpless one.”

“Granted, I suppose you can’t take away his super-strength.”

Celia: “Probably not. Just his regular strength. I think.”

“I guess I’ve never tested that.”

“Just the other way.”

GM: “Perfect time to find out, then.”

Celia: “No, I mean, we won’t know without him being up.”

“Obviously I can take it.”

GM: “Ah. True. What was your idea, anyway?”

Celia: “There’s an apron in the next—oh.”

“I found the hunters that tracked me. I have a way to contact them. I was sending the boys undercover. Tomorrow, actually. We’d hatched the plan. Works better if they bring a body, though.”

“Find out what they know. Who else they’re targeting. Keep people safe.”

GM: “So your ghouls as ostensible hunters are bringing the body to trade to other hunters?”

Celia: Celia nods.

GM: “Only reason I can think of they’d want a staked lick is for interrogation and perhaps research purposes.”

Celia: “Not like they can revive him.”

GM: “Yeah, I was about to say.”

“If they even know how that works.”

Celia: “The ones who grabbed me were pretty clueless.”

“They’d heard of the mindfucking, kept me blindfolded or gagged by turns, but I’m not a fucking stiff.”

GM: “Most hunters don’t know a lot. And you’d need fairly potent blood to revive another lick, anyway.”

Celia: “Yeah.”

“So it gets us some intel. And gets rid of him.”

“Drain him first, so they don’t create independents or anything.”

GM: “Okay. Your cover will probably be blown after the handoff, though. Or they’ll at least be pissed.”

Celia: “I’ll deal with it if it is.”

GM: “They’ll have paid for a staked vampire that’s effectively just a corpse. I’d feel ripped off if I was a hunter.”

“But okay.”

Celia: “Sucks for them.”

GM: “Main question. What do they do with his body when he seems for all intents and purposes to be dead?”

Celia: Celia shrugs.

“We’re all technically dead.”

GM: “That’s semantics here.”

Celia: She can’t help but smile.

GM: He smiles back. “I suppose they might dispose of the body. Or perhaps vivisect for study, if they’re a more scientific bunch.”

Celia: “You know what’s fucked?”

“Like what’s really fucked?”

GM: “What?”

Celia: “I keep thinking that the best way to find out who they are and what they want is to let them deliver me.”

“Then get out.”

GM: “What if you make Carolla here look like you?”

“Then the hunters believe you’re tagged and bagged.”

Celia: “Yeah, but then I’m not actually there.”

“Though…”

“Someone bugged the spa. Looking for Jade. Shortly after I got caught as Celia and said the name Jade.”

“Said she was my sire.”

GM: “Right. So, let them think they’ve got Jade.”

“It’s not foolproof, but who knows, it might throw them off your trail.”

Celia: “That’s not a bad idea.”

GM: “It’s not like hunters go to Elysium to see you up and about.”

Celia: “I don’t know for sure that it’s connected, but maybe…”

“You know they thought that killing your sire would cure it?”

GM: “Huh. That’s how it is in some vampire media.”

Celia: “They believe all sorts of weird shit.”

GM: “I’ve also heard that rumor from some duskborn.”

“That killing your sire undoes your Embrace.”

Celia: “Couldn’t happen, though. Any time an elder dies you’d have like dozens of licks just going mortal.”

“Plus look at Max and Hennesy. His sire’s ash.”

GM: “The people circulating that rumor probably don’t know just how widespread Kindred bloodlines are. Or maybe they figure it only affects the killer.”

“Whatever.”

“I suppose Carolla is going to get a set of tits.”

Celia: “Nice tits.”

GM: A faint smile. “I can attest. If his sacrifice makes you safer from hunters, I’m all for it.”

Celia: “We should cover his disappearance more. I don’t want his uncle coming after me or my family. Or you.”

GM: Roderick nods soberly.

Celia: “Wear his face around a little, maybe.”

GM: “That’s why I was pretty paranoid about this.”

“I could wear his face, though. I know enough of how the Mafia operates.”

Celia: “…wonder if you could infiltrate.”

GM: Roderick considers.

“That’s not a bad plan at all.”

Celia: “You think you could act enough like him?”

GM: “That might be harder. What I have is the knowledge.”

Celia: “Worth thinking about, anyway.”

GM: He nods. “Very much so. For now, let’s just get rid of the real Carolla. We already did good letting two licks see him after he disappeared.”

Celia: Celia nods. She sets about gathering the supplies she’s going to need: a bowl, to drain him into. A cup, so she can use his own blood against him. A garbage bag for the spare parts. An apron for herself, a second for Rod.

“You gonna watch?” she asks him, using her claws to cut a hole in the side of his neck. A second later her hand punches through his chest to find his heart, squeezing the blood from his veins into the waiting bowl.

GM: “I’d be interested,” he nods, tying on the apron. He watches her initial work. “Geez. What’s that part for?”

Celia: “Heart is literally just a pump that moves the blood through the body. You can’t usually drain someone the whole way just through feeding, but you can this way.”

“Waste not and all that.”

GM: “That makes perfect sense.”

“Hmm. I bet a sorcerer would know all sorts of things to do with his blood.”

Celia: “Probably.”

GM: “What do you want to use it for?”

Celia: “Drink it, mostly. I burned through enough keeping him from murdering the two of us.”

“Fucker can pay me back.”

GM: “That works. I’m getting munchies too.”

Celia, however, doesn’t find much blood to squeeze. The horribly savaged Brujah was clearly burning through a great deal over the course of the fight.

Celia: She eyes the amount she’s able to squeeze out of him. Enough to share?

More than enough to share.

“Microwave in the next room. Unless you like it cold. Can each have a hit now, save some for later?”

GM: “That works.” Roderick fills up some containers and carries them away.

He’s back a few minutes later.

“Well, cheers.” He raises his.

Celia: Celia tucks away the rest of it for later. She lifts her glass, clinking it against his.

“Cheers.”

GM: Roderick downs the blood.

Then he doesn’t move.

The glass shatters over the floor, spilling its remaining blood as it falls from slack fingers.

Celia: Celia follows suit, swallowing it down. She’s absorbed in drinking—god, she loves Brujah blood—and only glances his way when the glass hits the ground. She looks at it, then up at him, and then at the glass in her hand.

