A Place to Belong: Chapter 6

Chapter VI

Blood of my Blood

As I slipped into the car, my hands gripping the luxurious leather of the steering wheel, I noticed the shadows of the passenger seat shift and move unnaturally. I tipped the valet and put the car in drive. As I pulled out onto the street, I took a deep, unnecessary breath. 

“And how can I help you, this evening?” I asked, without glancing over at the passenger side. 

“You saw me?” a voice, thick with a hispanic accent, came from the dark spot beside me. “Damn, if a gringo spotted me, I must be slipping.” 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man, perhaps a few years younger than me, seem to materialize in the passenger seat. His posture made him out to be lounging, though the seat wasn’t pushed back or angled enough to do so. Perhaps it was his own vampiric nature, or, more likely, just the easy nature he seemed to emanate. Dark curls fell in a tousled mop of hair from his head, his coffee colored skin seemed to have a bit too much milk poured into it to be healthy, and his eyes were so dark they were practically black. 

“You got twitchy,” I pointed out, returning my eyes to the road so as not to allow them to linger on him too long. “The shadows moved.” 

“You caught that? As a neonate?” he said, letting out a low whistle. “Impressive. No where near as impressive as ghouling a congressman on your first night. Got some big aspirations there, but you may be biting off a little more than you can chew.”

“Probably,” I agreed, not fully understanding most of what he was talking about, but I didn’t want to let on how little I knew. Instead, I nodded along while making note of which words I needed to look up for later. “But I need to ask, what’s your interest in my little game?”

“Game, is it? Oh, my money is on a Ventrue,” he said, grinning as he used another word I wasn’t familiar with. “Too put together to be Malkavian. And too blasphemous to be a Lasombra like myself, eh Grey Cardinal?”

I felt my mouth quirk into a slight smile as he spoke. “Caught that one, did you?”

“Took all I had in me to keep from laughing out loud and exposing my position,” he said, grinning. “On the way out the door, I was trying to choose whether to ice you or try to recruit you. Do you know which one I chose?”

“Recruit,” I said without a second’s hesitation. 

He clicked his tongue with disappointment. 

“Why’d you got to go and ruin all the fun?” the Lasombra hitchhiker said, a slight pout in his lips. “I had a whole game of cat and mouse I wanted to play.” 

“Because your intentions are obvious,” I said with a shrug. “You don’t just appear to be relaxed, you legitimately are. There’s no tension to your body, no readiness. You’re not a predator pretending to be at ease but really ready to strike, so either you know I can’t hurt you or you have no intention of hurting me.”

“And how do you know I don’t just know you can’t hurt me?” he asked, the cockiness returning to his voice. 

“Because I surprised you once in this car,” I pointed out, feeling a small smile tug at the corner of my lips. “And you don’t strike me as the stupid type. If your prey surprises you once, you don’t assume you know the extent of their abilities a second time. You take precautions.”

His eyebrows shot up. 

“Clever, maybe I should change my guess,” he said, cocking his head to one side, and I saw a bit of that predatory tension slip into his posture, though I doubted he noticed it himself. “Name’s Diego Navarro, and yeah, I want to recruit you.” 

“Into what?” I asked, my tone flat but my curiosity piqued. 

“I think you’ve figured out what we are,” Diego said, grinning at me from the shadows, his form seeming to flicker in and out of being a part of them. “And you know that pack hunters tend to last longer than solitary ones, right?”

“So you’re inviting me into your pack?” I asked, curiously. 

“Cotire, technically,” he said. “A smaller pack among many that make up a movement. One that throws off the chains of oppression put on us by the dinosaurs of old that refuse to give up their power.” 

I eyed him as I drove. “It’s almost as if you know the best way to appeal to my nature and are choosing your words specifically to fit.” 

“There’s a reason I chose ‘recruit’ over ‘eliminate’,” he said, grinning. “The way you handled that puta was inspired, but also the way you handled the girl. That’s what really impressed me. No collateral damage, but beyond that, scared her ass straight.” 

“Hopefully,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “Children tend to be willful when they should be obedient and obedient when they should be willful. We each choose our masters, they just tend to choose poorly.”

“Anyone who chooses to have a master is choosing poorly,” Diego said, laughing. 

