REVELATIONS
by Soledad
A "Pathways in the Dark" story
Part 10 of "The Toreador Chronicles". Follows "Kindred Spirits".
For disclaimer and background information see the Introduction.
Rating: Adults only, please. This is a particularly violent story, so be warned.
Author's notes:
Once again, I broke the story into smaller parts, to make reading easier. This is a direct continuation of Revelations, Part 2. There will be much talking and little action, I'm afraid, but sometimes talkative parts are necessary for the understanding of the bigger picture.
"Free Fall" Fontaine is a character borrowed from the excellent Vietnam War series "Tour of Duty". Allison Maller is very different from her canon version; she was modelled after Peta Wilson's character in "La Femme Nikita". Sergeant Sanchez was a regular character in the police series Adam 12 (new version). Cherubim aka Miranda was a returning villain in "Poltergeist – The Legacy", although with a slightly different background. I love all these shows and wanted to keep some of my favourite characters to play with them a little.
First, Alain called the Barofsky Research Faculty for Haematology – a medical institute for blood research, led by Brujah scientist Dr. Takura Shiraiwa, also serving as the only Kindred clinic in the city – where he was told that Dr. Gloria Martinez was already on her way to his house, thank to Peppone's earlier call. Then he called Victor Girard to tell him about the most recent "Sabbat incident".
Victor became very agitated, as expected… and rightly so. The "Shepherds of Caine" was a rather vicious Sabbat pack, and Yitzhak was their pack priest. Plus, when one Sabbat pack had managed to infiltrate the city, there could be more. Aside from the ones that had already dwelt there for some time.
"I'll give a city-wide security alert," the Toreador Primogen said. "And I'll inform Angelus. He needs to know. Can we hold the crisis meeting in your house?"
"Sure. There's enough room in the big atelier. And I'd prefer to remain in my own haven tonight. I've healed already, but I feel still a bit shaky. Yitzhak has grown very strong since our last encounter."
"Diablerie can do that to a monster," Victor commented dryly. "See you in about half an hour."
The first one to arrive was Gloria Martinez, some twenty minutes later. The small, lovely Latino woman quickly and efficiently cleaned up and examined the sleeping Brian – including his most private areas, applying some healing salve to the mortal's torn and bleeding anus – and gave him several iron shots to even out the blood loss.
"You should be more careful with your toys," he warned Alain. "Humans are fragile, compared with us."
Alain rolled his eyes at this typical neonate tendency to lecture those who were centuries older.
"It wasn't me, Gloria. He had the bad luck to pick up a Sabbat in a gay bar."
"And weren't you supposed to watch over him?" Gloria asked pointedly. The concerned manners of a doctor gave way to those of a smart street kid that she once had been. The one who'd tracked down Salvador Garcia, confronting him with the news that she'd figured out he was a vampire.
"I was," Alain replied pointedly; she was a Brujah, and not so long ago she had been an Anarch, too; two very good reasons not to raise her ire. "Which is the reason why he's still alive."
"And what's the reason of him being severely anaemic?" Gloria asked with a frown. "He's not injured."
"Yeah, but I was," Alain said. "He saved my life. I only took as much as was necessary for my survival, but… I had severe wounds."
"So he knows what you are," Gloria frowned. "Did you make him forget? Planted a believable story in his mind?"
"I can't. He's a resistor."
"Then you'll have to Embrace him. Or to kill him."
"I'm most certainly not going to kill him," Alain replied coldly. "Sure, I'd like to Embrace him, but in the end, it's his decision."
"Hmmm," Gloria seemed amused. "What happened to protecting the Masquerade, no matter the costs? I thought you were devoted to Camarilla laws."
"I thought you were Camarilla, too," Alain riposted. "Besides, has it not always been the dream of your Sire to live and work in peace with the Kine, just like your Clan supposedly did in Ancient Carthage?"
Gloria shrugged. "I love and respect my Sire enormously, but he can be delusional sometimes. Forging a shared community with the Kine is his dream, not mine. I prefer playing safe."
"Is that why you've joined the Camarilla?" Alain asked.
