A Place to Belong: Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter XXI

Timeless Fashion

I watched as the bridge collapsed sending Grey spiralling down into the blackness beneath. He fell so far I didn’t hear a crash. In fairness, I don’t know if I could hear anything besides the ringing in my ears at that moment. Isadora was screaming, full blown screaming, louder than I bet anything had ever come out of her before, but I still couldn’t hear her now. Her mouth was wide open, that much was clear from the horrific expression on her face, but I couldn’t hear the sound coming out.

Diego must have been screaming too as he leaned over the side, tendrils of shadow replacing his arm as he frantically reached out into the darkness, unable to find purchase on anything to grab. I could see the strain on his face as he pushed his powers to their limit and still couldn’t find any sign of Grey. The world started to come back to me, and I realized we were standing in front of a chasm with our backs to a tunnel potentially filled with enemies wanting to kill or eat us, howling with no regard to our own survival. 

“Stop!” I said, gripping Diego’s still corporeal arm and tugging fruitlessly on it. Has he always been this muscular? “Stop shouting!” 

He looked back at me and the expression on his face chilled me to my core. Diego had always struck me as a cowardly man, made braver by the snark he and Grey would throw back and forth at each other. After seeing him wrestle a Garou to a stalemate and then grab Grey while he was in that… form… my opinion of him was shifting slightly. There was no doubt in my mind that he could rip me limb from limb given the proper motivation, but motivation was my thing, and I knew just how to manage his. 

“You’re no good to him holding off a pack of Garou or calling the wight here to finish him off!” I hissed, playing on his sense of self preservation as well as his honor as a friend. His expression hardened, but not in anger, in contemplation. My words hit home, and now he was thinking, strategizing, trying to see how to take his next step. 

Isadora was beyond that, apparently, as she stared off into space, muttering, seeming for all the world to be arguing with herself. Hissing angrily, shaking her head, then finally nodding at the air. 

“I’m going after him,” she said, turning on her heel and running through the passageway as if she knew her way around these tunnels. Grey had studied maps and understood the trail markers that Nosferatu had left behind, so I knew that we could at least trust his ability to navigate our way through this hellhole. But as Isadora vanished into the gloom in her grief stricken state, I realized that it was going to be just me and Diego down here in the dark waiting for death. 

“We have to go after her,” Diego said, getting to his feet. “We have to find him and…” 

I grabbed his arm, not hard, not aggressively, just to remind him that I was still there. As he turned to look at me, I put everything I had into looking scared and small. It wasn’t a stretch at the moment, I was terrified and surrounded by monsters in the dark. Monsters that the three of them had some means of fending off, but my skill set lay in boardrooms and bars, not fighting off things that could punch through steel without flinching. Without Diego I would never see the sky again. My body shook at the thought, involuntarily, but I suppose that was helpful in selling the bit. 

“Diego,” I said in a quiet voice, clutching the scepter close to my chest, my voice shaking with very real fear. “Don’t leave me.” 

He looked puzzled, and I could see his mind misfire a few times before finally settling on facing me. I felt a chill run through me as he placed his hands on my shoulders, and a sense of safety I’d not felt since before I was embraced washed over me. It was all I could do to keep my knees from giving out. Instead, I fell forward against him, using his body for support as well as a prop to sell the weak moment part of my act. 

“Callie, come on, you’re safe with me,” Diego said, reassuringly. “But Isadora needs us, Grey needs us…” 

“How are we supposed to find him? Run into the dark like Isadora?” I asked, feeling hysteria starting to take me over and I began to wonder just how much I was actually acting anymore. “Diego, I can’t keep up with the two of you, in the dark I’ll slow you down. If there’s a fight you’ll get ahead… leave me behind… then I’ll be lost down here forever… or until something finds me.” 

A pained look flashed across his face. He looked over the edge then down at the collapsed bridge where Grey had fallen. I could see he was torn, teetering on the sense of standing by his friend and standing by a woman in need. One more push would get him over the edge and get me out of this tomb. 

“And what about this?” I asked, holding the scepter up a little higher so he could see it. “If we die with this it could end up lost down here forever and the baroness won’t ever secure her position. I may not care about her securing power, but if the Camarilla come back they’ll execute Marcus and me, even if I did get out of here alone somehow.” 

He clenched his eyes in pain and frustration and I knew that I had him. Diego was many things, but foremost among them, he

 was loyal. I could see the loyalty to his friend warring with the loyalty to his cause. A pang of guilt shot through me when I saw the pain in his face, but my survival depended on him choosing the Anarchs over Grey. On him choosing me over Grey… If it was just me or Grey, I knew that there wouldn’t have been a chance, but I’d made my play, now I just needed to see what he would choose. 

