Chapter 7 – Favors and Shadows

September 26, 2004 = Sunday

Upon opening the door, I saw my ghoul Brian in bed with a magazine in hand. One look at the model splayed across the two pages made me shake my head. Guys are such pigs!

I didn't even acknowledge his existence, just rummaged in my bags for a second set of clothes and showered, making sure to scour my legs clean of any residual muck. After the shower, I didn't bother brushing my teeth, and just dried myself off. Stepping back into fresh clothes, I was about to open the door when I heard Brian open the main door.

"Brian, what happened to Dennis?" It was a female voice, high and soft, and I paused for a moment to figure out what was going on.

"He got killed, Sharon," Brian said, "I got a new boss, now."

"You still got the shit, though, right?"

"Yea, I got it, had to get a new supplier, so the price went up," Brian said. Damn, knew I was forgetting something. I didn't want to stop Brian from making money, money I could desperately use, but I hated being locked up in this crummy bathroom! What was that smell, anyway?

"I only got forty," she said, her voice whining.

"Maybe we could, uh, work something out," she said, her voice still high and soft. Could vampires still vomit?

I waited for several long minutes, hearing nothing. I hoped Brian had the presence of mind to take his fun elsewhere. After five minutes, I eased the door open, and immediately regretted it. Brian and Sharon were in the bed, a pile of clothes beside it. The motion the cover was making left no doubt what was going on, and I felt uneasy, even if I had a measure of protection as I held his leash.

Seeing as they weren't noticing me, and hoping I could silently slip away, I decided to try and check my emails. The Mac-like screen was easily accessed and took me right into my email. I had only one new email, from a Lacroix. The name tickled my memory, and then it struck me. The Prince! The email said that a sample of werewolf blood had been acquired and was at the Clinic and needed to be retrieved immediately. I was also told to put it in my mailbox when I was done.

Looking over at my ghoul and his customer, I wondered how well I could sneak past them. I was supposed to be a master of shadows after all. I reached a hand out to the shadow, and pulled on it. To my surprise, I felt the drain as if my strength were kicking in, and the shadow became tangible in my hand, like a dark, inky blanket. Wrapping it around myself, my intro-vision kicked in, and I could see normally. I started to creep to the door, not attracting any attention. I eased the door handle around, and opened the door. The creak of the door drew Brian's attention, and I unwrapped the shadow around me so he could see me leaving. He nodded, never stopping the festivities with his well-endowed customer that kept her boobs jiggling while I slipped through and closed the door, letting go of the shadows as I did. It was interesting, molding shadows like that, and I grinned as I headed out the door. Knowing that the best way to keep my head attached was to satisfy the Prince, I decided to get the blood first.

At the end of the alley, I stopped. One thing I was bound to run across were locked doors at the clinic. Even the offices were locked. I didn't want to go around spreading wanton destruction, I needed a better way. Heading left, I decided to check out the pawn shop I lived over to see if it had anything that might help. Once through the door, I went to the guy behind the counter.

"How's it goin'? You, um, lookin' to buy or sell or..." he stammered, eyes glancing up and down. As if I had to guess what he was staring at?

"Hey, I need a way to get through locked doors," I said, trying to sound cheerful.

"Alright," he said, as if waking up. "Got a set of lockpicks, all wrapped up like a Swiss Army knife," then he pulled out the picks and set them on the counter along with a magazine that seemed to detail how to use them. "Everything you need to start picking doors like a pro."

"How much?" I cooed, hoping it wouldn't cost too much.

"A hundred."

Wow! So much for locked doors. I thought about trying to do this without them, but the memory of the lock snapping was what finally brought my money out of my bag. I couldn't afford to keep replacing clothes after every fight, and needed to get smarter. Tucking the picks into a pouch on the outside, I started to read the magazine as I went out. Fairly easy stuff, most of it was just a matter of holding down the pins in the right sequence, which if you turned the knob a bit and jiggled the pins up and down you'd get the right sequence and open the door. The accompanying picture illustrated the point, and now I knew why keys had that serrated look.

Great!

Feeling hungry, I stopped at the street and looked around, finding a few hookers looking for customers. I put the magazine away in my bag and walked up to them, deciding to ask the blonde for her services.

"Hey honey, looking for a date?" she asked, running a hand around my waist and playing with my backside.

"Yea," I said, then stuck my bottom lip out in a mock pout, "but I'm a little short of cash."

