by James Moore
Someone seemed to have picked up on her thoughts. She heard the first phrase of “Consider Yourself" whistled flawlessly
“Hello, love,” said the whistler, swinging himself round the pole of the club’s awning and into her face. “What brings you to Soho?” He flashed a grin, showing fangs, then grinned again, without them. He was medium height, but heavily muscled, with long brown hair held back by a Ghanaian head scarf and wearing mail gauntlets, spiked wristlets and bracers, and a bloodstained denim and leather jacket with bits of chainmail stitched on in places. He wore smoked blindman’s glasses, and over his heart were two buttons. One read “HOORAY FOR ME! SCREW YOU!”, and the other one looked like a Satanic Howdy Doody, black on red.
Ilse wasn’t sure which she cared for less, the man or his buttons.
Brujah! the outfit, the attitude and the part of town practically screamed at her, and the last thing she wanted to do was look like a little lost Ventrue. A little lost Tremere was almost as bad, since the Brujah’s opinion of her clan was only slightly better.
She was wondering if she could pull off impersonating a Malkavian pretending she was Ingrid Bergman or something (because you’d have to be crazy to come dressed like this to this part of town), but then the whistler smiled at her and said, “So you’re the witch-woman who’s got Annie’s knickers in a knot.” He grinned fiercely, as if relishing the power he had over her in this situation. “Much obliged. Name’s Appolonius, and that’s to the first power ’round London.”
“To the first power” would have to mean the first blood, one of the primogen, and that meant he was probably the ruling Brujah in London. “Brujah?” she whispered.
“That’s Brujah,” he sneered back, giving it a hard J instead of an H like they did in California and Spain. She bet he pronounced the Ls as those in Camarilla too — just before spitting blood.
Well, when in London, Use thought, and toyed with her quizzing glass, taking his picture.
He took her by the elbow. “There’s a duck. C’mon now, you’re famous, love. You go to the head of the line." It was with a snap of his fingers that everyone made way for them, including the bouncer and hand-stamper at the door. “Everyone wants to meet you, and we’re so very glad you came."
Appolonius whistled the first five notes of “Consider Yourself,” and the answering two notes came from the far end of the bar. The next five came from a table near the middle, and the next six from a red-haired girl standing in the shadows only inches behind Ilse. The five notes that began the next phrase came from a punk in a blue military beret, surrounded by a similarly clad gang of young men in berets and steel-toed Docs, two more notes from a girl with a hot pink mohawk coming from her place at the end of the bar, two more from a young woman in whiteface with an inverted anarchy symbol on her forehead just leaving her place at the center table, one from the redhead in the shadows, and the final six from Appolonius himself, looking directly at her with his smoked glasses and jauntily bobbing his head from side to side.
...whatever you got to fear...Ilse filled in the final words of the verse, Appolonius’ notes.
“These are my mates,” Appolonius said, and Use realized that under the Cockney punk, she could hear a faint French accent. “Bianca." He gestured to the girl in whiteface, “Angel" — the pink mohawk — “and Dre."
The man in the military beret snarled, showing a quick flash of fangs, and Appolonius smiled. “And his mates, the Cold Dawn."
Dre subsided, his crew acknowledged, and then the redhaired woman slipped out the shadows, trading them for the one behind Appolonius. She placed a hand on his arm, peering demurely out at Ilse from behind it, In the next second there was a snick! sound, and a blade appeared in her hand, the cutting edge just over Appolonius’ mail patch.
He moved his head slightly. “And Black Cat." Her switchblade disappeared as fast as a cat would sheath her claws, and Ilse saw the tattoo on the woman's arm, a witch’s cat in silhouette, back arched and hissing. The woman smiled faintly, the rings in her nose and her eyebrow twitching like feline whiskers.
Angel, the pink mohawk, came forward, a Celtic cross swinging from her right ear. “Pretty,” she said with an Irish lilt. “Always wanted a dress like this." She reached out and lifted one of the folds of Use’s gown, feeling the material between thumb and forefinger.
“Don’t be seduced by material wealth," said Dre, and the pack of young men around him mimicked his expression.