“Then your movement has no masters?” I asked, curiously. Diego stopped laughing. 

“Well, I mean, there’s the barony,” he said, shrugging. “But they tend to just kind of let us do our own thing.” 

“So long as you pay the tithe, correct?” I asked, sensing the answer. 

Diego remained silent for a while, chewing on his lip. I drove us through the darkened streets of Uptown moving towards districts filled with ‘arcades’ that everyone knew were fronts for gambling and other illicit activities. 

“Listen, man, you’re probably right,” he said, his voice losing the cocky edge. “But let me tell you that the Camarilla is so much worse. They keep guys like us down. Bury us under rules and regulations and hierarchy that there’s no way to climb. The Anarchs… they chose a different path. To create their own system, one that threw off the old rules that oppressed us…” 

“And created new rules to oppress,” I finished for him. “I’m not surprised. And I’m not mad. If I had to make the choice between the lesser of two evils, I’d choose the one that let me feel like I was free even if I wasn’t.” 

“Does that mean you’re not going to come in as a recruit?” Diego asked, gaining a dangerous edge to his voice. His posture changed slightly, this time with intent. It was just enough that now I could properly equate him with the predator pretending to be at ease while getting ready to strike. 

“I never said that,” I pointed out. “Just that I’m not easily fooled. These two factions seem to be two sides of the same coin. I refuse to pretend that it’s anything otherwise. But again, I’m willing to hear out the lesser of two evils. And besides, you said it yourself, solitary hunters tend not to live too long.” 

Especially when that solitary hunter is choosing to rock the boat that so many are more than comfortable to allow to slip along the currents unmolested. I didn’t say the last part out loud, but I could hear the beast in the back of my mind snicker slightly as I thought it.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” Diego said, trying not to show that he was slipping his hidden knife back into its sheathe. “So, since you’ve already hunted in his territory, you should probably come back and meet the baron tonight. Who’ll most likely give you a free pass since you were just turned, you’ll just have to…” 

“Kiss the ring?” I offered, unable to keep the snark from my voice. “Prove my loyalty? Pay my tithe?”

Diego shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 

“You really gotta phrase it differently when you go speak to the higher ups,” he said, eyes not meeting mine. “They don’t like the disrespect.” 

“I respect people who are blunt and to the point,” I say, turning down the street Diego pointed to. “Or in your case, people who admit when they’re caught in a falsehood.” 

“I didn’t lie,” Diego said, sharply, and I could see the rage beginning to build behind his dark eyes like an oncoming storm. 

“I said ‘falsehood,’ not ‘lie,’ Diego. There is a difference,” I pointed out. 

“What’d the difference,” he asked, confusion now taming the growing storm of his emotions. As he waited for my answer, Diego pointed down another street. 

“A lie is an intentional attempt at passing off false information as the truth in an effort to forward one’s own agenda,” I said, pulling into the parking lot that Diego indicated. “A falsehood is just something that’s incorrect. Like your assumption that your Anarch movement is in any way different than this Camarilla.” 

“We are different!” Diego protested as the two of us climbed out of the car. 

“Tell that to the movement made in a few thousand years that feels the same about the Anarchs as you do about the Camarilla,” I say plainly as I look up at the massive building we were walking towards. “A catholic church?”

“Home sweet home for a Lasombra,” Diego said, grinning, though I could tell from how the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes that he was busy processing my comment about the future of the Anarch movement. “We have a habit of doing things in the old way, and what’s older than the Catholic church?”

“Most other religions,” I said, my tone flat, as I approached the door. “Let’s meet with this baron and get this over with.” 

I pushed through the doors and stepped into the narthex of the church. Diego hurried to catch up with me. 

“Dude! Do you even know where you’re going?” he asked, his voice dropping. “You can’t just walk in! The council could be in a meeting, or the Enforcer might take you as an assassin…” 

“You’re with me and they know you, so I doubt an enforcer worth his salt will just attack me without speaking to me first,” I said, my feet still carrying me as I sensed the air around me, following the energy that rippled through the halls. Something familiar was calling me, or calling to my beast, I was unsure which. “Besides, if the council is speaking of something so desperately important that my blundering in ruins it, they didn’t take proper precautions in the first place, as anyone with your ability would be able to spy on them easily.”  

