A Place to Belong: Chapter 8

Chapter VIII

The Final Push

“If you don’t stop fidgeting with your cuff I’ll remove your need of it,” I hissed at Diego the Lasombra, who I found is a great deal older than me despite his youthful appearance. He looked up at me with the face of an angel, which probably got him out of a lot of trouble both before and after his death. 

“By letting me take this stupid monkey suit off?” he asked, hopefully. “Or by letting me leave?”

“By taking your arm off at the elbow,” I snapped back at him, my voice hushed. “In an environment like this, you need to camouflage yourself. Look like you belong.” 

“I can literally become shadow itself,” he muttered, despondently as he looked around the networking event filled with awkward young professionals, bored older professionals, and predators of every ilk seeking their next target. Diego and I stood among them, seeking our prey. 

“Do you think that you’d be of any use to me as a shadow right now?” I asked, catching the eye of a passing man, who looked at me in confusion. To cover myself, I grinned at him and nodded, directing my words at him. “What good is being a wallflower at a networking event, right sir?”

His face broke into a smile as he nodded back at me. “Ah, yes! You won’t get too far keeping yourself from being seen. You need to go out and talk to people. You never know who you’re going to meet.” 

“Actually, you may be able to help me with that,” I said, holding his eyes and my forced smile. I could sense Diego looking at me, a slight tremor of panic running through him. 

“The Baroness said…” he began whispering to me, but I cut him off smoothly, and kept talking. 

“My associate and I are starting up an… well… for lack of a better term, an anti-tech start up,” I said, smiling cooly. “In fact, you may notice that neither he nor myself are even carrying cell phones. And look…” 

I showed him my watch, a cheaper model that I’d grown used to wearing at my typical events, but a nice watch all the same. It wouldn’t have done well to come to one of these events in a perfectly tailored silk suit and high end watch. Instead, I was wearing off the rack with slight alterations, but kept my overall preferences, including a cheaper pair of cufflinks. 

“Analog,” I said, tapping on the glass face with my nail. “Not one digital item on my person. The world has become so digitized over the past few years, but there are some things that are better analog. Quite a few things, in fact. And so, we’re looking to bring those things back.” 

“Not exactly a forward thinking business model,” the man laughed, almost at my expense, and despite the business model being a decoy, it was still something that I’d put time and effort into curating, and his laughter at my idea stung slightly. I felt the beast rattle against its cage. Biting down on the anger, I redirected the conversation, taking control again. 

“Backwards facing, forward thinking,” I grinned at him, probably showing more of my fangs than necessary. “But we have so much crap in our houses as it is, and the last thing we need is a million items boxed up in our storage units when there are a handful of items that do all their jobs at once, albeit nowhere near as well.” 

He raised his eyebrow at me, seeming more interested now. 

“You see,” I continued. “People crave the act of doing. Our world is filled with things that create ease, but only ease in the things that we don’t have time to do, but many of us enjoy doing. No one wants to go back to the days of scrubbing our clothing in a wooden cask, but have you ever wondered what freshly churned butter by your own hands tastes like? Alongside the fresh buttermilk you make as a by-product? What about a set of wood working tools that build something as sturdy and strong as your great-grandfather used to make? Or even, perhaps, learn to forge a blade with a furnace and anvil? Skills lost to time, but are still hobbies that many wish to explore while few have the means to achieve.”

“So not replace your convenience items,” the man mused, thinking about my words. “But what? Rent them?”

“Borrow them,” I said, seeing my proposition taking hold in his mind. “Like a library. A library of tools and trades available for you to just pick up and borrow for a limited amount of time.”

“And where does the profitability come from this?” he asked, skepticism returning to his voice. “Libraries don’t strike me as profitable institutions.” 

“They are in their own way,” I shrug. “But they’re also subsidized by the government. And when the government fails, the people rise up. Fill a need. You may not want to pay me three hundred dollars to rent some blacksmithing equipment for a week… but I’m sure you’d be willing to pay thirty dollars a month to borrow any one package for a week at a time.” 

“A subscription service?” he said, laughing. “For old junk?”

