A Romantic History [2/2]
Sunday, 25 October 2009 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teakayTitle: A Romantic History
Fandom: Old World of Darkness (Vampire: the Masquerade)
Genre: Angst/Horror
Rating: R
Word Count: ~6,600
Summary: A Toreador storyteller who’s not as understanding as he thinks meets a Nosferatu Cleopatra who’s not as over things as he thinks. Sparks fly and set things on fire.
Author’s Notes and Warnings: This fic is going up in two posts; the first post is here. Further notes on sources and the like at the bottom of this post. Thanks to those who helped out with that.
Contains language, allusions to violence, torture, nonconsensual sexual contact, dark themes. Please note that the views of these characters certainly don’t always match my own.
Part II: A Romance
A night later the door began to edge open, letting in the light beyond. Eventually it grew wide enough for Jonathan to pass through, carrying a toolbox. He pulled the lightbulb string and his feet made long scuffing sounds as he made his way across the room.
“Hello?” said Jonathan.
“Hello.”
“Any idea what happened?”
“I think he died.”
“Oh.” Jonathan sat next to him, rolling one sleeve up and down. “Well.” He seemed to digest this for a while. David didn’t think it was worth the risk to push him. It paid off when he rolled up the sleeve again and said, “How about I take the edge off and then I can see about pulling these railroad spikes?”
He didn’t think he was about to go into a frenzy, but he wasn’t the one at risk of having his throat torn out if he did. He nodded and Jonathan offered his wrist again; he went further this time, but made himself stop because if he went too far now the irony would be supreme. As it was Jonathan swayed and pressed a hand to his head but muttered when he caught whatever look was on David’s face that he’d be all right in a bit. For a vestige of peace of mind, David decided to trust his judgment by dint of experience.
For some reason he still remembered Leo’s blood as tasting better. He hoped this wouldn’t be a problem later.
“How much time do you have?” he asked after a minute.
“The next drink was supposed to be in a week.” Jonathan opened the toolbox and began to rummage. “There’s a pint in the fridge in case he got held up.”
“Well, that’s good,” said David, and decided again not to push it.
Jonathan came up with some piece of hardware which he viewed with skepticism. He glanced over to David. “Did he ever take them out?”
“He used his fingers.”
“Damn it.”
But nothing better presented itself, and Jonathan hooked the tool into place around the bit of metal sticking out from David’s right wrist. “Ready?”
“Go ahead.”
The ensuing yank was more than enough to disrupt the status quo of the nerves in David’s arm, reminding them there was metal through his wrist. Jonathan fell back when he screamed, and the tool slipped off. Clank.
Jonathan regarded the tableau. “… sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Um. Valium doesn’t work on you, does it? Got a couple bottles. Only expired for a month.”
“Not directly.”
“Shit. So what if I went and doped up someone…”
“You really don’t need to do that.”
“Okay.” He looked relieved. “Mind if I get something you can, um, bite down on?”
“No, go ahead.”
Jonathan rummaged in the room and eventually found a hand towel which, stuffed in David’s mouth, at least ensured the screaming over the next while didn’t deafen Jonathan as he worked. And at least Leo’s blood made Jonathan strong enough that it didn’t take too long. Eventually, the last nail came out. David remembered how to sit up and did so with care, then coughed out the towel. “Thank you.”
Jonathan looked down and swept the nails together. “No problem.”
Now came standing. David swung his feet off the cross onto the floor, braced himself with his hands as he waited for the punctures to heal, pushed up, and promptly collapsed to his knees. He contended with this as Jonathan retrieved items stuffed in various corners: his shoes and socks, keys to the car and the condo, a wound-down watch, and a wallet emptied of cash but with everything else intact (though the credit cards would have expired by now). It surprised him that Leo had kept them, but then again he’d owned all those things for some time and if someone else had happened to come upon them they might have made fodder for Auspex.
“Here, let me help.” When David turned to look at him he added quickly, “If you want.”
He wanted. He climbed to his feet with Jonathan bracing him and managed to stay upright. Half-stabilized, he took a few trembling steps, limping in a circle, before sitting down on top of a metal-bound trunk. He pulled on the socks and slipped into the shoes. Watch on his wrist, wallet and keys in opposite pockets. Then he stood again and Jonathan guided him out the door into what looked like the living room of Leo’s haven.
David tried not to look around too much here – why should he care about the traces? But his glances still took in the refrigerator, the computer, the battered sofa with a blanket and a raincoat tossed over it. Jonathan let him down on the sofa for a moment and went over to the refrigerator to retrieve a bottle of Coke and half a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. Then Jonathan stared inside a while longer, maybe at the pint of blood, before closing the door with some force. He stuck the Coke and sandwich inside the deep pockets of the coat before putting it on. “Want me to take you up? Way I know comes out behind this burger place with a pay phone.” He pulled up the hood of the coat. “I can lend you a few bucks. You can call, um, whoever.”
“Yes. Please.”
***
“I’m taking the long way,” Jonathan explained as he locked the door of the haven behind him. David half-stood beside him, leaning against the wall, trying not to think about the slime beneath his hand. “There’s the others running around on the fast ways and I don’t know how they’re going to take this. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Jonathan guided him for the next stretch through the dim-lit tunnels, until David gradually relearned the trick to walking, shrugged loose, and started following close behind Jonathan along the cement walkway. Jonathan took the twists and turns with assurance. It seemed uncanny to David at first, but then again he knew most of the streets uptown about as well; it depended on what was worth knowing.
So Jonathan had been at this for a while. Almost definitely longer than David had been here; he thought he remembered Leo talking with him on the first night, but he’d been zipped into a body bag at the time and enough about that.
Jonathan had his own place aboveground; Leo would call him in whenever he wanted something from housekeeping to blood. Jonathan had to be bound, of course, but David didn’t know much about what else went on between the two; when they talked they usually did it in another room and they didn’t often leave the door open. When he was in the room Jonathan tried to pretend he wasn’t there. David returned the favor. Maybe Jonathan assured himself that Leo surely liked him more than the guy he’d nailed down (because it was easy to figure that wasn’t a token of esteem) even while David assured himself when he thought about it at all that Leo surely liked him more than any kine.
So why was Jonathan helping him now? If it was helping; he might even be leading him deeper into the sewers for all he knew – but then there wouldn’t be a reason to let him up or even to give him more blood, was there?
Maybe he thought David might take him in, now that Leo was gone.
He considered the idea. He hadn’t had a ghoul before. When he was sharing Andrea’s haven as a fledgling there was one who lived with them, Isidora, and a few more who were always dropping in and out. They were mad about Andrea to a man or woman, though some fell all over him more obviously than others, and they were very polite to David once they were introduced. Because, he could realize now, they knew Andrea liked him and what better way to get on his good side? Andrea usually had them in one at a time, preferably while Isidora slept or ran errands. Considering the things he’d said to each of them, and the things they said back, David could guess why. How many most treasured people could one man have?
David hadn’t wanted to go that far with anyone yet. He’d built up a decent list in his address book, and when they were otherwise engaged he’d hit the Rack – starting with the bars and clubs he went before his Embrace, though he had no problem with women when the situation called for it. He’d start the Kiss anytime from in the middle of restroom quickies – when they were too occupied with other sensations to notice – to, those times they went to motel rooms, after his partner did the stereotypical roll-over-and-doze-off. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Anyhow the places he’d look for that weren’t the places he looked for hunting. Feeding on people you cared about in that kind of way was a problem, so Andrea said. It wasn’t a progression, it was different categories entirely.
He’d imagined finding some true love or another, someone to sweep off into the night to vows so passionate a blood bond would be a redundancy, accompanied by an orchestra and the liberal scattering of petals, rice, etcetera. Maybe the Embrace, some night. He hadn’t been able to imagine someone looking at him the way a ghoul would have to look at him without looking back the same way – couldn’t imagine people caring about him in that kind of way without caring back. Andrea said this was an endearing sentiment, but he was fairly sure Andrea drank from Isidora so Andrea’s sentiments were probably different.
He could be sure Jonathan was reliable, if a bit scraggled. Maybe he’d clean up well, and the source of vitae might make a difference too. Andrea’s ghouls had all been good-looking. Sure, David thought he could get to really like him, at least.
Jonathan broke the silence. “Heads up. Or down. There’s crawling.”
