"Robert is now with you, Lord! He is now with your angels, praising your name and your eternal glory!"
Chris' brother, Bill, scoffed hearing the priest's words and whispered to his brother:
"He should have been here with us, not praising God with angels."
Even though the dead boy's father didn't want to admit, his brother was right. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, Chris was overwhelmed with thousands upon thousands of mixed feelings: just 48 hours earlier, he had his son with him, alive and well. Now, Robert is dead and Chris' life is empty. He looked at the headstone with sadness:
LAURA MASTERS-COLLINS
April 2, 1980 - August 10, 2010
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
ROBERT COLLINS
June 14, 2005 - July 26, 2015
BELOVED SON
Before the ceremony could be over, Chris turned his back on the grave and left. His brother followed him.
"Hey man, I know it's a stupid question but... are you alright?"
"I am not, brother, I am not!"
Chris started to weep and hugged his brother. Bill was crying to but he stopped, wanting to be strong for his brother. He was thinking about his own children, Tyler and Ann. He, too, would be completely crushed if something would have happened with one of them. Robert was a very nice and polite boy, loved by everyone: family, friends, teachers, neighbors. He was an angel. Maybe this is why God took him away to Heaven?
Benjamin Daniels.
No, not God, but Benjamin Daniels destroyed his life and took away what Chris loved the most in this world. The man felt now empty, alone and desperate. He had no one in his life. Sure, his brother was there, but he had his own family, a boy who was now a senior and who wanted to apply to an Ivy League college so Bill's focus would be on Tyler, not him. Also, his niece, Ann, was seven years old and needed her parents. Chris would not want to take his brother away from his family. Right now, the only solace Chris could have is Jeanette's proposition which last night sounded ridiculous and completely insane but now, it starts to make sense bit by bit. What does Chris have right now, anyway? And if this... vampiress is to be believed, he has a chance to bring his son back. That would be... there are no words to describe it. But what if Jeanette just spiked his drink with something? What if nothing he saw at the Asylum was true and everything was just the effect of a drug? Questions and questions, and no answers. Chris looked at the sky and his eyes started to sting from the sun's light, being overly sensitive due to the continuous crying of the father who lost his beloved son.
After the funeral ended, Chris decided not to return home, where everything reminded him of Robert, but to go Downtown to the Empire Arms Hotel. He would stay there until he clears his head. The luxurious room had a large TV and a beautiful view of the city but Chris wasn't interested in it. He decided to call Jeanette.
Jeanette's answering machine: Hey, butterflies and ducklings! Right now, I'm unavailable. Call me after sundown, naughty boys and girls!
Of course, foolish me... She's a vampire, vampires sleep during the day. Or they?
There are so many things Chris didn't know about this world. Until July 26, 2015, he was just a rich man with a very well paid white collar job who never questioned anything in his life. When Helen died, he considered it to be God's will, even though she died of cancer at just 30. Losing Robert and meeting Jeanette, however, changed his outlook a bit. Maybe there is something more out there, something more than... this void in his heart. And maybe becoming a blood-gorging demon will snatch him from the light into the eternal darkness... but at least darkness isn't void.
The long, summer day was passing so slowly that almost drove Chris insane. The hotel room was hot, even though the AC was turned on. The man was just staring at the ceiling, counting the number of spots or other blemishes on it.
Today, I would have taken Robby to Disneyland... I promised him I would take the day off from work... I should have taken him Sunday... He wouldn't have died...
He clutched at the sheets on the bed he was lying in, almost ripping them. Suddenly, his phone rang. Chris saw it was his brother and decided to answer:
Chris: Yes?
Bill: Hey, man... Where are you? Wanna come tonight for dinner?
Chris: Sorry man... I... I can't. I'm at the Empire Arms, downtown. I just can't be around people right now...
Bill: You don't have to go alone through this, Chris! We're with you, as always! Hey, screw dinner! Do you want me to come and pick you up? Let's go to San Francisco for a week, like we did when you were in college, remember? I'll just take a week off from work and you know, start the healing process together with my baby brother.
Chris: Sorry, Bill.. I just... I love you, bro.
Bill: Me too, Chris. Hey, if you need anything, call me! I'll come right away.
Chris: Thank you, bro...