“Don’t fault others for having it,” said Bianca. Beneath the whiteface and the anarchist symbol, her voice and bearing were cultured and aristocratic.
Black Cat said nothing, only watching from Appolonius’ shadow, but had somehow switched to the other side.
“Now I like this," Angel said, and quick as thought, she snatched Use’s quizzing glass and had the chain over her head before Use could even blink. Celerity — the girl had used the Brujah gift of vampiric speed. “Look at me,” she said, twirling about, her black skirts flying in an arc. “I’m a lady.”
Angel held the quizzing glass to her eye and peered at Use, then Appolonius, Cat, Bianca, and finally Dre and his gang. Use felt her purse vibrate under her arm, the camera advancing frame after frame.
The punk girl leaned over comically, one leg coming up over her back in a dancer's arch, and examined Dre like a Sherlock Holmes ballerina until he snarled, “Get that thing out of my face, or I’ll make you eat it!” The camera whirred in Use’s purse, taking a lovely portrait of Dre and his enraged aura.
Angel spun back to earth, laughing, and Bianca looked at her, hands on hips. “You realize that glass is a man's toy, don't you?"
Angel smiled. “If it’s a man’s toy, then I like it all the more.” She put the chain around her neck, letting the quizzing glass tangle with the two pendants and beads she already had in place.
“Ladies,” Appolonius said, “don’t steal the moment from Cat. She found it all out.”
“She disappears," Dre said, looking to Use, “and the witches kill the riches."
“Like the Kilkenny cats,” Angel said.
Bianca leaned back, resting her arms on a chair, letting her silk jacket fall open to reveal a black lace bra and nothing else. “More for us.”
Black Cat said nothing, only giving her ghost of a smile from Appolonius’ shadow.
Ilse knew that whatever move she made, they could make faster. Angel had proven it already, and Ilse suspected the mohawked girl was the youngest of them. She knew they could have killed her already, but the Brujah had a perverse sense of honor, and, as Appolonius had said, it was Black Cat’s moment. And she wanted to toy with Ilse.
If the woman wanted toys, she could have them. Slowly, with the faintest of the Movements of the Mind, Ilse unclasped her purse, then reached inside with her thoughts, searching for her flash cubes. Glass and plastic and bits of tungsten and magnesium, soaked in blood and left to dry in the sun of midsummer high atop an office tower in Phoenix, built on the ruins of an ancient Hohoken holy spot.
It was the timing that was crucial. Carefully, Use let them nudge open the flap of the evening bag. A moment later, they streaked out to hang suspended in the midst of the group, winking and twinkling in the dim light of the bar like three crystal eyes.
Use dove for the floor behind Appolonius and Cat as she willed the cubes to give up their Hash. All summer in an instant, each cube twirled, exploding in a brilliant burst of sunlight.
The Brujah screamed, their skin searing in agony, far worse than what her mundane flash had done to that annoying Blue Blood, and she cried out herself as she felt her left leg catch fire through her stocking.
Use dashed for the door, one shoe flying free with its tissue paper, only to find her way blocked by Black Cat, the woman untouched, having hidden safely in the shadows. “Run, little mouse," said the Brujah in a voice both purring and husky. “We will hunt!”
Use was willing to take what gifts were given her and dashed out the door as Black Cat stepped aside, rushi
ng into the street and looking all about. If she could only find a lost place and elude her pursuers for but an instant, she would be safe.
The Iron Key flew out of her purse at a touch of her mind, and Use dashed down the street, turning right into an alley, the way lit by the dying flames on her leg. She grasped the talisman in her right hand and gouged her thumb onto the rusty spur, glancing back once.
Black Cat stood at the mouth of the alley, smiling her suggestion of a smile, but moving no further. Behind her, the Cold Dawn arrived, and Use realized they were all mortal, all with matching jackets. Doc Martens and chains. Black Cat pointed, her switchblade flashing out like a single claw. “We hunt!"
Use dashed down the alley and rounded into a side alley, dodging a dumpster as the sound of a gang of steel-toed Doc Marten’s pounded down the cobblestones after her, along with a far more deadly, silent tread she knew she’d never hear.