The hooker bought my story, and with an 'aww', led me down the alley. When we rounded the corner, I pushed her up against the wall, and kissed her. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around me, and I kissed my way down her cheek to her neck. Once my lips met her neck, I let my fangs extend and sank my teeth into her neck gently. She moaned as my fangs pierced her skin, her body bucking against me in pleasure. I drank her blood until it thinned, then pulled my fangs out and licked the blood off her makeup covered neck. I looked at where I fed, seeing only the barest hint of a bruise, and decided that I would drink this way from here on. No sense in leaving hickey's everywhere. I let her collapse to the ground, then felt her bra for money. Finding the familiar square, I reached in and pulled it out, counting out a hundred bucks, and put that in my bag.

Walking down the alleys, I came upon the side of the clinic, then deciding I needed to practice my lockpicking, went to the rear entrance. Kneeling down, I pulled out the picks and selected one that would fit, and did like the magazine taught me. It took me a few tries, but soon the handle turned fully, and I opened the door. Now I just had to find that blood.

Up or down? Well, the blood bank was listed as being downstairs, evidenced by the sign pointing down the stairs, so I headed down. The blood bank door itself was unlocked, and an attendant was waiting inside a glass booth.

"You next up for the needle? Your donation could save a life, you know," then he shook his head, an impish grin on his face. "Oh, but itsn't it a little late for altruism? I don't think you're here to buy blood at all. I bet you're here to take blood. Am I right?"

"You offering, ghoul boy," I snapped back. I hated to get caught off guard, but ghouls were hard to spot without tells. That grin didn't disappear off his face, though.

"Right down to business. None of this pretend I don't drink blood shit. Very refreshing to find a decisive customer. I respect that. So, what'll it be."

"How about werewolf?" I asked, hoping as a ghoul he'd know about it. Maybe this would be easy.

"Werewolf? Listen, Betty, ain't no Kindred going after one. We're not that stupid," he spat back.

"The Prince sent me down for a bag of it. Apparently some tabloid sent it here to be tested, and I have to get it before that can happen."

"Oh, well you'll want the top floor then. That's where the testing is done," he said, as if we hadn't just had a fight.

"Great, thanks," I said, and turned and walked away. Well, at least I knew where to get blood if I couldn't find a neck to bleed. Though, I think I'd rather take it fresh than bagged. I went back up the stairs, to the second floor, but the door here was locked. I knelt by it and began picking it, easily getting the tumblers right and the door open. This was so easy I might even become a professional thief.

Once inside, I crept along the wall, the low illumination helping to hide me in the shadows. A guard on patrol came out into the corridor, looked around, and then turned to walk deeper into the building. Just great, I needed the run of the place, and now I had security to deal with. I paused for a minute to decide how best to handle this turn of events, but knew I was forced to play the monster. He was going to die. I couldn't let the werewolf blood be tested, not with the Prince monitoring the situation.

I waited in the shadows, as the guard came back around. I then stretched a hand into the shadow, willing them to start moving. The shadows came alive around me, and the guard jumped back as one shadow took form in front of him, and made to jump at him. He landed badly, his half-drawn pistol skittered away. I then pulled on the shadows again, blanketing him in darkness. I could hear his muffled scream as the cloud enveloped him, then nothing. I walked over and picked up his gun, tucking it into my bag, as the inky cloud dissolved. The guard shivered once as he lay on his side, then lay still.

I knelt by him, checking his pulse to find it gone. He was dead. I had killed him with my shadows. I turned him onto his back to find his eyes still wide in terror. I ran my finger over his eyelids to close them, and then pulled the keys from his shirt pocket. The nearest door was marked CIS, and the guard's keys unlocked it. Inside was a computer, and not much else. Well, that was a waste.

I walked around, ducking when I found a few glass windows being watched by a camera. I looked at the camera while slinking back into the shadows. With the guard dead, I knew the cops were going to want to watch the video footage on this floor. I continued on, finding a door marked security. I unlocked it and eased it open, finding it unoccupied. It did have the security cameras, and after looking around sat to the computer. It was easy hacked, as almost all the keystrokes filed in the system were of camera 1, or camera 2, and optometry. Really, they couldn't do better?

I hacked in, and accessed camera 1, which was something called the controlled substances and deactivated the camera. That also kicked on the other cameras, which according to the various CCTV screens weren't in important areas anyway. I went back out, and found the door for controlled substances, which was about the only other door up here. It was locked, and after several long minutes with the tumblers, finally opened the door. The cabinet was also locked, and needed some kind of access code to open.

I leaned against the cabinet, and thought about it. There had to be a way past it. I looked at the computer pad, and decided that the best way to check the offices again. But where? I remembered the computer behind the door marked CIS, which usually mean Clinical Information Systems. Stuff you knew when you worked in the medical field, or was going to like I was.