“For opportunities,” I said, my voice controlled and level despite my feeling the anger rising again. “Opportunities to develop skills and understanding of things that the world has let slip by it.”

“Listen kid,” he said, and the fact that he could only be about ten years my senior made his colloquial use of the term ‘kid’ boil my blood and set my beast screaming at its condescension. “I admire your passion, but passion doesn’t make millions.” 

He handed me his business card. David Merkle, financial advisor. A fitting title, I thought to myself as I pocketed the card, slipping my face into a neutral mask. 

“Give me a call when your little project goes under if you want to get into a business where you make real money,” he said, grinning. My hand shot up and caught his arm, causing him to give me a surprised and irritated look, almost as if he was about to start a scene. I felt Diego stiffen behind me. 

“I appreciate your offer and insight,” I said, quietly, smiling at him and gently releasing his arm. “But I’m also sure you’re quite familiar with this scene. Tell me, is there a person here you think would be more interested in my business model? If it’s doomed to fail, I’d rather put everything I can into it before letting the idea waste away.” 

His anger seemed to give way to confusion, as though not expecting the aggressive pause to be followed by praise and humility. Men like him were used to butting heads with others, needing to wheel and wile their way into peoples worlds and pockets. As a predator I recognized his predatory gait in everything he did. He was nowhere near as talented as I was at the game, but I could still see he was playing it. Despite his shortcomings, he’d been on this gametrail longer than either myself or Diego, which meant he was more likely to know the haunts of what I was looking for. 

“Uh… yeah,” he said, seeming a bit uneasy and I realized that it wasn’t because of the way I’d grabbed him. It was coming from something else all together. Something that had nothing to do with me. “You’re probably looking for Isadora. She’s… She’s into that kind of stuff.” 

“Old stuff?” Diego asked, speaking for the first time and startling the guy to the point where he nearly jumped.

“Yeah,” Merkle said, recovering himself and eyeing Diego warily. “That’s one way to put it. She’s creepy, but in a hot way. If I were ten years younger… Well, actually, I wouldn’t need to be to enjoy myself.” 

He laughed awkwardly, as if trying to reclaim some kind of rapport with us that had never been established. Probably the kind he was used to having with guys; a mask that made him more comfortable than whatever this Isadora woman made him feel. Neither of us laughed with him, making him even more uneasy. 

“Can you point her out to us?” I asked, breaking the tension of his lonely laugh with the directness of my question and unbroken gaze. 

“She’s not here yet,” Merkle said, shifting uncomfortably. “She usually shows up later in the night. Closer to when the event ends. I don’t know what she thinks she’s going to gain from that. Most of the people who stay that late are drunks who spend too much time at the bar and not enough time working the room. Like I should be doing. Good luck with your… endeavor, gentlemen. I need to go find real investors.” 

As he walked away I watched him leave. In a slight whisper just loud enough for Diego’s ears, I told him: 

“When he leaves, tail him. Find out where he lives. Then have a snack.” 

Diego looked at me, concerned. 

“You sure there, gringo?” he asked. “That would leave you alone for at least thirty minutes if he’s close. Longer if he’s not.” 

“Yeah,” I said nodding and heading to the bar. “I don’t deal with broke assholes trying to look rich. You can do your ‘sandman’ routine on him if you like.”

“I have been needing to feed,” Diego said, wistfully. Then shook his head and turned to look at me. “But what if this Isadora chica shows up while I’m gone? You need my backup.” 

“No, I don’t,” I said flatly, ordering a wine, the only thing I could stomach now that wasn’t blood. I was never a big wine drinker before, but everything else, even water, tasted like ash in my mouth. “I don’t want you here when she gets here.” 

Diego raised his eyebrow at me. 

“Oh, really?” he asked, taking on a mock offended tone. “A pretty little mama and you don’t want me here when she gets here? Afraid I’ll sweep her off your feet before you could stammer a pickup line, grandpa?”

“Diego, you’re older than me,” I pointed out, making the bartender blink slightly, but he went along his way serving the thirsty customers who were still trying to shake the nerves of their opening evening at a networking mixer. I’d gone to quite a few of these, and you could always tell the first timers. For a moment I wondered if I was ever that nervous looking. “Besides, she’d eat you alive.”

