I felt very nervous. Talking to Jack had made me realise exactly how much of a pawn I was, and I couldn't help wondering what Nines Rodriguez' motivations were, in saving my life. As a total stranger to him, it seemed to make more sense that he was keeping me alive just to make LeCroix angry, but maybe, as Jack had implied, he was one of those people always looking for someone – anyone - to save.
I was deep in depressed thought as I entered the upstairs lounge, and didn't even notice the girl in the doorway yelling at me until she barred my way with her arm.
"Hey, where'd y'think you're going?! Sabbat chase you in here, Cammy?"
I was confronted by a female vampire who looked in her early 20's: taller than me and very red. She had a shoulder-length red bob, very red lipstick against her pale skin, and wore a white t-shirt with some kind of red and orange Communist-style propaganda icon on it. Her eyes were smoky with makeup, framing pale green irises. She wore cut-off combat pants with red Converse and an olive beret with a red enamel star in the front. Her expression and tone of voice were angry, and she allowed her fang teeth to protrude over her lower lip.
"Nines Rodriguez is expecting me." I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. This woman looked more than capable of beating me up. She looked me up and down disbelievingly, becoming visibly angrier when she saw the Playboy bunny t-shirt.
"Uh uh." She shook her head. "I don't think he's interested in talking to some little Cammy skank."
I glanced past the barrier of her arm. The upstairs lounge was more open concept, and was dominated by a large table heaped with used ashtrays, open cans and half-empty glasses. A space had been cleared for large pieces of paper, and I could see Rodriguez and a couple of other guys seated round the table, poring over what looked like a diagram.
In spite of my nervousness and desire not to provoke conflict, I started to get quite angry. "If you think you know I'm part of the Camarilla, then you'll also know I owe Rodriguez. He told me to meet him here, and I intend to." My last words were almost a hiss, spoken through gritted teeth.
The woman's eyes narrowed and she seemed about to launch into a tirade, but at that moment, Nines looked up from the papers and saw me. Immediately he pushed back his chair, nodded to his companions and strode towards us.
"Damsel, quit giving the newbies a hard time." He told her jokingly as he reached us. She removed her arm from my way, and he reached out, drawing me past her. "You showed up. Good." He said, sounding a little surprised. Damsel gave me a death look behind his back, and slouched back into her guard position, muttering angrily.
The two men who had been sitting with him were up and leaving, one catching my shoulder as he pushed past me. He was tall with a shaven head; skin the colour of dark chocolate. The vampiric brightness of his eyes as he glared back at me was very unsettling. A meaningful look passed from Rodriguez to him, and he averted his eyes from me.
"Don't mind Skelter," Nines indicated for me to sit down, and then followed suit, "him and the rest don't like anyone working for the Cam. They'll come around once you give LeCroix the heave-ho." He put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his interlocked hands, giving me an evaluating stare.
My heart sank. Tonight seemed to be the night for me to give all the important people in my existence bad news. I sighed and tried to explain. "I still have to work for him. When those Sabbat beat me up, they took this laptop he loaned me. Now I have to work for him 'til it's paid off. I don't think I have a choice."
Rodriguez snarled and shook his head in disgust. "Fucking typical Camarilla bullshit. Motherfucker is so rich he wouldn't even notice losing a laptop, but now he's got leverage on you, you can be goddamn sure he's gonna use it."
I opened my mouth to whine about how LeCroix had used domination on me, as well as the physical intimidation of his bully boy, but then I remembered why I was actually here.
"Thanks again for saving my life so much," I stammered, "you know, if there's anything I can do to pay you back, just say the word." Vampires don't blush, but I could've sworn I was flushing to the roots of my hair. I felt very tongue-tied around him. This was the first time I'd been in his presence without being in immediate danger of dying, and I was very conscious of his extremely male charisma. People throw the word machismo around in a denigrating way, but when you meet a man who has it for real, it can be pretty intense.
He frowned. "Best way you can help right now is to listen close, and when the time comes, get the fuck away from LeCroix and don't give that asshole the time of night. Here's what I got to tell you. And so you know, I don't lecture, I don't rap, I'm no bureaucrat. I'm just a guy out of nowhere stuck in something 500 times bigger than you or me…" with that he did launch into a bit of a lecture about the Camarilla being a pyramid scheme: their endless intrigues, mandatory membership, and strict laws. I listened politely, but felt like I already knew how terrible they were: after all, I was the unwilling slave here, not him. My mind wandered while he started talking about Elders (vampires older than a thousand years), and I mused over Jack's words. Possibly Nines wanted to help me because he'd once been in the same situation: sireless and at the mercy of some long gone Camarilla prince.
I must've looked a little day dreamy, because his voice turned sharp as it cut into my thoughts. "You better be listening, cos I don't repeat myself."
I snapped back to the present guiltily. "Sorry. I just find all this hard to take in: so the Camarilla are sort of vampire old money capitalists and the Anarchs are like anarchist revolutionaries?" He nodded. "But where do the Sabbat fit in?"
He shrugged wryly. "Original anarchs way back, but they fell to the Beast. Fucking fanatics: stay away from them, newbie."
