Clan Novel Gangrel: Book 3 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  Irma… now…

  A sea of blood washed over the voice, dragged it far away, until only the inexorable sweep and pull of the ocean remained.

  Zhavon stared through the glass, and the image before her was her own. She saw through those eyes a world tinted blood-red. She saw herself sitting in bed, slowly putting her feet to the floor, pulling her nightshirt over her head.

  The voice… what was it saying?

  She saw her own body, rounded, full of life. The veins were not so close to the surface, yet the deafening roar of a tidal wave filled her ears. She watched as she reached for a shirt, jeans, shoes.

  The roaring wave carried her forward, obliterated the sound of her footsteps. Her vision dimmed.

  Zhavon opened her eyes—had they been closed? She turned a doorknob, opened the front door, then stepped outside, into the arms of the girl from her dreams.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 2:40 AM

  Meadowview Lane

  Hayesburg, New York

  Ramona drew in Zhavon, clutched the girl tightly to her chest.

  “I…I…” Zhavon tried to speak.

  Ramona gently shushed her, stroked the tight ringlets of the girl’s hair, nuzzled the hollow beneath her ear.

  “I…”

  “Shhh.”

  Ramona brushed her fingers across Zhavon’s forehead, traced the line of her brow, cheek, jaw. Warmth radiated from the mortal’s skin—genuine warmth, capillaries, canals of life-sustaining blood, the flow driven by a beating heart. Ramona’s fingers descended along the curve of Zhavon’s neck and lingered there. Beside the tensed muscles, the jugular pulsated irresistibly. Ramona slid her mouth along taut skin. Her tongue darted out and tasted the sweat of fear and anticipation. Merely a thin veneer of flesh denied her that for which she hungered.

  Now her tongue felt the severe edge of canines lowered in response to her hunger.

  No!

  Ramona fought for control. She pulled away, but the cry of anguish she heard was not her own.

  Zhavon dropped to her knees. Tears streamed down her face.

  Real tears, Ramona thought. She raised her fingers to her own cheek, felt the pure moisture there— not bloody tracks—from where she had pressed against Zhavon. Real tears.

  Ramona turned from the mortal girl and felt herself staggering away.

  I can’t. I can’t! she thought desperately.

  The spark of mortal life, the call of similar human experience, the very qualities within Zhavon that had attracted Ramona in the first place—those were what Ramona would destroy if she satisfied her hunger, and she knew that, just as she hadn’t been able to curb her desire to see the girl for more than a few nights, once she began feeding, she wouldn’t be able to rein in her hunger.

  I can’t.

  Ramona’s protests grew more feeble.

  I’ve gotta get away from here.

  I can’t.

  Ramona turned and, to her horror, saw Zhavon crawling after her.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 2:46 AM

  Meadowview Lane

  Hayesburg, New York

  Zhavon couldn’t stop the tears that blurred her vision and ran down her face. She’d seen such pain and hunger deep in those red eyes. Such desire. Zhavon found herself crawling after the girl—not meaning to follow but unable to stop. Rational thought had long since given way to animal attraction. Her body was not hers to command.

  The other girl stumbled around the corner of the house. Zhavon tried to stand. Her muscles failed her. She continued to crawl, afraid that the hungering girl would leave her behind. But when Zhavon turned the corner of the house, the lighter-skinned girl was not far ahead. In fact, she too had fallen to her knees. Her back was to Zhavon.

  Zhavon closed the distance between them, vaguely noticing the strange, gnarled feet that stuck out behind the other girl. Still, the warnings in Zhavon’s mind were silenced beneath the ocean that was called to the surface.

  Zhavon was close enough to touch the stranger, reached out, placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  As the girl twisted to face Zhavon, Zhavon saw the earlier confusion retreat beneath the red hunger in those animal eyes. But something… something of a retreating plea, of helplessness, reached out to Zhavon. “Ramona?” said Zhavon, unsure how she knew the name, but certain that she was right.