I headed back into that office and accessed the computer, the computer easily hacked open. I was going to have to remember to thank my friends in high school for teaching me how to find passwords in the keystroke files, then remembered I'd have to kill them after. I was really starting to hate these Traditions. Who were we anyway? Anatevka refugees?

The menu was pretty straightforward, listing a door and a safe. I accessed the safe, and unlocked it. The computer acknowledged the request, then told me that the camera had been turned on for my safety. Nice to know, and since I knew where the camera system operated out of, I was going to erase that thing before I left.

I went back to controlled substances, found the cabinet door unlocked, and rummaged through it to find the werewolf blood. Once I had it in hand, I stashed it in my bag, then closed the safe. Hoping no one found it suspicious that it was unlocked, I went to the camera control system in the security room, then pulled up the footage. I was just about to think the camera was busted when I saw the safe open, but I never showed up on camera. I began to think about that, then figured that since I was robbed of my reflection, anything that required one to work, like modern cameras, were useless against me. Maybe an old, old 1850's style tintype might get me, but who even knew how to operate one?

Well, if I could find one, I'd learn if I could see myself again, at least to know how bad a hot mess I was looking.

I pulled the tapes that the system operated on, stashing those in my bag as well, then left the scene. I needed to get this in the mail to the Prince, so I went back to my mailbox. Once I had the blood in, I locked it back and went up to my apartment. Sharon and Brian should have been done by now, and it was soon going to be dawn. I didn't even knock, and opened the door to find a still naked bimbo and ghoul on the bed with a rock in a crack pipe to her lips, while Brian lit it for her. They jumped when I walked in, Sharon dropping the pipe in the bed with them and giving me a dirty look.

"Wait your turn bitch!" she spat at me.

"Brian, if you're done playing with her you can show her out," I said, not even trying to look at her obviously enhanced bust. I didn't need this drama this close to sunrise.

"Who do you think you are!" She shouted.

"His boss," I said, keeping my cool. "And if he's still peddling his rocks, he's not showing you shit."

"Got something better?"

"Ask Brian, he's on it," I said, nodding to my ghoul.

"Brian, sweetie," she cooed, "What's it like."

"The best energy shot you'll ever get. Like being on fairy dust and X at the same time. One hell of a kick though, and it lasts too, like a month," he said, rubbing his manhood. "I swear, I feel stronger, better than ever."

"What's it take to get a hit of that?" she asked. I stood at the entrance to the kitchenette, eying the growing light outside, not sure if I wanted the bimbo for a ghoul. If I did, it'd be for the money she'd make me. Like, what was I supposed to do? Get a job? The Prince would laugh his fangs out.

"Three grand," I said, finally naming a price. If she could come up with that much, she might be worth it.

"But that's like," she started, then she stopped. "Take anything besides cash?"

"Cash only," I told her. "You have nothing else I want."

"Great," she muttered, starting to slip her clothes back on. Brian stayed leaned up against the wall, and I swear I was missing something. One look down and I felt uneasy again, but I sure as hell didn't want to show it. I was supposed to be in charge here.

Once she was dressed and out the door, I checked my remaining clothes. I had enough clothes for one more night, and decided to try sending Brian out to wash my clothes. I took the pad from the desk, thankful it had a pencil in the drawer, and started writing out instructions for Brian on how to wash my clothes. Once I had it done, I noticed a fancy embroidered card waiting on the desk. The initials on it were MJS, and I read it.

"At your convenience, please come and visit me in my home downtown. I leave this to guide you. Dark blood, our curse, a light this verse. Such power I sense in one so young, come find me where burns the mystical sun. M Strauss, Tremere Regent."

"Brian, who brought this?"

Brian who had finally slipped his pants on, stood up from the bed. "Some creepy guy, made my skin crawl. He was definitely Kindred and said to make sure you got that."

Well, I couldn't head downtown until I blew up that warehouse, so he was going to have to wait. I stashed it, along with the security tapes in the drawer, then stashed my messenger bag under the desk.

"Brian, I left you specific instructions on how to wash my clothes. See to it that they all get washed before I wake up."

"Yes, mistress," he said, grimacing. Probably thinking he was going to have to hold my bra in public. Well, he could man up.

The sun must have been rising, cause I was tired. I stepped into the bathroom and spread the blanket in the shower stall. Once I had my "bed" made, I started to strip. I actually had the towel wrapped around me before the first yawn, and made myself comfortable sitting in the corner. Leaned up against the wall, I let myself fall into sleep, hoping the next night was better.