Disclaimer: Not mine or ever will be.
My thanks and gratitude to leakey_lover for coming to my rescue and not letting me trip over my own words.
Now, shall we continue where we last left off?
Gloom settled upon the rock cell.
Time passed without witness from any watch or clock, and House lost track of time. He scratched at his shaved cheek, surprised that there was no new stubble.
He checked his pocket and discovered his phone was missing. Either left behind in the limousine, or more likely keeping Wilson's company.
He was completely cut off from the outside world.
His jailers stood at attention on either side of him, hands clasped in front, legs slightly splayed, motionless. The flickering flames from the torches hanging on the walls gave the illusion that the guards were breathing, but they were not.
House's head snapped up when rumbling filled the room. The door was opening. Sliding on a metal track and disappearing into a panel, revealing a granite hall that went on for miles before vanishing into the Adirondacks.
Just as he began to lose interest in this latest floorshow, House heard distant footsteps coming down the corridor, striking the hard surface with the regularity of a timepiece.
Peering into the dark, he watched and waited. He could make out a black pinprick in the dark, and it was growing larger.
The speck grew legs, a head, and wings, metamorphosing into a thing. The wings proved to be a cape, and the thing emerged into a man. Eventually the man was close enough to sprout features. The face was young, with black eyes dominating white skin, sculpted and shadowed by high check bones and a thin determined mouth. The visage brooded under heavy brows.
"Wilson?"
House barely recognized his partner. He looked so young.
The golden flames from the torches warmed the black eyes to brown. The lanky vampire's feet hardly touched the floor in his haste to sit next to House.
"House, I'm sorry. I didn't know the review committee changed plans at the last minute. Have you been waiting long?"
"For a while, but Kutner and Taub here have been entertaining me with an underground tour of Manhattan." House should have known Wilson was loyal. He ran his fingertips down the sharp planes of the waxen face. The man before him looked even younger than twenty-three. "So this is exactly the way you looked the day you were turned?"
"Um, if I lose the cape and drink ten pints of blood."
The lazy eye migrated toward his nose as Wilson paused, and made a decision. He dug into a pocket and brought out a couple of Vicodin. "Here. Swallow."
"But my leg is fine."
"Do what I say," Wilson hissed under his breath as he quickly looked around him. The guards hadn't moved. He lowered his voice. "The pills are a precaution. The medication will taint your blood, making it…less palatable.. Take it and don't argue."
"Oh, hello, little guys. Missed me?" House ingested them whole.
Wilson looked anxious. "We'd best be going."
House tilted his head toward the muscle. "Are the Olsen twins coming with us?"
"No, and stop with the names. They're members of the Borgia's elite Nosferatu Guard. You do not want to piss them off."
Wilson stood up and gestured for House to do the same. Spinning him around, Wilson was once again behind House's back, grasping him by the the waist
A cool breeze raced under House's skin and the next thing he knew, he and Wilson were standing in front of majestic double doors guarded by two more thugs. Music and voices could be heard coming from the other side.
The guard glanced at Wilson's invitation, passed it to his colleague, nodded, and opened the door.
Sensory overload smashed House in the face. He was on a landing with a balustrade overlooking a ballroom half the size of a football stadium. The towering walls and ceiling were covered with Renaissance murals. The floor inlaid with multicolored marble created a parquetry pattern.
People dressed in a kaleidoscope of colors and fantastic costumes that spanned centuries of fashion strolled by, chatting and laughing. Most were sipping from gem-encrusted golden goblets. Some looked tipsy as their eyes flashed red and silver.
Wilson's eyes nervously strayed toward the end of the cavernous room where the Nosferatu performed bouncer duties, escorting a protesting vampire struggling toward another door directly to the right of the gated one he just came through.
Stiffening, Wilson bit his lip and said nothing.
A beautiful woman dressed in a tall powdered wig and an extravagantly embroidered gown stopped in her tracks before House, her eyes shooting appraising silver sparks as she winked and bared her fangs. Wilson immediately placed a hand on House's shoulder and rolled his upper lip, allowing his own sharp ivories to show.
They stared each other down until House heard a deep bassoon voice announce, "Vassali James Wilson and his minion, Gregory House.
The woman skulked away.
Wilson relaxed and let his fangs retract, steering House to the stairs without a word, but House was annoyed to be outed in public as a minion.
"What was that about?" House demanded
"Until you are announced as under my protection—"
"You mean singled out as your minion."
House spat "minion" as if it was a dirty word. A joke between them was one thing, but he was no man's property.
"I repeat, until you are announced as…my, er…plus one, you are free-range meat-on-the-hoof to any vampire at this ball."
"Then what was the Vicodin for? This shindig's already giving me a buzz."
Wilson was upset. "As, an added precaution. In case I'm n-not around to protect you."
