“Wake up,” he says. “We’re going to see the Prince. Do you wanna get presentable?” The question is rather laughable. I’m WYSIWYG through and through. I run my fingers hard through my hair a couple of times, tug at my shirt, vainly try to rub the keyboard imprint off my cheek. “There we go, presentable.” Roach grins that grin again. “You’re going to fit right in here, I can tell.” Great. Still, I’m kinda touched by his concern.
Back in the main room the Brujah are getting down. Music blaring, wine flowing—I catch a whiff of it, that’s not wine, at any rate it’s not all wine, and I want it. Luckily it seems free for the taking, or I’d’ve probably gotten myself killed. Again. I’ve gone from a not-a-breakfast person to a party-for-breakfast Brujah. And you know what? I like it. I’m not going to worry about anything until circumstances force me to. I drink and shout and dance with the Brujah, putting on a drunk like I’ve never felt before. I can’t trust these people yet, but the truth seems to be that I am one of them. I need blood; all right, that’s not much different from any other meat. I faced the prospect of killing years ago, first in my illustrious career as a juvenile delinquent and then later as a hacker—small changes in information can have big repercussions, even if I never see the victims. These Brujah seem free of society in a way I always wished to be, unconstrained, unfettered, a beautiful rabble of anarchy. I wonder if there is no more right and wrong.
A few hours pass by; the Brujah are fuckin’ toasted when Andre comes to shepherd us into another big ass American car—not the Impala, I’m relieved to see. We cruise out Comm Ave, not cruise like an ocean liner but cruise like a missile, Roach who barely looks old enough to shave let alone drive behind the wheel, bottles all over the car and the car all over the road and traffic lights having no effect whatsoever. Occasionally a cop car lights up behind us, but as soon as they get close they seem to forget what they were doing and give up. We’re trashed and the entire world is our fucking oyster. We’re back in my neighborhood as Roach pulls up in front of the MFA. A museum? Give me a break. The others laugh at my reaction, and tell me wait until I meet the other clans, especially the Toreador, then I’ll really want a break, I’ll want to break heads is what I’ll want.
Laughing we pile out of the car, holding each other up, clutching our bottles as we sail though the ornate front doors into the grand rotunda. I see what must be the other clans gathered—jesus, what a bunch of stiffs, nancy boys and prom queens. They’re like us? I doubt it. Somehow I know the Prince will be wearing all purple and his name will be an enigmatic squiggle... Andre the politician’s left us to hobnob with the Toreador primogen; the Tremere primogen doesn’t look too happy, but then that whole clan looks a bit constipated if you ask me. Why are these others important to us? I know there’s a lot that I don’t know, but what the hell could I have in common with, I don’t know, with say that one over there in the blue dress who looks about ready to cry? Even the Brujah little girls are too tough to cry, I think, glancing at Angelica. Well, it can’t be all bad; here come trays of wine. We indulge until the room quiets and the Prince makes his appearance.
Well, I have to eat some of my words; he’s not in purple, and I can feel the strength of his authority from where I stand leaning against an Egyptian obelisk. I look at Calliope, who grins at me. “Time for the debutante’s introduction,” she whispers to me. I see the weepy one in the blue dress come forward with another Toreador, and also two of the Tremere, one a middle-aged man with long stringy hair and the other a rather frowsy looking broad in flowing garments. Calliope and I join them, and together we all stand before the Prince and assembled clans. He asks who each of us are, and luckily I remember the terms sire and childe. The Prince asks to speak to the three of us together, he must mean the new childer—damn, I don’t know what I think of Calliope yet, but at least she’s a somewhat known quantity. I look back at her, but she’s already on her way back over to the rowdy Brujah. Wouldn’t be dignified to yell, I suppose. I follow this Prince and two strange vampires into a secluded room.
So here we all are, one elder statesman, one sobbing Cinderella, one new age guru, and me, and the Prince begins to tell us exactly what it is that we all have in common, what we are now and what we must do to preserve that, about obeying the Masquerade, on the pain of death. He keeps looking at me every time he speaks of obedience—yeah, well, he should. I have a healthy fear of him, and I’m certainly interested in preserving my own skin, but following the rules was never my strong point. I wonder if the body of the clerk back in the convenience store counts as breaking the Masquerade, and I know I certainly didn’t heal the puncture wounds on the dead yuppie. I guess I must owe Calliope on that one. The Prince drones on and on, something about a thing that we will all do together, and about how we chose to become vampires, to be Embraced—at that word, which bears no resemblance at all to my experience, I have to interrupt, to stop the flow of rhetoric with a little reality, even if it might hurt Calliope and the others.
“Choice? I had no choice.”