Exasperated by all these politics and only half understanding what the hell he was saying, I rubbed my eyes wearily. "Look, bottom line: I don't want to be part of anyone's Game." It was hard to stop myself pleading, "Please, how do I break free from the prince? I just want to be free to go my own way." Now I was pleading for real, feeling a swell of desperation at the thought of having to do more tasks for someone I already feared and disliked. Overcome by despondency, I bowed my head until flanks of pale hair formed curtains around my face, shutting out the world.
There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of the music from downstairs. Eventually I heard Rodriguez sigh thoughtfully. "Kid, if times were different, I'd say come on over and tell LeCroix to go fuck himself, but," he paused, seemingly searching for the right way to say things, "we aint in a position to help you 'til you can help yourself. I might be able t' convince people to fight with you, but they sure as shit aint gonna fight for you, understand?"
I balled my hands into fists, unable to look up. "Sure, I understand. It's all about fighting. I hate fighting," my thought struck me as funny all of a sudden, and I glanced up with the ghost of a grin, "probly cos I suck so bad at it."
He returned the grin. "After picking your ass up off the pavement back there, yeah, easy to see you don't know shit." Straightening up in his chair, he seemed to come to a decision. "But that's one thing we can do: teach you the basics. Newbie, you just signed up for some lessons in kicking ass."
Rodriguez looked up at the clock on the wall. "But not tonight. Come back tomorrow, round two."
I nodded and mumbled a thank you. This seemed to conclude our meeting, so I stood up and prepared to leave.
"And for fuck's sake, stay out of trouble. I've got my eye on you kid."
True to his word, I felt him watching me as I walked away. Damsel hissed at me as I passed, but I ignored her and walked down the stairs. Jack wasn't in sight, and I was still getting a bad vibe from the rest of the clientele, so I left as quietly as I could.
Once outside, I felt better: even a little hope is a marvellous thing. I was still alone and destitute, but at least I wasn't friendless. I started walking aimlessly, and then it struck me: I had no haven. No apartment, nowhere to hide from the sun.
So there I stood, at 4am in downtown LA, with nowhere to go and no money or possessions other than LeCroix's cel phone. I looked around listlessly, turning over my options in my mind. No money meant no hotel; hostels or shelters were out of the question since they would chuck me out for the day; and I didn't feel confident enough to break into any abandoned buildings right then – maybe when I knew the area a bit better. I weighed my choices as I walked without purpose. Finally I stopped beside an underground parking garage. I could hear the hiss of air vents going through it.
An idea formed in my mind, and I wandered more purposefully round the corner into an alley way where the vents met the surface. There were iron bars stopping off the vents, but by exerting a little more than regular strength I managed to twist them off. I crouched and peered into the vent. It seemed to go far into the depths of the parking garage, and it looked like it was wide enough for me to crawl through.
Looking around to check that no one was watching, I ducked into the vent and started to crawl along it. My shoes shuffling on the aluminium seemed very loud, and I could see chinks of light from the spaces underneath. The smell of petrol (gasoline for you North Americans) was overpowering. Before long, the vent started to dip and twist to the lower levels. I followed it down and then lay against its floor. Peeking close through the cracks in the segments I could see a car below me. There seemed to be no chinks to the outside world, which made this as good a place as any. I turned onto my back and curled myself into a ball, staring at the metal only a foot or so above me.
"Welcome to LA." I whispered to myself bitterly and closed my eyes.
I knew I was dreaming, but that didn't change anything. Rolling dark clouds streamed over me at impossible speeds, deep thunder booming around me. Lightning crackled, but its source was not the clouds. My eyes were drawn to the figure of the man on the hillside: a black silhouette surrounded by a corona of energy. He was far away, but zooming closer. With horror I realised that I was approaching him. His eyes and mouth were caverns of sparking light, about to devour me.
"…You…" The deep reverberation of his voice followed me as the dream faded.
I jerked awake, kicking the side of the vent so that it echoed and shivered. Everything looked exactly the same, but I could tell that a day had passed. I felt very dusty and disoriented crawling back out of my hideout. Once outside I whacked some of the dust from my clothes and thought about breakfast. It occurred to me that I had a busy night ahead: back to do a deal with Larry; try to find the Tremere chantry; and fighting lessons with the leader of the Anarchs. And questions, I had a lot of questions for people. Everyone wanted to tell me about the politics, but I needed to know about more basic things like memory loss and dreams. Oh, and whether there was any way to survive as a vampire without having to constantly be fighting.
By this time I was headed in what I hoped was the direction of Larry, looking around for someone to drink (it didn't feel appropriate to consider Larry as a breakfast option).
Breakfast was a gangbanger sucking on a crack pipe in the alley leading to Larry's van. The drug made his blood a bit fizzy, and I felt slightly light-headed as I walked away, but it was better than nothing. Looking up at the narrow corridor of stairs between the buildings, I giggled and thought how much fun life as a vampire could be if there were no secret societies to deal with.
"Well, if it aint my very own Cleo-pat-ra Joones." Larry seemed to have eyes in the back of his head as I approached the van. I looked closer, noticing the advantageously positioned mirror. Smart man. Then I mentally flushed as I recalled changing shirts. Very smart.
