Predation, a kindred: the embraced fanfic

Predation

"She will not recall the attack. I made sure of that. But when I woke her she gave me a very good description of the attacker." Sonny said to Julian. "It was lucky that I was the one who found her. She was not hurt, just scared. Her wound had not fully stopped bleeding. I noted it as a scratch, and so will she."

"I see." Julian laced his fingers in front of him as he thought of this latest breach of the Masquerade. "So this Kindred abandons an unconscious victim, with a still bleeding wound, and does not do a good job of erasing her memory. Are there any other incidents?"

"I had Frank look for them. In the meantime I looked up the one responsible. Or rather irresponsible."

"And who is it?"

"A Gangrel called Ken Drury. Recently embraced by one Danielle Bates. Before becoming Kindred Danielle Bates had a history of becoming involved in abusive relationships. Seemed to gravitate to men who would abuse her. Ken is the first one she sired, and she may be reverting to her old pattern. I talked with Cash and he told me that she does not seem to be able to control Drury as she should. I asked if Drury might be abusing her. Cash said that he did not know, that it was so unusual for anyone to abuse his or her sire, that he did not consider it. But he thinks it may be possible."

Julian sighed. "When we are embraced we start on a whole new life, we are told. But we still carry a lot of baggage from our old lives, and that baggage can hurt us and others. What baggage does Drury bring?"

"Drury is one of those handsome young men to whom women forgive anything because of his sincere blue eyes." Sonny looked back to his notes. "He can look contrite and charming. I suspect that he had that charm as a child and used it on his parents and teachers. Because of that he got away with too many things that he should not have. Dropped out of school. Could not hold a steady job, because he had problems with being on time, or just showing up for work at all. Would think nothing of taking a break in the middle of the day to get to the bar. Always had a plausible excuse, by his lights. He was named in several paternity suits. Owes child support which he has no intention of paying, insisting that the women got pregnant on purpose to trap him. Was arrested for beating up his girlfriend once. Also reckless driving, drunk driving, rowdiness, vandalism..."

"In short, someone who does not know the meaning of the world responsibility."

"Yes. He got away with things ever since he was a child."

"And Miss Bates dropped him in our laps."

"Yes."

"We would be perfectly justified if we ordered him executed. We have no reason to think that he would keep the Masquerade any better than he could keep the jobs he held. How do you teach someone to feed responsibly when the word 'responsibility' is not in his vocabulary?"

"Cash thinks that it can be done with a baseball bat."

"Cash is too fond of that baseball bat. But I have to agree that it is effective. It is a shame that we cannot have jails. We execute too many of our people because there are no lesser penalties that we can impose. So I let Cash take the baseball bat to his errant members and that keeps them alive and able to learn from their mistakes. Since the Gangrel are rather few in number still, I understand why Cash does not want to lose any of them. And why he allows someone like Danielle Bates to embrace someone like Ken Drury. Tell Cash to meet me with Drury and Bates. We will see if we can put the fear of God into Drury. Or failing that, the fear of me."

"What will be your decision?"

"I will allow Cash to convince me to spare Drury's life, since it is a first offense and it was caught before the human world learned of it. But I will take away Bates' privileges as Drury's sire, and forbid her to come in contact with him. Drury will be under the direct supervision of Cash until Cash can satisfy me that Drury can behave responsibly. Cash will have to teach Drury responsibilty, even if he has to kill him for it. Any other offense that Drury commits, and he dies."

"It will probably be the first time that Drury meets someone that he cannot charm or con. Maybe the shock of it will help straighten him up."

"Maybe. I am not so optimistic. Bad habits are the last thing we lose. And his is one of the worst."

"Well, if anyone can straighten him up, it would be Cash. I do not know anyone who got at the other end of his baseball bat to repeat the offense."

"No, none of them ever did."

Julian rubbed the back of his neck and seemed slightly embarrassed. Sonny pretended not to notice. No one was supposed to know that Cash had used the baseball bat on Julian on one occasion in which Julian had done a very stupid thing. It had worked, for Julian had never done again that which had angered and scared Cash so.

"Is this all that I should know?"

"Yes." "Then you can go. There are things that need looking at, but they can wait until tomorrow. You have someplace to go with Frank later tonight, I understand."

"The gymnastics meet. Frank's niece is one of the participants, and Frank wants me to see her perform."

"Well, tell me later how that went." Julian smiled, a bit melancholy, thinking of children, and the joys of family life which were now lost to him.