Diego tried to answer me, but I found the door I was looking for before he could voice whatever objection he was concocting. I swung the door open and the few voices that were speaking stopped immediately. Four faces turned to me as I stepped through. Three were seated around a table, two men and a woman. The men had cigars lit and in their hands, but it seemed as if they were simply letting them burn based on the amount of ash that had built up on the tips. The woman had a silver chalice in her hand filled with what would have looked like red wine to a layman, but was clearly too viscous. Against the far wall stood another man, thicker in the shoulders and muscles than the others who sat, a shotgun in his hand. 

One of the men was dressed in a black shirt with the white collar of a catholic priest clipped to his neck. He was older in appearance, his hair still thick but gone completely white. There were deep wrinkles in his dark skin, that signified he was of substantial age, but the brightness of his eyes belayed the sharp mind that still lurked beneath. 

The other man wore a business suit, nicer and more expensive than even mine was. His cufflinks were platinum, based on the different sheen from my own, and they were definitely custom made, signifying a crown and crossed scepters. His eyes, though on a younger face, seemed dull. They were not dimmed by stupidity, but rather with what appeared to be disinterest. He viewed me as beneath him, and wanted me to know it. 

The woman with the chalice sat perfectly still, her red hair pulled back into a tail that fell down her back, but left enough to frame her face and drape along the edges of a pair of square framed glasses. Her clothes were simple and functional, her expression curious, and her lips stained red from the blood she had been sipping from the chalice. 

I sensed Diego was not beside me anymore, or at least he’d taken on his shadow form. He had left me to my own devices, probably out of fear, but I was still grateful to him. I wasn’t in the mood to be ignored while they pressed him for answers rather than speak directly to me. Instead, I choose to address the situation in the proper order. Firstly, you deal with the most direct, if not greatest threat. Stop the first strike, then worry about the heavier ones. 

“I assume you’re the Enforcer?” I asked the large man with the shotgun. It was already halfway to being level with my head as I spoke, but my voice seemed to confuse him, and it wavered slightly. 

“I am,” he said, keeping the shotgun half leveled as he shot a look to the other three, all of whom had their attention completely on me. “I’m Arthur Gurtman, Enforcer for the Free State of Charlotte.” 

“Free State? Is that what the Anarchs call it?” I asked. “Pray tell, what do the Camarilla call it?”

“Domains,” the redheaded woman answered me, her voice cool and smooth, like a practical professor who’s answered a question so many times that her response had grown reactive. 

“I see,” I nodded my thanks to her. “Then according to Diego Navarro, a Lasombra much like you are, I believe, Father, I was supposed to come speak to the Baron of this particular Free State, since apparently feeding within the borders is prohibited without permission or at least introduction.”

“You’re admitting to poaching?” the priest asked with a nervous voice, seeming surprised by my brazen claim. By the looks of him, anything more than falling to my knees and begging must have appeared to be brazen, and if he weren’t already dead, such a bold action would have definitely given him a heart attack on the spot.  

“In fairness, I only woke up dead this evening for the first time,” I smiled at him, unsure if it was a reassuring smile or a threatening one. I didn’t really care either way. “I was unaware of Anarchs and Camarilla and Free States and Domains until this very night. I would hardly call what I did ‘poaching,’ considering the extenuating circumstances that surround it.” 

“I see,” the priest said, and if he could breathe, I was sure he would have sighed in relief. Looking over at the other two, he did what the craven did best, and passed the buck. “So you’re here to introduce yourself to the baron.” 

“That’s what I was told to do, yes,” I responded, smiling as warmly as I could muster, knowing full well from his expression that it came off as cold as my own dead flesh. 

“And what do you have to say to the baron of this state?” the other man said, his voice dripping with condescension and dismissal, as if my next words would prove me to be as useless and beneath him as he already suspected I was. 

“Apparently nothing, as this Free State doesn’t have a Baron,” I said with a shrug, eliciting surprised looks from both the priest and Arthur, though the woman’s face remained neutral. The other man, however, pursed his lips as cold anger crossed his face, his dismissive tone evaporating as authority spilled from his voice as I had done so many times earlier this evening.

