Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 5 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  “Just like South-fucking-east Asia?” ruefully cried an Anarch who, by the look of him, could well have been a Vietnam veteran.

  “This isn’t supposition,” Victoria snapped. “You heard the list; you heard what Theo said.” Her implication that the archon supported her position gave the other Brujah pause. “If we don’t take action, city after city will fall.”

  A shabbily dressed, strange old bird with a beard long enough to tuck in his pants, shot to his feet and thrust a finger into the air. “They will never take D.C.!” he asserted. His equally unkempt companion nodded vigorous agreement.

  Garlotte was surprised by their sudden, passionate interest. Both of the Malkavians, known only as Roughneck and the Quaker, generally kept to themselves. But the prince also knew that he should never let himself be surprised by anything one of the lunatics did.

  “I never thought they’d take Charleston,” piped up one refugee.

  “Or Savannah,” agreed another displaced southerner.

  “We must take control of the situation,” Victoria asserted.

  “By what authority?” All eyes turned toward the speaker, Prince Garlotte. Here was the crux of his reservations. Obviously something had to be done, but an arrangement that trampled on his sovereign rights as prince was unacceptable.

  “By the authority of necessity,” said Victoria. “By the authority of survival. I was in Atlanta. I barely escaped.” She cast a glare so cold at the Anarchs that none of them dared defy her or mock her on this point. “I will not be a victim again.”

  A long moment passed in silence, as every Kindred in the chamber constructed in his or her own mind what it would mean to be a victim of the Sabbat.

  But of all of them, Victoria knew. And barely repressed emotion leaked to the surface in her voice: “We must decide what is needed, and then we must call on the clans, the princes, the Inner Circle….” She paused, collected herself. “We must do whatever has to be done.”

  Just then, the double doors at the rear of the auditorium crashed open. Malachi stood to the side as Isaac Goldwin strode into the chamber. He passed, none too gently, several of the Anarchs who had, over the course of the evening, spilled from the seats to block the aisle, and made his way to Garlotte’s side.

  “My prince,” the sheriff bowed respectfully, “there is trouble in Washington.”

  Deathly silence gripped the chamber.

  Garlotte quietly seethed. First, faithful Gainesmil had publicly sided with Victoria before Garlotte had clearly indicated his stance. Now, the prince’s own impudent childe was making a public show of delivering information that, most likely, should have been conveyed in private.

  “What trouble?” the prince asked grimly. He could hardly put the genie back in the bottle at this point.

  “Violence,” said Isaac ominously. “Gunfire in the streets—more than is usual even for the capital.” He spat out the last words with distaste, as if the very idea of that city occupying a loftier position than Baltimore offended him.

  A din of an order to put all the previous disruptions to shame immediately erupted. Cries of “The Sabbat! They’re here!” and, “Kill them! Kill them all!” filled the room.

  “Jesus long-haired Christ!” shouted Roughneck. “Washington has fallen!”

  Next to him, the Quaker broke into despondent tears. “I knew it would happen….knew it would happen….”

  Victoria tried to harness the sudden surge of adrenaline. “You see? This is what I…” But no one was listening.

  The Anarchs were boiling over. They stomped up and down in outrage, ripped seats from their moorings, pounded on one another’s shoulders, and in general whipped each other into a collective frenzy.

  “Stinkin’ bastards!”

  “Kill every last…”

  “Gonna split open their…and pull out their …and kick in their…”

  Those who hadn’t already, poured from the seats into the aisles. There, for a few moments, they milled in obvious agitation—some shredded the wallpaper with clawed fingers; others tore at their clothes and wailed menacingly—before filtering out through the doorway. A trailing chorus of “Gotta get to D.C. …gonna kick some ass…stinkin’ bastards!” slowly subsided into the distance.

  The tension was no less for the absence of the militant faction. Garlotte ignored his sheriff-childe, while Victoria tapped her foot in an irritatingly smug way. Theo Bell had not left with the lesser ruffians; he sat, arms crossed, as inscrutable as ever. The sullen Tremere, Maria Chin, looked as if she’d bitten into a lemon. Roughneck was gone with the Anarchs, leaving the Quaker hiding (not very successfully) beneath a chair. Otherwise, various refugees milled and chattered nervously. They reminded Garlotte of lowing cattle.