"How will Julian handle it?" Frank asked Sonny as they sat in the bleachers.

"Julian will have a long talk with Drury. Put the fear of God in him." "I know about Julian's lectures. They can be extremely painful."

"Then it will be Cash's turn. His lectures are truly painful. And effective."

"You mean... the bat?"

"Yes."

"Well, that may teach Drury about responsibility, though I doubt it. His kind never learns."

"Well, we will teach it to him, if we have to kill him for it."

Frank nodded, then laughed.

"What is so funny?" Sonny asked.

"I was thinking about the situation. When Danielle took Drury up, his life opened to a whole new different world, an alien world full of new and strange experiences, where he was asked to so what he had never done before. There was this new, terrifying demand made of him. Somenthing he must do, even though every fiber of his being screamed against it: he must take responsibility for his actions. He must, strange as it seems to him, learn what responsibility is ...deedeedeedee..deedeedeedee.." Frank hummed the 'Twilight Zone' theme.

"Well, he had to learn it somewhere. But why should we be the ones stuck with the job is beyond me. Oh, well. God has a sense of humor, and now the joke seems to be on us...say, they are coming out. Which one is Michelle?"

"Second from last."

"The tiny blonde one?"

"Yes."

"My God, how old is she?"

"Thirteen. And she is very talented."

"Thirteen. I don't recall being that young..."

The first event were the floor exercises, with the young girls tumbling gracefully both forward and backwards. Their supple bodies bent in ways that made Sonny wince in sympathetic pain, and yet they made it seem easy.

Michelle's turn came and she made two flawless forward tumbles, only to slip and fall on the backward tumble. She got herself up and continued her routine. The rest of it was flawless again, and her contortions were truly graceful. Yet the magic of her performance was broken. One tiny mistep and perfection was no more.

"It is not a very forgiving sport." Sonny said.

"Any other sport you make mistakes, and you can catch them up. Here once you make them they remain, and mar the beauty of the rest."

"Yes, it is a tough sport. They make it look easy, but it is not. I once got myself on the balance beam for a joke and tried a few steps. I realized how truly scary it is, to have your whole performance depending on the width of a piece of wood. If you do not put your feet just right, it is over."

"There is the floor, the beam, and the uneven parallel bars?"

"And the vault. Michelle is best at that."

"Yes. The vault."

"You remember Kerry Strug? How she nailed the gold medal by the USA by jumping a second time with an injured ankle?"

"Yes, I remember now. I take that she is your niece's role model."

"Yes."

There were other girls now doing the floor exercises, all so young, so frail looking, and so graceful.

"Do Kindred ever go for sports?" Frank asked Sonny after the break when the girls floor exercises were finished and the vault was being set up.

"We do, but only among ourselves. If we were to do it among humans we would be too good and draw attention. We would have to play below our abilities to pass, and that is too much of a strain. But we do have coaches and agents, and sport columnists. Actually the sport we all have to practice, whether we like it or not, is the martial arts. And too often we have to do it for real. Unless you are Nosferatu you have to learn how to fight, for one day your life will depend on it."

Frank nodded. As his knowledge of Sonny's and Julian's world deepened he found himself feeling sorry for them in more than one occasion. He understood the toll that clan warfare had taken on all of them, and it grieved him that the peace they all enjoyed now was so fragile. Neither Sonny's nor Julian's life was an easy one, and he admired their courage in facing it, and even finding joy in it.

The vault exercise started. The girls raced up to the vault, jumped, and tumbled high in the air, then came down, sometimes flawlessly, sometimes forced to take a second step to keep their balance in landing.

"Only perfection is acceptable." Sonny mused. "A very unforgiving sport. And to have that perfection forced on girls that young, at an age in which everything seems so important...it seems wrong somehow. They should wait until age gives them perspective, and a sense of what is important and what isn't."

"If they wait too long their bodies are not supple enough."

"I know, but if the cost is to damage their minds, their spirit? I know, they all want to do it. And it looks like fun when they see it on TV. But they are too young for this. We would never embrace anyone that young. But the sports world does not have the same scruples, it seems."

"It is not the same thing. They get to grow up and have normal lives after they retire from the sport."

"Yes, they do. Except the ones that have been emotionally crippled by it. I know some stories, Frank. I hope that your niece is all right, that she will not be hurt by what she does. But I would be scared for her, if I was you. Just because she looks good from where we are, and because she is making her parents proud, and she seems happy to be doing so well in front of all these people does not mean she cannot be hurt. There is a lot of damage being done to young athletes, a lot of ruthless predation in the sports world. And she is too young and defenseless. And her parents may not be aware of the dangers, either."

