by James Moore
Use wandered out onto the boulevard, skirting streetwalkers and dodging punks, capturing the occasional image. She made her way down the Walk of Fame, wondering. When you walked among the stars above, were there pushers and pimps, tourists and runaways? Celestial bag-ladies? As a parallel for the heavens, the boulevard left something to be desired.
Someone had played “Loves me, Loves me not” with a copy of Dianetics, and the pages were scattered like breadcrumbs down the Walk. Use made her way along till she came to Larry Edmund’s. The door was open to let in the night air, and the store was brightly lit and as clean as a fresh script. She dropped her cigarette with the dozen or so littering the ground outside, crushed it with a twist of her foot, and stepped inside.
The screenwriting store catered to all types, professionals and has beens, aspiring writers and wannabes, college students and housewives. And vampires, or at least tonight. In the far comer, where he said he’d be, was Smudge. He’d probably had a real name once, but all that was left was a sullen look, a leather jacket and a smear of blood at the right corner of his mouth. It was always there, like the stain on his soul, a black smudge over the red of hurt and anger. Use touched her pocket, making sure it still contained the photographs, then slipped down the aisle to where he sat on a footstool, paging through a book.
“Hello, Smudge."
He looked up from beneath his fringe of thinning blond
bangs, eyes wary, then carefully shut the book, holding his place with one thumb. Use took quick note of the title: The Battle of BRAZIL. “You got ’em?”
“Of course,” Use smiled. “The question is, do you have what I want?"
“I checked out the Chinese girl, if that’s what you mean.” “And the man?”
“Seen 'im. He's meetin’ her again tonight.” He paused and licked his lips, nervous, but not erasing his trademark smudge. “Can I have 'em?”
“Perhaps." She unbuttoned the pocket, but did not take the envelope out just yet. “Do I have your loyalty?”
“I got dreams too, you know.” His voice was barely above a whisper. The look in his pale blue eyes was that of a child, a hurt and frightened child, but one so badly scarred that he just might strike back. “Nobody thinks much of me, but I got dreams too. I'm gonna be somebody, and ain’t you or anyone else gonna stop me."
“Is that what you told Mickey Phoenix?" Use dropped her voice even lower, silent to all but the sharp ears of the dead. “Or Doug and Kirsten Berry? They’re gone now. You’re still here. Be thankful for that." She flipped open the envelope and fingered out the top two photographs. One showed a huge blond man, baring his fangs for all to see — along with a T-shirt that advertised Fangs by Phoenix. The second showed a couple with a crazed look in their eyes, the woman fat, the man cadaverously thin, both pale. There was an inset shot on the man's tattoo, possibly the worst Grateful Dead tribute in the history of the art for the singular reason that under the malformed red and blue lightning-bolt skull were the words: Greatful Dead.
Use fanned the pictures and handed them to Smudge. “As I said, they’re dead, in soul as well as body. Truly and permanently so. You’re still here."
“They were Sabbat,” Smudge whispered. “They were gonna bury me in the ground and leave me for the worms to eat. They said so."
“Tell it to the Justicar!" Use snapped. “I don't care. I don’t care whether Mickey Phoenix was a fox-crazy Malkavian or a Ventrue with a twisted entrepreneurial sense. I don't care whether the Berrys were Toreadors into kitsch or Ravnos out to embarrass the clan. Do you understand? I don’t care. Diablerie is forbidden among our kind, no matter who or what you are, no matter how vile or deserving the victim. It is forbidden by all but the Sabbat, and you know what value they put on life. You can hide here in the Free States for a time, but the Anarch Barons don’t take any more kindly to diabolists than do the princes of the Camarilla. And until you decide you want to enjoy one last sunrise, Smudge, I own you. Body and soul.”
Ilse pulled out the last picture and handed it to Smudge. It was a close-up of him, a good likeness in good lighting, over which were the pale reds and golds of his aura like ghost flames, tarnished by a large dark smudge. “The stain isn’t on the camera eye. It’s on you, Smudge. It’s on your soul. And you and I both know what it means.”
“I ain’t nothin’," Smudge said, his voice small, pleading. “I ain’t anyone at all. If I vanished tomorrow, no one would care. No one would know."
