Ice Ice Baby
Tamara Stone casually pushed the juice bag off the side of her grand bed and stretched as she lay down. She slid beneath the cool silk sheets and reveled in the pure opulence of the hotel's room. Her feed had been sweet, young and foreign. She looked over the pretty girl and shrugged, too bad for her that she had been at Tam's favorite club. Of course it helped that Tam looked barely older than the children at the club, she had been turned when she had barely been eighteen herself, so retained her youthful appearance and that made all the difference when trying to lure your prey. Teens were the easiest to take: the promise of the forbidden and sensuality overrode their common sense and left them ripe for the picking. It was almost too easy, but this close to slumber she had wanted a quick meal. The girl would never know just how lucky she was, had Tam found her earlier in the night she would have found out just how much power could be gathered from a painful and sadistic death. The sun was just starting to peak and as the grips of sleepiness claimed her a cruel smile graced her lips. It had been a near perfect day and she was more than happy to begin her long earned rest. In fact Tam would have been hard pressed to recall a month that had gone as smoothly as her past month had been. It almost made her happy. She curled into a ball and snuggled deep into the blankets covering her After all, it's not every day that one could destroy an enemy, gain a promotion and look totally bad ass while doing it.
It all started years ago, as a vampire she had stopped counting the years as the passed; it really didn't matter after all. Tam had been through the ups and downs of finding out that supernatural being did exist in the world: being abducted by vampires, forced into servitude and through a fluke ended up partially bonded to a vampire named Roxy. She used to care that her life had been snatched away from her, but over the years she began to see life for what it really was, survival of the fittest. Despite still being human, she learned quickly that emotions were likely to get you killed because it made you hesitate made you think too much and caused you to ignore your inner voice. Roxy had offered her a way out of a worse situation and Tam took it without thought because she had offered the golden prize of revenge against everyone who had used and abused her previously and it was sweet. They had become friends, as much as they could be, and Tam was okay with her life the way it was. While being Roxy's most trusted servant she met many high ranking and powerful vampires, and being a servant meant that she was invisible to them which gave her the opportunity to learn as much as she could. She filed away information for later, knowing that with how her life worked she would need the information one day. When one of Roxy's clubs was attacked by werewolves, Tam had no choice but to be embraced fully; either that or watch her beloved mate, Jack, die. She chose what she considered to be the lesser of two evils and let Roxy bring her over, she ferociously hunted those who had tried to abduct her husband and kill her. There were no good choices or ending, she had become a vampire and to save the one she loved only to lose who he was when he had to become ghoul to stay alive.
After all the drama, craziness and freedom that came with being a vampire Tam didn't care any longer. She did things because she could and because no one would stop her. She was stray bullet and unpredictable enough that they others tended to leave her alone. She hunted the werewolves with a vengeance few understood or cared about. Each time she was able to bring a tooth or claw back home she considered it partial payment for Jack's destruction. True, she was the one who had to eventually kill him, but he never would have been ghouled if not for the deadly blow struck by one of those mangy curs. Tam had been living wild and free for years and she liked it. She knew only her own desires, wants and through a strong of events and trials she allied herself with the Sabbat. The renegades who wanted abject freedom from the rules, those who didn't care if the masquerade were broken or not and those were dangerous to cross and deadly to try to stop. For Tam, being allied with them meant she could do the one thing she had dreamed privately of for years; get rid of anyone she had past affiliations with. She was quite literally burying her past and all her pain with it.
Funny thing about timing, if everything falls into place people are prone to call it destiny and fate, if it goes awry people cry out that they are forsaken. Tam believed in neither aspect - she did however believe that opportunities were given and if you didn't take them when they presented themselves you would miss the only chance you would have to fulfill your truest wishes and desires.
For instance, Tam had waltzed her way into Washington D.C. on a lark. She had been hunting werewolves in New York, to see if she might find the one who had taken her beloved Jack from her. Actually, it was now more that she had an agenda to complete rather than that she was still feeling the loss of her husband. After days of meeting with informants, creeping through the subway system and chasing one down only to find it to be solo; she had found nothing and decided to take a break to refresh herself. She knew she worked poorly when her temper snapped and New York was a place full of idiots, both living and dead. So she sat in a dark corner of a bar in DC watching the others emulating human vices such as smoking, and wondering what the hell was wrong with these people. It was amusing really, they remembered to inhale the smoke, however not being alive and having the automatic function of breathing, they often forgot to exhale - meaning as they talked of just sat there, the smoke wafted from their noses and mouths. It looked ridiculous and Tam chuckled. She had no idea why vampires tried so hard to emulate their food. It would have made sense if they were newly turned vamps, but she had seen century old vampires still smoking and shooting up. Not like indulgence in vices would do more than affect an appearance, everyone knew that the only way to get an effect from such vices was to have food ingest it first.