It was a dead-end alley, but off to one side was a doorway in shadow, heavily recessed. If she could just get to it and use her Key, the Rite would take her safely away to the House of Shadows. She prayed that Cat would want to play just another moment, hoping to find Use boxed in, hiding and cowering in the alcove.
The key slicked with blood, Ilse tried to fit it into the rusted iron padlock that chained the doors together. It wouldn’t go she wasn't lost by lost ways. Someone, somewhere, knew where she was. _
“Thank goodness we found you,” said a voice, and the next thing she knew, Kurt Westphal rushed out of the shadows on the other side of the alleyway, along with a tall woman with a chauffeur’s cap and a gun.
The Ventrue leapt into the doorway next to her, a classic James Bond stance, readying an elegant chromed pistol, then glanced around the corner of the brickwork. “Another moment and you would have been lost, Fraulein Ilse.”
“Cut the heroics and get ready to shoot!" snapped the woman, leveling her Saturday night special down the alleyway.
If she’d have been lost another moment, she’d have been saved. Ilse felt the bloody key slip from her fingers, the charm broken, and she fumbled for it, cursing them both.
As she did so, she looked out of the archway and saw Black Cat, staring at her round the comer of the dumpster, her green eyes glowing in the moonlight. At end of the alleyway, the Cold Dawn were crouched with military precision, their assault rifles ready, Westphal and his chauffeur hopelessly out' gunned.
Black Cat flashed Ilse her enigmatic smile. “Both mice in the trap,” she said. “Fun."
“My Fraulein, I see that you manage to make interesting friends wherever you go, don’t you?” Kurt watched the hoodlums getting closer and felt a desperate need to vacate the premises as soon as possible. Just the same, all points of access seemed properly blocked.
The gang members dropped themselves into every nook and cranny of the alley, blocking all but small portions of their bodies from attack. Simultaneously, they blocked the only easy way out of the alley. Taking one look at the automatic rifles they’d produced since when he and Jackie had seen them entering the alley, Kurt started having second thoughts about helping the Tremere standing slightly behind him.
The woman (Kindred most likely) who was apparently in charge of the group of ruffians slid forward and grinned. “Would the mice like to play or just beg for mercy?”
“Would the tattooed hooker like to kiss my ass?” Jackie was, if nothing else, eloquent in her own way.
The cat-like woman, however, didn’t seem to like Jackie's attitude and rushed towards her with blinding speed. That cemented it — she was either Kindred or a ghoul, and as Kurt preferred to over-estimate an opponents flaws, he was willing to bet on Kindred. Jackie and the feline vampire both fell into the shadows, propelled by the force of the wild woman’s impact. The street gang turned to look, and Kurt saw his chance to move. Use Decameron apparently had the same idea. He had no idea what she did, save murmur a few words under her breath, but even as he was firing his .44 magnum, one of the thugs started screaming, his skin turning a hideous shade of red and steam rising from his body as blood boiled from his mouth and nose.
Kurt fired five times, hitting one of the paramilitary punkers before they remembered to turn and face their enemies. The fourth bullet he fired struck a gang-banger looking right at him, tearing through his kneecap. The man screamed, but managed to turn his rifle towards Kurt and fire, even as he was falling.
Bullets slammed into Kurt with hideous force, tearing through his jacket and clothes as if they weren’t even there and pounding into his torso and ribcage. The lead slugs crashed against his skin, folding and spreading themselves in the impact, but not breaking through to his insides. The bullets stopped abruptly as the woman beside him pointed her finger at the man firing and chanted softly, “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble." For the second time, one of their enemies started roasting from the inside, thrashing on the ground and screeching in agony.
Jackie was hurled from the shadows, her lovely face bloodied, her uniform ripped half away from her body. She was conscious and fuming. She carried the Sengir Dagger, a large, ornately carved artifact, the bloodstained blade a good foot long. Speeding out of the shadows after her came the Brujah woman, her left side sliced open by the ancient weapon in Jackie’s hand. Both had apparently had easier battles in the past. “Come on, bitch! I’ll tear your fucking heart out!” Jackie’s inner-city accent had crept back into her voice as she spoke, a sure sign that she was royally pissed-off.
