A Place to Belong: Chapter 20

Chapter XX

The Night I Gave Up

I didn’t know how much time had passed before it began. The smell of rot and stagnant water filled my senses. It permeated the air around me, almost making the drifting dust sink to the ground from its heavy, fetid stench. A slow, scraping sound, like dragging metal boots across stone began to circle around me. Then a low, moaning voice began to fill the air, melodic and somber like a dirge, though with an undertone of glee, as if the singer were happy to witness the casket lid close over a fresh corpse at a funeral. 

“The waters warm are good to swim

For every leech born therein. 

When blood runs out, or waters chill

A leech still needs to drink its fill. 

They take, they drink, at any cost

Who’ll notice when a leech is lost?”

The putrid stench grew more rancid, even more overwhelming, even though I didn’t need to breathe. I could taste it in the air, feel the sting of it on my wounds, the foulness blotted out everything my senses tried to report to me, deadening my mind from thinking of a way out. 

“There is no ‘way out,’ little leech,” the voice said again, the melody in its tone gone, replaced with a rasping laugh. “You’ve met your end, as so many have before you. You’ve spiraled down down down into the black. Now I’m here to watch you dance with death.” 

“Kill… me?” I asked, choking out blood as I spoke. The pain of trying nearly caused me to pass out again, and part of me hoped desperately that his answer was going to be yes. 

“No,” the voice said, with as much glee in it as I expected an affirmative answer to bring. “I am not a bringer of death as my ilk are. I facilitate its end to be exactly what one of your kind deserves, leech. Long. Slow… Painful.”

I felt something long and sharp run along the side of my wound. Pain erupted in my side, but the creature, whatever it was, pulled the talon back before the darkness overwhelmed me again. My vision blurred, but a pair of eyes gleamed at me in the darkness. One was green and venomous, the other milky white and dead, but both gleamed at me, filled with a twisted enjoyment at my pain. 

“Who… are…” it hurt too much to talk, my body clenched against it, only to send ripples of agony through every part of me that moved. 

“Always the curious ones… or the arrogant ones…” the creature said, its form materializing more in the dark as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. His form was almost lupine, perhaps a Garou, but he looked more serpentine than a Garou should, matted fur slicked back against his skin as though thick with oil and grease. His claws were long, and he dragged them across the stone floor with every step. He was slow, patient, and most terrifyingly of all, completely mad. 

Cassandra had been mad, but that was the curse of Malkav. Her madness stemmed from seeing too much of the universe and not being prepared for it. This creature, however, its madness came from something deeper, more human. 

This was a madness born of isolation. 

“Sorrow… Sorrow… Sorrow…” he said, his voice filled with mock misery, then he looked up at me, his long fangs broken and yellow, somehow in worse condition than Ledger’s had been. “Sorrow-of-Ages. I carry my namesake with me, and I ensure you carry it to hell with you. Suffering, little leech, is what you bring to the world of my mother. You created rot in the Wyld… but the Wyrm has taught me much. It has taught me that all things end, and all things are meant to end. Rot and decay is inevitable, even for little leeches like you.” 

He leaned closer, and I could see the maggots moving under his gums, feeding on the rotten flesh. 

“But your kind rejected the Wyld… you rejected the Weaver…” he spoke, his underlying rage growing as he spoke. “Worse than any of that, you rejected the Wyrm. You rejected CHANGE!” 

He roared, and for a moment I expected him to bring his taloned fists down on me, ending my suffering, but he flipped, just as quickly, back to his calm, slithering tone. 

“You separate yourselves into clans and factions, all seeking the same thing… control,” he said, circling me again, the scraping of his talons against the stone reminded me of the ticking of a clock. Slow drag, then click. Slow drag, then click. As if the seconds of my immortal life were being lost by his every step, not with them. As if each step stole that life from me rather than time. 

“Why… wait…” I gasped, trying not to choke on my own vitae. “Why… watch…” 

“So I can see you experience the thing you deny, little leech,” Sorrow said, a sweetness in his voice that reflected cruelty. “Entropy.”

No matter what his answer was, the honest truth was that he enjoyed watching the suffering of others. He wasn’t wrong about Kindred ignoring entropy. Our bodies didn’t age, and neither did our mentalities sometimes. From what I learned about the Camarilla, some live as though the Victorian era never ended. A creature like the Garou, who lived by the waxing and waning of the moon would definitely see something like us as their enemy, except there was something off about Sorrow-of-Ages. 

“Wyrm… wears… leech…” I muttered, trying to vocalize the words Diego had told me the Garou shouted when I’d lost control. “Tainted… moonchild…” 

“Oh, you think to save yourself with prophecy?” Sorrow asked, his words honeyed venom. “Prophecy spouted by those who know nothing of the Wyrm they fear so badly. Their mother Gaia cries for defenders as the humans rape her and shame her for fighting back, as your ilk feed them, and rally them, to build and grow and multiply so that they’re easier to herd and farm and milk for blood. You support the Weaver without knowing his name, while the Wyrm, the actual agent of change in this world, is seen as the enemy to those who keep Gaia on her life support. But you… you dare think he chose to wear your skin over one who is more deserving?” 

He slithered closer to me. 

“Or are you simply trying to buy time?” he asked, smirking at me, face twisted in a grimace. “Hoping that your stolen knowledge of a fearful puppy’s prophecy would be enough to save you from the Wyrm’s justice for your… dare I even call them ‘friends?’ For your friends to come save you?” 

He howled a laugh that sent a painful shiver through my broken body. 

“They’re not coming,” Sorrow whispered in my ear. “They never come. You think you’re the first I brought down here? No… no… but you’re the first to empty the vault, to take from it what the leeches lust for. No more leeches, no more food, so my hunting grounds must change.” 