She was getting ready to move onto another bar and see if anything else was going in the night life of D.C. was worth staying for, when a very familiar voice rang out from the bar.
"Tamara Stone. Why didn't you tell me you were going to be in my city? I would have thrown you a welcoming party."
The voice was meant to be sultry; however it came off more like some whiny little kid pretending to be a sexy adult and failing miserably. It ran shivers up and down Tam's spine and a feeling very much like dread course through her. Of all the people she had no desire of seeing and she had walked right into the bar of someone who would undoubtedly drive her crazy. Tam turned around to face the owner of the voice who was smiling widely at her from the bar. Tam forced a wide smile to her lips, which became real as she decided to take advantage of the little gift tossed her way. She hadn't been looking to actually work on this trip but was more than happy for this particular piece of luck and went to talk to her "friend", or number one-hundred and twenty on her agenda, which ever you preferred to call it.
"Well Falcon I would have never thought to find you here." Tam said sitting at the bar and ordering a shot glass of Irish Teen vintage. It was a bit pricey but she really had nothing else to spend her money on currently, not to mention tossing money around was one way to make sure others thought twice about trying you.
"Oh, I go by Icy now." she said, waving to the bar tender to make it two and nix the cost. "I haven't been called The Falcon in years. I barely remember that girl!"
"Okay...Icy." Tam said, doing the shot before finishing her conversation. "I wasn't aware that you had moved. So how is D.C. treating you?"
"Wonderful! It was nice to find a place to hang my hat after all the drama I have had! I even had to switch names twice! It's almost like the hunters knew where to find me, but I couldn't figure out how they would find out, I mean all my friends never heard a thing. Anyhow, I first switched to KC and had this really successful online advice column; you should have seen how many little girls looked up to me for advice and stuff. I had a great Goth following and it seemed to work well, but sitting on my ass for sixteen hours a day started to get to me. I was eating everything in sight and started to become like a frumpy housewife or something, so that had to stop. You know I am so conscious of keeping my beauty and besides why would I stay hidden away? Then I went by Siobhan, dyed my hair red and went around like an Irish vixen. You would have loved it; I had at least twenty men wanting to be my personal slaves no matter the cost. You know I always was popular and everyone was inviting me their parties and such, well the Prince here took notice and gave me this really fabulous invite to come and dine with him. While I was there, I made sure that I introduced the idea to take over a fleet of transports that were coming in from China or someplace like that. The Prince was intrigued because it meant that we could finally take a major foothold in New York, so he let me make all of the arrangements to take it over. Well some stupid bitch vampire named Elizabeth Sharpe came to me and said that she was trying to make a name for herself because she was tired of being known only by her sire and that she was so impressed by my reputation that she had to work with me. Lord Baccus is her sire and you know how popular he is, I mean what better way for me to have him owe me a favor than to help out one of his children. So this bit said she would not be a burden and she was really there to learn from the best. She would do anything I asked, now originally I had to think twice about it but she kept begging and saying that she wanted to help me so that people would get to know her name. So in the end, this whore set me up in some bogus relationship and then went behind my back and arranged everything and made me look like a total incompetent! So she got all the credit and made me look like a fool. She took my own ideas and sold them off as hers and led the Prince to believe that my interests to place before his. The Prince told me that I would have to redeem myself, but after I told him all about her plots and schemes he understood and put me in charge over some of his other venues." Icy said downing her own shot then ran her finger inside the glass to pick up the residue and licked up the blood. "Anyhow, now I have this bar and my antiques shop to keep me busy! How is Roxy? I haven't heard from her in ages."
Tam slowly came out of the fugue that she had slipped into in self-defense. The prattling had near sent her into a coma, but even still she was able to recall certain details. She had almost laughed as she suddenly recalled some gossip about a vampire called Icy having some sordid affair with a drunk old werewolf who had somehow lost his power and was a mere human. She was amazed of how much could be said, in not saying anything of substance at all. Tam fought back the laughter bubbling up at her lips as she reviewed the attempts to impress through out the rambling tale. Icy just admitted to being on the Prince's shit list and Tam filed the name Elizabeth Sharpe away for further investigation. Anyone who had the common sense to make Icy their fall girl was someone that Tam figured she should know a little more about.
"I haven't seen her much since I struck out on my own, but I hear she's doing just fine." Tam said, ordering another drink so she could turn away from her hostess.
"We should get together soon! Have a girl's night rampage or something like that!" Icy blathered on, oblivious to Tam's indifference.
Tam gave a non-committal nod and finished her drink, at one point she would have wanted to destroy this vestige of her past but after seeing what sad shape she was in, Tam decided it would be more cruel to let her live.
"Well it was great to see you." Tam said standing. "I'm off to bed before traveling tomorrow."