They proceeded through the next, much smaller tunnel nearly on their stomachs, and David tried to ignore the steady buildup of filth. The burger place would have a restroom. If it was open he could wash his hands there, at least, and dab at his pants.
“It’s funny,” Jonathan called over his shoulder, “I don’t think I ever caught your name.”
“It’s David.”
“I’d say nice to meet you, but… David Flavian?”
“Yeah. Um. How’d you guess?”
“Um. Leo had the books lying around.”
“Oh. And you’re Jonathan.”
“Jonathan Watkins. There, we’re even.”
“Got it.” They proceeded. “How much time before sunrise, about?”
A shifting up ahead; probably Jonathan checking his still-working watch. “Mm, five-six hours. It’s winter up there.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“No problem.”
A yard down the tunnel, he started to wonder how old Jonathan was. He didn’t look much older than David, but that wasn’t a big hint. It couldn’t hurt to ask, he decided. He just had to be careful, because Jonathan could still leave him down here if he were so inclined. “How long were you…?”
“Hm? Oh, I think… almost nine years.”
“Nine?” He shouldn’t be so shocked, he realized a second later. After all, Isidora had been with Andrea for more than thirty.
“Yeah. Nine.” He stopped.
“Hey,” David called after a minute, as softly as he could manage. “Hey, um…”
“Oh.” He resumed his forward crawl. “Sorry.”
“Are you –?”
“Fine. I’ll pop some iron later.”
He stopped again near the end of the tunnel. He said, quite conversationally as David was about to call out again, “Fuck him.”
“Yeah,” said David after another minute. “Fuck him. Except I’d really rather not.”
“Goddamn fucked-up sonofabitch all he got off on was sucking blood and pumping ego.”
David hesitated. “Right.”
“I’d been at a party. Took a shortcut through an alley, I didn’t watch enough horror movies, I guess. And he pulled me down there and stuffed me with blood and waited for me to get… get vampire Stockholm Syndrome or whatever the hell.”
“Blood bond. It’s called a blood bond.”
“Nine years. Fuck.”
Another long silence. Then Jonathan clambered out of the tunnel, David hastily following in his wake. Jonathan gave him an anxious look when they were both out; David looking anxious back didn’t seem to help. Time stretched yet again. He scrambled for something to say, came up with “Can we go now?”
Jonathan nodded quickly. “Sure. Sure. Let’s go.”
***
“Okay, we’re about halfway.”
David nodded. In the interim he’d been rethinking making the offer – or rather, accepting the offer he’d thought Jonathan was going to make, because now he was much less sure Jonathan would make it.
But making the offer. He could do that, couldn’t he?
He wouldn’t be like Leo. He’d be good, he’d be kind. He wasn’t a sick monster, kidnapping and enslaving at whim. If he was handsome on the outside it didn’t follow that the inside was rotten – he already knew the inverse didn’t apply. Should he blame himself because Andrea found him before someone like Leo or Leo’s sire did? Of course not!
There were all these complexes he had to get rid of. All these thoughts he had to rethink. He’d had to make himself believe those things to cling to a pretense of sanity, to convince himself that he could love and did love someone like Leo. Now he could say without reservation that he hated Leo with a passion. Now he could get rid of those doubts and go home.
Besides, what else could Jonathan possibly expect from him?
“So,” said Jonathan, continuing to walk, “how long’ve you been, um, a vampire?”
“Six years. By the way…”
“Yeah?”
“Just so you know, the polite word’s Kindred.”
“Got it. Sorry, I’m kind of spotty about this. Pretty much need-to-know.”
“Have you met any others or just him and me?”
“A couple. Lady called Nell. And her son, what was his name, Finn. Know them?”
David wondered if they would think he was poaching. Screw them if they did. “Yeah. Nell’s Finn’s sire, not his mother.”
“Sire. That means she made him a va – Kindred?”
“Exactly. You heard he was her childe, right?”
“Hm. I guess I did. And I heard them talk about someone else. Red?”
“Red?” He thought back. “Red’s the Nosferatu primogen. The eldest in the clan in this city.”
“Nosferatu’s the clan, right?”
“Right.”
“You know, for the longest time, I didn’t know there was any other kind. Not until, um.” Until I showed up, thought David. “So what’s yours?”
“Clan Toreador.”
“I’ve got to ask. Is bullfighting involved?”
He was on half a roll now. It was getting easier to remember his first year, its long nights of sitting with Andrea, being educated. “As a metaphor, maybe. Bloodshed as an art form. Killing with style. I haven’t killed anyone,” he hastened to add. “It’s not a perfect comparison. We’re about art, beauty – making it, celebrating it.” Jonathan made a noise of acknowledgment. Not quite knocked off his feet, David noted with some disappointment. “My sire chose me after he read my first novel.”
An impressed noise this time, to his gratification. “Were you… how did you…”
“He wrote me a letter, then I wrote one back, and so on. And then we met in person. Every week for a few months. It was wonderful. And then, when he was absolutely sure, he told me a little bit about what he was, just enough to be informed, you know. He asked me if I wanted to be Embraced. To be Kindred. I said yes and here I am.” Though he’d skipped quite a few of the steps leading to the here.
“What would’ve happened if you said no?”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, hypothetically. ‘Hey, I like sunbathing. I like chocolate. I like fucking. So I’d rather not, thanks.’”
“Well,” David answered after a too-long while, deciding that mentioning he could still go through the motions of sex and taste chocolate if not digest it (it was a knack he had) would be splitting hairs, “he knew I’d say yes before he asked, of course. He’s more than four hundred – he knows how to read people.”
“Oh,” said Jonathan, sounding too-perfectly neutral. “I guess that makes sense.”
***
“Almost there.”
“Oh. Great.” It sounded limp and he tried to give it the enthusiasm he knew it deserved. “Really, it’s great. Thank you.”
Jonathan delved in the pocket of his raincoat as he walked. “You know where you’re going?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
He came up with a wallet, opened it, and began to take out bills. “Well, that’s good.”
“Yeah.”
They rounded a corner. Jonathan pointed. “Up that ladder. It comes out behind a dumpster. Take a right for the phone.” He held out a fistful of bills and coins in his other hand. “If whoever’s tied up, cabs’ll stiff you something awful but the buses run for another hour and the 63 goes right across town, so you can at least get closer before you have to get pricey. Hope this is enough.”
David took the money. “Buses. Got it. Thanks again.”
“Um, the burgers aren’t that bad either, if you’re into that. They do them rare.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Puddles of cow blood probably weren’t worth it.
“Well, bye.”
“Thanks,” he said again, and then, “Wait.”
Jonathan stopped with the wallet halfway back in his pocket. “Yeah?”
“Where do I send the money?”
“The money?”
“The money you just lent me.”
“Oh. That. Um. Don’t worry about that. I’ll find you.”
“Okay.” David didn’t think he would. He wasn’t particularly inclined to rejoice about the little windfall, because it didn’t make any sense. “But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you do this?”
“What do you mean? It’s only, what, thirty –”
“What was the point? What do you want? Why didn’t you leave me there?”
The silence spun out so long that David thought about bolting up the ladder before Jonathan decided to take it back. Before he could say “Yes indeed, I don’t know what I was thinking, back you get.” David still didn’t have that much blood in him, and the closest he’d had to a fight was fencing lessons.
“I didn’t think I needed a reason. What I would’ve needed a reason for would be leaving you. And I didn’t have one, so here you are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Okay, okay, you want one, let me get one. He said you were his toy, or pet, some crucified parrot thing, yank the string and it talks. When he was planning he called it Operation Polly.”
“Polly?” David echoed, and knew how stupid he sounded. Knew how stupid it was that he actually felt something like hurt to hear it. So Leo was a sadistic ass who wanted to dehumanize him – quelle surprise!
“Or maybe Pollyanna. He said – he said he’d make you crazy for him just to see you dance to it, just to watch you try and be good enough to make him happy. Then later he decided it’d be even more fun to pretend he felt like that too.” Jonathan’s arms windmilled. “He got off on fucking up your head that way because it was too late to fuck up your face like his did.”
It only confirmed what he already knew, because it was something to say either way, to keep a jealous ghoul happy. To reassure him that of course those other declarations of you-are-the-one-and-only didn’t really mean anything…
“He got off on the power trip. Because he knew you’d never look at him if he didn’t make you look.”
“But I did look at him,” David didn’t say, and he didn’t say “I thought he was beautiful inside. I thought he was my friend. More fool me.”
