Janette woke up in a preoccupied mood, and much earlier than she would have preferred; however, she had to be ready to open the Raven that night. Additionally, she had a pile of paperwork to go through and a delivery was to arrive that she had to make sure was complete this time. Though some of these mundane activities were bromidic, at least she was where she wanted to be, for the moment. Unlike the more nomadic vampires, she preferred to stay in one locale and not move on constantly every few years or so. Staying, Janette felt like she was rooted and that gave her a sense of stability, an essential sentiment considering the instability she often experienced when she was caught between Nicolas and LaCroix.
Responsibility finally drove her out of bed and she headed to the en-suite to take a quick shower. She stepped into the tub and turned on the shower head, adjusting the temperature until the water was warm. Janette reached for the shampoo and snapped open the bottle, wrinkling her nose at the horrid odor that assaulted her. Her current toiletry color theme was pink, so she had pink shampoo, conditioner, and soap. All of these products were apparently supposed to be strawberry scented. Janette shook her head in disgust. She knew what strawberries were supposed to smell like and that could not be found in these pink objects, which reeked more of chemicals that emanated from vinyl plastics than the fruit pictured on the packaging. Undeterred by the false advertising of these items, she quickly finished and then attired herself for the night, choosing a black form-fitting dress to wear. Janette went over to her vanity table with its oval mirror, sat down on the short stool, and worked on her hair and makeup. From one of the side drawers in the vanity she pulled out the earrings she had decided to wear that night and put them on. She admired the jewelry, each a string of multiple round Tahitian pearls, their dark charcoal gray color with silver overtone complemented her complexion. These she had recently received as a gift from Nicolas. He would drop off gifts like this for her when their drifting lives brought them in close proximity to each other, and occasionally there would be more from him than just the gift. Sighing wistfully at those memories, she put on a little more makeup until she was satisfied. Janette finished by attaching her black ribbon choker around her neck and donning her long, black opera gloves. Rising, she left her suite to go into the back rooms of the Raven where the bottles were securely stored, the key to open the barrier gates hidden within her glove.
As Janette claimed a clean wine glass from the cabinet, she experienced the increased shifting and stirring of her hunger. Unlike LaCroix or Nicolas, she had no intention of delaying the satisfaction of that particular need. She knew of no reason to taunt the craving, that insistent drive to seek out sustenance from human blood which would eventually override any other concern she had until she fed, and every reason to quickly end it so she could get on with her night. Janette went to retrieve a bottle and poured a glass of her current favorite vintage. Unlike her maker, she did not necessarily miss the hunt. There was the thrill of the pursuit and final capture, which was exciting and made the final kill more exhilarating, she had enjoyed that part. However, for so many centuries in the past, she was often wearing clothes so cumbersome that much of the pleasure was lost as she tried to move in those restraining garments. Even when the most restricting pieces were left off, moving and hunting was still not always easy. Bottles were definitely less problematic with fashion, and quicker.
Janette brought the glass to her lips and allowed a small amount of the thick red liquid to flow into her mouth, then roll down her throat. A wave of relief and pleasure washed over her, almost like an immediate reward from the vampire now that it was being fed, and the whispered promise of more if additional blood was provided. She drank more from the glass and noted that the sharp craving had begun to subside. As she experienced the limited memories and emotions embedded in the blood, she felt a small portion of her mind, like a tiny thread, that attempted to reach out to the mortal whose blood this was and make the mental contact. The thread would never connect, the donor being too far away, so Janette ignored it, knowing this would fade. She took another sip. That was one experience she did miss from drinking directly from a mortal, that mental connection that was achieved that allowed her to have the mortal pour their whole existence into their blood for her to partake in, and for her to share with them. To experience the individual and be that person for as long as the blood flowed, that within the time of the feeding embrace she was completely alive and experiencing a whole life, that was not possible with bottled blood, which was only a very small part of their existence and no more. And she could not share herself with them. As Janette drank the last of what was left in the glass she thought of Nicolas. With the animal blood he forced himself to drink there were no memories or emotions that could be experienced through the blood, nothing beyond the most basic and primitive. Janette was sure that was one of the reasons Nicolas felt so isolated and alone: he never let himself connect, share, and experience life, fully experience life the only way a vampire could. He was unattached, which was an unnatural state for their kind. Carouches possibly also felt separated, but she did not concern herself with what the lower forms of vampires experienced.
