Chapter 2

~~Julias~~

Julias looked over at his little protege. While Julias had picked his usual favorite clothing, a navy lounge suit, two button, single-breasted with no tie, he felt the little Ventrue would be better off with something a tad bit more professional. First impressions were important. He hooked Jack up with a gray business suit, double-breasted, complete with a white dress shirt and a nice tie.

He had a lot of suits already lined up for Jack. Only the best for his new childe.

The streets were cold. People were walking by in trench coats and furs, but his eyes glossed over them even as their eyes drew to him. Besides being in a suit despite the cold, he was tall, broad-shouldered, and looked almost like a hit man. He knew it too. The kine walking by sometimes stared for a little too long, and he met their gaze with a small, intimidating smile. They looked away.

“Viktor is one of the three elders who lead the Invictus. He is one of the founding members of Dolareido, and has been here for a long, long time. Maria and Michael not as long,” Julias said.

“Maria?”

“Yes, a Nosferatu. That brings up a good point.” He glanced around as they rounded a corner. The streets weren’t entirely empty, but good enough to talk about things quietly. “The clans. I should warn you about them. Differences run in the blood and some of them can be a little ... unsettling.”

“Oh?” Jack’s interest was piqued. The little guy always did have an interest in things most people avoided. It’s how they met, after all.

“Daeva are fast and strong, and can seduce you with a glance. They are obsessive, materialistic, and concerned only with gratification. They’re almost always beautiful, and they know it.”

“So, like a succubus?”

“Yes, actually. Very accurate parallel. Be especially careful with them, as our Prince is a Daeva.”

“You mentioned Prince earlier. What’s that?”

“Nutshell? She owns the city’s night. She says what we can and can’t do.”

“Scary. She?”

“Prince is a gender neutral title for the Kindred.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed.” Julias gave Jack a quick punch in the arm, and Jack bounced back like always with feigned shocked. “I know you, Jack. Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. You have to learn that quick, because Kindred are paranoid predators and they’ll tear you apart and leave you for the sun if they think you’re up to something.”

“ ... very scary.”

“Next. The Mekhet. They are shadows. They see everything and can hide anywhere. Fast too. Good at collecting information.”

“Assassins? They sound like ninjas.”

“Next. The Gangrel. Barbarians in jeans. They are very strong, and very tough. They can be very ... beast-like.” Julias sighed with his word; he couldn’t keep the harsh tone out of them. His distaste for the Gangrel must have seemed obvious. “And then the Nosferatu. They are ... monsters.”

Jack turned to give Julias a confused look. Always with the interest in the dangerous things, this kid had. He’d have to work hard to keep his childe from getting himself killed.

“They look like monsters, and they can use that fear against you.” Julias pointed to his temple. “They’ll fuck your head from the shadows, and are strong as well. You’ve seen The Phantom of the Opera? Think of Erik.”

“Oh, that’s ... that’s classic tragic. I have to avoid them?”

“Honestly? They’re probably the ones you should worry about the least. They’re wolves. The others are wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Julias brought a hand up to his chin and scratched at the gruff. “But they look different, so I felt I should warn you.”

“So Gangrel, Nosferatu, Daeva, and Mekhet. And...”

“And us, the Ventrue. We are leaders, rulers, kings and queens. We control, and we cannot be stopped. It’s in the blood.” He threw Jack a smile, and caught a glimpse of surprise in his childe. Jack had never thought of himself as a leader, Julias knew, but there was a potential in his friend. He could see it, even if Jack and no one else could, and that made him a powerful ally indeed.

“You’ll find all five in the Invictus. We are the largest of the covenants here.”

“Covenants?”

“Political parties, I guess. We have goals and an organization. It would take a long time to fully explain, but just know the names for now. We are going to see Viktor, Maria and Michael, who are the heads of the Invictus. There are also the Carthians, the Circle of the Crone, the Ordo Dracul, and the Lancea et Sanctum. The Prince has outlawed the Second Estate, the Lancea et Sanctum though, or at least any overt practicing of their ways.”

“She ... outlawed an entire political party? Dolareido is a dictatorship?”

