2.00 am Tuesday, 5 hours until sunrise, 3 days until the S.C. Granville
“Ur…I’ll deal with Dominic…you get Vida,” Stallion said, leaping from the car and running (limp forgotten for now) across the road with Mads in pursuit. From above the prone Dominic, tiles rained down, pelted at him by the deranged Vida, laughing like a giddy child. Dominic jumped to his feet and, in the same swift move, grabbed Vida’s leg with the intent of biting her calf. Pulled down, she cracked her head on a remaining roof tile and collapsed, stunned, a dead weight, onto Dominic, prone once more.
The sensible, reasonable part of Dominic saw the opportunity.
Vida is unconscious, bite her neck and drain her dry.
Unfortunately, that part of Dominic was subsumed into the Beast, who opened his mouth wide and bit down in Vida’s general direction. His teeth his the hard bone of her skull and sent a shock through his freshly regrown teeth. Still, the blood ran, and he lapped it up gratefully as the Beast slowly went back to sleep.
With barely a thought to his twitching leg, Stallion climbed the house and crossed the roof to the hole. Below in the gloom and the last of the settling concrete dust, he could make out the form of Dominic chewing at Vida’s head.
“Good there, are you? Are you coming down?”
Dominic gave him a thumbs-up in response. He wasn’t letting go of his catch to chat.
“What the hell is happening up there?” Mads yelled from the front lawn. Stallion didn’t reply.
She sighed, “ Forever the conversationist. At least give me the keys to the car.”
In the roof, Dominic held up two fingers, asking for two more minutes. Stallion nodded and climbed back off the roof.
“What do you want now?” He swung off the guttering to land in a three-point stance in front of Mads.
“What’s he doing up there? Has he got her?”
“He’s…taking in the suspect,” Stallion said after a moment’s thought. He smiled, pleased at his turn of phrase.
“O-kay…” Mads rolled her eyes in exasperation.
How was she going to explain this to the Malkavian?
“You know that was plan B. Plan A looked like it worked. Why did we go with plan B?”
With a swagger that seemed to fit his chadish physique, Stallion left to start the car himself, leaving Mads to contemplate how it all went wrong.
Up in the roof, Vida was stirring, and Dominic was losing grip on his prize. Reckless of the consequences, he stirred the blood and drew on his Potence.
Just a little more time, that’s all I need, He repeated to himself.
“Why don’t you go and calm down the residents?” Stallion said to Mads, leaning back in his seat, his wolfish grin gleaming in the gloom.
With a click of her jaw, Mads took the passenger seat. “And how do I do that? Don’t mind that weather balloon that punched a hole in your roof. It lost its bearings due to an unseasonal solar eclipse. It led to a satellite explosion, which caused damage to your roof.” She looked over at the house.
What was taking him so long?
“Hey, I’m just the driver. You can walk your magic however you like,” Stallion shrugged, oblivious to Mads’ sarcasm.
“Say, I hope I didn’t hit you too hard.”
“Don’t worry your pretty head about it,” she replied absentmindedly.
Dominic was taking his sweet time, wasn’t he?
The minutes ticked away. Mads’ tense senses were sure they could hear sirens…somewhere. She got out of the car, crossed the road again, and climbed the stairs to the house. Dominic was still feeding.
“Hey, we need to go.” Dominic waved a hand in her direction “We’ve done what we needed to; let’s get out of here!”
From below, she heard a crack of heavy skullbones finally collapsing under the pressure of Dominic’s jaws. Any hope of reclaiming Plan A evaporated.
“This was Plan B. We’d completed Plan A.”
“Ah, it’s been a while since I’d had a good time out,” Dominic lay back against the rafters as Vida’s body shrivelled to a husk before Mad’s eyes. Pulling a handkerchief from his top pocket, he cleaned his face, a blissful expression replacing the blood. Brushing aside the empty corpse, he finished the job by turning the remains to dust. Vida disappeared into the floating motes lit by moonlight.
Back in the car, Mads was in the passenger seat, and Dominic lay out in the back seat, a glazed look to his usually sharp eyes.
“O-kay. We did the job. She resisted and caused an upset in the neighbourhood. After that, she had to go. We did the Masquerade a favour.” Mads rehearsed. Maybe if she said it enough, she’d even come to believe it.
2.15 am Tuesday, 5 hours until sunrise, 3 days until the S.C. The Farm, Cowra
I knew I had the right place when we drove down the dirt road, and in the distance, I could see the silhouette of the tree, the house and the barn beyond it. It was larger than the bonsai in a small pot I had planted. Now, it was almost as tall as me, its leaves were glossy black in the dark. I parked the car outside the farmhouse and admired the tree’s progress after a week. Eclipse sat silent and still in the passenger seat.
“Right, “ Pulling my attention back to her, “So, I’ll go inside and look out for any of those things we talked about…religious. I shouldn’t be too long. Don’t go into the barn, that would be a bad thing to do.”
Eclipse didn’t answer. She just sat there…seemingly moping.
