A Place to Belong: Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter XXIV

The Power Within

Hide! Hide! Hide!

My beast was screaming at me as I ran, Callie hauled up over my shoulder. Tires squealed behind me, the barking of automatic fire sending sparks on the pavement below me. My feet flew down the streets, looking for an alleyway or side road I could turn down to lose the cars at least. The ones on the motorcycles would be a bit harder to lose, but a lot easier if I weren’t on the open road. 

Drop the dead weight! Into the shadows! Hide! Hide! Hide!

“Shut the fuck up!” I snarled at the beast under my breath. Callie couldn’t hear me as she was too busy clinging to my back and tamping down her own whimpers in hopes that I couldn’t hear them. There was no way I could miss them, though. Not right now. 

Right now, my senses were on fire. I felt like I was aware of everything around me: every shadow, every move, every siren so far in the distance someone had to be calling the police off of the pursuit. If it weren’t for my Lasombra heritage, this would be a massive masquerade breach, but thankfully any camera pointed at me could only see static; any phone filming me would be instantly bricked. All I had to worry about were eye witnesses reporting a shadowy man running away from men in black SUVs with guns and motorcycle back up. 

Oh, and the men in the black SUVs with guns and motorcycle back up. I should probably be worried about that too. 

Charlotte drivers were bad at the best of times. Fake plates, no signals, probably no licenses, and all entitlement. And that was only half the reason the streets were so shitty to drive on. The other was the streets themselves. Twisting, winding roads, lanes that just ended or transformed into turning lanes with no warning, all the worst elements of city driving fused with the worst elements of rural driving slammed into one place. If we’d been out in the more country areas, with the long straightaways and fancy developments, I’d be able to cut into the woods and pick these asshole ghouls off one by one. As it stood, we were in the heart of Uptown and based on the traffic, the Panthers must be playing a game tonight. 

As that thought struck me, an idea began to form in my mind. I turned towards Bank of America stadium, and dashed through an intersection where the light had just turned red. In a normal city, this would be dangerous, but a driver followed right behind me, narrowly avoiding being clipped by the traffic that actually had right of way. And he wasn’t even one of the guys with a gun, people just drove like that here. 

Ghoul reflexes and lack of free will meant they were still going to be hot on my tail. Sure enough, I heard a traffic accident as one of the SUVs rammed into a sedan, causing enough shock at the intersection for the bikers to cut through it and continue their pursuit without facing the same fate. I cursed under my breath and kept running. I felt bad about the other driver, but with the intersection in utter pandemonium it cut my problems in half as the other SUVs couldn’t get through and would have to double back and find a different way to catch us. 

I leapt from the overpass, using tendrils of shadow to monkey-branch my way down, softening my landing and keeping Callie from getting too jostled as we ran. She beat a few times against my back, shouting something, but I wasn’t really able to focus on what she was saying. 

“Not stopping!” I shouted at her. “Talk later unless we’re about to be shot!” 

“Where are we going?” she screamed at me. In response, I just pointed at the stadium. “What is wrong with you? There have to be thousands of people in there!” 

I leaped up, cleared the twenty foot fence, and landed on the other side in a three point landing before jumping to my feet again and continuing to run with only the smallest fraction of a second’s time lost. 

“Aww, chicka,” I said, grinning at her. “I didn’t think you’d care about casualties.” 

“Casualties are fine!” she shouted back, panic in her voice. “It’s a breach I’m terrified of!”

“There’s already a blood hunt out for us, practically,” I called back to her, vaulting over a car sticking out way too far, leaving a dent in its hood. That’ll teach them to park right. “And you’re worried about a masquerade breach?” 

“It doesn’t matter who takes power if we’re violators of the masquerade!” she shouted back as I ran up to a security gate. She had a point, honestly. Even if we won at the end of the night and didn’t end up with Marcus or Cammies in charge, violating the masquerade isn’t something any leader forgives. 

The guard I was running towards looked like he was torn on whether he should run, stop me, or pray. He was a mortal, and an innocent, but there was enough plausibility that he had just been seeing things in the dark. No need to kill him to protect the Masquerade. I skidded almost to a halt and swung at him, tapping him just light enough to knock him out and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious. I put Callie down and started looking for keys on the guard’s uniform. 