As she walked to the front of the Raven to open the doors for the staff and the first early patrons of the night, she heard the others that stayed the day in the guest areas of the club moving about. By the end of the night, some of those would leave, others would stay a little longer in the safe sanctuary she had created here, and a few new ones would arrive. That was the familiar pattern that had been occurring here for years. Janette would talk with all of them, but that was for later. She admitted Miklos and the others, then left them to prepare; each knew what needed to be done and she needed to check on the delivery that was to arrive soon. She hardly had to wait very long at the back of the club before the delivery truck arrived, inconspicuous, with no business markings on the sides. There was nothing to indicate that bottles of human blood were transported within. She inspected the delivery, confirmed the order was complete, signed to accept the shipment, and turned her back to the truck as it pulled away.
She looked at the delivered items. The donors for most of these bottles were told their blood would save lives. Well, that was true, Janette mused. The blood would not be infused into a mortal, but imbibed by a vampire. Because of this option, her kind did not have to hunt and kill to sustain themselves. So in the end, mortal lives were saved. Janette always made sure the donors from every bottle she served at the Raven were not local, so no vampire would be tempted to seek out the mortal and fully complete the donation.
Meticulously sorting through the bottles, she first put aside those to be served at the club. The next set organized were the special custom orders her more discerning clientele requested. A phone call to each would let them know their bottles had arrived and then these would be couriered directly to the client. The last one she handled was a dark hexagon-shaped bottle. This vintage was for LaCroix: the donated blood of a poet. As she read the label a knowing smile played across her lips; this was one of her maker's current favorite poets, who voluntarily donated his blood sporadically. The collector working at the donation center would have known this, would have been told by her supplier to watch out for this one, and would have made sure this poet's donation went to the bottle instead of the hospital. And later tonight, she would personally hand carry this to LaCroix's broadcast booth before his show started. She had her staff begin the phone calls and put the bottles in the back rooms while she went the club area to check on the preparation and patrons.
Already the club had a number of vampires ordering their meals and a few mortals were drinking as well. A disturbance at the front door called her over. Janette stood there looking at some young mortals who were irritated at being denied entrance to the club when they had seen others their age permitted in. How was she to explain that the ones they saw were actually over three hundred years old. She did not bother, instead simply hypnotized them into leaving and not coming back. Sometimes the easiest solution was the best solution to the problem.
Returning back inside, Janette handled the patrons as she did every night. As the time came closer for her to leave, she sought out Miklos, put him in charge, grabbed the bottle for LaCroix, and headed over to the radio station. After leaving the item, she decided to check on Nicolas before returning to the Raven, knowing at this time he would still be at his home and not immersed in his mortal world.
Landing silently on the roof of her beloved's warehouse, she glanced down through the skylight and saw that he was sitting on the leather couch, a green bottle of animal blood clutched tightly in his hand. Janette watched as he leaned forward like he was in pain, and her first response was to enter the room and help him. But she stopped herself; she knew he would not want that, that he was not in physical pain, but mental. Her knight was fighting with his personal dragon again; he was fighting with his vampire. Nicolas would not welcome her help or her recommendation, which would be to accept what he was and drink what he needed: human blood. She could coax him, and out of love for her he would eventually drink some, but he would resent her afterward and Janette knew she did not want to endure that again. So she stayed on the roof enduring, in silence, his suffering.
A short time later Nicolas was done feeding and was cleaning out the bottle in the kitchen area when Janette felt it: the deep, strong, pulsing vibration that told her LaCroix was nearby. She turned and watched him rise and land on the roof not too far from her. She warily studied him, trying to determine if her maker was here to hurt Nicolas or not. Both scenarios were equally likely. But what she was picking up through her link with her maker was concern for Nicolas; she relaxed. He was here tonight for the same reason she was: they each missed the younger vampire.
She saw LaCroix look down the skylight into the loft and a look of pleasure crossed his face. Janette returned her gaze to Nicolas and saw he was now sitting at his piano, ready to play. She was pleased as well; she enjoyed hearing him play. LaCroix sat down and beckoned her over. She sat in his lap rather than directly on the dirty roof, holding her maker's hand while Nicolas' fingers struck the piano keys to bring the instrument's strings to life. Janette remembered in the past having listened to him practicing, fumbling and constantly correcting himself, trying so hard to get better. Despite her suggestions at the time, Nicolas had refused to feed from accomplished pianists; he had said he did not want to use another's acquired talent but wanted to work on finding and creating his own. Nicolas had needed to prove that he could learn and produce something without involving his vampire abilities, something that would last beyond the few hours the mortal blood, and the mortal's talent, would have remained within him. She had also suspected he had needed a way to express himself that, even with all the languages he knew, no spoken words could. Janette had never heard this particular ordering of notes from Nicolas before, but she recognized the overall feel of the music. She had heard him play like that for her over the centuries: he was playing the sound of love. When he finished and the last living note quivered then finally died, she knew the time to leave had arrived. Nicolas was often quite unaware of his surroundings, and paid as little attention to his link with his maker as possible, but if he knew they were both here he would be irritated. She gracefully rose and LaCroix went his way while she headed to her club.