“I’ll try to be as fast as I can. I’m sorry, “ I stepped out of the sedan, leaving the keys in the car. She didn’t reply.
There was nothing I could do for her but make the house as safe as possible. I ran around the half dozen rooms, always surprised by a bottle of holy water from Lourdes or a stray Rosary beads left on the arm of a chair. I wasn’t sure if a faded print of Mother Teresa counted, but I thought better of it and turned it to the wall. In the kitchen, I found the soul jar Dominic had used last visit and reclaimed with a small cheer the slug of wraith-stuff Lupara had made. I’d promised it to Lucretia, and after causing her potential trouble with Lady Merritt, I felt it was almost owed to her.
I collected the loose items, the statues, the rosary and the tourist dolls from pilgrimage sites together and stuck them in a drawer of an empty room. Remembering a large cross on the wall of the room I’d slept in, I headed downstairs. It was still there, bigger than I remembered. It would take two to pull it from the wall with any grace. I took the bedcover off the bed and threw it over the semi-naked lord and saviour.
Now that I was looking around, I noticed the coffins laid out in the room were marked with the crest of the Giovanni, a Gothic ‘G’.
Just remember, though you are my adopted childe, you are not family, Dominic had reminded me. I looked around for signs that any spiritual residents were upset with my current actions. I saw nothing outside of using my necromancy, but I knew spirits could get angry at being spied on, and I left that alone for the time being.
In the end, clearing the house took thirty minutes. She was exactly where I’d left her.
“The room I’m sleeping in…don’t go in there…Otherwise, I think we’re good.” I opened the car door, and she stepped out with the sports bag in her hand. She glanced around, her eyes not stopping at anything in particular. She looked…lost. In the bad old days, I’d been there, too many times to count. Nothing was safe or made sense. My heart went out to her, and I said nothing.
She looked at the barn I’d warned her about. It was tidy, painted in the last few years in a rusty red that was popular amongst the local farms. The house was fibro, with a wrap-around verandah. It was modest, tidy, maybe sixty years old, and as common as kangaroos in the landscape. Then there was the tree.
“Never thought I’d see it again,” She said, taking the tree in. I couldn’t help but grin with pleasure. It was with her help that I’d established the tree. It was something we shared, and no one but us knew its whole secret.
“I know. I thought I’d nearly lost it. It’s looking good, isn’t it? I was a little worried putting it out here, but it’s doing fine.”
She said nothing in reply, so I left her to wander around while I retrieved the body from the boot and the tools I’d collected on my last visit.
As I dug a new hole close to the tree, Eclipse took the few steps up onto the verandah and entered the house. On the red dirt, I marked out where the first two bodies lay and dug the third hole on the opposite side of the tree, careful not to disturb the rootball. I’d not had much experience with plants in life. It didn’t fit with a lifestyle of nightclubs and running from mobsters. So, I was surprised how enjoyable the experience was. Here was a living thing dependent on me for its existence. With effort, it grew, evolved, and changed, so in its time, it would also give life.
Inside, Eclipse was making discoveries of her own. Black and brown stains in the corners and under the skirting boards. Twin impressions in the timber flooring where heels had dragged. A scrupulously clean bathtub that looked like it had been washed with acid. Plumbing that defied reason. She could see that death was at home here. Breathing in, she finally let herself relax. Yes, she could stay here.
The hole took a while to dig in the hard, sun-baked soil of the farm. As I dug, I kept my senses sharp for signs of distress. There was no wailing or screaming, no smell of burning, no flicker of flame. Things were quiet on the farm, and I quietly thanked the spirits of this place that they hadn’t seen fit to make things harder for us, alone here without a Giovanni Champerone.
All in all, the whole night had been excellent. The night before, we’d made a plan to reclaim Izac’s heart, put ourselves in debt with the Nosferatu and had a dead body without a heart on our hands. As it stood, we had the heart; the body was tidied away; the tree was fed and doing well; the slug was in my pocket; and the farm seemed to accept our presence. I was proud of what we’d achieved and, for the first time in a long time, was starting to feel…hopeful. Happy.
The scrap of paper burned in my pocket, making a liar out of all my good feelings. I had to know if it was the Prince. I knew how I could find out, but after my first attempt with Izac’s keys, even vampire blood ran cold at the thought of trying to read an impression again.
I was tidying up when Eclipse joined me outside beside the tree. She looked at it as if trying to make sense of it. At the same time, her glance would become distant as if seeing into the future or past or beyond this world. Then her eyes would snap back to the tree, as if it grounded her, at least for that short while.
“The trees had two bodies already, “ I said, filling Eclipse in on what she’d missed, filling in the empty air around us, “That was when I brought the tree out with Dominic. And now it has a third.” I tried to estimate how many I thought the tree would need, but I came up with an awkward six barrels of bodies.
“It should need another nine or ten,” Eclipse said, gauging how much more it had to grow, and how well it had done so far.