“That’s exactly why I do care, Smudge. You’re the perfect agent. And besides,” — she took a moment to ruffle his hair — “remember what you said: you’re going to be someone someday."
There was a faint smile across his face, a shy puppy’s grin and a need to be needed and loved, and it stuck into Use’s gut like a sickled knifeblade. She closed her eyes for a moment. This was crueler than hunting, crueler by far, and she didn't have the taste for it. But taste had nothing to do with it, only survival and orders. She had her orders, and it was time she carried them out for the good of the clan.
She opened her eyes and winced again, inwardly this time, for she saw the look in Smudge’s eyes, and it spoke of love, love for any attention at all, no matter how cruel or inhumane. Smudge had been ignored, and no matter what vile or wicked thing she did now, she was paying attention to him, and for that Smudge was grateful.
Slowly and carefully then, so as not to frighten the young Caitiff, Use moved her hand to her vest’s penholder and withdrew one of her finest magical implements: Aaron’s feeding razor. The artifact had been crafted in the seventeenth century, but the silver was still preternaturally bright, and with a gentle thumb on the catch, the blade revealed itself, shining and blemish-free. She raised it to catch the light, then lowered it carefully and nicked herself once on the ring finger, the left one that led to the heart’s blood. A drop of her vita; seeped into the well of her nail, the end notched with the razor.
She licked the drop of blood from the razor’s tip, then folded the magical implement and slipped it back into place. Hunched over so that none but Smudge could see, Use took out her compact and a square of vellum cut from the skin of a black lamb. The young vampire watched, fascinated.
Use used her nail as a quill, quickly sketching out the Sator Square, line by arcane line, each word five by five:
SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS
“For privacy," she answered the unspoken question. She sucked the drop of blood from the tip of her finger, allowing the nail to seal closed, then pried open the back of the compact and slid the square in behind the mirror. She squeezed it back together, then opened it properly, setting it on the top shelf of the comer bookcase, mirror exposed but charm hidden, as would be they to any who saw them.
Use glanced about to make certain that there was no one else in this corner of the shop, for the Mirror of Hathor would only hide them from those who had not seen its making. But there was no one down either aisle, so Use turned back to Smudge. “House Tremere requires the Kiss of Fealty. Where other times you would have to drink thrice of my blood on three separate nights before the ancient power of the Blood Bond took hold and made you my slave, both heart and mind, by this Kiss you pass three nights in one and take the Bond now, becoming my Thrall as I become your Regnant."
She took out her razor again and unfolded it with a sharp flick, then slashed her left wrist quickly, dark blood beading up along the line of the cut. The pain was as bright as the blade, and she clenched her fist at the burning white sensation. She held her wrist before him. “I cannot force this upon you, Smudge, for it is a grave thing, and by charm and honor, it must be of your own free will. Do you accept?"
In answer, Smudge grabbed her wrist, kissing it, sucking it, his tongue probing the edges of the wound like a lover. A thrill ran through her as he continued to suck, tongue thrusting, lips caressing the delicate sides of the wound, fangs tearing it wider. She felt the blood drain out of her
and the spell take hold.
She reached down and, with a swipe of the razor, scored Smudge once across the forehead. He hissed in pain against her wrist and whimpered softly, but did not protest. He wanted this too much to cry out. Dark blood stained his brow, and she placed her hand over it, the wet warmth spreading across her palm and the handle of the blade. “Willingly given, willingly taken, with this blood I bind you to myself, and with this mark I mark you as vassal of Clan Tremere. I am your liege, Smudge, and my will is yours.”
The adoration in his pale blue eyes spoke of more than mere Blood Bond or even the charmed power of the Kiss of Fealty, and Use felt the knife twist in her gut again as two blood red tears trickled from his eyes like some miraculous portrait of one of the Holy Innocents. He was hers to command but for the asking.
She was weak from loss of blood, pale and shaking. “Kiss it better,” Use said. With great love and sensual passion, Smudge licked the wound, more to lick away the blood than for true healing. The razor wounds would take longer to heal than a bite. She willed the cut to partially seal, like a paper cut, to prevent further blood loss. Use felt another shiver run down her as he continued to lick the delicate skin of her wrist free from blood.
