A Place to Belong: Chapter 12

Chapter XII

Howl at the Moon

As Isadora and I walked arm in arm down the Greenway, miles before us in the pitch blackness of the trees, I thought how much I missed taking the time to move through nature. Hiking and kayaking had been part of who I was, or at least who I was becoming. It was always difficult to drag myself to go and do these things, but once I was out there, I never wanted to leave. That feeling was coming back again, here with her in the dark, and for a moment I was able to forget that we weren’t human anymore. 

Isadora’s pace matched mine, her long strides swishing against the heavy fabric of her Victorian styled skirt, the folds swirling like a ballgown as the silver buttons of her boots flashed with moonlight that broke through the treetops. Her grip on my arm had relaxed and now she simply had hers draped lazily through mine in a comfortably familiar way for someone who’d only known me a night. 

“You didn’t strike me as the trusting sort,” I said to her, my eyes never leaving the path illuminated by the nearly full, but waxing moon. “Yet here you are, walking the dark, deserted path with me, having known me for such a short period. Have I earned that much trust from you already?”

“Do you not deserve to be trusted?” Isadora asked, her question striking me harder than I anticipated. 

“I’m… not sure,” I responded, honestly. “Much of this new life… well, unlife… that I find myself in seems to be little more than a game where one group or individual kindred is out to get one over on another group or kindred. It’s all false smiles and empty promises that no one believes but everyone pretends to. While I find myself playing it because that’s how one survives… I find it exhausting. Probably why I enjoy your company as much as I do, despite not understanding fully why you seem to enjoy mine. You’re refreshing in your refusal to play the game.” 

There was a small smile on her face that I could barely perceive in the moonlight. Her pace never wavered, but I felt her body, cold and dead as mine without any pretense of the false warmth we use to mirror the living, press closer to mine as we walked. 

“I don’t refuse to play the game,” Isadora said, though her flat tone seemed to carry a note of sadness in it. “I refuse to play it on other people’s terms. You’re not wrong that to survive we must manipulate and deceive, but mine is framed differently. We’re all in the same game, but we all play by different rules. And that is why we need each other, and that is why we will all lose.”

I cocked my head to one side, looking at her. She was still smiling, but it was sadder than before, as though she was no longer trying to hide her emotions. 

“What do you mean?” I asked her. 

“Do you know much about my clan?” she asked me, responding to my question with one of her own. I was getting used to her habit of doing this. “Each of our clans carries a curse, do you know what mine is?”

“I don’t think I do…” I said, pursing my lips together as I thought. Natalia had gone over our own flaws in detail with me. Perfectionism and hubris often got in the way of a Tremere. Even in life I found myself disregarding a task or opportunity because I wouldn’t be able to do it perfectly or it wouldn’t be a perfect fit, so I accepted less when I was capable of more. 

Callie, like all Ventrue, had a need to be obeyed. They were the bloodline of kings and emperors, so to be disregarded or talked down to was practically a cardinal sin. They could become fanatical about being obeyed, to the point of self destruction. But even our curses weren’t anywhere near as bad as Diego or Cassandra’s. The blessing of Lasombra, to be invisible in technology was a double edged sword meaning he could never use it, and the madness that plagued Cassandra… I suppressed a shudder as I thought of what must be happening to my friend’s mind. 

“When you feed, what happens to your prey?” she asked me in response. 

“I usually command them to be quiet, my fangs go in, they go still, and I drink,” I say, logically laying out the process. “Rarely do I ever feed to completion, as I usually only feed on people that have more than they need, and plenty to spare.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said, rolling her head so it rested on my shoulder. “So quick and clean… But we Hecata don’t get such a sweet experience.” 

She stopped walking, her eyes drawn up to the moon. I stood with her, watching, not pushing her to share. We stood there for a few minutes before she spoke again. 