“And then, I guess, he croaked, and when he did things snapped and it hit me all the rosy shit I’d been imagining for nine years, well, it was rosy shit. I don’t even swing that way. He did that and it doesn’t take a genius to figure he did that twice. I used to feel a little sorry for you even back then but I’d tell myself it couldn’t be that bad, because if Leo did it it had to be okay, but then it hit me it was that bad. It was worse.
“What kind of creep would leave you there after that? Not this one.”
“Oh,” David said at last. And he thought then that as little as Jonathan knew, it might not have occurred to him what would have to happen next. It hadn’t quite occurred to David before this. Not in so many words. All he’d done was assume. He did that a lot. “What… what do you think you’ll do now?”
“Dunno. Most of the other… Nosferatu didn’t seem that bad when I ran into them before, but Leo didn’t seem that bad once I got, what did you say?”
“Blood bound.” Nell and Finn hadn’t seemed that bad, Red seemed surly at the brief Elysium appearances but little else… but Jonathan was right, Leo hadn’t either.
“Blood bound, right. Does that always happen?”
“With ghouls? Yeah, pretty much. They usually get their blood from just one Kindred so it happens inside of three months. Less time if they get it more often. But it’s not… it’s not always like this, you know.”
“God, I’d hope not. Hey, is this permanent? I mean, if I go cold turkey do I get better or do I shrivel up and drop dead?”
“I think you’d be okay. You haven’t been on it long enough to kill you from all that time catching up. But I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of a ghoul that, um, quit.”
“Not even in the tabloids?” He nodded. “Neither’ve I. It figures. People don’t all decide by themselves not to talk about this stuff because it sounds nuts, do they?”
“They probably don’t. It’s called the Masquerade.” He could remember a time when it sounded so picturesque, some game with ballgowns and ruffled cravats and, of course, masks, which would come off at midnight. Grand prizes.
Jonathan hmmed and paced a small circle. He was probably thinking that if he knew then what he knew now, he would’ve had an excellent reason for leaving David. “Was that why you asked? About why?”
“I guess. I thought, well, you might want… But you didn’t.”
“Er, yeah. I’m sure you’re a great guy, but…”
“Yeah. I know. So I wondered.”
“I was thinking I’d pack up and hop the next bus to Canada. Not that simple, right?”
“Right. And you might want to stay away from Montreal. I’ve heard it’s full of Sabbat.”
“I’ve heard them tossing that word around. That’s not good, is it?”
“It’s not.”
“Damn. How about Mexico? Anything to watch out for down there?”
“A whole lot more. Unless something big’s happened. It always could have.”
“Damn. Are there v – Kindred everywhere?”
“Pretty much. Except Asia. There’s something else there already – we call them Cathayans. From Cathay, you know, old word for China. Don’t know much about those. And most of the countryside, the wild, places like that. A few Gangrel there, that’s another clan, but mostly it’s werewolves.”
“Have you ever actually met a werewolf?”
“No, apparently they’re homicidal maniacs.” He’d written his novel before he knew they existed, let alone anything about how they were, and he’d kept continuity in the short stories afterward.
“Okay, gotcha.”
“Though…”
“Though what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t just throw out a line like that and leave it hanging, you know that, right?”
“Guess so. Well, they can’t tell you’re a ghoul,” David sounded out, as it unfurled in his mind. “Kindred can’t. Not right off, not most of them. Not if you’re not obvious. So maybe even if you did go to Montreal, the Sabbat’d only get you by chance. Not sure how big that chance is, mind.”
Jonathan considered this. “Obvious like juggling mopeds or something? Not that I’ve tried.”
“Like that. Or if you went to a reporter. Like in Hannah Wheatley.”
“She found Jesus, you know.”
“Did she?”
“Yup. He was under the sofa cushions or something. She had a press conference last year. Said no more vampire books. Kindred books. Whatever.”
He’d read and reread Wheatley’s first vampire trilogy in high school and college. He could remember his ritual: evening, homework done, stretched out on the bed, one hand holding the book flat on the pillow. He’d gotten cover blurbs from her (he remembered the words “whimsical,” “enchanting”) and he’d been so excited to hear it the first time that his agent took a step backward as if afraid David would kiss him. He’d met her in person at a party in ‘95 (or ’96?) and come away confident he’d made it. “Funny how things turn out.”
“Leo said maybe she bumped into a real one in a dark alley.”
There followed maybe ten seconds in which they glanced around the tunnel in such a way as to consistently skim over the figure standing opposite. Then David said “Who knows. Maybe she did. But you get my meaning, right?”
“Yeah. I get you. So…”
“Um.” As though if he slammed the barn door now he could still catch half a fleeing horse.
“So, if I don’t tell, then…”
Here it was. “Then I won’t tell, either?”
A quick firm nod. “Deal?”
“Deal.” He was out of practice and his hand flopped in Jonathan’s grip, though the strength of Jonathan’s might have compensated.
“Okay,” said Jonathan, gesturing toward the ladder again, “let’s get you home.”
***
Jonathan went up the ladder with him and said goodbye behind the dumpster before climbing back down. It was all quieter than David might have expected.
He bought a burger after all so he could use the restroom, scrubbing without much enthusiasm now that he had a mirror to see how pointless the effort was and to understand the apprehensive looks from the waitress. He thought of trying to strike up a conversation, but wasn’t sure if that wouldn’t just turn her image of him from a homeless man to a homeless creep. Besides, he couldn’t find much enthusiasm for making the attempt, even if he might get more blood out of it. Once he was back in his element, maybe, cleaned up and wandering the clubs… it would help if he could think of one where he hadn’t rendezvoused with Leo.
He couldn’t find much enthusiasm for a charade of eating either, so he sopped up the stray cow blood, settled the bill, and went to the pay phone, where he waited until he was sure he could remember Andrea’s number before he put in his first quarter.
A woman’s voice. “Hello?”
“Is… Isidora? It’s David.”
He was starting to doubt the connection when she whispered, “Oh God.”
“Look, I just wanted to say –”
“Andrea!” he could hear her muffled shout. “The phone, it’s David!”
A flurry of footsteps, then, followed by Andrea’s voice, rich with centuries of accent that less than a hundred had yet to erase. “My God,” he echoed. “David?”
“Yeah. Yeah. It’s me. I just wanted to let you know I’m –”
“Where are you?”
He glanced back toward the street signs to the right. It took too long for the letters to resolve into intelligibility.
“You must tell me. Where are you?”
“Cedarhurst,” he read off at last, almost tripping on his tongue. “And Twenty-Sixth. I was just going home and I wanted to –”
“Stay there, understand? Dora –” A burst of something unintelligible by distance, probably an exchange with Isidora, and then Andrea was half-shouting back into the receiver, “We’ll be there presently,” and then the dial tone. David listened to it for a while before hanging up and walking for the bus stop.
Stupid. Stupid! How could Andrea be so sure it was him? Or even that he had any control over what he was saying? For all he knew he could be racing right off into a trap. Leo could’ve pulled a trick like this any time he wanted –
David sat on the bench at the bus stop and looked down one end of the road at a time, unsure which direction Andrea would arrive from. He counted off the seconds, lost count twice before giving up. When the car came, a new one, he didn’t realize who it was until it stopped in front of him and he recognized Isidora in the driver’s seat. She stared and then smiled and began flapping her free hand toward the backseat, obscured by tinting.
Naturally Andrea was there, and opening the door only confirmed it. He’d been planning how he’d slide in as easy as he had for so many nights before, but the leather of the seat and Andrea’s designer suit pulled him up short. The idea of dirtying that as well…
“David, please, come in.”
He came in, sat down, closed the door, reached for the seatbelt, and then let it slide back when he imagined how it would feel to put it on. He thought he could make out a smear on the buckle where it brushed against his sleeve. Everything was so close in here. He wasn’t sure whether that was reassuring or claustrophobic.
Andrea touched his shoulder and he jerked against the door before settling, abashed, back into the seat. The car began to move. “Would you tell me…?”
David told him in the broadest strokes, the flattest of facts. Halfway through he realized he was rubbing his wrists – this was preceded by realizing that Andrea was looking at them, and looking appalled. He talked on into Andrea’s silence.
“Then the ghoul came in,” he said. “Leo’s ghoul. He let me up. And I…” He stopped. “Then I…”
A look of understanding, then, and Andrea reached out to him again, his fingers skimming over the filthy sleeve. “Such things happen.”