“Nine or ten?” I contemplated with a growing realisation. With the Succubus Crowd and the twenty kegs we provided only the night before, I could easily provide that many by the end of the year.
Could you be alive again for the new year, Avel? Could we see 2024 together. My excitement was almost too much to contain.
I pulled out the watch, keen to share the good news with the one who’d made it all possible.
“Dear friend, what do you think of the tree? Looking good, isn’t it?”
Yes, it’s growing quickly, said the rasping voice in the back of my mind, I didn’t expect you to be so… enthusiastic in this endeavour. However, it was your mother.
“Is…is…” I reminded it. She was right here, “…will be. Regardless, a couple of bodies every fortnight…sounds about right?”
You could have the tree grown by the end of the year. Alternatively, you can bring a whole bunch at once and be done with it. If you were brave enough, you could always bring something with more…potent blood.
This conversation was going down a path I wasn’t sure I liked. More potent blood. What a kin? I asked as much.
Anything. A vampire, a werewolf, a practitioner of the art, a child of the weird…you are close to werewolf country, you could always lure one here.
Vampire and werewolves, I understood. I also knew that they were dangerous prey to try and take down, even if I wanted to. Practitioners of the art were the mages, and for all their arrogance, they took in Lenny and were hopefully helping him. I had no interest in killing another mage. As for children of the weird, the fairyfolk, I had mixed feelings. The sensation of Rumplestiltskin’s Bloody Tinkerbell was still clear in my memory, and yet didn’t I want to get to know them too, their world and customs? The thought of hunting down fairies to feed to the tree seemed a very bad way to start a new life.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt that a few bodies every couple of weeks was a good plan. There was a never-ending supply of kegs, and the demon didn’t seem to be in any great hurry. Why make enemies amongst the other races when we should be creating links
“I think we’re doing pretty well like this,” I said, hoping it sounded final.
You enjoyed the pixie dust, didn’t you?
I didn’t respond to that jibe. And put the pocketwatch away.
Changing the subject, I turned my attention back to Eclipse, knowing if something went wrong, she was the only one who could get me out. I pulled out the slip of paper.
“Is that the note from the Prince?” She asked, eying it suspiciously.
“I suspect from the Prince, but I’d like to try something. The only thing is, last time I botched the reading and got caught in a…nightmare. I’m going to try to read the spirit of the person who last held it and wrote it. Maybe it will tell me something about their reason for sending it.”
She watched silently in interest as I closed my eyes and drew on the power in the blood, channelling it towards and around the scrap in my hand. Slowly, as if walking up to the answer, I saw that the sender and writer were male. The scrap of paper was six hundred years old, but somehow, the script on its surface was far older. As my mind tried to make sense out of that contradiction, a face came into the forefront of my mind, and I knew who the sender was without a shadow of a doubt.
“Lenny! Lenny sent it!”
That Lenny in his current circles could have found a scrap of six-hundred-year-old paper was almost a foregone conclusion. I did not understand how his writing on the page could predate it and said as much to Eclipse.
“What did it say?” She took the scrap, read the word, and turned it over, “It only makes sense if he were able to time travel.”
Time-travel. He’d done it! He’d found magic! Now I couldn’t hold back my joy. Lenny the graffiti junkie was breaking physics with trips to the past. How far back? Only more than six hundred years! It was beyond all expectations, and certainly beyond anything I’d seen.
Eclipse was more circumspect.
“He’s created a paradox. That’s the problem with you magic types, I don’t know how or why you do it, but you insist on breaking the rules.”
“I don’t know how or why we do it either!” I laughed into the night. Right at that moment, there seemed to be nothing that couldn’t be achieved. “Oh, I’d love to astral project and see what he’s up to. I wonder if I can astral time travel?”
Eclipse remained silent, ruminating on what we’d discovered.
“Don’t worry, Eclipse. Lenny sent the note, not the Prince! ” I contemplated the things and time Lenny must have seen and wished…Yeah, I wish I could have seen them with him.
“I feel like…I’ve seen my son grow up and travel the world. Seeing and doing things I can’t. And though I would have loved to have been there, this is still a very good day.
“You know that mages and wizards have collaborated in the past,” Eclipse said quietly as if recalling past study.
“Really?” I seized this new piece of information as if it were a lifeline. If I could just keep living, Lenny would come back, and we could…everything. “Sure, there was a few who got together to create a potion… a sunscreen for vampires. Of course, as soon as there was a working formula, the vampire killed the mage. The mage had the last laugh. The remaining potions he’d made were dupes, made for just that eventuality. He fried when he tried to walk out under the sun.
“Stupid, selfish, shortsighted…” I replied, but knew that couldn’t happen with Lenny and me. We were mates, friends through the worst and the best. We’d been there for each other, and that had to mean something.
Forget the selfish and cruel vampires hiding from the world in their Masquerade. Forget the Sabat and their purity and warmongering nature. Forget the werewolves who can’t see past their animalistic desires. We could make our own world, kin and kine, magic users, and anyone else willing to put aside their differences.