GM: Roderick leaps upon Carolla’s vivisected body with a choked roar, bringing his fists down over and over and over as he smashes bones and pulverizes flesh with mindless, ravening fury.

Celia: Celia darts backwards, away from the angry vampire. She readies a stake in case he comes at her.

GM: He doesn’t. He mindlessly savages and rips apart Carolla’s already torpid form.

Celia: She doesn’t interrupt. She remembers too well what happened last time she’d tried to do something when he’d been raging inside a confined space with her.

Better Carolla than her.

GM: He smashes in Carolla’s ribs. Rips out arms and leg from sockets. Snaps them apart. Snaps the spine. Caves in the skull.

He just keeps going.

Celia: Years as a lick has afforded her some emotional detachment to watching a body get torn apart. She’s done it enough times herself. She’s already cataloging what she’ll need to put back together. Whether she’ll be able to put him back together. How many extra parts she’ll need to fix.

But with his attention focused as it is on the Brujah, maybe he doesn’t notice her crouching near the table to get a look at the guts and parts that fly off.

You can tell so much from the flesh once it leaves a lick’s body.

GM: Roderick doesn’t cease or pause in his furious assault. His fists smash and smash and smash into Carolla’s, reducing it to no more pulp. Every part of his body—including the skull.

Celia: Maybe she’d thought there was some part of her boyfriend left. Some part of Stephen. Something that would make him not absolutely destroy the body on the table in front of him despite his rage at what he found.

But he goes for the skull, and her brief investigation comes to a halt when she sees what he’s about to do.

It’s just like at Elysium. He was going to goad Garcia into saying something that would prompt a duel. And now, here, he’s going to destroy what’s left of Carolla.

He’s going to do the one thing that he doesn’t want to do, no matter how mad he is right now.

He’s going to ash him.

“NO!”

The roar is torn out of her as soon as she sees it and she moves more quickly than she has this evening, bursting forward to launch herself at him. Her claws come out. He’s stronger than her, she knows that, but maybe they’ll give her the edge that she needs.

She will not let him destroy the fucker—not matter how much he deserves it—and further blacken his soul. Not on her watch.

Her Beast, riding high from its victory earlier in the night, roars its approval. It rattles the cage. It wants out.

GM: She has plans enough to blacken her own soul, anyway.

Upon Carolla’s.

Souls for power, like she said to Caroline.

The torpid Brujah is so much closer than L.A. is.

Celia: But she’s stronger than her Beast.

She always has been.

She’s not the helpless, doe-eyed damsel she pretends to be. This entire night proved that. She’d torped Carolla. Taken out him and his goon. Hatched a plan to frame someone else. Laid plans to infiltrate both the Mafia and the hunters. Told Roderick to fuck off when he thought he could tell her how to discipline her ghouls.

No, she’s not a damsel.

Just an angry lick that isn’t going to let everything she has worked so hard for be ruined by a guy with a rage issue.

GM: Celia streaks into Roderick, knocking him off the table. The frenzying Brujah smashes a fist into her face, crunching in her nose and sending teeth flying as he scrambles back towards his clanmate’s torpid form. Celia sweeps a leg underneath his, tripping her lover onto his chin. He flips around and delivers a rib-shattering kick to her torso, then scrambles to his feet. He’s too fast to stop from rising, but not so fast that she can’t still throw herself onto his back, knocking him to the floor again. Another furious fist smashes into her face. On and on and on, Roderick tries to set upon his helpless clanmate, and Celia heedlessly throws herself in his path. He shatters bone and bruises skin and worse. But Celia will not be denied. She must maintain the proper order—him the better man, her the monster. She cannot let the vision come to pass. She just has to hold out. She just has to hold him at bay until the fury passes, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much precious blood it costs her—until, finally, it does. Roderick collapses to his knees, coated in his lover’s lifeblood, red tears welling from his own eyes.

“C… Celia…”

Celia: There’s little enough vitae left in her when it’s over.

She can feel it. Gnawing. Twisting. Hungry.

She’s always so hungry.

How much of her is broken? What had he done to her? How many bones? How much of her face?

God, not her face.

Bones rejoin. Flesh rights itself. His fists don’t leave a permanent mark on her. Not anymore.

No. Not a damsel at all.

She moves to him when it’s over, sinking onto her knees beside him, pulling him into her arms. Her lips find his neck. Chaste. Brief. Her hand presses against the back of his head, holding him to her. Her fingers slide through his hair.

“I’ve got you,” she whispers. “I’ve got you.”

GM: Her lover weeps in her embrace. Tiny streams of runs over her arms, hot and furious, but undeniably grief-stricken.

“C-Celia,” Roderick rasps out, “h-e’s… he’s…!”

Celia: “Your brother,” she says for him. She leaves Coco’s name out of it. “I could taste it. Taste you.”

GM: Roderick closes his eyes for a moment. He doesn’t swallow. The physiological need is long past.

But he repeats the words himself. As if it’s important for him to say the truth aloud. To not shirk from it, in even this moment.

“He’s… my… BROTHER!”

She has never heard his voice so broken. So raw. So crushed.

Since he died.

For a moment, she’s Celia Flores, newly-Embraced fledgling again, with a mortal boyfriend she can’t stay together with. She’s telling him, the man whose children she wanted to bear, that they’re through. Because she cheated on him. Because she was broken inside and his love wasn’t enough to fix her. Because he loved her and trusted her and he made a sucker’s bet, and she twisted all of that love and trust like a knife in his gut. To hurt him like only someone you’ve opened your heart and soul to can ever hurt you.

That’s what his voice sounds like.

That moment from 2009.

When he begged her to get help.

Celia: She blinks and it’s there in her eyes: pain. The pain that she caused. Continues to cause. Now. Then.

She did this.

She made this happen.

To please someone else. To make her sire happy. To make her grandsire happy. Their goals, not hers, never hers. She doesn’t want him to hurt like this. Once is enough.

Isn’t it better, some part of her asks, that he knows? Better that found out? Better that he didn’t continue his Requiem ignorant to the fact that his sire lied to him?

That’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it. The difference between them:

Truth?

Or beauty?

He has gotten his truth and it has broken him.