  And with the sound of the name, the hunger took over, and the beast was on Zhavon.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 2:52 AM

  Meadowview Lane

  Hayesburg, New York

  Ramona heard her name, knew that the girl had named her. The animal within her knew as well. It rose up and struck to appease its hunger.

  Ramona tore at the collar of Zhavon’s shirt, ripped away the fabric and struck fiercely. Her fangs gouged into the base of Zhavon’s neck—through skin, muscle, tendon, searching for the artery.

  There!

  Blood flowed into Ramona’s mouth. The few, insignificant scraps of flesh she swallowed were washed down with the sweet blood, pumped in forceful bursts by Zhavon’s strong heart.

  The girl was knocked back by Ramona’s initial blow. Zhavon cried out in pain—pain that Ramona remembered. The fangs carried simultaneously the blunt force of a hammer and the piercing agony of a thousand needles slipped under fingernails.

  But then Zhavon’s back arched and her pained moan shifted to something else, as the ecstasy of the feeding took control. Ramona knew that if she was gentle, in the end, it was not the pain but the pleasure that would fill Zhavon’s mind.

  In the end…

  Ramona drank greedily. The hunger drove her onward. Her entire being reveled in the kill.

  The kill…

  Zhavon pressed against Ramona. The mortal’s grip, her fingers digging into Ramona’s bare arms, could’ve been the impassioned grip of a lover. Her head lolled back, and more tears ran down onto Ramona’s face.

  The beating of her prey’s heart filled Ramona. Warmth spread through her dead limbs, crept toward her extremities. The hunger led her to take more blood. Soon, she knew, the heart would stop.

  No!

  Ramona paused in her feeding. A trickle of blood ran down her chin.

  The attraction to Zhavon and her familiar mortal life could not hold the hunger at bay—but they must! Nostalgia and bloodlust—Ramona had known which would win out. That was why she’d stayed away much of the night.

  But she’d given in to temptation.

  Zhavon began to quiver in Ramona’s arms. Shortly, there would no longer be enough blood in her body to support life. She would go into shock. She would die.

  No… please, no.

  Ramona wanted to tear herself away, to flee into the darkness, but as the next beat of Zhavon’s heart pumped more blood into Ramona’s mouth, a new tide of hunger washed over her. Unable to stop herself, she attacked the gaping wound again, dug deeper, tore away impeding flesh, drew as much blood as possible.

  Zhavon winced, but she was captive to the rapture of the kill. She didn’t struggle, but grasped Ramona more tightly, pressed their bodies together so that they were as one.

  Ramona’s will, too, was bent to the kill. The knowledge that Zhavon’s humanity would be gone forever was not completely lost among Ramona’s desires, that her own would be lessened somehow, that the next time the hunger rose, she would not manage to resist even this much.

  She had lost completely the will to resist the hunger when the wooden stake slammed into her back—into her heart.

  Ramona’s eyes and mouth shot open. A cry of pain emerged with a gurgled spray of blood from her throat.

  Zhavon whimpered piteously as she was released, and slumped to the ground.

  A second wrenching of the stake forced it through the remainder of Ramona’s torso to protrude from the front. Despite the fresh blood in her body, her limbs were seized by a stiffening chill. She tried to grasp the stake, to push it back through, but her strength abandoned her before she even touched it.

  As s
he toppled over like an up-ended statue, another figure swooped down upon Zhavon. He sniffed, momentarily, at the deep wound at the base of her neck, then licked the edges and deep into the hole. The bleeding slowed to a trickle.

  Ramona watched as might a corpse at its own funeral—present but helpless to intervene.

  He’ll kill me now, she thought, and then Zhavon.

  But he had no further interest in Ramona. He lifted Zhavon in his arms, and as he turned to leave, from her skewed vantage point, propped on her side by the stake, Ramona saw for an instant his monstrous left eye. It bulged as if too large for its socket, and a gelatinous ichor fizzed and bubbled around its edges.

  Then he was gone—with Zhavon.