“A monarchy is the closer example. She has advisers from all practicing groups, but ultimately her word is law.” He took a glance down his shoulder at his tiny friend. This was a huge information dump, but better that than letting Jack brood. He’d seen too many freshly embraced brood themselves into suicide. No, this was better. Don’t let him think about how he’d just lost his entire life and now he was going to have to spend immortality never feeling the sun anymore, and always craving blood. He was going to spend every moment of his existence fearing some elder Kindred was going to rip him apart. No reason to ruin what was proving to be a surprisingly smooth embrace, near-death experience aside.

“So ... why? Why all the politics?”

“How else could you keep a bunch of solitary, territorial predators forced to share the same food source from killing each other?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Good. You got the basics.”

“Basics? How much more complicated does it get?”

Julias just had to laugh. He raised a hand to his face and put his fingers over his smile. He knew Jack would be frowning at him, but that only made him laugh harder. Eventually, Julias put a hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Alright jackass, I get it,” Jack said between clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. While many of the Kindred are new to this, not much older than you even, many are also as old as I. Some far more so. They dig their fingers into people and spin webs of deceit so large, no one can track it anymore. Complicated does not begin to describe it, so make sure you don’t fall into any spider webs. Ah, we’re here.”

The two of them stood before a massive office building. It was monolithic, with indented black valleys up and down its length, while gentle white lights bathed it just enough to be visible in the night. The entrance was multiple massive doorways of reinforced glass, each clean to perfection so Julias could see into the lobby.

“Come. Stay beside me. Speak when spoken to, and address members of the circle only as Your Excellency.”

“Holy shit. This is Xnomina. They’re a massive corporation, Julias! From software to foodstuffs. You fucking tell me...”

“Yes, the Invictus run the company. Macro-level stuff. Come on.” Julias stepped up to the front of the building and opened the door. He’d normally open the door for his friend first, but this place was different. He went in first.

“Mister Mire. The circle is already assembled in the conference room. Please hurry,” the woman behind the counter said to Julias. A Mekhet, the quiet librarian type too, complete with glasses, short black hair, and eyes hard-locked on her laptop. Attractive, but timid. The beast inside him grumbled silently at the sight of her, knowing full well it could destroy her if it wanted to. Julias just smiled at her.

“Thank you Madam Jenning. Oh, and please put Master Jack Terry, my childe, in the system.” Julias motioned to the little Ventrue behind him.

“Master Jack? Oh. Oh! Well, isn’t he ... he’s a tiny thing isn’t he?” Gloria Jenning gave Jack a devious grin as she typed his name. Predictable. Julias was a tall and built man, and his friend was ... not. Still, he gave Gloria a quiet growl, and she sat upright in her seat and doubled her typing speed.

Julias kept walking. It’d be disrespectful to look back and check on Jack, but he knew Jack would be frowning and glaring daggers into Gloria. He could only hope he didn’t try that with Viktor.

The building was empty. Such a massive lobby, but the building was closed during the night, at least to its kine employees. Come nightfall, the building was empty save for the Invictus that had business here. The walls were high and black marble, and elevators lined the sides of the room.

“This way.” Julias continued on. Toward the back, there were a single elevator marked with Xnomina X. Julias pressed the open button, and waited.

“So ... we’re going up?”

“Yes.”

“To the top floor of Xnomina HQ.”

“Yes.”

“ ... fucking shit.”

Julias took a quick glance at his childe. The poor boy was shaking; his inner-beast was well aware of the danger, even if Jack thought he was just nervous. He’d have to explain the beast to him later when there was time, but he could not keep Viktor waiting.

“Just stay quiet, and only speak if they ask for you to. Be pithy, and respectful. To everyone.”

His childe nodded in sync with the ding of the elevator. The two stepped in, and a button press and quiet elevator ride later, stepped into a hallway, and then the conference room.

~~Jack~~

Jack didn’t know fear until then.

It was a large room, modern, with a huge wooden table in the center, and massive windows that overlooked the city night. The ceiling was raised high with an array of LEDs in ornamental patterns, and the floor was the same black marble as everything. It could not have looked anymore like a conference room designed for typical high-level business discussions.