Diego literally scoffed at me, puffing up his chest like the little alpha male he liked to pretend to be. Any time women came up in conversation it was the same thing: puffed up chest, a little extra swagger to his steps, and straightened shoulders in an attempt to make his 5’9” frame appear closer to six feet. An attempt that was always hilarious to watch considering it was never successful. 

“Is that the case? And you think you could do it better than me, gringo?” he asked, putting on an air of confidence, though I could see how rattled he was. I’d struck a nerve, damaged his pride and perhaps his honor. His damned honor. It was his achilles heel. 

“David told us a lot about her,” I said to him, calmly. “Tell me everything we know about her.” 

“David?” Diego asked, losing a bit of his puff. “Who’s David?”

I hold up the business card. “Tonight’s specials, remember? I read his name off his business card. Though, the fact that we’ve not really talked to a lot of people tonight should have clued you in on who I was talking about. But David isn’t important right now. Safe to say, he’s never been a day in his life, but I digress. What can you tell me about Isadora?”

Diego just shrugged. 

“She’s hot,” he said, shrugging. “Apparently a wildcat in bed.” 

“Where did David get that information?” I pressed him. “He never slept with her.”

“Or any other woman,” Diego shot back, and I did crack a grin at his response, but waited as he thought my question over. “I mean, I guess he just assumed she was a wildcat in bed because…”

“She’s hot,” I finished his thought for him. “All the information you got about her was that she is conventionally attractive to a man who looks like he’s on the Epstein List. But can you tell me anything else about her?”

“No,” Diego said, shrugging. “Because he didn’t say anything else about her.” 

“He practically screamed what she was like to us,” I said, sighing as I sipped at the wine. It had a rich bouquet and an ashy aftertaste, something I was growing annoyed with and used to in equal measure. 

Natalia told me the reason why expensive wines are so expensive has nothing to do with mortal tastes, as their palettes aren’t actually refined enough to appreciate them no matter how loudly and emphatically they denounced that proclamation. In reality, expensive wines are so because kindred enjoy them more. The way they’re brewed actually reduces, though doesn’t eliminate the ashy flavor. In order to keep them out of the hands of mortals so they don’t squander it, these wines are priced higher. Not that it stops the dumbest among them from purchasing these “wealth props” with their stolen money and pretending they can detect the slight difference in acidity from the rainfall of that particular year. 

Pretentious pricks. 

“Oh yeah?” Diego was saying, or I suspected he was because I was too busy musing over wine to really be listening, but I knew him well enough by now. The conversation would start the same: indignation followed by denial followed by a demand for proof. By the time I tuned back in, he’d probably said something along the lines of “You’re full of shit! Prove to me that you were actually able to get anything more than what I got from that conversation!” And then I would humble him. 

“Okay,” I said, when I felt the appropriate pause in conversation. “Yes, she is conventionally attractive. You and I both heard the same words. But you weren’t paying close enough attention to how he was acting about those words. He was nervous, practically sweating while saying them.”

“Yeah, hot chicks make me nervous too,” Diego said, then coughed and attempted the save. “I mean, they used to. When I was a kid.” 

“You still are a kid,” I said, sighing. 

“You just said I was older than you,” Diego pointed out. 

“Age and maturity are two different facets of the mind,” I said, too quick for him to immediately understand, and moved on before his brain completely caught up. “When a woman makes a womanizer nervous, she is one of three things: powerful, scary, or makes him incredibly uncomfortable because he doesn’t know how to act around her.” 

“Well if she's anything like what the Baroness…” Diego started to say, then I shot him a hard look. “If she’s anything like what Sharpe said she was like, then scary powerful makes sense.” 

“This is true,” I said, nodding at his correction and observation. “However, there was another tell in there. Remember when I grabbed him?”

“Yeah,” Diego practically laughed. “I thought he was going to clock you. That would have been a mistake.” 