  And Ramona was left paralyzed to contemplate the approaching dawn.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 2:58 AM

  Barnard College

  New York City, New York

  Hadd. Vengeance.

  What a fortuitous turn of events, Anwar thought, when the employment of my clan’s particular skills pays for a death that any childe of Haqim would gladly bring about for free. And he’d heard rumored that the payment for this particular kafir was a decanter of old and potent vitae. Old and potent. Incredibly so, if the rumors were to be believed.

  Footsteps approaching. Instinctively, Anwar slipped more deeply into the shadows. He doubted that anyone could see him when he did not wish it, but he was not willing to cast caution to the winds, unless it became absolutely necessary. At times, risks were unavoidable, but to take unnecessary chances was foolish.

  The footsteps belonged to a security guard, one of the mortals hired to ensure safety on the campus of this small college in the midst of such a forbidding city. It was possible, Anwar knew, that the guard might also be a pawn of the hated warlocks, and so Anwar did not test his esoteric powers of concealment. Instead, he stayed out of actual sight until the man had passed.

  The campus was well lit, but Anwar found shadows easily enough. He almost laughed at the idea that street lamps and the prominently displayed emergency phones might dissuade him even a whit if he chose to take one of the young women who studied at this place. There were few enough here during the summer, and none were in evidence at this hour of the morning. Regardless, Anwar was not interested in them.

  He watched the academic building across the way. Its brick facade and the landscaped shrubbery before it were similar to the other buildings, but Anwar was sure of his instructions. His contact would emerge from that building when opportunity presented itself. No suspicions must be aroused. That concerned Anwar the most—that the contact would bungle his or her part in the mission, that Anwar would be revealed through the incompetence of a kafir. He would stand little chance against so many warlocks.

  Strangely enough, Anwar was little concerned about treachery. It was possible, of course, that the entire mission was a set-up, that the contact would deliver him to the Tremere, but Anwar thought that unlikely. Though skilled at his craft, he harbored no illusions that his death would be a blow of any consequence to his clan, or a boon to any enemy. More deeply than his own analysis, however, he trusted the judgment of his elders. Had they seen fit to order him to a pointless end, he would go willingly and sing the praises of Haqim each step of the way.

  For now, though, Anwar waited patiently. For all things under the moon and stars there would be time.

  Hadd. Vengeance.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 3:03 AM

  Upstate New York

  Leopold tossed the unconscious mortal into the back seat, climbed behind the wheel, and started the engine. So close now! he thought, as the car lurched into motion and left behind the small town, so inconsequential except for what he’d taken from it.

  So close, the muse purred, echoing his thoughts. Leopold could feel her moist breath on the back of his neck.

  He didn’t try to whip around and catch a glimpse of her. Such rashness, he had learned, could prove quite unfortunate, as the car’s various dents and the stalks of field grass stuck in the grille and bumper attested.

  Leopold had gained some insight into, if not control of, the chaotic interplay of Sight and unSight. He no longer had to be on his guard every second—as long as he wasn’t foolish—to avoid the topsy-turvy unfastening of his world. He recognized almost as a background the pale elements, the mundane flotsam, of his surroundings. He could make his way through that lifeless scenery that he’d always known.

  So close, the muse whispered in his ear.

  She lent direction to the Sight, and after practice and acclimation, he could now look at the new world without completely losing his grounding in the old.

  The girl was of the new.

  After days of tedious (and dangerous, as he grew accustomed to Sight) driving, the muse had directed him to the small town. Unerringly, she had led him— along this block, and left here.

  But what is it?

  Hurry, she had scolded him. There is little time, and we are so close….

  With the help of the Eye, Leopold had come to realize the insignificance, the small-minded blandness, of his previous homes—Boston, Chicago, Atlanta— but if they were the equivalent of artistic fecal matter, this little town was less than a gnat basking in their odiferous splendor.

  Yet, miracle of miracles, when Leopold had gone where the muse had led him, he’d found what would surely be the subject of his greatest work.

