the middle of nowhere

the middle of nowhere

part three: the middle of nowhere Night unknown The cargo hold of the Pride of Roderigo Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean Once again, despite his wishes, the dead man woke. Trapped within the stifling box, immobilized by the hundred pounds of dirt that occupied the box with him, he nonetheless felt the stirrings of consciousness, followed by the rolling left-right-left of the ship listing at sea.

Above him, the sailors bolted back and forth across the ship's decks like trained monkeys in a carnival. The ship no doubt had a few passengers as well, but for a thirst as great as that of the dead man's, the numbers aboard might dwindle by as many as half — so he had chosen instead to weather the months-long trip under the cold aegis of torpor. But the dead man never quite reached that deathlike state; he had awakened as many as twenty times, each time closer and closer to the perilous act of rising, bursting from his rude berth and drinking his unholy fill of vitae from the oblivious kine with whom he shared the vessel.

How shameful, to be reduced to this, the dead man thought to himself. To flee to the odious and barbaric New World. A New World, indeed! I have watched the rise and fall of a score of new worlds! This is simply another in a long line of rises and falls of mortal insects.

Anger had consumed the dead man for nigh upon decades — while he'd once sat in the courts of kings, he had now been reduced to fleeing from a murderous coterie of usurpermerchants. His once-powerful lineage had crippled itself centuries before in atonement for its hubris, and now it suffered another, similar fate, though this time brought about by the very family that had been Embraced into its ranks.

The ignominy! With but a look, I could crumble any of their number to dust, yet they hunt even potent Cainites like me in packs, worrying us like hounds. Hate boiled in the dead man's lifeless veins, the blood within them cold with the stillness of its stasis, but burning with impotent fury. To once have reached such heights! To have talked with God and His angels! To have held the lives of thousands in my grasp! And now, so basely to flee from a band of incestuous rogues armed with the brutality of ambition. You were vain, old one.

You looked too far ahead and allowed these enemies to creep into your ranks. Why didn't they listen? Japheth and Constancia both knew. But of course, the Old One in all his martyred wisdom... We have been fools.

The dead man, though, had not been a fool in planning his escape. Certainly, a few of his get might have fallen. Proud Elodie, her silver hair spattered with her own blood and that of the vulgar Giovanni. Jehovie, Urdra and Abelard, all burnt to ash by Giovanni torches.

Even his own blood-siblings, the other childer of Matron Constancia, had met the Final Death here and again. In the filth of the sewers, the Giovanni hid, striking when even the most astute disciple of Ashur had laid his nightly fears aside and planned to sleep away the hours of the day. They streaked themselves with excrement to hide their own mortal smells; the undead among them wore heavy wools and smeared themselves with the unsavory fluids of their relations to mask their own charnel odors. They crawled up from waste tunnels, hid beneath previously unmolested bones in sarcophagi and scuttled out like malicious spiders from cenotaphs and gravestones. Like houndsmen, they rode up to their sires' loggias and sanctums, waving torches, brandishing knives and blackened stakes.

They licked their lips as they put the childer of Ashur to the flame or into the recesses of torpor. They did it with a ruthless resolve, catching the fleeing spirits of those who made a desperate bid to escape their bodies and binding them into the glistening bones of freshly dead cadavers, or the fiendishly aborted corpses they ripped from their own sisters' wombs. Steeped with their own blood and the vitae of their elders, the Giovanni devoured the Cainites who had made them from within — and atop it all, they dared to call themselves Kindred, after the wishes of those selfish bastards who convened in England! Of all places to set precedent, why would anyone choose a land where Scots were considered people and men knew their ewes carnally!

Can you hear me now, God? Can you hear me beneath these decks? From under this layer of pine and the shit of worms? Damn them all for not lifting a forger as their precious Kindred drowned in their own vitae before them!

The dead man knew, though, that revenge was a dish best served with the spice of age.

Flight was his only choice — flight to stab at the vile Giovanni during some night yet to be seen. With money obtained by selling the fingers of saints almost four centuries before, he booked freight "passage" on the Pride of Roderigo. When the ship arrived at its Cuban port, a family of exiled Waldensian descendants would transport the precious cargo to the North American mainland. From there, the wooden vessel would travel by cart to the swamps of the Creoles, who knew better than to ask questions of the dead or those associated with them. If nothing else, the dead man would be dumped in the swamp, rising only when the time was right and the rays of the sun could not scorch him. From there, he would gather around him the stupid denizens of the New World, taking their blood as he wished and sharpening his knife for use against the throats of the Giovanni once they had hunted the rest of his kind to extinction. The plans for travel had no flaws — he had corresponded with the Waldensians for generations through his spirit messengers and knew he could depend utterly on them. The Creoles were French Catholics, or black and Spanish mutts with their own barbaric customs, among whom few would dare to provoke an obvious vessel of the dead. The simple coffin itself had been rubbed with a great quantity of oil and then beeswax, to prevent the salty ocean air or humid New World climes from rotting it away. Yes, all the plans lay in place. Even if disaster befell, provided the dead man could move and speak a few words, he could transfer his own soul into the secret dark of the Underworld, and from there plan how to return to the world of the living kine.

The plan abounded with safety measures and surety. The only thing left to do was weather the remaining nights until his arrival. And from there, the dead man could bring the full weight of his eons of hatred to bear on the jackals who so desperately deserved it. And to a creature who had walked in Adam's shadow, who had kissed the face of God, what cost was a few more nights?

A tiny cost. An infinitesimal cost. A few more nights seemed a minuscule price to pay for the vindication of millennia.

Sunday, 22 August 1999, 12:32 AM Margaret Reilly's haven Manhattan, New York Isabel stopped in the middle of removing her jacket. "Does that strike you as a pleasant thing to say, Margaret?" She looked at her host with large, brown eyes, trying to read the other woman's intent. Did she plan to put Isabel off with insults and aggravate her into making a mistake? Or was she just boorish, selfish, and so far withdrawn from polite society like most Sabbat that she spared no effort on civility?

Margaret, the leader end priest of a pack of rabid Cainites that reported directly to Sascha Vykos, shrugged her shoulders. "You're not here for me to flatter you."

"No, I'm not, but a bit of decorum would certainly be appropriate."

"Fine. You look simply ravishing. If I wasn't dead, I'd want to fuck the hell out of you."

"How sweet. If you weren't dead, though, I wouldn't give you the time of night, especially in that outfit. Now, do you just want to exchange bon mots or did this invitation have some sort of purpose behind it?"

Isabel looked at herself as she passed a mirror in the foyer of Margaret's haven. The witch was right — she did look tired. Unconsciously, Isabel drew in a breath. The events of the past few months had worn on her, and she didn't intend to let this negotiation go sour as had the one Chas accidentally bungled with Pieterzoon's flunky. If she had any luck at all, Isabel would find out that Gauthier had been unceremoniously discharged from Pieterzoon's entourage, so bad a showing had he made, himself. Still, despite the fact that she had no intention of forging any kind of alliance with either the Sabbat or the Camarilla, she did her best to entertain their courtship. If either of them perceived the Giovanni as a threat, either of them could forestall their efforts against the opposite sect and turn their attentions to the necromancers.

"You're not going to like the purpose; I can guarantee that. But I've never been one to soften the blow, so I'm not going to song-and-dance you with such fruitless consideration."

Margaret's diplomacy style differed a great deal from Gauthier's.

Isabel once again stood stock still. "Then why bother with the pretense of proposal at all? I know what this is about. It's about the Sabbat and the Camarilla lined up on either side of Boston and laying claim to it."

"Well, it doesn't take a genius. You're forgetting something, though."

"Not every city needs to be under the thumb of the Sabbat or Camarilla."

"Isabel, I think you're being a bit naive, no? You know that we're fighting a war, and if a city's not with us, it's against us."

"But what does that mean? I'll tell you plainly, the Giovanni have no interest in pursuing an alliance with the Sabbat. Now, wait; nor do we have an interest in leaguing with the Camarilla."

"Yes, I heard about how your dialogue with Pieterzoon's man; went. And for the record, the Giovanni have indeed formed relationships with the Sabbat, albeit on an individual level."

"You look tired, Isabel."

"Smart girl."

"And what's that?"

"Me neither." Margaret smiled wickedly. "Sooner or later, even the eldest among us has to fall.

Genevra's not the only necromancer to negotiate with the Sabbat."

"Well, she's the only one dealing with the Sabbat who was in Boston. I know Francis Giovanni sold guns to Max Lowell, but that's a commercial arrangement, not some highhanded philosophical, alliance in your religious war."

"Such a smug tone! You know that we could just focus on the Giovanni in Boston and turn our attentions back to the Camarilla later, don't you, Isabel?"

"I know you could, but you won't. The very night you make Giovanni enmity a priority, the Camarilla will crawl into Boston from the woodwork. You might — emphasis on the possibility — rout the Giovanni from Boston, but in doing so you'll double the effort it takes to infest it completely."

"Yes, like vermin. You and I both know your resources would be better used either against the Camarilla or — and I know sensibility is a stretch for you zealot-types — more sensibly by taking from Boston what you want and not worrying about the nebulous sect affiliation4 the city, which isn't quantifiable anyway At least, we Giovanni see it that way. We know you have people in Boston; so does the Camarilla. And it doesn't affect us in the least.

Kindred... excuse me, Cainites battling in the streets, however, doesn't do any of us any good." Isabel took a seat on what she assumed to be a leather chair and crossed her hands in her lap.

Margaret followed suit. "Moderation is not diplomacy, Isabel. But we should take refreshment before we continue further. Jonathan!"

From the shadows beyond the room emerged a thin, pale young man, perhaps in his early twenties or late teens. He wore no clothes, and all external evidence of his gender had been removed — he displayed no phallus, nor pubic hair, and the only reason Isabel guessed him to be male at all was a suggestion in the tone of his musculature. His head and face were likewise hairless. And most unsettling of all was the fact that Margaret had removed all traces of Jonathan's mouth and nose from his face; his sorrowful eyes peered out from the otherwise featureless alabaster expanse of his countenance.

Isabel kept her revulsion in check — of all the things she'd done in life and unlife of which others might have disapproved, at least they were basically human in nature. What some might have considered sexual perversion, acts of brutality or even depraved indifference all had their origin in the original humanity of their perpetrator or, more often, the mortality of their victims or subjects. With members of the Sabbat, like Margaret, viciousness often had no relation to humanity. Jonathan, for example, had been remade in the image of some androgynous ideal Margaret at some point had found aesthetically pleasant. Or perhaps she had so little sympathy with or empathy for the kine that Jonathan existed to serve her needs and deny his own. Surely, though, if he was a ghoul, he would need to take blood from her in some way. Were he not a ghoul, he would still need to eat. Perhaps he was some sort of Tzimisce "performance," which Margaret fleshcrafted again and again as his needs arose, only to revert him to his present state afterward. Isabel dropped the train of thought entirely; there was no telling with someone "You mean Genevra? She's dead, you know."

"Aren't we all?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Infest, eh?"

"Oh, don't be so particular. I sealed his mouth as a service to you, so you wouldn't have to hear him scream when you took blood from him. I know how agonizing the Giovanni Kiss is for its victims. I must also confess that I'm interested in seeing your feeding peculiarity in practice. You don't mind, do you Jonathan, that my friend Isabel will be removing your head."

"Don't tell me you believe that rubbish, Margaret? That I can drink only from severed heads? Why, if that were true, wouldn't I have sunk to your level of depravity long ago?

After all, if we're to believe everything we hear, I should suspect your Sabbat of mindless, destructive, cackling Satanism. And the simple fact that I'm here and willing to discuss your plans about Boston proves that rumors are sometimes unfounded, does it not? Would I bargain with such a fool?"

"You disappoint me, Isabel. By all means, though, feed. I was hoping for a display of madness or excess, and instead you tell me that I've placed too much stock in urban legend."

