Chapter 4: One Night Only
Grey found himself sitting in a beach chair. It was appropriate enough, seeing as he was sitting on a beach in the middle of the night. It was very dark out. The only source of light was in the sky, a single bright red star. There was not even a pale shadow present where the moon should be, there was only the star. As Grey watched, the light grew. It was coming closer, very fast, incredibly fast.
He dug his fingers into the wooden armrests of the chair and tipped his gaze back down to earth. The tide was rising. Icy water was pooled around his feet, so cold Grey could feel it biting into his dead flesh. He couldn't remember the last time he actually felt cold.
Grey sat back, and the creaking of his chair was thunderously loud in the silence. The beach, he realized, was utterly still. There was no dull roar of waves in the distance, no angry hiss of surf forced to withdraw from the sand. The voices were silent as well, which meant only one thing.
"This isn't real," Grey said.
"Very astute," a man's voice said.
It came from above and behind him. The speaker was standing just behind his chair. Grey knew that voice, he'd heard it the night of his embrace. He didn't look up. He heard the rustling of fabric as the speaker knelt down. When his Sire spoke again, his voice was right beside Grey's ear.
"Look, Grey."
Grey drew in shaky breath, he wanted to say no, but it would not change anything. He could only watch whatever he was shown, unable to look away until whatever sent his visions decided he had seen enough. The star was growing nearer, casting everything in red. Grey pressed himself against the flimsy canvas seat. It wasn't fair. He never asked for this. He didn't want to know.
"Look," his Sire said, more insistently.
"There's nothing to see," Grey said.
The water was rising, the cold has spread halfway up his legs, but something was wrong. He felt cold, but not wet. Grey looked past his lap. What was pooled around his legs and rising to engulf the chair was dark as pitch. As Grey watched, then tendrils of shadow rose to quest blindly up his legs and to his chest. The cold spread, the darkness grew bolder. It touched his face. Grey turned his head away and closed his eyes, but not before he saw that it was all around him. He wasn't sitting on the edge of the ocean at all. The light was growing brighter still, he could tell even with his eyes closed.
"Look!"
A hand fell upon Grey's shoulder, he whipped around.
Damsel recoiled in surprise. "Jesus!"
The beach on the Abyss' edge evaporated. Grey was sitting in a plush theatre seat, not a wooden beach chair. He no longer felt cold, only frightened, and the only shadows were the ones found naturally in the dimmed house. The voices were back too, they rose as one in a chorus, welcoming back into a din of many conflicting statements, laughter, sighs. They faded back to their normal buzzing, never completely gone as long as he was in the real world.
The Nocturne Theatre, that's where he was. He remembered now. Court had been called abruptly, and all Kindred of the city were respectfully requested to attend. Respectfully or else, though the call had no included those words. Such was the supreme arrogance of the Camarilla. Grey had arrived with the other Anarchs. They were sitting around him now, all staring at him with concern.
The familiar faces helped to firmly plant him back in reality. Damsel was right behind him and half out of her seat, still tensed as though she expected him to snap at any moment. She moved back to sit in front of Nines as soon as it was clear Grey wouldn't. Skelter and Nines. Skelter, Grey knew, at least understood a fraction of what he suffered. Nines he wasn't so sure about, but had seen the candor of his soul many times before. Grey loved that little talent, or he did when he remembered to use it.
Grey took is sunglasses off and his surroundings lost the yellow tinge from the lenses. A quick glimpse saw Skelter's bitter aura made it appear as though the color of his dark skin had bled out in a pale halo around him. Nines' was more complex, the compassion and grim determination ever present, but now steaked to show his concern and dark blue. Grey didn't know what dark blue meant.
"You okay?" Nines said.
Grey nodded.
"Looked like you zoned out again," Skelter said.
"It looked like you were gonna tear my fucking head off," Damsel corrected him.
"Keep your voice down," Nines said.
Grey looked away from them to the rest of theatre. There were at least a dozen other Kindred scattered throughout the seats, and the more than a few of their heads turned away a little too slowly as he looked to them.
Grey looked to his lap again, sparking an unpleasant memory of the vision.
"My mind wandered," he said, his voice trembling. "But it's safely hobbled now."
"Good," Damsel said. "Cause it looks like the show's about to start."
The house lights dimmed further. Scattered murmurs of conversation died away, a few people hurriedly changed seats, and those that were still eyeing Grey in hopes of a better spectacle turned their attention to the stage. Grey dug his fingers into his pant legs as he looked ahead, deciding the best way to spite those that stared was to maintain his composure.
Two Kindred stepped out on to the stage, both carrying bodies. They placed their burdens in the stage's center- two more Kindred, both Nosferatu, both staked. The crowd stirred, the theatre suddenly hissing with whispered conversations and murmurs of surprise. Grey put a hand to his temple, the voices were urging him, very loudly, to look around.
"What the hell is this?" Skelter said.
With some hesitation Grey focused, pitching his vision far beyond the human norm. The shadows in the far corners of the auditorium lost all their secrets, but all he discovered of note were cracks forming in the walls and Jack leaning against one of the pillars. Grey looked back to the stage, his vision still heightened. He was fairly certain that the sewer rats in the spotlight were the only ones in the building, unless perhaps the others were somewhere in the rafters. It was strange, either way, to not see at least one of the city's Nosferatu out in the open just for show. Grey bit his lip, but said nothing. The din in his head died down shortly after the crowd fell silent.