The red runs down her cheeks. She doesn’t try to stop it. She doesn’t want it anymore. She doesn’t want to be this person anymore. She doesn’t want to play their games and ruin people because she, too, knows the truth: they’re all fucking terrible. Every single one of them. Except for him. He’s not. He’s not, but they’re going to ruin him. He’s not, but they’re going to blacken him. They’re going to twist him, to tear him apart, to leave him nothing but an empty, hollow corpse, because that’s what they do. That’s what they are.

They’re monsters.

And she hates them for it.

Every single one of them.

Even him.

What do you do when you find out your life is a lie?

She had abandoned her mom. Left her in the hospital. Broken. Bleeding. Hurting. Isolated.

Nothing had helped.

He had. Eventually. When she’d found him, he’d been there for her. Put her back together. Let her tell him everything on her time. When she was ready. Didn’t push.

So she doesn’t push now. She keeps her arms around him, touch soft against his skin, holding him to her like she wished someone would hold her.

GM: She holds him.

Holds him as he holds the burden of his truth.

Holds him as it crushes him.

Holds him as it grinds his bones.

Holds him as it squeezes the tears from his ducts.

Holds him as he raises his head, his eyes lost and confused, like a newborn beholding the world for the first time.

And not liking what it sees.

“She lied to me,” he whispers.

“She,” he repeats, each word falling from his lips like a stone, “Lied. To. Me.”

He looks around, as if not recognizing the spa. He repeats the words again. There’s a strange, almost lyrical cadence to them, as if he can’t understand them. As if in saying them aloud, he might come to realize what they mean. They sound almost innocent.

“She… lied… to me.”

Celia: She did.

She lied.

Celia doesn’t say it, though. He doesn’t need to hear it from her. There’s enough bad blood between them about his sire.

GM: He laughs. It’s a light sound. Almost a giggle.

“She lied to me.”

“She… lied to me.”

He runs a hand through his hair and bursts out laughing. His smile is huge. Far too huge for his face, like a cracked mirror being crammed into a too-small frame.

“I’m the stupid one!"

“Ah ha! Ah ha ha ha! AH HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!”

He cannot contain the laughter. It bursts from his dead lungs, filling the room, jubilant and exalting as a cyanide pill in a birthday cake it rings off the walls.

“I see now!”

“I SEE now!”

Celia: He’s hysterical.

Literally cracked.

Celia swallows. She doesn’t know what to say.

GM: “I’m not stupid anymore, Celia!” he grins at her. He seizes her cheeks between his hands, crushingly hard.

“They all said it was you, but it was me!”

“I was stupid!"

“But not anymore!”

“Oh no! Oh no, oh no, not anymore!”

“I won’t be stupid EVER AGAIN!”

Celia: She tries to talk around the grip he has on her cheeks. But it hurts to try to move her jaw. She pulls at his hands, backpedaling.

“Wh—what?”

GM: “I GET it now, Celia!” he yells, shaking her back and forth. Her skull slams into the wall hard enough to make spots blossom across her sight if she were mortal, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He throws back his head and laughs.

“I GET it! How it all really works!”

“How THEY all really work!”

“How the world really works!”

“Oh, I’m so smart, like they all said I was! I finally get it!”

Celia: She doesn’t.

She doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about. What he thinks he gets.

Maybe it’s her head slamming into the wall. She keeps herself quiet, pulling away from him.

GM: “YOU got it!” he declares, thrusting a finger at her.

“And they all said you were so stupid.”

“Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha haha haaHAHAHAHAH!”

Celia: “Stop it, Roderick.”

GM: “You’re not stupid! You GOT IT, Celia! You got it YEARS before I did!”

“Years and years and YEARS!”

Celia: “Got what?”

GM: He throws up his hands.

“The truth!”

“How it all works!”

He laughs again.

Celia: She doesn’t like this. It’s scaring her. He’s going to do something crazy. He’s going to do something stupid. He’s going to go cause problems somewhere.

He’s broken. They broke him. She broke him.

Again.

GM: “Took me long enough, with a brain as big as mine!”

“Well. Well, well, well, well, well. It’s time I stopped acting so stupid.”

Celia: “Roderick. Stop. Just… just take a minute, okay?”

GM: “Take me to Savoy, Celia.”

“He can be the second to see, just how smart I am now.”

Celia: Celia presses her lips together.

“What, now?”

GM: He smiles like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Take me to Savoy, so I can sell out Coco and stab her in the back like she stabbed me.”

Celia: Celia reaches for her phone. She sends a text to Mel that she’s stopping by and bringing a friend. The ghoul will know what it means.

GM: “She fed me lies for years.”

“Well, I will feed her lies right back.”

“I will feed her plenty of lies indeed.”

“I think I’m going to be very good at lying, with a big brain like mine.”

Celia: It’s what she wanted.

What she’s been working towards. What everything she’s done these past weeks has been for.

Why, then, does victory ring so hollow?

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, AM

Celia: She asks him if he wants to change his face. But the lie he’s wearing right now works better. No need to tip anyone off. They keep it.

She asks, too, if he’s hungry. They take the edge off if he is. And she finds the blood she’d drained earlier to feed herself. Just in case.

She tells the boys to stay put, that she’ll be back for them, and tells Dani to get some sleep. “Something came up,” is all she says, “I’ll explain later.”

They wash off the blood and find new clothes. Celia turns herself into Jade. Then they’re in the car, driving toward the Evergreen.

GM: He waves off the offered blood. He’ll impose upon Lord Savoy. He’s sure the Toreador elder will be happy to satisfy his thirst.

“I’m going to squeeze him for everything he’s worth,” he declares.

Dani wants to talk to her brother. He tells her things are fine. He’ll see her later.

They drive to the Evergreen. He doesn’t talk along the way. Fabian receives them cordially and states Lord Savoy is due to return shortly. In the meantime, he bids the lovers to slake their thirst upon a few of Mélissaire’s girls. They feed together in one of the upstairs Louis XIV-themed sitting rooms. Roderick drinks thirstily from the attractive escort on his lap without making small talk. He licks the blood from his lips when she’s gone. He waits, patiently.

Celia: Jade doesn’t turn down the offer of free blood. They drink together. The girls are attractive; they have to be, they go to Flawless. She enjoys the way they writhe when she sinks in.

But they’re just a distraction to their real purpose this evening.

She waits with Roderick. Silent. She doesn’t force her company on him if he doesn’t want it. But she’s close, and she hopes that he does.

