PROLOGUE
Author's Note (the boring, technical stuff): This story has been kicking around in my head for a while, and I finally decided to begin posting it in response to a request for a Sebastian LaCroix fic by Lemo on AFF. Think of it as taking place about four years before the events in Bloodlines. You'll see a lot of familiar faces, but a lot of new faces too, because fleshing out the Camarilla, the Sabbat, and everyone else needed doing, or else the plot would have been very boring indeed. This version doesn't contain the graphic naughtiness seen on AFF.
The following sourcebooks were shamelessly, blindly plundered for information where necessary in the creation of this story:
Liber des Goules – the Book of Ghouls (1997, 1998 White Wolf Publishing)
Cities of Darkness volume 2: Berlin and Los Angeles by Night (1997, White Wolf Publishing)
War of Ages: Elysium and the Anarch Cookbook (1998, White Wolf Publishing)
Guide to the Camarilla (1999 White Wolf Publishing)
Guide to the Sabbat (1999 White Wolf Publishing)
Vampire: The Masquerade (2002 White Wolf Publishing)
Prince's Primer (1996 White Wolf Publishing)
Clanbook: Lasombra (1996 White Wolf Publishing)
Time of Thin Blood (1999 White Wolf Publishing)
I've made every effort to stick as closely to the original source material as possible (at least as far as someone who's never actually played the source material), but occasional liberties have been taken for plot purposes. Also, if you see a flat-out mistake, don't worry about reporting it to me. A wizard probably did it. Damn wizards.
Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.
--Bob Dylan
Midnight in Santa Monica.
Emily Roivas awoke in the darkness of the cold hospital room, her back stiff and protesting from the uncomfortable plastic chair she had contorted herself in next to Angela's beside. She twisted around to see the little travel clock she'd propped up on the nightstand and groaned when she saw the glowing green numbers. While she'd had to pull some pretty heavy theatrics and pleading to get to stay the night, since she was only a co-worker and not family, she hadn't actually intended to fall asleep.
The jacket she'd been using as a blanket slipped to the floor as she stood up with a muffled groan, stretching and kneading the stiff muscles in her lower back. The hospital was completely quiet for the first time since she'd been there, and the silence was golden. No clatter of cart wheels, no footsteps up and down the hallway, no pages over the speaker system. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she shuffled forward.
Eyes not yet adjusted completely to the dark, Emily leaned low over the woman's bed. "Ange?" she whispered, more out of habit and wish than anything else.
There was, of course, no reply.
Two nights ago, Angela Drake had been attacked in her own apartment. A neighbour had heard her screaming sometime after midnight and called the police. For once, the response time had been spectacular, but it had still been too late. By the time they'd arrived, the apartment had been silent, and they'd battered down the door at the neighbour's panicked insistence, to find Angela, poor, broken little Angela, laying unconscious in a spreading pool of her own blood, face a ruined mess, the curtains billowing in the soft night air filtering in through the broken windows.
One of the officers on the scene had been quoted in the morning paper as saying it looked like a pack of dogs had gotten into the place.
It was strange, but Emily wasn't sure what she was angrier about right now. The attack? Or the fact that their boss hadn't even bothered to stop by?
As guilty as Emily felt about her anger towards Rhinebeck Athill, it also made her feel better. Gave her something to focus the laser-hot light of her confusion and bitterness on. She knew he was busy; he was always busy, jetting about non-stop day and night, often only having time to stop by just as she was leaving for the night to check on things.
"How unfortunate." he'd murmured in a vaguely disinterested voice when she'd called to tell him.
"She's lucky to be alive. Sir." Emily had said, stung by the lack of concern. She'd been sitting in the hospital waiting room, perched on the edge of an unsteady stool and clutching the payphone receiver hard enough to make her knuckles white.
"I imagine." Athill had an unctuous, smooth voice that always made her feel as though he was talking circles around her, but at the same time it was oddly soothing. Something about the deep, baritone quality to it, she supposed. "Naturally, you'll be wanting time off. I'm certain I can make do without your assistance for as long as necessary. Of course, Ms Drake is on paid leave until she recovers."