With a fluid motion she raised her hand, licking Smudge’s blood from the razor and her palm in turn. The sweet taste slid down her tongue with a savor like fine cognac with a drop of wormwood underneath, Smudge’s sin and the blood and shadowed souls of the Sabbat he'd murdered a bitter spice that matched the mad auras of his victims from the pictures she’d taken. Yet theirs was the only Kindred blood Ilse tasted, aside from her own, the Caitiff’s vitae free of Bond or allegiance to any others.
She folded the razor away then, sliding the implement back into place on her jacket, and took the miserable Kindred’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, tilting his head up to face her. She paused a moment, watching the bloody tears trickle down his cheeks, then leaned down, kissing the mark on Smudge’s forehead. When it continued to seep, she gently reminded him to at least close it for now. He nodded, and in a few minutes, a threadlike red line was all that remained. “There,” she said, smoothing away the saliva from his skin with a brush of her fingers, “all better now. Now wipe away your tears, Smudge, and listen to me.”
Obediently, the young vampire brushed away his bloody tears with the back of his hand leaving two smudges across his cheeks, one darker than the other. The knife in Use's gut went in a little deeper as she realized that his trademark smudge came not from his victims but from his own tears.
Tears of pain and grief, lust and longing. She hated herself now more than ever, but what was done could not be undone, though she’d still do what little she could to salve her conscience.
“You, Smudge, are now my vassal and will serve me, and through me, Clan Tremere. You are a wretched Caitiff no longer, for though you are not of our blood, our blood flows through you, and you are adopted into our House. Let no one speak to you of your base origins, for though they are lowly, you serve the greatest of the vampire clans, we who were made what we are not through God's curse but through our own desire and will. We will teach you the skills you need to survive.” Use paused, letting her words sink in. “Even magic, if you prove yourself worthy.”
It was the standard carrot-and-stick speech as kindly put as she could make it, but its effect on Smudge was profound, and blood poured freely down his cheeks. Use searched her pockets for a tissue, finally letting him mop his face with her lens cloth.
“Thank you,” Smudge said, and Use knew it was for more than the makeshift handkerchief.
“Don't thank me," she said. “Don’t ever thank me, Smudge." She gathered up The Battle of BRAZIL from the floor where it had slipped from his fingers and set it back on the shelf, moving another book to hide the three bloody tears staining the cover.
She sat down then, leaning back against the bookcase, weak from the magic and the loss of blood. Smudge took her hand with great tenderness, and Use looked away, not wanting to see the look in his eyes. “Well, Smudge," she said, “now that we’re on more intimate terms, tell me a couple things. First off, where is the man I mentioned going to be meeting Jing Wei? And second, where in this town does a girl go now for a quick bite?"
Hunger sated, Use had the cab drop her off at Gladstone’s in Malibu, the northernmost tip of Baron Fortier’s demesne and the southernmost claw of Lupine territory. Politics and boundaries had changed, especially since the Anarch Revolt, but the terrain was still familiar from her mortal life, even though the buildings had changed.
Gladstone's sat at the wilder end of Sunset Boulevard, lording over its section of the Pacific Coast Highway in a manner truly Californian. Use wandered into the patio area, rife with drunken college students, actors, waitresses in pert skirts and waiters who handed patrons leftovers wrapped up in colored foil elaborately twisted to form swans, crabs and pink and silver parrots. Use wished that she still ate, if only to walk home with one of the pretty things, then instead just snapped a picture.
It was a great pity Malibu was contested territory. Gladstone’s was made for the Masquerade. Here a seagull savaged a forgotten shrimp salad, there a beer could be conveniently spilled over the railing to the beach and rocks below. Perfect — Flash and glitter and more food than any person could be expected to eat. The mood was high, the pulses were bright, and if the wolves were guarding a jewel like this, well, something had to be said in their favor.