San Francisco was one of the most beautiful memories in Chris' mind. Chris studied Management at Vanderbilt and once, in his freshman year, his older brother came to Nashville and picked him up for a tiny little trip which ended in San Francisco. It was the only time he really had fun as a young man. Now, he is just staring again at the ceiling. After a few minutes, Chris closes his eyes, but opened them again almost instantaneously. He didn't want to sleep, because he would dream about Robert. Nor he could. He was just waiting for the dusk to set in and go the Asylum.
A few hours later, Chris Collins looked at his watch. It was 20:14. He entered the Asylum. Inside the club, the same lethargic music and atmosphere as the other evenings. The bartender said:
"You're Chris, right, chief?"
"Yes, I am."
"Jeanette said to tell you she is upstairs. Take the elevator."
Chris nodded and went straight for the elevator. Upstairs, Jeanette was sitting on her desk, checking her e-mails on the computer. She said without even raising her eyes from the desktop:
"Hello, pumpkin!"
"Hello, Jeanette."
"I assume the funeral took place?"
"Yes. My boy is... buried at the Hollywood Cemetery."
"Good. Isaac's ghoul will take good care of him, don't worry!"
"Isaac's... ghoul?"
"Ah... Well..."
She invited Chris to sit on the bed. Jeanette left her computer and joined him.
"When you say vampire, you probably think about those monsters from movies and video games, right? Dracula, yes? Or Twilight, if you prefer gay vampires."
"Well... I don't really know much about vampires. I mean, I read Stoker's book and..."
"Ha, ha, ha! We, vampires of the 21st century, are nothing like that. We use computers, mobile phones, we keep in touch with the latest fashions, if you're Toreador, of course. Some of us even have Facebook accounts!"
"Toreador?"
"The... artistic vampires. Some call them the snowflakes of the Kindred world but they are veeeery wrong! The Toreador can fuck up with your mind almost as well as us, Malkavians. Except they are subtle about it."
"I remember you said you are... Malkavian."
"Yes, I am. We, Malkavians, are... a bit different than the others."
"Different? How?"
"Well... We are crazy. All of us! Each and every one of us is mad."
"So... if I become a Malkavian, I will be mad too?"
"Indeed, pumpkin, but the great part is that your mind will be opened to the Cobweb and its secrets!"
"Cobweb?"
"Yes, the Cobweb. I told you yesterday that Malkavians are mentally linked with one another. We call that Cobweb. Or the Madness Network, as those stick in the mud Ventrue call it. We call it simply: Cobweb... or Tapestry... or Weavery..."
"So, if I become a Malkavian, I will be able to read another people's minds or what?"
"Mmm, maybe, but that's a different power. You'll learn everything soon! I'll teach you!"
Jeanette winked and caressed Chris' cheek.
"So... How do I become a... vampire?"
"Now, about vampire. We prefer to use the word Kindred. As for the Embrace, because that's what the... procedure is called, it's very simple. You see, I need to drain you of your blood and then give you a bit of my blood and then poof! You will be reborn!"
"You will kill me?"
"Mmm... yes. But don't worry, you will wake up almost immediately, a new man into a new world."
"And... I don't know, Jeanette... It's just... It sounds too..."
"Good! It sounds very good! And besides, being Kindred will give you many boons! Now, just as a taster of the things to come, follow me to the basement. You'll love my surprise!"
Jeanette took Chris by the hand and they descended with the elevator down to the basement of the Asylum. In the center, a man was tied to a chair and had a gag in his mouth. Chris couldn't believe his eyes:
"Jeanette, who is this guy? Why is he tied up like that?"
The Malkavian Kindred approached the tied man and removed his gag:
"YOU CRAZY BITCH! LET ME GO!"
"Now, now, sweety! Calm down! Tell us your name, honey!"
"FUCK YOU!"
Jeanette winked at Chris:
"His name is not Fuck you. That would be a very impolite name. Now, duckling, tell us your real name."
"BEN... NOW LET ME GO!"
Chris' mind paused for a bit to process the man's name. Ben... Benjamin maybe? Benjamin Daniels? He took a better look at Ben and realized he was a middle aged, bald headed man, just like Detective Mann described him. Chris shouted:
"TELL ME! WHERE ARE YOU FROM!"
"What...?"
"TELL ME!"
"Phoenix, you fucktard! I'm from fucking Arizona. Now let me go!"
