Don’t kill me…. Dear God… “Don’t kill me.”
Dancing lights. Darkness. Spinning.
Zhavon’s eyes fluttered open. Rusty iron. Ladder. Fire escape. And she saw a face, a girl not much older than herself—Is that blood on her face?—kneeling over her in the darkness. The girl held Zhavon’s hand… was kissing it—no, licking her palm.
Darkness again.
But then Zhavon opened her eyes, and it was morning. The first pink light of sunrise was visible, and the city was already hot, sticky.
Zhavon hurt all over—her head, her shoulder, her chest, her legs. But she was home, lying outside her window. She was alive.
Lifting her right hand from her chest, she remembered the first and by far the least serious injury from the night, but the ring of tiny punctures from the bottle cap was gone.
Wednesday, 7 July 1999, 9:39 PM
The Bronx
New York City, New York
Water. Dripping. Ramona opened her eyes, but the darkness within mirrored the darkness without. Which way was up, which down? A sharp pain in her neck told her that she had been knotted into a ball for too many hours, but she didn’t move. She listened to the water dripping. A distant plink. Eventually another would follow. The interval between them stretched out toward infinity. How long had she been lying there? Ramona’s ears pricked up. She would pluck the sound of the next drop from the vacant hours. She was the ultimate predator. Patience would bend time to her will. She imagined, somewhere miles of rock and ice above her, the rays of the sun breaking through thick clouds to play on the blinding surface of a glacier. Even beneath the biting wind, a single droplet of water formed and, a prisoner of gravity, worked its way through cracks and crevices. Down, down. Hours? Days? It clung to the underside of a boulder above the void, elongated, contracted, began to fall, drew back to the rock. Finally, it broke free. Falling, falling…
There. The distant plink of water dripping.
Ramona pressed a button on her watch, and a wan, greenish light illuminated her little space. Water dripping. Or maybe antifreeze. She read the digital numbers. Twenty-eight seconds.
“Shit.” Ultimate predator, indeed.
She drew her knees up to her chin—only a few inches—and a sharp, double kick popped open the trunk. Ramona’s junked car was near the bottom of the stack, so she didn’t have far to drop to reach the ground.
Towers of dented and twisted metal surrounded her on nearly every side. Narrow paths wound like canyons in several directions. As Ramona stretched and yawned, dried blood cracked and fell away from her mouth.
Almost as soon as her feet touched the ground, the barking began from somewhere on the other side of the yard. The sound came rapidly closer through the maze of scrap, until the two Rottweilers, teeth bared, frothing at the mouth, barreled around the turn closest to Ramona.
“Evenin’, boys.”
Instantly, they quieted and lay down, shaking and licking the foam from their jowls. Ramona scratched Rex behind the ear. Rover, who she’d noticed before had a bad case of earmites, grunted appreciatively as she knelt down and licked out his pink ear. Rex and Rover. Ramona had named them after the attributes of a hooker she’d once known whose “twin, pink-nosed dogs” had always been happy to greet a customer.
Ramona was tempted to curl up with the boys and spend a quiet evening. Her belly was full, so she wouldn’t need to feed for several nights. After last night, though, a vague restlessness tugged at her. She should probably check in with Jen and Darnell at some point, but the thought didn’t really excite her. Still not sure what she wanted to do, she patted the boys one more time and then wandered away through the automotive heaps.
She let her feet take whatever path fell before her, and with an easy leap over the barbed wire atop the fence, she entered the greater wilderness that lay beyond. Ramona knew little of New York, and she didn’t care to learn. How differently she looked at the city than she would have just two years ago. This borough or that, the names of streets and neighborhoods—all were meaningless distinctions of the daylight world. The single, essential lesson she had learned long before setting foot in New York: Beware. Its permutations were many.
Beware the sun; it burns flesh.
Beware lack of blood; the hunger will take control.
Beware too much blood, the sight and smell; the hunger, again, will take control.
Beware your own kind; they are everywhere.