Along the table, a quick glance revealed several objects that looked religious in origin, though he could not guess it. There were also folders, mountains of paper, and pictures of people and things. On the walls, TVs fed streams of data, statistics and telemetry. Some he recognized as stocks and other economy angles, some as crime reports, some as usage statistics on products. It was the head of the Xnomina corporation, and all the power it held. It made it difficult to tear his eyes away.

But what scared him were the people inside it.

There were only three people in the room. The first was a tall man with wide shoulders, and a black suit that might as well have said ‘kneel before me’ on its breast. Viktor, Jack guessed. His black hair was tied into a ponytail behind his head, and his face was clearly from an older age, despite his youthful appearance. He looked like he could have worn a cape and brandished a rapier, and have pulled it off easily.

Beside him was another man, but this one was dressed to kill. Jack guessed his motifs rather mafia-esque, with blazer suit, open neck, and a piercing that connected nose to ear by a chain, all under a shaved-head. He was huge. That must have been Michael, the Gangrel.

Then there was Maria. She stood a little short, with a slim and tiny figure. Her hair was long and black over her pale skin, and much of her face was hidden behind it. With her white dress that seemed almost dead to the eye, she looked like a ghost. When she turned to face Jack, he found himself quaking. She didn’t just look it, she felt like a ghost too. The air around her was cold — he could feel it from well over by the door — and bits of moisture in the air turned to mist around her.

She was Nosferatu.

“Ah, Mister Julias. Come in and introduce your friend.” That was Viktor. His voice was smooth and had some weird mingle of foreign accents, but every syllable was pronounced cleanly. An expert in communications and, by proxy, manipulations, Jack figured. The other two stood there and leveled their eyes on Jack, and he felt even more small than usual.

That new sensation inside him was howling to get away.

“Alder Viktor, may I present Master Terry, my childe.”

“I did not realize that it would be happening so soon,” Viktor said, and started to walk toward the small Ventrue. Jack did not look him in the eye, and decided it’d be best to keep his head down entirely. He gave a small bow.

“There were unexpected developments, and I was forced to embrace him early. He’d been stabbed.”

“Was he now?” This time it was the Nosferatu Maria who spoke up. Jack could feel the chill in his spine when her hoarse, raspy voice hit him. If someone had been thrown into a basement and left to die without water, he figured there final words would have sounded kinda like that.

“Yes. I believe it was Rebecca,” Julias said. Funny, Jack thought he could hear a moment’s hesitation in his friend’s response.

Alder Viktor, whatever Alder meant, walked up to Jack and looked down at him. Down didn’t do it justice. It was a king looking down at his servant’s servant. A god looking down at a pleb. He smiled, but Jack dared not look any higher than to see his lips and fangs.

The amount of body language reading was overwhelming. It was business, and he knew business, but these gods were all looking at him, and even a child would have noticed how they were thinking thirty steps ahead, purely on how he moved or didn’t move.

“I am sorry, Master Terry, that your embrace had to be handled so callously. I am sure Mister Mire did what had to be done to save your life. Tell me, what do you remember of who attacked you?”

The gods wanted him to speak. Fuck.

“ ... your Excellency, I remember ... a woman of similar height to myself, with red hair,” he said with lowered head. His voice wavered, and he could barely hear himself. He was sure he could hear Michael suppress a chuckle.

“That does indeed sound like Rebecca.” Viktor turned and paced before Jack and Julias. His hands had slipped behind his back, fingers netted, and his face was hardened into a small grimace. “A dangerous accusation. We’ll take it into consideration. In fact, it may have had something to do with your mission, Mister Mire.”

“Mission, Alder Viktor?”

“Yes, it ... perhaps you should send your childe home. We have business.” Viktor slowly lowered his gaze down to Jack, and the little boy averted his eyes with a snap. If he could avoid eye contact for the night, maybe he’d come out in once piece. He could still feel that thing inside him, something new and unbridled, demanding he escape these titans.

With a nod, Julias put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and escorted him out of the room, before closing the doors behind them. They stopped in front of the elevator, and Julias turned Jack to face him.

“That went well,” Julias said.