So then David flew into a frenzy and drained him dry: that was what Andrea thought he understood. He didn’t even have to tell a story about this – there was already one ready for him. Let it stand. Jonathan had promised not to say anything, but he had promised the same because he couldn’t rely on everyone else to believe Jonathan. “I thought,” he mumbled, “he wanted to go with me. He was… the same thing happened to him, you know.”
“Consider that now, at least, he is surely better off than he would have been with that vile…” Andrea gestured as if trying to shape his words, then spat an abrupt and ferocious smattering of Italian that hadn’t been covered in the genteel subject matter of David’s textbooks. “Were the others aware of this? I know they do share their –”
“Not that I know. I didn’t see them.”
“Rest assured, I will have words with the primogen.” David wondered if that was supposed to make him feel very much better. “You’ll stay at my haven today. I insist. Isidora, can you get him something decent?”
“Of course.”
“There’s a guild ball scheduled in two nights. Can you attend?” He sounded almost anxious.
“Yes.” No point in putting it off. The sooner he got back to normal the better. He knew everyone who’d be there. Why should he be scared of them? Besides that he could guess, now, what might be behind them.
“You have no inkling how glad I am to have you again.”
“That makes two of us,” said David, letting his head drop sideways, and let Andrea make whatever story he would of that.
Epilogue
2001
Flat facts: last year the heart of subterranean Manhattan abruptly caved in, leaving a lot of rubble and one autarkis by the name of Emmett who now handed out tales of other autarkis taking revenge for… imperialism or something of the sort, and to this end collaborating with Nictuku (which he hadn’t actually seen, but then who had?). That autarkis was now parked in their warren. He’d found and taken up Leo’s old haven for his stay, which seemed apropos. Nell and Finn had already done salvage on it, Finn had decrypted the hard drive, and now Nell passed along some of the dirt on it, mingled liberally with dirt of her own.
“Of course the primogen had a shit fit,” she said. “Red did great damage control but he never was quite convinced we weren’t in on it. ‘Course it was convenient that Leo ashed, but that meant he wasn’t around to be guilty, to kick around. He didn’t kick us around, quite, but things got chilly. Too bad, we had some nice arrangements going before the bad apple turned up. His kid’s still up there to this night.” That sweet stupid kid, and maybe there wasn’t so much of either anymore. “Stays away from us now.”
If he ever came closer Nell wanted to find out, just for closure’s sake because it wasn’t as if she couldn’t guess, what he’d done with the ghoul’s corpse.
***
These nights David kept the lights on in every room in the condo. Definitely wasteful, but it was one of those things he could overlook. He did make a few vague gestures toward conservation in that they were fluorescent and on a timer to turn off at nine AM, when he was safe from knowing there was danger.
Andrea had had someone clean out the accumulated dust before he moved back in. For some reason this disturbed him, reinforced the crazy idea that he’d stepped out for three years’ revelry with the fairies while only five minutes passed in the normal scheme of things. What kind of fairy would Leo be, he wondered, and stifled a stupid laugh at the stupid thought.
An hour’s typing on the new computer, per his schedule, before he drove to Blue Variation on Canterbury to start hunting. The lights in the Blue were theme-tinted and shifting but copious. No fumbling in dark corners, no writhing silhouettes on the dance floor; that had lost its appeal. He bought his first drink and it wasn’t halfway finished before someone else bought his second, no one he knew, who said he was in the city on business. He looked like he might have been born in the same year as David, who was more aware now of being left behind. He guessed the awareness would grow and peak and taper over the next few decades. Decades!
They got down to it in the men’s room. He’d just latched the stall when his companion slammed him against the divider and began kissing him. The world spun away and, slackened, he began to slide downward, held up by the other’s arms.
Another club, closed now, one of those that thought ambiance meant bartenders resorting to crude Braille to tell the difference between bottles of grenadine and King beer. The band churning away. Thinking, between pulses of illumination, God who’s that? Wondering, would Leo mind if I got dinner while we’re at it? Would he mind less if I shared?
Lying there hanging there pinned up by his wrists waiting for the voice still so cultured, the face that if only he could appreciate it was so beautiful sobeautiful sobeautifulbeautiful –
Tongue sliming around in his mouth. Hand mauling his fly open, jamming itself down his pants, no style at all. That was what brought him out of it, told him it was all right to bite down. The man gasped, once in stifled pain and again as the Kiss bowled him over. Once he had his fill David licked the wound shut and elbowed his way out of the stall while the man, dazed, took his place leaning against the divider. No one else at the moment so he hurried to lock himself in another stall at the end of the row. Inside, on his knees, he regurgitated his two mudslides. The newly-acquired blood didn’t go with them, at least.
Waste, he thought, staring at the swirls in the toilet bowl. Starving kids in Romania who would murder for a drop of that Baileys you callously puke, you coddled degenerate – and he laughed until someone rapped on the stall door.
***
No prior engagements, no Guild meetings to drift around. So after checking the locks, taking a look in the corners, it was back to the computer. His agent had been more than a little exasperated with him for dropping off the face of the earth, but David had assured him he was getting back on his feet. He’d sold a short story to the New Yorker just last week. There’d been a block for the first few months – so much time in the rut of Leo’s favorite story, he guessed. But once the block broke, he’d been glad there was a warranty on the keyboard.
He had to take special care now about the Masquerade, make especially sure nothing too reminiscent of reality crept in. Each Monday he earmarked a block of time to devote to revision and self-censorship. Artistic freedom could be argued in an arena with less in the way of lethal penalties.
What if Finn and Nell and Red recognized what he’d slipped in? Height of arrogance to think they’d bother reading, childish to play at this, but it helped get the words on the page. Leo had told him those stories. He’d gotten something, after all, out of it.
Revision would come later. For now he transcribed the sentence he’d scrawled in the notebook lying open beside the keyboard: “These monsters who wander unseen beneath the earth, only absence marking their passage – these twisted creatures who wear such fine masks – these predators who hunt and torment us with impunity – what phantoms hunt them?”
He looked this over and keyed backward to insert two words. “These predators who hunt and torment and enslave us –” He looked up into the wide mirror set up behind the desk, as though there was any reason to suspect something there. He’d moved the mirror after he moved back in, though he knew a bit of obfuscation would render it useless. Sometimes it was nice to have a false sense of security.
Please, admit it, my dear, this is a pretense to look up and admire yourself every five minutes.
Nell and Finn weren’t that bad as far as he knew. He reminded himself this wasn’t about Nell and Finn, technically. It wasn’t about Leo. It wasn’t even about the childer of Arikel and Nosferatu. And yet.
He deleted and enslave, put it back. Checked over his shoulder in case of marauding Lasombra. Deleted beneath the earth. Looked between the words on the screen and his reflection; he thought it was starting to go pale. Only natural. He hadn’t seen the sun in – he wanted to say three, but of course it was going on seven years – let alone gone out to tan.
Tweaked further: “These monsters who wander unseen, unnoticed – these twisted creatures who wear such fine masks – these predators who hunt and torment and enslave us with impunity – what phantoms hunt them?”
He frowned at the paragraph, still dissatisfied, but decided to carry on with that as it was. He could always change it on Monday.
Further Notes: The unnamed originals for David Flavian, Charles Leonard, and Hannah Wheatley are all from the revised Clanbook Nosferatu. The “prologue” is taken nearly verbatim from the sidebar entitled “A Romantic History.” Ms. Wheatley’s original appears as the framing narrator for the “stereotypes” section and is, I think, rather thinly veiled. So as not to cast aspersions on anyone (and the timeline doesn’t match anyway)…
Jonathan Watkins is derived from a concept that appeared in the “how to get blood” section of Clanbook Nosferatu. Emmett is a solidly canonical character who (you guessed it!) shows up in Clanbook Nosferatu.
Part of David’s version of the story comes from another sidebar story on the same topic (with less crucifixion) in the first edition of Clanbook Toreador. I haven’t found a canon source for the story of Caine cursing Arikel but have decided that if it’s bumming around the Internet so much I might as well use it. If it’s flagrant lies, I claim artistic license.
If you happen to decide to leave a comment (and any kind would already be awesome!) one area I’d particularly love to hear about is any thoughts on how I handled the character of David, since when I was writing he seemed like a type that can easily go horribly wrong.