Isabel took the opportunity to feed. Jonathan buckled beneath her, falling to his knees as she supped his life's blood from his throat. As she drank, Isabel heard a reedy whine punctuated by incomprehensible clicks. She looked down, lost in the burning thrill of the vitae, to see two opening and closing scolices on the insides of Jonathan's palms.

Apparently Margaret had not bestowed voice boxes upon them, and the thin whine was just air drawn in and expelled from them. The clicks came from the tiny needle-fangs that surrounded the openings, grinding and clashing as the hand-mouths writhed. Disgusted, she pushed him away.

Margaret met her eyes with a grin. "Well, the boy must eat somehow, must he not? Here, Jonathan, my poor child; take back some of what our judgmental saint Isabel has taken from you." She opened the front of her sheer silk shirt, exposing a flawless ivory breast, the peak of which had been fleshcrafted smooth and unnippled. Jonathan reached out his hand and caressed his domitor's skin, piercing the flesh ever so shallowly and no doubt drawing out savory trickles of her rich blood. "You should be glad, Isabel. Surely you would suspect me of attempting to forge a blood bond, had I given Jonathan his nightly due first."

"I've had enough of this." Isabel broke off the conversation. She rose, returned to the foyer and collected her jacket. Without even attempting to make eye contact with Margaret, she shouted into the other room, "And I'm sure you can see that we have nothing in common, and therefore nothing to gain with even an empty alliance. Don't be so foolish as to think you can pluck Boston like a ripe plum. Neither of the groups of Kindred who stand against you would permit it."

"Ah, simple Isabel. Permission is not part of the problem. Within the week, Buffalo will fall to us. Hartford will be ours before year's end. Already, a war party of archbishops has gathered a group of Cainites to dominate precious Boston by force or fortune. Take my advice, Isabel. Pay tribute, or crumble like the rest of the East Coast.

But Isabel never heard this last; she had left Margaret's wretched haven and summoned a private car to take her to Grand Central Station. so completely outside of normal thought as Margaret.

Friday, 27 August 1999, 12:03 AM Wisconsin Avenue Washington, D.C.

Polonia and Borges shared grave looks, which gave way to avaricious, vulpine smiles.

Polonia cocked an eyebrow and closed his eyes in concentration.

Hundreds of miles away, a mortal, animated like a puppet by Polonia's formidable will, rose from her prone pose and raised her arms above her head. Around her, in a circle, loomed a pack of ravenous Sabbat, waiting for just this signal.

Polonia released his control of the subject, whose last conscious thought was, "What am l doing here?" before the frenzied Cainites tore her to dripping shreds in their excitement.

An expressionless vampire touched each of the howling Cainites on the forehead before turning them loose into the night.

Like rabid wolves, the pack descended upon Boston.

Monday, 25 October 1999, 12:15 AM The Mausoleum loggia Venice, Italy Isabel Giovanni stood in her dressing gown, a half-smile gracing her fair skin, the door to her chamber open to receive this guest. Young Kwei della Passaglia, "nephew" to one of the most prominent Giovanni vampires of that family, stood before her. In his hands, he held a small, wrapped box: a gift.

"Welcome, Kwei. Please, come in. May I offer you anything?" A test, thought Isabel. If Martino has his nephew — practically a boy! — ghouled, he would perhaps ask for a draught of vitae. Isabel closed her gown around her and pulled a heavy robe over her shoulders.

Kwei placed the gift box on the vanity table and looked around the room. Like a few of the other rooms he had seen in the loggia, Isabel's seemed more like a temporary apartment or a guest house than a true bedroom. Isabel had a few personal effects scattered around, but the room certainly didn't look lived-in. He noted a decanter on a cart on the far side of the room. "I'll take a brandy, if you don't mind. It's uncommonly cool tonight."

"Help yourself. And how is your uncle?" Isabel smiled. Martino had been Kindred for at least two centuries and probably more. Unless Kwei was a very well-preserved ghoul, Martino was more likely his great uncle ten times over, if they were related at all.

"Fine, very well, thank you. This season has given a very good bounty of the silk." Kwei's Italian was obviously more scholastic than conversational. "He knows you are very fond of silk, so he sent you the present. I hope I haven't spoiled the surprise. Forgive my ignorance, but you are his sister?"

"Something like that." Isabel brushed her hair as Kwei poured a shallow glass of brandy.

Martino was an acquaintance of her sire, actually. Long ago, he had married his way into the Giovanni family and shortly thereafter become a member of the Giovanni clan. He and Isabel had no love lost between them — she considered him a yellow-fevered pimp and he thought she was a symbol of everything that was wrong with the clan, from vice to indulgence and everything in between. "It's... hard to keep track of. The family is very old."

"But please, Kwei, take a seat." Isabel took a dress from the back of a chair and hung it, making a place for her guest to relax. "Did your Uncle Martino have anything else he wished me to know? I heard about the unfortunate demise of his father." She could practically hear the quotation marks around this last. If Kwei knew anything about the unnatural aspects of the family, this would be his opportunity to impart that graciously.

"It is the greatest tragedy, thank you for your condolences," Kwei replied. Probably not even a ghoul, Isabel reasoned. "Such is the danger of my uncle's occupation. Many from the East would have him fail."

"Yes, well, many in the West would have him fail, too. Your uncle is a bold man, Kwei, as I'm sure you know."

Kwei raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by this?" He inflected the question incorrectly, the emphasis falling on this and not mean.

"Surely you know that he and I are not the most cordial of relations?" Isabel replied. "He would have told you that in preparation for the journey."

"My Uncle Martino sends his regards."

Kwei smiled, sipping from his snifter.

"It's not your fault. I won't punish you unless he goes out of his way to offend me. Now let me see that gift." Isabel's smile was barbed.

With a nervous look, Kwei handed Isabel the package. It was heavy. Isabel wondered to herself if Martino was unhappy with Kwei, or whether the boy had done something to upset his "uncle." The gift inside would tell the truth of the tale. Certainly, the trip itself would have been exciting for the boy, who had probably never left Hong Kong. Martino knew, however, that he and Isabel had an unsettled score between them. Years ago, she had sent one of her own ghouls to deliver a wedding gift to one of the members of his mortal family. Martino considered the gift, delivered by proxy, to be a great slight — not only had Isabel refused to deliver the gift in person, she had sent a censer stoked with an incense to which -the bride was terribly allergic. The poor girl had taken a great whiff and immediately fallen into a reactive coma. Martino dismissed the embarrassed ghoul, only to have the young man's throat slit several hours later. A terse note in della Passaglia's hand informed Isabel of her gaffe. Not that she had ever liked him anyway, or would have considered attending the wedding. Still, it looked either spiteful or amateur on Isabel's part, depending upon which way one viewed the accident.

With this on her mind, Isabel opened the box. Inside rested a dense, rectangular object wrapped in an opaque tissue paper. A piece of folded rice paper sat atop the gift. Isabel opened the note and read: Eclosed find something that I hope will you with your current charge. I hope turning the pages doesn't irritate your delicate skin.

She unwrapped the gift: a book bound in a silk cover. Martino knew Isabel hated his silks.

She considered them as coarse as him and marred by numerous flaws. This was his revenge for the incense — a subtle yet unmistakable flouting of Isabel's tastes. In the world of the Kindred, such subtleties carried great weight; it was how the race of Caine balanced their intricate scores of status, how they tallied points at various stages of the game of jyhad.

Martino had, from his point of view, evened the score by murdering Isabel's ghoul so many years ago. Now that he had the opportunity, Isabel saw, he took the chance to place himself in the lead by not only acknowledging her tastes, but forcing her to put them aside for the sake of his assistance.

Still, she had recourse. Martin's "gift" no doubt related to the ancient vampire she tracked — perhaps a geomancer's matrix that revealed the location of its crypt or an Eastern necromantic ritual that could counter one of its potent abilities.

On this, Isabel gambled. The journal Marcia had found pointed out the likely location — or at least a recent location — of the creature she sought. By returning Martino's gift to him, she could prevent him from achieving his petty victory over her. Such was the nature of the gamble. Could she afford to turn away this information, knowing that it might possibly forfeit whatever advantage she could glean from it? Or should she avoid allowing Martino to take the lead in their private war, a war that paled in comparison to the larger stakes at hand concerning the matter of the old clan's return?

In the end, though, Kindred are proud creatures. Isabel had made her decision as immediately as it had been presented to her.

"Why, Kwei, I'm afraid your uncle's distance from the loggia has put him regrettably out of "No, he did not. I am sorry to hear this."

I. — — M. touch. This isn't the book. I was looking for. I couldn't possibly allow him to give it to me — it belongs in his own library, where someone might be able to make better use of it than I." She carefully handed the book back to him, making an elaborate production out of not opening it at all. "Please, return it to him and let him know that I appreciate the gesture, but that I just can't allow him to sacrifice his own resources so greatly for my benefit."

With that, she hurried Kwei della Passaglia from her chamber and into the hallway, smiling good night to him as she closed the door.

Kwei, no fool, had some inkling of what had just occurred. Many times, he had seen the Byzantine and decidedly Western minutiae of this social drama unfold before him, as it related to his uncle or one of the other Europeans or Americans in his uncle's employ. He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing as he was excused from Isabel Giovanni's room that, for a brief moment, his life had been at stake. With another sigh, he turned and walked to his own guestroom, knowing that when he returned to deliver the news to his uncle, his life would once again be on the line.

Tuesday, 26 October 1999, 4:02 AM The Mausoleum loggia Venice, Italy "This doesn't make any sense." Chas furrowed his brow and looked at the other Kindred in the room.

"An unfortunate fact, but one to which I can offer no better answer. This is simply how things are, and I can't give you any better rationale without delving into the finer details of our spirit magic, which I'm not sure you'd want anyway," replied Ambrogino Giovanni.

"Isabel understands as much as she does only because she has a grounding in our necromantic practice. To be honest, it shouldn't really matter to you anyway. You're just muscle."

Chas didn't know whether that was an insult or a simple declaration. Sometimes these old vampires hadn't had contact with others in so long, their graces atrophied.

"Don't worry, Chas. Here's how it works." Isabel reclined in her chair rubbing her eyes, seemingly grateful for the chance to step back from what had been an intense conversation with Ambrogino. "We talked before about the ghosts, remember? Well, as it turns out, a huge shockwave of spiritual energy just devastated their world. Think of it like a hurricane, blowing through a city and destroying everything it touches. In the aftermath of this spiritual storm, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead blurred a bit. In some places they were so weak, any spirit could force its way through. In other places, they didn't have to force their way through — the storm left gaping holes in the veil between the worlds."

Chas chimed in, wanting to make sure he understood. "Okay, so, that means what? There are ghosts out and about? Wandering through the world? What the fuck does that mean?

Unless we have something specific to do with them, why should that matter at all?"

"It matters because of the consequences," Ambrogino added. "Know primarily that necromantic magic is a science, not an art. When creating the effects of death magic, quantifiable results are almost always reliably produced. If the desired result does not occur, something has failed somewhere in the chain of events required to bring it about.

This may be something uncontrollable, such as great force of will on the part of a given ghost. It may have been a formulaic step the necromancer has omitted. It may have been something so minor as a brief lapse of concentration, or a mispronunciation of a spoken word. Whatever the case, some requirement has not been satisfied."

"Okay," Chas said, incredulous again, his eyes becoming slits.

"All that, we've established. In the case of the spirit storm's aftermath, however, something else has become a part of the equation — something unquantifiable. It might be a very potent Kindred, or an unthinkably powerful spirit," Ambrogino continued.

"Or, as some Kindred have guessed," Isabel interrupted, "it might be the hand of God Himself."

Chas snorted. "God? You think God came down from heaven and started slapping vampires and ghosts around? Wouldn't it have been a bit more... oh, I don't know... fucking obvious?

Wouldn't He just cast lightning bolts down from the heavens or make the sun shine all day and night?"

Ambrogino stood, directing a scornful finger at Chas. "Do not presume to understand God, whelp. Before Him, you are nothing but a mote of dust in the cloud that circles the world.