“You will speak to me with respect, and you will answer all questions put before you honestly!” he boomed, getting to his feet. I felt the power of his words wash over me, but something sturdy rose up within my mind, like a rock slicing through the river of his words, cutting the current and letting them wash on by. A fortress rose up around my mind and I heard the beast within me laugh just a little louder. 

“I didn’t come here to lie, any more than I came here to be spoken down on by someone who’s authority comes from a perception of their own worth based on the cosmic lottery of birthright,” my voice cut through the air, causing the man to stagger in disbelief. It was clear that he was not used to having his authority questioned, much less bucked off completely. “And when I say that this Free State has no Baron, I mean no disrespect. Simply that it is clear that in the stead of a Baron, you have a Baronness.” 

A throaty laugh filled the room and I turned to see the redheaded woman’s face had finally broken the mask of neutrality. She held the back of her hand to her mouth as though trying to block the view of it more than to stifle the sound of her mirth. Her green eyes shone as she looked up at the man, who stood staring in disbelief. 

“He’s got you there, Marcus,” she said, lowering her hand from her face, relaxing, though a small smile still played on her lips. “He read you like a book and understood the power dynamic in this room better than anyone else could have. Now sit.”

The man, Marcus, lowered himself into his wingbacked chair, though his eyes made it clear that he wanted to see me dead. Should he be given an opportunity, I was certain that he could easily succeed in such a task. 

The woman, the Baronness, turned her attention back to me. 

“Tell me, neonate, how did you know?” she asked, curiosity in her voice. 

“Several factors,” I said, shrugging. “For one, the Father over there seemed too nervous. As though he was waiting for someone else to decide what was going to be done about my intrusion. Despite the fact that the meeting place was in the church and he’s a Lasombra, he was looking to others. A baron would feel most at home in the heart of his domain, both his religious seat of power as well as his political one. There was no way he could be the baron.” 

“Correct,” the Baroness said, a note of pride in her voice. “Father Renaldo is my Herald. He speaks for me and spreads my decrees among the populous of the Free State. His job is to promulgate my decisions, not make any on his own. Though, that one was easy. I am curious about how you determined that Marcus was not the baron?”

I looked over at Marcus, still fuming in his chair, staring at me with the eyes of a predator being held back by a flimsy leash. Picking the wrong words here could send him into a rage, with myself as his only target. While my new powers made me stronger and faster than before, I was sure he’d had more practice than I, and despite there being others nearby that could potentially stop him, there was no guarantee they would. It was in my best interest to be diplomatic. 

“He’s arrogant and dismissive, two traits that make for terrible leadership,” I said, throwing my self preservation to the wind. “But also two traits that betrayed his lower status as soon as the implication of my ‘poaching’ came to light. A man like him would have taken that as a slight to his honor and he wouldn’t have reacted so calmly. I imagine that had he been the baron, and I came in here casually admitting to feeding in his lands without his permission, he’d have bitten my head off immediately. The fact that he was so relaxed meant that he knew it to be someone else’s problem, as it was a slight against someone else. My assumption is that it is a slight against someone he holds some disdain for, probably because you got the position over him.”

The room practically vibrated with Marcus’ rage as he stared at me. Father Renaldo leaned away from him as far back as he could. Arthur looked between Marcus and the Baroness, clearly expressing worry that things were about to come to blows. A faint whimper came from behind me, clearly indicating that Diego was close behind, watching everything unfold. 

My eyes moved from them all to meet the Baroness’. Her lips were tight and her eyes were shining. A trickle of blood… or rather, vitae from the smell of it, spilled from the corner of her mouth. I furrowed my brow at her. 

“Are you… biting your tongue?” I asked. Apparently, that was the last of what she could handle. She barked out a laugh, practically howling from it, barely getting her chalice to the table before her shaking body spilled it. Marcus seethed with rage, but like a good dog, obeyed his mistress and sat, undisguised contempt on his face, all pointed squarely at me. Eventually, as the Baroness’ laughing fit subsided, she wiped a tear from her eye, which I noticed was actually more vitae, and managed to mostly compose herself. 

“The insight and the balls on this one!” she said, nearly devolving into a fit of cackling again. “Spot on with every observation and fearless at saying it aloud and to your face no less, Marcus. Can you believe that?”

“No,” Marcus said through clenched teeth. “I cannot believe the level of disrespect.”