Even in her wandering, Ramona was alert. She knew enough to be wary, if little more. As she walked the nameless streets, the mortals going about their lives did not concern her. But which ones were, like they seemed, really mortals, and which were like her? With no way to tell, Ramona tried to stay away from them all. She remembered the gang in Los Angeles that she had assumed to be mortal, and how they had laughed when they should have run away. She remembered the thing out in the mesquite thickets in Texas, and her close escape.
Ramona crossed the street to avoid the light and activity of a convenience store. From that distance, she stared at the clerk in the bulletproof booth, at the black man at the payphone. Were they just what they seemed or something more? Ramona’s curiosity failed to get the best of her, and she continued on. As she did, however, a shift in the slight breeze brought her up short. A faint, vaguely familiar scent caught her attention. Her flaring nostrils held onto it for only a moment before it was gone.
I know that smell, she told herself, but from where, and what was it?
She stood and sniffed at the air, but the briefly teasing breeze on that sticky summer night was dead.
She knew that scent. What is it? she tried to recall.
Suddenly, Ramona turned to her right, upwind, and dashed in that direction. If the wind wouldn’t cooperate, she’d find the source of that smell herself.
One block then another fell behind her. She scanned the street and kept alert for the odor she was tracking. The mortals driving past probably didn’t see her. She moved with a speed that only recently had ceased to surprise her.
After six blocks, she stopped and again sniffed at the air. The scent was gone, or else it was masked by the rich, layered stink of the city. Ramona felt sure that she could pick it out if it was still there.
She stood for several minutes half-heartedly sniffing. Nothing.
Maybe, she began to think, she was just overreacting to her surroundings. New York offered hundreds of new odors every night, and the potency of her sense of smell still caught her off guard at times, even after two years.
Putting the enigmatic and possibly imaginary smell behind her, Ramona realized that she was in a familiar neighborhood. The route of her wandering was unintentional but didn’t surprise her. Last night. Tonight. Many nights before. She had passed over these particular streets numerous times since her arrival in the city.
From two blocks away she smelled the blood. It didn’t bring the hunger screaming to the surface, because she was full, and the blood was not fresh. But with each step she smelled it more clearly. No one had bothered to spray off the pavement. Ramona heard the buzzing flies even before she turned the corner and ducked under the police tape. Those two men would not be mourned. Bloody footprints betrayed the carelessness and indifference of the police.
She had not planned to save the girl. In fact, Ramona had followed at a distance and found herself, disconcertingly, drawn into the mindset of the hunt. She’d stalked silently and waited for the perfect moment to strike. Never mind that she wasn’t hungry, that she didn’t need to feed. Her instinct for the hunt had grown so strong—almost too strong to be denied.
Last night was the closest Ramona had come to losing control, but it wasn’t the first time that she’d watched Zhavon after dark, or listened from outside while the girl joked or argued with her mother.
She does argue, Ramona had to admit.
In fact, the first time she’d noticed the girl, just past dusk one night several weeks ago, Zhavon had been involved in a minor altercation.
She’d been on a corner near her home with a few friends, talking to a boy about her own age. Ramona had watched unnoticed from a rooftop across the street. The boy had been goofing around, putting his arm around Zhavon, then he’d reached a little farther and copped a feel. The smack of her hand across his face had split the still night like a gunshot. Ramona had laughed and watched the embarrassed boy slink away. She could still see the fire in the Zhavon’s eyes, the raw defiance.
Before that night, Zhavon had been like any other of the millions of people in the city, but from that point on, Ramona had paid close attention to her, had come back night after night. How many times—ten, twenty? Ramona could only guess. She had come wanting to see that flash of bravado in Zhavon’s eyes, the sound of it in her voice. Even in her hours of sleep, the steady rise and fall of her chest seemed a challenge to anyone or anything that would oppose her. She stood against all that was out there in the world.
The difference last night was that Zhavon had gotten a taste of what actually was out there.