“It’s a keycard,” Callie said, pulling a flat piece of plastic on a retractable cord off his belt. She hesitated for a second, then pulled the walkie-talkie on his shoulder off and clipped it to her belt. “Let’s see if this works.” 

She walked over to a panel on the door, held the keycard to it. The little black box beeped rapidly, held the last beep far too long, whined, flashed red, green, then red again, and died a sputtering death. Callie sighed. 

“You were too close,” she said, looking at the door. The roar of motorcycles was getting closer and she looked nervously over her shoulder at me. “I could talk us into the stadium, but we won’t be subtle with a shotgun. You can probably rip this door off its hinges, but also not subtle. What’s the play?”

“You’re asking me?” I asked, surprised. 

“You’re the one saving my ass tonight,” Callie admitted, all Southern Princess pretense gone from her demeanor. “As my knight in black armor, you get to make the calls.”

“Black armor? I thought it was supposed to be shining,” I said, looking between the doors and the stadium, my mouth shooting off without my brain’s consent. That part of me was a little too busy trying to figure out what was the least likely path to our graves to be too concerned with shyness. 

Callie may be able to convince the guards at the door that we were allowed to have a shotgun, but there were thousands of people in there, and having her talk us out of that every five seconds didn’t seem time efficient, plus it was a glaring neon clue for the ghouls to follow. 

Then again, the busted door and knocked out guard would also be a dead giveaway, but at least through here I’d have room to maneuver. 

“Knights in shining armor are lame,” Callie grinned at me. “I always thought the Black Knight was way hotter.”

Making up my mind, I returned her grin before slamming my fingers through the metal door and gripping it tight. The sound of protesting metal and ripping concrete filled the air for a moment before I tossed the door to one side, gesturing for Callie to enter first before following her. 

“Subtlty isn’t really your thing anymore, huh?” Callie asked, a laugh in her voice, though I could hear a note of mania just on the edges of it. 

“Doesn’t seem to jive with the situation at the moment. Turn right, then hit the ramp!” I told her. “We’re going to the underground tunnels.” 

“What? Why?” Callie asked, and I heard a note of panic enter her voice now, but she didn’t break her stride. “Why are we going underground again? I really don’t like underground!” 

“And I don’t really like collateral damage,” I said to her, my voice harder than I meant it to be. “I’m done running. There’s only a few of them. If I could handle a Garou, I can handle a few ghouls.” 

Callie skidded to a halt looking back at me in shock. 

“We’re going to fight them?” she asked, clutching the shotgun a bit tighter to her chest. I shook my head. 

“No, I’m going to fight them,” I said, reaching up to click the safety on and remove her finger from the trigger. “You’re going to keep running.” 

“You take on one Garou and suddenly you’re Superman? They want me, not you,” Callie pointed out, and I could see her shaking. There was a bang as one of the ghouls must have tripped over the hastily removed door. I could hear their footfalls coming down the ramp. There wasn’t much time. “What’s to stop them from coming after me?” 

“Me,” I said, grinning at her with what I hoped looked like a confident smile. 

Callie looked around us. We were standing in something that looked like a motorpool. Charging stations for golf carts were set up against the wall next to a wall of metal racks filled with plastic containers and tools. Bright, LED lights were built into the twenty foot high ceiling, casting nearly zero shadows across the concrete floor. The space was wide open, wide enough that four real cars could idle side to side and still leave room to open their doors, and ran the length of… well… the length of a football field. 

“Okay, I’ll admit,” I said, grinning at her still as I read the worry in her expression. “Not the ideal place for a Lasombra to make his last stand. But you’ve got to go. Run. Hell, steal a golf cart. They won’t catch you. And I won’t let them shoot you.” 

“How?” she asked, and her voice grew tinny again. “By taking the bullets yourself? No one’s asking you to make a last stand! Run with me, we can make it, you can out-run them! Throw me over your shoulder and let’s go!”