GM: He sits by her while she feeds, and even shares the same vessel at one point, eyes meeting as they drink. But he doesn’t seem to feel like talking once it’s done.

It’s not an overly long wait later before Antoine Savoy sweeps into the room, grinning from ear to ear. He’s trailed by Preston, Mélissaire, and a redheaded girl Jade hasn’t seen before. He warmly kisses his grandchilde upon both cheeks and greets a stonier-faced Roderick with a simple handshake.

“We have a great deal to discuss, Lord Savoy,” says the Brujah.

“Yes, I’m certain we do,” grins Savoy, clapping the taller man on the back and following him to the elevator with Preston.

“I’ll send for you in short order, my dear,” he says to Jade. “In the meantime, we’ll put Mélissaire and Theoline here at your disposal. Anything you might desire, they will arrange.”

The redhead looks no older than a teenager. Her milk-pale features are beautiful and unblemished, while her gaze is placid and tranquil. She’s garbed in a flowing white gown that strikingly contrasts her waist-length red hair and gives her an almost ethereal appearance. Jade’s seen them before, silently attending various elders. The casquette girls.

:: Use the time to think of what rewards you’d like. Don’t be modest! :: Savoy’s voice chuckles in her mind. :: I’m very, VERY pleased with you, Celia. I knew you’d come through on this one. I have good instincts for people—and so do you, to flip Coco’s childe! We’ll talk more about what kind of expanded role you might serve in my court going forward. ::

Celia: Jade halts in her tracks as the group disappears into the elevator. She’d thought that she would go with them. Would be part of it. Could listen in, learn at his side like Roderick got to with his sire.

Not tonight.

She doesn’t let it bother her. Rewards, he’d said. Part of his court. That can be part of it.

She reaches for the tether that links their minds together, sending back wordless affirmation filled with affection. Like a cat rubbing up against his thoughts, purring, its tail flicking in quiet contentment. He’s pleased. And she’s pleased that he’s pleased. And she can’t help but think of the pair of them in that hot tub together upstairs, no Preston to be found. There’s a giggle, the suggestion of a wink, and finally a :: Yes, grandsire. ::

Don’t be modest indeed.

GM: There’s an image of the two of them lazily reclining in the pool’s bubbling water together. Preston isn’t anywhere to be found.

Or their clothes.

Celia: Tease.

Her fangs lengthen at the image.

GM: “Just let us know what we can do for you, ma’am,” smiles Mélissaire as the old-fashioned wrought iron elevator coveys the other Kindred to the roof. “Lord Savoy is VERY pleased.”

Celia: Celia’s eyes stay on her boyfriend’s face until the doors close and they disappear to the floors above. She knows what she wants.

Him.

Back the way he was.

In love with her. Happy. Stressed, maybe, but happy. Working for good. Talking about a wedding.

Not this damaged, broken, cracked version of himself. Not this vengeful, spurned childe.

She wants what they had. And she’s afraid that it’s out of reach. Afraid that it wasn’t the hunters who had set him down the path to the Dark Roderick she had seen in her vision, but the betrayal of his sire.

Celia knows what she wants. But Celia is a liability in this place, and it’s not something they can do. She drowns.

Jade is there to pick up the pieces. She’s so good at her role. What had she once said? “I keep her safe.” She turns her gaze to the women.

What can they do for her? An elder ghoul and, if she’s not mistaken, a casquette girl. She’s seen them around before, and she’s heard of them, but she’s never had one at her disposal. She runs through a list of what she’s working on in her head: the hunters, the Setites, the demons.

VERY pleased, is he? She’ll see how pleased. How far that good will goes; whether or not the exiled prince is worth more to him than a viper who scurries through the Quarter.

“I need a cottonmouth,” Jade says to the ghoul. “Staked and delivered to me prior to Elysium tomorrow.”

“Failing that, a combat-trained shadow dancer for a pickup during the day.”

“Pierre, if he’s available,” she adds as an aside. He’d already made contact with the same group. Maybe he’ll give the boys an edge. It’s a bonus that she doesn’t need to change his face.

She tries to ignore the fact that she is very certain he is the one who had accosted her in the shower and received a taste of her claws for the effort.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to use her without her consent.

Perhaps they’ll go for round two.

GM: “Lord Savoy will need to authorize a request like that first one,” answers Mélissaire, “but I can check and see, so far as Pierre.”

“Where and when is the pickup?”

Celia: “Tomorrow.” Jade gives her the time she’d worked out with the boys. “He’ll be with two of mine.”

A pause, then, “Let Lord Savoy know that the cottonmouth is to secure another friend for him.”

GM: Mélissaire nods and asks for a meet location or contact number so the other ghoul can know where to go.

“I think he’ll want to receive the details of that first request from you in person, ma’am. Friends don’t stake friends without a good reason, after all,” Mélissaire declares with an amused smile.

Celia: Better she tell him in person, anyway.

She gives Mel a contact number for Randy.

GM: “Very good, ma’am. Will there be anything else?” smiles the ghoul.

Theoline stands silently nearby with a placid expression.

Celia: “For tonight?” Jade considers. Something for her instead of furthering her grandsire’s goals and influence. Something personal and selfish.

She can think of dozens of things. None of them seem right.

She shifts her gaze to the casquette girl. Curiosity gnaws at her.

“No.”

GM: The casquette girl meets her gaze calmly as she considers.

“Very good, ma’am,” Mélissaire repeats with another smile as she and Theoline show Jade downstairs. “Lord Savoy will be free to see you soon; he can swing tomorrow at 4 or Saturday at 3. Which of those nights would work better for you?”

Celia: “Not tonight?” She’d thought he meant tonight.

GM: “He expects dawn not to be too far off when he’s done with Mr. Durant, ma’am. He wants to give your meeting plenty of time as well.”

Celia: “Neither of those times work for me.”

GM: “I’ll check when a later time might be arranged, in that case.”

Celia: She wonders if he’s used to nobodies like Jade telling him that she’s busy.

“Let his guest know I’m going home for the evening.”

GM: Indeed, Jade could simply reschedule for the elder.

“I’ll do just that, ma’am. Have a very good night—you’ve been of great help to Lord Savoy,” wishes Mélissaire, bowing low.

Celia: She’s already had her meetings bumped. His own fault for only being free when she has other people to meet.

It’s like he did it on purpose.