Chris now realized the man in front of him was none other than his son's killer, Benjamin Daniels. A thousand feelings roiled inside his soul: anger, hatred, desire for vengeance. He asked Jeanette:
"How... how did you find him?"
"Like I said, honey, we Kindred can do anything! We are everywhere and we control limitless resources! For us, finding this man was easy like stealing candy from a baby! Or crushing someone's spine."
"Tell me, did you hit a boy with your car on Sunday?"
"What...?"
"DID YOU HIT A BOY WITH YOUR CAR ON SUNDAY?"
"Yeah, I did... but, man, I swear to you, I didn't wanted to! I don't know what happened! I was driving and suddenly, my head was all fucked up... All black, all rage... I just... push the pedal down but I didn't want to hurt any kid! Believe me!"
Chris punched Benjamin in the face:
"YOU MISERABLE... HE WAS MY SON! MY SON! YOU TOOK HIM AWAY FROM ME! I'LL KILL YOU FOR THIS!"
"Now, now, butterfly. Let's wait until I transform you! Wouldn't be so sweet that your first meal be the blood of the man who stole Robert from you?"
"Yes..."
Oh, God... I've really descended to the darkness... Please, don't let the Hell swallow me... But... I...
Without any warning, Jeanette proceeded to bite Chris' neck. The man fell down and he felt his life slowly crawling away from him. He felt a combination of ecstasy and agony, intertwined into a devilish sensation that Chris felt was driving him slowly to the deepest pits of Hell. He saw his mother's face looking at him from above and then, he saw his wife, Helen.
"Helen..."
The woman didn't speak. She was just staring at him, her face unreadable. Chris felt his heart's beating slowing down as Jeanette continued to drink his blood. Suddenly, the face above changed again, into that of his son.
"Robby..."
Then silence. Cold. Nothingness.
Chris opened his eyes again. The pain in his neck stopped. However, his head was burning like it was aflame.
"Aaaargh! My head!"
"Shh, it's alright, sweety, that's what happens to all that share our blood."
Benjamin Daniels was in shock as the Embrace of Chris unfolded before his eyes. The neonate vampire was shaking, his head was pounding and, worse, he felt a gripping thirst, something he never felt before. However, other changes have happened, as well. He could hear every heartbeat in the club above, his eyes saw in the darkness of the basement as if it was illuminated by floodlights but the strangest change was the amalgam of voices he now hears, some speaking in English, others in unknown languages and dialects, all forming a maddening chorus that was even worse than the terrible headache he felt. Chris looked at Jeanette:
"What have you done to me?"
"I Embraced you, sweety! You are now my childe."
"My stomach... give me some water, please!"
"Ha, ha, ha! Silly Chris... It is not water you need, but vitae... Blood!"
"No..."
Chris saw a box that contained bottled water in one corner of the basement. Desperate, he started to drink from one, while Jeanette was laughing:
"Drink all you want, darling, you won't be able to keep it down!"
She was right. Water tasted like piss in his mouth and he vomited back.
No... I'm damned now...
"WHAT THE FUCK! LET ME GO! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE?"
The voice of Benjamin turned something on inside Chris, an unimaginable hatred. The newly made vampire approached him and started to punch him almost twenty times before biting the almost dead man's face off. The blood that now was inside Chris' mouth felt like the sweetest nectar of the gods, like liquid... peace. Remembering what Jeanette did to himself, Chris bit Benjamin's neck and he started to drink from the artery. It felt magical, so natural like he has done this thing a thousand times by now. For the first time since he was called by the police, announcing him that his sweet boy was dead, Chris was at peace. After he emptied Benjamin of blood, Chris approached Jeanette, in tears:
"I... I killed him! I killed him! I killed a man!"
"Yes, you did, pumpkin. The Beast took control for a moment, that's all."
"Beast? What do you mean by Beast? Am I now possessed?"
"In a sense, yes. How to explain... Well, think about every good deed that you've done in your life, the people you've helped, the others whose lives you changed for the better. That was the product of your Humanity. Now, the Beast is the opposite of that. It's the egotistical part of you, a violent mass of hatred and pain and repressed desires whose only wish is to take control of you, like it did right now. This is called a Frenzy."
"I was... out of control!"
"Yes, you were. Kindred frenzy when they are out of blood or when they are terribly afraid. Now, calm down and let's go upstairs to get you clean of this blood on you. I will explain everything to you in the tub!"