The sounds of shouting ghouls reached my ears. Close enough that I could make out the commands one was shouting to the others.

“Kill the Shade!” Came a brutal, cocky voice. “Marcus wants the girl alive! Gonna eat that bitch slow… he even said we all could have a bite.” 

I saw Callie shudder and my shadow began to grow. It wasn’t powerful in the light, but I still was, and I wasn’t going to let that bastard get his hands on her. Turning my back to Callie, I squared my shoulders to face the oncoming ghouls, refusing to run, refusing to hide, no matter what that damned beast screamed. To hell with Sandra and her lessons. Today I was going to prove to her that there was more than one way to be Lasombra, but there was only one way to be a man. 

“Go, Callie,” I said, as I watched the first ghouls run into the motorpool. They fanned out, about eight of them, into a semicircle around us, not able to surround us at their current distance yet. At least, not without getting within range of my tendrils. “I’ll take care of it.” 

“Poor positioning, Traitor,” the lead ghoul said to me as he slowly stepped forward, a wide, cocky grin plastered to his face. 

He had cruel eyes and rough stubble that looked coarse enough to light a match off of. He was dressed in tactical gear and carried his rifle with a practiced ease that made him seem more relaxed and much more dangerous than his men, who stood with their weapons drawn and pointed at both of us. But more noticeably, I recognized his as the voice that had been egging the others on, talking about them all biting Callie. My eyes locked on him. 

“She’s not the traitor,” I said to him, baring my fangs. “Marcus is the two-faced swine who betrayed her. How long do you think it will be before he does the exact same thing to you?”

The ghoul grinned, his knowing expression unnerving. He held up his hand, motioning for his men to hold their fire, but he didn’t drop it afterwards, rather keeping it there at the ready to give them the command to fire at will. 

“I wasn’t talking to her, Traitor. I’m surprised you don’t know your own clan’s history,” he said with venom in his voice. He shifted his stance with a relaxed swagger that made me want to punch his jaw clean off. “I was talking about you. Your kind were so entrenched with the Sabbat, the perfect little spies and foot soldiers. Then you tucked your tails between your legs and ran to the Camarilla for mercy, betraying your Sabbat masters.” 

A snarl escaped my throat at the mention of the Sabbat, but that just made him laugh and shake his head. He gestured at me with his open hand. 

“After that you went running from the Camarilla to join the Anarchs, not just your clan, but you personally. Embraced by the Camarilla, trained by the Camarilla, only to bite the hand that fed,” the ghoul said, tearing into my history as if he knew me. “Now you’re betraying the rightful Baron of Queen City for a mediocre piece of tail.” 

He nodded at Callie with a casual disgust that got my beast howling at him rather than at me. 

Kill it! Insolant! Rip it apart! Show the ghoul his own heart and eat it in front of him! In front of his men! Make him suffer! Make them beg for their lives then kill them all! Kill their families! Kill! Kill! Kill!

I tamped down the ruthless desires of my beast, but did not ignore them. My eyes burned into this creature, and I knew that if nothing else happened tonight before I died, I would tear out his throat. 

“How long do you think, Callie?” the ghoul asked, and the familiar use of her nickname set my beast roaring even louder in its cage. “How long before your pet Lasombra turns on you too? They’re known for it, the disloyal, honorless dogs. But then again, we’ll make sure he doesn’t live long enough to betray you. And we’ll make sure you live long enough to know why you shouldn’t betray your master. Now, be a good girl, and come along quietly. We don’t want to deliver damaged goods to Marcus.” 

Setting my shoulders, I prepared to lunge, fangs bared and aimed straight at his throat. His fingers twitched, ready to give the command. Clicking filled the air as safeties were released and chambers loaded. But one sound cut above the rest and gave each of us pause. Callie was laughing. 

Not just laughing. 

Callie was cackling.

Always composed, always putting on a show or an act, Callie was never one to wear her emotions on her sleeve, at least not openly. She showed me that softer side of her a few times, when she was afraid, or panicked. Hell, under the city she was even raw, open and honest. In fairness, that time was in front of the coterie only, and Grey was half dead when it happened. Now, in front of men bent on killing me, kidnapping her, only to deliver her to a man determined to torture her in order to teach her a lesson in obedience to a traitor, she’d completely let her mask drop. 