“It’s pretty bloody amazing, is what it is!”
Eclipse wasn’t giving up her gloomy mood just yet.
“But that,” Pointing to the scrap of parchment, the most cherished thing I now owned, “Shouldn’t exist.”
“I know!”
“But it breaks all the rules of reality.”
“We’re walking corpses, we hardly follow the rules.”
“Yeah, but by our presence, we don’t break the fundamental rules of reality.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. I would have laughed if it had been someone other than Eclipse.
“So, rules are meant to be broken. I’ve been breaking them all my life. He just got there ahead of me, and hey, I’m fine with that, as long as he remembers to swing by sometime.”
She was not convinced and remained miserable.
“Eclipse! This is an excellent night! Celebrate! We did the heist of a lifetime! We have Izac’s heart! He’s going to be amazed, and I’m sure the Lady is going to be impressed. The tree is great! Lenny is great! Let yourself be happy!” And out of sheer exuberance, I grabbed Eclipse and hugged her.
She just stood there, neither accepting nor returning my gesture. I let her go and, without prying into her mind (though I sorely wanted to), tried to understand her. She looked scared, distracted, confused, and, above all, hopeless.
“Look, Eclipse, this life we have can be a very long and miserable one if you don’t take the victories when they come. Is there anything that makes you happy anymore?”
She didn’t answer me. It was like she felt I couldn’t handle the truth, her truth. I’d lived my life with hundreds of fearful voices in my head, thinking I was mad, when I was haunted. What was so horrible that she couldn’t share?
Silence.
I changed the subject.
“Hey, did you see the Museum?”
“The Museum?” Curiosity. I can work with that.
“Yeah, the Giovanni’s have some… homemade arts and crafts, and they have a little display,” I started heading back to the farmhouse, and she followed. The room was just past the kitchen, a large room that once would have been a master bedroom. Here, the rocking chair made of human bones, held together with sinew. Beside it, the floor lamp, also of long bones, with a shade made of human skin. At the windows, the semitransparent curtains, also made of human skin, as well as a dozen other artefacts made from the remains of their kills.
“Dominic was very clear that what happens on the farm, stays on the farm, so unless asked by him, best not to mention these…treasures.”
She walked around the room in silence, careful not to touch any of the craft pieces. She pulled open a wooden drawer and found more raw materials: bones, laid out in order of size; sinew, dried and rolled into cord; bottles of thick, foul-smelling, yellow glue. I brought her to a place of spectacles and absurdity, and she saw the raw materials and ugliness.
“I thought the Giovannis weren’t into fleshcrafting,” She said, slowly closing the drawer again.
“Well, it’s not flesh crafting as such…think of it more as leather working, scrimshaw, and bonecarving.” I could see that this had been a mistake. What was broken was inside her. It was like she was in a pit, and even the beauty of light was only a bright ring around her dark world. She had become her name.
Slowly, as if no longer aware of her environment, Eclipse sank into a bone chair with human-leather seat and back. A dry bone somewhere in the chair snapped and cracked.
“I didn’t mean to distress you. I thought it was…interesting.”
“It is interesting,” She replied with some effort, and couldn’t finish the thought.
“Well, it’s late. Can I show you the bedrooms downstairs?”
“There are still hours before bed.” She protested, which I found odd. Often, the depressed can’t get out of bed.
“Well, we could chat. It seems like…forever since we’ve just been able to chat. But I get the feeling you don’t want to tell me what’s going on with you.”
“Not things you really need to know about,” Was her only reply.
“Well, how about the future. We have the heart…”
“How are you…are we going to meet the lady?”
“She said she’d be in touch before the Succubus Club. Tomorrow night. Knowing she can see me, I could astral project, but somewhere safer than here. The time-out room is…safer.”
“She’s not lurking in your shadow?”
“I don’t believe so,” I turned to a wall mirror decorated with short bones and bone ends and could not see the Lady’s shadow, “I’m sure she has more important things to do than follow me around.”
“So the Lady of many names has all the time in the world to show up as she pleases…as they do,” This was more my Eclipse. Not exactly cheerful, but shrewd and sarcastic, “ So we’re just waiting out there at the farm?”
“Well, it’s a little too late to head back now, so we’ll wait out the day and head back early tomorrow night.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring more bodies.” She said, getting up from the delicate chair and leaving the Museum. She seemed to have changed the subject.
“Well, I only had that one I really needed to get rid of. The one that connected us to the heart we left at the museum. Now it’s dealt with.”
“So, only that body you deem fit to bury?” She asked, and my mind was caught on the odd turn of phrase, ‘deem fit’. Certainly, the tree didn’t care what I fed it. Should I?
“There’ll be other ones.”
“Yes, but the criteria for that one was it had to be dealt with. Will that be the criteria for all of them?”
I wasn’t understanding something that was of importance to her. Did it matter where the bodies came from to feed the tree? Certainly, the tree didn’t care, and besides the suggestions, our little friend didn’t mind either.