The lady doctor nodded. "The rules aren't too harsh here. Even my Sire lives by them; well, mostly, although nominally he remains an Anarch… where the true power lies."
Peppone appeared in the open door, interrupting their conversation. "Alain, the emergency meeting is complete. They're waiting for you."
Alain smiled and patted the slender Italian vampire – his friend and (strictly platonic) company for the last three centuries – on the shoulder.
"Thank you, Peppone. I don't know what I'd do without you."
When he entered the atelier, which had been hurriedly turned into a conference room, Alain couldn't help but think that the people present actually were representing Salvador Garcia's dream of coexistence between Kindred and Kine of all directions.
There was, for starters, LAPD detective Joaquin Murietta: an exceptionally handsome man, progeny of a Latino father and a black mother, but also a 6th generation Toreador of Ancient Blood – incredibly strong as Kindred go. He wasn't just the Brood brother of the late Prince, Don Sebastian (diablerized by Salvador Garcia in 1944) but had also been the Prince's Enforcer and always devoted to the Camarilla.
His mortal partner, Detective Bianca Moralez, was smart, beautiful… and the biological sister of a recently Embraced Brujah fledgling, who'd found an untimely – and gruesome – Final Death not so long ago, igniting and burning in the sun in Belize. Detective Moralez was one of those mortals who knew about the existence of the Kindred in Los Angeles, and actually helped to cover their track from too nosy colleagues.
Kevin Jackson, on the other hand, a broadly built, handsome black man with a military buzz, was the leader of one of the most influential Anarch gangs in the city, the Jackson gang, while Jesus Ramirez, an expatriate of Nicaragua, represented Salvador Garcia's forces, La Hermandad. They were both Ventrue, as in LA their Clan, that in other cities usually supported the Camarilla, made up a healthy percentage of the Anarch forces.
Alonzo Guillen, an elegant, sophisticated Nosferatu with the striking resemblance to Egyptian death masks, was the right hand of Nosferatu Primogen Hawk, who'd once been the Enforcer of Justicar Petrodon, the sworn enemy of Salvador Garcia. All Nosferatu were in the Camarilla in LA, but that didn't hinder them in cooperating with the Anarch forces against the Sabbat threat.
Arthur Gonzales represented the scattered Gangrel in LA. An independent Clan ever since Xaviar had pulled them out of the Camarilla, the Gangrel had not Primogen, but the two major bloodlines had chosen a common representative from a third one that wasn't even resident in the city, to ensure his neutrality.
The Malkavians had sent Duke Fontaine, an ex CIA-agent and Vietnam War veteran, who'd been fairly crazy in his mortal days already, becoming infamous due to his interrogation methods, which had earned him the nickname "Free Fall Fontaine". He'd regularly threatened his captives to throw them off the helicopter, unless they started talking. Nevertheless, he was Camarilla, the right hand and weapons expert of his Primogen, and the guardian of the largest weapons depot of the LA Kindred – by mutual agreement.
Kyoko Shinsegawa, known as "the Scourge of San Francisco", was an elderly, fragile-looking Japanese woman – and the second-ranking sorceress of the local Tremere chantry. Camarilla, and the sworn enemy of the Sabbat for very personal reasons, she was capable of causing horrible things due to sorcery… and didn't hesitate to do so, if necessary.
Allison Maller, a pretty blonde, had been a specially trained government assassin, until Embraced by Salvador Garcia. She had her own Domain in Anaheim and was Anarch to the bone. Unlike Sergeant Miguel Sanchez, an LAPD police officer and Salvador's grand-Childe, also present in this gathering.
The Ravnos were usually quite unwelcome in any Domain, but they had a small yet not constant presence in LA. Independent clans were particularly threatened to get under the wheels in the power struggle between the Camarilla and the Sabbat, and their only hope was to find a more or less safe haven in one of the few remaining free Anarch cities. However, Jacopo Taddi was an unusually adventurous spirit who voluntarily submerged among the Sabbat time and again, with various false identities, to gather vital information for La Hermandad. He was a big, ruggedly handsome man, with an uncanny resemblance to Antonio Banderas – due to which he normally had a great effort on women.