Honestly, it had been more than she'd expected from him. He was always polite, but he'd never struck her as a terribly sympathetic man.
Now, with her hand on the lamp switch, Emily hesitated. She told herself it was because she didn't want to risk disturbing Angela this late, but that was a bald faced lie; Angela hadn't woken up once since the attack. And Emily couldn't bear to see the patchwork of stitches and swollen flesh that was her friend's face right now, made all the more painful by that still-perfect halo of golden blonde hair spread out on her pillow.
The hallway was long and brightly lit, the floor white tiled and the walls painted a relentlessly cheery buttercup yellow that was at least better than the puke-green colour that some of the other hospitals she'd been in had favoured. At the end, directly across from the nurse's station, she remembered, was a series of vending machines. The idea of old Mars Bars, stale Doritoes, or ancient Junior Mints made her stomach revolt, but with the cafeteria closed it was better than nothing. Maybe only marginally. She thought it would have been just about as satisfying to eat the tiny little box of fake orange-flavoured Tic-Tacs in her pocket.
The nurse's station was empty. A stroke of luck, Emily had to think, remembering the broad-faced, unpleasant behemoth of a woman who had been on duty earlier that night. The nametag had said Margaret, but Emily had been unpleasantly reminded of the strange dwellers of Lovecraft's Innsmouth. Margaret had been steadfastly against allowing the younger woman to stay with Angela, but the hospital director had ultimately relented . . . perhaps out of sympathy, but more likely reading potential mutiny in Emily's eyes, the sort that said Maybe we'll do things your way. But it's not going to be the EASY way. I'm going to make this as difficult and noisy as possible, so be damn sure you really want in for the long haul.
You're being mean again, she chided herself. She ignored it, taking some measure of satisfaction in her pettiness. For the past two days, her patience had been stretched to the limit. Waiting for Angela's family to arrive, Emily had spent almost all her time at the hospital. A great deal of that time had also been spent under police scrutiny. An endless parade of wood-faced detectives, all wanting to know about everything and anything.
How did you meet Ms Drake? You said you moved here from Arizona last year?
I see, and the workload was split between the two of you at the office, yes?
How did that make you feel? Did you think you weren't getting paid enough, maybe, not enough hours or responsibility? Did you ever express such to Ms Drake?
I'm not implying anything, Ms Roivas. Tell us again where you were the previous night. And, may I stress, that any detail you may have previously omitted out of, say, forgetfulness might be prudent to our investigation.
Emily would have liked to have found the magic phrase that would have made them leave her alone. They seemed to find it suspicious that she was staying with Angela until her family arrived when the two were little more than friendly coworkers. Emily wasn't quite sure why herself, except for perhaps Angela's sweet, friendly smile, a friend in an otherwise strange town.
"You should not take it so seriously. I have seen these things before." the last night nurse, a remarkably lovely young Indian woman, had said. The nametag pinned to the breast of her crisp uniform had read Mridula. "They wish only to find the people who did this to your friend. It is simply . . . procedure."
Procedure. She snorted as she plunked money into a soda machine, then knelt to retrieve the can that tumbled noisily into the slot. Emily knew all about procedure.
Sipping from the can, Emily's gaze shifted to the left and she regarded her reflection in the corridor windows. It was a pale, ghostly image of herself, and it only heightened her sense of unreality that night. She was a strikingly pretty young woman, but the last few days had stamped their mark on her. Her already pale complexion was starting to look a little sickly from lack of proper sleep and worry. There were shadows underneath her dark eyes that made her face look narrower and more pointed than it was, and the curve of her lips had lost much of their good humour. Her dark brown hair was starting to come free of the ponytail she'd shoved it up in yesterday, and the jeans and plain black t-shirt she'd thrown on before coming to the hospital were now hopelessly rumpled.
