More of his enemies were approaching. But if he couldn’t take the time to interrogate the Nosferatu, he could at least avenge Rosalita’s murder. He dashed to one of the threeeyed Kindred’s downed companions, grabbed the deformed vampire’s Uzi, and ran back to the object of his wrath.
Cowering, the Nosferatu tried to lift her arms, probably hoping to wrap them around her head for protection, but she was still effectively paralyzed. Elliott pointed the machine gun at her neck and fired every bullet in the clip, decapitating her.
Hearing the reports, his oncoming enemies quickened their pace. Elliott wheeled and sprinted for the car, past dozens more homeless mortals. He half-expected that one of them would prove to be another of his foes and leap into his path brandishing a weapon, but everyone cringed from the racing man with the raw face and shredded, bloody clothes.
He rounded another corner and the LeSabre swam out of the murk ahead. His first impulse was to return to the hotel room he’d rented, but then he realized that the enemy might have a lookout posted there. It would be safer to drive out of town.
He unlocked the car door, scrambled inside and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life. As he threw the LeSabre into gear, scarlet tears of rage and regret began to seep from his eyes.
SIX: THE WARNING
Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above.
— James 1:17
As Judy rode her Harley through the gate in the coquina wall encircling Roger’s estate, a spectacular fork of lightning flamed over the expanse of ocean behind the imposing house. A stray drop of water, harbinger of the downpour to come, smacked against the motorcycle’s bug-splattered windshield.
Ordinarily the Brujah elder relished storms, just as she delighted in riding her hog as fast as it would go, slam-dancing to death metal, or any other spectacle or pastime that somehow mirrored the savage spirit of her bloodline. But tonight she scowled at the prospect of violent weather. A storm would further hamper the search for the rogue vampire who threatened the Masquerade, a search which seemed to be getting nowhere as it was. They hadn’t even found any trace of that diabolist bastard Murdock.
She hurtled up a brick drive lined with towering royal palms, parked her Harley under the porte-cochere, and marched up the front steps and through the front door into the foyer. The handcuffs suspended from her studded belt clinked.
m? Wain
Visible through arched doorways, the spacious interior of the house looked as lovely and well-tended as ever. Every object was a work of art, and the contents of every room had been meticulously arranged into a pleasing gestalt. But nevertheless, a lonely, desolate feeling hung in the air, an atmosphere she’d never encountered here before. She remembered how, on her first meeting with Roger Phillips in the 1880s, she’d scorned his haven as evidence of his fundamental Toreador effeteness, just as she’d chafed at the notion of conceding him any measure of authority over herself and her brood.
The two of them had come a long way since then, facing a number of crises shoulder to shoulder, and gradually, against all expectation and contrary to the prejudices common to those of her lineage, Roger and his Toreador lieutenants had won her respect. Today even the most fractious of her independent childer were willing to abide the prince’s governance, at least while he ruled as lightly as he had hitherto. Judy would be saddened if he never recovered his sanity and his progeny were exterminated or driven from their domain.
The Brujah scowled at herself. Such defeatist thoughts were unworthy of the warrior who’d engineered Stonewall Jackson’s demise. Striving to shove her forebodings aside, she bellowed, “Lazio!” The shout echoed through the house.
After a moment, a door on the second floor clicked open and shut. Floorboards creaked and Roger’s mortal confidant, looking haggard and careworn, started down the majestic oak staircase. He was wearing a ratty, stretched-out sweater, incongruous in such elegant surroundings, with a bone-white cellular phone protruding from one of the pockets. “Good evening, Judy,” he said. “I wish you wouldn’t yell. You might have gotten Roger agitated again.”
The former slave shrugged. She liked Lazio, and knew he was right to scold her, but she had her limits: it wasn’t in her nature to admit error to a human, particularly a white male human. “I don’t hear him hollering,” she replied, “so obviously, I didn’t. How is he?”
Shaking his head, Lazio alit from the bottom stair. “Unresponsive,” he said. “He’s started having what Dr. Potter calls ‘episodes of catatonia.’ I don’t think he knows why.”