And – last but not least – there were the representatives of the Anarch Prince of the City: his Seneschal and favourite Childe, Spike aka William the Bloody, clad in black leather and blood red silk, and Faith the Sabbat Slayer – the most disturbing vampire Alain had ever met outside the Sabbat. A psychotic, homicidal Slayer in league with evil forces and demons, who'd decided to make amends while sitting in prison, then asked for the Embrace from the former Scourge of Europe and thus became a member of the Line of Aurelius and blood bound to her Sire… The whole thing was unsettling on more levels than Alain cared to count. And the haunted eyes of the Slayer always followed him for days, even after a chance encounter.
Of course, it was Spike who broke the silence among them – he was much too impatient to wait.
"So, mate," he said, directing his words to Alain, "you said it was urgent. Speak up then."
"You've mentioned a Sabbat situation," Kyoko Shinsegawa added, her educated tone in sharp contrast with Spike's.
Alain nodded. "I've just had a run-in with Yitzhak – the pack priest of the Shepherds of Caine."
Joaquin Murietta's eyes glittered. "Yitzhak… he's a disgrace to our entire Clan. I'd love to delete him from the playground. But if he's here, the others can't be far, either. Sabbat packs don't travel without their priest. If no one else, his Childe, Sabrina, must be here with him."
"Do we know anything about the whereabouts of the rest of the pack?" Sergeant Sanchez asked.
"At least one of them has been seen in the city," Arthur Gonzales replied grimly, "Frere Marc."
"But if he is here, Cherubim can't be far, either, "Kyoko Shinsegawa said in worry. "She's the most dangerous of all – especially as nobody would suspect someone who looks like a twelve-year-old girl."
"Wasn't she only eight when she got Embraced?" Jacopo asked with a frown.
"She always looked older," Kyoko answered. "She was particularly mature for her age. Under what name does she run now?"
Jacopo shrugged. "Miranda, I think. There have been sightings in San Francisco in the recent years."
"What?" Duke Fontaine snarled, clearly agitated. "They managed to sneak into the city of Julian Luna? Into one of the most tightly controlled cities in California? That's bad news! What did she want there?"
"Apparently, she tried to find a way to infiltrate the local Legacy House," Jacopo said. "She very nearly succeeded – through the psychic child of one of the Legacy hunters."
"Clever… and disgusting," Kyoko said. "It doesn't surprise me, though."
"But if she managed to get into San Francisco, she'd have an easy game to walk into LA as she pleases," Fontaine warned. "She's one of the vilest witches who've ever lived."
"So we can assume the presence of at least four pack members," Detective Murietta summarized.
"Five," the Nosferatu corrected. "There's a rumour among our Clan that Raphael Catarari had been seen in Santa Monica. Hawk didn't want to believe it… but now I believe it must have been true, after all."
"You need to check this rumour," Victor Girard said. "Santa Monica is your review – nobody knows the hiding places better than you."
The Nosferatu nodded. "I'm working on it."
"Any word of other Sabbat packs?" Girard asked.
"The Night Crew has been in the city for some time," Sergeant Sanchez replied with a shrug, "but they are no real threat. A bunch of hot-headed Brujah thugs with one Gangrel who likes to believe that he's their leader. Besides, they don't leave al-Muthlim's Domain. I have them under constant surveillance."
"They might join al-Muthlim's gang, though," Duke Fontaine warned. "How many of them are here?"
"Only five," Sanchez said. "Tenth to twelfth generation. No big deal. I'm more worried about the reappearance of a Ventrue named Dancer. He's a psychotic transgender artist who seduces his victims either as a man or as a woman and reveals in torturing them for days before the actual killing. He was seen in one of the fetish clubs: La Lune Rouge. Lady Heather alarmed us immediately, but he slipped through our fingers."
"Was he alone?" the Ravnos asked.
"No, with a Mexican named José Sadillo. Do you know him?"