You've heard it before: 'He works in mysterious ways.' The simple fact that we can't empirically find a cause for the storm or its results suggests something far beyond our capacity to understand, let alone master. Something more powerful than our magic, or indeed, the magic of anyone else who has come forth to offer a less mystical reason."

Isabel cut in, hoping to defuse Ambrogino's ire and bring them back to the subject. "But the situation with the ghosts is not the gravest matter, even though it does present us with the most immediate inconvenience. I mentioned God because it seems that the storm was not His intention. In fact, He seems to have taken steps to clean up the detritus left by the storm. The agents of God now want to take back the night — they want to destroy the ghosts who have forced their way back from their rightful deaths. Sometimes, they run afoul of vampires, whom they also consider monsters to be exterminated. This is what you ran into after your inexpert handling of the Camarilla negotiation in Boston."

Chas blushed inadvertently and felt a quick flash of red anger.

"The death of your attendant Victor also matches the modus operandi of these new hunters. A team of them has made its home in Las Vegas. We think they believed he was a vampire — you were sleeping in the bathroom to avoid the sun, and it didn't even occur to them to check there. Uncertain of the best way to destroy a 'vampire, ' they experimented and poisoned him. That was the almond smell you remember — don't look so shocked; you know I can perceive your thoughts. Cyanide."

"Okay," Chas found his way back into the conversation, "then how does that relate to the other two things we've been chasing around? What does it have to do with the 'old clan' or whatever, and how does Benito fit into the picture?"

"Well, Chas, to be honest, Benito doesn't directly fit into the immediate crisis. His disappearance those four months ago just coincidentally took place at the same time that we found out about the problem in the Underworld. Now, I'm sure Benito knew about what was going on, at least in some capacity, because he practices the black art himself, but he's not an instrumental player in that particular chapter of the Giovanni drama," Isabel confided. "I'm the first to admit that I've not pursued his disappearance with my full attentions because one missing Giovanni isn't as important to the wellbeing of the entire clan as is the return of the clan we thought we'd exterminated in the past."

Ambrogino interjected, "Which leads us to the second part of your question: the old clan itself. When the Giovanni first claimed the mantle of clanship, we had to make sure that no threat to our claim would surface. The Kindred who Embraced us had become an obstacle to us, rather than a benefactor. We destroyed his brood to the best of our abilities. I myself hunted what we thought to be the last surviving member of that bloodline to a castle in Eastern Europe, where I discussed the ethics of the matter with the legendary Dracula.

"It would seem, however, that our efforts were incomplete. We underestimated our progenitors they had learned much from the necromancy we taught them. Several of the more potent childer of Ashur managed to escape into the Underworld, where they could easily hide from us as they had not become true ghosts — we had no power over them while they cowered in the lands of the dead. We could not compel them to heed our call; we could not force them to serve us as they were still Kindred, albeit Kindred trapped in the world of spirits.

"After centuries, we became overconfident. We hadn't heard anything from these Kindred for a very long time, and we just assumed that the Underworld had overwhelmed them, as it is an inhospitable place for any Kindred who stays there for a protracted period.

"We were wrong. The truth of the matter is that the old clan Kindred who escaped thrived in that hellish realm. They practiced their nigromancy unimpeded by the boundary between the worlds. The same veil that trapped them on the far side of the spirit world no longer separated them from the place where their mystic powers originated. Although the Giovanni created the magic that became the Kindred practice of necromancy, the old clan mastered it in the hundreds of years they spent beyond the Shroud.

"Finally, when the spirit storm withered the veil, the old clan took the chance to burst back through to the realm of the living — this world. Now, there aren't many of these Kindred. I estimate perhaps twenty of them in all. But the old clan who managed to escape and grow are very powerful. The childe of the Kindred who Embraced Augustus Giovanni may even be among them. Only the most skilled at the time of our purge could have managed to flee to the Underworld, and they have since grown tremendously stronger."

"So, just kicking their asses is out of the question," Chas commented.

"Well, yes, to put it bluntly," Ambrogino replied. "With creatures of that age and wile, the only hope one has is trickery. Something so old might be cunning indeed, but a physical confrontation is suicide. Some magical recourse must exist — such are the ends to which the foremost Giovanni necromancers have been researching."

"If we can't beat this thing, and it's far more powerful than us magically, why the fuck is Isabel chasing it? No offense, Isabel, I know you're good at what you do, but you're not as old as these things are and they're probably a damn sight better with the death magic, too.

I mean, I know I don't have to go along with you, but I'm choosing to, at this point, but if it's just going to get me killed, I'd like to know so I can seek some other opportunities, you know?"

Isabel smiled. "Ah, Chas; always able to add a sense of levity. What Ambrogino's talking about is just conjecture. No one from our clan has verifiably seen one of these creatures and survived. Even Martino in Hong Kong saw only the briefest blur, which could have been anything, before fleeing his sire's demise. We need to see this, to know it exists and to take from it what we can. If it doesn't perceive me as a threat, I might be able to report back on the matter. Intelligence is a valuable resource."

"But if it's killing Giovanni..." Chas trailed off, unable to reason through the thought.

"Not all Giovanni — the old clan seem to be starting with the ones personally responsible for their decimation, and then moving down the bloodlines," Isabel added.

"So then why haven't any of them come after you, Ambrogino?"

Ambrogino looked at Isabel, then back at Chas. "I'm not sure. My own abilities are quite potent, and perhaps they want to remove the lesser threats before focusing on a greater one such as myself."

"No one does, except the old clan," Isabel confided in him. "Until we find out exactly what they want to do, all we can do is cover ourselves."

"And I have a Kindred who can help you do just that," Ambrogino added.

"Um, can I ask a question, then?" Chas ventured.

"Of course."

"I still don't get it," Chas spoke to the world in general.

Thursday, 28 October 1999, 1:17 AM The French Quarter New Orleans, Louisiana "Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present to you... Natasia!"

The dull but heavy roar of the partygoers' conversations briefly turned into a cheer before once again becoming a monotonous din. Not many people here even knew Natasia, but they had come to the dilapidated house just off the main drag because the party had been underway nonstop for the better part of a day. The abandoned townhouse was filled to capacity with party guests. People of all stripes had come, having heard through the grapevine that Jake Almerson was adopting a child or something, and, hey, why not help this Jake character celebrate. Of course, some people knew Jake — knew that he was indeed celebrating with his childe, but that the word had a terribly different meaning from the homonym that most of the guests assumed was intended.

Indeed, Jake Almerson had thrown quite a party to commemorate the release of his childe, a Kindred Embraced just over a year ago. Natasia's Brujah sire had let every carouser in town hear about the impending bash — even at this very moment, some of Jake's contacts were prowling Bourbon Street, directing drunken tourists and smarmy locals to the epic debauch taking place only a few blocks away.

Six hours ago, a pair of police cruisers had arrived. Two officers walked up the sidewalk to the house, shaking their heads and smiling at one another. After a cursory effort at finding someone — anyone — who was at all related to the organization of this thing, they gave up. Better to let the neighbors make a few complaints about the noise and let the party die down by itself than to turn this thing into a police riot. Besides, a few ambulances had already been called to cart away exhausted or intoxicated celebrants. The sight of one of those always served to briefly turn the excess down by-a few notches. With a shrug, the police returned to their cars, with to-go cups, and went on their way.

Upstairs, someone had fallen through the floor of what was once a small library, but he was all right, having broken his fall on a pair of E-rolling teenagers groping each other in the rudely converted laundry room. The toilet resided as a transplanted throne in the middle of the living room, occupied currently by "King Bacchus," a drunken Hell's Angel of unknown origin. A fight had broken out briefly, but the winner had put down his foe by crashing his victim's head through a window and raking the shattered glass across his forehead. For the most part, though, the party was just that — a celebration.

Chas escorted Isabel up the cracked pathway and stepped over the unconscious body of a visiting baseball player from the University of Texas.

"Nice place, but I wouldn't think it was your sort of crowd," Chas smirked at Isabel.

"I've known Jake for a long time," Isabel replied lamely. "Everyone has their hobby. His is throwing parties."

"You said he wasn't the most amiable person in the world."

As they entered the house, a small group seemed to be hopping up and down in the comer.

Chas grabbed an addled partygoer who just happened to be walking by.

The bloodshot eyes of the other guest briefly focused. "They put out the goddamn fire. It's Natasia's birthday, you know. Hey, do you know who "Look around. Does he need to be?"

"The fuck happened over there?"

"No." Chas let the poor guy go. "Fire, huh? Sounds like one hell of a party!"

Isabel made no comment, instead taking Chas by the hand and beginning the arduous process of climbing the stairs, which entailed shoving a score of people out of the way.

The reek of marijuana hung over the hallway at the top of the stairs, as did a less prevalent but powerful chemical tang of cocaine smoke. The scents of mortal sweat and dry rot also clashed, flavored with the slightest hint of vomit.

Isabel pressed on, but Chas shook himself free from her grasp. The crowd had more than begun to get on his nerves. It was one thing to throw a party, but it was another altogether to corral a circus of freaks like this. Chas sucked in an unnecessary breath, hulking his body up and looking for any excuse to hammer one of these drunks in the face. To his surprise, the crowd seemed to swell around him, rolling over and off him as he passed, almost as if they felt the presence of his hostility on some subconscious level and equally subconsciously moved to avoid him.

A few hands brushed against him, the advances of women too drunk to feel his tangible menace, looking for a quick amorous relation with, well, anyone, but Chas ignored them.

If he was going to get into a fight here, it wasn't going to be with some drunk slut he could break in half by slapping her. Still, maybe one of these skanks had a boyfriend who'd be up for some freelance dental work...

The sight of Isabel in the hallway shook him from his violent fantasy. She closed one door, turned around, and saw him before opening the other door in front of her. She waved him forward.

"You wanna fuckin' drink, man?" The guy Chas had stopped downstairs stood before him, having just climbed the stairs himself and seen a familiar face. "You don' hafta go back downstairs. I think there's some booze in the... I know there's beers in the bathtub."

"No, thanks." Chas reined in the urge to snap this punk like a twig. Isabel was waving for him, which probably meant she'd found Jake and they could get the fuck out of here. "I, uh, I don't like beer."

"Suit yourself, brother. You looking for something more serious? I know a guy here's got tabs, some rolls..."

"No, man, I'm just going over there to see my..." Chas walked past his new acquaintance and let the conversation drop. He didn't know how he would have finished the sentence anyway.

He joined Isabel, who shook her head in mock disapproval and opened the door.

"Goddammit, that fucking door's closed for a reason," boomed a voice from within the darkness of the room, a solid baritone, with more than a hint that someone had interrupted its owner before. A heavy musk hung in the air.

"I'm sorry for interrupting, Jake, but we really should talk."

Reclining bodies populated the room, perhaps a dozen in number. Some leaned haphazardly over the sides of broken chairs; others lay on the floor or on the tattered couch propped up.against the wall. The room itself had its windows blocked, papered over with duct tape and stained sheets of corrugated cardboard. None of the light from the street made it into the room; only the tired glow of a single candle illuminated the place.

The air was heavy with haze.

Natasia is?"

"Well, who's fucking asking?" One of the forms, the darkest, moved, like a shadow becoming a solid man. "Oh. I fucking should have figured."

"Such rude talk." Isabel noticed that all of the other occupants in the room were women.

"What is it this time? I don't smell any dope in here. Are they drunk?"

"They're fucked on absinthe. Make it myself." "Is that your idea of a joke?"

"Hey, pretty Isabel, this is New Orleans. It's what Lestat would do," Jake smiled. Isabel saw his eyes had become bloodshot — she hoped he was still sensible enough to help her.

"That's lovely, Jake. Are any of them dead? I don't want someone to remember me in the house when the police turn up a room full of dead hookers."

"They're not hookers. They're Zetas from Geor-gia State, I think. Or maybe it was Sam Houston State. I don't remember. Who the fuck cares?"