Upstairs, in Jeanette's bathroom, for the first time since his wife died, he was naked in front of a woman, if a vampire could still be called a woman and, for some reason, he wasn't feeling ashamed or anything. He was just sitting in the tub with Jeanette cleaning him of Benjamin's blood.
"In order to keep your Beast in check, feed often and don't start going all Freddy Kruger on people. If someone attacks you, you have every right to defend yourself but please, honey, don't start shit yourself because you will lose control again."
Chris nodded, trying to divide his attention between Jeanette and the voices in his head.
"Also, there is a matter to discuss to you... It's called politics. We have a society, you know."
"Politics? Like what? Vampire Republicans, vampire Democrats?"
"No, no, not like that. Of course, there are some vampires who... involve themselves into human political parties and all that but no... Our society is divided in sects. The sect I'm part of is called Anarchs. We Anarchs fight for the independence of L.A. from the influence of another sect called the Camarilla."
Camarilla, Anarchs, all of this sounded so strange to Chris.
"What's the difference between those two?"
"Well, Camarilla claims all Kindred in the world are part of it, so they seek to impose their rules upon each and every other Kindred out there. There is, however, one rule which both groups agree on, and that's the Masquerade."
"Masquerade?"
"Yes. It's the reason nobody else know about us. Imagine this: if people would know about us, they would kill us all. We can die, you know."
"How?"
"First of all, we can't go out in the sun. A Kindred goes out into the sun and in a few seconds, he is ashes. Secondly, fire can kill us. Brrrr, I hate it! Even when I see it I go all... ugh."
"What about... stakes? Holy water?"
"A stake it's efficient only when it gets you in the heart, and it just paralyzes you, that's all. Holy water? Now, I know some kinky things to do with holy water, but killing it's not one of them."
"Garlic?"
"No... But it stinks!"
After a few more minutes, both vampires were out of the bathroom, both dressed into pink bathrobes with red hearts on them.
"Jeanette... You said something about madness and some kind of... tapestry?"
"Yes. The Cobweb."
"I hear... voices. They speak inside my head. It's that madness or that Cobweb?"
"I don't know, honey. No two Malkavians are the same in this world. Do not think our clan to be a gathering of gurgling madmen. Well, some of us are, but not all. Others can have other... derangements."
"Such as?"
"Anything! For example, I remember a Malkavian woman who lived under an abandoned hotel in Beverly Hills who was obsessed with fire! She was afraid of it but at the same time, she was fascinated by it. I suppose she got some kind of a kick from it. Another one, a man in '67, was speaking in riddles, preaching about peace and war and the end of the world and all that but fuck, it was the Summer of Love, that shit was the norm. So, anything it's possible."
"Jeanette..."
"Yes?"
"What about... what about my brother? If now I'm a vampire... that means I won't be able to see him again?"
"During the day, of course not. But at nighttime, sure. But I wouldn't recommend. Your mortal life is behind you and your brother is part of that life. You wouldn't want to get him involved into the affairs of the undead."
"What? So..."
"We can arrange your suicide. Usually, that's the drill when someone like you, with loved ones, joins us into the night. We create a suicide scene, with body, goodbye letter and all that."
"I... My brother wouldn't believe it. He knows I am a religious man and my religion does not condone suicide."
"Ha, ha, religion... Where was God when that corpse in the basement hit Robert with his car? Right now, your only religion is the night. The night is your friend, the night is your mother, your father and your god. Right now you feel remorse but in a couple of months, you will cope with being Kindred. I will teach you the best I can, but your choices must be your own! That's the Anarch way! Speaking of which, tomorrow night, I will introduce you to the guys! Nines, Jackie, Damsel, Skelter and, of course, Isaac and V.V. You will see, we will make things easier for you!"
"The only thing I'm interested in is to bring my son back from the dead!"
"Ah, that! Like I said, it's possible but very hard to accomplish. We'll have to find someone who knows about it, first. This is why it's so important for you to create contacts in your new world!"
She had a point.
"Fine, Jeanette!"
"Come now, let's go downstairs and dance!"
"I can't dance... How can I dance when my son just died?"
"Well, you can dance while mourning your son. So come!"
"In these?"
He pointed at the bathrobes.
"Ha, ha! The guys and gals downstairs are probably too coked out of their minds to notice. Come!"
He accepted.