"Sadillo is a Ravnos," Jacopo Taddi said, "a Sabbat from Mexico City and an important member of the Crypt-Ticks nomadic pack. He and Dancer are usually sent forward to scout the area the pack intends to take over."
"Who's their pack priest?" Sanchez asked.
"A Malkavian named Jack Knife; a crazed killer himself," Taddi replied. "Other known pack members are a Brujah, Tony Hodo-Leatherback, formerly a professional wrestler; Leo Washington, a Gangrel who used to be the leader of a vicious street gang, and a Toreador by the name of Thomas Jurras. Jurras is said to have been an FBI agent in his Warm days and still has excellent contacts. How many foot soldiers they have, I don't know. A lot."
"This is not good," Kyoko Shinsegawa said grimly. "Three Sabbat packs on their way to infiltrate our city – not to mention al-Muthlim's people and the Setites who're already here. This time we're facing something big."
"The Shepherds of Caine are definitely the most dangerous of the whole lot," Alain said. "I've seen them in action; it's beyond ugly. If they follow their usual tactic, they'll go for the fledglings first – and they won't simply kill them. They'll dialberize the weak first, then go for the older and stronger ones. We'll have to hide our youngest Childer someplace safe, and then hit the pack, quickly and hard, before they have the time to make their move."
"It won't be easy," the Malkavian said. "After your fight with Yitzhak, they know we have been warned. They'll be more careful."
"That's exactly why we have to hit them first," Spike shrugged. "Let's find their lair and smoke them out."
'It's not that easy," Victor Girard sighed. "They are an old pack, and some of them are incredibly strong."
"And we have the Slayer with us," Spike pointed out.
"I'm not sure that will be enough," Joaquin Murietta said grimly. "Slayer powers or not, the Shepherds are repeat diabolists. Only Caine knows what they are capable of. Especially Yitzhak and Frere Marc. Not to mention Cherubim, who has the advantage of looking like a little girl. There's a natural hesitation to kill a child, even if we know that in truth it's a monster."
"I have no problem with that," Spike shrugged.
"Aside from the fact that she could kill you without breaking a sweat," Murietta replied. "She has gained at least three generations by diablerie, and she is a witch. You won't have a rat's chance against her."
"Kyoko is the only one who'd have a chance," Fontaine said.
"Perhaps," the Tremere witch allowed cautiously. "The problem is, she knows me. She would feel my presence and be alerted at once. But I can try… unless Lady Abigail is willing to make a move herself."
"Let's hope she is," Victor Girard murmured. "We'd definitely need that advantage."
"Very well then," Murietta summarized. "We need to find their lair and take out the pack priest and the witch. I'll take care of Yitzhak. Hopefully, Lady Abigail will take care of Cherubim. The others are just muscle."
"Unfortunately, no Sabbat monster is 'just muscle'," Alain warned. "We should divide the packs and assign a different group to each, hitting them simultaneously."
"We can't well enter al-Muthlim's Domain and hunt down the Night Crew right under his nose," Sergeant Sanchez said.
"I can," Faith spoke for the first time, her rough voice cold. "I'm the Slayer and the Enforcer of the Prince. I can enter any Domain within his. And so can Spike. We'll take our own people – no need for you to get involved."
"La Hermandad is with you," Jesus Ramirez spoke up. "We're in the neighbourhood anyway, and Salvador has been worried about the Sabbat activity for quite some time."
"And I'll see if I can find Dancer and the rest of the Crypt-Ticks," Jacopo Taddi looked at Kevin Jackson. "I'll come to you when I've found out anything. You have the people to take care of the problem."
They all agreed to send all information to the resident Nosferatu computer wizard, a former college professor nicknamed Four-Eyes, who moderated the undead info network on the Internet, then the meeting was adjourned. To make their first move, they had to figure out the whereabouts of the enemy first.
Before turning in, Alain visited Brian for a moment. The human was still very pale, despite his perfect tan – a result achieved in sun banks – and the iron shots he had recently got. Alain had expected to find him fast sleep, but to his surprise, Brian was wide awake – and visibly nervous. Small wonder, under the circumstances.