"That wasn't the important part. I asked if they were dead."

"This one's dead," Chas interjected, lifting one of the smaller girls, who hung like a broken doll from his arm.

"They're not dead. Least I don't think so. I think she's just cold. Absinthe turns on you, man. Don't mist it. Don't fucking drink that shit." Jake smiled. "Hey, have you met Natasia?

She's around here somewhere. My pride and joy, baby — a childe of my own."

"Did she used to be a Zeta?" Isabel asked demurely, which came across as all the more grotesque as she pushed an unresisting girl aside to make room for herself on the ruined couch. Chas walked over to the door, putting his broad back against it.

"No, shit, Isabel. I think she was a... she was some kind of flight attendant. No, wait, she was... fuck, I don't remember. But she's mine now." He turned to look at Chas. "What, motherfucker, you think someone's goin' to try bustin' out of here?"

Chas looked down at Jake, who lay on his side on the floor, using one of the girls as a pillow, resting his head on her exposed belly. "No, I'm worried about someone else coming in. You I can take care of, but I don't want to kill someone I don't have to."

"Fuck, Isabel, what you bring this punk motherfucker here for? Is he your toy?"

"He's looking out for me, Jake. He's helping me out with something. I need your help, too."

"Fuck that shit. I can't leave. I'm the fucking host of this little get-to-motherfuckinggether. I don't like your boy, anyway. We'd scrap."

Chas laughed. "You don't think I could waste some stoned nigger? Let's see, huh? What is it you spooks say to each other? Let's throw down, yo."

Jake turned. to Isabel. "Oh, you got a real winner here, baby."

"Chas, can't you please keep a handle on it?" Isabel looked to Chas, shaking her head and holding her hand up, hoping that Chas would take the cue and let it rest.

"Well, let's hurry it up, Isabel. Get this fucking monkey to sing and let's go." Chas crossed his arms over his chest.

Jake laughed aloud and raised his hand to rub his eyes. "What do you wit, Isabel? What do you and Robert de Niro here want? Let me get back to my harem, huh?"

"We need to find Oliver Prudhomme," Chas said. No sense in letting Isabel turn this into something even more protracted than it already was.

"Prudhomme? That motherfucker's out of his mind. He don't have nothing you need."

Indeed, Ambrogino had warned Isabel about Prudhomme's precarious state of mind.

Apparently, the weight of being a Kindred bore heavily upon him. Still, Ambrogino was a better necromancer than Isabel was, and she had never been led astray by his information before. If Ambrogino said Prudhomme was key, nothing Jake knew was likely to convince her otherwise. "Let us decide that for ourselves, Jake," she said.

"Well, fuck it anyway, because I don't know where the motherfucker stays."

"Oh, now Jake, that can't be true. Are you telling me there's something the would-be prince of New Orleans doesn't know?"

"Puck you, Isabel. I never claimed to be prince. And fuck you, too, bitch." He waved a hand over his shoulder at Chas.

"So you don't know then. You're useless." Isabel put her hands on the cushions at her side, as if to push herself up.

"Useless? I'm not the motherfucker who comes to a party and fucking sweats a brother who's just trying to have a good time. You want to find Oliver fucking Prudhomme, you try looking in the dumpsters behind Emeril's or maybe in the parking lot over at the Hotel Inter-Continental. He got a few problems."

"That's no good, Jake, and you know it. I guess you'll have to pay me back that favor sometime when you're actually capable of fulfilling it. I'm sure the Kindred of New Orleans will be able to sleep well during the day knowing that Jake Almerson can't find them. They might. even think it's funny."

"Oh, it's like that now, is it? That's fine," Jake rolled onto his back again. "I just wanted to hear you say it. That just about makes us even, right? I mean, I'd hate for you to think you can't trust old Jake to keep his word, "

"Now that's what the brother wants to hear. Your Oliver Prudhomme, he stays in an old school about twenty minutes up the state highway. It's one of the old towns, been dried up for a while. You'll know when you get there."

"Oh, the pleasure was all mine. Make sure you come back and see me sometime. You can even bring your smart friend, there."

"Bye, now." Jake waved good-bye with the limp hand of the girl beneath him.

Isabel and Chas waded through the motley crowd of partygoers at the top of the stairs, stopping only to push aside a sailor stuffing a huge wad of weed into a pipe made from a fresh apple.

"No, that's all right," Chas brushed the sailor off. In the front, on the lawn, the two Giovanni Kindred saw another pair of police cruisers pull up just as they made it to the gate that let them out on the street.

"Pretty rowdy in there, no?" One of the police called to the pair as he climbed out of his vehicle and tucked his baton and flashlight into their loops at his belt. As if to punctuate the question, something on fire tumbled out of a hole in what must have been the house's Isabel shook her head. "That's right, Jake. It's all even."

"Thank you, Jake; you've been a very gracious host."

"Fuck you, eggplant."

"Wanna take a hit off the apple?" attic, and a bum leaning against the fence issued forth a gout of vomit.

"Yeah, it's a circus in there," Chas muttered off-handedly. "Oh, yeah, officer; one more thing. There are absolutely no drugs in the room on the left at the top of the stairs."

Isabel slapped Chas and shot him a look that the cop and his tardy partner noticed.

"Mm-hmm. You two have a fine evening," the officer replied, checking his holster and pepper spray. "Oh, we will, sir. You, too." With that, Chas swung the Audi into the lane and through the darkness that pressed in from the edges of the city's border.

Friday, 29 October 1999, 2:02 AM The Ponchartrain School La Lac Blanc, Louisiana Chas parked the Audi curbside, where a decrepit staircase began its ascent and climbed upward for a good twenty feet. At the top of the stairs loomed an abandoned school.

Because local government worked differently in Louisiana — the state had no counties, being instead divided into dioceses managed by the Church — the school had simply fallen into disuse after the community around it had been swallowed by the swamp over sixty years ago. The town had just vanished, leaving behind only a few legacies of its existence, which themselves now lay beneath layers and layers of vines and calcium deposits. The rain had left the six buildings that still stood streaked with mildew and rot. The whole area looked sick, like a pile of chalky bones slowly, inevitably crumbling into the ground where they had been left. Even the road had been overgrown, the dirt of its surface providing ample soil for malicious new vegetation to take root. The car's all-wheel drive had slipped a few times when Chas had guided the Audi too quickly into an easy curve.

It didn't help that the trees grew into an unnatural canopy, shielding much of the moon's light from the area and casting skeletal shadows where illumination managed to fight its way through the web of branches. Even the air was still, dead. Heavy and wet, like the still waters of the swamp itself, beneath the surface of which untold horrors slid effortlessly through the murk.

"How the fuck is anyone supposed to find this place, out here in the middle of fucking nowhere?" Chas wondered aloud.

"I think that's the point," Isabel replied. She shifted the shoulder bag she carried, which held the strange manuscript Marcia Gibbert had given her.

They climbed the stair, fumbling inelegantly in the darkness, but making it to the top without any grievous injury. Chas's small electric flashlight did little to light their environment. Its beam seemed to vanish into the gloom only a few feet before them, and faded completely by the time they stood before the front door of the building.

Isabel heard a wheezing, hissing sound as she reached toward the door. "Do you hear that, Chas?"

"Sorry. That's me," Chas answered, and Isabel could hear the smile on his face in his tone of voice.

"Is something funny?" She looked at him as best she could, the ivory of his teeth and his sunken eyes making his face a demonic apparition floating in the darkness before her.

"It's not really funny so much as it is strange," he said. "I've done this sort of thing a million times, but never in this sort of situation, you know? I've done whatever it was that Frankie Gee told me, walking into weird shit and talking to people who made their havens in fucked-up places. I've talked to Nosferatu who set up their nests beneath the fucking Chelsea Hotel. I've talked to Kindred in the basements of St. Mark's and spent the day hiding in access tunnels of the New York subway. It's not like this-that shit is all paved. No trees. No nothing, but concrete. Even Central Park feels, I don't know, made instead of natural. This shit — I'd never have thought you'd catch me out here. I don't even care that it's not the city. What bugs me is that it's not under control. It's basically just this fuckedup place that some Kindred found and decided to stay here. Like the rest of the world didn't want him. Like the other Kindred didn't have any use for him, and forced him to just go somewhere."

"Isn't that always the case, though?" Isabel asked, growing nervous that something was unsettling Chas this much. She had watched his decline dispassionately for several months now; it wasn't her place to steer him toward some moral end. Maybe it was a product of him becoming more Beast than man — perhaps he was growing more in tune with the nebulous stimuli that animals seemed to be able to feel, to which men and women were oblivious. "Don't we always have to go where we can? I have a feeling our friend here is more than a little unsettled, and this is as close as he can come to everyone else without them feeling completely overtaken by what he is. Come on, Chas; you know we're predators. You know we can only stay among the sheep for so long. This fellow probably can't do it for any length of time at all."

"I'm not pretending to know what the fuck it is, Isabel. It just feels... dead."

Isabel opened the door, which Chas held, motioning her inside. He really has become an animal, Isabel thought to herself. It's not even unchivalrous — he just feels something dreadful inside and his instincts have him sending me in first. Instinctively, she called upon her occult abilities to enable her to look through the veil between worlds. Sure enough, the halls of the school looked even more ghastly in the world of the dead. Thin layers of gossamer wafted in a sickly ghost-breeze and scores of tiny blackish handprints dotted the walls. All of the windows in the ghost-hall were broken, peering into vacant offices strewn with papers or classrooms in which spectral jackets hung from hooks on the walls.

A tinny music echoed down the empty hallways. Chas and Isabel shared a silent look before moving toward it. As they rounded a corner, the music grew louder and they both saw a flickering orange light emanating from one of the classrooms ahead. It must not have had any windows facing the front of the building; surely they would have seen even the faintest firelight from the outside.

At their approach, they discerned a voice just below the strains of the music, which had itself become clearer. The doleful musicwas Hank Williams, his lonely guitar notes traveling across the still air and sounding a million miles away. Over the lyrics of the song, the voice lectured.

"And what can we -do when we can find no hope inside ourselves, children? What do we do when it seems that the world would be better off without us? We must not give in to the loss of our hope — the Lord says despair is a sin, for it denies the faith He wants us to have in Him. Trust in the Lord; He is our shepherd and our salvation. That's what we must do, children. We must ask God for His help. We must pray. He loves us, and asks only that we give our-selves to Him. Remember that His son, Jesus, died for all of us — he took all of our sins and made it possible for God to excuse them for us. God's love is infinite; God's love is unconditional. But we must allow Him to give it to us. He doesn't want us to have it if we must take it against our will — God allows us to choose.

"You children know better than I. You are with God. You know. I am still here — I don't yet know what you do, and all I have is faith. He has heard your prayers, and sent me to let you meet Him, hasn't He? It's not as complex as it sounds. I'm not a cruel man. Although there are some among you whose parents would say that I am a tool of the Devil — or even that I am the Devil himself — you know better than that. You know that God has His own designs and that I serve them, not the will of the Devil. Could it possibly be said that the Devil's tool has God in his heart? How can a man like me, who places his faith and fate in the hands of God, conceivably do the work of the Devil? Am I deluded, children? I don't think so. I pray. I have spoken to God and He has let me know that even one so far from Him as I am is still not outside the boundaries of His love.

"Pray, children. Pray. to see another sunrise. Pray that all of God's creation remain open to you. Pray that God shows you how to avoid the jaws of Hell — Hell is this world, children, and I have saved you from it. I am in Hell, and I have delivered you unto the eaves of the Lord God's house Children, listen! Don't hate me! I have given you the greatest gift of all! I have given you heaven! Were you to have done this yourself, you would reside here still, or on a circle below. Children! Answer me! Tell me that you have no hatred for me; that you have only the Lord's love!

God! God, I have given these children back to You. I have returned them to Your table!

They have died where their names do not matter. I have cut the thin, silver tether that bound them to this Hell. They are Yours once again!

