Vampire: The Masquerade is owned by White Wolf Publishing. My use is in no way meant to challenge their copyrights. This piece is not intended for any profit on the part of the writer, nor is it meant to detract from the commercial viability of the aforementioned (or any other) copyright. Any similarity to any events or persons (either real or fictional) is unintended.
K.T. Corben, Erica Blackwell, and Michelle Marlowe are the products of Icy Mike Molson's overactive imagination. For more insight into his disturbed mind, check out his stories here on fanfiction.net.
Siras Telemon is the dream-child of (a most likely drunken) Steve Wakefield.
All of the other characters, as well as the story, are mine.
Note to Readers
: While this is a stand-alone story, it might help those that are truly interested in getting to know certain characters better to first read my five San Francisco stories or their sequel, Le Bon Temps Roule. You could also check out stories by Icy Mike Molson which feature K.T. Corben and/or Johnny Yashida (such as his wonderful stories Enemies Disguised as Enemies and Sleight of Hands). As I said, this is stand-alone, so reading all that other stuff isn't necessary. It might be interesting to you, though, if you also like what you find here.From the Horse's Mouth
by
Nevermore
(with some help from Johnny Yashida)
Foreword
My name is Johnny Yashida; maybe you've heard of me. There are a lot of stories out there about me, but I just want to remind you not to believe everything you ever hear or read. Only pay attention to the fun stories, or the ones that make me look noble or heroic. All the others are just slanderous tales told to make me look like a villain, or at the very least, a monster. I'm not a monster. Really. Just because I'm a vampire doesn't mean I'm a heartless fiend. As an old friend once said, a severe sun allergy does not an evil person make. See the wisdom in that?
Anyway, like I was saying, I've been around the block a few times. It seems, however, that every time anything even remotely exciting happens to me, my friends end up hearing about it from other people before I get the chance to tell them all myself. They don't even get all the facts straight, either. Do you know what it's like when friends finish your stories for you when it's the first time you're telling them? Probably not. Let me tell you, though, it sucks. I mean, it blows monkeys. So this time I'm telling the story myself so it doesn't get all fucked up in the translation. I'm tired of jackass writers (all y'all know who you are) messing with my character. So now, without further ado, a true story of Johnny Yashida, as told by Johnny Yashida.
Prologue
Every story should have a prologue, I think. The reasons are obvious – there's always something that happens to cause the shit to hit the fan. Professional writers call this the inciting incident. I, however, call it the thing that causes the shit to hit the fan. Not enough people ever seem to notice the major events that directly lead up to the inciting incident (note that I'm using the correct terminology, but only as a concession to Michelle, who wants me to sound professional here). If people noticed, then the rest of the story probably wouldn't take place because whatever caused the shit to hit the fan would have been avoided. Anyway, in this particular story, as per usual, I did not notice all the signs around me, and thus I experienced an inciting incident. It went something like this...
I had just spent some of the roughest weeks of my life partaking in the opposition of a Sabbat siege in New Orleans. Now, Michelle has just informed me that I should do a good job of keeping the reader informed, so I'll explain briefly just what the Sabbat is (that seemed to make her happy). The world of the vampires, or kindred, as those, including myself, in the Camarilla would say, is made up of three main groups. The first is the Camarilla, which is the largest and clings to a strict set of rules, the greatest of these being the Masquerade. That law simply states that we must keep our presence hidden from the mortals, so that they never undertake another Inquisition. There are a lot of other rules, many of them important, but that's the biggest. Anyway, there's also the Sabbat, which is a group comprised mainly of younger vampires (and they use the term vampires, not kindred, because they feel no need for euphemisms to explain what they are). The Sabbat opposes the Camarilla in just about every way, and they seem to take a great delight in torturing and destroying Camarilla kindred. Then, finally, is the third group, which I'll just refer to as independents, though it's actually more complicated than that. The independents include anarchs, which are gangs of young vampires that try to just hang out and have a good time with immortality, thus causing no end of headaches for those that would like to have kindred keep a low profile. To finish off my explanation, vampires generally exist in clans, meaning there are traceable bloodlines for each of us, and we keep track of common ancestry. Vampires with common ancestry generally have a similar knack for learning the powers that all you people out there have heard vampires possess (like mind control, and turning into bats and shit like that). Anyway, I'm from a clan called the Telemon, and we spend a lot of time hiring ourselves out as mercenaries against the Sabbat. The job sorta sucks, but it pays really well. Anyway, I guess you could say that opposing the Sabbat is where this story really starts.
So, like I was saying before, we had just finished with the siege in New Orleans, and were busy celebrating another win for truth, justice, and the Camarilla way. Actually, I don't think I should ever again put truth, justice, and Camilla in the same sentence. Anyway, I have typically been a loner. My sire is the head of my clan, and he uses me as sort of a scout and diplomat, the man who finds jobs for the rest of the clan to do. So I would be sent hither and yon across North America, looking for Camarilla princes that had a Sabbat problem. The only person with me was Michelle, who is my much-adored Gangrel companion (do you really think I'd say she was anything but much-adored when she's watching over my shoulder right now?). Ow. Ok, so there I was, in New Orleans, with not only Michelle, but three childer that needed training, and one Ventrue antitribu who was a refugee from the Sabbat. The last one, Erica, is the partner of a mercenary friend of mine. He needed some down time to figure out why he went postal in New Orleans, so Erica ended up hanging out with me. So, needless to say, my job became far more difficult to do with five kindred tagging along where there used to be one. I mean, it's almost like I've gotten my own groupies.