"You should rest," Alain said.
"I would, if I could," Brian replied dryly, "but at the moment, I don't exactly feel safe enough to let down my guard, you know."
"That's understandable," Alain agreed. "I've almost killed you an hour or so ago."
"You saved my fucking life," Brian said, "And don't think I'm not grateful. That's not how I've planned to die. I just… freaked out from the blood-sucking part, that's all."
"Yitzhak wouldn't have simply killed you, had I not interfered," Alain said grimly. "He'd have turned you into one of his kind."
"Which is exactly what you have been planning all along," Brian cocked an ironic eyebrow. "Where's the difference?"
"The difference is that I'd never Embrace you without your content," Alain answered indignantly. "The further difference is that after turning you, the Sabbat would have buried you alive – well, undead anyway – and expect from you to crave your way out of that grave without help… if you can. They don't tolerate weakness in their fledglings."
"And you do?" Brian asked doubtfully. Alain shrugged.
"Not really. But we teach them and train them, instead of simply killing them if they don't meet our expectations. You don't need to worry, though. We've selected you for the Clan exactly for the way you are. You're perfect for a Toreador."
"And what if I don't want to become one?"
"We'll respect your wish, of course. However," Alain added with a sultry smile that went directly to Brian's groin, "I hope to persuade you to change your mind, eventually."
Brian shook his head – and regretted it at once, because the careless gesture brought an unpleasant wave of vertigo. He was still very weak from the heavy blood loss.
"You're not giving up, are you?" he asked.
"Not for a while, at least," Alain said with a shrug. "I have time – but you don't. Not much, anyway. Not before you start getting wrinkles and losing your most attractive qualities. I won't Embrace a battered, burned-out old sack, just that it's clear. I want a perfect Childe, not the sorry remnants of a wasted life."
The bluntness of his answer shook Brian to the bone.
"You find my life wasted?" he asked.
"You should look at it with a neutral eye," Alain replied. "What have you achieved? Other than fucking every willing ass in Pittsburgh and beyond, that is?"
"I have a son," Brian said quietly; the brutal truth of Alain's words hurt more than he'd expected.
"And what sort of legacy are you going to leave to your son?" the vampire asked. "What can you point out to him, saying, "I've made this'? All your success has lasted but a moment and was forgotten in the next one. You'd leave nothing behind when you die. Nothing that would last."
"And becoming a blood-sucking monster would change that… how exactly?" Brian asked back angrily.
The vampire laid a hand on his naked chest.
"You've shaped one piece of true art, and that is your body," he said, eyeing Brian's form with the critical detachment of the artist he was, "but even that is a fleeting thing. I can make it last. I can preserve the only item of beauty you have created for a very long time. Think about it."
He rose and left Brian's apartment, without looking back.
Brian pondered over this particular aspect of things for a long time. Then, as sleep was still avoiding him, he snatched his cell phone and speed-dialled Emmett's number. He had a strange suspicion that he knew now what was behind Emmett's so-called 'drug problem'… especially that Em had lived with the Blount siblings for quite some time. If he was right, nighttime would be showtime for Emmett and his lot. His new lot.
The phone rang once, twice… four times, before the answering machine picked up the call. The cheerful voice of Emmett rang out.
"Hello, this is Em's mailbox. I'm most likely otherwise occupied and can't answer the phone right now. Leave a message, honey, and I'll call you back as soon as I can. By my honour as a boy scout."
"You have never been a boy scout, and I think I know what exactly you are right now," Brian said, irritated that he could not speak with his friend at once. "Cut the shit and call me back. I'm having problems here."
He hung up and fell back onto his pillow, still dizzy and exhausted, and now royally pissed, too.
In his bedroom, in the elegant Blount mansion in West-Hollywood, Emmett was on his elbows and knees, while his foster Sire was pounding into his willing ass in abandon. He didn't even hear the ringing of his cell phone that lay forgotten in the anteroom.
There were definite advantages in being given into the custody of a vampire with Edward Blount's stamina and appetites.
Even if he had to share the man with his twin cousins.
The End - for now