“Come on,” he said, his voice tight and heavy with guilt. His hand reversed my grip, taking my wrist and pulling me into the darkness. “I remember the way, we’ll move quicker together, and maybe Natalia can send help back.” 

We both knew that she wouldn’t, that Grey was a means to an end for Baroness Natalia Sharpe. There was nothing special about Grey to her and by leaving him behind right now we were leaving him for dead. 

But I’d hurt Diego enough. I wasn’t going to take that hope away from him. 

With Diego’s abilities to shift through shadow, he probably could have been out and back in a matter of hours. As it stood, he had to drag me through the dark corridors, evading Garou hunting parties that seemed far more common down here than they had when we were first spelunking down. We heard whispers from their muzzles as we hid in shadowy corners and forgotten shafts. They spoke of the Wyrm and a taint, and a moon child leech. Some of these words I knew, but I’d never heard them spoken about the way these Garou were using them. 

“They called Grey the Tainted Moonchild,” Diego reminded me as we walked through an empty corridor. At least, I believed it to be empty since we were out in the open darkness and Diego hadn’t pulled me out of the way of a charging crinos… again. “Said he was the Wyrm wearing a Leech. I don’t know what that means, but the Wyrm is supposedly the bad one?”

“There’s a trinity,” I explained, talking my way through what little I knew of Garou politics. It was less sophisticated than kindred politics, but no less brutal. They were just more open about it. “The Wyrm is what represents decay in their worldview, whereas the Wyld represents what is natural and grows. Gaia is the mother earth they fight to protect, and she is an element of the Wyld, if not the goddess of it. I don’t think there’s a specific god of the Wyrm, I think it's just the Wyrm himself.” 

“Could Gaia and the Wyld be the same thing?” Diego asked. I just shrugged and nodded. 

“Possibly,” I admitted. “I looked into a bit more of it after we met with that coterie from New York. Hopefully we can report back to them about the Garou in the tunnels. Seems their seer was completely correct on that one.” 

“Grey will let them know,” Diego said, his voice hard as flint. Probably trying to convince himself more than to convince me. I just nodded and continued talking about the Garou. 

“Then finally there’s the Weaver,” I continued, noticeably not confirming or denying his claim. “Which is connected to things that have an effect on the world around them. Things that take the bounty of nature and craft it to their will, while at the same time using their creativity to hold entropy at bay.” 

“So humans for sure,” Diego said, nodding. “And I suppose Kindred.” 

“Kindred definitely plunder the Wyld’s resources and keep the Wyrm at bay,” I agreed. “We’re especially good at fighting against entropy, but we have a distinct lack of motivation to build up something new. We strive to keep the old aloft and the new at bay. Thus the Weaver doesn’t like us much either. Humanity itself is the greatest representation of the Weaver.” 

“So to the Garou, there’s really only one good guy in their own story,” Diego nodded. “So if the Wyrm is wearing a Leech, that means they’re afraid that Grey is entropy in kindred form? Huh… kinda makes sense.” 

“Because his powers let him rip people apart and boil them from the inside out with acid?” I asked, with probably with a bit too much vitriol in my voice. 

“Partially, I’m sure,” Diego said, not rising to the anger in my voice. I bit my tongue, pushing back on the fear that had stemmed that anger as Diego continued. “He’s got this idea in his head that the Anarchs are just as bad as the Camarilla. That they talk about freedom and opportunity, but ended up building a structure that was nearly identical to the one the Camarilla uses. Have you found that to be true?”

I took a moment to ponder his question seriously rather than just reacting as I normally would. The idea that the Anarch Movement could be as prestigious as the Ivory Tower of the Camarilla seemed preposterous to me. Now, however, with the wool being removed from my eyes and having lived within both of them, I could see what Grey was saying. 

“There is a structure in place, Domains versus Free States, Princes versus Barons, there’s even a similar hierarchy with the Sheriff and the Enforcer, the Harpy and the Herald,” I admitted, talking my way through as we stepped out of the brick and stone of the old subway tunnels and found ourselves moving through the utility tunnels just below the surface of the city. We were almost out. “The Camarilla seeks to keep the Blue Blooded power structure in place, while the Anarchs tend to be made up mostly of younger kindred who wanted to get their hands on their own power.” 

“When the old guard doesn’t retire or die off, it makes it real hard for the new blood to feel like anything more than cannon fodder and foot soldiers,” Diego said, a note of bitterness in his voice. 