Anyway, I realized that at the very least, the childer would need some time to train. My clan is involved in combat operations all over the country, but I didn't want these young ones to receive training in combat. It's far too easy to get killed that way. Besides, I plan to keep two of the three childer for myself, to help me with the work I do. It only seems fitting that I train them my own way. So, seeing as I had just made a lot of money for my clan, I decided to spend some of it in establishing a small haven where my clan could train young recruits. I figured I could break the place in myself, and then the other Telemon could do something with it as time went on. It would give us a small place where we could get away from the strife of our existences, so we could train and focus on being all we could be. Sounds like a really good idea, right? I sure thought so. You should have heard Siras, my sire, though. It went something like this:
"You want a training camp?" he asked dubiously. I was suddenly thankful I was only speaking to him on the phone, because I knew exactly how he'd be looking at me if I were there in person. His eyes get sorta spooky, like he's searching for any sign that I have my own agenda. Usually I do, and sometimes he sees that. I'm not a big fan of that.
"This is a move that makes sense," I said evenly, keeping my voice as formal as I could, figuring that he'd like that.
"Why?" he asked. Luckily, I had had the foresight to prepare for this most obvious of questions.
"Well, I have two childer to train now," I answered, making certain I omitted Mason from the count. I didn't want the others in my clan to snatch him up. "The clan is growing quickly, Siras, and I don't think I'm going to be able to keep up with my diplomatic duties forever. Eventually, we're going to need more people in my role. I thought both Uiko and Melissa would be perfect."
"Melissa is not really your childe," he pointed out. "She's Sam Carson's childe, and he expects her back. She's supposed to work in Intelligence. As for Uiko, I thought she was going to be an assassin."
"Melissa is my childe as far as the law goes," I shot back. "I get to decide what's right for her, not Sam Carson."
"Those are not your orders," Siras replied. See, he always gets like that when he realizes he's going to lose an argument. Instead of reasoning with me, he sums everything up as 'my duty.' Too bad for him I was never a soldier, so I don't buy into that whole line as easily as some of my brethren. I figured I already had my sire beat.
"My orders are to train her," I said patiently. "I could simply teach her the basics and send her back to her sire, or I could give an honest evaluation of her strengths and weaknesses, and then train her accordingly. Wouldn't it be best for us to take advantage of our recruits' talents? I thought it would be more efficient. I thought you would be pleased." Ok, so maybe it wasn't fair to phrase it like that, but there it was.
"I appreciate you taking your time to evaluate the childe," Siras relented, "but Carson is expecting her back."
"I know, I thought about that," I admitted. "But Carson is in Boston, surrounded by a thick government investigation. He could always embrace someone else to fill whatever role he had planned for Melissa. This woman, though, is really fit for diplomatic duty. We could even assign her permanently to the Boston siege. Carson's not fool enough not to realize how good it would look for him to have his childe meeting with the prince and primogen of that city, speaking the current party line of the Telemon. In the end, he'd be thanking both of us, and the Telemon would gain someone with my experience in a position where it's needed."
"You have a point," he admitted. "And what of Uiko? You had said she was to be an assassin. Now you want her to be a diplomat?"
"What's the difference?" I asked simply. There was silence at the other end of the line for a few moments as Siras seemed to realize what I was saying. I learned early that the art of diplomacy is most effective when backed up with the thinly veiled threat of violence, and so I had developed a plethora of abilities that made me an effective assassin. I was more than capable of teaching Uiko all she would need, and now my sire knew it. It would be quite awhile, I figured, before my clan would start accepting contracts for covert assassinations. It was good business not to go about doing that kind of work. Besides, if someone wanted to kill someone else enough, the Assamites would be more than willing to do the job for them, and I didn't want to ever make the Assamites think I was cutting in on their action. I figured that by the time we ever accepted assassination contracts Uiko would be fully trained and more than willing to undertake the role she had filled in her mortal days. That would keep me in the clear, and until then would allow me to keep my childe close.
""So you're sure you can make her an effective assassin?" Siras asked.
"Of course," I answered. "She did that work for the Yakuza before the embrace, and now I'm only teaching her the skills she'll need to continue her vocation against the kindred. I'll need a good ten years, but she'll do just fine."
"Alright," Siras relented. "You can have you training compound. Where are you planning on setting up shop?"
"Somewhere in the South," I responded. "Outdoor training is tough in the winter if it's below freezing. I'll see if I can find a nice place."
"Keep the price reasonable," Siras warned.
"So do I have a limit?"
"Two fifty," he replied. "And that's not just the building, but also the price of any security equipment, weapons, and modifications. You go beyond two fifty, and you'll be paying for it yourself."
"Understood," I replied, hiding my surprise that Siras had agreed to pay two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for my new place. I knew he probably planned to also use it for other new recruits once I had it broken in, but that was fine. I'd still have it to myself long enough to unwind after that damned siege. Everyone always thinks that Siras is a hard ass, paranoid fuck, but I think deep down he actually has a soft spot for me. I mean really deep, deep down. When I say deep, mind you, I mean like Marianas Trench deep. It's one of the only explanations I can come up with for still being alive. Sure, I serve a purpose now, but in my youth all I did was steal cars and spy on the latest person he was convinced his grandsire had sent to assassinate us.
So anyway, that's pretty much the prologue. Within a week I had ended up getting a cozy five-bedroom manse on an eight-acre estate just outside Panama City, Florida. Final cost, four hundred thousand dollars. The best part is that Siras actually paid the extra money himself. All I had to do was get permission from the Panama City prince to allow my clan to set up a permanent residence in his domain. That was easy enough, what with Sabbat-incited violence pretty much all around his territory.
Maybe it doesn't seem to you like much of an inciting incident to get a nice place in Panama City, but did I mention that we got there just as Spring Break was starting to kick into high gear? And you thought this was gonna be a quiet story, didn't you?
To be continued.............................