“Ur…yes? No. The other two were…old kegs, leftovers.”
“But they were Dominic’s kills.”
Kills? Yes, he did dispatch them in the barn, but as to how they ended up kegs, that was probably Bruce. Did it really matter who killed the poor wretches? She’d dispatched the latest one.
“Do you see the difference?” She asked, and now I knew I was missing something vital. Did it mattered who killed them and for what reason? I was providing fertiliser for my project plant, and it seemed she was…talking about…a ritual? Sacrifice.
“Not at all.” I shrugged good naturedly, not caring much for the conversation, just happy she was speaking to me.
“Dominic gave you leftovers, and when you chose for yourself, you decided it had to be dealt with. So is that your criteria?”
“I have no criteria. The tree just needed to be fed.”
“And yet, we brought only one body. There was another nineteen that could have been brought.”
“I only had one to get rid of. And we only had the sedan.”
“There was room for at least another two.”
I had to admit I hadn’t thought to bring along more. The others, having been processed by Bruce and his staff, were now kegs providing sustenance to the bar’s patrons.
“Yes, you’re right. I could have brought more. But they weren’t dead yet.”
“I just find it odd you’re nitpicking. You say you have no criteria, only need to feed the tree ten bodies to bring your mother back. You had at your disposal more than enough, and yet we bring just this one.”
“No…” I hadn’t thought I was, but it seemed when it came down to it, I wasn’t willing to take a life to feed the tree. Willing is probably inaccurate. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. Still, I wasn’t sure why I was being lectured. Was it because I’d been inefficient with my time and energy? And here I was thinking myself clever for getting rid of the body that connected us to a crime.
“Yes.” She berated, knowing she was correct in this instance.
“Does it matter?”
“You tell me.”
This conversation was getting us nowhere. Did she feel I lacked initiative? Me? The one who nearly killed themselves trying to build up my presence in the community. Still, this was one battle I was more than happy to lose for the sake of friendship.
“Mea Culpa! I admit it. I failed to put enough forethought into this trip. Truly, my only thought was to remove the evidence of our crimes as far away from us as possible. It was convenient that I had a tree that required feeding. Maybe we could have brought…no, we could have brought another body at least. I just took what I needed. I didn’t need to take more.”
“Fine.” At this, she seemed to let the conversation go. Like explaining algebra to an infant, she’d used all her small words and was not patting me on the head while thinking…nevermind. I don’t take patronising well.
“We didn’t mean to take the twenty. “It had been her presence that had swayed the group and led them all downstairs. Was I even misreading that event? “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”
“I only wanted the one,” She admitted, thank god, “As it happened, I got all of them.”
“That’s right. A complete accident.” I let out a mental breath.
Eclipse silently thought about what I’d said. I could tell she still thought I wasn’t getting the point, but seemed satisfied with my answer regardless. I had passed, but only with a C-.
I was comfortable with a C. I was never a good student.
“The tree will be fed. Don’t worry about it.” But she didn’t look worried. For the first time this trip, she looked…curious.
For my part, I was thankful for small mercies.
2.50 am Tuesday, 4 hours until sunrise, 3 days until the S.C. On route to the Crow Bar.
The other three were speeding back through Sydney’s suburbs. Dominic, having come to his senses along the way sent a text message to Bruce.
BRUCE, SEND A COUPLE OF GANGBANGERS TO MAKE SOME NOISE AT THE TRONGATE, GRANVILLE.
With that done, he fell back against the seat, contemplating the digestion of another (older) vampire.
Stallion drove back the long way back just in case they were followed.
Mads lamented plan B and resigned to the fact that she would have to face the Sire.
“You saw her light up the whole neighbourhood with her powers,” Dominic said from behind her, with enough presence of mind to advise Mads.
“I understand that, Mr Giovanni, the point was to make her more…what her sire considered ideal for a Malkavian. We were so close to achieving that. Look, you were in a state and can’t be blamed for what happened, I get that. But damn…cracking in her skull? That was pretty fucking brutal.”
“Would you have enjoyed her having picked you as her first victim?”
“No. I’m glad we made it out in one piece. I was worried you wouldn’t come back, Mr Giovanni.”
“Ah, you have to trust the boss. He knows what he’s doing,” Stallion said, speaking from experience.
“Well, now I have to work out what to say to the Malkavian.”
With Stallion’s vote of confidence, Dominic returned himself to his usual upright position, straightening his jacket and discovering his current state.
“Stallion, do you mind going past my place of residence. It’ll give me a chance to freshen up and Mads a chance to find her words.”
“Right.” Mads didn’t sound confident.
“Do you want to go alone to meet this contact of yours?” Stallion asked Mads, and Dominic sank back into this revelry. The seemingly thoughtful question surprised Mads.
“What? You’d like to come?”
“Sure. It’s nice to meet new people.”
“My home first. Isn’t that right, Stallion?” Called Dominic from behind.
“The decision has been made,” Stallion replied and turned the car in the direction of Leichardt.