Either that, or she’d gone completely insane. 

The ghoul must have thought she’d succumbed from the second option, because he scoffed at her. 

“Really, Callie? Was this all it took to break you?” he asked, a sickening grin on his face. “We thought we were going to get to have fun breaking you in. Though, maybe we can enjoy making you cry instead. I’ve got a few ideas how…” 

“Oh shut up, Carl,” Callie snapped, though her tone was still jovial, and the dismissive and relaxed nature of her response seemed to throw the ghoul Carl off guard. “You have no idea how royally fucked you are, do you?”

Her audacity must have shaken Carl out of his surprise, because he scoffed again, shaking his head. 

“Oh yes,” Carl said, laughing slightly as he spoke. Even allowing his men to let a few chuckles out without any retribution, just to drive home how little he was taking us seriously. “A neutered Lasombra in the spotlight and a prissy little lordling who needs help getting the lid off of a jar of peanut butter. Royally fucked, that’s us. We’re so scared.” 

He spread his arms sarcastically, making himself a tantalizing and tempting target. I calculated the distance in my head to determine if I could close it fast enough to kill him before his men opened fire without the order. Before I got the chance, Callie continued, and I tethered my beast, trying to see if I could suss out her plan before Carl did. 

“You forget, just because I’m not physically strong doesn’t mean I don’t have power,” Callie said, her voice getting low and dangerous. 

“And you forget,” Carl snapped back, the humor leaving his voice, silencing the laughter of the other ghouls as he spoke. “Your powers don’t work on us. Marcus taught us everything we need to know to resist you. What did he teach you? How to talk and be pretty? You’re My Fair Lady and we’re Seal Team Six.” 

“He taught me a few other things. Like, how to play chess,” Callie said, a sly grin creeping across her face. She reached down and plucked the radio from her belt and pressed the talk button. The authority in her voice made my knees buckle, and even some of the ghouls swayed slightly on their feet at her words. “Emergency power shut down. Full blackout.” 

Time stood still for a beat as her words hung in the air. Then, the sound of heavy breakers shutting down filled the air. 

Ka-CHUNK!

There were cries of confusion and disappointment from outside where previously there had been muffled cheers.

Ka-CHUNK!

The sound of the air circulation units, normally a background sound, white noise at best, suddenly died, making them unmissable by their absence.

Ka-CHUNK!

Screams of terror and panic outside as I assumed blackness washed over the stands. Nothing created more panic than humans suddenly being plunged into darkness.

Ka-CHUNK!

We were suddenly surrounded by the void of pitch black darkness. Here, under the stadium, there was no moon, no stars, no ambient light of the city to create a sense of orientation. We were cut off from every source of light. As the darkness enveloped me like armor I felt my power surge and the beast inside howl with righteous fury. My eyes landed on Carl, his panicked face clear and ethereal to me in the utter darkness. I grinned wide, realizing that, much like Callie, Marcus never taught his ghouls to see in the dark either. Now they were weak and at the disadvantage. 

“Knight takes pawn,” Callie’s voice said from behind me, and my grin widened as her plan crystallized. 

I rushed forwards, the shadows carrying me forward like a silent bolt of lightning. Carl tried to cry out in pain, but the force of my blow crushed his ribcage and collapsed his lungs before sending him flying forty feet into a concrete wall. When he fell to the ground, he tried to fall properly like his training had taught him, but the speed and brutality with which I hit the ghoul must have disoriented him so badly that he only managed to start trying when his legs hit the ground with a resounding snap. 

Silence hung in the air as the cracking of Carl’s bones echoed and no orders followed. A beat later, the scene devolved into chaos. The other ghouls, now lacking any form of leadership, began shooting, their fearful faces illuminated in the brief bursts of panic fire. Avoiding them was child’s play for me. I went low and moved, baiting them to turn at a whisper or a touch. Their fear caused them to whirl around and open fire at whatever had goaded them, usually resulting in them mowing down another one of their fellow ghouls. 