Jade nods to the pair of ghouls and sees herself out.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, AM

Celia: A text to Randy on the way out of the Evergreen assures that everything she needs is waiting for her when she gets back to Flawless. It might mean he has to take a trip to pick up the thin-blood she’d given them earlier to hold onto, but whatever; it’s there when she arrives.

She should probably have a separate site where she can butcher people, she thinks. Somewhere that no one can connect to Jade or Celia.

Not that she plans on butchering very many people. Right?

Just in case, though.

GM: Randy does not respond to the text. Jade finds both ghouls sound asleep when she gets back. Dani shoots her a text on the way back, though, and is still there. She asks what happened with her brother. “Where is he? I just, have a bad feeling with him losing it and not coming back… and what’s happening to the Mafia guy?”

Celia: Dani and her both, Celia can’t help but think.

“He got some bad news and had to handle it. I dropped him off, but he’s going to be a while. Close to dawn. I’d rather let him tell you what happened, if that’s okay.”

GM: “Okay…” Dani says slowly. “I’d just like to be there for him. Do you know where he’s gonna be?”

Celia: “He’s with another lick in a private meeting while they figure out a game plan.”

“You won’t be able to get in.”

“I wasn’t able to get in.”

GM: “Oh.”

Celia: “Yeah.”

“Nothing like feeling useless when someone you love is going through a hard time.”

GM: “I just have a bad feeling about this, Celia.”

Celia: Celia effects a sigh.

“Me too, Dani.”

“Do you have school tomorrow? You can come with me tonight and spend the day if you want. Maybe he’ll meet up with us before dawn.”

GM: “I do have school. But I’d love to!” she nods. “That’ll be before it starts anyway.”

Celia: “You getting enough sleep?”

GM: “I kind of wish we’d thought to ask Edith about that. Sometimes I’m pretty tired.”

Celia: “I’m sure she’d trade more information for blood.”

GM: “God. She, Rampart Street, all of that, was just…” Dani shivers.

“And then this. The same evening.”

“At least I had a gun this time. Stephen gave me one to keep in my purse.”

Celia: “Good. You know how to shoot?”

GM: She nods. “I have a permit. He and Dad showed me when I was younger.”

“We’d sometimes all go to the gun range together.”

Celia: “Won’t stop a lick. But might slow them down.”

“Good to know, in any case.”

GM: “I saw that firsthand, yeah.”

Celia: “Did he get hit? I was kind of… distracted.”

GM: “Carolla didn’t really seem to feel the rounds I put into him.”

“But I shot his ghoul.”

“Before Reggie murdered him.”

Celia: “Yeah, Rod and I talked about it.”

GM: “So did Randy and I. After I yelled at his brother.”

Celia: “How’d that go?”

GM: “About as well as you might expect.”

“He’s a pedophile murderer. You should do something about him.”

Celia: He’s not a pedophile. It’s not like he has sex with kids. He just likes the taboo of being with their moms.

“Yep.”

“Hey, do you think it’s weird if I get Roderick a dog? He mentioned he misses Ajax, and I think maybe he could use some non-human, non-Kindred companionship.”

GM: “We talked about that, when I told him about Ajax. He said he was concerned about tamers.”

Celia: “He could learn, though.”

“Maybe I’ll wait.”

GM: “Maybe until he does. Good surprise present, though.”

Celia: “Dogs don’t much like me, anyway.”

GM: “Yeah, your mom says her cats hate you too.”

Celia: “Can’t please everyone.”

GM: “Well, I guess that’s one advantage to being duskborn. They seem to like me fine.”

Celia: Licks hate her, though. But Celia doesn’t point it out.

She knows which one she’d rather be.

GM: “Are we gonna be here a while, anyways? Is there a good spot I can get some shut-eye if so?”

Celia: “Take one of the massage rooms. Tables are pretty comfortable, just don’t roll off the edge. Or there’s chairs in them.”

GM: “Thanks. Feels weird being in a spa after hours like this.”

Celia: She laughs.

“Yeah. You get used to it.”

GM: Dani smiles faintly and shakes her head. “Just one of those places I never figured I was gonna be.”

“But I guess so was gunfights in a public park.”

Celia: “And friends with a vampire.”

GM: “And being a vampire. Are you going to do something about Reggie?”

Celia: “I already had this conversation once tonight, Dani. I’m not doing it again.”

GM: “With Stephen? I’ll grant he can’t exactly be prosecuted for murder, but he can’t just kill someone without some kind of consequence.”

Celia: Celia fixes her with a look.

“I will decide how and what for my ghouls are punished. That is no one else’s decision or business except for mine.”

GM: “Uh, I’m sorry, is there some kind of etiquette I’m missing here?”

Celia: “My ghouls are my business. What I do to them is my business. If I ask for input, fine. Otherwise, every lick who has a ghoul is in charge of what they do to theirs. You don’t tell someone else that they need to do something, or what it is you think they need to do.”

“So yes, that’s a complete breach of etiquette.”

“Politely, it’s like telling someone how to handle their child.”

GM: Dani frowns. “Your mom’s your ghoul. So how does that factor into it?”

Celia: “Weirdly.”

“I never intended for my mom to be my ghoul.”

“She’s… different.”

GM: “So, what, is she ‘your child’ too? And if not, why not? What’s the criteria that makes them only accountable to you?”

Celia: “Dani, I’d love to explain this to you, but I’m going to ask that you wait. I have a fuck ton of stuff to do right now before I get home and have had a very trying night where I was smacked around by a mafiosa and watched him try to murder my boyfriend.”

GM: “I had one where I was almost raped by homeless people and killed by two mafiosos, who I also saw try to murder my brother, and was largely helpless to do anything about it. Stephen looks like he’s letting things with Reggie be for now, so, fine, I’ll trust his judgment. And ask him about this. But I’m not letting it drop forever.”

Celia: “My ghouls, my business.”

GM: “We’ve already established there’s at least one exception to that rule.”

Celia: “Do you want to know,” she suddenly says, “what your brother wanted me to do to him?”

GM: “…sorry?”

Celia: “He wanted me to trade him to another domitor. Someone who is less ‘nice’ than me. He wanted me to hand him over to be beaten, abused, and otherwise defiled because to our kind, they’re nothing.”

GM: “He’s a pedophile murderer who’s apparently unaccountable to our justice system. There has the be some kind of consequence! If that’s the only one Stephen thought he could face, well, fuck, Celia, he killed someone in cold blood! That wasn’t self-defense!”