The man betrayed no sign of being startled. He looked to be of about fifty mortal years, a compact, white-haired man with a strangely clean-cut beard and mustache. He wore pleated pants, a white shirt and. a cardigan sweater, all of which were curiously free of the vegetative filth of the forsaken swamp-town.

"Yes? I beg your pardon, children; I have a guest. It is Miss Isabel from the Father Superior's office. Say hello to Miss Isabel, children!"

Isabel looked into the room, beyond the man she assumed to be Ambrogino's contact Oliver Prudhomme. Rows and columns of small, wooden desks occupied the center of the room, each occupied by the still. body of a small child. Some had obviously been there longer than others, having decomposed to the point that the only thing human about them was their vague shape. Others had joined the class only recently, their cool skin and blue lips not yet showing any signs of putrefaction. All had their eyes closed, their tiny hands clasped in a rude approximation of the prayer pose. Boys and girls both occupied the class, roughly two dozen in number, some wearing blue jeans and T shirts like modem children, others in more formal clothes and even uniforms that suggested decades long past.

The Hank Williams songs twanged along softly, the only sound that broke the quiet.

"Mr. Prudhomme, I was referred to you by Ambrogino Giovanni," Isabel began.

"I know, Isabel. I know you. I know what you want." Prudhomme suddenly seemed very tired, as if being interrupted in his fervor had drained him. He removed a pair of pince-nez from the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes between pinched fingers. "Children, I beg your pardon. Please begin your prayers, and I shall return presently." Prudhomme moved to step out of the room, looking expectantly to Isabel and Chas to precede him.

"What the fuck is this, anyway?" Chas reached out his hand, halting Prudhomme at the shoulder. "What the hell is up with these kids? Are you some kind of sick fuck?"

Prudhomme stepped back from Chas's hand, aghast. "Miss Isabel, does this insolent youth travel with you?" He shrank from Chas's gesture as if admonished rather than challenged.

For her part, Isabel was shocked, as well. "Chas, what do you think you're doing?"

"It's this guy, Isabel. He's the one who's responsible for the fucked-up feel this place has.

Aren't you, you freak? You know exactly where those kids are."

"God?

"Children?"

Isabel knocked on the door frame. "Mr. Prudhomme?"

Silence.

"Chas, what are you — "

"Don't fuck with me, Isabel. You know I'm right. I'm right, ain't that so, Prudhomme? You've got all these fucking kids bottled up somewhere. You're doing some of that death-magic shit to keep these fucking kids around." Chas stepped forward, grabbing handfuls of Prudhomme's sweater, lifting him up to his own snarling face. "You fucking pig."

Isabel grabbed Chas by the shoulder and forced him to turn about, looking her in the face.

"Let him go, Chas. Now."

Chas's eyes clouded over. He hissed and his eyes squinted as he dropped Prudhomme to the floor. Oliver crawled backward across the ground, away from his tormentor as Isabel looked upward at her companion.

"Don't try that shit on me. Don't fucking try it. I'll break you in half, whore." Chas loomed over Isabel, but she refused to shrink, placing one hand on his sternum to prevent him from leaning into her any more.

"Please, watch your mouth around the children," Prudhomme protested.

Isabel reasserted herself, gently pressing Chas. away from her and staring into his eyes unfalteringly. "You will stand down."

And Chas did, unable to resist. He continued to snarl, a veil of crimson cast over his vision.

Isabel saw him on the verge of frenzy and moved away from him herself. "Relax, Chas," she whispered. "He's not even one of us. One of the family. He can't do that."

Chas shook, waking from a dream. A scowl still lay etched across his face but the red rage subsided. "I... oh, fuck. I... I'm sorry. I don't know what happened."

"You're not well, Chas. You're too close to the Beast," Isabel said.

"She's right. You've spent too much time with the wrong half of you," Prudhomme conjectured, rising to his feet. Still a bit tentative, he approached. "Let me see — look at me." Prudhomme held his hands out before him to show Chas he had no ill intent. "Just let me look. Yes, you are not far at all. The Man has been overcome."

"The fuck does that mean, old man? That I'm trouble? Fuck, yeah, I'm trouble. Trouble for someone like you."

It was Chas's turn to be wearied. His posture slumped and he leaned back against the wall.

"Oh, fuck. What's wrong with me?" he asked no one in particular. He caught his head in his hands as it tilted forward. Isabel eased him down to sit on the floor. "What's going on in there, Prudhomme? You're the teacher?"

"What was all that shit in there about God and returning the children to Him?"

"It's as I spoke it. Those children have all died. Someone needs to take care of them.

Oliver Prudhomme looked sheepishly at Isabel, who intervened. "Chas, would you wait in the car, please. Everything is all right here; thank you for making sure I arrived safely."

Chas rose, giving a wary glance to Prudhomme before turning and taking his brooding leave. His shoes left cold echoes in the hall as he stalked away.

"I apologize for that. He's not been the same since..." Isabel's voice trailed off. She couldn't make excuses for him. Not only was it not her place, she'd watched as Chas had slowly "Chas, I'm warning you. Calm down," Isabel's voice rose.

"I'm as much student as teacher, I'm afraid."

"You sent them all back to God? You killed them all?" allowed the Beast to erode what had been left of him after the Embrace.

"Don't mind it, my dear," Oliver Prudhomme rubbed his forehead with the arch of his thumb and forefinger. "Please, just let me see the papers. I knew to expect you."

"Ambrogino? I don't know who you're talking about. I saw that you would come. The children were very excited; they've been whispering about you all night. Young Cleveland Thibodeaux has quite the crush on you. You have something you need me for."

Isabel thought it best not to ask any unnecessary questions. She opened her bag and handed Oliver the journal. "I need your keen powers of memory, Mr. Prudhomme. You've been here for as long as Ambro — as long as the man who told me to seek you can remember. A while ago, an acquaintance of mine found this and I was hoping you could tell me anything about the place. Any strange occurrences, anything out of the ordinary you remember. We know where the place is, but it seems to have once held something decidedly unpleasant, and we though we should consult with an expert on the matter before opening it up ourselves."

Prudhomme looked over the sheaf of paper, placing his pince-nez back on his nose and shuffling the individual sheets. Slowly, a look of recognition crossed his face, which gave way to a look of horror. In the darkness, he became even paler than his Cainite complexion normally allowed for. "Oh, my God," he stammered.

"What? What? You remember something about this? You know what it's talking about?"

"I certainly do. I know exactly what it's talking about. I remember this as vividly as if it were last night. It's talking about the monster that made its haven not far from here — the dead thing that slept beneath the cold water and ate everything it could lure down there."

"Yes, Yes!" Isabel grew excited as a tremor of excited terror ran through her. "You remember it! What do you know? What do you know for certain about this thing?"

"Why, I know everything about it. You see, over a century and a half ago, I wrote this."

Isabel looked skeptical. "Ambrogino told you?"

Wednesday, 27 October 1999, 11:24 PM Highway 95 Outside Las Vegas, Nevada Benito heard the thrum of an automobile's engine and felt the air vibrate around him. He could see nothing; the black bag over his head had been tied tightly around his neck and he found himself swallowing blindly, involuntarily. He could smell the dried blood caked on the side of his face, feel it crusted beneath his right eye. He could also smell the reek that had accompanied his captors for the past-God only knew how long. Nights? Weeks? Jesus; months? He had no idea. His odoriferous hijackers had fed him enough blood to keep him cognizant but not enough to risk his breaking free. They were as strong as he — perhaps they were Brujah, or maybe Nosferatu. They might even be rival Giovanni, but he couldn't imagine that over-bearing Nickolai having enough sense to play two factions of Giovanni against each other.

No, all the evidence pointed to the Nosferatu. Benito imagined that plucked fiend Montrose being involved somehow, and he had certainly been pumped for information during his stay with his captors. But now it seemed they were done with him.

"What's going on?" Benito shouted to anyone who might be bothered to answer or might be sympathetic enough to reply. None of that here, though; his outburst only earned him a slap to the head and a gravely, "Shut the fuck up."

Then the acoustics changed. Benito felt himself shoved upward and over, and the sound of the engine changed to a dull roar — he had been put into a vehicle of some sort. A sliding door slammed right next to his head.

Keep calm, old boy, Benito told himself. If they needed you dead, they wouldn't bother taking you somewhere first.

His captors were quiet from that point onward. Benito didn't even know if the plural was appropriate; it could have simply been one person charged with delivering this relatively passive cargo to wherever he was headed. Or, the group could have just been operating with the efficiency they had exhibited all along — these were professionals.

Now that he was close to the outside world again, Benito felt a coolness to the air. The air also felt relatively dry — this wasn't Boston, to be sure. He couldn't smell the faint tang of the salt on the breeze or hear the dim rush of traffic from the nearby city. No, Benito knew he was probably in the middle of nowhere, where whoever these fucks were who had him could do what they pleased even in disposing of him, and nobody would be any wiser.

The vehicle rumbled on for an indeterminate amount of time — Benito hadn't had access to his watch or even a calendar for so long that he was unable to gauge the period he had been on the road for this little jaunt. To his best guess, it was perhaps ten minutes.

As if in response to his thoughts, the van slowed, moved a bit laterally (Benito's weight shifted greatly to the left and then overcompensated to the right), and finally came to a stop. Two doors opened and closed, then the sliding door opened. Benito was jerked out of the back of the vehicle, where he once again felt the outside air — very cool.

The two unknown captors then hurled Benito to the ground. Delivered a few unavoidable and brutal kicks to his ribs, and drove away, the sound of the transport vehicle dopplering away into the distance.

Cool, still air. Cool, loose earth below him. Sand? A coyote howling in the distance.

Coyotes? Sand? He was in the fucking desert?

Fine. Just fine and dandy. When he had waited a suitable time to make sure no one had stayed with him, to watch, for whatever reason, that he remained bound and motionless, Benito Giovanni summoned the last reserves of his fading strength to burst the bonds that held his hands. He stripped the bag from his head and looked over the vast expanse of the Nevada sandscape.

Friday, 29 October 1999, 11:59 PM The Mausoleum loggia Venice, Italy Ambrogino Giovanni laid out his implements before him: a solitary black candle, a length of rough rope knotted into a noose, a strip of burgundy velvet. Putting out the rest of the lights in the room, he struck a match, lit the candle, and waited for the taper to generate a thick column of smoke.

As the wick guttered and the smoke rose, Ambrogino raised the candle over the noose and spilled a few heavy drops of dark wax over it. He then passed the candle's flame under his left index finger, slowly moving it. back and forth. The skin smoldered, caught fire, blackened, and finally split open, loosing a coarse spatter of blood over the rope, which Ambrogino, wincing in pain, blotted with the velvet.

Willing his deathless vitae to close the wound, Ambrogino spoke aloud. "By the ferryman's rede, by the song of Charon, I command thee, William Burke, to appear before me."

The candle's flame blew out as a gust of cold air wisped through the room. "Wot the bloody fuck is it, then?" came a hoarse voice that had no body. "Wot, another trip for me? You have another thing wot needs said?"

"I do indeed, my malicious lad," Ambrogino returned. "To the New World again — all the way across the sea."

"That's a load of rot. Oi won't do it, of won't. Yeh cain't tell Billy Burke wot to do. He's his own man, he is. Billy Burke takes to none but his own counsel, that's roight."

"Ah, Mr. Burke, I'm afraid you're mistaken. You will indeed do as I ask. You're no longer your own man, as you can see, and I am a master of your dead ilk." Ambrogino took great pleasure in summoning the ghosts of murderers, thieves and the like. He found it to be a great source of irony that he should send these selfish ghosts out to run his errands, deliver his messages, and bully his enemies. William Burke had been a resurrectionist in life, a graverobber who sold purloined corpses to doctors, anatomists and the like who needed fresh specimens upon which to experiment or study. Burke had done such brisk business in Scotland that he soon exhausted the natural supply of cadavers and had turned to murder in order to keep himself in goods.