  The girl had been in the grasp of another Cainite, one of the unwashed, but Leopold had corrected that matter.

  The girl moaned, shifted her prone body on the back seat, slipped, perhaps into coma.

  Leopold ventured a careful glance at her. Unlike the Cainite, the mortal resonated within the Sight. He’d known as soon as he’d made his way past the row of insubstantial houses and beheld her—her perfection of line and form, the quality with which light rebounded from her skin. She transcended the pale world.

  This, Leopold was certain, was the subject for the work that would bring him true immortality.

  Thank heavens I found her before it was too late, Leopold thought. That barbarian would have destroyed her and denied her the purpose of her entire life!

  Leopold had licked the deep wound at her shoulder. His ministrations had saved her. She would live. Long enough.

  So close… mmm… so close, whispered the muse.

  She had led him to his subject. She would find for him a place of solitude, and she would reveal to him the proper tools.

  Leopold sped north, away from the town. I must make it as far as I can before dawn. The steering wheel was sticky from the discharge that seeped and dripped from the Eye.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 3:05 AM

  Meadowview Lane

  Hayesburg, New York

  Mother fucker.

  In her mind, Ramona writhed, groaned, tried to escape the constant, sharp agony that wracked her body, but the wooden stake through her heart held her completely immobile. Through the pain, she impatiently awaited the end. Her body and heart were impaled. Surely this was death to mortal or vampire. But there were the stories she’d heard….

  Finish me, she thought. If the stake wasn’t enough, then at least her attacker could strike the final blow and put an end to the pain. He could spare her waking another night into this hellish existence.

  No, she remembered. He’s gone.

  And he had taken Zhavon.

  Mother fucker.

  The protective impulse, the same compulsion that had flung Ramona onto the rapists in the city, welled up within her again. She remembered her attacker’s grotesque eye, pictured herself ripping it from his face.

  But she lay paralyzed. Helpless. And the pain was not done with her yet. It swelled in her chest, shot through every limb, pounded in her head. Ramona’s vision grew darker, faded. Darkness swept over her….

  Her eyes focused again.

  How long…?

  The sky was noticeably lighter. Dawn was not far away. Terror gripped Ramona.

 
Dawn. The sun.

  Her skin itched, as if already the first invisible rays licked at her, hungered for her flesh, which would crackle and burn.

  She fought down the fear. Her thoughts fell together enough for her to register surprise. Why the hell am I waking up? she wondered.

  Zhavon’s kidnapper had slammed a piece of wood all the way through Ramona, but this wasn’t her mortal body anymore. She wasn’t dead, just immobilized.

  Just.

  That was all it would take. The sun would take care of the rest.

  Someone could find me, take me inside before the sun rises, she thought desperately, but she knew what would be more likely to happen. If some mortals did find her, they would mistake her for dead, call the police or an ambulance, and by the time help arrived, Ramona’s body would be a smoldering husk.

  No. Ramona could only count on herself.

  Realizing that, she tried to clear her mind, to focus all of her attention and energy on one action—she needed to reach up, grab the stake, and pull it out the front of her chest.

  Otherwise, she would die. Horribly.

  And although she might fantasize about an end to this curse that was her new existence, her survival instinct flowed too strongly. She couldn’t bring herself simply to give in to the searing pain and death that would come with the sunrise. That grisly image, too, she blocked from her mind.

  With intensely concentrated effort, she poured all her strength into her right arm, into the hand closest to the protruding stake. No other physical need mattered. The power of her blood, the full strength of her will, could be directed completely to the one task that would preserve her for another night. She visualized her hand taking hold of the stake, pulling it through so that its hold on her was destroyed. She strained with all her body and soul to make that one movement.

  And, still, she couldn’t so much as blink.

  Realizing her failure, panic set in. The calm, rational attitude that Ramona had struggled to maintain fled and her mind filled with primeval banshee wails in the face of the encroaching sunlight. Her unrestrained, animal terror was no more useful than her concentrated effort. Both were the same to the prickling rays of the sun, just breaking through the trees.