Ramona had a bit more of an idea than Zhavon did about what was out there—she herself was part of it, after all—but she too had questions, questions about the hunter instinct, about the bloodlust that had all but taken over as she’d followed Zhavon through the dark alleys. It had been while she struggled with these predatory urges, to hunt, to feed, that the other predators had struck.
Zhavon had stumbled right into the trap where they had lain in wait for her, and as Ramona had watched her prey taken by others, a wave of rage—not hunger, but welling up from the same place—had washed over her, and she’d found herself pouncing on them. Her fangs ripped into the neck of the one with the knife—not just searching for blood, but rending flesh, leaving a gaping wound. And then the second one.
Their blood had appeased her, soothed her rage, the frenzy that was almost as strong as the hunger could be. All the while, Zhavon had huddled on the ground and cried. Ramona had lifted the hysterical girl in her arms and had seen her once-defiant face twisted with fear and desperation. Her invulnerability was chipped away to expose the victim beneath. Ramona had seen, and had understood.
Ramona breathed deeply of the blood-aroma from the pavement. She thought for a moment that she could see the two men lying there before her with their eyes staring blankly, but it was only the false memory of the blood within her, like the phantom itch of an amputated limb.
For the second time that evening, Ramona turned and ran, almost before realizing that she was doing so. Her legs carried her forward with long strides, more powerful than she would have appeared capable of.
She retraced her steps of the night before, this time unencumbered. A very few minutes found her leaping and effortlessly reaching the familiar fire escape, scrambling up the steps.
Ramona squatted at the open window. Her eyes sifted through the darkness inside, and her gaze fell upon Zhavon, asleep in her bed. The low sound of a TV in another room hung in the air. The girl rested quietly. The already dark skin of her face was bruised and puffy around the mouth and eyes. A wet towel lay on the floor beside the bed. Despite the heat and humidity, Zhavon clutched a sheet up to her neck as if the thin cotton would protect her from harm.
Stay inside at night if you want to be safe, Ramona thought, but she of all people knew only too well that there was no real protection.
Thursday, 8 July 1999, 2:15 AM
A tenement in Harlem
New York City, New York
Zhavon’s eyes opened but were still full of sleep. She’d been dreaming again of the girl—about Zhavon’s age, maybe a little older; skinny but muscular; smooth skin several shades lighter than Zhavon’s; short hair, curly, messy. And could Zhavon be remembering correctly that sometimes the girl had blood on her face? But not tonight.
Mama was still up. Zhavon could hear the TV. She thought sleepily that if she hadn’t been hurt and scared so badly, Mama probably would’ve beaten her senseless for sneaking out. As it was, they had spent most of the day at the hospital and then with the police. She started to roll over but was too sore. Face, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, pelvis, thighs—bruises everywhere.
Zhavon pulled the sheet more tightly about her and squinted through her swollen black eyes. Everything was as it had been when she went to sleep, except the ice in the towel had all melted. She tried to shake off the unsettling feeling that someone was watching her. The room was empty. The fire escape out the window was empty. Zhavon laid her head back and listened to the comforting sound of the TV on the other side of the wall until she again fell asleep and dreamed of the girl.
Thursday, 15 July 1999, 1:21 AM
Chantry of the Five Boroughs
New York City, New York
The sensation of his pen’s brass nib scratching across the paper eased Johnston Foley’s tension somewhat. The nib grabbed satisfyingly, even at this fairly modern grain of paper. Though the experience was far inferior to that of using his favored ritual pens and quills on actual parchment—there was no comparison, really—it did provide the comforting familiarity of discipline. In fact, the list to which Johnston was currently adding items was purely an exercise in discipline, for he did not need a list. His memory was infallible. Yet he had become a creature of lists over the years. Lists, for him, had initially provided a means of establishing order amidst a world where entropy was only too willing to rush in at the slightest lapse in vigilance and fill the void. Even after his faculties had progressed beyond the point to which the lists per se were a necessity in his intricate and exacting studies, he’d continued and actually redoubled his efforts to impose order—that perfect order that is a reflection of the truly disciplined mind and spirit. And his unwavering perseverance had not been lost upon his superiors.