“Disrespect would be saying these things behind your back or to a massive crowd with the intent to defame you,” I pointed out to him. “I was merely speaking with the honesty I would give anyone else.” 

Marcus stared daggers at me, though he kept his mouth shut, clearly obeying an unspoken order. I turned my attention back to the Baroness and inclined my head slightly to her. 

“Again, my apologies for feeding in your lands without permission or announcement, I woke up alone in an alley earlier this evening and have been kind of… piecing things together as I’ve gone thus far,” I explained. 

“So you know neither your clan nor your sire?” the Baroness asked, arching an eyebrow at me. 

“Diego said that he suspected I may be a Ventrue,” I started to explain, before Marcus cut me off. 

“You are not Ventrue!” he said, his voice hot and booming. I glanced at him and gave him a nod. 

“Yes, Diego said he changed his guess after a short conversation with me, so I agree with your outburst.” Before he could respond, I turned back to the baroness. “He also said I was ‘too put together for a Malkavian’ and ‘too blasphemous to be Lasombra,’ though I’m unsure how accurate those are, or how much that will narrow anything down.” 

“I see,” she said, a smirk appearing on her lips, slight and subtle, much like her. She patted the seat beside her on the couch she was sitting on. “Join me.” 

As I moved to sit down, she lifted the chalice and drained the blood from it quickly and without ceremony. Holding out her hand, Marcus stood and handed her a handkerchief without a word, his eyes still burning with rage at me. Ignoring him, she took the cloth and wiped the silver clean. 

“Give me your wrist,” she said, holding out her hand, expecting to be obeyed. My body responded to the authority in her voice without question or hesitation, and suddenly I understood just how powerful one of our kind could become. My arm was in her hand before I even knew what was happening. She rolled back my sleeve gently, handing me my cufflink as she did. Her fangs pierced my wrist, a sweet pain that felt somewhat intoxicating as she did it, but rather than drink from me, she allowed the wound to bleed into the silver chalice. 

Once the chalice was full, and my head was swimming a bit more than I was comfortable with, the baroness licked the wound on my wrist closed and began dabbing at my skin with the handkerchief to mop up any remaining vitae. 

“There,” she said, gently. “Now give me a moment to… take a little walk.” 

She began to murmur strange words that didn’t make much sense to me. Based on the phonetics I determined that she was speaking in a language I couldn’t identify let alone understand. As she reached what sounded like a crescendo pitch, she threw back her head, drinking my vitae down and something that felt like the shockwave of an explosion hit me like a wave. 

Images flashed before my eyes. Me driving my old jeep to yet another networking event that led nowhere. Hours of wasted time trying to make connections with people who were also seeking ways to lift themselves rather than be the tide to rise all boats. Disappointment as I walked back to my car, keys in hand. The pair of red eyes that came from the trees. A red stone hanging from the neck of the man who sank his teeth into my flesh and drank until darkness took me. Darkness, except for the pulsing stone around his neck. Panicked whimpering filled the air as I heard a scuffle. Something hot and sweet hit my lips, forcing movement, if not life, into my body again. My eyes flickered open, I saw the man who attacked me, vomiting, my blood pouring from his throat as a woman yelled at him, words I couldn’t understand… familiar words all the same. The man ran off, the woman looked as though she wanted to run after him, but then she turned, her red hair cascading down her back in a loose tail. Her green eyes burned into mine as she raised her finger to her lips and whispered. 

“Let’s keep this between us, blood of my blood,” she said, standing and turning to chase the man who’d run. 

The vision ended, and I looked into the eyes of the baroness. My sire. 

“It would seem you are blood of my blood,” she said, smiling at me, her voice casual, but I caught the stern warning in her tone. 

“What does that mean?” I asked her, my own unspoken question burning below the surface. 

“You are more than just kindred,” she said, smiling. “You are magi as well. A blood sorcerer. You are Tremere.”

There was silence in the room except for a despondent groan from Marcus. I met the baroness’ eyes, not fully understanding why she’d done what she’d done to me, but it was evident that no one in this room was to know. She was my sire, and thus had power over me. I knew her secret, and thus had power over her. 

Now you understand the foundation of the pyramid, the beast whispered in the back of my mind. The most stable geometric shape in history, held together by the most delicate bones of glass.