  Victoria drifted toward the prince. “We must contact the justicars,” she said, “so they can notify members of the Inner Circle.”

  “You don’t think they know what’s happening?” Garlotte asked.

  “I suspect they do. Do I know if they care?” She shrugged. “Am I willing to gamble that they’ll send aid unless prodded to it? Are you willing to gamble that—with Baltimore as the ante?”

  Garlotte looked over at Bell. The archon, it seemed to him, might be the one to offer some insight in the matter, but Theo appeared inclined to keep his own counsel. Chin, Garlotte knew, was a nonentity among the Tremere; she was a middle-management type sent, because she happened to be nearby, to keep tabs on the other Kindred. If important decisions were to be made, he would have to make them. Victoria stood very close to him. He felt her warmth, caught the glint of light from the locket, his dear wife’s locket.

  “I will contact Lucinde,” he said at last. As much as he hated to call the attention of the Ventrue justicar and the Camarilla powers-that-be to his city—who knew what they might decide?—he would do it. The Sabbat was in Washington. He had to do it.

  Garlotte turned away from Victoria. “Isaac, show Ms. Ash to her suite,” he instructed his eldest childe, “then come to me. I would speak with you.”

  Monday, 28 June 1999, 3:47 AM

  U.S.S. Apollo, the Inner Harbor

  Baltimore, Maryland

  The hanging lantern swayed gently from the main support beam. Malachi, much more comfortable in his fatigues and old T-shirt than in formal attire, crouched atop the thick, wooden table and disinterestedly watched Isaac. The sheriff was, for the second night running, manacled to the floor of the cabin, a large sheet of plastic spread beneath him. After all, the prince had spent a considerable amount of money to have the nineteenth-century schooner refurbished, and blood did tend to stain so.

  Garlotte sat nearby in a felt-cushioned, straight-back chair, reading the previous afternoon’s edition of the Washington Post by the light of the single lantern. Reports from the adjacent city were disturbing. The nation’s capital had long been infested with a profusion of drugs, prostitution, and violent crime, with much of the nefarious activity precipitated (or at least encouraged) by various undead crime lords. There had always been, however, a certain design, a comforting familiarity, to the mayhem. Not so the past two nights. There was familiarity, but it was far from comforting.

  Gang warfare, occasional race riots—these were facts of life, and unlife. Despite what the mortal world tended to believe, such occurrences often were not spontaneous happenings. Usually Garlotte would have received advance notice from the elements arranging such displays. The usual, however, had ceased to exist. The Sabbat had seen to that.

  Information was filtering north in fits and starts, but from what Garlotte had gathered, the blitzkrieg had started in Atlanta less than a week ago. To most of the world, the seemingly random shootings, the attacks on the High Museum of Art and other edifices around the city, had been some astounding campaign of domestic terrorism. Violent acts elsewhere—more shootings in Savannah; devastating fires in Charleston; a marina explosion in Wilmington—had served only to heighten the mortal paranoia.

  But Garlotte knew that the High Muse
um was a major Elysium in Atlanta, and that two of the other buildings destroyed were Prince Benison’s haven and the Tremere chantry. Garlotte knew that several of the city council members shot in Savannah had been pawns, if not actual ghouls, of the Camarilla prince there, and that included among the destroyed sections of Charleston was Prince Purrel’s pride and joy, the Battery. Add to that the sudden eruption of nocturnal violence in the shipbuilders’ strike in Norfolk. Theo Bell had called that one correctly.

  And now, as Isaac had so eloquently reported two nights ago, there was open warfare in the streets of Washington D.C. of a scale that would draw the eyes of the world, and that threatened to spread—with the Sabbat!—north into Baltimore.

  Garlotte folded the newspaper and tossed it across the room. He picked up a tin cup, rattled its contents for a moment, then returned the container to its resting place.

  “Now, Isaac,” said the prince kindly, “I’m going to ask you for the eighth time: How is it that you may avoid displeasing me in the future?”

