part three

part three:

part three: gone Wednesday, 1 September 1999, 9:00 PM U.S. Interstate 85 North of Atlanta, Georgia Nine o'clock exactly, Victoria noted as she drove north out of Atlanta. She wasn't certain exactly what she was leaving with, other than fears greater than those with which she had arrived in Atlanta just a handful of nights before. Of course, she'd won a very concrete victory, that over Elford, and to a great extent that freed Victoria for the future. But now her past was doggedly pursuing her.

Yes, there were other avenues of investigation she might have pursued. The safe in Leopold's home.

The Tremere chantry. The train yard where she — and maybe Leopold too? — had been made a subject for the aforementioned Tzimisce fleshcrafter. Perhaps by not seeking more information in such places she had failed in the mission assigned her by the Camarilla council.

Except the one incredible bit of information Anatole had divulged.

But could Victoria really tell Jan, Theo and the others that she was the sire of the monster that had ravaged dozens of Gangrel? Surely they distrusted her enough already after the antics that had led to this trip in the first place. Coupled with the possibility that Leopold had been nothing before Elford turned him into a being possessed of some incredible but uncontrollable power... and the fact that Victoria too had been the Tzimisce's prisoner...

She knew there were already whispers that she might be a spy. Nothing overt, nothing said to her directly, but she could sense the wariness. As she thought about it, she even wondered what kind of misinformation the council or perhaps Jan acting on his own might have fed her prior to her departure.

Some tidbit she might relay to her theoretical Sabbat masters once she was let loose again in Atlanta...

Were the others on the council really surprised when she agreed to return to her overrun city, or had she misstepped yet again and confirmed some wild theory they had constructed?

Victoria pushed these thoughts, this thought, from her mind for a moment, and concentrated on her progress from the city. Her BMW was flashing down the road at a clip only believable to those who had actually driven in Atlanta traffic. She welcomed the easy motion, the humming throb of the car.

She shifted back down to fourth gear so the engine ran a little harder to maintain this speed. She wanted to go fast, but also to feel fast, and cars sometimes crafted too complete an illusion of motionlessness.

But the rumbling engine and the weaving motion through the slower cars and even a brief race with a young man strutting the power of his, Dodge Viper could not erase Victoria's fears. Only a catastrophic crash that induced amnesia would force from the Toreador's mind the feeling of desperation she felt when she imagined herself to be indeed Leopold's sire.

Because she certainly had no recollection of Embracing the young artist. In fact, she'd not Embraced a mortal for several generations now. She'd been weaker, more easily tempted in her youth, perhaps swayed by the vestiges of emotions she now openly preyed upon in male Kindred. But in recent years, she'd become too ambitious to be tied down by a childe. If there was no one that tempted her enough to put her ambition aside, then there was no one who she should Embrace. It truly was as simple as that.

And Leopold, though possessed of great and probably even greater unrealized talent, was not one for whom she would ever divert her course.

Yet it all seemed to fit, strangely. Could it be that she had suffered memory loss because of her time with Elford? That she'd known this before? That she was Leopold's sire?

She had nothing.

And those were just the ramifications to her immediate future.

His sire is in the stone, Anatole had said, all the while clutching the sculpted bust of Victoria. It had been a fine recreation of herself too, she recollected. Perhaps what could be called a loving rendition, one a childe might fashion of a beloved sire.

The ramifications of this, if it was true, were shattering. Most of all, it meant that, despite her efforts, she'd lost control of her life.

And so what would she do? Should she inform the others of this information or not? As ever, some sort of random test would decide the matter. Maybe this method protected her and maybe it did not, but in this moment of crisis, Victoria felt it was all she had.

But then a weaving light in the rear view mirror grabbed her attention. Victoria watched closely as the reflection of the headlights grew in the mirror. Just as she was beginning to make out the vehicle, the driver switched on his high beams, and Victoria was forced to squint.

This maneuver also drew her attention away from the road in front of her, and just in the nick of time did she glimpse a slow-moving patch of orange: a large construction vehicle of some sort rolling onto the highway from the grassy median where it had been parked.