The others look at me in shock; the Prince momentarily lets a look of anger cross his face. Ha, made him break control, if only for a second. He asks what I mean, and I reply I mean exactly what I said, that nobody asked me if I wanted to become a creature of the night, minion of the darkness, drinker of blood, spawn of hell, whatever. It just happened, that’s all. I may feel like I belong, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to carry a chip on my shoulder about it. I don’t really want to cause a scene now though, so I back down and say that I’m not sorry that it’s happened, that now I know it’s what I want, and would have wanted if I had been given a choice. The Prince still looks annoyed, but lets it go. He leaves us with a last admonition to obey the Masquerade, and tells us to rejoin the party when we’re ready.
The blue girl, Eleanor, leaves almost immediately, muttering polite platitudes. Society girl—I’ll bet Daddy’s money came from the labors of people like me. Now she has a new Daddy to cling to. The Tremere stays, Leonardo his name is. I find he is actually interesting to talk to; we speak on the nature of information, and playing off people’s expectations. He seems to value the past more than I; I don't actually believe in the past. I think we reinvent it as we go along, and that all that matters is the future. Whatever you can make people believe about the past though, that’s important. But I’ve had too much wine for this conversation, and I want to get back to my clan. This Leo may be interesting, but he is Tremere, after all, and my clan has already warned me against his.
We rejoin the party. My clan at least is still swinging, but there’s something in the air, and soon the Prince stalks back out among us, trailed by the primogens. His voice rings out through the dead cold stone of the museum as he tells us that the Masquerade has been broken in his city by a member of the Sabbat. I now know enough to know that this is very bad, very bad indeed, and I start to sober up. The rest of the room seems to be doing the same as the Prince sets our blood boiling with his words, feeding the flames of anger against the Sabbat who dared to enter our city until we are howling for his blood, waiting only for our Prince’s word to seek it out—and then we have that word, a Bloodhunt has been called, and we Brujah are storming out the doors, barely hearing the Prince’s promise of favors for those who bring him the Sabbat vampire in a hundred pieces by 12:30 that night.
Back at the haven, I find there’s a regular arsenal tucked away in the apartment. I’m not sure what to take, I grab a handgun, a Luger, because that seems like a good idea but I don’t even really know if it’s loaded or not, so I also grab a couple of butterfly knives, good long ones, one for each hand. The rest are nearly out the door without me as I scramble to catch up. “Where are we going?” I ask once we’re in the car, but nobody knows really, just hunting. We know that the Masquerade was broken on a talk show, live on Ricki Lake, but the Sabbat traitor is no longer at the studio, just somewhere at large in Boston—and suddenly I see in my mind quite clearly the Citgo sign above Kenmore Square, so clearly I say it out loud. Everybody looks at me: “what?” “what the fuck?” “you on drugs?” but it can’t be denied, I know we must go there. We’re headed into Kenmore anyway, so nobody argues.
We arrive in Kenmore, at first I don’t know what to do next, but we can hear a commotion from Lansdowne Street. It seems to be my hunt now, so I tell Roach to drive over. We don’t make it far before the car is engulfed by screaming, fleeing humans, so we ditch the car and fight our way through the swarm. They smell good… but no time for that now. They’re flooding out of Axis, and in we go.
Dance music is pounding, the lights are flashing, and for a moment the place looks empty of the people who seek electronic oblivion there every night until I see, oh god, there’s bodies all over but worst of all there’s one hanging from the pipes with his guts hanging out, just like mine were… and I lose it, toss my lunch, only my lunch was wine and blood and I feel sicker, and fucking Calliope has grabbed me by the hair and is rubbing my face in it, mocking me and no, that wasn’t the worst part yet, because now the worst part is that I’m lapping it all back up like a damn dog and climbing back onto my feet. OK, breathe, or pretend you can breathe, the others want you to lead, you brought them in here, damn it Electra snap back into it… I walk up the stairs to the dance floor, the others behind me, like my posse in some gang fight, which I guess is what it is really.
And there he sits, the Sabbat vampire, in a chair in the middle of the dance floor, facing an empty chair that I know is waiting for me. Calliope shoves me forward and before I know it I’ve drawn a knife and am attacking him—but it’s like I’m moving through tar, everything is too slow and slowing down and then I can’t move at all, and the Sabbat vampire is laughing at me, telling me I’m weak, and that he’ll kill me. I don’t doubt he’ll try, I have nothing to lose so I insult him, hoping to goad him on and it works. As he tells me that instead of showing some mercy and killing me quickly he’ll kill me slowly and painfully in front of my clan before he and those who follow behind him kill them too, his control slips and I regain my own, I’m leaping at him two hungry knives in my hands and I don’t even know what I’m doing any more except slashing and cutting and stabbing until he’s the weak one, fallen to the floor a bloody mess.