But he quickly regained his composure. "That's the Borgia's rules, House, and when we're his guests we play by them."
House accepted the explanation. He had no interest in being anyone's happy meal this evening—except Wilson's.
Having no idea where they were going, he followed Wilson weaving through the crowds. "And what's all this about Vassali? Vassel? What happened to doctor? I prefer Dr. Minion."
Wilson stopped and revved up into lecture mode. "House, can't you be serious for one minute? There's protocol." He lowered his voice and barely moved his lips. "Why the hell do you think these people care about medicine? They're not going to die. They're undead. And as far as Vassali is concerned, that's my title and rank in La Fam—"
"Doctor Wilson, Bubbe!" A loud sing-song voice broke into Wilson's diatribe. A short, balding, chubby man with a glowing red nose beamed at the two of them. He was swaying, and the contents of his chalice threatened to spill all over his immaculate white shirt and tails.
"My lord Irving." Wilson bowed from the waist.
"My God! Irving!? From Irving's House of Magic?" House was incredulous. The worst magician on the Eastern seaboard was a vampire, and Wilson was bowing down to him as if he were David Copperfield and Criss Angel rolled into one.
"House, shut up and bow." Wilson gritted through his teeth.
House did a double take. Wilson was a stretched guitar string tonight.
Irving waved away the tribute. "Now, now, Bubbeleh, for five hundred years I got respect. More I don't need. So are you enjoying yourselves? Did you get yourself a drink?"
"No, my lord. We were heading over there now."
House noted Wilson's mouth said one thing, but his eyes concentrated on something else. They kept flickering over to the gated door, a light-year away from where they were standing, but his attention returned to the old vamp as Irving began to speak.
"Good. The Godfather's staff presented particularly sweet vintages this year." The short speech reminded the prestidigitator that his goblet was still full, and he swallowed deeply, allowing a contented burp to escape his lips.
"So, I hear you're scheduled for an audience with the Borgia tonight. That's quite an honor, unless, of course, you've fallen into bad habits and he's planning to throw you into the Hell Pit. Which is it?"
Irving was laughing at his own joke, but the oncologist turned whiter than white.
"I-I don't know, Prince. I just found out when I arrived. You wouldn't happen to know why?"
"Me?! A small-time putz like me know what the Borgia has in mind? Just because we grew up in the same town together, albeit I lived on the wrong side of the tracks, or umm, I mean, cartwheels…in the ghetto….
"Sorry, Bubbe. I'm not privy to that information." Irving looked like he was making a condolence call, then brightened. "Say, are you enjoying yourselves? Did you get yourself a drink?"
"No. We're heading there now, my lord." Wilson shot House a sharp glance to keep quiet. This time they both bowed as they made their getaway.
House grabbed Wilson's arm and stopped him in the middle of the teeming throng. ""Clue me in. Is this a vampire ball, or a mad hatter's tea party? What's going on between you and His Royal Highness Irving?"
Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose. "He's getting old. It's complicated, House."
"Try me."
"You heard him. He's known the Borgia Prince since they were kids—"
"Bambinos," House supplied.
"Fine. Since they were bambinos together. He's a loyal subject and has risen up the ranks to the title of 'Prince.' One rung below the Godfather."
"Not that Irving would remember," House said.
Wilson looked around before he answered. "Some vamps begin to lose their faculties after five hundred years. All the more reason to be on your best behavior. If it gets back to the Godfather that we showed disrespect to a fading lieutenant, he'll take it as a personal affront. You can get your head chopped off at these events if you don't show proper regard."
"What about all these thugs? What are they here for? Chopping off heads if anyone goes Don Rickles? They can't be for decoration." House began to raise his arm and point them out, but Wilson quickly wrapped his own hand around House's fingers and gently moved the arm down.
"Seriously, can we discuss this later? We'd better go to the fountain room and get our drinks. The Godfather will be disappointed if we don't."
House did not move, but stared intently at Wilson.
"Please House, this is important. Let's just get this next part over with, then we can talk."
With a curt nod from his minion, Wilson opened a path through the undead so they could make their way to an adjoining room.
The fountain deserved an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most grand and grotesque bar on the planet.
An ornate structure of gilded bronze constructed by some demented Michelangelo filled the back wall. Liquid cascaded from slits near the ceiling twenty feet above, filling and overflowing basins decorated with horned and split-tongued cherubs, mixing and recombining until all of it collected into a pond below.
The liquid was fresh, bright, and red.
Nosferatu guardsmen manned stations every few feet, filling the endless supply of golden goblets, sometimes from the bottom pool, sometimes from one of the basins above.
House tried to decipher who received what.
"It's by status and rank," Wilson explained, picking up on the silent question. "See the insignia pins most of the vampires are wearing?"
Blue eyes scanned the crowd. House saw circles, bars, and exes. Some, like Wilson wore none.
House said, "You're a vassel."