The vehicle behind Victoria had already shifted right into the other lane, but Victoria only managed to do this by a reflexive twist of the steering wheel. Her tires squealed and she felt them slip, slip, and then slide, losing their grip upon the contours of the pavement.

What might be a blur of motion to a mortal was for the Toreador instead a second and a half to recompose herself and make consideration of her surroundings. And since the car whirled in a 540degree spin, Victoria had a perspective of the entire area around her. Most notable was the identity of the driver who'd flashed his lights at her. It was the young man in the Viper, and when she caught brief sight of his grinning face, Victoria noted that it sported vampiric fangs.

When the BMW came to a stop, Victoria realized it had stalled out. The Kindred in the Viper was merely gunning his engine, but the driver of the orange steamroller was making no such drama. It was all business-the business of killing Victoria Ash. The enormous construction vehicle moved faster than Victoria would have guessed possible, and it quickly turned and closed upon her. The large drum on the front loomed well over the height of her small sports car, and the Toreador knew there would be no second chance for her if that wheel crushed her in this car.

She revved her engine to life and quickly threw the car into reverse. Straight ahead would have taken her off the road and into a field where she might have become stuck and perhaps still made into a pancake. But she was forced to screech to a halt, as a half asleep father driving a minivan cruised at high speed through the slower vehicles involved in the life and death maneuvers. The man startled fully awake and turned hard on the wheel to avoid an impact with the tail of Victoria's car, but she managed to stop short of him.

Regardless, the minivan skidded and then toppled, rolling over the top one, two times before skating to a stop on the passenger-side doors. But Victoria barely saw that, for once the minivan was clear of her path, she floored the accelerator again, and just in time. The monolithic drum wheel of the paver had just begun to crunch the front of her car when she slipped out of its reach.

Victoria drove a wide circle in reverse until she had gone past her starting point and was about to crash the rear of her car into the back of the paver. Then she braked hard and threw the BMW into first gear and blasted off down road. The man who had just crawled from the minivan was forced to leap aside as Victoria tore past.

Victoria zipped down the road, but headlights grew again in her mirrors. Was this Sabbat, she wondered? Whoever the man in the Viper was, Victoria imagined it was just her bad luck that he was not only a vampire, but also one who recognized her. Had it been an accidental encounter, or were they watching for her? Were all the highways out of Atlanta being watched like this?

It hardly mattered. Whatever the case, instead of giving up the race of thirty minutes before, the Viper's driver had actually pulled aside to arrange a trap. An ambush she had avoided. Now all that remained was to see what this lone driver intended.

Would he try to force her off the road, or would he follow her, hoping she would succumb to the lethargy brought by dawn's approach before the same happened to him? Then he might report her position and she would be doomed. There were no Harolds with protective vaults anywhere in the Carolinas.

Or — a new fear struck Victoria — what if the man was a ghoul? A mortal who drank Kindred blood every day for many long years could grow the fangs with practice. And despite this ingestion of Kindred blood, the ghoul remained mortal and unaffected by the sun.

Maybe she would have to force the action with him. Only a ghoul with the thickest, oldest blood might resist her charms, and even then, perhaps not for long.

But it was the other driver who decided matters. The Viper quickly closed on Victoria's BMW.

Though fast, her car did not possess the raw horsepower of the other. The Toreador was surprised by how quickly this took place, though, and was left with few good options when the nose of the Viper pushed into the rear of her car.

In her rear view mirror, Victoria could see the man grinning broadly. She decided he would be a dangerous foe when she saw he wasn't gloating and showboating to impress her, but was instead fully concentrating on the task of destroying her. A cool, determined foe was the most dangerous kind.

Unfortunately he was a fine driver, and, with his car pressed into the Toreador's, he added a touch more throttle and turned the wheel in order to force the BMW to skid. Victoria felt herself lose control of the car for a moment again. She bounced perilously close to an embankment on the left side of the interstate. The great danger rested in the fact of the great speed they travelled.

The steering wheel failed to respond for precious seconds more, but then her car broke away from the Viper for an instant, and suddenly the wheels responded to her imploring efforts.