It made her think of Athill again as she walked slowly back to the room. If he had seen her looking like she did now, she knew the familiar, crimped look of displeasure would cross his face. He had a fairly strict sense of style and dress he wanted to uphold at his offices, and both she and Angela always wore matching pencil-sharp black skirts that came to just above their knees, fitted white silk blouses, sheer black hose, and black heels. If she had ever shown up for work looking like she did now, he would have shut the door in her face without a word. At the moment, she wouldn't have disagreed with him.
Just outside the doorway to Angela's room, Emily paused. In the uncommon stillness of the hospital, she could hear something. Something nearby. It was a sort of frenzied shuffling that made her think, oddly enough, of someone wrapped up in a sheet and fighting to get out. After a moment, she realised the sound was actually coming from Angela's own room.
Just for a moment, Emily allowed herself to hope.
The doctors were quiet about Angela's unconsciousness, and it didn't take a medical diploma to read the subtext in their carefully neutral responses to Emily's questions. They were wrong, Emily thought, heart suddenly beating fast as she hurried into the room, they were wrong, she must be awake, thank you, God, Jesus, whoever, just let her be . . .
Something cold gripped her heart, some icy premonition that strangled her hopeful greeting before it could make it past her lips. It was too late to stop her hand, however, reaching along the wall, and as she flicked on the lights, she saw everything.
The soda can slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers, and it seemed to take a very long time to fall indeed. Long enough for Emily to take in the hunched shape over the bed, that gray and terrible flesh rippling with muscles in all the wrong places. Long enough for her to take in the brilliant, fire-truck red splashed all over the walls, the floor, the privacy curtain – the fluorescent lighting was unforgiving. She could hear it, too, she realised in a distant sort of way; chuffling, snuffling wetly, something thick tearing, and the sound of Angela's feet drumming erratically on the mattress.
The sudden light in the room made the creature hunched over Angela scream. No, that wasn't right. It howled. Emily was aware of a raw, stinging strain in her throat as she screamed herself, but she couldn't hear it. The sound the beast was making swallowed her voice completely.
In the hallway, Emily didn't pause, instead choosing a direction at random and bolting down it. The silence that had seemed so comforting and refreshing to her only minutes ago now seemed ominous, pregnant with some terrible monstrosity. The idea that those howls, her scream, hadn't brought someone, anyone running to investigate was impossible. She passed partially open doors as she ran, and nothing moved in the darkness within.
It was, at least in part, her blind terror that saved her. She lost her balance as she sprinted madly around the corner, pitching forward with an inarticulate cry. She took two huge running steps forward trying to regain her footing, only partially recovered, and landed on her hands and knees at the same time as a dark shape went hurtling over her head, close enough to ruffle her hair with the wind of it's passing. She caught a glimpse of an impossibly animalistic face, red eyes glaring hatefully back at her before it crashed through a set of swinging double doors ahead of her. It howled again in a very human sort of rage as she heard a tremendous clatter of metal, and something heavy hitting the floor. Eyes very wide now, she scrambled to her feet and finally saw the door on her left, and the small sign marking it as the stairwell.
Lucky. Emily thought as she scrambled for the stairway, yanking the door open. So lucky, oh my GOD Angela!
She didn't bother with the steps. Emily simply vaulted down the last set with a breezy sort of grace she knew she would never again be able to reproduce and hit the ground running.
She was making too much noise now. Not just the slap of her shoes on the concrete, but she hit the door at the bottom full force, making it rattle in it's frame, and spent a few frantic seconds pawing at the handle in the dark before she was able to finally snatch it open. She bolted through it, hearing it rebound off the tiled wall with a clamor, and then she was darting down the hallway towards the distant red glow of the exit sign.
The idea of being fit had never really occurred to her before. Fit was when you could fit into your favourite pair of jeans and afford the whipped cream on your iced coffee. Fit was looking good in your heels and your pantyhose, being able to take the stairs without puffing for breath.
Somehow, the idea of fit as being able to run for one's life had never connected in her head before.
Already a stitch had claimed her left side, turning her run into a desperate, lopsided gallop. Her gasping sounded very loud in the silence. She was having to actually force herself to pull in every burning breath, and she wondered in a detached sort of way how long her terror could actually carry her for.