"Toss off and the Devil kin tehk you. I've run moi last for you."

Ambrogino smiled. He sang out to his wraithly guest: "Up the cellar, down the stair; But and ben with Burke and Hare; Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief; Knox the boy what buys the beef."

"Cut that drivel out!" roared Burke's ghost. His partner, William Hare, had committed the grave-robberies and murders with him, in order to keep a doctor named Knox supplied with specimens during the first half of the nineteenth century. Before long, Hare confessed when questioned by police and gave up his accomplice. Burke hung and was publicly dissected, but his vengeful spirit refused to go to its final resting place. The whole incident had survived in infamy as a morbid children's song, which caused Burke's specter no end of anguish. "Yeh cocker, wot is it; then? Wot is it? I'll go an' do it jess to be awey from you!"

"That's a good boy, Burke. I want you to talk to the same Kindred you talked to last time.

He's in the same place. You tell him the one who's coming to see him-Isabel-she's to survive the encounter and make it back to me. Let him know that if anything should happen to her, I'll be quite upset. Understood, William Burke? Do you have it all clear?"

"Ooh, he's a cold one, roight. I don' ken wot truck you have but if it keeps me awey from you an' him, oi'll do it and be off."

"This the one with the crown of skulls, then?"

"It is indeed, William Burke."

That's a good lad, William Burke. Good for you."

Friday, 29 October 1999, 10:11 PM Highway 95 Outside Las Vegas, Nevada Benito had spent the previous two days under an outcropping of rock. He slumbered fitfully, never sure whether the sun's movement through the sky would push the shadow of his makeshift haven back and expose him to its rays. Many times during the day he woke, amid a sweat of precious blood which he licked from his fingers, and sluggishly rearranged himself out of the reach of the encroaching light.

By the time Friday night fell, Benito had recovered as much as possible, given the circumstances. He had fed surreptitiously during the past two days as the opportunities presented themselves, a bit from a lizard at one time, the cold, thick blood of a snake at another. He remembered the lizard whipping its tail in pain, its body holding little more than a mortal's shot-glass worth of blood. Not enough to subsist on, granted, but enough to keep from starving utterly. He was hungry, that was true, but not so hungry that he needed to devote all his will and attention to fighting back the Beast. Benito had no doubt, however, that such would not be the case tomorrow night. He needed to feed as quickly as possible.

He walked for a while, and finally got his bearings. The Nosferatu (he assumed) had dumped him about thirty miles out of Las Vegas, so said the mile markers and highway signs. Traffic on the highway — U.S. 95 — was still fairly heavy, but he didn't want to try to hitchhike just yet. Benito knew that he must look like all hell and didn't-want to work some vacationing orthodontist into a berserk lather and find himself facing down highway patrolmen following an APB for the "madman of the desert!" Surely a gas station would come up before long, where he could use the bathroom to make himself presentable and maybe even catch a bus into the city. Benito knew the Vegas Rothsteins didn't like himmuch, but it wasn't like he planned to stay there and set up shop. just one night, maybe two, and he could get his act together and head back to Boston, where he belonged.

Sure enough, just over the next dune, Benito could see the buggy white lights of a gas station. He double-timed as best as he could without exerting himself. It wouldn't do to show up having sweated out his last reserves of vitae and either frenzy or have those highway patrol cops looking this time for a blood-soaked "madman of the desert!" About a tenth of a mile away from the gas station, he slowed down and walked the rest of the distance.

It was one of those ramshackle affairs — an old single-proprietorship that was supposed to have vanished in the late '50s when all of the oil conglomerates either bought them or drove them into bankruptcy. The place looked like the guy who ran it — "Dan," his nametag said — probably lived there, sleeping in the office and watching Springer during the day while business was slow.

Benito made the store rounds quickly, picking up a bar of soap, a razor (he had been Embraced with a five-o'clock shadow and shaved each night after rising — that is, each night after rising when he wasn't detained by a thug squad of Nosferatu vampires), and a touristy T-shirt, which had the distinction of not being covered with who-knows-how-long's worth of desert grime and blood. Then he brought his bounty to the cashier, who eyed him with a kind of wary mirth.

"You a vampire or a hitman?" asked "Dan" from behind the counter.

"I beg your pardon?" Benito looked incredulously at the attendant.

"Vampire or hitman?"

"Aw, never mind. It's just that I get some weirdoes in here sometimes. You wouldn't believe the crazy crapola they tell me."

"Well, I can assure you, I am neither a vampire nor a hitman. I ran into some rough company and they dumped me in the desert, but with just a little attention to hygiene, I'll be on my way and better off Oh, no you don't. I am not rhe madman of the desert. "No, that won't be necessary. I don't want to push my luck." Benito couldn't help but smile, however ironically.

"Um..." Benito fumbled about himself. Money! Heaven forbid the goddamn Nosferatu should leave him in the desert with any semblance of dignity.

"Yes, I heard you. It's just that..." Benito cut himself off. No sense adding insult to injury.

"Look, pal. You got an honest face. I'll tell you what. You leave me your driver's license and I'll let you come back in the morning and pay me back."

"I, uh... They didn't even leave me with my driver's license."

"You wanna make a phone call? Have your wife or your buddies come out and give you a hand?"

"Dan" sure wanted this sale. Still, using the phone couldn't hurt. Not that he knew anyone's number in Las Vegas, but he could call back to Francis Giovanni in New York or even have his secretary, Ms. Windham, dig up one of the Rothsteins' numbers "Er... okay." "Dan" handed the phone over to him and Benito dialed his Boston office.

"Good evening; Boston Financial; may I help you?" Ms. Windham, thank God.

"The same! I apologize for my absence. Things must certainly have taken a turn for the strange there, am I correct?" Benito turned to "Dan," who wore a look of sympathy crossed with a shit-eating grin. He tucked the phone away from his mouth and asked, "Can I get Western Union here?" "Dan" nodded.

"Oh, things have been just crazy since you were called away, sir! Mr. Lorenzo has been beside himself for the past four months and none of us knew if you were ever coming back." Four months? Jesus. "Is ev-erything all right?"

"I suppose, Ms. Windham, that everything is as all right as it can be, given the circumstances. Now, can you do me a favor?"

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean." without them."

"Hell, mister, you want I should call the cops?"

"Okay, then. That'll be twenty-four ninety-seven."

Shit.

"Twenty-four ninety-seven," "Dan" repeated.

"Oh, yeah; the 'rough company.' I forgot."

Benito winced.

"Ms Windham! A pleasure to hear your voice!"

"Mr. Giovanni?"

"Yes, Mr. Giovanni. What is it?"

"I need you to wire money to me. I'm at — say, 'Dan, ' what is this place?"

"You hear that, Ms. Windham? Nussbaum Fuel outside Las Vegas. Please wire me one hundred twenty-four dollars and ninety-seven cents. Thank you."

"Yes, Mr. Giovanni. I'll take it out of petty cash and have it there in half an hour."

"Thank you again, Ms. Windham." That should get Benito cleaned up, into a cab, and into the city, where he could call upon either his credit-card company or local hospitality in order to procure a room.

True to her word, Ms. Windham had the money wired within thirty minutes. Benito paid "Dan" and borrowed the key to the restroom.

"Nussbaum Fuel," "Dan" beamed proudly.

Saturday, 30 October 1999, 10:54 PM Outside New Orleans New Orleans, Louisiana "I have a question for you." Isabel came out of the blue with her statement. For almost fifteen minutes, neither ' she nor Chas had said anything, preoccupied as they were with the monumental task facing them. The time for planning was over — the two of them, sorely outmatched if things became anything other than observational or conversational, were knowingly, consciously headed into the lair of what might very well be a Methuselah.

Few vampires would undertake such a thing lightly, and the gravity of the situation cast a pall over the mood in the car. Quite possibly, they were driving to their Final Deaths.

Equally as possibly, the ancient Kindred, which had secreted itself in the ghostly Underworld that co-located to the desolate swamps of Louisiana (which might have still been unexplored territory at the time of its self-imposed exile), could have something utterly incomprehensible in mind for them. Would it bat them around as playthings? Turn them into pawns for one of its next maneuvers in the Jyhad? Destroy their bodies and enslave their souls? It was impossible to tell — until they arrived.

"I guess you'd better ask, then. Never know if you'll have a chance after this," Chas replied, his mood of fatalism evident in his voice.

"That's your fucking question?" Chas shot Isabel a cross look over his shoulder. She noticed his hands tensed around the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening and his arm twitching beneath his jacket.

"Don't be a bastard. You know you don't have to come along for this. As a matter of fact, I'm not exactly sure why you're coming along. Don't misunderstand me — I certainly appreciate your being here — but what is it?"

"No, but go ahead and answer it anyway. It might give me a little background when I finally get around to asking." Isabel smiled, hoping to set her companion at ease.

"Well, if this were a movie, now would be 'the part where I tell you I love you."

"Relax, relax; I'm just fucking kidding. It's all I can do anymore, freak out and screw around."

"Well, that's my second question. Or my first, really. What made you lose control back at Prudhomme's school?"

"Oh, that. Nothing. Just some fucked-up shit from when I was younger."

Chas licked his lips and paused a bit before con-tinuing. "It's this fucking family. When you're part of the Giovanni, some decisions get made for you. You don't always have the chance to control your own destiny. One night, some crazy guinea — no offense — on high gets a wild hair up his ass and someone completely uninvolved ends up paying for it."

"I don't know what you're saying. Well, I have an idea, but what do you mean specifically?"

"Okay, but you have to keep this quiet. It's not common knowledge."

"All right. Back before they decided to Embrace me, I had already started a mortal family.

Pretty wife, house in Jersey, everything I own registered in someone else's name, church "You've been having some trouble of late, no?"

"Okay, is that your question?"

"Oh, Chas, don't — "

"Well...?"

"Please," Isabel rolled her eyes. on Sundays, couple of kids — the regular Mafia-guy package, you know? Then, all of the sudden, Frankie Gee shows up — I've been working for him off and on, more cowboy shit than him being my capo. He says he wants to bring me in full-time, make me part of the crew. Now, I know I'll never be made because I'm one-sixteenth Spanish or something and those Lagos want you to be one-hundred-percent Italian, but getting into a crew is getting close. It means. I don't have to do any day-job bullshit anymore — I'll get a piece of any racket that comes up and I'll be more than a mook. People will come to me when they have capers they need pulled and I'll get to pull my own. It's being with someone; it's being protected from all the other motherfuckers out there who want to rip off the small guys, you know? I mean, I did some little bookie shit every now and then, back in the day, and if one of the connected guys, made or not, decides not to pay you for six grand he owes you, tough shit. He's with the crew and someone like Frankie Gee will whack you if you get lippy about it — he's got to protect his guys, see?

"So part of Frankie Gee's pitch to me was sacrifice. You give up the security of your day job for the big scores. You give up the insurance unions and pension funds and all that oldschool shit — I don't even know if people in the modem world even get that shit anymore, it's been so long. You sacrifice, and you live a better life for it, or you make a better unlife for it; whatever. In this case, since I was part of the family, they wanted to proxy me; make me a ghoul, you know? Give me a test to see if I was worth a damn, and then they could make me Kindred. So I pass that test with flying colors and all. It was something simple, some bullshit truck hijacking and then running around afterward making sure the goods went where they wouldn't cause any trouble from the people who bought them, and getting paid on them. The heist was my trial for the mob shit as well as seeing if I deserved to be part of the Kindred. Pretty easy if you ask me.