Frank looked at Sonny reproachfully. "Why did you get gloomy all of a sudden? You seemed to enjoy it."

"It just hit me how young they truly are. Barely children. I did not have an easy childhood, and I know what it is like to be thrust into a adult life too soon. And there is no excuse for what is being done to them."

The intermission came and Frank went to meet his niece backstage.

Sonny trailed, hoping that his misgivings were unfounded. He had honestly come to enjoy the event and to congratulate Frank on his talented niece. But there had been something wrong in the air. He had learned to recognize predatory behavior, and to be on its lookout, both as a policeman and as Julian's second in command. And there was some of it around here. Human predation, the kind that Julian had no jurisdiction over. He hoped that human law had that jurisdiction, because then he would be able to do something about it.

"Uncle Frank!" Michelle went to Frank and hugged him. "Did you see me? I messed up the floor exercise, but I did all right in the vault."

"You did all right, Pumpkin." Frank hugged the little girl, noting how tiny she was, how fragile she felt in his arms. "Much better than I would have. I do not do how you girls do it."

"I slipped. I could not stop in my mark."

"Well, your vault was flawless, as usual."

"I know I can do better than that."

Sonny looked around to the other girls, still stretching their bodies for the next event. He looked at their coach, who was talking to one girl in particular. There was something in the girl's body language that distressed him. Was she being tongue lashed for not doing well enough? He wished that he could interfere, but emotional abuse was beyond the reach of human law.

The coach finished his speech and turned around. His eyes found Sonny's and a look of recognition came to them. Sonny smiled at him and gestured to come close.

"Have you notified the Prince of your presence in the City?" Sonny asked. "Or did you expect the Gymnastic meet people to pass on the information to us?"

"The Prince of my City should have forwarded the information to yours. I asked him to."

"Did they explain to you the ground rules here? We are very strict about keeping human law. We do not enjoy posting bail and hiring lawyers just to keep Kindred from being examined by those who have them in custody. Break human law once, and we ship you back, and send the bill to your Prince."

"I have never broken a human law. And I was told what to expect. And by the way, do you have the authority to grill me like this?"

"I am Solomon Toussaint, also known as Sonny."

"Luna's lieutenant." "Yes. What was the matter with that girl?"

"Coach business." "Are you hurting her?"

"I do not feed on my charges."

"You would have to be an idiot to do it. They cannot win you any medals if they are not in top condition. That does not mean that you do not hurt them."

"If so, what is your concern? As long as I do not break the Masquerade and do not break human law you have nothing to say."

Reluctantly Sonny backed off. He came close to Frank and let him introduce him to Michelle.

"You did very well, Michelle. Much better than I would. And don't let little failures discourage you. Concentrate on what you did well and build on it."

"There is something about the coach that I do not like." Sonny confessed to Frank.

"You felt it too?"

"Yes."

"He is Kindred, isn't he? I saw you two together."

"Yes, he is."

"Can you..."

"Stop him if he is hurting the girls, your niece included? No, I cannot. He is hurting them in ways that Julian has no jurisdiction over. And if he is not breaking human laws in the process neither you nor I can touch him."

"You saw how those girls look. Michelle has a haunted look, and so do the other girls. They hang around him, waiting for his words."

"You notice that, too?"

"Yes. Is that because he is feeding off them?"

"Feeding off them is the one thing I am sure he does not do. I told you, Julian has no jurisdiciton on what he is doing.

"So how can he get those young girls to look so...so lost, so dependent on him, so haunted?"

"How? I tell you what he does. He gets their heads and their parents' filled with dreams of glory. He makes them think it is easy, and that they can be the next gold medalist for the USA. Then he starts a rigurous training. Nothing but training day in and out. Leave little time for a normal life. Work on their minds. Put a burden on them: be perfect or else. Tell them what utter failures they will be if they make a mistake. Berate them. Push them beyond their limit. Emotionally abuse them, with their parents' complicity, until they deliver. Make them think that they are not good enough unless they do what he expects of them, and keep raising the demands. And this is how you get a thirteen year old worried sick because she could not land a tumble gracefully. He will not stop until he gets a gold medal out of them, and he becomes a celebrity, a well-sought coach, with all the money and privileges that go with it. Yes, he is preying mercilessly on them. But neither my law nor yours can touch him."