Celia: “So no, Dani, I’m not going to sit here and let the two of you tell me how to punish him for what he did. I am his domitor. I will handle it. My mother is a different story because she is my mother. Most licks don’t ghoul their mothers.”

“I said,” Celia repeats, “that I will handle it.”

GM: “And I said I’d leave this alone tonight. But I’m going to ask Stephen about it.”

Celia: “Stephen and I,” Celia repeats, “already spoke about it.”

GM: “Then I guess he’ll talk with me about it too, because this ‘etiquette convention’ makes absolutely no sense. If your mom killed someone in cold blood, does she get to be prosecuted for it, or does she fall under ‘domitor justice’ too?”

Celia: “Jesus Christ,” Celia mutters.

“Licks don’t answer to the same justice system that you do. That’s all there is to it. Talk to Stephen if you want to, he’s going to tell you the same thing.”

“I said I’d handle it. I’m handling it.”

GM: “I know licks don’t answer to our justice system. You and Stephen explained the Traditions and how those are vampire laws. What’s inconsistent is where, apparently, ghouls fit into that, and why exceptions are made for ones who are immediate relatives to a vampire.”

Celia: “You’re missing the point.”

GM: “Well, I said I was going to drop this. So I will.”

“I’ll ask Stephen more.”

Celia: Great.

GM: “And let your mom know she can kill people if she ever feels like it, I guess.”

Celia: “That’s literally not what I said at all.”

“Stop twisting my words because you’re pissed at Reggie.”

“I said my mom was an exception to the parent/child dynamic. That was literally it.”

“If you took further meaning from it that’s on you.”

GM: “I’m going to get some shut-eye,” Dani says shortly. “Let me know when you’re done.”

Celia: She should have wiped her fucking memories.

Another fucking liability.

Celia snarls at the door once it closes. Maybe a night on Rampart Street would do her a world of good.

Nip that attitude right in the fucking bud.

This is why.

This. Right here.

This is why you’re not nice to people who are below you.

Because they get fucking uppity.

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, AM

Celia: Jade reheats the blood she’d taken from herself earlier once Dani sees herself out, downing two hits of it to slake her thirst before she even begins, and sets the other two aside. No doubt she’ll need them before the evening is out. She still has the blood from the pathetic half vampire, too; thin though it is it will still serve a use if she needs it to.

She starts with Randy, turning him into the hunter she’d killed. Then the thin-blood, turning him into “Jade.” Then Carolla, turning him into a nameless nobody with whatever parts she can salvage that Roderick hadn’t destroyed, though she has no intention of handing his body over. She keeps him staked. She’ll need a secure place to keep him while she figures out… well, while she figures out what to do with him.

That thing Caroline had told her is tempting.

So very, very tempting.

But she’ll keep him around until she meets with her grandsire, she thinks, in case he needs… what?

Whatever. Maybe she’s just not ready to drain someone of their soul.

Jade takes stock of her Beast after each transition, drinking as she needs to. No need to ride the edge when she has a surplus of blood this evening.

She finds she doesn’t need to. Her Beast is happy to watch her tear apart carcasses and sculpt them to her will. It’s pleased that she’s finally taking steps to end the threat to herself. Pleased that her grandsire is pleased, regardless of her role as taxi driver this evening. Pleased that maybe her lover won’t scoff at her for her actions here now that he’s had a taste of this life. It doesn’t fight her when she starts her work.

The ghoul’s body needs to be drained as well, then she can strip it down to parts she can use and parts she can’t. She has Reggie see to the first bit while she works on the rest of it, and when they’re both done it’s his turn on her table. She starts by checking him for any lasting injuries from Roderick’s hands.

GM: Randy groggily wakes up when Celia rouses him and requests a sedative. He stares at his new face in the mirror when she’s done and mutters, “I’ll never get used to that.”

The thin-blood, a middle-aged homeless man with stringy hair, bad teeth, and a haggard face marred with the telltale signs of years-long drug addiction, is soon a smoking hot 20something woman. He doesn’t even respond to the agonizing process of having his entire body re-sculpted from face to genitals. Just stares blankly up at the ceiling.

Jade could make a joke about doing him a favor.

Celia: Less of a favor since she’s getting rid of him.

But at least he’ll die pretty.

GM: Reggie guffaws with laughter after he comes in and asks.

“Damn. Upgrade for that guy.”

“I’d stick my cock in that if I wasn’t worried about catching something.”

Celia: “I bet you would.”

GM: Jade finds his throat to still have some telltale red abrasions, but her ghoul otherwise looks fine.

Celia: Good. She’d be pissed all over again if Roderick did any lasting damage.

“Next time,” she tells the ghoul, “don’t announce you killed someone in front of people.”

“And maybe wait until I have a chance to question him.”

GM: “Yeah, that probably woulda been smarter. Mainly wanted to get your friend’s panties in a wad.”

“Which it did.”

“Good point on the questioning, though.”

“I just saw what a huge fucking problem this guy was gonna be if we did anything else.”

Celia: “You did the right thing.”

“I would have killed him too.”

GM: “Yeah, I figured.”

Celia: “But them getting their panties in a wad means I have to listen to them bitch.”

“And they’re really fucking annoying.”

GM: “You want, I can punish her for you.”

Celia: “I want you to leave her alone and pretend I punished you.”

GM: “Okay, like, how?”

“Oh, maybe you made me fuck your double here without a rubber, before he got the sexy treatment.”

Celia: “Jesus.”

“Tell them I beat you or something. I doubt they’re going to ask.”

“Then again, maybe forcing you to fuck something you don’t want to fuck would work for them. They think you’re a pedophile.”

GM: Reggie rolls his eyes.

He walks up to the double and pulls down its pants and panties.

“Goddamn. That is a real fucking cunt,” he declares with a low whistle.

Celia: “Nice, isn’t it?”

She does good work.

GM: Reggie laughs again.

“HUGE upgrade for this guy.”

“Will he have any idea?”

“Or I guess, she at this point.”

He pulls up the blouse and starts appreciatively squeezing the breasts.

“Oh yeah. Definitely ‘she’.”

Celia: “She’s pretty much dead at this point. You’re just using the body to get in and nab them.”