"They turned me later that year. I don't know how your Embrace went, but the first part of mine was fairly run-of-the-mill. They had one of the guys drain me — which was another tough-guy part of the test, because I'm sure you know how fucking bad it hurts when one of us drinks from some poor slob — and then finish the job with a splash of blood across my lips. I remember thinking it was a pretty strange situation because we were in the cellar of a butcher's shop in New York. This is, like, about a hundred years ago, and it's all very new to me — you know what I mean. It's not like tonight, when every fucking punk who's ever seen a movie or black-wearing spooky kid knows what to expect. I mean, our family keeps things kinda fucked-up intentionally, you know? I mean, the whole time I'm a ghoul and drinking blood, I'm thinking it's some kind of Roman Catholic guinea communion thing, and that this is how everybody out there does it. I never read Dracula and I never had none of this Anne Rice shit to tell me what the whole vampire thing is about, you know? I mean, vampires fucking get off on all that sort of bent psychological shit-keeping you in the dark, never letting you know what they plan to do with you. I'm guilty of it, too. I guess it keeps you from being bored with fucking having to live forever. It's a nasty game."

"You're changing the subject a bit, aren't you, Chas?" Isabel interrupted.

"What happened, then? You worked yourself off track after being Embraced."

"Well, that's it, you see. Fucking Frankie, and all that talk about sacrifice. He wasn't fucking talking about me having to sacrifice some bullshit attachment. He wanted me to fucking make a sacrifice — prove that what I was becoming was more important than what I had been. Those fucks — once they turned me, they left the cellar and locked the fucking door. I'm all freaking out in the hunger, running all over the room, looking for anything. I'm thinking maybe some blood has leaked through the floor from the butcher's above, or maybe rats or dogs or some shit come down here and I can go to town on them.

This silenced him for a moment. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Then I hear something banging around in the icebox. Remember, this is turn-of-thecentury New York. We don't have big, metal, climate-controlled meat lockers, we have big, metal boxes kept cool with layer after layer of insulation and literal ice stacked in there to keep all the shit cool. I'm all out of my mind with hunger and it occurs to me that whatever's crashing around in there might well be alive, so I fucking dive in there like a man possessed.

"But what fucking choice did I have?" Blood-tears streamed down Chas's face; He glared at the road in the darkness ahead of him, as if he could just drive away from everything he had seen in the past.

"Oh, that's not the end of it. See, they specifically didn't put my wife in there so that when I calmed down and they let me out, I'd have to go back to her. Well, I wouldn't have to, but they didn't want to make it easy or straightforward. If I killed my wife, too, I wouldn't have any choice but to move forward with my unlife. But they deliberately left her out there so I'd have to fucking tear myself up over what to do about it."

Chas shook his head and sighed. "I had to kill her, too.. I couldn't let her go on with something as fucked up as this completely changing her life. I mean, how the fuck do you respond to this sort of thing? Me, I've had to go on and come to grips with it, but that's because I fucking did it. When something like this just happens to you, what do you do?

How the fuck can you even stand getting out of bed, knowing that something equally as fucked up or worse won't just arbitrarily happen to you the next day, you know? My fucking wife didn't do anything to deserve this — she married a Mafia guy. The worst thing that was going to happen to her was that I end up dead and she makes her own way or gets remarried. My goddamn kids-they didn't fucking choose to be born to Anna and I. They were just fucking born to the wrong guy at the wrong time and his fucking sick associates put them right in the path of totally wrong shit. Me, I fucking wake up with it every night for a hundred years — fucking get over it, you know?" More tears coursed down his cheeks.

"And that's basically why I'm following you around on this thing. Maybe it's not the most altruistic cause, you know, helping a bunch of fucking vampires figure out the thing that's coming after them, but it's a start, eh? It's making some kind of arguably positive difference. Frankie's dead. Fucking Victor's dead, It's not like I have anything to go back to except who knows how many more nights of hurting people and taking their shit when I feel like it, and this at least lets me feel like I'm contributing something.

"And that's what fucked me up the other night seeing all those goddamn kids set up in neat little rows at Prudhomme's fucking school. He killed those kids. He fucking chose to do it.

He went out of his way, selected individual fucking children and drank them dry. When I go to sleep at the end of the night, it's all I can do not to face the fucking sunrise for some shit that happened a hundred fucking years ago, that I had no power to control, and it's something that he can do and rationalize and get up fucking happy as though it's no concern in the world to him. My kids and my wife — I would have destroyed anyone who touched them. But it wasn't enough. In his case, he doesn't give it the least fucking bit of consideration.' "It's my fucking kids. It's fucking Ruth and Amanda.

"I'm sorry, Chas."

Silence hung over the car.

Minutes later, Isabel spoke. "And?"

"Yes, but you can't — "

Isabel knew she could say nothing that would change Chas's condition. This was his nightly demon. No doubt, when he saw the Beast, it wore his wife's face, twisted into a mask of betrayal. It spoke in the stereo voices of his children, asking Why, Daddy, why; what did we do?

Just then, Isabel's portable telephone rang. Chas jumped as the digital signal toned, jolted from his unpleasant reverie. Isabel answered quickly, "Hello?

Isabel turned off the phone and looked again at Chas. "Well, I have another reason for you to stick with me."

"Oh, yeah? Great. What is it?" Sarcasm veritably dripped from Chas's voice.

"The son of a bitch."

"Where?

"Was he there the whole time?

"From Las Vegas?" She spared a pointed look at Chas.

"Right. Last night. No, this morning?

"All right. Thank you."

"Our man Benito — he's dead."

Friday, 29 October 1999, 11:43 PM Nussbaum Fuel Outside Las Vegas, Nevada Benito let himself into the bathroom, carrying his handful of newly purchased supplies.

The entire trip from the storefront to the restroom on the side had been a protracted affair-the key was attached to an enormous old steering wheel and Benito's hands were otherwise occupied with the task of holding onto the toiletries he'd just purchased. After letting himself in, he checked the sole, dented stall to make sure he was alone.

Drawing the filthy sink full of tepid water, Benito looked at himself in the mirror. He was a mess. First things first. He took off his shirt and stuffed it into the trashreceptacle.

Lathered his hands with water and soap. Washed his face and the grime from his hands, arms and neck. Splashed a little water through his hair to loosen the blood and desert crud that had matted there.

Jesus, if I worked at a gas station in the middle of the desert, I wouldn't let me even come near the place.

Before beginning the shaving ritual, Benito put his hands on both sides of the basin and shook his head. What had led him here? He vaguely remembered talking to the stinking unknowns who had kidnapped him, but they had given him precious little about themselves. At this point, he wasn't even sure if they had been Nosferatu.

Bringing himself back into the present, Benito looked at the squalor around him. The door to the bathroom looked as if it had been bashed in and then bolted back into the frame.

Someone had scrawled on the inside surface of the door and a greasy tin of mostly used pomade sat on the sill where the sink joined the wall. A half-smoked cigarillo had been discarded on the floor, looking so dry that it must be at least ten, twelve years old.

Even the lights carried a sense of misery and despair — two of the six that lit the linoleum room had burnt out and the rest were so yellowed that they changed Benito's complexion from pale to jaundiced. Unwashed crusts of traveler's and gasoline filth accumulated in comers, crawled up the stall walls and filled the creases between the tiles. The Formica sink counter had been scored, burned by cigarettes, spotted with other mystery gunk and streaked with half-assed trails of tile cleaner.

Still, Benito had about half an hour before his car arrived, and he'd rather spend it making himself look civilized than hearing whatever hard-luck story or cinematic yarn "Dan" had waiting for him. He lathered his face with the soap and dipped his razor into the rippled water, preparing to cleave away the stubble that adorned his face this and every night since his Embrace.

Benito looked around. He hadn't heard the door open, nor had he observed anyone in here when he had first entered. Must be someone outside. Still, what a strange thing to overhear.

This string of gibberish unnerved the half-dressed Giovanni, though he recognized the last as a name with which he was uncomfortably familiar. He spun, hoping that he would be able to "see" where the voice had come from, whether via moving shadows under the door or, less possibly, someone who had hidden behind something in the restroom itself. But P.O.E.

O.P.E.

"... Terrible place to die..."

"... Elodie, Hazimel, Nickolai..."

After this last strange pronouncement, Benito heard a pop and one of the four lit light bulbs in the restroom burst, showering him, the sink and the floor with a cascade of thin, jagged glass.

Pop. Another bulb shattered leaving the room illuminated only by a sickly half-light.

And then the door to the stall swung slowly open, creaking on its rusted hinge. Benito spunto watch it in disbelief — he had checked the stall to make sure no one had been inside.

From the tiny vestibule crept a form familiar but somehow different to Benito. What had once been smooth, swarthy skin had been crisscrossed by a lattice of livid keloid scars. The figure's eyes didn't match — one was the same as Benito had seen it before but the other looked as if it had been plucked our and returned rudely to its socket. The foreign eye veritably glowed red, brightening and dimming at seemingly random intervals. The clothes the figure wore were ragged, dirty, looking as if, since their owner had made the transition from his former self to this new... thing, he had forgotten all about personal upkeep. The hair was matted, the fingers longer and pronounced.

"The same... same again and always. Leopold knows you. Leopold... So many nights wasted on you, Benito. So much time... your blood no longer cries out as it used to. Lost among the scum, Leopold — no! Benito! You traffic with those stinking rats?" Obviously, Leopold was rambling, probably maddened by whatever had wrought this hideous change upon him.

Benito took a step back, acutely aware of the strangeness of the situation. Here he was, in the middle of nowhere in a gas-station bathroom he had presumed — known! — to be empty, wearing no shirt, with his face partially shaven and some twisted Kindred staggering from a place it could not possibly have been only moments ago.

"Leopold, what are you talking about?" Benito asked slowly, hoping not to incite the ravaged Cainite to any rash act.

"I told you, this is a terrible place to die!" Leopold spat, his good eye, if such could be said, pinched shut in anguish. "Don't you listen? The names of the damned fall trippingly from the tongue!"

"This is nonsense, Leopold. What are you say-ing? Do you need me to understand you?"

"All right; all right. You don't need anything." Then what do you want?

"What do I want? I want you to die, but this is a terrible place."

Benito knew he hadn't spoken his last question aloud — or had he? Leopold was eating the thoughts that spun from his mind, approaching him with more and more malice. What had looked wretched and defeated seconds ago now seemed poised and malignant, a monster feeding on the fear and worry that poured from Benito's self.

Quicker than Benito could see, Leopold lashed his arm forth, twisting it into a fleshy crescent crowned with a razored crust of bone. The tendril swiped across Benito's where?

"... Kiss like a spider..."

What the hell is going on here?

"Leopold?" Benito wondered, aghast.

"I don't need anything!"

"A terrible place? Why do I need to d — " midsection, opening the flesh of his abdomen and spilling the withered remains of his oncevitals. Blood sluiced from the wound, covering the floor in a sticky sheen. Benito's eyes registered a horrid pain and shock, and he stumbled backward, willing what was left of the meager vitae in his system to close the wound. If Leopold intended to kill him, he had only little chance of overpowering the deranged Cainite.

The flight instinct took over. No matter Benito's relatively advanced age, his hunger prodded the Beast to flee. He spun, bringing the full bore of his undead strength to bear against the door, shearing it from its hinges and sending it flying into the parking lot. And then he bolted — — but slipped in the pool of his own precious fluid staining the bathroom floor.

Leopold wasted no time in closing on his prey. His ribs erupted from his torso, lengthening and piercing Benito, splaying and spreading and rending their victim apart. A quarter of Benito's chest, the part attached to his neck, separated gruesomely from the trunk of his body. An arm tumbled to the ground, pried out of socket by Leopold's intruding bone and severed as the rib-worm curved over itself to reenter Benito's body. Within seconds, what had been Benito Giovanni was nothing more than scattered piles of gore defiling a Nevada restroom. Presently, after the Final Death overtook him, Benito's remains crumbled to a greasy ash.

By the time the ash coated the floor, Leopold had vanished, but whether into the night or back to the realm of the unconscious from which he had surprised Benito, no one could say, for none saw.

Within the hour, Benito's cab arrived. The driver, a ghoul from the Scottish branch of the Giovanni family, knew exactly what he was looking at. With a careful mien, he scooped up enough ash to hopefully allow one of the accomplished necromancers to investigate the death of Benito Giovanni, and sped off into the night.