While Dominic cleaned up and changed, Stallion headed to the kitchen for a drink. Being big and buff had been fun, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be ‘The Chad’ everywhere he went. Drawing the blood and his new Vicissitude, he thought about how he used to look and realigned his face as best he could. The results were…less. Certainly less Chaddish, but also less Stallion. At least he’d be less noticeable.
“I should take a photo for reference next time,” He said, chugging down a bag of blood.
Mads was at a loose end. She didn’t like being in the private residence of Dominic; it made her feel uncomfortable. He lived a lifestyle that she hadn’t even dreamed was possible, and his home was a reflection of that. She looked down at her clothes. Blood from her broken jaw had dripped on her shirt, grass stains from her crawl away from Stallion marked her knees. Quickly, she zipped up her jacket to hide the worst of the blood and waited in the hallway for Stallion and Dominic to return.
“Mads, there’s a perfectly serviceable bathroom just through that bedroom,” Dominic said, spotting her moments later, loitering awkwardly in the hallway, “Unless you’re one of those affected by the thought of water.”
Shamed into it, she followed Dominic’s directions. She stripped off her shirt and started scrubbing…and scrubbing… As her hands dealt with the mundane task of cleaning away the stains, her mind spiralled, contemplating where her life had taken her.
What are you doing? Why did you take on this job anyway? A distraction? How hard can it be to find one man who’s not even trying to hide? What am I doing?
She looked up to see her reflection staring balefully back at her.
“What are you doing?” She asked out loud to her reflection. Her reflection flung the question back at her as a recrimination.
From somewhere down the hall, she could hear the wet squelching of wet clay and the grunted exertions of Stallion. What was he doing? In Dominic’s home?
“Can you do that a little quieter, please?” Mads cried out, her wet, clawed hand squealing against the white porcelain of the bathroom sink.
Stallion, still repairing his face, ignored her and focused on his task. Satisfied at least for the moment, he headed back down the hall in search of the wailing banshee formerly known as Mads.
She appeared from out of a bedroom, her shirt wet and wrinkled, her expression…confused. Her eyes flicked up to his face several times as if unsure what it was looking at. It looked like Stallion…and yet. Eventually, she physically shrugged and spoke.
“Can we head off now?”
“We can head off,” Dominic agreed, before pinning Mads with his sharp-eyed stare “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you getting out of this? Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time.”
“I made an agreement with Vida’s sire. A favour for a favour. Something of commensurate value.”
“Was it worth it?”
“I’m going to find out. At least it will be nice to have something in my pocket. It may help pay off a few debts to you. I realise I’ve asked you quite a lot recently.”
Dominic just grinned, “Ready to go?”
“Consider this favour, yours.”
“Actually,” Mads turned to Stallion, “Before we go.” She clenched her fist and swung it with the power in her blood at Stallion’s face. She clipped him in his recently rearranged jaw, but failed to follow through with the rest of her body. Her legs tangled up under her, and she fell to the hand-woven hall runner in a messy pile of limbs. Stallion rubbed his jaw; it had barely made an impression.
“We’re good now, Stallion. We’re good now.” She said from the carpet as Stallion reached down a hand to help her up.
“Maybe I should teach you how to throw a better punch. You need to remember to move your feet.”
“I’ll check where the rug is next time,” She complained, still accepting the offered hand.
“But you didn’t throw a rug, you threw a punch.”
“Funny.”
“I take it this is nothing I’ll need to address later on?” Dominic eyed the two young vampires with concern.
“No, Mr Giovanni. We’re good,” Mads sighed. Even that simple retribution was foiled by her own ineptitude.
They returned to the bar to find it much as it always was. Dominic set himself up in his office, leaning back in his chair and reliving the sensation the night had offered. Stallion went in search of more blood, and Mads scoured the VIP lounge for the Malkavian she’d met only a few hours before. Stallion found what he was looking for.
As usual, Mads did not.
4.00 am Tuesday, 2 hours until sunrise, 3 days until the S.C. The Crow Bar
*******************************************************************
Eclipses shattered thoughts:
Torn between Today and Tomorrow
The wheels slide across a ground mangled by… gravel? It’s hard to tell with your head shoved in a black bag. There are few things one focuses on in this environment. She can hear the four of them breathing. They talk, sometimes. She can feel them stare. It’s animal nature to pray on the weakest one. Their pack tactics were undeniable. One talks, two grabbers, and a driver. Luna’s not a fucking idiot. She’s a prize captured after a long session of waiting for the hunt to begin.
You wanna survive?
More than anything.
Wake up
Thunk- thud
The whole car’s suspension engages as the metal body rattles to recover from hitting a pot hole. The road ahead is a nothing but grave filler. Arid dirt graced only occasionally by desperate shrubbery.
“So…”
”So…”
Rain is nothing like Izac. She’s known this since the meeting at the dock. Her head turns to the driver. For a moment, the slightest of milliseconds, she sees someone else.
As they pulled into a questionable excuse of a driveway, several things attacked her mind at once.