As the Viper settled back and prepared for another approach, Victoria observed a state-patrol police car pass on the other side of the highway. Its blue lights immediately jumped to life, and it cut a path across the grassy median. It was quickly left behind, but where one such car was, more would follow.

The Toreador was thinking quickly, trying to determine the best means of escape. She could slow down, but would then risk the man simply plowing into her, and from a trajectory of his choice, and it would surely be one that put her at much greater risk than himself.

When the Viper pushed against her again, Victoria decided that her best chance might be simply to take a gamble. She would have to risk an accident, but make certain that they were both equally wounded. Afterwards, she could utilize her powers of persuasion to dispense with the threat, or at least calm it.

And if she was successful, the pursuing police officer would provide a temporary escape vehicle.

So Victoria feigned an effort to escape the steel embrace of the cars. She also forced every last ounce of speed from the BMW Then, when she felt the Viper locked neatly with her own car, the Toreador applied the brakes with as much strength as she could muster, and that effort, when fueled by the blood of those upon whom she'd fed, was considerable.

The Viper seemed almost to skip into the air for moment, and it bounced a couple of times before it settled onto the pavement again. But the car did not land smoothly, but like a kite caught in winds low to the ground as it tries to take purchase and gain flight. The Viper spun and slid.

For the BMW's part, the car's tail wagged back and forth as her tires shrieked. Then, the force of the speeding Viper pushed the car's rear violently, and Victoria began to spin too. And spin. And spin, until she was jolted to a stop. The seatbelt over her shoulder snapped, and so did the collarbone over which it had been strapped. Victoria winced in pain but was then smothered in the BMW's airbag.

She did not lose consciousness even for an instant. She looked around, although doing so sent shockwaves of pain down her left arm. The Toreador saw the Viper. Or at least the rear of it. It was off the other side of the road, and seemed to be planted nose first, nearly elevating the tail off the ground entirely.

Her own driver's door was too crumpled from the impact to open, so Victoria slid over the stick shift and into the passenger's seat. The door on that side opened with only a mild protest, and Victoria pulled herself out, trailing a left arm that hung limply at her side.

As she stood, the Toreador immediately knitted the damaged limb and bones back together by means of the blood she carried. Standing still for this moment, Victoria could hear nothing but the rapidly approaching siren.

That wailing must have drowned out any noise on the other side of the road, because Victoria saw the man before she heard him. He pulled himself out of the ditch and then slowly rose to his feet. His face was bloodied and he staggered, perhaps from the shock of the impact, but he knew his mission well enough, and none of his limbs seemed to have suffered the kind of harm the Toreador's had.

Victoria momentarily forgot her arm, though, and simply lowered her gaze at the man. She let him come to her.

As he stepped onto the highway, Victoria determined that he was not aware of anything but her. She used her powers to cloud his thoughts even further, so that the man did not even bother to glance back up the highway before -crossing. He did not see the patrol car hurtling ever closer.

Victoria saw the collision coming. The BMW and Viper were both off the road and mostly out of sight, and the officer wasn't looking for the figure of a man crossing the highway, but probably scanning hundreds of yards further ahead for red taillights.

Whatever the officer saw, he didn't see the dazed Kindred. Not in time at least. And the driver of the Viper saw nothing but Victoria. When he reached the center of the patrol car's lane, Victoria raised her palm toward him and bade her assailant stop. He did.

At the last instant, the patrol car's brakes screamed to life. Victoria just stared silently at her attacker, as with a thud the car impacted him and vaulted his rag doll corpse into the air. When it finally skittered to a stop, it was further down the interstate than the patrol car.

Victoria worked the skin of her arm back into place and the final bits of cartilage reconnected. Then she brushed back her hair with practiced strokes of her fingertips, and walked toward the officer.

A replenishing meal and a getaway car. How useful.

Saturday, 4 September 1999, 11:37 PM Hartsfield International Airport Atlanta, Georgia He could only beat himself up about it for so many nights and drive himself to only so much more distraction, but the gross failure, the incredible negligence the observer had committed a few nights ago continued to haunt him. He'd missed something. The something that had suddenly caused Anatole to kill and diablerize Benison.