"Right, I'm on the bottom rung," was Wilson's stolid reply. "The purer and rarer blood types are reserved for the upper echelon." He pointed to the slots near the ceiling. "All the different blood types, with or without antigens, and a few favored non-human types as well."
Wilson's skin was turning from white to green.
Before House could ask what minions were given to drink, Wilson whisked a glass of champagne from a passing tray and handed it to him.
"Expressly stocked for…bleeders."
Straightening his shoulders as if about to face a firing squad, Wilson stepped forward and received a brimming cup of warm blood from which a wisp of steam rose. A small thread of drool leaked from the corner of his mouth, but his tongue snatched it back. He grimaced and wrinkled his nose as he took a small sip.
This behavior was fascinating to House.
"You don't like it? It's blood." House narrowed his eyes in skepticism. "What do you think you've been drinking at home? You know I'm not a juice box?"
Wilson nibbled at the rim of the cup, siphoning another taste while trying not to gag.
When he regained control of his autonomic reflexes he shrugged. "You're different. Drinking yours is like swallowing the…essence of you."
"That's one word for it," House said dryly.
Wilson forced a third of the scarlet liquid down his throat as House surveyed the other vampires. While trying their best to look nonchalant they could barely control themselves from licking their bowls as they quaffed serving after serving. Several looked glassy eyed and glutted, while newcomers swarmed in with red, glowing, hungry eyes, but not House's vamp. House seemed doomed to spend the night watching Wilson force down the contents of one miserable goblet.
Getting impatient, House saw Irving returning for seconds or twelfths. He was sure the magician couldn't remember. At the right moment, House jostled Wilson's elbow and the chalice tilted, slopping the remains into Irving's cup as he walked passed.
In blissful ignorance, Irving continued on his way.
"Wha—what do you think are doing? I'm supposed to drink all of it."
"Yeah, well life's too short, even for undead you. Show me around this joint," ordered House.
Wilson placed his empty beaker on a tray. The men returned to the main room and walked around the perimeter.
Wilson was a little calmer as he pointed out celebrities from the vampire world. "He's the prototype for Blade."
He went on to explain the pins and ranks, and about the state rooms.
"We're not in Kansas anymore. This certainly isn't the Waldorf-Astoria," House stated.
"Yes, it is. Well, virtually."
The crowd thinned as they neared the two doors at the end of the ballroom. Wilson's attention began drifting again and his fingers began to twitch. He was watching the gated door as another vampire left, this time unescorted and under his own power.
"Wilson, snap out of it. Give me a yes or no." House demanded.
"Virtual like virtual sex. Can't tell you much. Only what I heard.
"The Godfather purchased the old Waldorf-Astoria before it was demolished and cast a spell on the rooms, preserving them outside reality and redesigning them according to his taste. He invested in the new hotel as a silent partner, giving him rights to use the current one as a portal into the old. You might say the current Waldorf-Astoria is a beard for La Famiglia Della Rosa's main headquarters."
Wilson raised his hands in the air as House threw him a dubious look. "Hey, don't look at me. You saw for yourself how crazy the rooms are. After accepting the fact that I'm a vampire, I shouldn't think a virtual building would be that difficult for you to understand."
Wilson flashed another skittish glance at the two doors.
"You're behaving like there's something worrying you behind those make-believe doors," House voiced his observation.
"Virtual, not make-believe. You should certainly know the difference. Our sex isn't make-believe." Wilson's planted his hands on his hips.
House shook his head. "You're right, it may be out of this world, but it's real. So what's behind doors one and two?"
Wilson hunched his shoulders and slipped his hands into his pockets, not making eye contact. "The gated bronze door leads directly into the Godfather's study. The second goes to the Hell Pit.
"You might have noticed, most of the vampires have been escorted to the iron door and not allowed to rejoin the members in the ballroom. Rumors are rampant that the Borgia Prince reviewed the membership and is cleaning house.
"My audience is scheduled in a few minutes. When it's over, I'm expecting to be chaperoned to the other door," Wilson said with a quiet and resigned voice.
"As soon as they come for me, find Irving and ask him to help you get out of here."
House reasoned, "You haven't done anything wrong."
A choked breath escaped from pursed lips. "But I haven't done anything right. Like you always say, 'can't fly, can't turn into a bat.' Can't do anything. Can't choke down one glass of the Godfather's vintage blood, for God's sake.
"I've only been invited one time before this, as my sire's novice, but never had an audience with the Borgia Prince." Wilson's voice became soft. "This can't be good, House.
"That's why I didn't want you to come, and gave you the Vicodin to safeguard you if I'm not around. House, promise me you'll leave as soon as…."
Wilson stopped talking.
House looked to see what caught Wilson's attention.
Two burly sentries were bearing down on them.
tbc…
Thank you for reading. Any comments always welcome.