Fandom: Old World of Darkness (Vampire: the Masquerade)
Genre: Angst/Horror
Rating: R
Word Count: ~6,600
Summary: A Toreador storyteller who’s not as understanding as he thinks meets a Nosferatu Cleopatra who’s not as over things as he thinks. Sparks fly and set things on fire.
Author’s Notes and Warnings: This fic is going up in two posts; the first post is here. Further notes on sources and the like at the bottom of this post. Thanks to those who helped out with that.
Contains language, allusions to violence, torture, nonconsensual sexual contact, dark themes. Please note that the views of these characters certainly don’t always match my own.
Part II: A Romance
A night later the door began to edge open, letting in the light beyond. Eventually it grew wide enough for Jonathan to pass through, carrying a toolbox. He pulled the lightbulb string and his feet made long scuffing sounds as he made his way across the room.
“Hello?” said Jonathan.
“Hello.”
“Any idea what happened?”
“I think he died.”
“Oh.” Jonathan sat next to him, rolling one sleeve up and down. “Well.” He seemed to digest this for a while. David didn’t think it was worth the risk to push him. It paid off when he rolled up the sleeve again and said, “How about I take the edge off and then I can see about pulling these railroad spikes?”
He didn’t think he was about to go into a frenzy, but he wasn’t the one at risk of having his throat torn out if he did. He nodded and Jonathan offered his wrist again; he went further this time, but made himself stop because if he went too far now the irony would be supreme. As it was Jonathan swayed and pressed a hand to his head but muttered when he caught whatever look was on David’s face that he’d be all right in a bit. For a vestige of peace of mind, David decided to trust his judgment by dint of experience.
For some reason he still remembered Leo’s blood as tasting better. He hoped this wouldn’t be a problem later.
“How much time do you have?” he asked after a minute.
“The next drink was supposed to be in a week.” Jonathan opened the toolbox and began to rummage. “There’s a pint in the fridge in case he got held up.”
“Well, that’s good,” said David, and decided again not to push it.
Jonathan came up with some piece of hardware which he viewed with skepticism. He glanced over to David. “Did he ever take them out?”
“He used his fingers.”
“Damn it.”
But nothing better presented itself, and Jonathan hooked the tool into place around the bit of metal sticking out from David’s right wrist. “Ready?”
“Go ahead.”
The ensuing yank was more than enough to disrupt the status quo of the nerves in David’s arm, reminding them there was metal through his wrist. Jonathan fell back when he screamed, and the tool slipped off. Clank.
Jonathan regarded the tableau. “… sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Um. Valium doesn’t work on you, does it? Got a couple bottles. Only expired for a month.”
“Not directly.”
“Shit. So what if I went and doped up someone…”
“You really don’t need to do that.”
“Okay.” He looked relieved. “Mind if I get something you can, um, bite down on?”
“No, go ahead.”
Jonathan rummaged in the room and eventually found a hand towel which, stuffed in David’s mouth, at least ensured the screaming over the next while didn’t deafen Jonathan as he worked. And at least Leo’s blood made Jonathan strong enough that it didn’t take too long. Eventually, the last nail came out. David remembered how to sit up and did so with care, then coughed out the towel. “Thank you.”
Jonathan looked down and swept the nails together. “No problem.”
Now came standing. David swung his feet off the cross onto the floor, braced himself with his hands as he waited for the punctures to heal, pushed up, and promptly collapsed to his knees. He contended with this as Jonathan retrieved items stuffed in various corners: his shoes and socks, keys to the car and the condo, a wound-down watch, and a wallet emptied of cash but with everything else intact (though the credit cards would have expired by now). It surprised him that Leo had kept them, but then again he’d owned all those things for some time and if someone else had happened to come upon them they might have made fodder for Auspex.
“Here, let me help.” When David turned to look at him he added quickly, “If you want.”
He wanted. He climbed to his feet with Jonathan bracing him and managed to stay upright. Half-stabilized, he took a few trembling steps, limping in a circle, before sitting down on top of a metal-bound trunk. He pulled on the socks and slipped into the shoes. Watch on his wrist, wallet and keys in opposite pockets. Then he stood again and Jonathan guided him out the door into what looked like the living room of Leo’s haven.
David tried not to look around too much here – why should he care about the traces? But his glances still took in the refrigerator, the computer, the battered sofa with a blanket and a raincoat tossed over it. Jonathan let him down on the sofa for a moment and went over to the refrigerator to retrieve a bottle of Coke and half a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. Then Jonathan stared inside a while longer, maybe at the pint of blood, before closing the door with some force. He stuck the Coke and sandwich inside the deep pockets of the coat before putting it on. “Want me to take you up? Way I know comes out behind this burger place with a pay phone.” He pulled up the hood of the coat. “I can lend you a few bucks. You can call, um, whoever.”
“Yes. Please.”
***
“I’m taking the long way,” Jonathan explained as he locked the door of the haven behind him. David half-stood beside him, leaning against the wall, trying not to think about the slime beneath his hand. “There’s the others running around on the fast ways and I don’t know how they’re going to take this. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Jonathan guided him for the next stretch through the dim-lit tunnels, until David gradually relearned the trick to walking, shrugged loose, and started following close behind Jonathan along the cement walkway. Jonathan took the twists and turns with assurance. It seemed uncanny to David at first, but then again he knew most of the streets uptown about as well; it depended on what was worth knowing.
So Jonathan had been at this for a while. Almost definitely longer than David had been here; he thought he remembered Leo talking with him on the first night, but he’d been zipped into a body bag at the time and enough about that.
Jonathan had his own place aboveground; Leo would call him in whenever he wanted something from housekeeping to blood. Jonathan had to be bound, of course, but David didn’t know much about what else went on between the two; when they talked they usually did it in another room and they didn’t often leave the door open. When he was in the room Jonathan tried to pretend he wasn’t there. David returned the favor. Maybe Jonathan assured himself that Leo surely liked him more than the guy he’d nailed down (because it was easy to figure that wasn’t a token of esteem) even while David assured himself when he thought about it at all that Leo surely liked him more than any kine.
So why was Jonathan helping him now? If it was helping; he might even be leading him deeper into the sewers for all he knew – but then there wouldn’t be a reason to let him up or even to give him more blood, was there?
Maybe he thought David might take him in, now that Leo was gone.
He considered the idea. He hadn’t had a ghoul before. When he was sharing Andrea’s haven as a fledgling there was one who lived with them, Isidora, and a few more who were always dropping in and out. They were mad about Andrea to a man or woman, though some fell all over him more obviously than others, and they were very polite to David once they were introduced. Because, he could realize now, they knew Andrea liked him and what better way to get on his good side? Andrea usually had them in one at a time, preferably while Isidora slept or ran errands. Considering the things he’d said to each of them, and the things they said back, David could guess why. How many most treasured people could one man have?
David hadn’t wanted to go that far with anyone yet. He’d built up a decent list in his address book, and when they were otherwise engaged he’d hit the Rack – starting with the bars and clubs he went before his Embrace, though he had no problem with women when the situation called for it. He’d start the Kiss anytime from in the middle of restroom quickies – when they were too occupied with other sensations to notice – to, those times they went to motel rooms, after his partner did the stereotypical roll-over-and-doze-off. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Anyhow the places he’d look for that weren’t the places he looked for hunting. Feeding on people you cared about in that kind of way was a problem, so Andrea said. It wasn’t a progression, it was different categories entirely.
He’d imagined finding some true love or another, someone to sweep off into the night to vows so passionate a blood bond would be a redundancy, accompanied by an orchestra and the liberal scattering of petals, rice, etcetera. Maybe the Embrace, some night. He hadn’t been able to imagine someone looking at him the way a ghoul would have to look at him without looking back the same way – couldn’t imagine people caring about him in that kind of way without caring back. Andrea said this was an endearing sentiment, but he was fairly sure Andrea drank from Isidora so Andrea’s sentiments were probably different.
He could be sure Jonathan was reliable, if a bit scraggled. Maybe he’d clean up well, and the source of vitae might make a difference too. Andrea’s ghouls had all been good-looking. Sure, David thought he could get to really like him, at least.
Jonathan broke the silence. “Heads up. Or down. There’s crawling.”
They proceeded through the next, much smaller tunnel nearly on their stomachs, and David tried to ignore the steady buildup of filth. The burger place would have a restroom. If it was open he could wash his hands there, at least, and dab at his pants.
“It’s funny,” Jonathan called over his shoulder, “I don’t think I ever caught your name.”
“It’s David.”