It happened so quickly that Emily never actually even registered that she had slipped and was falling until she hit the floor, and she hit it hard enough, the back of her skull cracking loudly against it, that white stars suddenly bloomed in her vision. Every muscle in her body seemed to tense up like a block of wood all at once and then relax, all the strength leaving her body in one wheezy, shocked gasp.
Something in her head was screaming, screaming at her to get up, to keep moving, but for one terrifying moment her body simply wouldn't respond. Her head lolled limply to one side, pressing her cheek against the cool floor, and her mouth gaped open, sucking in air. She couldn't seem to get enough of it, great heaving breaths that whooped on the way in. The pain in her head was phenomenal, deafening, and every movement seemed to send the floor canting and twisting beneath her, making her stomach roil in rebellion.
You get up! It's coming for you, and you get up now, Emily, or it'll have you too!
With great difficulty, she managed to flop limply over onto her belly and slowly get her arms and knees braced under her. When she pushed herself to her feet, the hall seemed to turn sharply to one side, and her legs carried her almost bonelessly into something wide and hard pressed against the wall. She clutched at it for support, baring her teeth without realising it. Her fingers skittered over the surface, felt cool glass, then hard plastic, and several rows of rounded things that could only be buttons.
Vending machine.
Despite the jangle of her nerves, even with what she'd witnessed back in the hospital room, she was shocked to find that her terror had left her. It was as though the fall had knocked it all out of her and all she'd had to replace it with was cotton, leaving her feeling numbed and confused.
Without really thinking about it, she wiped clumsily at her ears, instinctively searching for the wetness that would have meant she was bleeding and concussed.
And that was when it hit her from behind.
Which was ridiculous, because her back had been to the wall, but wherever it came from, it hit her with all the force of a wrecking ball. She felt something huge and heavy land on her back, sending her crashing forward into the floor.
She couldn't breathe. The weight of the thing was tremendous, crushing her to the floor. It shifted it's weight, leaning forward, and Emily felt something give inside her with a shockingly brittle, easy snapping sound. A wet, angry snarling filled her ears and she would have screamed if she'd had the breath. Reflexively, she threw an elbow back, felt it crack against hard bone. The creature howled, more in anger than pain it sounded like, long and sharp enough that it rung inside her skull. It pulled back, through, at least enough for her to be able to roll over before it was on her again, and then she was shrieking as she saw it, really saw it.
It was a man, and yet it wasn't. Could a man have those impossibly wide jaws, that vicious glitter of sharp teeth like broken glass? Could a man have eyes like two red-hot bolts slammed deep into that twisted, broad, flat face? Even in the dark she could make out the pallid colour of it's flesh, the tattered rags hanging from it's bulky frame, and she shrieked like a fireball when it siezed her by the shoulders and began to shake her, claws sinking deep into muscle. She felt her head bounce repeatedly off the floor and thought that the thing was actually ilaughing/i now, laughing as she screamed at it, fists flailing uselessly.
And then it released her, briefly, only so it's hands, those terrible, strong hands, could close about her throat and begin to squeeze.
It was too much.
The night. The creature. The injuries she'd already sustained. Black roses began to bloom in her vision as the vice-like pressure on her throat increased. She scrabbled at it's hands, but they didn't so much as move an inch as she clawed at them. It's flesh was cold.
Her last thought, as the creature's head snapped up and the door at the end of the hallway crashed open:
Maybe I went crazy. That wouldn't be so bad. Anything would be better than this.
Everything went black.
Voices, in the haze.
Is she dead?
No . . . not yet, anyway. Damn unlucky for her if you ask me.
Which, if you'll recall, I didn't. It's better for us, anyway. We lost the other one, so we couldn't have gone back empty handed.
Says you. I'm not afraid of him.
Then either you're a liar or a fool.
Hey, whatever, man. At least I'm not some boot licker.
Yes, one of your many redeeming qualities, I'm sure. Bring the girl. If you're as brave as you say, I'll let you have the honor of presenting her . . . and telling him where the other one went.
For a long time, silence.
Then, something warm. Red sweetness sliding down her throat.
She didn't dream.