“It hurts, every time, it hurts,” she said, her voice small. “Not me, my fangs. I can never bite someone who won’t scream in agony or cry in pain. Even if silenced, even if unconscious, they will whimper and cry and scream. Many of my kind…” 

I felt her body begin to shake, but whether it was from fear or anger I couldn’t tell. She gripped my arm tighter, grounding herself, and continued speaking. 

“Many of my clan have taken to drinking the blood of corpses, those freshly dead and not treated yet by modern doctors and morticians, just so we don’t have to hear the screams,” she said, her eyes cast down and away from me. She’d phrased it purposefully, knowing I would catch it. 

“How do other clans feel about this?” I asked her, not explicitly exposing her, but she understood the question. 

“They treat baggers like weaklings,” she said, her voice colder somehow, an edge of bitterness in it that I’d not heard in her before. “Like your friend who feeds off of donated blood. But even they are given higher regards than those who feed from the dead, as though they’re any better. All for wanting peace.” 

The curse she was describing was a terrible one. Not only would it affect one’s psyche, but it also created a dangerous feeding environment. If they could get someone alone in a secluded area, as we currently were, they may be able to feed without anyone catching them. In the city itself, however, it would be practically impossible to feed without alerting someone, or needing to be watchful the entire time. The anxiety of feeding must be especially vexxing for her and her clan. There was still one thought that was bothering me, however…

“How does it affect you, personally?” I asked her, curiously. “You have such reverence for the dead, wouldn’t feeding that way be considered a desecration? Or is there a way of perceiving it that I don’t understand?”

Isadora let out a melodic sound that caught me off guard. She was laughing. It was small, like the flutter of butterfly wings, but tangible all the same. She turned to look at me, her eyes sparkling in the moonlight, a feral hunger beneath them, but a warmth she’d never shown before mingled among it. 

“Were everyone as perceptive and inquisitive as you, Grey,” she said to me, the note of laughter carrying into her words, animating them in a way she’d never shown before. 

“Yes, I struggled with the tug of war. Do I feed on the living and cause pain and suffering? Or do I feed on the dead and take from those who have nothing left to give anymore? My soul was at war for so long I thought I’d lost it completely. But eventually I made peace with it all. Life is indeed suffering, and I did my best not to cause more than necessary to the lives of those I fed on. And those who have died give their bodies to our care. In order to care for them, their bodies give me a needed tithe. Neither option is perfect, but as your kind well know, perfection is the enemy of progress.” 

I laughed to myself. She wasn’t wrong. How many times had I allowed the drive for perfection, or at least proficiency, before I would allow myself to do something or try something? Opportunities were lost and my life was made harder by doing it. She had seen the truth of it all: when dealt a bad hand, you still have to play it. You just have to be smart and make the proper sacrifices to survive as well as live with yourself. 

“You know why I trust you,” she said, quietly, almost nervous about the next thing she had to say. “But you’re hurting yourself, and you need to stop.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked, actually feeling confused. 

“The reason I trust you, the fact that you are grounded and safe, that will be your undoing,” she explained, though I still didn’t understand. She sighed, shook her head, and then looked up at me. 

“You are the grounded one,” she said, placing her hand on my cheek and looking me in my eyes. “You’re grounded in logic, in principle, and in your beliefs. But there is such a thing as being too grounded. You can be so grounded that you bury yourself, and your convictions will become the stones you build your own tomb with.” 

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask her, allowing some of the quiet frustration I’d been burying surface. She didn’t flinch; she knew it wasn’t aimed at her. “You’re right about life being filled with suffering, and we cause it. Even if my fangs don’t hurt them it doesn’t mean the action doesn’t. But if I target the ones who deserve it…” 

“How do you know they deserve suffering?” Isadora asked, her voice soft. 

“Because they’re the ones that cause it,” I said in response, my voice getting louder. “And if I had this power when I was alive I’d have done the same thing to these people, made them feel the same suffering they made others feel.”