The Brujah did not speak, only hissed like a scalded cat. Kurt fired three times at the woman, but she literally weaned and bobbed around the bullets’ paths, intent only on her target. Once again the two met in combat, but Jackie’s injuries were obviously slowing her more than the wounds her opponent had received. The creature slashed out with her hands, and the dagger flipped away, landing in the litter-strewn shadows.
Kurt wanted to go to her aid a second time — for all the difference his first attempt had made — but there were still too many of the bullies left with weapons in their hands, and he didn’t know how long he could last against the constant barrage of firepower. Even with his supernaturally tough skin, the bullets hurt when they hit him, and he was certain a few ribs had been broken. He fired again as the remaining punks got into position and cut loose with their rifles. One of them was lifted from the ground and smashed into the alley wall as another lost a portion of his head to Kurt’s shot. The front of his jacket literally shredded into cloth confetti as more bullets pounded into him, and beside him the Tremere cried out. Kurt cried out too, pain and rage driving him forward as the firing pin in his pistol clicked repeatedly against the empty chamber inside.
A few of the thugs, seeing him stride forward through a hail of bullets, lost their resolve and formation, running from his infernal pursuit as if he were the Devil himself. Those of stronger will continued firing, and Kurt felt the constant agonies of more lead slugs pounding into him. He distantly heard the sound of Jackie crying out, and the woman she was fighting screaming in pain at the same time. He was beyond caring as the pain he endured drove him into frenzy. Every remaining weapon was focused on him, and he felt more bones crack, felt his skin splitting in a few places, even as the vampiric healing factor started reknitting bone and sealing the wounds. One of the men before him screamed as his flesh caught fire, and Kurt in his frenzy lashed out, snapping the man’s neck and scalding himself in the process.
Down the alley, a group of shadows ran forward, moving as quickly as the cat-woman doing battle with Jackie. Faster by far than could be humanly possible. Brujah. A wall of flame erupted between the incoming Kindred and Kurt, cutting of the offending gang’s cavalry before they could intervene. The remaining hoodlums broke rank, trying to get past Kurt without being struck. Most succeeded, but one man managed only to end his life, screaming as Kurt tore out his throat and started drinking, the blood refreshing him and allowing him to heal still more of the substantial wounds he’d suffered. The swe
et red vitae became all that he knew for a few seconds, until finally he could see and hear again. See the lifeless corpse he held in his arms and hear the sound of applause from behind him.
Kurt whirled around, dropping the husk of his enemy, and stared at the people in the alley, confused by the increase in numbers. Five pale men stood in the litter-strewn area, aside from himself, the Brujah and Ilse Dccameron. Use lay staked in the arms of one of them, a brute of a man with wild hair and a torn straightjacket as his only clothing. The wooden stake driven through her chest explained very eloquently that she would no longer be of assistance in the battle. The female Brujah lay motionless on the ground next to Jackie, whose wounds looked grievous indeed. Jackie held the dagger in her hand again and was licking the blade, obviously in need of life-sustaining blood. The other four Kindred stood applauding Kurt, grinning with bared fangs and different degrees of
enthusiasm. Kurt recognized Ozmo immediately.
“Ozmo—”
“‘Ello, Mistah Ventrue." Ozmo’s voice was filled with glee as he pointed to the stocky man beside him. “This is me mate, Aleister Crowley." He looked at the others around him. “Bugger the rest, they’re just along for the ride.” The vampires with Ozmo all laughed at his little joke, but Kurt found nothing amusing about the situation. “Can you guess who gets to play the horsie?"
Kurt knew right away, but just to make certain he understood, Ozmo and two of the others ran forward, waving the wooden stakes in their hands and grinning evilly. Kurt felt the stake punch into his heart at the same time another was driven through his left kidney, and a third tore through his leg. His efforts to fight back were useless. As the vision started leaving his eyes, he thought he saw a purplish face peering down from the top of one of the buildings.