It would be an hour till Jing Wei would show, or at least so Smudge had said. As for why Jing Wei would have picked such a perilous point for a rendezvous, Use couldn't say, unless her blood-sister from Hong Kong had decided that privacy was at a premium, and the jewel of Lupine territory was the last place likely to be frequented by a nosy Nosferatu or Malkavian. Even if the wolves were here tonight, they could hardly be expected to try something around so many of the common rabble whom they doted on, especially on a crowded Friday night. In truth, if ever there were a place made for a peace conference, Gladstone's was it, and that fact made it de facto Elysium — no hunting permitted — and the perfect spot to set a mortal at ease who was nonetheless aware of the Kindred and their proclivities. On second thought, Jing Wei's choice was very calculated and canny. The girl might be much younger than Use, but she bore watching. Which was why Use was here tonight. Partially, anyway.
The man who awaited Jing Wei wasn’t in the outer portion, so Use moved towards the indoor section of the restaurant, only to have her path blocked by a tall man in a pink polo shirt, who seemed to suffer from the unfortunate delusion that Malibu was Cape Cod, judging at least from the khaki shorts and Topsiders.
“Excuse me, madam,” he said, and Use had to revise her opinions. The man’s English had a certain Euro-American flair to it with a faint, underlying German or Austrian accent, Use couldn’t tell which, but well-educated and well-traveled, and Kindred as well, judging by the faded aura and the heart Use could not hear beating within his breast.
“Yes?” Use smiled up at him, one hand on her camera.
He smiled back at her, white teeth even, the perfect Nazi recruiting poster except for the dark brush-cut hair. “You took my picture over there. I must object to that.”
Use didn't recall doing anything of the sort, unless he’d managed to get into the background of her picture of the leftovers, in which case he’d be blurry and out of focus and Use would have trouble distinguishing him from the seagulls, so she couldn't see what the bother was. “I’m sorry, sir. I won’t do it again."
“I’m sorry as well, but I must ask for your film. I dislike being photographed.”
Use blinked. Not only Kindred, but paranoid. “My apologies. If you'll just give me your name and address, I'll be sure to send you your picture and the frame of the negative.” “You do not understand,” the man said. “What I object to is not so much the photograph, but that it is held by a woman of your talents.”
Use smiled. Why, yes, Gladstone’s was perfect for the
Masquerade, public enough to keep him from doing anything overt and chaotic enough to cover her own actions. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t quite follow you. What possible objection could you have to your portrait being shown by Clan Toreador?"
His smile grew sharklike. “I have no objections to Clan Toreador, Fraulein. However, a photograph in the possession of Clan Tremere makes me nervous. I must insist.” He reached for her camera.
This bozo really was paranoid, because even if she were so inclined, sticking pins in a blurry group shot was about as difficult as throwing darts in a high wind and just about as dangerous. Like as not, she’d end up voodooing the leftovers in someone’s refrigerator.
But he was still reaching for her camera. “I’m sorry," Use said. “I must refuse. Smile!" She raised the camera and hit the button, blinking to hide her eyes from the glare.
Her Germanic Kin had no such luck. Flashed at point blank without expecting it, he responded exactly how any Kindred would — falling victim to sudden Rdtshreck, the Red Terror. He screamed at the light and stumbled backwards, fangs bared, and knocked over a waiter and his tray, going down in a tumble of salads and seafood.
Then he glared at her, and Use clutched her camera to her chest, feeling her dead heart turn to ice. Raw fear crystallized in her veins at the sight of his blazing eyes and gnashing fangs, paralyzing her with a horrid fascination, With an act of will, she wrenched her head away from his dread gaze, looking at the ground beside him where she saw...bread. An ordinary loaf of bread. It was instinct, the smallest of the Movements of the Mind, but a glance sent it flying to cover the European’s terrible face and horrifying shrieks.
He screamed and thrashed even harder then, steaming chowder pouring out around the sides of what Use suddenly realized was not a loaf of bread, but a bread-bowl. With it his face covered, he was suddenly less terrifying, and Use felt the ice in her veins begin to melt — then freeze again with a new stab of dread at the thought of a mortal having witnessed what she had, the power of a vampire’s blood rage and growing fury. Somehow, she had to preserve the Masquerade, act as if nothing were happening beyond the ordinary, nothing unusual at all. Ilse moved forward, raising her camera, and took a picture for her scrapbook, but she wasn’t the only one. A fat woman picked up the idea and jostled her as she raised her own camera into position. Soon a flock of camera-wielders gathered like gulls around a forgotten salad.