“Do I deserve to suffer because of the suffering I’ve caused?” she asked, her voice calm as she smoothed my hair, pulling the loose locks back into place. 

I froze, her words chilling me. Where did I draw the line? Isadora causes suffering, but tries to cause as little as she can. The people who do it purposefully, they’re not like her, but if I didn’t know her I wouldn’t know she tried so hard to alleviate suffering. I’d have tried to hurt her all the same thinking she was an oppressor. 

“I don’t care if that’s why you do what you do,” she said, her voice filled with sincerity. “I just want you to be honest with yourself. As much as I want you to be honest with me.”

My eyes locked on hers, and I tried to find the words to answer her, to either admit or deny my desire to hurt those who had hurt what I loved in life. The problem was, I wasn’t sure what the truth was. I didn’t know why I couldn’t tell, maybe I just wanted to still believe I was a good person. That I ever had been a good person… but I didn’t get the chance to think about it for long. 

A howl, too wicked and human to be a true wolf, pierced the night and sent the temperature around us plummeting down. There was something about that howl, something familiar I couldn’t place, but there would be time enough later to analyze why… Well, hopefully there would be. 

I grabbed Isadora’s arm and started moving down the Greenway towards Freedom Park. The walk had become a mad dash, but I’d have to make that up to her another night. My legs moved harder and faster than they ever could when I was human, even in the more constricting suit pants. Isadora kept pace, even started to out run me a bit. She slowed, as if to usher me on. 

“Keep running!” I shouted at her, but it was too late. Whatever had been chasing us crashed through the trees, its silver form little more than a blur in the moonlight. He hit Isadora hard, sending her flying back into a tree. I moved to grab her, saving myself a similar fate by mere inches. This blow clipped my shoulder and sent me spiraling. 

I brought my hand up and sliced my palm with my fang, flicking my fingers at the creature, aiming for where the eyes should be, summoning the necrotic power of my bloodline and hissing a word of fury. My vitae flew out in an arch, and where it hit wood and stone, it hissed and bubbled, turned to acid. The creature howled in pain, clutching at its face as I smelled acrid, melting flesh. 

 The shriek was hideous to the point where my beast echoed it, nearly smashing through its cage in fear. Gritting my teeth, I barely manage to keep a lid on the frenzy building up in my chest. I tried to avert my gaze, thinking maybe if I didn’t have line of sight on it, then I wouldn’t feel the fear, but my eyes caught sight of something glittering in the light. Something that stopped me dead in my tracks. 

Hanging around its neck was a blood red stone on a silver chain. It matched the one I’d seen on the Blood Walk with Natalia. The necklace that hung around the neck of the man who had drained my blood away before Natalia had managed to come and save me. But he looked nothing like the man who’d attacked me anymore. He resembled nothing of a man anymore. 

His skin was gray and rubbery, stretched over a body that was misproportioned, bulky in some places, far too long and twisted in others. There was something human shaped about his head, but the jaws were too big, teeth too long, and ears pointed and torn. One thing that confused me was that, if this was a Garou, where was its fur?

“Help… us…” I heard Isadora’s voice call out, and turned to run to her, but as I turned I was met with the howling faces of the damned spirits doomed to walk the earth after death charging towards me. 

My body froze as they collided with me, sending a chill through my body as they passed through and piled on the creature that had attacked us. It howled in pain and rage, swatting at the spirits, trying to fight off their incorporeal forms, but its long talons wouldn’t make contact. It screeched again, turned, and fled into the trees, trailed by the haunting moans of the spirits at Isadora’s command. 

“That was a good call, Isadora,” I said, smiling at her as I turned around. Her eyes locked on mine, then she looked down. Following her gaze, I saw the pool of her vitae expanding from the three massive slashes across her chest and stomach. She tried to speak, but only a gout of vitae came out. She sank to her knees, eyes glazing over, words failing as the light fled them. 

The scream tore from my throat as her body hit the ground.