Dan Nussbaum scratched his head and cursed whoever had knocked his door from its hinges. Goddamn vampire hitmen.

Sunday, 31 October 1999, 12:21 AM The Bourbon estate Outside New Orleans, Louisiana The remains of the Bourbon estate house — the home where Oliver Prudhomme had experienced his ordeal with Blind Tom and whatever it was that dwelt there-had fallen into disuse over a century ago. Terrorized by the monster that made its haven in the basement, the widow of the house and her servants had followed Oliver's example soon after he left, and abandoned the estate.

The swamp had since made every effort to reclaim the land that had once belonged to it solely. Creeping vines worked their way up the boggy hill toward the house, enveloping it in an organic cage of vegetative murk. Time and the elements had eroded_ the foundation and walls of the once-proud home, leaving breaches, rot and decrepitude in their wake.

Although the air refused to move at ground level, some tremulous breeze passed through the shattered windows and splayed French doors of the house's, upper level, moving the heavy burgundy drapes of the house so that they looked like lethargic black ghosts in the darkness of the night.

Isabel and Chas circumnavigated the enormous building, looking for whatever remained of the cellar Prudhomme had described in his letter or journal. Before long, they found it, a rude, rotten wooden affair laid over the gaping grotto that no doubt formed the cellar itself. No sooner had they found the entrance than the air came alive with a keening wail.

Cold wisps of wind whipped across the grounds.

"The spirits of the restless dead," Isabel confided to Chas. "The thing inside has them bound to the house, serving as sentries or something. They're probably angry at its dependence upon them — I can feel that they don't serve it willingly."

"Can that help us?" Chas asked, with an uncharacteristic tone of hope. Since the latter half of the car trip he had been dour and withdrawn, affected by the ghosts that populated his own past and the death of the Kindred he had been initially responsible for finding, before everyone he knew who had been involved in the affair had turned up dead themselves.

"I doubt it," admitted Isabel. "The Kindred beneath the house is probably older than all of these spirits combined, and far more powerful. Even if they acted in unison, the monster could probably dissipate them with a wave of his hand or banish them into other realms.

No, I'm afraid we're going to have to face this thing alone, and on its own terms."

"Well, fuck," Chas added. Isabel noted that at least this was in keeping with his personality.

Stepping carefully in the darkness, the two made their way to the wooden door that feebly shielded the world from the creature within. Chas pulled the door open on its rusted hinge, which gave a metallic shriek that sounded not unlike the voices of the unsettled ghosts wailing around them.

Beneath the house, the sedimentary rock of the Louisiana swamps formed a striated cavern. Here and there, great timbers or clusters of cypress wood spanned from the floor to the ceiling of the grotto, supports for the vast edifice above it. Wet vegetation crawled through various fissures in the ceiling, trailing slimy webs across the short protrusions that also roughened its surface. Pools of still water gathered in depressions that pocked the uneven floor and a still air suspended a subtle, cloying scent of decay. Chas's flashlight lit the darkness in a feeble cone, through which mist passed like the ephemeral bodies of the ghosts that had no doubt been barred from the ancient Kindred's haven proper.

Then the voice hit Isabel, resounding like a church bell through her head. It was neither male nor female, a heavy, uninflected boom through her mind. The Kindred taking its rest here knew that she and Chas had arrived, and it extended a telepathic tendril into her mind.

Isabel replied aloud, so Chas would hopefully have some idea of what was transpiring. "We have come to ask your motives. We want to know why you have hunted down so many of our number."

Insolent Adder, the both of you. Its affairs are its own. It needs explain nothing to you.

You and your kind, who drove it so far under the caul of night — it does what it wishes.

"But, why? Is it revenge? Against the ones who hunted you in the past?"

Chas, regrettably, had failed to comprehend what was taking place. "The fuck are you talking about, Isabel?"

"It's the mon — the Kindred. It's talking to me through a mystic gift."

Who is with you? It feels anger from the other. It sees a limn of scarlet. Do not bring an angry guest into its home! You have transgressed already; you have violated the sanctity of its haven. Presumptuous and insolent!

"This is my companion, Chas. Chas protects me. We mean no threat to you, Old One; we know that you could destroy us at a whim. The both of us come only for knowledge.

Without knowing the cause of your ire, we cannot end it."

"Please, Chas. I need to concentrate. You've dealt with this sort of thing before. Just let me talk to our host."

Your protector is impetuous! How safe can he make you? It expected only one....

"What do you mean, you expected one? You knew we were coming?"

It knows. It knows. It knows the end and the dark. But some things still surprise it. Even the voices from the cold failed to tell of the arrival of another. It cannot grant the same immunity the cloaked man asked for. William Burke! Go back and tell your master that I shall follow his request to the letter!

"William Burke? What do you mean, Venerable Elder?" Isabel was puzzled by the unseen presence's turn of words. "William Burke does not travel with me."

"Who the fuck is William Burke?" Chas demanded, a growl edging his voice. "Oh, now what the fuck is this?"

Isabel watched as the air around Chas grew hazy — dark and dense, a black whirlwind spun around him. A legion of otherworldly voices howled in chorus, sounding like the force of a gale wind outside. The air in the chamber was frightfully still, however, unsettling Isabel and Chas all the more; the storm overtaking him was unnatural, made up of a torrent of ghosts who did not disturb the world of the living in any temporal sense.

Still, it seemed that the ancient Kindred had sensed Chas's weakness, his proximity to the Beast. Isabel looked on as rage and anguish piqued Chas's face. His eyes sank in, growing dark, and his mouth gaped like a fish out of water, fangs exposed. His hands clenched into fists at his sides and then opened again, as if he was trying to grab hold of his wraithly tormentors, who eluded his grasp with ease.

The disembodied voice again resounded in Isabel's mind, a malicious tone with a tinge of Why have you come? it asked.

"This is fucking creeping me out, Isabel." mirth behind it. The odor has a short temper. We have sent it an offering to see how it reacts.

As interminable seconds ticked by, Chas felt himself overcome by the emotional tide his attackers loosed upon him. The simple frustration of it ignited his ire, but the passion of the ghosts who whirled about him dragged him toward frenzy, an undertow of spectral turmoil and unleashed fury. Get the fuck away from me, he thought, and lashed out with his fist, striking nothing but a swath of cold air.

"Chas, keep calm. Keep calm," Isabel warned, but what the fuck did she know? The storm refused to break — Chas could see individual faces in the ghostly tempest, smiling, mocking and mouthing obscenities. Their shrieking echoed louder in his mind than his own thoughts. Again, he struck out, and then again, always failing to make contact. Chilling claws raked through his hair, lifted his jacket, tugged at his arms and battered him from beyond the veil of darkness between worlds. A torrent of individual words and curses rose from the cacophony — cold, so cold, come, touch us join us be part of so warm, so much hate, so far from a man, can never truly, lost! too much black so away a little, hot black center.

The swirl of bodies came together, converging to form... something. A face. Chas cast his hands out before him, hoping to disperse the forming face, but once again, his hands passed through the apparitions. The visage grew more distinct, a skeletal rictus stretched over prominent bones. It became more defined, and then the skull cracked, erupting into a laughing scowl, filling the dead air with its shrieking mirth — — and then vanished. The cackling however, continued, becoming audible to Isabel, who covered her ears before it deafened her. The laughter faded into reality and dropped a bit, changing from the roar of the dispersed ghosts to the very real, very present laughter of something in the chamber itself. Chas's eyes narrowed to slits as he bristled. "What the fuck is so goddamn funny? What the fuck are you laughing at? You fucking... coward!

Where the hell ate you?" He lowered himself, looking as if he were about to pounce.

Chas leaped forward into the heavy void of the grotto, followed closely by Isabel. A few yards deeper into the cavern, a vortex of darkness whirled, and the laughter took on a timbre that suggested it had dropped within. Chas seethed; Isabel leaped to restrain him, but he slapped her to the ground, lost in the throes of frenzy. From the floor, Isabel looked up at Chas, seeing the whipcord muscles of his thick neck bursting from his collar, his fangs jutting from his gaping maw, knowing that he was doomed. He sprang forward.

From the vortex stepped a painfully thin figure, looking like nothing so much as an animated scarecrow, half again as tall as a man. It had no fingers, only long talons, and tatters of a shroud hung from it like the cowl of the Grim Reaper itself. The figure showed no face, wearing a cobwebbed black veil attached to a perfect circlet of small, humanoid skulls, each missing the lower mandible. As it stepped forth, the vortex closed, fading into the featureless darkness of the cavern itself.

The thing's head shook and the laughter continued. A bony finger pointed at Chas; the other hand waved capriciously. It has walked with God. It has seen the sky rain blood. It has escaped a thousand-year hunt and then another. It has slept beneath the flesh of pharaohs and later beneath their lifeless bones. And one so young — this — thinks that he can destroy it. Not tonight. More laughter. Not tonight.

"Chas!" Isabel shouted. "Stay cal — "

Too late, too little.

And stopped in midair, crashing to the floor.

Chas leaped from the ground, roaring, clutching hands outstretched — — and transformed into a cloud of dusty ash. A few seconds later, the ash settled in a streak on the grotto floor before the figure.

An anguished look crossed Isabel's face. Despairing, she sank to her knees, her hands leaving prints in the remains of Chas's body.

This is the might of it. This is what it can do, and will do. You cannot stop it; none can. It gives you leave, though. It wants you to know, and take back to your others, and tell them. The cloaked man would have you return to him, and it would have you do the same.

The dead figure stepped forward and stooped, grasping Isabel's slim neck in its infernally strong grip. It lifted her, bringing her up to where its face would be, cocking its head as if examining her. Then it dropped her to the floor.

It has been here for centuries and none have found it outside a cursed few. And see what has come of them? Maddened, prowling through a swamp. Dead, nothing but a streak of dust. Gone, abating its thirst for a few nights. It does watt it will. As shall it always. It is out-side of time. But its memory is long.

No. No questions. Don't coax it to prove die cloaked man's weakness and have its way wide you. Return.

Isabel turned to look over her shoulder, back to the grotto's ingress. When she returned her gaze to where the figure had stood, all that remained was the still, black air and a feeble cascade of dust.

It continued laughing. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Take that back to your masters.

"But..." Isabel protested.

Thursday, 4 November 1999, 1:37 AM British Airways Flight 2226 Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean Inside her rude pine box, Isabel opened her eyes and stared up at the veneer of wood that protected her from the attentions of the outside world.

Failure to resolve the fate of Benito Giovanni. Failure to take any hope back to the Giovanni concerning the ungodly potency of the cabal of ancient Kindred that would no doubt hunt them in the nights to come. Failure to prevent the sect war that would play out in the streets of Boston. Despite the fact that the Giovanni would maintain their supremacy in Boston, the conflict between the vampires of the Camarilla and the Sabbat would force the Giovanni underground for some time and necessitate that any action on their part be undertaken very carefully.

Still, Isabel comforted herself, wouldn't all of this have taken place with or without her?

Could Benito not be replaced? Could Ambrogino really expect her to confound the actions of a Kindred who may well have walked in the shadow of the mythical Caine himself — assuming Caine had ever existed at all? Was survival in the Jyhad not itself the ultimate success? Didn't minor tragedies like these play out each night, winding through the unlives of the Kindred like the lines of incestuous ancestry in her own family tree?

After all, wasn't the entire, ages-old war a simple diversion from the unnatural act of rising, alone, from the day's rest to prey upon the mortals around the Kindred?

A single tear of blood trickled from Isabel's eye, staining the soft wood beneath her.

Failure.

Utter failure.

Thursday, 4 November 1999, 1:37 AM The Mausoleum loggia Venice, Italy Ambrogino pushed the hood back from his head and lit a candle.

With a withered gray hand, he pulled two cards from the deck.

And then he looked to the mirror. No doubt someone — something — else saw the same reflection from the other side of the polished glass.

The Fool.

Death.

Tomorrow night, he would meet Isabel in London.