It made me think of the promises that Marcus had made me about becoming as powerful as him one day. Perhaps getting my own Domain to be the Prince of. There were only so many domains left to conquer, and many more powerful kindred above me. To claw my way to power seemed daunting if not nigh impossible. I could see the appeal in what the Anarchs offered to those who felt that they were unheard, unsupported. Those, like Grey and Diego, who didn’t have their sire’s support and encouragement to grow as both kindred and members of their clan. 

The lights over our heads flickered slightly as we passed through the door to a metal grated staircase. I moved to climb it, but Diego put his hand on my shoulder and slipped in front of me. He peered up, shook his head, then turned back and pressed his finger to his lips in a shushing motion. Before my very eyes, he melded into the shadows and disappeared. 

The moments ticked by, long and arduous as I stood there alone and exposed. There was something above he was warning me about, and something below that was hunting us, and now Diego had left me. Abandoned me. I stood stark still, like a deer caught in headlights, unsure of which way to go as the dangers closed in around it. Was this how the kine felt all the time? Never knowing where the attack would come from, but always knowing that it could?

I heard a crash above me, like something hitting a trashcan, then another, and suddenly, silence. Tense seconds ticked by, and my beast was screaming at me to make a break for it, but my feet wouldn’t move. A shadow to my left moved unnaturally, and I turned, fear wide in my eyes, as Diego slipped from the shadows and grabbed my arm, gently leading me towards the stairs. 

“Welcoming committee up top,” he said, and I felt the shadows coalesce around us making it harder to see, but at the same time feeling like a safe blanket being wrapped around me. As we passed through the door at the top of the stairs, I saw the broken forms of two men who were either dead or unconscious, laying in positions bodies were not meant to bend in a pile of garbage bags, with one hanging half out of a dumpster. 

“What kind of welcoming committee?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow and far away, distorted by the power Diego had wrapped around me. The sudden realization that my phone was probably completely fried now passed my mind, but I was too grateful to be annoyed by that fact. There would be no calling ahead to give Marcus a heads up. 

“Garou,” Diego responded, slipping us down an alleyway and onto another side street. “I don’t think they were looking for us specifically, but the one that ran must have tipped off his fellows, so they’re out in force looking to see if they can find this ‘Wyrm Wearing a Leech’.”

As if matters weren’t complicated enough in this damned city. The Anarch power structure wasn’t fully set, the Camarilla were looking to reclaim what they believed was theirs, a wight was running around on the loose, and now an army of Garou prowling the streets. We needed leadership, and we needed it now. As much as the Anarchs hated the Camarilla, the centralized power structure allowed us to deal with this kind of thing more efficiently… well, ‘us’ back when I was a part of it. Now I was part of what the Camarilla would be dealing with. I clutched the scepter closer to my chest 

“We need to get to the church,” Diego said, still pulling me along. His thoughts must have somehow aligned with my own. Leadership was needed, and neither of us had anyone to lead, but if we could get the scepter to the church, maybe the Anarch power would stabilize and we’d be safe… I’d be safe. 

Every block we ran down, every shadow that moved, I felt the panic creep higher and higher up my throat like a scream biting and crawling through my chest to escape. The only thing that kept me from completely shutting down was Diego’s strong hands pulling me along, pushing me into hiding places when danger grew too near, and cradling me and he lifted my body and jumped to the top of a nearby roof, running us silently along strip malls and houses until I could see the bell tower of the Anarch’s central power here in the city. As the church loomed up, I found myself unironically thinking that sanctuary was in sight. 

Diego didn’t bother with doors. Tendrils of shadow writhed around him, lashing out and gripping the side of the building. His arms wrapped around me and I felt like the bullet in a slingshot being launched from one rooftop and through the open window of the belfry. Yelping, I nearly went over the side, but felt Diego secure me, his shadow mobilizing under us until we could get our feet straight. We made it to the bottom of the stairs, burst into a hallway, and practically ran to the meeting room where the council met. 

The tendrils of shadow pushed open the doors and I fell to my knees as I stumbled inside. Looking up, I found the room mostly empty. Father Rodrigo was sitting in a chair by the inert fireplace, his head bowed in prayer. Arthur stood in the back of the dark room, on guard with his shotgun resting by his side. At the main desk, the one where two nights ago Baroness Natalia Sharpe had briefed us on our mission, sat Marcus, sipping gingerly on a goblet of blood. He looked up at me and smiled, his fangs gleaming and white as fresh pearls. 

“Caroline, how good to see you,” he said, and I felt a warmth wash over me as his words and relief hit me all at once. 

“Marcus,” I said, bowing my head in reverence. “We were successful in recovering the artifact. We’re here to present it to the Baroness as instructed.” 