This looks like nothing more than a quant house on unusable farmland. Some strides away, a barn sits with time-wilted red paint and crumbling white lining. What strikes first is the healthy tree accenting the otherwise picturesque Australian acidic landscape. It took only a moment before the voice returned. One more to join the others. Will they ever leave her alone? What else did she give up in that fucking pit? The clashing drowns out a fifth voice trying to reach her.
“…I shouldn’t be too long. Don’t go into the barn, that would be a bad thing to do.”
The engine is still live. Rain’s door opens and shuts.
Rain hasn’t changed.
He always wears that mask, accented in a purple suit.
He turns, giving her a small smile over his shoulder before entering the house. Her brain rattles with at least more than one voice at any given time. She’s gotten used to this psychosis.
He has a thing for women in distress
Besides one.
Half an hour later, he returns from the labyrinth to save the princess.
If the days of the week can suppress their fear of fire, is it not possible to repel all limitations?
With enough time, can she find the keys to unlock this prison?
There’s always the sun.
Eclipse smiles as Rain offers his hand to help her out of the car. She grabs her jar before leaving the car to explore the now ‘safe’ house.
Inside, a normal onlooker would accept this as a well kept, humble abode. Until you looked a little deeper. unexplainable drag marks sitting just too far away from furniture, a cleanness that defied the expectation of dust and grime a house such as this should collect. the grout that held a brown colour with specs of forgotten red and a bathroom glimmering white when it should be showing even a modicum of evidence of unuse and decay. This house is kept clean because it harbours the vampire’s folly and pleasure.
Bodies and blood.
The ting of a shovel patting down dirt drew Eclipse back outside where Rain finished burying another one of their sins.
Eclipse could feel it. In her blood, in her brain, in her heart. She was connected to this. Inseparable from the substance that allows the existence of this tree, of Beelzebub, of the serpent.
The tree has nine to ten more bodies left until fruition. Rain had no criteria for the kills besides his unpredictable restraints from non-existent morals. They were talking past each other because for the first time it truly hit her that they were eternally separated by the matter of her being. The days of the week facilitated the irreversible and the serpent finished the job.
Who does she have to be?
Luna, Eclipse, Sunday?
“Woman of many names” is what she called Rain’s Lady and Izac’s captor…
She’ll need another to make it through these nights.
Izac only knew Luna, the rest accepted Eclipse but her personality leaves her disconnected from them and Sunday is simply a mask for what she hides behind her eyes.
For the moment, her head rests atop a jar holding the image of who she used to be. Absurd is how she describes this scene.
Tomorrow, she’ll have to smuggle this contraband until someone else takes him from her. Tomorrow, she’ll have to find a way to meld metal and wood.
Tomorrow, she inches closer to her death.
Notable NPCs
Abram: Ventrue, and one of six founders of Sydney Masquerade
Agaricus: Children of the Moon, and one of six founders of Sydney Masquerade
Alex Holmestead: Husband of Mads. Location and status unknown.
Alicia: Toreador Vampire met at the Crow Bar
Ambrogino: 5th Generation Vampire, Cappadocian and Elder of the Giovanni Clan.
Avel: Rain’s mother, a wraith.
Beelzebub: Fallen angel, demon entity in Rain’s pocket watch.
Blanco Falzo: A man who had made into the likeness of Stallion’s dog for a time. Now deceased.
Bobby Lisner: Malkavian seer who lives in an old Sewer pipe in The Rocks.
Brendan Virgil: A.K.A. Miss Divine Intervention. Rain’s close friend.
Bruce: Ghoul of Mr Giovanni
Cabolut Hazzim: the name given by a vampire who cleared out the homeless at Rain’s old squat. Prince’s Assassin.
Days of the Week: Pseudonyms for members of the Baali group Eclipse (Luna) is now part of. She is Sunday, and they are missing Wednesday. Tuesday seems to be their nominal spokesperson, though they seem to have no leader.
Delith: Ambitious Ventrue bar staff at the Crowbar.
Detective Woodman: NSW Police ‘premiere’ detective and a sufferer of schizophrenia. He has an assistant currently called Notetaker.
Doctor Willis Hodge: Ghost acquaintance of Dominic Giovanni’s from the Coroner’s Court.
El Torcedor: “The Twister” or ore accurately, “The Fleshcrafter” A Tzimisce from South America
Founders of Sydney Masquerade: Those still alive: Abram, the Ventrue, in Canberra, Wid, the Nosferatu in Wollongong, Agaricus, Child of the Moon, Tasmania, Montague Layton, Toreador current whereabouts unknown.
Francis Tuttle: Name given in charge of the investigation into the deaths of homeless in Surry Hills.
Garcia: Sire. Unknown location.
Giuseppe Giovanni: Ghoul of Mr Giovanni and nephew.
Joel Mitchell: Mads’ friend. Deceased.