Back at the Raven, her night proceeded as usual. Janette would sometimes be behind the bar, sipping a vintage every now and then, as she watched and guarded her territory. Châtelaine of the domain she had built. So many times in the past she had not been able to hold onto anything for herself, but this modern era had been beneficial to women, allowing her control of her life in ways not possible before. Often she would leave the bar stroll around the crowd in the main area and the smaller rooms, where she made sure everyone was taken care of and that no one was being mistreated. Janette did not tolerate abuse of any kind in her club, whether the action was directed against a vampire or a mortal.
Many patrons routinely listened to the Nightcrawler and throughout the night she would often hear snippets of the show on the radio playing in one of the back rooms and tonight was no different. Needing to retrieve a bottle from the storage racks, she listened to the various pieces of dialog from tonight's broadcast as she walked past. Looking into the room, she was not surprised to see Alma with Mark in a mixed group listening intently, as they often did together, to LaCroix's lecture.
"-Death chases you, and when you stop running or trip, that is when Death falls upon its prey, finally claiming what was always its own, something you simply borrowed for a while but had to return. For a rare few, Death does not reta-"
Returning with the bottle safely in her arm, she walked past the radio on her way back toward the bar.
"-is part of you. Cessation literally defines you. You are expected to die. It is your fate, your destiny. And there are many means for your destiny to be fulfilled."
After Janette had handed the bottle to the bartender, she glided past a few young vampires and overheard their boasting conversation and immediately escorted them into an empty private room. They were very young and wanted to try out their increasing strength against one they thought was weaker: her Nicolas. She aggressively encouraged them to leave Nicolas alone. With a hiss they left her and Janette hoped they would not pursue their idea. Nicolas, she knew, was often seen by other vampires to be strange because of how he chose to live and feed. He was sometimes treated like a carouche and thought to be weak like one as well. They did not understand that Nicolas would kill them without hesitation if they attacked him or anyone important to him. She did not want him to do that, hurt their kind, which would make him feel even more isolated and separated. That, in turn, would make it harder to convince him to return: return to her; return to LaCroix; return to his true nature; return to his own kind. She went back to the bar area to mingle again.
It did not take too long before Janette found her thoughts wandering back to Nicolas again. She looked forward to the times he would come to see her, not for his mortal police concerns, but to see her. Sometimes he simply needed to be near her, sometimes he needed to talk to her, and sometimes he needed her understanding and her silence. Nicolas had been randomly coming to the club in the late evening during his vacation time, and she hoped he would come in tonight as well. She could already imagine him, just like so many times in the past, sitting at one of the smaller tables and letting the other vampires flow past him while he would stay aloof, an unmoving stone on the fringes of their society. He would let her come close, but no other. Then no doubt, just like so many times in the past, too quickly he would vanish and leave her alone in the Raven. Though the club would be packed with mortals and vampires, he would not be there anymore. Janette would wait for him; that at least she would always do for him: wait until he decided to come back, back however much he was willing to come. Janette shook her head in exasperation over what to do about Nicolas and the turmoil he unknowing caused in her because she cared so much for him.
She continued to play hostess throughout the evening, interacting with the regulars and new individuals, and those who would spend the daylight hours here before moving on again. But even in the bar area, Janette could still very faintly pick up the radio broadcast, the sound of her marker's voice something she would always focus upon. As with all offspring to their maker, she would naturally respond to it, seek it out, and pay attention to its cadences. She concentrated on that voice, and all the other noises in the club faded away while she listened.
"Trust in me, Zander, a single whisper can taint the blameless and exonerate the corrupt. Such words are, therefore, really only an illusion, with no substance whatsoever."
She was just beginning a conversation with a new vampire who had recently arrived to the city when she cocked her head to one side. She had felt an odd intense vibration resonate through her link with LaCroix, but the sensation had subsided. Since the feeling faded quickly, she knew there was no lasting danger and returned to her conversation. No doubt the feeling had something to do with Nicolas.