“No need for that,” Marcus said with a dismissive wave of his hand. I looked up at him, shocked. My eyes darted to Father Rodrigo and the Enforcer Arthur. Neither moved at his words, and it was then that the horrible truth began to dawn on me. 

“The Baroness isn’t here,” Marcus said, slowly getting up from his seat at her desk. He walked over to Father Rodrigo and pushed him slightly, causing him to tip over and fall onto the floor. It was then that I saw the stake sticking out of his chest. Marcus hadn’t killed him, just placed him in torpor. Perhaps a means of converting the Herald once he’d taken power?

“W…where is she?” I asked, not daring to look at Diego, not wanting to drop the act. 

“She’s gone off to handle personal business,” Marcus said, stepping over to Arthur, kicking the shotgun away. It clattered heavily across the room. I could see now why Arthur was so rigid in his stance; he too was staked, only his went straight through his body and pinned him to the wall. 

“You know,” Marcus said, examining Arthur’s face closer. “I never liked that about her so-called leadership style. She’d go out constantly, practically every night, on some ‘personal business,’ and leave us here to handle the messes. And in order to do that, you have to let your dogs run off leash.” 

Marcus leaned in closer, and I realized he wasn’t really talking to me. 

“I don’t like unruly beasts running around,” he whispered to Arthur, then before I could blink, he whipped a long blade from his waistband and removed the Enforcer’s head. His body slumped, still supported by the stake, but his head hit the ground, bounced once, and just lay there, the smell of vitae filling the air. 

“A young one,” Marcus said, dryly as he wiped his blade casually on Arthur’s shirt before sheathing it again. “The weakness of this movement really is pathetic. A true vampire of any respectable age would have turned to ash and not dirtied my knife.” 

Marcus turned to me and smiled again, but this time I felt no warmth in his gaze. Fear settled into my chest as he looked upon me. For the first time since he embraced me, there was a look of murderous hunger in his eyes. 

“Is that it?” he asked me, his voice filled with quiet excitement. “Is that the item that will secure my position as the Baron of Charlotte?”

I glanced at Arthur’s head and at the crumpled body of Father Rodrigo, then back up at Marcus. Reaching up, I held the scepter on the palms of both my hands as an offering to him. All the while, my brain was burning with fear and speculation. Marcus had just killed the Enforcer. No provocation, no ceremony. Killed him because Arthur was helpless and could be killed. 

There was no way Diego would have let that happen. Was Diego working with Marcus? Was this a set up? What was about to happen to me? My hands shook as I held the staff up to him, hoping that somehow, for some reason, I was still a useful piece in the chess game he was playing. 

“H…here it is,” I offered it up to him, trying to clamp down on the fear in my chest, swallowing it down and steadying my voice and spoke the name I heard Isadora whisper as she read the words carved into the daises aloud. “This is the Scepter of Velianas.” 

“Velianas…” Marcus repeated reverently as he plucked the tarnished bronze from my hands and held it aloft to marvel at. “No doubt meaning the Etruscan ruler Thefarie Velianas. I have studied his history well. A powerful ruler, one who brought order and justice to his city of Caere, if the Pyrgi Tablets are to be believed. And a scepter no less.” 

Marcus grinned broadly as he inspected the scepter closer. An aura of power, Domination, began to ripple off him, and I felt my head sink closer to the floor, as though he were forcing me to grovel at his power, though I’d been the target of his power before. It felt different than this. The power of this scepter mixing with his own felt… wrong. Like cruelty without purpose. 

“It is only right that the Clan of Kings rule,” Marcus said, his voice growing bolder, more commanding. “With this scepter, all I need do is claim my crown. A crown never goes out of fashion, does it Caroline?”

“Of course not, sir,” I said, keeping my voice even, mimicking the way Isadora would steady her tone into a neutral state, neither showing weakness nor giving her audience the satisfaction of tethering her. “With your scepter and crown no one will question your claim to the barony.”

“The barony? A paltry start, but a start nonetheless, I suppose,” Marcus barked. He began pacing the room, twirling the scepter lazily in his right hand. “Perhaps I’ll bring this city to heel under the Ivory Tower again, should they offer to expand my Domain. And why stop there? A meager Prince in a Domain? Surely one with leadership like mine belongs at even greater stations.” 

“I’m sure you could reach any station you desire, sir,” I said, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. Where was Diego?

“Of course, I’ll need good servants when I’m there,” Marcus said, and I chanced a look at his eyes. They were still brimming with hunger, but for what, I couldn’t be sure. 

“You mean me, sir?” I asked, and hoped that he was about to praise my usefulness. His grin widened even further, and I felt the vitae in my veins freeze. 