“Night vision’s useless!” I heard one scream, and laughed at how stupid they’d been to bring such advanced tech to bear against me in the first place. Marcus’ biggest flaw was becoming clearer and clearer to me. 

“Switch to flashlights!” Another voice shouted.

Three flashlights clicked on, beams of light bouncing madly as they looked around wildly to find either me or Callie. Their pathetic dime-store flashlights couldn’t pierce my veil, but they were cheap enough, and low tech enough, that my Bane wouldn’t disrupt them. An evil idea entered my mind as I watched the weak light try to penetrate my umbral darkness. I slithered through the shadows behind the ghoul in the middle, my tendrils crawling up the darkness around his body. 

“Johnson!” he called, making one of the others look over at him. “Do you see anything?”

Before Johnson could answer him, my hands came out of the shadows, gripped the speaker’s head, and wrenched it in an instant one-eighty, the sound of snapping vertebrae echoing through the darkness as his light went from pointing at Johnson, to pointing at the other ghoul on his opposite side, to spilling out across the ground as he fell with a heavy thud to the floor. Both remaining ghouls raised their guns at me, or at least, where they thought I was, but I’d already retreated back into the shadows. 

“He’s going to kill us…” the ghoul that wasn’t Johnson began to whimper, and I realized just how little effort Marcus put into controlling his spawn. He expected obedience based on fear, so he never instilled loyalty. Probably because he didn’t understand the concept himself. Fear will only keep people in line so long as a scarier boogeyman didn’t lurk in the dark. 

Unfortunately for these guys, Marcus was no longer the scariest monster in the woods. He didn’t even rank the top ten anymore. 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Callie making her move. I watched her slide up behind one of the panicking ghouls, keeping low and away from his light. Her finger flicked off the safety on the shotgun and I felt a rush of pride in her before swooping around and slipping in behind Johnson. 

“Do you know what the scariest sound in the world is?” I whispered in his ear, making him yelp and jump. He tried to swing his rifle around at me, but my arm blocked it, locked it against his body, and grabbed him like a human shield, forcing him to face the leveled rifle of the only other remaining ghoul that had turned to face the noise our little scuffle had produced, giving his back to Callie. 

“Fuck!” Johnson yelled, his voice high and tinny. 

“Nope, sorry. ‘Fuck’ is not the scariest sound in the world,” I said as I watched Callie raise the shotgun level with the other ghoul’s head. “It’s that.”

Johnson’s eyes grew wide in terror as Callie stepped into the light of his flashlight, still hidden in the other ghoul’s blind spot. He tried to shout a warning, but it was drowned out by the racking of the shotgun. The remaining ghoul, hearing the scariest sound in the world, tried to turn, but before he could Callie pulled the trigger, turning his head into a fine red mist, painting Johnson’s face with what remained of his remaining ally. He let out a small whimper and I heard the sound of urine dribbling onto the concrete and his shiny tactical boots. 

Taking the gun from his hands, I patted him on the shoulder. 

“You’re the lucky winner, Johnson,” my voice carried a harsh cruelty as Johnson collapsed into a pathetic, whimpering ball on the ground. “I’m not going to kill you.” 

He made a confused sound, something between a whining dog and sniveling child. 

“Oh no, no,” I said, and I felt the beast swell in its cage, lending me its strength. “I never said you got to live. I said that I wouldn’t be the one killing you.” 

Johnson’s eyes flashed in the direction of the now headless body of his comrade, clearly thinking there would be a repeat performance. I watched Callie begin to level her shotgun in the dark, but I held up a hand. 

“No, no. Miss. Callie isn’t going to kill you either,” I said, trying to keep from laughing. 

“I’m not?” Callie asked, clearly in disagreement with my decision.

“You’re not,” I told her firmly before turning back to Johnson, smiling wickedly even though I knew he couldn’t see me in the dark. “But someone will. And you get to choose who! For example, you could go back to Marcus. But as a failure? He’ll kill you. Flee the city? Either Marcus will find you if he lives long enough, or you just become a renegade ghoul with no source of vitae to keep you from devolving into an insane wretch unable to even starve to death, but feeling it at every waking moment.”