“What a surprise,” Judy said dryly. As far as she’d been able to determine, the celebrated Dr. Potter hadn’t managed to learn anything about Roger’s condition. “I didn’t see any guards when I came in.”
“They’re some of Gunter’s Malkavians,” Lazio said. Some members of the lunatic clan, like many Kindred of the deformed Nosferatu bloodline, possessed uncanny powers of concealment. “You’re not supposed to see them.” He gestured toward one of the doorways, inviting her to step into a darkened room which, she knew from past experience, was a cozy parlor. “Would you like to sit down? And is there something I can help you with?”
She walked into the parlor and dropped heavily into a red, velvet-covered armchair. She assumed that it was some priceless antique and that Lazio, who was almost as much of an aesthete as his master, could bore her with its provenance if she were fool enough to ask about it. “I just came by to find out how Roger was,” she said, “and to see which of the art thieves has checked in.” And to give herself a break from the frustrating manhunt her people were conducting on the streets.
Lazio switched on a green and gold Tiffany floor lamp, driving the shadows into the corners of the room, then slumped down on an ornately hand-tooled leather sofa. “I’ve heard from three of the teams,” he said. “Two achieved their objective, one didn’t.”
Judy glanced at the ormolu pendulum clock softly ticking on the mantelpiece. It was almost four-thirty. “Shouldn’t you have heard from more of them by now?” she asked, frowning. “They were supposed to check in,” Lazio said, “but
perhaps they simply aren’t bothering.” He gave her a smile that tried and failed to mask his worry. “Toreador are sometimes as bad at following instructions as you Brujah, especially when they have some coup to celebrate.”
“Maybe so,” she said. One of her scars throbbed, and she twisted her arm around behind her back to rub it. She often wondered how the old welts could still ache one hundred and sixty years after she’d passed from life into undeath. People had told her that the pain was psychosomatic, but she refused to believe that her mind was masochistic or weak enough to cause her needless discomfort. “I hope so.. But if they’re screwing around partying when they know we’re at war, I’m going to have a little talk—”
Lazio’s cellular phone buzzed.
The mortal fumbled the instrument out of his pocket. Judy watched impatiently, fighting the urge to tear it from his hand. Surely no vampire ever moved so clumsily, even when filled with anxiety.
Finally the mortal managed to bring the cordless phone to his mouth. “Phillips residence,” he said.
The person on the other end of the line began to reply, but Judy, whose senses were no keener than a mortal’s, couldn’t make out the words. Moving as quickly and nimbly as a cat, she surged out of her chair, crouched over Lazio and poised her ear beside his head and the phone. The aging mortal cringed slightly, probably w'ithout even realizing it
— the prey instinctively shrinking from the predator.
“I’m at a gas station a few miles south of Columbus,” the voice on the line continued. It was Elliott’s voice, but his normally rich tones were weak and shaky. Had he been human, she would have inferred that he was out of breath.
“Is something wrong?” Lazio asked. “You sound upset.”
“I had to feed,” Elliott said. “It was an emergency, and I was rough. I clubbed someone unconscious, and I drank a lot
.’’ "
Judy scowled. Ordinarily, she knew, Elliott was a sandman, one of those squeamish Kindred who fed only from sleeping vessels and, except for a touch of anemia, left them none the worse physically or psychologically for his visit. But in the past, when necessary, he’d taken down wakeful, frantically struggling kine, so she doubted that the scuffle he’d just experienced was truly what had unnerved him. Once again she fought against an impulse to snatch the phone and demand an explanation.
“Did you leave any evidence that could compromise the Masquerade?” Lazio asked.
“No,” Elliott said.
“Is the man alive?” said Lazio.
“Yes,” the Toreador elder replied.
“Then this part of the situation is under control,” Lazio said soothingly. Obviously, like Judy, he’d figured out that Elliott hadn’t told him the really bad news yet. “If you want, you can call the man an ambulance just before you leave. Now, what else is wrong?”
“Rosalita and I walked into a trap,” Elliott said. “A gang of Nosferatu were lying in wait for us, and they killed her. Has everyone else checked in?”