Sorrow smiled wickedly at me. 

“Yes, I will pick the flesh clean from your bones once the Wyrm has had his way with you,” he said, and I tried not to look at the rotting teeth that would rend my flesh. “Once a leech falls from the sky, whether by my hand or someone else’s, no one seeks them, because no leech is worth searching the darkness for. No leech is worth risking the final death for. Your kind are cowards by nature, weak and fragile, and selfish.” 

Those words echoed my own understanding of the kindred I’d been exposed to. Camarilla, Anarch, it didn’t matter. Most of their time was spent trying to grow their position, or survive where they found themselves, clinging to whatever they could to stay valuable to their masters and terrifying to their lessers. It was my hope that the others were different. That my coterie would see value in saving me. The same value that I saw in saving them.

But the doubt began to creep in. 

Callie would never come for me. Sorrow was right about that. She probably saw this as an opportunity. She had the artifact. She had what her master wanted. Saving me was a risk to both her life and her standing that she couldn’t afford. To her, coming for me was a waste of time, talent, and her unlife. 

Diego may have, but I knew him better than that. Months ago I may have said he’d be too afraid to come down and find me. To travel through the shadows would be easy, but facing off against a mad creature like Sorrow? Well, he could do it now, and he knew he could, but he’d never get that far. He knew what he was now. He was a protector, the defender. To leave the women up there alone, to recover me? He knew better. He’d protect what could be saved. I knew he would. 

But Isadora?

I let my heart hope longer than I should have. I hoped that she would come for me in the name of the moments we shared, in the name of the secrets we kept for each other, in the name of the unspoken promises that seemed to pass between us. Perhaps she, of all kindred of the night, she was one who would come for me in my time of need. Who would rip me from the jaws of death and this mad Garou. 

No, I knew better there too, and it shattered my heart. She’d told me not to save her because when death came for her I needed to respect its call. There was no reason she would seek out my body when it was already buried in its own tomb. She may have a ritual for me, perhaps in private, where she can honor me and say goodbye, but death had claimed me for a second time in as many months. She would respect its call and claim. 

My mind went through anyone left who could come, who might come. Natalia couldn’t even be bothered to come get her artifact herself. I was a tool, a blade to be sharpened, used, then thrown away. She wouldn’t come. Marcus would laugh upon hearing of my death, or raise a toast to his correct assessment of my fate. He’d never come. Arthur didn’t know me, probably wouldn’t care to. He wouldn’t come. Cassandra may have risked it, for our mortal friendship, but she was gone, and even if she saw this happen, there was nothing she could do. She wouldn’t come. 

No one was coming. 

I was going to die alone in the dark. 

Well, not alone. Worse than alone. 

Sorrow-of-Ages’ face slowly came into view, grinning as he watched my face fall with what he knew to be despair. 

“Truth dawns on the little leech,” he said, his voice sing-songy with glee. “Truth and entropy, two things that will always claim what is theirs in the end. So tell me, when will you stop telling yourself that final lie?”

I looked at him, confused. 

“Lie…?” I asked, barely able to get the word out before more coughing wracked my body, sending shockwaves of pain through every fiber of me. 

“Tell me why you use your logic, little blood-thief,” Sorrow demanded in answer to my question. “Tremere took that which was not his to cling to that which should not be, and explained it all logically. Why does a blood-thief use logic? The same reason your mortal self did. The same reason you’re trying to use it now. You accepted your abandonment, but you probably came up with reasons… excuses… behavioral traits that explain why they do what they do.” 

He scuttled around me, bringing his face so close to mine I could feel the matted fur pressing and wet against my skin. 

“But we know why they do what they do,” he whispered in my ear, his words like crawling worms. “Just as we know why you need to make excuses. Why you need your logic. It is your nature… because you crave control. Craft the narrative in your mind, lie to yourself, and set everything back into your own hands so you can mold a situation, craft it, into one you can control… or one you can accept.” 

He pulled back quickly, scuttling through the dark, more insectoid than lupine. I saw him peering down at me from atop the pile of rubble. 

“But you won’t accept it, not until entropy erodes your lies and reveals the truth that you tried to bury beneath,” he cackled. “Their nature, their kindred nature. An ironic term, to call them your kindred, your family. Because kindred nature is selfish, unyielding, self preservation. They’re not nobly pressing on with the mission, they’re not accepting loss because of a moral or religious belief… they won’t save you because they won’t risk dying to do so. To them, you’re not worth that.” 

His words bit into me, echoing thoughts I’d tried to bury. With Callie and Marcus it made sense. They hated me. I was in their way. Diego… Isadora… I’d hoped for more with them. I knew they wouldn’t come for me, but there were reasons, good reasons, but still… I pushed down the fear, the pain, that they just didn’t care enough about me… that they would rather keep themselves safe than risk harm to save me. I didn’t want to think it, but nothing from what I saw of kindred society could make me deny that possibility. 

“You’ve been wounded long before you were impaled down here,” Sorrow said, each word a twist of the knife. “You were just desperately trying to cling to control you never had.” 

Control I never had. Every chess move I made was just another feeble attempt to control a situation that I wasn’t even a player in. These kindred above me were all grand masters while I was fiddling with the board trying to figure out which way the horsies went. What a fool I was, ever thinking I could be anything in this world…

“Yes…” Sorrow’s voice slithered into my mind in the dark. “Yes…” 

I closed my eyes, trying to shut the world away. It would be gone soon. Entropy would take it. It would take me first, but soon everything else would follow. What point was there in playing these games? There would be no winner in the end. 

Ashes to ashes, I thought to myself, ignoring the whimpering cries of my beast as it clawed pathetically at its cage. Dust… to… dust…