"But not for blood?" "And risk their not being on top of their form? They are his stable of prize horses. He would not feed off them unless he was taking a dive. No, whatever he is doing to them, Julian cannot touch him."

"He cannot?"

"He can enforce the Law if the preying involves a breach of the Masquerade. If the preying is what a Kindred, not a human would do. Evidence of feeding left behind. Display of powers before humans. Revelation of secrets. These are breaches of the Masquerade, and Julian can use them as reasons to take out predators among us. Julian has stretched it to cover breaks of human law that would leave a Kindred in custody where he or she is in danger of a physical examination, but that is his own interpretation. In other places breaches of human law are tolerated, and even encouraged. There are a lot of predators, very vicious ones, that Julian cannot touch, because there is one specific sort of predation that they do not engage in. All he can do is wait, have them watched, and hope that they cross over the line. You remember the hospital case? That doctor who disappeared, and them his bones were found in the furnace?"

"Yes. Was he one of you?"

"He had been embezzling money from the hospital, money meant to pay for the children's food and medicine. The children were malnourished, not just anemic. As long as he was just embezzling he did not break the Masquerade, and Julian had not grounds to condemn him to death. He was warned about his activities, and about human law, but that was all. The man was in no danger of being arrested, and if he was, he would post bail on his own and pay for his own lawyers, so we would have no reason to complain. But then he stepped over the line. He began to feed on the children, sick children whose systems could not handle it. When Julian heard from Caitlin the word "anemic" he knew he had grounds and used them. But if the man had continued feeding as was demanded of him, he might still be there, still stealing, still letting the children go hungry and without medicine. And Julian would still be waiting for grounds."

"You mean that if they prey on humans the way that humans prey on each other they are safe from Julian."

"Yes. Human law is better equipped to handle them in those cases. And in cases like this guy, I do not know what can be done to stop him."

"It stinks."

"It does."

"Lillie and I had an ugly scene." Julian confided to Sonny as he came in to deliver his report. "She got wind of what I did about Drury and wanted to know why I had not shown the same leniency with Zane, the one who embraced those girls against their will."

"Did you tell her it was because Cash uses his baseball bat? That when he says he will discipline his errant members he does so?"

"Not in those words, but I did. I pointed out that I removed Drury from the influence of his sire, who could not control him, and that I turned him over to his Primogen. Lillie was both sire and Primogen, and unwilling to control the young man in any capacity. She would not accept responsibility in the case, and that forced my hand."

"And I take that she did not accept your explanation."

"No, it got personal very fast." Julian sighed. "There was a time when I loved her. I still do, in a way. But we are wrong for each other. She wants me to be something that I am not."

"She wants you to forget about Archon's dream and lead an ordinary life by her side."

"I cannot blame her for it. There were too many times when I was gone on a mission for Archon, and she did not know if I would come back alive. I did not understand what that was like until that time when Duncan came to visit and was challenged. He went to defend his head, and I knew then what Lillie had gone through those years in which she was my lover."

"Julian..." Sonny was not sure what he could say to his sire, how he could ease the psychic pain that was his constant companion.

"Archon used to say that the longer you live, the more regrets you accumulate. The trick is to learn how to live with them, and how not to let them touch what is truly important to you. If you can protect that, then anything else does not matter." he sighed. "but when it comes to Lillie, it is not so easy. I know what I want to do, and what I and Archon hoped to accomplish. But Lillie reminds me that these things have a price, and that I am not the one who pays it."

"Lillie has made her own choices. If she had any sense she would leave you, leave San Francisco, and start life somewhere else."

"And leave her position? She is Primogen here."

"She could trade it for another position. It can be arranged. There are positions that do not tie you to a specific City, which allow you to travel. Why not offer her that? It would be a promotion for her. She would get a say in designating her successor. Same way as Archon did with you. But she should get out of San Francisco. She is getting into a bad habit any way, exploiting her personal relationship with the Prince of the City to advance her clan. She needs better negotiating skills than those, because when the time comes that I replace you, she won't be able to use them on me, and what would she have left?"

"You have not told me anything that I do not know already. But she does not want to leave. She thinks that Caitlin will get tired of me, and leave me, and then I will go back to her. For all I know she may be using voodoo dolls with pins to make sure that Caitlin turns against me."

"And you are putting up your defenses against that kind of assault, of course." "Yes, though I have to be careful. When the spell turns against Lillie, I do not want her to be hurt, so I am softening it. Basically I want her to fall in love with someone else and forget me."

"I would not be so gentle with her. Sometimes the greatest kindness you can offer someone is a swift kick in the backside. I think that Lillie could use one right now."

