I come to weak and hungry. Must be inside the mansion; the room's one of those old boy looking rec rooms, bar, tv, maroon leather everywhere. Hungry, hungry, hungry. I slowly pull myself up; ooh, I am in bad shape, aren't I. Looking around, not too fast or I'll make myself dizzy… I can see Leonardo on a couch, Eleanor draped over a chair, both apparently asleep, but where's Calliope? I pull myself up to my knees, holding onto the side of a table-oh merciful hell, there's Calliope, can she still be alive? Blood everywhere, and it can't be-she's in two damn pieces, cut in half at the waist. I should check to see if she's alive, but I don't think I could control myself around all that blood… god, I can't even think at this point. The others are still sleeping; can't feed from a Tremere, but that Toreador girl, she owes me anyway… I haul myself to my feet, lurch from table to chair to couch to chair until I'm standing over her, I swear I can see the blood in her veins asking me to drink it. I stare at her neck, wondering how terrible a thing it would be, I can feel my teeth sliding out, I lean forward…
"Electra, no!" It's Leonardo, awake and looking at me. Damn him, if he weren't already damned. I know he's right, that I can't do it, but it's all I can think of. Then Eleanor's eyes open, and I've lost my opportunity. Her eyes widen, looking at me; scared? She should be. I'm in control now, but if I don't feed soon, I'll lose whatever qualms I have. I back off, make my painful way over to Calliope.
Calliope… she must still be alive, but it's hard to imagine that she could be, between the physical trauma and the blood loss. Her lips are moving, but I can't hear her. I bend closer to her; she wants me to push her pieces back together. It's almost more than I can do in my condition, but I manage to push the lower half of her body up against her torso. She can't heal herself now, it would take days, but at least what blood she has is now available to her whole body. She's saying she's going to die-"Calliope, you're not going to die, I'll get you out of this," I keep repeating over her objections, and I hold her head in my lap, even though I know she'd kill me for it if she could. She's infuriating but I owe her everything, and I can't stand to lose her. The others come over to look at her, and I wish I could shield the sight from their eyes, Calliope must be hating the others seeing her so weak. Eleanor offers to share her own blood, but the old Calliope flashes out of my sire's eyes as she tells her to fuck off, no way she's going to become blood-bound to any Toreador. I myself can't believe the words are coming out of my mouth when I offer to share some of what blood I've got left with Calliope, but she tells me to save it for myself, and demands that we carry over the tv so she can watch cartoons.
We take stock of our situation. If we're all awake, perhaps it's still the same night, but the television ruins that idea-Good Morning America and cartoons are on, so it's somehow the next morning even though we're awake, and whatever's going on here, we're trapped in this house for hours to come. We're locked into the room anyway; all my tools are gone, my knives too, and there's nothing I can do about the lock. Nobody has any weapons on them. The Toreador asks us to be quiet while she listens as hard as she can; she can hear voices, but not distinctly, not clearly enough to understand the words, although she hears them laugh. I'm glad somebody is finding this amusing. I'm sure as hell not.
After a short time we can all hear footsteps outside the door, and the locks being undone. Vampires enter the room, a small girl, an old man who looks like a bad Hollywood mortician, and a couple of thugs with automatic weapons. The mortician asks if we know who they are; maybe I'm imagining it, but I think he's looking particularly at me. They are, of course, members of the Sabbat, and he's offering us a chance to join him-oh yeah, now there's an offer I trust. Maybe they'd take the others, but if I were a Sabbat, I'd want my fuzzy purple head on a long, sharp stick. Luckily Leonardo and Eleanor seem to feel as strongly about it as I do, because we collectively tell the Sabbat to fuck off. The mortician doesn't like this at all, and promises that we'll be sorry-honestly, what b-grade movie did he come out of? They sweep out of the room. I'm waiting to hear "I'll be back" but I guess that was just meant to be implied.
Footsteps outside the door again. The door opens quickly, but it isn't the Sabbat vampires. Instead, five small children are thrust through the door, which slams shut behind them. The five children huddle against each other in fear, oh, tender little necks looking so soft, their blood smelling so fresh even from where I stand, and me so empty… I can't hold myself back, I'm weak but even so my blood lust makes a child no match for me, I've grabbed the nearest sweet morsel and I'm drinking, oh so good, as good as it smelled the young blood is pouring down my parched throat and I feel the life warmth of it filling me until the last drops are gone and I reluctantly withdraw my fangs, lick the wound closed, let the body fall to the floor… I close my eyes and feel my body pulling itself back together, bullet holes sealing shut, until I feel more functional again. It seems there's only so much I can do for myself, but it's enough to make me feel renewed.
Leonardo has fed upon one child, and Eleanor is holding another-two left, screaming and shrieking, jesus, kill them to shut them up! I see Leonardo already going for one, so I grab the other. If Eleanor's going to take her own sweet time with hers, then she just doesn't get seconds. I drag the child over to Calliope and offer it to her, but she refuses, saying I need the strength more. She's objectively right, but I can't stand to see her like this much longer, I've got to get her out. I look down at the child in my grip, brown eyes looking back at me, the child too traumatized to react anymore. I'm not in a frenzy any more, I don't need this blood to survive. I look around the room; Leonardo is nearly done with his second meal, Eleanor is leaning over her first on the couch, murmuring to it, the dry corpses of the other two children flung around the room… and I consciously decide to feed on this child too, it tastes as good as the first but I have that curious wrenching feeling again, reality sliding, as though something is being ripped away from me as the child's blood feeds me. It's agonizing for a moment, and then it's passed, the child is as dead as the others, and I lick the wound, drop the limp drained body with no remorse.