“It would have,” I said, nodding. “A much bigger one than he realized. But put yourself in his position for a moment. A mortal man grabbed by another seemingly mortal man, younger than him by almost twenty years, backed up by an even younger seemingly mortal man in the prime of his physical life. And what was his reaction?”

Diego paused, looking at me more closely now before turning and looking over at David. “He was still going to clock you.” 

“Yeah, he was,” I nodded, sipping at my wine. “Knowing full well the disadvantage he’d be at. Knowing that maybe someone would call the cops to back him up… about a seven minute response time out here, by the way. Knowing that it was a possibility that someone would come to his aid, though not a guarantee… he was still planning on hitting me.”

“Damn,” Diego said, then let out a low whistle. “He’s either brave or stupid.” 

“Either way, he’s hard to scare and not intimidated by power,” I said, shrugging. Diego turned and looked at me again. 

“Which means there’s something about Isadora that makes him profoundly uncomfortable,” he finally reasoned, and I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips. “So, then what makes you think you can handle what makes him uncomfortable better than I could?”

“What is your approach when it comes to women?” I asked him, purposefully biting my tongue to keep from completing the sentence with ‘other than not approaching them.’

“I mean, I go up, I smile,” he said, grinning like an idiot at me in a way that I’m sure no woman would feel safe around, let alone attracted to, but then again I wasn’t a woman so how could I judge. “And I turn on the old Navarro charm.”

“And how often does that work for you?” I asked, not even trying to be snarky about it, though I did see Diego deflate slightly. 

“I mean, most hunters only have a twenty five percent success rate…” he muttered, slightly embarrassed. 

“This man has used that particular method his entire life, never learning anything more… unless you consider roofies a ‘method,’ though I personally don’t,” I said with a shrug. “Why would it work for you when it didn’t work for him?”

“Okay, fine, Cicero,” Diego said, impressing me with a literary reference that I would never have guessed he’d know. “You want to shoot your shot? Go for it. But why not have me in the background waiting to swoop in when you fail?”

“Two reasons,” I said, holding up two fingers at him. “First reason, the other thing he said. She only shows up late in the night. That means she doesn’t like crowds. She comes in when only those who are least social are still hanging around looking to try and interact with one another, or the hyper social ones are so drunk that they’re not as intimidating anymore. The more people here, especially aggressively social people like you, the less likely she’ll feel comfortable enough to show.” 

“Huh,” Diego said, his posture falling back into a more relaxed stance as he processed my words. “That… actually makes sense. And if she’s kindred, there’s a good chance she can pick up on me lurking and sense the trap.” 

“Bingo,” I said, smiling as the last horse crossed the finish line. “So why waste your evening when we can kill two birds with one stone? You need a hunt to make sure you’re not a liability when that coterie from the north comes down for whatever Sharpe’s secret project is all about, and we find Isadora. If she’s even who we’re looking for.”

“Divide and conquer,” Diego said, approvingly. “I like it. Okay, so I’ll go mingle for a bit, looks like this David guy is getting his coat. Mind if I take the lambo?”

Absently, I drew the keys from my pocket and handed them to him. He was a much bigger car guy than I was, and when he learned that I had no idea what kind of car I’d even stolen off of Peter Koch, he went off on me talking about specs and how it was a waste for a man like me to drive a beautiful machine like her. He literally referred to a car with feminine pronouns. 

“Don’t scratch the leather,” I said to him, trying unsuccessfully to hide my grin as he looked at me with disgust. 

“As if I’d ever hurt such a beautiful car,” he said, reiterating the words so much they were becoming his catch phrase. He started heading out to look like he was leaving before David, not after him, a good hunting trick he’d picked up over the years, but then paused to turn back to me. “What was number two?”

“Usually poop,” I said, nonchalantly. 

“No, you ass,” he said, a little sharper and it got even more difficult to suppress my grin. “You said there were two reasons why I shouldn’t be here in the background in case you failed.” 

“Oh, that,” I said, finally letting the grin spread across my face unrestrained. “Reason number two is because I won’t fail. No sense wasting your time.” 