Julian shrugged, and Sonny knew that he did not want to discuss it anymore. One day he would have to do something about Lillie, if nothing else because she was getting too close to Cameron for safety. But not today.

"How was the gymnastics meet? And Frank's niece?"

"She is good. But there is something there that I did not like."

He told Julian about the coach, and how in his opinion he was exploiting his charges.

"You probably have seen his file by now."

"Yes. Compared with what other coaches do, he is restrained. When I think of that guy who harassed a rape victim to make her drop charges against his star player, I have to admit that Geralds is quite moderate in his behavior. But those girls are being hurt, and emotional abuse is not punishable by any law."

"And Frank thought that maybe I could interfere, just because Geralds is one of us. He does not understand the limits of my power."

"No."

"Cyrus taught me my limits. One day I will thank him for that lesson. One day."

His eyes became flinty as he recalled how, in his naivete, he thought that he could take on a mob boss who had learned predatory behavior by watching Al Capone. Sonny remembered too. The white slave trade only involved human law, and no matter how much misery it created, Julian was told by Archon not to try to interfere with it. But he had gotten word that the man in charge of disciplining the inmates of a brothel would lick the razor after he had used it to slash the faces of those he "disciplined". That was a breach of the Masquerade, and Julian thought he had the means to shut down the operation. No sooner had he filed charges that Cyrus made his move. He protected the Masquerade, he said. He considered the women to be witnesses to Kindred behavior and thus killed all of them. He lost money out of it, but no one could blame him for breaking Kindred law. -

He had taught Julian a lesson that Julian never forgot. One day he would bring Cyrus down, he promised himself. And that day the women, buried in unmarked graves in a swamp, would rest easier.

"It will not be easy." Sonny said. "No. But it is not impossible."

He made himself return to the present. "Frank ran across a predatory Kindred. And he made the mistake of thinking that the man is predatory because he is Kindred. The man is predatory because he is predatory. As you said, there are plenty of predatory people in sports that are as human as Frank, and many of them do worse than Geralds."

"There must be something that we can do."

"As you said, it is very unlikely that he is breaking Kindred law. He is certainly not feeding on his charges. As for human law...Sonny what human laws are most likely to be broken in sports? What breaches of ethic that can make you lose your license? I would look into it. Maybe there is something that you can hang on him."

"Placing bets against your team would do it. Making false representations to those he recruits would be another possibility."

"How about the obvious one? Drugs. You said to Frank that the girls are his stable of prize horses. No owner of prize horses would bleed them before the race, but plenty would drug them. If any of the girls uses drugs that might be enough to bring him down."

"Steroids. Stimulants. Pain killers?"

"Yes. Run a few spot checks on them. Tell Frank what you are doing so he can help you."

Michelle seemed calmer now that she was away from the gym and playing tourist with his uncle. She had gone to see all the sights, trying to cram as much sightseeing in as little time as possible. Her conversation kept going back to the meet, her routines, her teammates and her coach.

Sonny's comments about the hold the coach had on his charges seemed more than accurate. The man praised seldom and criticized often. He kept pushing them towards greater effort, and never let them take credit for what they accomplished. And they had little time left after so many hours of practicing. Studying took most of their free time, and there was not enough time even for that. Fun? Entertainment? Rest? Those were few and far between in Michelle's life, as in her teammates.

"But it is important." Michelle insisted. "We have to do it this way, or we lose the opportunity."

Frank thought again of Sonny's comment how everything seemed important at Michelle's age, how little perspective she had on what really mattered. He asked her about her teammates. Not surprisingly they were as ridden as she was. And it did not surprise him to hear that a few of them had gotten "emotional" as Michelle described it, unable to face the challenges, as the coach put it.

"Maybe it is just their bodies changing." Frank said. "they are at the age when their body starts developing, and well...that affects their moods."

"Still that is no excuse. They are letting the team down."

Frank looked at Michelle and shuddered. Michelle was approaching puberty, if not there already. How would she cope with the changes in her body while being driven as she was to perform more and more. Did Geralds allow his athletes to have menstrual cramps? Or did he make them feel guilty if they did? He wished that he was not embarrassed by the subject and that he could question Michelle about it. Or at least to broach it as delicately as he could to his sister and brother-in-law.

"Julian said to look for breaches in human law." Sonny said to Frank as soon as he met him. "He thinks that we can trip Geralds that way. Give him a handle and he will see that Geralds does not hurt your niece again."