“It did? I got kicked out. That lasted a whole two minutes.” Jack squirmed as they waited for the elevator. Some idiot must have called it back down, and now they had to wait, with those terrors behind him.

“Trust me Jack, that was a good first impression. Now, take the elevator back to the lobby and just head back to my place. Drink more of the blood I have in the fridge, and wait for me.”

“How long you going to be?” Jack said.

“Don’t know, but—” The ding of the elevator interrupted him. “Just get home quickly, and drink as much blood as you want. I really shouldn’t just be abandoning you on your first night like this, and Viktor knows it. If he’s got something I need to do now, it’s important.”

“Are there things I should be worried about on my first night?”

“Not if you just get back to my place quick and stay inside my apartment. I’ll catch up with you later.”

~~Julias~~

The building was already on fire.

“Oh shit. God ... fuck.” Julias stood at the edge of the building, just some run down old apartment building in the old district, but the flames it gave off were starting to rise. He couldn’t go rooting through the building’s rooms, he’d be ash in seconds, but Viktor wanted that data and supposedly it was in there.

He paced from side to side and looked through the windows. No fire alarms were going off; the building must have been abandoned. Probably condemned. The neighborhood was in the factory district, old and filled with typical lowlife. He wouldn’t feed off these streets. And it meant it’d be a while before the police department showed up.

Which meant he had time. The fire was filling the front windows, but around back and behind maybe there was still time. Behind it, the parking lot was empty save for some broken cars and shopping carts, and the backs of other buildings that surrounded the block in the typical dead-city fashion. It was the sort of place he expected a Nosferatu would hang out to feed.

Third floor, apartment 35. Viktor had said a Mekhet would be there, some no-name with sensitive data. Data his master wanted. But now the building was on fire, and the whole thing stank of ash, chemicals, and unlikely coincidence.

The back door to the old building was broken off its hinges, and the fire hadn’t done it. In fact, the back of the building was still mostly intact. He stepped up to the door and took a long sniff of the air, but only managed to get smoke. There was movement ahead though, someone else, some short person in a trench coat. They were trying to get up the stairs, but flames blocked their way.

“Rebecca.”

The Daeva turned around. Her speed was a blur, like it was just innate to the she-demon to move with such swiftness. She dug the balls of her feet into the flooring, and growled back at him.

He hated that she was so damn gorgeous. A somewhat petite woman with long red hair and blue eyes, she had the look of a lounge singer, and even her trench coat had that Daeva fashion sense. Classy, sophisticated, but luxurious.

“Julias. Setting fire to the building? I must admit, that’s pretty smart.”

She was accusing him of setting the fire. That meant she hadn’t done it, or was just trying to trick him.

“You stabbed my friend.”

“Ah yea, the boy ... stabbed, but not dead then? So you had time to turn him? Ah well.” The bitch gave a shrug, followed with a devil smile. Flames burned behind her, easing up and devouring the wallpaper, but she didn’t seem phased. “I should have just stabbed him in the face.”

He growled right back at her as the beast within his ribs clawed at his insides for blood. He was going to enjoy ripping her into a fleshy mess and leaving her for the flames. There was no escape, as his body was broad enough to cover the small doorway, and Rebecca knew it. Try as she might to be confident, he could see her eyes glancing around and looking for an exit. It was only getting hotter.

“Here for the data too then?” she said.

“Of course.”

“You even know what’s on it?”

“Do you?”

“Of course,” she said, and gave him a wicked grin. “Tony isn’t Viktor.”

“Then by all means, share with the class.”

“No.”

He thought he’d have learned by now, but no matter how many times it happened, he always underestimated Rebecca. Her fist smashed into his chest, hard, hard enough to break bones and send him stumbling back. She was such a tiny thing, but she was a Daeva, and that meant she was fast and damn strong. He’d managed to get one of his hands onto the door frame though, just in time to block the doorway when she tried to get past him.

It felt really good to crack her in the face with his knuckles. She rolled back onto her ass, but was on her feet in just a second. To his satisfaction, he could see how his punch had dented in her cheek; the bone underneath was damaged, and the fire was growing behind her.

“Get out of my way, Invictus.”

He grinned and stared down at her. “No.”

