Chapter 6
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The ballot keepers voice trailed
off as she and all of the Venture watched their prince stand, and stare at her
with marked intensity.
"Do you wish a recount my prince…"
To call a recount of a Venture
vote was unheard of. It would insinuate corruption in the noblest tribe of
kindred. The ballot keeper along with the candidates' proxies had been
picture-perfect Venture ever since they had been embraced. He could not
question their credibility, and yet he had been so sure.
"That will not be necessary.
Congratulations Victoria." He nodded stiffly to a small woman who looked to be
of South East Asian decent, who averted her eyes accordingly.
A stifled sigh of relief escaped
the assembled, and Julian returned to his seat.
The Ballot keeper slammed down a
gavel, and announced the meeting adjourned. The Venture quickly filed out of
the room keeping a wide breadth around the Prince. Finally only Julian and
Sonny were left. Julian looked at the pin straight back of his Childe. Fear,
disappointment and anger seemed to radiate off of him.
"Sonny."
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Night
had already consumed half of the twilight, when Loral finally awoke. She pulled
her self out of the sleeping bag that served as the bed in her new one room
temporary residency motel. (The night before she had decided not to take her
chances with the bed that smelled of some unnamable sin.) It was close to the
heart of town, had a great view of the parking lot, and was priced ridiculously
low. Apparently the last occupant who no one could seem to remember had left in
a hurry, but all the paper work was taken care of, so she had signed the lease
and moved in. Well, moved in was a relative term, besides the P. A. system and
her bed role, the only personal belongings she had left were a couple of
clothes, and her foot locker. They were all she needed though.
She
stumbled sleepily into the bathroom, and ran some water into the sink. The
spotted and cracked mirror in front of her didn't do her unremarkable features
any favors, but she didn't care. It felt like the four walls were strangling
her. She would have much rather been on the road heading to parts unknown, but
the truth was she needed a place to stay a while until she could ……
"Until
I what?" she asked herself out loud. It was a question that had been nagging at
the back of her brain for the last week. "Until I make sure Sasha is okay. I
promised." She answered resolutely herself.
The
reflection in the mirror sneered back at her, and seemed to ask exactly how she
was going to do that with out landing face down in the bay. The thought brought
a chill to her mind, and demand of her dread. Sasha was in some bad juju. A
week of officially being avoided and unofficially being her shadow had made
that perfectly evident to Loral. The reflection relaxed its sneer and took on
an air of sad resignation. Loral looked carefully at herself, summoning up all
her strength, but the stare of her own dull green eyes was starting to frighten
her. They seemed to be crying out 'Just
leave girl! Just walk away. Before its too late.'
With
white knuckles gripping the sinks edge she thrust her head into the slowly
filling basin.
Finally the need for oxygen pulled her out of the water, but the face
that greeted her in the mirror was not the one she had awoken to. Wild eyes
that didn't comprehend the reality that surrounded them stared out of a panic
torn little girl's face. Blood and soot covered her cheeks and fell heavy in
her hair, and behind her in a sea of night a huge bonfire lit up the sky. Fear
grief and anger radiated through the mirror, and the girl began to speak.
"The
truth Loral. Why did they do this? Why did this happen? The truth is so close.
Find it."
"NO! I left you behind. Why can't you just
die with them! That's what you wanted." Loral could feel the heat, hear the
fire. The chill in her mind blazed and boiled.
"I
wanted to die, but I lived, you lived Loral! Now find out why."
"You
don't exist anymore. I put you away. Leave!" Loral screamed the last word. At
the sound the crack gave way and the mirror fell into the sink, shattering
below the shallow water.
She was not going to let this
happen to her, nothing nobody was going to screw with her life anymore. Loral
stormed back into the main room, threw open the footlocker and grabbed her
knife. She ripped it out of the sheath. It was a foot long bowie made of
Damascus steel. It had a serrated back, a razor edge, and a grip of soft
leather, soft as skin, worn from use. The blade filled her with the need to
fight. Her heart was racing, her eyes darting looking for anyone anything, that
might reach out at her. Shadows swarmed in her mind and the dark room, Form
somewhere above her came thudding and behind her was the sound of water
running, the pipes belched and groaned. Her breath panted in the warm air. She
waited in the darkness.
But nothing came.
"What am I doing…?"
Loral's legs collapsed
underneath her. There was no one there but herself. The knife slipped form her
hands, and lay idle on the floor. Tears came to eyes.
"I'm going crazy."
Loral shuttered and stood up.
The locker across the room was still open. Out of it a silvery disk shined on
the top of her various belongings. She grabbed it and shoved it into the P.A.'s
head. The music finally came on, flooding the apartment with screaming guitars
and reverberating base. Loral sighed, letting the music fill her body, waiting
for her heart beat to synchronize. Her muscles relaxed a bit. She let the music
carry her about the room, dancing, jumping, thrashing. She found her self in a
fighting stance. Her own shadow loaming indifferently on the white wall served
as a sparing partner. For an hour she battled with her dark reflection,
punching, kicking wrestling. The fight was a dance, and the dance a fight. She sighed as the CD came to an end.
Music was therapy.
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Leaning against the wall of the
corridor Cash considered the stream of Venture that flowed by him. They seemed
particularly gossipy today, but none of them, not even the ones he was on good
terms with would venture a glance his way. His status first as a Gangrel and
second as a Primogen had denied him entrance to the Ventures clan meetings, but
usually the Harpies would fill him in on all the juicy details, before
spreading the news to the other clans.
At the very tail end of the procession came the prince. His
face was ashen, and Cash knew something went horribly wrong at the meeting.
"Cash, I will be holding court tonight, in tomorrow night's
stead. Tomorrow we will be going to Biltmore offices, to pay the new Primogen a
visit."
"Understood." And he meant it in so many ways.
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From her vantage point on top of the Haven's roof, Sasha
watched as Cash and her Uncle got out of the limo. They seemed so small and far
away, so unreachable. She sighed. The cold bay wind blew through her body and
out across the city. She wanted to join it, and fly away form the nightmare of
her life.
The night she had been embraced Cash had brought her to the
city's edge. The bay wind had been to their backs as they had ridden the high
roads and over passes. By Kindred law she should have been killed before
sunrise. A mortal embraced against the prince's will was a threat to the
masquerade, but Cash had saved her at least until Eddie took her under his
protection.
Her hair caught a gust and flung itself over the edge of the
building. Red curls bellowed like a wild fire. Far below her lay the dark
street, which stood as the new boundary between Gangrel and Brujah hunting
grounds.
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If Sasha hadn't been on the
rooftop, she wouldn't have seen the fight, and her life might have been all
together different, but she was. She watched the group of five people on the
Gangrel side shadow two on the Brujah side. She watched as the five darted
across the street and pounced on the two, She watched as the two were pulled
off the street into the darkness of a Brujah ally. She watched, and something
deep with in her understood what was happening.
Without thinking she abandoned
her rooftop, jumping down the fire escape two floors at a time. She hit the
ground and her body moved with impossible speed. First one block then the next smeared by. The street wasn't used
much that's why it had been chosen as the boundary, but she kept to the cold
shadowed cement. Building after building passed as blood rushed in her useless
veins. She gave the wind a run for its money.