  The younger Ventrue drew in a steadying breath, but still his voice quivered somewhat. “I should present important news to you in private, rather than before a crowd.”

  Garlotte smiled warmly. “Very good.”

  He turned to Malachi. “Make this one quick.” The Gangrel climbed down from the table and took the pair of red-handled wire cutters that had lain there next to him. Garlotte’s mind immediately shifted back to the political situation. He barely noticed the screams of his childe, and then the piteous whimpering. Malachi dropped the top digit of Isaac’s right index finger into the tin cup with the others.

  “Only two more times, and we’ll be finished,” the prince reminded his childe.

  Garlotte had hardly recovered his paper when the knock sounded at the door. From the sound, he knew that Katrina stood on the other side. She rapped sharply, as if she would do violence to the door, not because it stood in her way, but because it was. “Enter.”

  Katrina opened the door and stepped down into the cabin. As she glanced around the cabin, her bright blue eyes didn’t even pause on Isaac and his predicament. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.” She ignored Malachi altogether.

  “Nonsense,” said Garlotte. He extended a hand toward her. “Come to me.” She did as he beckoned. They’re always so much more obedient when one of their siblings is in the midst of discipline, the prince observed. They weren’t actually siblings, of course, not in the mortal sense. But they did share a link of blood.

  She took his hand. Garlotte loved just to look at her—her eyes; her tiny, pert nose and narrow lips; her strong, wide jaw and pointed chin. Initially he’d been drawn to her by the resemblance to his own, dear Amelia, and when the girl stood silently, he could almost convince himself that he gazed upon his departed wife. If only Katrina wouldn’t speak, or defy him, or feel compelled to dress like a common street punk. My God, Garlotte wondered, how many thousand head of cattle have perished so that Kindred might wear leather?

  “You have a visitor,” Katrina said, breaking the prince’s reverie. “You better see for yourself,” she responded to the unvoiced question of Garlotte’s raised eyebrow.

  Intrigued, Garlotte rose from his seat. “Where is Fin?”

  Katrina shrugged. “Probably with his whore.”

  The prince sighed. My Amelia would never have spoken so roughly. He cupped his hand gently to Katrina’s cheek. “Ah, my delicate flower, lead me to our guest.”

  “He’s just up on deck.”

  Garlotte’s hand grew tense against her face. His eyes caught her gaze, held it. “Very well. Then you will not have far to lead.”

  They stepped from the sound-proofed interior of the U.S.S. Apollo into the pre-dawn breeze of the Inner Harbor. From Katrina’s flippant manner, Garlotte expected almost anyone other than the person who actually waited for him on deck.

  “Vitel.” Garlotte failed to conceal his surprise.

  “Greetings, Prince Garlotte,” said Marcus Vitel. He bowed deeply, then rose. “I seek sanctuary in your city.”

  Vitel was a striking figure: tall, though not so tall as Garlotte; strong features; wisps of gray through his hair; blue eyes, but darker and harder than Katrina’s. The visiting prince wore an expensive, tailored gray suit, but it was rather the worse for wear. The left shoulder was torn, and his garments were wrinkled and dusty from head to toe.

  Garlotte was beyond the stairs and the handrail, so he placed a hand on Katrina’s shoulder. Vitel’s presence, and his purpose for seeking out Garlotte, was a dire portent.

  “You are, of course, welcome in Baltimore,” said Garlotte, “but please, come inside.” He indicated a door other than the one through which he and Katrina had just emerged.

  “Katrina…” the prince began, but then hesitated. He had a mind that she should serve Vitel and himself. The girl was generally astute enough not to sass her sire in the presence of company, but depending on her manners risked embarrassment. Considering the stature of the guest, Garlotte decided that prudence was the better part of hospitality. “Send for Gainesmil, my dear.” He considered ordering her to maintain secrecy, but again, why give the girl orders she would flaunt, when news of Vitel’s presence would get out soon enough regardless?

  Katrina frowned at the imposition, but not so that Vitel could see her.

  At least she didn’t roll her eyes, Garlotte thought. That would have been too much, and I would have been forced to mar that beautiful face. I really shouldn’t pamper her so.