He called me a few unkind things in Spanish then left for the car. I smiled and continued sipping my wine. David left, a presenter went on, a few more people left, still more drifted away from networking to take up the role of barflies or join tables in their attempt to return to their non-professional lives of eating wings and drinking beers. It was probably three hours, almost eleven, when she walked in. 

Her skin, once olive in color but clearly having grown more pale than it once had been, was flawless. Dark waves of hair cascaded down her shoulders with gentle curls that reminded me of waterfalls careening over blackened stone. Her chestnut eyes were sunken, as though she’d potentially heard of this thing called sleep, but never seemed to have the time to test it for herself. 

Her clothing was… unique. It played homage to much older styles of dress: a high collar that had a light white frill around it lead down to a corset top, one that looked to be made in the style of the era it was from, obviously not mass produced and fabricated, but much too modern to be of period make. The boning was even imperfect enough that I suspected it was actually made with proper bones that rode perpendicular to the black and grey vertical stripes that lined the piece. Though the top didn’t have sleeves, she wore black opera gloves that went past her elbow and about halfway up her bicep, creating the illusion of sleeves. Silver rings adorned several of her fingers over the fabric of the gloves creating a stark contrast as her hands moved. 

The black skirt she wore went down to the floor and was, from what I understood of fashion, inspired by the Edwardian design and outfitted with a pleated bustle that tugged at the front, creating an effect that almost resembled stage curtains opening. The gap was wide enough that one of her booted legs, black leather buckled shut with pure silver buttons that appeared to be from the proper period as well, slipped through it one at a time as she slowly approached the bar. Many eyes turned to look at her as she passed, some admiringly, some uneasy, and still others managing to convey both feelings at the same time. Without preamble she took the stool at the bar next to mine and ordered herself a wine as well. 

“What kind of hunt has led you to me?” she asked, her voice flat and cold, though it was a cold that was more of an absence of emotion rather than from any negative emotions directed at me. 

“Not one that means you any harm, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” I said calmly, waving at the bartender to put her drink on my tab. Happy to finally get a second purchase from me this evening, he happily did so. 

“I assumed as much when you sent the petty tyrant away,” she said, and I noticed that even when she used words that would be hot and violent in most people’s mouths, her tone never shifted. Calling Diego a ‘petty tyrant’ was the same to her as stating that the sun was hot and water was wet.

“Lasombra himself was a tyrant,” I said, beginning to deduce my way through her words. “By calling him ‘petty,’ you’re referring to him as being a neonate Lasombra rather than saying he’s a pathetic oppressor of the people?”

She paused, her eyes slowly scanning me. No emotion showed on her face, but there was an air of something to her… Curiosity? Perhaps. 

“You listened to my words,” she said, shifting so that her body was faced towards me instead of the bar. “Not just what I said, but the meaning behind the words as well. Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m hunting you,” I replied, calmly. “And I need this hunt to be a success.” 

“If you wanted to kill me, you’d have left the tyrant,” she said, now taking time to work through the problem itself. “You’re being direct with me, which means that you know I’ll catch you lying, and you care if I catch you lying, because you know that lying is not something I approve of. That means you don’t want a Hecata… you want me.”

“Your clan means nothing to me or my Baroness,” I said, nodding. “Though I’m sure it will have its own merits on this mission. You are correct, it is you that we need.” 

“You are with the Anarchs,” she said, her tone colder again. “I don’t trust them.” 

“Because you were once with the Camarilla and you don’t want to betray your faction or because they remind you so much of the Camarilla and you don’t want to be betrayed by them?” I asked, pointedly. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but other than that she showed no reaction. 

“We were given a dossier on you. A rather incomplete one, I might add, as it lacked your name or an image of you that could be used to recognize you, thus leading to the necessity of this charade,” I continued, clearing my throat and taking a sip of my wine. “What it did include was a lot of background information. The fact that you were a Camarilla member, the fact that you were trained in archeology specializing in funerary rights of the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan cultures, the fact that you refused to abandon your collection when the floods came, and the fact that the Camarilla abandoned you when they ran from the flood waters.” 

I leaned in slightly closer, my voice dropping slightly. “Do you know what part of that we found most interesting?”