Johnston paused at the conclusion of the next entry to his list—lifting nib from paper, so that ink could not collect and produce an imperfect character—and congratulated himself on his steadfastness of purpose. This was a minor vanity, he conceded, but indulging it was a conscious allowance that he made, and by that very awareness of his own nature he disarmed this foible, one of few, and relegated it to its harmless niche in his ordered psyche.
Johnston took great pride, though not to an excessive degree, in his attention to detail and organization (he’d been a good Presbyterian in his mortal days). His writing table was clear except for the inkwell and paper he was using, and his entire, compact study, though crammed to capacity with bookshelves, beakers, alchemical equipment and the like, was nonetheless distinctly uncluttered. Each book, each vial, each arcane scroll had its place, from which it was removed only when Johnston required its use, and to which it was promptly returned.
A sharp knock sounded at Johnston’s door.
“Enter,” he said, allowing the displeasure to be readily apparent in his voice. The knock should have come ten minutes earlier.
Jacqueline, Apprentice Tertius of Clan Tremere, stepped demurely into the small room. She was a mature woman, a former academician whose features continuously betrayed the torment of one accustomed in her mortal life to speaking authoritatively to students, yet who now took orders from practically every other member of the vampire clan that had chosen her. The abrupt disjuncture obviously did not sit well with her. Her contentment or lack thereof, however, did not concern Johnston.
“You are late,” he said curtly.
“I was assisting Aaron with a task,” she responded, eyes downcast.
“Did I request an explanation?”
“No.”
Johnston narrowed his eyes. “And that is how you address your superior?”
Jacqueline stiffened, realizing her breach of etiquette. “No, Regent Secundus.”
Johnston paused, laid his pen across the inkwell, allowed her time to ponder her error. She seemed adequately contrite, though an Apprentice Initiate of the Third Circle should have been beyond such lapses of decorum. It was a difficult situation, when an apprentice’s capabilities exceeded her understanding of h
er station—for Jacqueline had proven beyond doubt her boundless potential—but the Tremere could ill afford chinks in the armor of discipline that had allowed the clan to survive this long despite the best efforts of countless enemies. Johnston made a mental note to have her flogged at a later time, and if the problem persisted to advise Regent Quintus Sturbridge that Jacqueline should be terminated.
“I will not abide familiarity in a subordinate,” he said at last, then paused again significantly.
“Yes, Regent Secundus.”
When Johnston was satisfied that she had suffered an appropriate amount of mental anguish, he handed her the piece of paper from his desk.
“Here is the list of materials I require for a certain ritual next week,” he said. “See that they are assembled in my laboratory by dawn the 22nd.”
Jacqueline studied the list. After a moment, Johnston held out his hand and, realizing his meaning, she reluctantly returned the paper to him.
“That is all.” Johnston watched as she backed out of the chamber. He was gratified by the brief glint of alarm he’d seen in her eyes as she’d handed back the list. He had allowed her ample time in which to commit the items to memory. If she’d failed to do so, that was her shortcoming, and she would be held accountable. Of course, Johnston wasn’t about to let her potential incompetence interfere with his upcoming ritual—dawn the 22nd would allow him more than sufficient time to inspect her work and make any necessary adjustments. The knowledge that ultimately he would be held responsible for the failings of underlings was not lost upon Johnston.
He rose with the list in his hand and moved into his laboratory, an adjoining room that also was rather cramped with tables, shelves, several scales for various types of materials, more books, and a host of other tightly-packed paraphernalia. The compressed nature of his chambers—including his sanctum, which was little more than a closet—was a point of some irritation for Johnston. He realized that his accommodations constituted no slight against himself, but still the matter was galling. Thus was unlife at the Chantry of the Five Boroughs. So hotly contested between Camarilla and Sabbat was the city of New York, that the energy of every Tremere present was required for defense, and little time was spared for expansion or material comfort. So it had been for many years.
Clan Novel Gangrel: Book 3 of The Clan Novel Saga Page 2