  “Dennis,” Garlotte called, as Katrina tromped down the gangplank. A stocky, dark-haired man in a blazer and slacks stepped forward from the nearby shadows. His presence was not noticeable until he moved, yet he was one of several handfuls of security ghouls stationed about the ship and dock. “Dennis, show Prince Vitel into the sitting room.”

  Garlotte remained on deck for a short while, watching Katrina move off into the distance. It never failed. He could watch her for hours. The motion of her stride, the way she tossed her hair from her face, so much reminded him of Amelia, despite Katrina’s continuous quest to be tougher than she was. Garlotte knew she went as far as to consort with Anarchs. He knew other more disturbing, facts about her, but he held those from his mind.

  An important guest awaited his audience.

  The prince of Baltimore considered sending for Victoria as well as Gainesmil, but decided against it. One Toreador tonight was enough. Gainesmil, an architect turned city planner and undead lieutenant, had long been a partner in strategizing with the prince and should hear what Vitel had to say.

  The exclusion of Victoria was not technically a snub, though it could certainly be perceived as such. Garlotte was not ready to grant legitimacy to this notion of hers that she should be instrumental in fending off the Sabbat. He would allow her a certain amount of influence, and he would savor her charms, but he would hold her in check. There was no need to consult her tonight. Besides, with Gainesmil present, Victoria would learn of what transpired soon enough. That was a Toreador consortium worth keeping an eye on, though not necessarily to be discouraged. Garlotte might yet turn to his advantage Gainesmil’s familiarity with their high-profile refugee.

  “This is a lovely ship,” Vitel remarked. “Is it seaworthy?”

  “Oh yes, quite.” Their conversation remained among topics of mundane interest, as Garlotte had explained that one of his trusted advisors was en route. “Though I’m afraid I don’t take her out nearly often enough. I’m sure you know how it goes—work piles up; something always needs immediate attention, and then—pfft!—another decade is gone.”

  Vitel nodded his assent. “You must learn to take time for yourself.”

  “Ah, that I could,” Garlotte bemoaned his responsibilities. “My, but aren’t I being the improper host. May I provide refreshment for you, Prince Vitel?”

  “Many thanks, but not at present.”

  “Then I hope you won’t think me rude to partake,” Garlotte said.

&nb
sp; “Please.”

  Garlotte signaled, and Dennis brought over a decanter and a single goblet. It was such a tricky matter, Garlotte well knew, entertaining a fellow Ventrue. The host was unlikely to have on hand the guest’s proper vintage—unlikely to know what it was, as that was a matter of some privacy among the clan—yet still one was expected to offer. Garlotte filled his goblet with rich, life’s blood of English descent. It was a variety growing ever more difficult to keep on hand in this modern era of depressingly widespread mobility, a hardship that might eventually require a reverse migration back to the Old Country. For the time being, however, Dennis and several of the other ghouls contributed to the stock handsomely.

  “That was your childe, before, on deck, Katrina?” Vitel asked.

  The question surprised Garlotte somewhat. Most Kindred hoarded what knowledge they’d gathered about one another like a miser with a golden tooth. The question itself suggested that Vitel had assembled a dossier on Garlotte and his associates. Of course, Garlotte had done the same for Vitel. But the visiting prince’s revelation of knowledge lacked any flamboyance, any sense of one-ups-manship. Strangely enough, the query seemed to be…an innocent question.

  “Yes. Katrina,” said Garlotte.

  Vitel simply nodded. His mood, reserved and polite, turned somber. “I had two daughters…two childer. Now…?” He shrugged, dropped his hands into his lap, and stared at the floor.

  Garlotte was again stymied. Did Vitel expect …sympathy? The prince of Baltimore was much relieved when Gainesmil’s familiar knock sounded at the door.

  “Enter.”

  Garlotte kept the pleasantries to a minimum. He was anxious to hear from Vitel, and the time before sunrise was growing short. The Washington prince remained sullen as he told of the sporadic fighting that had rapidly metamorphosed into a full-scale invasion.

  “It was no Sabbat siege, as we’ve seen before,” he explained. “They knew where to hit, and they hit hard. They must’ve gathered intelligence for years.”