“I’d say nice to meet you, but… David Flavian?”
“Yeah. Um. How’d you guess?”
“Um. Leo had the books lying around.”
“Oh. And you’re Jonathan.”
“Jonathan Watkins. There, we’re even.”
“Got it.” They proceeded. “How much time before sunrise, about?”
A shifting up ahead; probably Jonathan checking his still-working watch. “Mm, five-six hours. It’s winter up there.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“No problem.”
A yard down the tunnel, he started to wonder how old Jonathan was. He didn’t look much older than David, but that wasn’t a big hint. It couldn’t hurt to ask, he decided. He just had to be careful, because Jonathan could still leave him down here if he were so inclined. “How long were you…?”
“Hm? Oh, I think… almost nine years.”
“Nine?” He shouldn’t be so shocked, he realized a second later. After all, Isidora had been with Andrea for more than thirty.
“Yeah. Nine.” He stopped.
“Hey,” David called after a minute, as softly as he could manage. “Hey, um…”
“Oh.” He resumed his forward crawl. “Sorry.”
“Are you –?”
“Fine. I’ll pop some iron later.”
He stopped again near the end of the tunnel. He said, quite conversationally as David was about to call out again, “Fuck him.”
“Yeah,” said David after another minute. “Fuck him. Except I’d really rather not.”
“Goddamn fucked-up sonofabitch all he got off on was sucking blood and pumping ego.”
David hesitated. “Right.”
“I’d been at a party. Took a shortcut through an alley, I didn’t watch enough horror movies, I guess. And he pulled me down there and stuffed me with blood and waited for me to get… get vampire Stockholm Syndrome or whatever the hell.”
“Blood bond. It’s called a blood bond.”
“Nine years. Fuck.”
Another long silence. Then Jonathan clambered out of the tunnel, David hastily following in his wake. Jonathan gave him an anxious look when they were both out; David looking anxious back didn’t seem to help. Time stretched yet again. He scrambled for something to say, came up with “Can we go now?”
Jonathan nodded quickly. “Sure. Sure. Let’s go.”
***
“Okay, we’re about halfway.”
David nodded. In the interim he’d been rethinking making the offer – or rather, accepting the offer he’d thought Jonathan was going to make, because now he was much less sure Jonathan would make it.
But making the offer. He could do that, couldn’t he?
He wouldn’t be like Leo. He’d be good, he’d be kind. He wasn’t a sick monster, kidnapping and enslaving at whim. If he was handsome on the outside it didn’t follow that the inside was rotten – he already knew the inverse didn’t apply. Should he blame himself because Andrea found him before someone like Leo or Leo’s sire did? Of course not!
There were all these complexes he had to get rid of. All these thoughts he had to rethink. He’d had to make himself believe those things to cling to a pretense of sanity, to convince himself that he could love and did love someone like Leo. Now he could say without reservation that he hated Leo with a passion. Now he could get rid of those doubts and go home.
Besides, what else could Jonathan possibly expect from him?
“So,” said Jonathan, continuing to walk, “how long’ve you been, um, a vampire?”
“Six years. By the way…”
“Yeah?”
“Just so you know, the polite word’s Kindred.”
“Got it. Sorry, I’m kind of spotty about this. Pretty much need-to-know.”
“Have you met any others or just him and me?”
“A couple. Lady called Nell. And her son, what was his name, Finn. Know them?”
David wondered if they would think he was poaching. Screw them if they did. “Yeah. Nell’s Finn’s sire, not his mother.”
“Sire. That means she made him a va – Kindred?”
“Exactly. You heard he was her childe, right?”
“Hm. I guess I did. And I heard them talk about someone else. Red?”
“Red?” He thought back. “Red’s the Nosferatu primogen. The eldest in the clan in this city.”
“Nosferatu’s the clan, right?”
“Right.”
“You know, for the longest time, I didn’t know there was any other kind. Not until, um.” Until I showed up, thought David. “So what’s yours?”
“Clan Toreador.”
“I’ve got to ask. Is bullfighting involved?”
He was on half a roll now. It was getting easier to remember his first year, its long nights of sitting with Andrea, being educated. “As a metaphor, maybe. Bloodshed as an art form. Killing with style. I haven’t killed anyone,” he hastened to add. “It’s not a perfect comparison. We’re about art, beauty – making it, celebrating it.” Jonathan made a noise of acknowledgment. Not quite knocked off his feet, David noted with some disappointment. “My sire chose me after he read my first novel.”
An impressed noise this time, to his gratification. “Were you… how did you…”
“He wrote me a letter, then I wrote one back, and so on. And then we met in person. Every week for a few months. It was wonderful. And then, when he was absolutely sure, he told me a little bit about what he was, just enough to be informed, you know. He asked me if I wanted to be Embraced. To be Kindred. I said yes and here I am.” Though he’d skipped quite a few of the steps leading to the here.
“What would’ve happened if you said no?”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, hypothetically. ‘Hey, I like sunbathing. I like chocolate. I like fucking. So I’d rather not, thanks.’”
“Well,” David answered after a too-long while, deciding that mentioning he could still go through the motions of sex and taste chocolate if not digest it (it was a knack he had) would be splitting hairs, “he knew I’d say yes before he asked, of course. He’s more than four hundred – he knows how to read people.”
“Oh,” said Jonathan, sounding too-perfectly neutral. “I guess that makes sense.”
***
“Almost there.”
“Oh. Great.” It sounded limp and he tried to give it the enthusiasm he knew it deserved. “Really, it’s great. Thank you.”
Jonathan delved in the pocket of his raincoat as he walked. “You know where you’re going?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
He came up with a wallet, opened it, and began to take out bills. “Well, that’s good.”
“Yeah.”
They rounded a corner. Jonathan pointed. “Up that ladder. It comes out behind a dumpster. Take a right for the phone.” He held out a fistful of bills and coins in his other hand. “If whoever’s tied up, cabs’ll stiff you something awful but the buses run for another hour and the 63 goes right across town, so you can at least get closer before you have to get pricey. Hope this is enough.”
David took the money. “Buses. Got it. Thanks again.”
“Um, the burgers aren’t that bad either, if you’re into that. They do them rare.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Puddles of cow blood probably weren’t worth it.
“Well, bye.”
“Thanks,” he said again, and then, “Wait.”
Jonathan stopped with the wallet halfway back in his pocket. “Yeah?”
“Where do I send the money?”
“The money?”
“The money you just lent me.”
“Oh. That. Um. Don’t worry about that. I’ll find you.”
“Okay.” David didn’t think he would. He wasn’t particularly inclined to rejoice about the little windfall, because it didn’t make any sense. “But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you do this?”
“What do you mean? It’s only, what, thirty –”
“What was the point? What do you want? Why didn’t you leave me there?”
The silence spun out so long that David thought about bolting up the ladder before Jonathan decided to take it back. Before he could say “Yes indeed, I don’t know what I was thinking, back you get.” David still didn’t have that much blood in him, and the closest he’d had to a fight was fencing lessons.
“I didn’t think I needed a reason. What I would’ve needed a reason for would be leaving you. And I didn’t have one, so here you are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Okay, okay, you want one, let me get one. He said you were his toy, or pet, some crucified parrot thing, yank the string and it talks. When he was planning he called it Operation Polly.”
“Polly?” David echoed, and knew how stupid he sounded. Knew how stupid it was that he actually felt something like hurt to hear it. So Leo was a sadistic ass who wanted to dehumanize him – quelle surprise!
“Or maybe Pollyanna. He said – he said he’d make you crazy for him just to see you dance to it, just to watch you try and be good enough to make him happy. Then later he decided it’d be even more fun to pretend he felt like that too.” Jonathan’s arms windmilled. “He got off on fucking up your head that way because it was too late to fuck up your face like his did.”
It only confirmed what he already knew, because it was something to say either way, to keep a jealous ghoul happy. To reassure him that of course those other declarations of you-are-the-one-and-only didn’t really mean anything…
“He got off on the power trip. Because he knew you’d never look at him if he didn’t make you look.”
“But I did look at him,” David didn’t say, and he didn’t say “I thought he was beautiful inside. I thought he was my friend. More fool me.”
“And then, I guess, he croaked, and when he did things snapped and it hit me all the rosy shit I’d been imagining for nine years, well, it was rosy shit. I don’t even swing that way. He did that and it doesn’t take a genius to figure he did that twice. I used to feel a little sorry for you even back then but I’d tell myself it couldn’t be that bad, because if Leo did it it had to be okay, but then it hit me it was that bad. It was worse.