“Move! The sun is coming up soon. We’ll both die here.”

“Maybe. I’d really love to make sure you burn first though.”

Her Daeva beauty faltered for a moment when she screamed death upon him. She lunged at him, but this time she brought out her knife mid-flight. He’d forgotten about the knife.

Even as a Kindred, a knife was not something to ignore. The feeling of it cutting open his stomach was painful, but his vampire body would not let his blood escape through the wound. He took the opportunity to reach out and take her neck with both hands, and squeeze.

Crack. Crunch. Her neck began to collapse inward under his large grip. It wouldn’t kill her, but she wouldn’t be able to do much if her neck and spine were a crushed mess. Her eyes bulged in panic, and she sliced at him several more times, but only cutting skin deep. She bared her teeth at him, and raised her hand into the air.

The knife went cleanly into his face. She’d stabbed him under the cheek, likely aiming for his temple and missing, and the metal pushed through the upper half of his jaw to come out the other side of his face. He was no Daeva wimp, he was a Ventrue, and no Ventrue would stop simply from a knife through the face. He continued crushing her neck, and jerked his head about to dislodge her grip until her hands grabbed his wrists. She wasn’t strong enough to escape this. He knew it. She knew it.

“You tried to kill my friend. You failed.” He threw her weight against a nearby wall, but held onto her neck hard enough that he heard bone snap. The heat was rising, fire danced up the old furniture and dirtied carpet, and smoke clouded the air. “I’m going to break you until you can’t move, and then I’m going to toss you into the fire.”

This time he smashed her down against a nearby table. Everything in the building was so old and worn, it gave way without resistance, so the girl crashed into the floor with wide eyes. Her hands reached out in obvious panic, and Julias glared down at her with enough rage that he could feel it coursing through his fingers. More things went pop in her neck. Her fingers found something on the floor, but he didn’t care. She was dead.

By the time he’d realized what Rebecca had grabbed onto, it was too late. The crashing force of a hammer to his skull knocked him to the side, his grip lost and his balance gone.

“Fucking hell—”

She hit him again. And again. He could feel his skull cave inward under a flurry of blows from the hammer — a mallet, it looked like — before the heating floor rose up to meet him. Then, blackness.

~~Jack~~

Jack had no idea blood could be so warm.

What happened? He was on a rooftop, that much was clear, and from what he could see, he was at least ten stories up. A quick glance over the edge, complete with some vertigo and mild dizziness, confirmed his suspicion. Julias’s place was only a few blocks down the street; he recognized some of the buildings even from the weird angle.

There was blood on his lips, his chin, even his neck. It’d been warm only seconds before, so warm, but now in the cold night and on his cold body, it was just as cold. The sweet, sweet taste of it was on his tongue, and the tingling bliss it filled him with rippled out into his limbs from his core. It was just like Julias’s drink, but a thousand times more powerful. The hunger was gone, and he felt like he could take on the world.

The corpse behind him made him want to puke.

There was no ladder to get up this high. He must have climbed it. He didn’t remember climbing the building, or who this person was. They were dead though, and their eyes weren’t closed. They were just staring up at nothing, with the person’s face frozen in a terrified expression.

He walked over to the body. A woman. She was in a coat, a few of the buttons torn off, and a business suit underneath. She looked maybe forty, but he couldn’t tell. Nothing looked right. There was no subtle movement to her lips or eyes. No blinking. It was like some uncanny valley. With a shaking hand, he reached out to touch her face. Cold. A mess of red was around her neck, staining her blond hair, and the puncture wounds were obvious and messy. The flesh wasn’t just punctured, but ripped and torn, like some animal had bitten her neck and thrashed.

She had a wedding ring.

“I ... I don’t...” He fell back onto his butt, and sat there. There was a corpse in front of him. Her blood was on his lips. When he buried his face in his hands, fuzzy images of screams, walls, and darkness crept up on him.

The shaking started. He dragged his fingers down his face and stared at the woman, even as every second made him want to wretch his guts out. His body fought against the urge; it demanded blood. The thing inside him, that hidden thing clawing at his ribs was satisfied and would not let it go, no matter how much he wanted to puke it out. Jack could only hug himself tighter.