GM: “I dunno, she doesn’t look all dead to me…”

Celia: “You’re more of a slut than I am, Reg.”

GM: Reggie starts removing the double’s clothes.

Celia: “Tell you what. Bag those hunters for me and bring them back—alive—and I’ll turn someone into whatever you want them to be.”

GM: He gives in mid-undressing to give Jade a very dirty grin.

“Anyone I want, you say?”

Celia: Jade arches a brow at him.

GM: “You might regret that promise.”

Celia: “You going to ask for my mom?”

GM: He laughs.

“Close.”

Celia: “…my sister?”

GM: “My mom.”

Celia: She just nods.

“Done.”

GM: “Although… yours if I was banging you at the same time would be really hot too.”

Celia: “I kind of want to watch you fuck your mom, not gonna lie.”

GM: “Mmm, how’s this. I’ll put on a show for you with my mom, then we fuck each other and your mom together.”

Celia: “Bring me the hunters, Reg, and we’ve got nothing but time to play out our fucked up fantasies.”

GM: “I want you to have the same hair color,” he grins. “Bigger family resemblance.”

“I can’t really picture her with black hair. But you’d be a sexy blonde.”

Celia: She’d be a sexy anything.

GM: “Meantime,” he says, peeling off the last of the lookalike’s clothes, then hoisting up Jade on top of the torpid body,

“I’ve always wanted to do twins…”

---

Friday night, 18 March 2016, AM

GM: The sex with the staked double isn’t much, with their partner literally just lying there like a wooden board. Reggie still seems to find it really hot. He and Jade do each other on top of ‘her’ in a variety of positions. Reggie tries to finish with a blowjob from the double (“you never want to give those”), but eventually makes do with rubbing his cock back and forth along the double’s tongue. Jade has to hold ‘her’ mouth open and occasionally assist Reggie with her hand. The ghoul blows his load all over ’Jade’s’ face.

“Fuck, that was hot,” he pants.

“You know, I bet the hunter REALLY won’t want to look like my mom.”

“Or to fuck me.”

“Or to fuck me looking like my mom.”

“So it’ll be like I’m raping my mom.”

His cock is already getting firm again.

Celia: She doesn’t judge him for it. Really.

But she does tell him that he’s going to have to wait before he gets off again.

As, uh, punishment.

Yeah. Punishment. Now she can say she punished him without lying. She makes him clean the thin-blood, too, and they rinse off together, and maybe she lied when she said he had to wait again because something about black dudes fucking her in the shower really does it for her and she has him take her again.

But now it’s starting for real this time.

She goes over the plan with him one more time when they’re done, after she changes his face and body to be something nondescript. Pierre will contact them. He’s met them before, he knows what’s up with them. Make sure they’re not being tracked or anything silly.

She asks if he has any questions.

GM: He doesn’t.

He’s eager to “go pick up my mom.”

But for now he needs “my fucking beauty sleep.” He and Randy drive home. Dani and Celia drive back to her haven. Things still feel tense and they don’t talk much.

The night sky starts to turn navy blue, but Roderick doesn’t come home.

Celia: She sends him a text to see if he’s okay, though she doesn’t really expect an answer.

GM: She doesn’t get one.

“What if something happened to him?” Dani finally asks, breaking the pair’s near-silence. “It’s going to be dawn soon, but I could go look.”

Celia: “I think he’s just angry,” Celia says quietly. “I don’t think anything happened to him.”

She reaches for Dani’s hand.

GM: Dani gives it a squeeze.

“Is he gonna be okay…?”

Celia: “I don’t know,” Celia admits. “He found out someone he trusted betrayed him.”

GM: “A lick?”

Celia: “Yeah.”

GM: “He didn’t take it well. After you guys broke up.”

Celia: Celia wets her lips with her tongue. “What happened? What did he do?”

GM: “I don’t think I ever saw him with another girl.”

Celia: “Never?”

GM: “I mean, he had girlfriends before you. But not after.”

“That I saw.”

Celia: “Did he have anywhere he used to go?”

GM: “I don’t know. He just… shut down. Stopped responding to calls or texts or emails.”

“So I guess this isn’t new.”

Celia: “He might be at one of his other places…”

GM: “My dad got really worried after a while. Went to his apartment to see if he was okay.”

“They had a huge argument.”

“Really ugly.”

“Which was so weird, because they normally get along so well.”

“Got along so well.”

“He’s… like our dad, I guess. He also shuts down when he’s mad.”

“He also called up our mom to yell at her.”

Celia: Maybe Savoy staked him to keep him from doing anything stupid.

GM: “Screamed about walking out on the family and being a traitor and all sorts of… out there shit.”

“She told me about it later.”

Celia: “Jesus.”

Celia wipes at her eyes.

“He sounded like that tonight.”

“The way he sounded when I broke up with him.”

“Broken.”

GM: Dani’s quiet for a while.

“I stopped by his place too, a few days after Dad. He wouldn’t answer the door.”

“I finally started yelling at him and that got him to open up. He looked like he hadn’t been taking care of himself. And he yelled at me and told me I was a loser and that I’d always be second best.”

Celia: Celia presses her lips together.

“I’m sorry.”

“That it happened because of me.”

GM: Dani just looks sad for a moment.

“He chose to say that. It was on him.”

“He said sorry later.”

“Really apologized. Said how much he wished he could take it back.”

“But, just…”

She shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t want to see him like this.”

“I feel like I just got him back.”

“And we have dinner tomorrow, with our dad and your family…”

Celia: “I know,” Celia says quietly. “I know. I feel the same. That I just got him back. And now this. And I don’t… I don’t know if there’s any coming back from this.”

GM: “I guess I won’t be asking him about the legal standing of ghouls after all.”

The attempt at levity doesn’t even deserve to be called a joke.

Celia: She tries to smile.

GM: “Does this sound like the whole… vision you had of him?”

“Well, were told about him, rather?”

Celia: “Sort of, yeah.”

GM: “Is there anything we can do?”

Celia: “Stem the tide. Keep it from getting worse. I kept him from killing two people tonight because he wouldn’t want that if he were thinking clearly. Find him. Bring him home.”

GM: “He got angry when Dad and I tried to get in his face.”

“But I guess that Stephen couldn’t kill people.”

Celia: “I don’t mean getting in his face.”

“Just… being there for him.”