The death of the former prince of Atlanta had been a gruesome event to witness, and it was made even more horrible by the observer's acute sense of confusion and delinquency. Anatole had seemed ready to depart, not just the homely townhouse where Benison had been hiding, but Atlanta altogether. The flight was booked and even Benison's late slumbering did not risk their missing it.

But then a switch had suddenly flipped in Anatole's head, or Benison had made a gesture or expression that the observer missed, or Anatole had simply lulled the observer into complacency in order to surprise him as well as Benison with his brutal attack. Whatever the cause, the observer felt he should know far more about it. But whatever the cause, the observer's diligence was heightened tenfold since that night. He knew again a fear and respect for the powerful Anatole that he'd forgotten he should possess. So much time spent in the company of the old Malkavian that the observer had indeed been lulled to complacency.

But now they were finally headed north again, to Syracuse and then from there into the mountains to the site of the massacre and the last known location of Leopold prior to his sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance in New York City a month ago. Perhaps Anatole should have been taken directly to the Adirondacks, but there was too much information needed from these other sites as well.

After all, the rampages of Leopold and the Eye of Hazimel were not what caused his master such distraction. At least not directly, though they clearly seemed to be involved.

After killing Benison, Anatole had shrunk within himself. He did not utter a peep for several days and would not even leave the townhouse. The empty rooms and silence threatened to drive the observer mad, especially as the only noise or activity was in his own mind, where he ran through the instant he'd missed again and again, searching for clues as to what might have happened.

A young man, airport personnel, appeared and gave a blankly staring Anatole the news that his plane was prepped and ready. The pilot was aboard and the plane was cleared for takeoff anytime in the next fifteen minutes. The man seemed unnerved by Anatole's lack of response and he repeated the message, although he updated "fifteen minutes" to "fourteen minutes," apparently hoping a countdown would snap his customer to attention.

Anatole gave one nod. The young man waited for further confirmation, but he received none, and sidled away.

The observer hastily completed a very brief cover sheet and then waited for Anatole to rise. When the Malkavian did so, the observer lingered for a mere twelve seconds — all the while keeping Anatole in sight — and inserted the cover and a few other sheets of notes into a attaché case which he locked and then handcuffed to the metal support pole of the row of chairs near him. Someone would be along the moment the plane pulled from the gate to collect the case.

He was no closer to an answer.

The final stage of the persuading may be complete. Anatole awoke tonight and went through the same rigorous cleaning he applied to himself the night he killed Benison. As detailed on the attached pages, he also washed his new clothing in the shower.

My oversight of four nights ago continues to disturb me. At yours discretion, of course, as ever, you will have the opportunity to replace me once we land in Syracuse. I will be alert for the arranged signs that will initiate such a changeover.

With any luck, we will approach the cave tomorrow night. Perhaps there the pieces Anatole has already provided will fall into place if you have not already been able to assemble a picture. I have as yet found myself incapable of doing so.

Project Persuasion Report #29 Dutifully yours, I wonder where on earth Anatole is being led now. Or rather, where Anatole is allowing himself to be taken. I should have known better, and I did at least reserve a little judgment because I presumed Anatole must know what he's doing. After that moment that passed between Anatole and Benison, my doubts are erased. Benison's death was a pity, and I know Anatole regrets it, but his road has ever been fraught with peril and disappointment and treachery.

Whoever this intruder is in our midst, though, he clearly has good connections. Ones that Anatole has used masterfully to gain clothes, air travel, and more. I guess they are scratching each others' back, but since Anatole is the pampered guest, I imagine the final arrangements are up to him.

But I also sense that my friend is nervous, and that's something I seldom associate with him. For once he is not certain of his course, but then his certainty in the past has always had at its foundation the presumption of failure. I sense that he now suspects there is a possibility of success, and that makes him nervous — an eternal pessimist on the verge of victory!

I caution against these hopes, of course, but all he says in response is that we travel to no place on the earth. We are traveling to hell and if we are lucky, then we will all be damned.

Sunday, 5 September 1999, 10:18 PM Upstate New York Who is playing whom for a fool?

I guess we shall see.

I will not deny that this makes me nervous as well.

The Final Nights are at hand, I believe.