“No,” Lazio said, frowning.
“Damn!” Elliott exclaimed. “The ones who haven’t must have been ambushed too!”
Judy couldn’t bear to listen passively any longer. She grabbed the phone away from Lazio. Startled, recoiling involuntarily, the dresser gaped at her. Perhaps she’d used a bit of her supernatural strength or speed without even realizing it.
“Are you wounded?” demanded the former slave, speaking into the phone.
“Not badly,” Elliott replied. “Now that I’ve fed, I’ll be all right. But poor Rosalita—”
“Forget Rosalita!” Judy snapped, wishing that they were talking face to face. If she could have made eye contact, she might have been able to use a touch of her power to
Dominate to jolt him out of his funk. “There’s nothing you can do for her now. Did anyone follow you out of town?”
“I don’t think so.”
Judy scowled. “Did you check?”
“Yes.”
“Then hang up the phone and keep moving,” she said. “Switch cars if you can manage it. Watch the time; remember you have to find a safe refuge before the sun comes up. Catch a flight home tomorrow night. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it! Now!”
After a moment of silence, Elliott broke the connection. Judy handed the phone back to Lazio. The mortal’s face twisted as if he were trying not to cry. “Rosalita,” he said sadly. “Roger loved her like a daughter. Before he got sick, news of her death would have broken his heart. Now, I don’t suppose he’d even care.”
Judy scowled. She was dismayed by the present turn of events herself, but that was no reason to blubber about it. The proper Brujah reaction was to get angry. She began to pace around the room, fighting the urge to pick up some piece of bric-a-brac and smash it, or punch a hole in the wall. “Does Roger have any Nosferatu enemies?” she asked. Lazio shook his head. “None that 1 can think of.”
“I don’t know of anybody either.” And it was entirely possible that the Sewer Rats who’d waylaid Elliott had been acting on behalf of a non-Nosferatu master. Judy and her allies were no closer to unmasking their phantom nemesis than they’d been before. “Shit!” she snarled. “Shit, shit, shit!” She kicked the leg of a small, round, marble-topped table, snapping it. Toppling, the table spilled a green jade statuette of some Chinese goddess onto the Persian rug. Judy felt disappointed that the carving hadn’t broken, but managed to refrain from stamping and grinding it under her steel-toed boots.
Rounding on Lazio, she said, “Gunter and I both warned everyone that going after the art was a bad idea.”
Lazio sighed. “The Toreador had no choice but to go. You know that.”
“What I know,” she said, “is that Elliott can’t cut it as a leader or a fighter anymore. You heard him just now. He sounded like he was in shock.”
Lazio stared at her reproachfully. “How can you say that, after all that he’s accomplished in the past? I’m told that he once saved your life.”
Judy felt a pang of guilt. It was a weak, useless, human emotion, unworthy of a Brujah, and, scowling, she tried unsuccessfully to quash it. “I haven’t forgotten,” she said, resuming her pacing. “He was a good man once. He still is, in a way, and I still consider him my friend. But something inside him died along with Mary.” Remembering the mysterious tragedy, she sighed. “Did you guys ever find out any more about why it happened?”
“Not really,” Lazio said. “We tried for years, but considering that Elliott killed the murderers as soon as he caught them, and then we couldn’t identify them, we really didn’t have any leads. There were indications that the men belonged to the Society of Leopold.” The Society was a fanatical clandestine organization cognizant of the existence of vampires and dedicated to their extermination. “But we have no idea how they discovered Mary’s true nature, or why, out of all the Kindred in Sarasota, they chose to target her.
“You know,” Lazio continued, “Roger never lost faith in Elliott, and I hope you won’t either. In a crisis like the one we’re facing, the Toreador need a captain of their own blood to follow, and I can’t imagine Sky filling the bill. He’s actually brave and resourceful, but the way he flounces around, people don’t take him seriously.”
“You have a point,” Judy conceded, straightening her Union soldier’s cap. “And I don’t want to see Elliott pushed to the sidelines. But I’m not going to let him screw up the war effort, either. We’ll have to see what kind of shape he’s in when he gets back into town.”