“She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.” More memories sneaked their way into his consciousness. He’d been on the street, and he’d been hungry. Overwhelmingly hungry. He was supposed to get back to Julias’s and have some of his blood drink, but he couldn’t wait anymore. That thing inside him, it ... it demanded blood. It just demanded it.

“I did this. Fuck ... fuck...” That barrier between reality and acceptance came crumbling down, bit by bit. Not just a corpse, not just a blood bag. This woman was married. She had a family. She had a life. Her blood had been so warm. “God ... fucking ... damn it.”

He sat there and cried for a while in the dark, until the woman was paler than even him. How long until sunrise? A part of him thought about just waiting it out and letting the sun take him, but the thought quickly passed. Suicide was a coward’s way out. He killed someone. He had to accept that. He had to ... deal with that.

“Shit. The Masquerade.” The puncture wounds on her neck were obvious. No one would have mistaken this for anything but what it was: a vampire attack. “I ... fuck. Run. Run I could run. I could leave! Viktor couldn’t find me. I could hide and...” Only the dead quiet of the corpse in front of him answered. He couldn’t hide, not from Viktor, not from Xnomina. Where the fuck could he run? Sunlight would kill him!

And even if he did run, this corpse would end up on the news, and the puncture wounds in her neck would lead to all sorts of media sensationalism about vampires, warranted or not. Then Julias would have to pay for his mistake. He couldn’t do that to Julias.

“I ... have to ... deal with this.”

Easier said than done. He leaned over the woman — the body — and put a hand over her face. Closing her eyes did not feel natural. How many movies had he seen where they closed the person’s eyes? But he couldn’t let her ... let it see him do what he needed to do. Couldn’t let it watch.

He pulled out a knife.

~~Julias~~

Blood. There was blood being forced into his mouth. Julias didn’t think twice about it and opened his mouth wider to let the sweet nectar flow down his throat.

The revitalizing power of fresh human blood always astonished Julias. He could feel his stomach reseal, his gashes close, and his skull begin to reform. His left eye returned, and with it did his eyesight, though he could still only see darkness. He must have been underground. Was someone feeding him?

His neck eventually closed and allowed his shriveled lungs to pass air. His voice returned, and he took a few moments to make a grunt or two to test it.

“Where ... where am I?” He tried to move to at least determine his orientation. Snapping to consciousness in the dark gives horrible vertigo. His arms refused to move, but he could feel they were functioning. His legs too did not move either.

“Deep in the South Hill Cemetery. The old catacombs.”

He knew that voice. A woman’s voice. He tried to turn his head to see as his Kindred eyes adjusted, but even they had trouble deep in the dark.

“Catacombs? What ... did you... ?” He tried to move his arms and legs again, and this time the binding chains were apparent. They rattled lightly against the hard floor from his attempts to dislodge them, and even his healed body could not free them. They weren’t there for kine, they were for Kindred.

“Julias Julias Julias. You don’t recognize my voice? I’m hurt.”

His head raised at the sound of a thud and clattering of what he had to guess was bone. A stairway showed just the hint of candlelight from a room above, and a stairway connecting them. A corpse was strewn across its steps now.

He sighed. The blood had to come from somewhere.

“You’re ... Beatrice.”

“Ah, I am so glad you remembered.”

He almost gasped when the Kindred crawled onto his body, silent as a snake. She straddled him and smiled in the dark, even as her hands dragged up and down his bare chest. Bare?

This close, he could see more of her features in the dark, and combined with memories, managed to piece together what she looked like. He remembered her claws, long and unnatural. He could see her raven hair that reached her shoulders and framed her face. He could even see the odd green of her eyes and the black slits within them, like a reptile’s.

With a chuckle, the Nosferatu brought a candle out and lit it with a strike of a match, and immediately the image was completed for him. She was tanned, for a vampire, and her features were almost predatory in how they highlighted the sharp, piercing gaze of her serpent eyes. She had an average height, but with a body built for flexibility and strength both. She was wearing jeans with a white tank top, and her midrift was completely exposed to show her rather impressive low bodyfat. She wore no bra, and the tight top highlighted her defined torso and pert breasts.