“Oh no, dear girl,” he said, his voice calculated and cruel. “You’ve outlived your usefulness… well, almost. You see, you’ve borne witness to my tactics. You’ve seen how I play the game. I create childer as a means to further my own ends. I sculpt you, craft you into the exact tool I need you to be, and once you’ve outlived your usefulness… you get replaced.” 

I felt my body shiver, and my beast screamed inside my head to flee, but nothing worked, I couldn’t move. His eyes captivated me, like pools of dark water that I was drawing in. Domination had taken hold of me. I was trapped. Lost in a deep, dark pit, about to face the same fate I’d left Grey to suffer from in fear of sharing it with him. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh at the fucking irony of it all… but my body wouldn’t let me do any of that. Instead, I just watched, and waited as my death approached me. 

“I will sire new sisters for you,” Marcus continued as he slowly walked closer to me, his cruel grin making his handsome face a caricature of itself. “I’ve always liked the taste of little rich girls who believed they could do better if only given the chance. It’s so much sweeter when they serve me that final time, returning the vitae I’d lent them. Now, sweet Caroline, I’m going to drink you dry. And once I’ve taken everything that’s mine back, you’ll be a forgotten husk for my ghouls to dispose of.”

The door opened behind me and I heard dozens of pairs of boots fill the room as the ghouls surrounded me. Hope died in that moment. Diego was gone. I was alone, surrounded by enemies, and I had no one to blame but myself for it. 

“Much like crowns,” Marcus whispered as he leaned in, fangs bared. “Betrayal never goes out of style.” 

I closed my eyes, waiting for the darkness of the final death to surround me, and felt vitae tears begin to stream down my face. A bitter laugh caught in my throat as I thought how those tears were drops of his vitae… my vitae… he’d never get back. 

A heavy metallic sound that I only barely recognized as a shotgun racking came from underneath me. I opened my eyes to see Marcus’ own, wide in surprise at the sound, both of us frozen in a moment of pure shock and fear. 

“As the song goes, pendejo,” I heard Diego’s voice come from the swirling shadows cast by my body, the barrel of Arthur’s dropped shotgun coming from them as well, directly out of the floor. “Click. Click. Boom.” 

There was a roar of sound that instantly deafened me to anything else. The world around me devolved into chaos as Marcus flew backwards, his legs knocked out from under him and the entire seat of his pants and groin were painted a deep red with his vitae. Ghouls moved to intervene, but the shadows themselves came alive from the walls, grabbing them, slamming them bodily against the ceiling, floor, and even through several blacked out windows, sending showers of glass and bodies to the ground below. 

Darkness whirled around me as I felt Deigo’s arms around my waist as he hauled me to my feet. I tried to run, but couldn’t get my body to move the way I needed it to. Panic began to pulse through my mind. 

Slowing him down!

Useless!

Built to be weak, easier to cull!

Better off fertilizer for a kindred worth something!

“Go!” I heard my voice crying out as I fought Diego’s grip. “Go! Go! Go! You can survive, I’ll just get us both killed! I’m not worth…” 

The world spun and flipped around me and I couldn’t help uttering a rather unflattering yelp. When the world made sense again, I saw the asphalt below me passing by quicker than some cars I’d driven in through this city. A constant that stayed framed in my vision was Diego’s firm ass a foot away from my head. 

“What the hell!” I shouted as he rocketed down the street, my body bouncing on his shoulder uncomfortably. “What am I? Luggage? You’re going to get killed if you don’t just drop me!”

“Coño! Shut the fuck up!” Diego roared at me as he vaulted over a parked car… long ways. “I already had to leave one person for dead tonight, and I won’t lose you too!”

“But… but I…” I looked at the back of his head, clenching my fists and my jaw in anger. “I betrayed you! I gave the staff to Marcus!” 

“What was your other option?” Diego asked, and his simplistic reasoning hit me in the chest. I’d spent years in kindred society learning the subtleties and nuances of social warfare, and to Diego it was just that simple. 

“Besides,” Diego grinned back at me, his stupid, arrogant, pretty boy smile. “You gave me time to grab my new toy.”

He lifted the shotgun into view, holding it safely by its center mass and winked at me. 

“And thanks to this thing, I gelded a groomer,” he laughed, then adjusted his grip on me. “Now hold on! It’s going to be a bumpy ride!” 

As he ran off into the night, with me hauled over his shoulder, he laughed with glee as I clung to him sitting firmly between two camps: absolute terror at every threat that seemed to be baring down on us and the blissful glee that came with the realization that in the moment that I discovered I couldn’t trust the one person I relied on most, I found the most reliable person I could ever trust.