Glorying in the knowledge that I’m going to kill him, slaughter him like a sacrificial animal, I shove him over, kneel with my knee in the base of his neck and yank his head back until I hear the vertebrae snapping and popping, cartilage sliding from between the joints with dull snicks, windpipe ripping, his head bent over to his left scapula, and I hack at his neck until I can tear it from his body, blood everywhere, I don’t want to drink it but I glory in it, I have done this, I have killed him. I will bring back the trophy of the Bloodhunt. I hold my trophy aloft by the hair for my clan to see, and I hear them cheering for me.
Reality slides. I hear the Brujah, I see the lights, I see the blood on my arms and legs, but part of me seems somewhere else, somewhere that seems far away, and slipping away quickly before I can quite grasp it or even know what I’ve lost, except that whatever it is, losing it is painful even in the fierceness of this moment…
Then the Brujah are around me, falling upon the Sabbat, ripping him to shreds as the Prince commanded, and the moment is gone, reality slides back together although something is gone. I don’t care as I join the others in desecrating the corpse, until the Sabbat vampire is in more than a hundred pieces. The others look at me expectantly, and I realize I’m still leading this hunt.
“Shall we take our exhibit back over to the museum?” They laugh, and somebody asks what my work of art is called. “I call it… Meat Market,” I reply, and amidst much hilarity we gather up the pieces. I’m almost embarrassed to ask about it, but I am hurt and famished, and there’s all this perfectly good blood lying around… “Calliope? Do I have time to drink?” She looks at me impatiently (what else?) but indulgently and waits while I feed. I drink long and deep, dropping the body and turning to go—slam, damn, she got me again, after I risk my life for everyone else. “What?!?” “What did you forget?” she hisses at me, and I start to panic. “Um, preserve the Masquerade, um, don’t leave evidence lying around, um…” Luckily this seems to be enough. “Lick the wounds, heal the marks. If you hadn’t at least come close I would have broken your goddamn fingers.” OK, I won’t forget again then, shall I. We rejoin the others and speed back to the museum, just in time for our deadline.
The other clans are gathered—did they ever leave? We stalk in proudly and all heads turn in our direction. The Prince steps forward and asks “Well? What have you brought me, my children?” I’ve got the head in one trash bag, and the rest of the Brujah have dragged in the rest of the body in another. I step forward, and staring at me intently, the Prince holds out his hands. My moment of glory. I haul out the Sabbat’s head by the hair and plonk it into the Prince’s palms. “A gift for you, my Prince,” I announce grandly, pat the head twice, and step back. I hear a muffled –blurp- from the Toreador; looks like this is a little too much for Eleanor. So much for her party dress. I shouldn’t feel so superior, because an hour ago I was no different, but that was then. I still don’t understand what happened to me, it felt like loss, but right now I am ferocity incarnate and have no patience. Like sire, like childe, it seems. The Prince has asked for the rest of the body, and we upend the garbage bag on the floor, bits of flesh, bone, and gore sliding across the smooth marble like slithering fish spilling from a net.
The other clans are cheering us, and the Prince is smiling. He asks me to step forward to receive my reward—my reward? I’d forgotten that. I don’t know what I need, and suddenly I feel thrust into a political plane that I am far from informed enough to exploit. In a fit of inspiration, I tell him “I give my reward to clan Brujah, to use as our primogen sees fit.” There, that should win me some points, and it seems it has. I think the Prince is pleased, or maybe he’s just amused, as he nods. “An admirable choice. But you deserve some reward yourself, tell me, what do you want?”
What do I want? I cannot cope with this right now. What I want is to relive the moment of slaying the Sabbat, to figure out what it is that I lost, and whether it was important or not, but I don’t think the Prince can grant me that. I babble the first thing that comes into my head; I ask for all my equipment back from my old place, thinking I can no longer live there. The Prince looks surprised and tells me that of course I can return to my old apartment whenever I wish. Naturally, nobody ever told me that. This is getting entirely too predictable. I mumble thanks, rather embarrassed, and scurry back to the rest of the Brujah.
“Thanks,” I say to Calliope, who looks baffled. “What?” “Nevermind.”
The Tremere have stepped forward and ask for the body; why, I don’t want to know, and judging from the looks on the faces of all the rest, I don’t think anybody else wants to know either. The Prince grants them the body, as his interest in it is finished. Leonardo moves to pick up the pieces; the others laugh at him politely as the pieces whisk themselves away—fine, whatever, everything is normal now. I bet they won’t be preserving the artistic integrity of my aesthetic vision, though. Goodbye, Meat Market. Back to Brujah Central now, where I get smacked by Calliope again for suggesting that she thrust me into the fight with the Sabbat because she wanted to preserve her own skin. You’d think I’d learn, but like I said, sometimes my mouth acts a jump ahead of my brain. And maybe Calliope’s body acts a step ahead of hers—no, scratch the maybe. But we are Brujah, so within moments all is forgiven as the blooded wine flows, the music pounds, and the clan roars its strength until we are felled by the dawn.
Chapter 4, in which I never do learn what an oboe is