"Great. What do we look for?"

"It may be too much to ask for. But we can look for drugs."

"Michelle gave me the name of two girls who have become 'overly emotional' in the past month. They would be prime candidates, either to be using them, or to be offered them to control their moods. The question is how to get the paperwork for the test."

"I am going to do a quick spot test. Quick and dirty, and inadmissible in court. But highly accurate." Sonny smiled at Frank. "Not the first time I have done it when finding out what to look for."

"But without a court order..." then he understood what Sonny meant. "So that is why each time you said to test for drugs we found them. You knew beforehadn that the drugs would be in their systems because you had found it before."

"As I said, it is inadmissible in court. But that does not mean that it is not useful. I am going to test every girl in that team. If I am lucky I will find it."

"Are you going to test Michelle, too?"

"Everyone, Frank. Look, if Michelle is using, wouldn't you rather know, so you can deal with it?" "Yes...but..."

"But you do not like the way I test...look Frank, we have gone through this before. You know that I will not hurt her. Have I ever hurt you?"

"No...but...she is so young, so fragile..." "I know that. And I want to protect her, too. And at this time protecting her means testing her for drugs."

Frank put his arm around Michelle as he watched Sonny move towards another girl, one of the girls that Michelle had described as "emotional." Sonny had just finished testing her, and he had shaken his head to show Frank that she was clean. He had brought her back to herself and now she continued chattering to her uncle, unaware of the scratch in her arm. Sonny had not hurt her, as he had promised. He had stayed at her arm for a few seconds, then closed the wound quickly. Still Frank remembered her blank look for the few moments that Sonny was testing her and shivered. He blocked Michelle's view of her teammate as Sonny tested her. He did not answer Michelle's words, just hugged her closer. If only he could protect her from the danger around her...

Sonny lifted his head, and there was anger in his eyes. He nodded to Frank. Julian had been right. They had grounds now to get rid of Geralds.

"Do we file charges?" Frank asked him as they left.

"No. I will talk with Julian. Geralds has broken Kindred law."

"You mean he feeds of them, after all?"

"No. They feed off him. The drug they take, the one that makes them surpass themselves on exhibition, and which is messing their brains is his own blood. None of the girls has been tested for drugs yet, but if they are, Geralds' blood will be found, and would be classified as a new drug in the market. Which it is."

"All the girls?"

"No. Just the ones that got emotional. The ones he evidently decided needed to enhance their performance. That made their bodies more powerful and able to achieve new feats. But it played havoc on their emotions. And I talked with the girls later, by myself. His emotional abuse is not limited to tongue lashings. When I put a couple of them under they told me how Geralds would demonstrate superhuman powers while intimidating them into performing."

"Shit." Frank said.

"Yes. Which means that Julian has grounds to move against him. I would gladly cut off the man's head himself, but I worry what effect that would have on the girls. I should talk to Julian about it."

"What clan is Geralds?"

"Torreador, why?"

"Because if he was Gangrel you could send Cash with his baseball bat to him."

"It is effective. Drury is being kept in line these days, and may yet achieve responsibility, or a reasonable facsicmily thereof."

"And Cash is still handcuffed to Drury, and that is why he cannot join us now for a beer."

"Yes. He is taking over for Drury's sire, who cannot control him at all."

"Siring someone is quite a responsibility, isn't it?"

"Yes, that is why most of us wait at least a hundred years before we start. Julian did not wait that long with me, but then Julian is a law unto himself."

Frank nodded and returned to his main concern. "What do you think can be done about Geralds? And how do we explain it to the girls and their parents?"

"That is something that Julian and I are going to consider very carefully."

"There is a lot of predation going on in sports." Julian said, with a sigh. "I have been reviewing some of the stories. The kids they recruit under false pretenses, the sports scholarship con game, with athletes leaving the school as illiterate as they came in, after making money for the school, the debasement of academic pursuits, for starters. Then the endorsement games, the pressures, the bribes, the drugs...not a place for children. Whatever Geralds does, he is not the worst. If I had a daughter I would not let her out in that world, not without my knowing exactly what goes on."

"Geralds is breaking Kindred law." Sonny said. "It is not official, the human world has not gotten wind of it yet, so we have latitude as to how we handle it."

"How is he breaking it? As you said, he cannot feed off them."

"No, but he can use his mental powers to intimidate them. And he can drug them using his own blood. It will not show in standard tests for steroids, or stimulants, or any drug that is specifically looked for. But it will shown in a test for any abnormality."