"Actually if you have a few moments, I would like to hire you for a few days to do some translation work for me." Icy said, sliding onto a bar stool next to Tam. "I have this great old family book, and I was going to find someone local to translate it but since you are here and we have known each other forever I think you are a better choice!"
"I don't know, Icy; I'm not sure how long I am even going to be in town." Tam said rising.
"Oh wait!" Icy said standing quickly, the too tight fitting satin dress nearly popped at the seams as she stood, and she nearly tripped over the train that pooled at her feet. "I can make it worth your while."
Tam must have looked really skeptical because Icy ramble on quickly to keep her interest.
"I can pay you ten thousand cash plus ten more in an unmarked account in the Caymans." Icy said in a rising whine that sent a shiver up Tam's spine.
"Fine, I'll take a look at it, and if it is something I can do quickly, I'll help you." Tam said "But I promise nothing."
Icy shook her head and signaled to someone to take over the bar and looping her arm through Tam's led her out a back door and into a waiting car. Icy leaned up and whispered directions to the driver and they were off. They stopped at Union Station and Icy led Tam under ground. They walked past the metro rail's ticket window and went through a side door and down more stares. There was a ten minute walk and then they entered a rather cozy ante chamber, it was lit with electric lights made to resemble candles. Tam often wondered why people bothered to replicate the old, it was great wouldn't they still be using the same materials? Seemed that people loved the décor of the past but the lessons that should have been learned weren't and led the stupid chits down the same path time and time again.
"Where are we?" Tam asked, pretending to be intrigued by the obvious opulence of the room.
"One of the libraries owned by the Prince, the location is secret so I can't tell you much more than that." Icy said trying to gracefully sink into a chair; however she barely managed to flop down in it breathlessly. "He wanted it cataloged so I volunteered and found this old book and wondered about what it said. It's supposed to be really old, maybe ancient or something."
Tam kept a straight face as Icy blathered on, contradicting her previous statements, making Tam wonder what was so special about the book that Icy's first instinct was to lie about it. Then again Icy's first instinct was to lie about everything. Icy got up and flounced, well rather tried to; two hundred plus pounds didn't flounce very well, over to a bookshelf and after rummaging about pulled one from under a pile of others. Tam was certain that if people knew the reality of being a vampire less people might interested in becoming embraced. Becoming a vampire meant that you were "stuck" at the point when you turned. There was no amazing transformation that turned you into a model quality dynamo, martial arts expert or any other such nonsense. Thus if you were over two hundred pounds when you were embraced, or if you had just gotten the worst haircut imaginable, you were stuck with it! Bring stuck as a fresh faced eighteen year old sometimes got in Tam's way, but not as much as being a haggard looking over blown cow would. Tam's attention was redirected back towards Icy and was amazed at the abuse the old tomes were taking; being dropped, stepped on so the spines broke and handled carelessly enough that some ripped out pages were strewn about the floor. She wondered what the Prince would have to say about the treatment of his library. Icy held the book out to her, pinching it with two fingers as if the dust would fly off the book and mar her appearance.
"This is it." Icy said.
Tam felt a shiver course through her body, a tingling sensation almost forgotten it has been so long, stimulated her brain as she looked at the title. It was in Egyptian so ancient that she recognized only a slight handful of the hieroglyphs. She put on her strongest poke face and leafed through it. From what she could glean but she did recognize it as the Book of the Dead, or at least one of the few copies floating around the world. Tam resisted the urge to kill Icy right there, take the book and run. That would surely bring too much attention to her, not to mention too much attention to the book.
"I'll have to get my notebook from home, but I think I can help you. I'm not sure what I will translate will make sense, it seems to be done in riddles." Tam said, accepting the job but appearing to be reluctant. "It might just be a big waste of time. Are you sure you want it done?"
"Oh yes! The Prince would be happy!" Icy started to gush, and then in an uncharacteristic effort to control herself, "I mean, if you can do it cool, if not I'll hire someone else - I just figured we are old gal pals and you might want the money."
Tam nodded and started to walk towards the door, which she assumed was an exit. In reality she was deliberately wandering so she could make a mental map of the place.
"No silly! This way or you will get lost. The Prince had some tunnels built under the Hyatt Regency so we had a good place to hide. There are two exits - even smarter of him if you ask me." Icy said leading Tam another way out of the room.
Tam smiled and let herself be led, she asked the right questions to get more of an idea of where she was, who had access to the library, what kind of security was there and how she would be transported to the library the next day. Icy assured her that she would be escorted in first class style and not to worry about privacy only a few ghouls would be there with her. Tam nodded and smiled, they parted ways once they were top side and Tam took a cab back to her hotel, where she promptly made her get away plans. This of course included grabbing a decoy, (actually took care of dinner too!) and then making plans for a red eye flight back to New York. She booked a room at the Hyatt for a hideaway if need be and after her belly was full she lay down and sank into mindless sleep.