A massive figure moved on to the stage, but it was only Grey's imagination or hallucination that the room shook with every step. The trench coat the Sheriff was wearing was a complimented the ashen gray of his skin. The coat looked suspiciously like it was fashioned from the skin of an elephant, while the Sheriff looked much like a nightmarish, eight foot tall African albino, red eyes and all. The sword on the Sheriff's back was even more impressive, easily the length and breadth of a person. Grey had never seen it off his back, and he was glad for that. The light gleaming off the blade was bright enough to hurt his eyes, so Grey looked away, letting his gaze inadvertently slide to the staked Nosferatu. The royal whipping boys that had brought them in were tying their hands behind them.
He recognized the first Nosferatu as a woman- or woman shaped thing, at least- named Josie. He knew little more about her than her name and her sad penchant for revealing clothing. Grey had never noticed the rose tattoo on Josie's left breast before, but his heightened senses and wandering eye showed him far more than he wanted, like the horribly cracked skin just around her bra. He broke spell of horrified fascination and forced himself to look elsewhere. The second Nosferatu was a man, one that had inherited Josie's teeth and pointed ears, among other problems. Like Josie, the unknown had no shirt on, showing off an impressive physique marred by numerous boils.
From the corner of his eye, Grey could see LaCroix- the pretender, the jester, the self-appointed Prince- move on to the stage. He was distantly aware of him speaking, but by then his attention was fixed on the scars on the male Nosferatu's chest.
There were three small raised lines high on the Nosferatu's chest, their placement very familiar to Grey. He remembered, years ago, back when he still breathed, and that a friend of his had been stabbed in those same places.
LaCroix's unwelcome voice filtered in through the memory trying to unfold, the present stubbornly trying to keep hold of him.
"It's unfortunate," LaCroix said. "That the affair that the affair that gathers us together this night is a troubling one."
The stakes were removed from both Nosferatu, and soon the hapless male childe was able he was staring back at Grey. Grey blinked, forced his vision back to normal, and the scene unfolding on the stage lost its preternatural clarity. He looked away from the stage and to his lap. What he seen was a coincidence. The look on the Nosferatu's face… Well, their expressions were hard to accurately read.
While LaCroix rambled on about the permission to sire, Grey's attention drifted away back to that memory of Dave. He hadn't thought about it- or any of his life- in years. He and Dave Kim had shared an apartment together for years, and so Grey had been there the day staggered home covered in blood. He'd been stabbed three times, courtesy of the boyfriend the girl he'd been dating had neglected to tell him about. The boyfriend went after Dave as soon as he was out of prison, and once reports were filed and Dave was taken care of he went right back.
The scars from the stabbing never went away, and Grey had seen them every time Dave insisted he 'check out his pecs' along with the veins that stood out in his arms. As many times as he had seen them, as many times as he had rolled his eyes when Dave said he could have the same if he could just leave the computer for two minutes, Grey had to remember.
"Look what you've done," another familiar voice said. It came from right beside him, close enough to knock him back to the present, if not reality.
Grey looked over. He was growing tired of people appearing out of nowhere, but who he saw in the next seat surprised him.
He was sitting beside himself, which was the only way to describe it.
"You're supposed to stay in the mirror," Grey said, trying to keep his voice low to avoid attention.
The other Grey shook his head, as if he just didn't get it. His other self looked almost exactly like him, only- and Grey his hand up to compare- not quite so pale. His eyes were different too, but in a way Grey couldn't quite place. He understood then. He was looking at the old Paul Grey, the one who had to answer to the first name on occasion. Paul had been lost the night he was embraced, at least up until now.
"You're missing the show," Paul said. He turned back to the stage.
Grey followed his gaze and saw that, in all his preoccupation, he had missed most of the Prince's little speech. It was time now for the sentence, he could tell by the tense current running through the room. Grey had known long before what was coming. He'd known it when he'd seen the sad little nest through the water, and he'd known it when he'd told Therese. He hadn't considered he would be present for the consequences.
The Sheriff took the sword from his back and slowly moved towards Josie. She began to struggle, but the goon in street thug regalia nudged her with his boot to force her down. The Sheriff raised the massive sword easily with both hands. Grey turned his head to avoid watching Josie lose hers, only to be faced with sight of who he used to be again. Paul was sitting on his other side now, and when their eyes met he smirked.
"You've traded two lives in exchange for one little favor," Paul said. "Nice one."
Grey looked away from Paul and back to the stage. Josie's decapitated body was rapidly crumbling to ash. Her childe was staring at the mess in horror, the fashion victim goon behind him still holding him upright by the neck. LaCroix was slowly moving towards the doomed little rat, talking all the while.
"Without a sire," LaCroix said. "Most childer are doomed to walk the earth never knowing their place, their responsibility, and most importantly, the laws they must obey."
"Forget that," Paul said. "You know him."
"No…" Grey whispered, unable to look away from the stage now. "The odds are too-"
"This is bullshit!"
Nines was on his feet, his face twisted into a snarl of rage. Damsel and Skelter were up an instant later, both trying to restrain him. Paul had vanished, but Grey could hear his laughter receding in his head. While Damsel and Skelter held Nines back, other Kindred in the audience were getting to their feet. There was whispering, even shouting, and most of it was in agreement with Nines. Grey was too bemused to stand, he looked back to the stage and saw LaCroix ponder the situation.
"If Mr. Rodriquez would let me finish," LaCroix said. He began to slowly pace the stage again. "I have decided to let this Kindred live."
Grey could see many interesting things in LaCroix's aura. He'd never seen such a shade of anger before.
"We're leaving," Nines growled. When Grey looked up he was already moving down the row. Skelter and Damsel followed close behind him, but it was Damsel who paused and looked back to him.
"You coming or what?" she asked.
Grey glanced back to the stage one final time, accidentally catching the Nosferatu's eyes. As LaCroix brought the meeting to a close Grey stood and hurried to catch up to the others. He told himself with every step that the doomed creature on stage could not possibly be Dave.