“What kind of creep would leave you there after that? Not this one.”
“Oh,” David said at last. And he thought then that as little as Jonathan knew, it might not have occurred to him what would have to happen next. It hadn’t quite occurred to David before this. Not in so many words. All he’d done was assume. He did that a lot. “What… what do you think you’ll do now?”
“Dunno. Most of the other… Nosferatu didn’t seem that bad when I ran into them before, but Leo didn’t seem that bad once I got, what did you say?”
“Blood bound.” Nell and Finn hadn’t seemed that bad, Red seemed surly at the brief Elysium appearances but little else… but Jonathan was right, Leo hadn’t either.
“Blood bound, right. Does that always happen?”
“With ghouls? Yeah, pretty much. They usually get their blood from just one Kindred so it happens inside of three months. Less time if they get it more often. But it’s not… it’s not always like this, you know.”
“God, I’d hope not. Hey, is this permanent? I mean, if I go cold turkey do I get better or do I shrivel up and drop dead?”
“I think you’d be okay. You haven’t been on it long enough to kill you from all that time catching up. But I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of a ghoul that, um, quit.”
“Not even in the tabloids?” He nodded. “Neither’ve I. It figures. People don’t all decide by themselves not to talk about this stuff because it sounds nuts, do they?”
“They probably don’t. It’s called the Masquerade.” He could remember a time when it sounded so picturesque, some game with ballgowns and ruffled cravats and, of course, masks, which would come off at midnight. Grand prizes.
Jonathan hmmed and paced a small circle. He was probably thinking that if he knew then what he knew now, he would’ve had an excellent reason for leaving David. “Was that why you asked? About why?”
“I guess. I thought, well, you might want… But you didn’t.”
“Er, yeah. I’m sure you’re a great guy, but…”
“Yeah. I know. So I wondered.”
“I was thinking I’d pack up and hop the next bus to Canada. Not that simple, right?”
“Right. And you might want to stay away from Montreal. I’ve heard it’s full of Sabbat.”
“I’ve heard them tossing that word around. That’s not good, is it?”
“It’s not.”
“Damn. How about Mexico? Anything to watch out for down there?”
“A whole lot more. Unless something big’s happened. It always could have.”
“Damn. Are there v – Kindred everywhere?”
“Pretty much. Except Asia. There’s something else there already – we call them Cathayans. From Cathay, you know, old word for China. Don’t know much about those. And most of the countryside, the wild, places like that. A few Gangrel there, that’s another clan, but mostly it’s werewolves.”
“Have you ever actually met a werewolf?”
“No, apparently they’re homicidal maniacs.” He’d written his novel before he knew they existed, let alone anything about how they were, and he’d kept continuity in the short stories afterward.
“Okay, gotcha.”
“Though…”
“Though what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t just throw out a line like that and leave it hanging, you know that, right?”
“Guess so. Well, they can’t tell you’re a ghoul,” David sounded out, as it unfurled in his mind. “Kindred can’t. Not right off, not most of them. Not if you’re not obvious. So maybe even if you did go to Montreal, the Sabbat’d only get you by chance. Not sure how big that chance is, mind.”
Jonathan considered this. “Obvious like juggling mopeds or something? Not that I’ve tried.”
“Like that. Or if you went to a reporter. Like in Hannah Wheatley.”
“She found Jesus, you know.”
“Did she?”
“Yup. He was under the sofa cushions or something. She had a press conference last year. Said no more vampire books. Kindred books. Whatever.”
He’d read and reread Wheatley’s first vampire trilogy in high school and college. He could remember his ritual: evening, homework done, stretched out on the bed, one hand holding the book flat on the pillow. He’d gotten cover blurbs from her (he remembered the words “whimsical,” “enchanting”) and he’d been so excited to hear it the first time that his agent took a step backward as if afraid David would kiss him. He’d met her in person at a party in ‘95 (or ’96?) and come away confident he’d made it. “Funny how things turn out.”
“Leo said maybe she bumped into a real one in a dark alley.”
There followed maybe ten seconds in which they glanced around the tunnel in such a way as to consistently skim over the figure standing opposite. Then David said “Who knows. Maybe she did. But you get my meaning, right?”
“Yeah. I get you. So…”
“Um.” As though if he slammed the barn door now he could still catch half a fleeing horse.
“So, if I don’t tell, then…”
Here it was. “Then I won’t tell, either?”
A quick firm nod. “Deal?”
“Deal.” He was out of practice and his hand flopped in Jonathan’s grip, though the strength of Jonathan’s might have compensated.
“Okay,” said Jonathan, gesturing toward the ladder again, “let’s get you home.”
***
Jonathan went up the ladder with him and said goodbye behind the dumpster before climbing back down. It was all quieter than David might have expected.
He bought a burger after all so he could use the restroom, scrubbing without much enthusiasm now that he had a mirror to see how pointless the effort was and to understand the apprehensive looks from the waitress. He thought of trying to strike up a conversation, but wasn’t sure if that wouldn’t just turn her image of him from a homeless man to a homeless creep. Besides, he couldn’t find much enthusiasm for making the attempt, even if he might get more blood out of it. Once he was back in his element, maybe, cleaned up and wandering the clubs… it would help if he could think of one where he hadn’t rendezvoused with Leo.
He couldn’t find much enthusiasm for a charade of eating either, so he sopped up the stray cow blood, settled the bill, and went to the pay phone, where he waited until he was sure he could remember Andrea’s number before he put in his first quarter.
A woman’s voice. “Hello?”
“Is… Isidora? It’s David.”
He was starting to doubt the connection when she whispered, “Oh God.”
“Look, I just wanted to say –”
“Andrea!” he could hear her muffled shout. “The phone, it’s David!”
A flurry of footsteps, then, followed by Andrea’s voice, rich with centuries of accent that less than a hundred had yet to erase. “My God,” he echoed. “David?”
“Yeah. Yeah. It’s me. I just wanted to let you know I’m –”
“Where are you?”
He glanced back toward the street signs to the right. It took too long for the letters to resolve into intelligibility.
“You must tell me. Where are you?”
“Cedarhurst,” he read off at last, almost tripping on his tongue. “And Twenty-Sixth. I was just going home and I wanted to –”
“Stay there, understand? Dora –” A burst of something unintelligible by distance, probably an exchange with Isidora, and then Andrea was half-shouting back into the receiver, “We’ll be there presently,” and then the dial tone. David listened to it for a while before hanging up and walking for the bus stop.
Stupid. Stupid! How could Andrea be so sure it was him? Or even that he had any control over what he was saying? For all he knew he could be racing right off into a trap. Leo could’ve pulled a trick like this any time he wanted –
David sat on the bench at the bus stop and looked down one end of the road at a time, unsure which direction Andrea would arrive from. He counted off the seconds, lost count twice before giving up. When the car came, a new one, he didn’t realize who it was until it stopped in front of him and he recognized Isidora in the driver’s seat. She stared and then smiled and began flapping her free hand toward the backseat, obscured by tinting.
Naturally Andrea was there, and opening the door only confirmed it. He’d been planning how he’d slide in as easy as he had for so many nights before, but the leather of the seat and Andrea’s designer suit pulled him up short. The idea of dirtying that as well…
“David, please, come in.”
He came in, sat down, closed the door, reached for the seatbelt, and then let it slide back when he imagined how it would feel to put it on. He thought he could make out a smear on the buckle where it brushed against his sleeve. Everything was so close in here. He wasn’t sure whether that was reassuring or claustrophobic.
Andrea touched his shoulder and he jerked against the door before settling, abashed, back into the seat. The car began to move. “Would you tell me…?”
David told him in the broadest strokes, the flattest of facts. Halfway through he realized he was rubbing his wrists – this was preceded by realizing that Andrea was looking at them, and looking appalled. He talked on into Andrea’s silence.
“Then the ghoul came in,” he said. “Leo’s ghoul. He let me up. And I…” He stopped. “Then I…”
A look of understanding, then, and Andrea reached out to him again, his fingers skimming over the filthy sleeve. “Such things happen.”
So then David flew into a frenzy and drained him dry: that was what Andrea thought he understood. He didn’t even have to tell a story about this – there was already one ready for him. Let it stand. Jonathan had promised not to say anything, but he had promised the same because he couldn’t rely on everyone else to believe Jonathan. “I thought,” he mumbled, “he wanted to go with me. He was… the same thing happened to him, you know.”