Lazio’s phone buzzed. He lifted it to his ear and said, “Phillips residence.” After a moment, he looked at Judy. “It’s for you.”
The Brujah frowned in puzzlement. She’d stopped in at the prince’s haven on impulse, without telling anyone where she was going; no one should have known where to call her. She held out her slender, delicate-looking hand, and Lazio put the phone in it. Raising the instrument to her mouth, she grunted, “Yeah?”
“Good evening,” said the musical contralto voice on the other end of the line.
Judy felt a thrill sing down her nerves. Some quality in the speaker’s tone was both captivating and intimidating. The Brujah had spent enough time around Toreador and Ventrue, many of whom possessed uncanny powers of personal magnetism, to recognize that she was falling under the sway of some Kindred’s supernatural charisma. But such an ability, like her own talent for coercion, didn’t normally work when the target couldn’t see the face of the vampire employing it.
She struggled to shake off the fascination she was feeling, and was partially successful. “Who is this?” she demanded.
“A friend,” the other woman said.
“That doesn’t cut it,” Judy said, wishing that she had the means in place to trace the call. But of course she and her allies had had no way of knowing that they might need to do such a thing. Even the Kindred, for whom a moderate level of paranoia was not a sign of derangement but of sound survival instincts, couldn’t be prepared for every contingency.
“My identity isn’t important,” the other vampire said. “I’m calling to guide you to four of your enemies. They’re in Sarasota now, prowling the streets around the Tropical Gardens.”
“Why?” Judy asked.
“They’re scouting. And if they happen to find one of your people alone, they’ll kill him. They’ll be leaving your territory soon, to beat the dawn, but if you hurry you can catch them.”
“Who are these bastards?” Judy asked. “Why are they out to get us?”
The other vampire hung up.
Frustrated but excited as well, Judy tossed the phone onto the couch. “Our first break,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Lazio asked.
“We’ve got an anonymous informant, maybe a traitor in the enemy camp who just gave us a present. She told me that we can catch some of
the bad guys near the Tropical Gardens.”
“What if she isn’t really a friend?” Lazio asked, his forehead creased with worry. “What if she’s leading you into another trap, no different from the ones the enemy set for the Toreador?”
It might have been the lingering influence of the unknown vampire’s charisma, but Judy doubted that she’d been gulled; in any case, she was too eager to come to grips with the foe to worry about the possibility. “If it’s a setup, we’ll just have to turn the tables on them,” she said. “I’ll round up some of my people on my way to the party. You see who you can scare up on the phone.”
Too impatient to discuss the matter further, she wheeled and marched away, her pace accelerating with every stride. By the time she reached the foyer, she was running.
SEVENtTHE RESCUE
People must help one another; it is nature’s law.
— Jean de La Fontaine, “L’Ane et le Chien”
The Sarasota Tropical Gardens, a ten-acre artificial jungle housing lemurs, alligators, otters, monkeys, wallabies and numerous other animals, was a tourist attraction, and the businesses on the other side of Bayshore Road catered to vacationers and day-trippers as well. The four vampires from out of town sauntered past T-shirt shops, fast-food franchises, bars and souvenir stands, all silent and dark in the final hours before dawn.
Dan had been stalking the strangers since just after midnight, hanging about half a block back. At first it had been a nerve-wracking experience, but gradually he’d concluded that, as long as he was careful, they wouldn’t spot him. One of the new talents that Melpomene’s vitae had instilled in him would see to that. When he stood motionless in shadow or behind some piece of cover, no matter how inadequate it seemed, he became virtually invisible.
The Methuselah’s magic had also made his muscles even stronger than before, as well as intermittently sharpening his senses. He could smell the stale odors of cooking grease, smoke and beer wafting from the establishments along the strip; the sweet perfume of flowers and the musky scent of animals drifting from the Gardens across the street; the ozone tang of the storm brewing overhead. At certain moments, when his worn, faded jeans and soft denim work shirt seemed to chafe unbearably, his newly heightened perception became a nuisance. He hoped that he’d learn to filter out the unwanted side effects in time.
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