Isadola stared at me, her chestnut eyes cold and detached, but it seemed practiced, like she was wearing a mask. I tapped into my ability to sense lies, but there was nothing. No tell that her calm demeanor was a lie, or that her neutral expression was a false face she was putting on to throw me off. She was actually pondering my question, and determining how she would judge me by my reaction to her answer. Or by my answer to my own question. 

“I’m not sure,” she said, finally. Her voice was honest, as I knew it would be. There had been a note in the file describing her as ‘honest to a fault, keep away from mortals unless you want a masquerade breach.’ “I don’t understand Anarchs enough to be able to determine what your minds would find interesting. Though I know Tremere better. There are many of you in the Camarilla. Or there were. Now there are fewer, after the flood. They were so concerned with their experiments, on perfecting their theories, that some didn’t even run when the waters came. They worked on, like men possessed, as the torrent ripped them away one by one.” 

She cocked her head and looked at me, curiosity evident on her face. 

“Am I that to you? Something you will work at like a man possessed, seeking to unlock my every secret?” she asked, and I understood her concern immediately. 

“I don’t care about your secrets,” I said, shaking my head. “I need your knowledge. Not of magic or of blood, but of history. The baroness has a mission for us, and in order to succeed, we need you.”

“My… knowledge,” she said, almost doubting the word as it came from her lips. She shifted her legs slightly, as if trying to get comfortable, but I knew that she didn’t need to allow for better blood flow. She was preparing to run. “And what will you do with that knowledge?”

“Only take what we’re supposed to from the vaults,” I said, plainly. She valued honesty, and I wasn’t going to disappoint. She froze. Not just, ‘was still,’ but froze so completely that you would have thought time had stopped around her. It was a kind of stillness no mortal could replicate, nor a kind that any mortal could miss. Thankfully, most were too drunk to tell that the room itself wasn’t spinning, so I let her hold her reaction for a beat longer before continuing. 

“There’s something we need from down there,” I told her, gently sipping at the same glass of wine I’d started the night with. “We’re going down to get it, but none of us know what we’re looking for. The baroness has some clues, but without a working knowledge of Etruscan funeral rites and artifacts, we’d just be guessing. Taking everything we could carry, risking breaking things that we don’t understand.”

“Are you threatening these objects?” she asked me, her tone gaining a slight amount of heat, though it was practically imperceivable unless you were looking for it. 

“Quite the contrary,” I said, setting my glass down. “I want these artifacts preserved. But we’re going down there with or without you. With you is preferred. Not only because we’re more likely to find what we’re looking for, but more of history will be preserved in your presence than in mine or my compatriot's. Not that we’d actively seek to damage anything, but beautiful things are often wasted on the ignorant.” 

She paused and studied me. We sat there for a long time, longer than most people would be willing to risk. The bartender made an announcement that the bar would be closing soon. I told him to hush and give the lady a moment while he closed my tab. Fifteen minutes later Isadora still stared at me. Fifteen more passed before she spoke. 

“Tell me what matters most to you,” she said, finally. “I want to see you lie.” 

“Justice,” I said to her, my tone completely neutral. “And knowing that those who hurt others are never in a position to do it again.” 

Isadora looked at me, curiously. 

“I said I wanted to hear you lie,” she said, confused. “But you told the truth?”

“Do most people lie when you ask them that question?” I asked. 

“Yes,” she nodded. “They tell me what they think I want to hear and pretend they mean it even after I call them out. They know what it takes to be seen as a good person, but have no idea how to be a good person.”

“That’s the difference between me and them, then,” I said with a shrug. “I’m not a good person.” 

“Okay,” Isadora said with a satisfied nod. “I’ll go with you.” 

“Just like that?” I asked, cocking my eyebrow at her. “Why?”

“You did what I asked,” she said, standing up and walking towards the door. 

“All it took was speaking honestly,” I said, laughing to myself as I followed her to the door, pushed it open, then held it for her.

“Yes,” she said, a small, wry smile playing on her lips as she stepped through the door into the humid night air, the smell of lilies and poppies. “You did that too.”