“Consider that now, at least, he is surely better off than he would have been with that vile…” Andrea gestured as if trying to shape his words, then spat an abrupt and ferocious smattering of Italian that hadn’t been covered in the genteel subject matter of David’s textbooks. “Were the others aware of this? I know they do share their –”
“Not that I know. I didn’t see them.”
“Rest assured, I will have words with the primogen.” David wondered if that was supposed to make him feel very much better. “You’ll stay at my haven today. I insist. Isidora, can you get him something decent?”
“Of course.”
“There’s a guild ball scheduled in two nights. Can you attend?” He sounded almost anxious.
“Yes.” No point in putting it off. The sooner he got back to normal the better. He knew everyone who’d be there. Why should he be scared of them? Besides that he could guess, now, what might be behind them.
“You have no inkling how glad I am to have you again.”
“That makes two of us,” said David, letting his head drop sideways, and let Andrea make whatever story he would of that.
Epilogue
2001
Flat facts: last year the heart of subterranean Manhattan abruptly caved in, leaving a lot of rubble and one autarkis by the name of Emmett who now handed out tales of other autarkis taking revenge for… imperialism or something of the sort, and to this end collaborating with Nictuku (which he hadn’t actually seen, but then who had?). That autarkis was now parked in their warren. He’d found and taken up Leo’s old haven for his stay, which seemed apropos. Nell and Finn had already done salvage on it, Finn had decrypted the hard drive, and now Nell passed along some of the dirt on it, mingled liberally with dirt of her own.
“Of course the primogen had a shit fit,” she said. “Red did great damage control but he never was quite convinced we weren’t in on it. ‘Course it was convenient that Leo ashed, but that meant he wasn’t around to be guilty, to kick around. He didn’t kick us around, quite, but things got chilly. Too bad, we had some nice arrangements going before the bad apple turned up. His kid’s still up there to this night.” That sweet stupid kid, and maybe there wasn’t so much of either anymore. “Stays away from us now.”
If he ever came closer Nell wanted to find out, just for closure’s sake because it wasn’t as if she couldn’t guess, what he’d done with the ghoul’s corpse.
***
These nights David kept the lights on in every room in the condo. Definitely wasteful, but it was one of those things he could overlook. He did make a few vague gestures toward conservation in that they were fluorescent and on a timer to turn off at nine AM, when he was safe from knowing there was danger.
Andrea had had someone clean out the accumulated dust before he moved back in. For some reason this disturbed him, reinforced the crazy idea that he’d stepped out for three years’ revelry with the fairies while only five minutes passed in the normal scheme of things. What kind of fairy would Leo be, he wondered, and stifled a stupid laugh at the stupid thought.
An hour’s typing on the new computer, per his schedule, before he drove to Blue Variation on Canterbury to start hunting. The lights in the Blue were theme-tinted and shifting but copious. No fumbling in dark corners, no writhing silhouettes on the dance floor; that had lost its appeal. He bought his first drink and it wasn’t halfway finished before someone else bought his second, no one he knew, who said he was in the city on business. He looked like he might have been born in the same year as David, who was more aware now of being left behind. He guessed the awareness would grow and peak and taper over the next few decades. Decades!
They got down to it in the men’s room. He’d just latched the stall when his companion slammed him against the divider and began kissing him. The world spun away and, slackened, he began to slide downward, held up by the other’s arms.
Another club, closed now, one of those that thought ambiance meant bartenders resorting to crude Braille to tell the difference between bottles of grenadine and King beer. The band churning away. Thinking, between pulses of illumination, God who’s that? Wondering, would Leo mind if I got dinner while we’re at it? Would he mind less if I shared?
Lying there hanging there pinned up by his wrists waiting for the voice still so cultured, the face that if only he could appreciate it was so beautiful sobeautiful sobeautifulbeautiful –
Tongue sliming around in his mouth. Hand mauling his fly open, jamming itself down his pants, no style at all. That was what brought him out of it, told him it was all right to bite down. The man gasped, once in stifled pain and again as the Kiss bowled him over. Once he had his fill David licked the wound shut and elbowed his way out of the stall while the man, dazed, took his place leaning against the divider. No one else at the moment so he hurried to lock himself in another stall at the end of the row. Inside, on his knees, he regurgitated his two mudslides. The newly-acquired blood didn’t go with them, at least.
Waste, he thought, staring at the swirls in the toilet bowl. Starving kids in Romania who would murder for a drop of that Baileys you callously puke, you coddled degenerate – and he laughed until someone rapped on the stall door.
***
No prior engagements, no Guild meetings to drift around. So after checking the locks, taking a look in the corners, it was back to the computer. His agent had been more than a little exasperated with him for dropping off the face of the earth, but David had assured him he was getting back on his feet. He’d sold a short story to the New Yorker just last week. There’d been a block for the first few months – so much time in the rut of Leo’s favorite story, he guessed. But once the block broke, he’d been glad there was a warranty on the keyboard.
He had to take special care now about the Masquerade, make especially sure nothing too reminiscent of reality crept in. Each Monday he earmarked a block of time to devote to revision and self-censorship. Artistic freedom could be argued in an arena with less in the way of lethal penalties.
What if Finn and Nell and Red recognized what he’d slipped in? Height of arrogance to think they’d bother reading, childish to play at this, but it helped get the words on the page. Leo had told him those stories. He’d gotten something, after all, out of it.
Revision would come later. For now he transcribed the sentence he’d scrawled in the notebook lying open beside the keyboard: “These monsters who wander unseen beneath the earth, only absence marking their passage – these twisted creatures who wear such fine masks – these predators who hunt and torment us with impunity – what phantoms hunt them?”
He looked this over and keyed backward to insert two words. “These predators who hunt and torment and enslave us –” He looked up into the wide mirror set up behind the desk, as though there was any reason to suspect something there. He’d moved the mirror after he moved back in, though he knew a bit of obfuscation would render it useless. Sometimes it was nice to have a false sense of security.
Please, admit it, my dear, this is a pretense to look up and admire yourself every five minutes.
Nell and Finn weren’t that bad as far as he knew. He reminded himself this wasn’t about Nell and Finn, technically. It wasn’t about Leo. It wasn’t even about the childer of Arikel and Nosferatu. And yet.
He deleted and enslave, put it back. Checked over his shoulder in case of marauding Lasombra. Deleted beneath the earth. Looked between the words on the screen and his reflection; he thought it was starting to go pale. Only natural. He hadn’t seen the sun in – he wanted to say three, but of course it was going on seven years – let alone gone out to tan.
Tweaked further: “These monsters who wander unseen, unnoticed – these twisted creatures who wear such fine masks – these predators who hunt and torment and enslave us with impunity – what phantoms hunt them?”
He frowned at the paragraph, still dissatisfied, but decided to carry on with that as it was. He could always change it on Monday.
Further Notes: The unnamed originals for David Flavian, Charles Leonard, and Hannah Wheatley are all from the revised Clanbook Nosferatu. The “prologue” is taken nearly verbatim from the sidebar entitled “A Romantic History.” Ms. Wheatley’s original appears as the framing narrator for the “stereotypes” section and is, I think, rather thinly veiled. So as not to cast aspersions on anyone (and the timeline doesn’t match anyway)…
Jonathan Watkins is derived from a concept that appeared in the “how to get blood” section of Clanbook Nosferatu. Emmett is a solidly canonical character who (you guessed it!) shows up in Clanbook Nosferatu.
Part of David’s version of the story comes from another sidebar story on the same topic (with less crucifixion) in the first edition of Clanbook Toreador. I haven’t found a canon source for the story of Caine cursing Arikel but have decided that if it’s bumming around the Internet so much I might as well use it. If it’s flagrant lies, I claim artistic license.
If you happen to decide to leave a comment (and any kind would already be awesome!) one area I’d particularly love to hear about is any thoughts on how I handled the character of David, since when I was writing he seemed like a type that can easily go horribly wrong.
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Date: Monday, 26 October 2009 08:52 pm (UTC)Also, publish it on FF, will you? The World Of Darkness directory or the White Wolf one - they both need a bit of un-life.
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Date: Tuesday, 27 October 2009 03:28 am (UTC)Yeah, come to think of it I'd better upload there too, once I get around to reformatting for all the punctuation that gets eaten now.