Johnson began to whimper, but I wasn’t finished with him yet. 

“You could always try to find another patron, I suppose. Of course, you’re a traitor to the Anarchs, an outcast to the Camarilla, and the only people that would take you are the Sabbat.” My grin grew more menacing as I spoke. “Pick your poison there.” 

At the mention of the Sabbat, something his leader had tried to use to defame me, Johnson’s eyes grew wider and he curled tighter in on himself. Tears began to form in the corners of his eyes, probably just imagining what kind of tortures the Sabbat would have in store for him. 

Glancing over at Callie, I saw her looking back at me, a mixture of horror and respect on her face, as if she were trying to determine how much of what I was saying was meant to manipulate, and how much truly represented how far I was willing to go. With how dark it was, I knew she couldn’t see me, which was probably good since not one word was manipulation to get anything out of him. I wanted him to suffer.

“And that’s just the Kindred threats out there, not even counting the wight that’s on the loose, the Garou that are muscling in on the city, and any number of other threats that might see a lone, hapless ghoul and make a meal of him,” I said, emphasizing all the monsters in the deep dark woods he now found himself in, letting the fear sink in as the hopelessness of his situation finally dawned on him. 

It was his hope that I needed to rip away. Once I took every last possible source of hope I could from him, then it was time to give him one back. 

“Of course,” I said, my voice turning soft and empathetic as I moved to stand over him. “There’s one other thing that can kill you.” 

I dropped his rifle. 

Right in front of him. 

At his feet. 

“Come on, Callie,” I said, turning and walking away, not needing to paint a clearer picture to Johnson. His broken sob told me he understood.. “We’ve got more important things to do than play with Marcus’ toy soldiers. Besides, broken toys are no fun.” 

Callie fell into step behind me as I walked through the pitch black darkness, feeling completely at ease. She jumped slightly as a single shot rang out behind us, but I didn’t flinch at all. Then again, unlike her, I had been expecting it. The beast sighed, contented in its cage. 

“That was…” Callie’s voice was quiet and shaking as she searched for the word to describe what she’d just witnessed me do, yet in her current state she seemed unable to find it.

“Ruthless,” I supplied her with the appropriate choice as I pulled different plastic tubs from the racks, dumping their contents on the floor until I found what I was looking for: a coil of nylon rope. “It’s my Clan’s compulsion. Someone pushes us too far, the beast pushes us to be more ruthless than normal. Until we are… the beast keeps pushing at us.” 

“We… we have something similar,” Callie said, her tone still fearful, but a new level of understanding was dawning in it. “Ventrue need to be obeyed. If we aren’t… we exert our authority until our beast is satisfied.”

“That sounds about right,” I said, kicking over a few of the ghouls until I found one who was about my size and whose jacket had the fewest bullet holes in it. I peeled it off the corpse and pulled it on. Glancing down, I saw this one was also wearing tactical fingerless gloves, and on a whim I took those too. 

“Are… are you still under the compulsion?” Callie asked, her voice becoming more nervous again as her eyes roved around the dark room, clearly unsure of both her position in space and with me. Probably worried she was lost in the dark with a monster again. 

She was, but this time the monster was there to protect her.

“No, the beast is satisfied,” I said, turning and walking across the floor, but not directly for the exit. My eyes locked onto Carl who was pulling his head back up where it swayed dangerously, clearly concussed. He tried to open his mouth and speak, but he coughed up a mouthful of blood and meat instead. I bit the tip of my thumb and grabbed a handful of his hair forcing his head back and slowly drip fed my vitae into his mouth. I felt his bones begin to slowly knit back together; heard his breathing become less wet and more even. When I knew he wasn’t going to just drop dead, I licked my finger and closed the wound. 

The weak beam of light produced from the cheap flashlights the ghouls had brought fell across my back, illuminating Carl as he blinked and coughed, his senses slowly returning.

“What are you…” Callie began to ask, her voice rising in panic, but I cut her off. 

“The beast is satisfied,” I said, taking out the rope and beginning to bind Carl around his wrists and torso. “I am not.”