Kenneth Stahl: South African Giovanni (exiled)
Lady Merritt Stone: A very old and powerful vampire that has taken an interest in Izac. Rain spoke to her about the Coterie and Izac’s mission
Lambach Ruthven: Kin met at the theatre. Sire of Dracula. Drug addict.
Lenny: Rain’s Ghoul and artist friend, now with mages. Location unknown.
Lucretia: Childe of Ambrogino, now caretaker of the Pyrmont House and teacher to Dominic
Madeline Blackwell: Ghoul of Mr Giovanni, working at the State Coroners Court.
Montague Layton: Toreador, and one of six founders of Sydney Masquerade
Night Rider: Red-haired vampire? Works for the Prince.
Pangea: a Nosferatu (tunnel builder)
Padre Craneo: Nagaraja vampire met at the Crow Bar
Paul: a Nosferatu of the sewer rats
Prince Lodin: Prince of Chicago (until his final death in the 90s) and sire of Al Capone.
Prince Sarrasine (Sar-ras-seen): Toreador Ruler of Sydney*
Sebastian Melmoth: Kin met at the theatre. Powerful Toreador. Oscar Wilde.
Shara-had: Banu Haqim (Assamite).
Sparrow: a Nosferatu of the warren in Pyrmont, closest to home
Sydney Sewage Pumping Station number one: Known access to Nosferatu waiting room.
Teeth of Titanium: Werewolf dingo met in Leichhardt.
The Prestiege: The speak for the four Tremere met at the Blavatsky Lodge.
The Woman: A powerful being of unknown name who kidnapped Izac and enchanted Rain. Lady Merritt
Tom: A sleeping head awakened by Dominic in the Dreamtime.
Wid: Nosferatu, and one of six founders of Sydney Masquerade
Glossary of terms:
Anarchists: a faction of Vampires. Caused issues in Los Angeles recently, killed the Prince.
Antediluvian: from before the time of the biblical flood. The third generation that were the progenitors of the thirteen clans of vampires.
Baali: A bloodline bent on keeping beings old before time from waking up and destroying everything. Eclipse and the Days of the Week are Baali.
Banu Haqim: Also know as Assamites, Assassins though sometimes just mercenaries for hire.
Bone Gnawers: A pack of werewolves
Blood hunt: A process to destroy a vampire who has broken a tradition. Specifically mentioned in the sixth.
Blood worm: What a possessed vampire can turn into.
Black Spiral Dancers: A pack of werewolves that worship a being of entropy.
Brujah: One of the twelve clans of Cain.
Canaanites: Those descended from Cain, the first murderer and vampire.
Camarilla: a faction of Vampires closest to the Princes. Believe in hierarchy and order.
Children of Osirus: Bloodline outside the Caine family tradition who practise Bardo, a discipline to control the beast. Izac’s current Bloodline.
Children of Seth: Bloodline the Prince is rumoured to be (originally?)
Clan or Bloodline: From one of the children of Caine or subsequent established lines of vampires.
Christopher Charlton: Rain’s pseudonym.
Marauder: A mage gone mad. Living in his own pocket dimension that answers to the whim of his broken mind.
Diablerie : the drinking another vampire blood and soul
Favour: How Vampires pay for things they want or need doing.
Fetter: A place, person or thing that binds a wraith to the Shadowlands.
Gangrel: A bloodline of vampire. Stallion’s Bloodline.
Ghouls: Servants of a vampire who have been fed vitae. They are loyal, stronger, and more resilient, and sometimes, they show other powers gained from the blood. They must receive the blood at least once a month or they return to being human. Can be addictive.
Giovanni: A vampire bloodline that keeps within genetic family ties. Dominic is a Giovanni.
Glasswalkers: A pack of werewolves
Hunter: Members of the Society of Leopold, a branch of the Catholic Church. Fanatical vampire hunters and killers.
Kin: Short for Kindred. Vampires, a name among themselves
Kine: Humans
Marauder: a rouge mage, often mad. They are likely to act in a way that exposes the Otherworld of the Masquerade to exposure.
Masquerade : The rule that keeps vampire society safe. Hiding ones nature from the world.
Nagaraja: A bloodline that are obligated to eat the flesh as well as the blood of their victims.
Men in Black: An international unit dedicated to controlling supernatural and alien entities.
The Red List: a universal kill list of vampires. Maintained by the Camarilla, anyone on the list can be murdered without question.
Sabbat: a faction of Vampires that believe that the progenitors of the clans will one day awake and eat all their young.
The Theosophical Society: A private society of learning and tolerance based out of the Blavatsky Lodge, St. Leonards (https://sydney.theosophicalsociety.org.au)
Tremere Pyramid: A strict hierarchical structure that all Tremere are part of. Every member knows their place within the Pyramid. The antidiluvian, Tremere, sits at the top of this pyramid.Below him, the number seven is repeated through the clan’s structure.
Toreador: Bloodline of Vampire. Rain’s Bloodline.
Traditions: Six laws that vampires live by.
Vaulderie: A ritual where Kindred swear loyalty to each other.
A Strange Life 