Charity of Flowers

The Cainite who now calls herself“Charity of Flowers” has won unusual respect for such a young vampire; she was Embraced only 70-odd years ago. She distinguishes herself as a member of the Black Hand and as a priestess and teacher of the Cathari Path. She calls herself a gardener. Caridad’s story began in the 1920s.

She came from a very rich family and turned her young life into an endless round of dances, parties and cruises. She spent as much time in Paris, New York and the nascent Hollywood as in her native Mexico City. When she returned to her home town, she taught her more straight-laced, traditionally Catholic peers how the ’20s roared. Yes, she shocked them.. but they usually invited her back.

The Great Depression struckMexico as well as theU.S. There would be no more cruises to Europe or dancing ‘til dawn for Caridad. Instead, her father arranged for her to marry an older man whom he wanted as a business associate. Her husband treated Caridad as a treasure, something to show off to other men then lock away. She loathed him.

Cut off from her old social set, Caridad returned to her childhood interest ofgardening. With little else topassher time, she became very good at it. Seducing visitors and their male servants became a spiteful second hobby, just so she could soil her husband’s “treasure.” When Caridad could not stand her husband anymore, she combined her interests.

She easily duped the butler into giving the old man a poison she concocted herself. CHAPTERTHREE: 57 Caridad was not quite clever enough. The butler had loose lips; the police found the residue of the poison. Caridad faced a noose and the lusts of her jailers. She then received a nighttime visit from Donna Feria. Her situation intrigued the older vampire.

Caridad agreed to become Donna Feria’s childe in return for an escape from jail and hanging. Over the decades, Caridad learned the mysteries of the Path ofCathari and abyss mysticism. She identified strongly with Persephone, the Greek goddess of the underworld, a flower-maiden consigned to a world of death. Over the decades, Caridad drifted away from Donna Feria to associate with several packs.

She quietly established her own haven, traveled now and then, and learned how to poison the undead as well as the living. Eventually someone in the Black Hand noticed Caridad’s talents and she became an associate to that subsect of warriors and assassins. Caridad now plays several roles. She serves the PDI as packpriest.

She introducesneonates to the PathofCathari, and guides them along the Path as best she can. She supplies drugs to addicted Cainites. The Assamite sorcerer Ikraam depends on her for the kalifdrug that he uses in his blood-magic. Once in a while the Black Hand calls on Caridad to poison some “Kindred” that it wants destroyed. Caridad prefers, however, to stay near her mansion in Xochimilco.

A gate opens from her extensive, walled garden onto one ofxochimilco’s canals. The mansion’s windows are bricked up on the inside, with cunning paintings on the glass to counterfeit views of an interior. Caridad removed most of the interior floors to create a second, indoor garden lit by grow-lamps.

Flowers, shrubs and vines twine around and through the cadavers of her victims, and perfume mingles with the stench of rot. Many of the flowers are black or odd silver-gray hues. In the center grows a pomegranate tree that Caridad fertilizes with her own vitae. The garden also includes potent, drug-producing plants, ofwhich opium poppies and mandrakes are the least exotic.

Among the plants and cadavers loll a dozen or so mortal addicts, stupefied by drugs and the gifts of the Damned. Few Sabbat consider the Charity of Flowers much of a political player. The elders may employ her in the short term, but they think that she is too erratic to make much of a longterm ally or serious rival. Caridad does not want to be thought ambitious.

The local Black Hand leaders know better, but they realize that Caridad seeks the sort of behind-the-scenes influence that does not make her a target for Monomacies.