"The man is crazy." Julian said "Does he have any idea of the risks he runs?"

"He does. But he thinks that he can get away with it."

"Yes, they all do."

"We could just take him out, for breaking the Masquerade. His Prince would not dare complain. But there are problems with that."

"The notoriety, for one thing. Too many people are watching this and Geralds has made a name for himself. If anything happens to him, there will be reporters looking for answers."

"And no matter what, the girls would still be caught in that world. I do not think that the new coach would be an improvement. Not unless the parents understand what can happen and move to protect their children."

"We got in this because Frank asked us to help his niece." Julian agreed, grimly "Turning her over to a human coach who would continue abusing her is not much help. We cannot treat the symptom and leave the disease untouched."

"On the other hand, alerting the parents to the dangers their daughters are running is to break the Masquerade."

"If there is any evidence of drug use, then the parents will have to take notice." Julian thought aloud. "But not a standard illegal drug, because we know that Geralds does not use those. And we cannot let the human world know what he really uses...Tell me, when you interrogated the girls, how did they say they took the drug?"

"They said that Geralds made them herbal teas."

'Herbal teas?" Julian smiled. "It is going to be easier than I thought. Call Geralds. Tell him that the Prince of the City demands his presence right now. Tell him that this is his only chance to keep his head attached to his shoulders."

Geralds had tried to brazen it, claiming that Julian had no jurisdiction over him. Julian was calm and soft-spoken, which, if Geralds lived in San Francisco, he would know it was a bad sign. Julian was at his gentlest when he held all the cards, as more of one of his adversaries could attest.

"You have broken the Masquerade. Yet I do not wish to take your head. Do not deceive yourself thinking that I cannot."

"So why don't you do it?"

"Because I suspect that this was forced on you. I do not think that you hunger for a gold medal so much that you would risk your life for it. There is something else. Other people involved that scare you so much that you ran terrible risks to satisfy them."

Geralds' face dropped. "How did you know?"

Julian nodded slightly. "It is my business to know these things."

It had been a wild guess, but it had paid off. There was money behind the gymnastics meet. Some of the money invested in it had people with guns looking after the investments. And Geralds had an habit: gambling. He had embezzled money from the meet to pay his gambling debts and had been found out. They had let him live, but he had to deliver the prizes, make his team a winning one, so that ticket receipts soared, and maybe train the next gold medalist in the Olympics.

Julian just shook his head. "Are these people you owe money to, Kindred?"

"Some. Some are human. They all want their money."

"Does your Prince know?" "If he did he would execute me. That I allowed myself to be in these people's power would be a capital crime in his eyes."

Julian nodded. He could see the reasoning behind it. Only in this case it compounded the problem. Since Geralds did not dare bring his problem to his Prince, he was left alone to try to solve it. And solve it he tried.

"If you cooperate with us, we may be able to help you. You could move to San Francisco, and while you were here you would be under my protection. You would have to follow my rules, and I would keep a strict watch on you. I would know every bookie that came close to you, and how big your bet was. I would know your winnings and your losses. And I would know how you manage your debt. I would keep you on a very tright rein. But you would keep your head attached to your shoulders."

Geralds gulped.

"It is the best that you can hope for." Julian reminded him gently.

"I know...what could I do here?" "There are sports arenas, high school athletics and Olympic hopes in San Francisco too. But I was thinking of a different arrangement. How well do your write?"

"I am a decent writer."

"Are you knowledgeable in most sports?"

"Most of them, and the ones that I do not know are not well known by the general public."

"Then you may be the next sports columnist at my newspaper." Geralds looked at him.

"I will talk to your Prince about your move here."

"You can arrange that?"

"Very easily."

"And what reason will you give him?"

"The fact that you were forced to resign for drugging your athletes. Not intentionally, and you did nothing illegal, just dumb. But it will bring notoriety to your team, and it may be disqualified. He would not be in a hurry to get you back after that."

Geralds nodded.

"I tell you what will happen. When you give one of your girls a 'herbal tea' you give her what I will hand you. She will have a bad reaction and be tested. Sonny will make sure of that. After that, it will play itself. You will know when to hand your resignation and when to come place yourself under my protection. You will also tell Sonny all you know about the people and money involved behind this meet, and he will decide how much human law can handle it. You will also talk to my wife, and she will see how much of what is legal but unethical can be exposed."

Geralds nodded again.

"So you will do as you are told?"

"I will do it."

"Good." Julian's face broke into a smile "Welcome to San Francisco, Mr. Geralds."