GM: “I guess that’s all we can do.”

Jade feels herself growing sluggish. Sol’s harsh eye rises above the city.

Celia: “I guess our talk will have to wait for another night, too.”

Celia leans against Dani as the sun starts to rise. Not long before she goes under.

“I’m sorry I got snippy with you.”

GM: “I’m sorry I got… belligerent. I could have asked less argumentatively.”

Celia: She starts moving up the bed, burrowing beneath the blankets.

“…izzit weird if I ask you to sleep wi’ me?”

GM: Dani helps her to the bedroom. She’s quiet for a moment at Celia’s question, as she looks at the bed, then finally replies,

“I’d… I’d feel safe with you.”

Celia: Celia pulls Dani close beneath the blankets, curling her body around her almost-sister-in-law. She takes what comfort she can from the girl in her arms. Not who she wants, no, but someone at least with whom she can share the burden of missing Stephen. Maybe together they can keep him from spiraling down into that dark place.

Her eyes close.

“We’ll fin’ him, Dani.”

“Not gonna… lose ’im… ’gain.”

GM: Dani feels tense at first, when Celia touches her. But it’s not after too much longer, doubtless aided by the bond, that she relaxes, and eventually, reciprocates. She wraps her arms around Celia and leans her head against her shoulder.

“This feels nice…”

Celia: “Mm,” Celia agrees. “Warm.”

GM: “You, too. I thought licks would be cold.”

Celia: “Special.” A long pause, as if searching for the words to explain. “Blood. Make warm. Pass as ’live.”

GM: “Oh. So most are cold.”

Celia: “Cold bad. Means bad. Beast.”

GM: Dani nuzzles her beneath the covers.

“Knew there was a reason I didn’t like them as much as you.”

Celia: Celia giggles. It’s a slower sound than normal.

“Love him,” she says after a quiet moment. “Love you.” She rubs her cheek against Dani’s chest.

GM: Dani gives her arms around Celia a squeeze.

“I love you too. You’re gonna be my sister.”

Celia: Celia nods in agreement.

Sisters.

She likes the sound of that.

GM: There’s a short laugh.

“Oh. We’re still in our clothes.”

“But I don’t really feel like getting pajamas.”

Celia: Celia fumbles for her shirt. Her fingers feel fat, barely responding to her commands.

She gives up after a minute.

GM: Dani giggles.

“Okay. Guess not.”

Celia: “Too hard,” Celia complains. “Tired. Sun up.”

“You do it.”

GM: Dani pauses a moment, then starts to pull off Celia’s clothes.

Celia: She helps where she can. Mostly it’s moving as she needs to.

“Don’ tell Steph you saw me naked.”

GM: “I won’t.”

Dani looks at her for a while. Her clothes are still on.

“You’re really pretty.”

“Prettier than me.”

Celia: “Nigh’ doc. Cheated.” Celia touches a hand to her face. It’s a lot of effort to make that move, but this seems important. “You pretty.”

GM: “I don’t have a boyfriend, though.”

“Didn’t when we met either.”

Celia: “Boys dumb.”

“More t’life than pretty.”

GM: “Yeah. But it helps.”

Celia: “Can show you. Tricks. Makeup.”

“D’centra help if you wan’.”

GM: “I haven’t really had much luck at relationships.”

“Oh. That’d be nice, yeah.”

Celia: “Have you?”

“Been with… someone.”

“Not that night.”

GM: Dani blushes and looks away.

Celia: Celia touches a hand to her cheek, gently pulling her face back towards her.

“S’okay. Nothin’ to be ’shamed of.”

GM: “I just… I think guys can tell I have… esteem issues.”

Celia: “We’ll fix.”

GM: “And the only ones who don’t care are… I have pride.”

Celia: “Wha’bout girls?”

GM: “Oh. I haven’t really thought about girls.”

Celia: “We don’… see genders, us’lly.”

“Dead, so, who cares.”

GM: “Oh,” repeats Dani.

“Like… biologically?”

Celia: “Wha’?”

GM: “Like. Is it a social thing, that ‘all vampires are gay,’ or is it biological?”

Celia: “Biolo.”

GM: “Oh.”

Celia: “Prince is ‘gay.’”

GM: “You’ve seemed…” She clears her throat.

Celia: “Hm?”

GM: “Just… y’know.” Color tinges Dani’s cheeks again.

Celia: “Open?”

GM: “Um, open?”

Celia: “Flex’ble. Both ways.”

GM: “Oh. I just meant… how pretty. I’ve noticed.”

Celia: “Oh. Though’ y’were callin’ me whore.”

GM: “What? Oh, no, no, never!”

Celia: “Steph’d be mad if I kiss you.”

GM: “Oh. You’re his girlfriend, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t want that.”

Celia: “No?”

GM: “Well. I mean. You’re very pretty.” Dani’s cheeks start to redden again. “But you’re his.”

Celia: His.

She is, isn’t she.

She nods slowly.

“S’okay. Y’like… boys anyway.”

“Coul’ show you… good firs’ time. Redo. But his.”

GM: She nods back. “Yes. Boys.”

“Redo, you mea… oh.”

Her flush deepens.

“You’re his.”

“I’m sorry, I’m… talking crazy. Just stressed.”

Celia: “Goo’ stress ’lief.”

GM: “Well. I wouldn’t… know.”

Celia: “N’ver go’ off?”

“Dani.” Celia clicks her tongue.

GM: “Oh. I would. I’m not a total prude.”

“There’s a couple times I could’ve gotten laid. It just… made me feel cheap.”

Celia: “Why?”

“Natural. Par’ of life.”

“Dani,” Celia says when the girl seems too tongue tied to continue, “you hol’ me? I dun’ like bein’ ‘lone. C’n ge’ nake if y’wan’. Skin touch goo’ for moo’. Studies ‘bout i’.”

“But tired. Sun says go sleep.”

“Hol’ me, Dani.”

“Need you.”

“Safe.”

GM: Dani holds her. She doesn’t take off her own clothes. But she wraps her arms around Celia, lays her head against her brother’s paramour, and closes her eyes.

Safe.

Celia: Before she falls asleep Celia sighs loudly, reaching for her phone.

“Fuck,” she mutters as she sends the text to Mel.

Sat @3.

Then she’s out, her problems on pause for the day.

Monsters only exist at night.

---

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