"I could not believe it, Frank." Ethel, Frank's sister, had her arm wrapped protectively around Michelle. "Drugs. And poor Melissa going off like that. It was a miracle that she did not get killed, running into the street that way..."

It was not a miracle. There had been three Gangrels following her, ready to pick her up if she seemed to be in danger of being run over.

"He gave drugs to our children..." Ethel continued. "And they allowed him to resign, they did not even fire him. And he will never go to jail..."

"He did not give them illegal drugs. What he did was unethical, but not illegal. Same as his emotional abuse. He did not drug Michelle, but he abused her. He made the girls believe that they were worthless unless they performed as he expected them to. You cannot put him in jail for that." He did not disguise his anger. "They should, but it cannot be done."

He looked at his sister and wanted to yell at her. She must have known about the emotional abuse and the pressure that Michelle was under and she had pretended not to see it. She and her husband had not seen their daughter's pain. Now they were upset because Michelle might have been drugged and their family stigmatized by it. But they should have known what was happened, and acted on it.

As Sonny had said, Geralds did what he did with the complicity of the parents, who hoped to live their own dreams of glory through their children.

"But the drugs..."

"They were not illegal drugs. They were purchased openly. And he probably did not think that he did anything wrong. He went to health food stores for herbal teas, and he made the same mistake others make. He thought that because they were natural, they were harmless. Do you know how many people end up hospitalized because of that same mistake? The chemicals in the herbs are as potent as the ones in prescription drugs, but the dosage is not controlled, and they are not regulated by the FDA, so customers do not have to learn about possible side effects. Some of the ingredients should not have been taken by a girl going through puberty. It was lucky that he was found out before he started giving his teas to Michelle."

Ethel nodded, and hugged Michelle to herself. She looked at her brother and saw the condemnation in his eyes. She should have known, she told herself. There were signs about Michelle that she had refused to see, because she believed in Coach Gerald's dreams of glory...God knows what she had believed, or wanted to believe.

"Just take good care of Michelle." Frank said.

"Michelle will be all right now." Frank told Sonny as they sat down for beer. "Ethel and Roger have come to their senses."

"Good." Sonny looked around. "Cash is still not coming."

"Still handcuffed to that Drury guy?"

"Yes, it is a big responsibility, Frank. Cash does not want him beheaded, and the only way to keep him alive is to get the concept of responsibility into that thick skull of his."

"Too bad. I miss having him at our table."

Cash moved in with a subdued Gangrel in tow.

"Were you too missing me?" he said, sitting down.

"Yes." Frank's eyes lit up. "Is this..."

"Yes. This is Mr. Drury. He is my designated driver, which means that he does not get any beer. It is his responsibility to drive and to be clearheaded for it. And it means that I can get all the beer I want and don't worry as to how I am getting home."

They placed their orders, then Cash fanned the air. "Whew, Frank, I have to tell you, that story about garlic does not work. It just stinks up the place, that is all."

"I am sorry. We went Italian last night, me and my sister's family."

"He's been stinking up the squad room all day." Sonny said. "Everyone has been avoiding him. I got our captain asking me to tell Frank to use mouthwash. He asked me how I could stand being by him. I said that I was Frank's partner and I would stand by him no matter what. The man said that I was a saint. So Frank, tomorrow eat breath mints all day."

Frank nodded agreement, as Sonny filled in Cash with the news about Frank's niece.

"I saw the story in the paper, but I did not realize that your niece was involved. Is it true that Geralds is going to work for Julian's newspaper?"

"Yes. Geralds is Kindred, and he asked Julian for protection. Julian figured that he could do little damage as a columnist, so he took him in."

Sonny looked at Drury. He would not give Cash the full information until he had shaken his charge. He doubted that Drury would ever grow enough responsibility to keep a secret.

"I do not know about that. Some columnists can be very destructive. Pull the nation into unnecessary wars. Or elect the wrong people."

"He is a sports columnist. How much damage can he do?"

"More than you can imagine. But if Julian says that he can control him, then I have no problem."

They all took a drink from their bottles, then went on to discuss the news that Cash had missed for the past days. Frank kept the information about the gymnastics meet and Michelle to a minimum. Then it was Cash's turn to tell how teaching responsibility to an uncooperative Drury was a full time job. Drury kept looking down, having been told to keep to himself. Frank felt a stab of pity for him. He was going to do a lot of growing up in a hurry.

"Well, Cash, we missed you." Sonny said. "Glad to know that you made it back."