"Why did they feed us?" I ask Calliope. I have to bend close to hear her answer. "They're going to feed you and starve you, wait for you to turn against each other or to go mad when the last vestige of your humanity is gone… and they want you strong enough to endure their little games. You have to get out of here…" She makes me promise to take the first chance I have to get the hell out of this place and forget about her. I promise, but I don't mean a word of it. I'm feeling far cockier than I had been. Leonardo's trying to break the furniture-ah, clever vampire, he's trying to create stakes from the chair and table legs. I call out to Eleanor to leave the damn dead kid alone and come join us; she reluctantly does. Man, she looks shattered-she'd better pull herself together. My kick ass boots help make short work of the furniture, and we soon have a pile of stakes for our defense. I'd still feel happier with an Uzi, but the odds don't seem quite so bad now. We've only seen four of them, two of those a little girl and an old man.
When they return, we're ready for them. Leonardo charges the door as it opens, and I'm waiting alongside the wall to back-stab the first vampire into the room, one of the thugs. I grapple with him for a short while, and am finally able to stake him. To my surprise, Eleanor's got the other thug staked as well-but where's Leonardo? Before Eleanor and I can move forward, the mortician appears, looking like a thundercloud. He holds up his hands, and-this can't be happening, it's like he's calling all the shadows of the room together into a ball, and now he's sending it after Eleanor, it's enveloping her and dragging her away, what can I do to stop it? I can't touch it, I try interrupting the flow of shadows with a piece of broken furniture, but it has no effect. The mortician, the shadows, and Eleanor disappear down the hallway. I retreat to Calliope, but she can't give me any help, I knew that, but I wanted her to tell me that everything would be ok, that now that they had the other two they wouldn't want me-but of course she couldn't tell me that, and the only thing I can do is follow the shadows and try to find Leonardo. I set off down the hallway, but it isn't long before the mortician finds me, and I'm enveloped in turn, wrapped in shadows that cocoon me from the world, I cannot see, hear or move…
And now I'm in a different room, seated in a chair; it's dark, but I can make out Eleanor and Leonardo sitting in their own chairs, and the mortician standing in the middle of the room. He laughs, a nasty little dry laugh. "You had your chance to join us, and you rejected it. You are fools, blindly loyal to something that can't protect you, and for that you will die, slowly and painfully, of that you can be sure. With the exception, of course, of your fourth comrade, whom we have killed already."
CALLIOPE? The world dissolves into rage, and I'm at his throat, gouging with my fingers, I'll rip his damn head off with my bare hands and eat his heart, but even as the words are forming in my head I'm flung back into my chair, he's promising that I'll pay for that as he rubs his throat, but I can't care, Calliope can't be dead, I never should have left her, why did I listen to her when she told me to find the others, because they don't matter next to my sire, they can go ahead and torture me and it won't be penance enough for failing her… I'm awash in a sea of misery and self-recrimination when the lights go out, and it doesn't seem to be a part of the plan, because I hear scuffling and thuds, some gurgles, then silence… somebody, Leonardo I think, turns on the lights, and the four Sabbat vampires are all dead, decapitated, as though their heads had been popped right off by a power grip. I spare a moment wishing I had killed the bastards myself, then I'm out the door, heedless of the cries of the others, looking for the room we'd been in-
And there's Calliope, still watching cartoons, as alive as she was when I left her. I collapse on the floor next to her, clutching her hand which I know she must be hating, but I can't hug her in her condition, and she'd hate that even worse anyway… "They said you were dead, that they'd killed you," I manage to choke out-can't cry, or I'll never hear the end of it. "I'm not dead, not yet…" she says quietly, "but I think you should look around the room…"
I stand up; there's Gwendolyn, bound on the couch, and a woman who must be Eleanor's mother on a chair, looking almost catatonic. Eleanor and Leonardo have entered the room, and Eleanor's untying Gwendolyn, ignoring her mother-what's that about? I thought family was everything to her; maybe she's finally got some sense? But how did the two women get here-oh-oh. This stinks like a Lupine's breath, and speak of the devil, here's brother Thomas, armed and ready… those Sabbats' heads probably were literally popped off…
The Lupine is raving on at us again about what kind of filth we are, how we must all be exterminated, especially the members of his own family who chose to consort with scum like us when they didn't have to, how his father and mother were deluded into thinking that there could ever be peace between Lupines, who apparently represent all that is good and pure in the world, and us vampires, who seem to be all that is evil… Eleanor pleads with him to leave us alone, I try to argue with him, tell him that we're no different from any of the other carnivores on the planet, but he's not listening. He's a zealot-I've heard this sermon a thousand times before in a thousand different faiths, we are good and you are bad. I'm tuning him out, trying to assess our options when I hear Andre's name-what is this? He says we're waiting for the fourth member of that unholy menage? He can't mean… Andre and Eleanor's mother?!? Mummy's just hanging her head, not denying any of it; I look over at Calliope, who just purses her lips and raises her eyebrows. Thomas continues to rant on about the sin of his parents, the foul thing his sister has become-it's become pretty clear at this point that he killed his own father, and intends to kill the rest of the family, as well as all their friends.
Thomas is nearly frothing at the mouth when a familiar voice asks from the doorway "Waiting for me to start the party? How thoughtful." It's a beautiful sight, my primogen with pistol drawn, I'll trust that he's remembered his werewolf lore. Thomas whips around, and with a roar leaps at Andre-the pistol coughs and flashes, and Thomas is shot down like the rabid dog he is. None of us can move or speak for a moment, then everybody's speaking at once, asking questions, trying to explain… Andre makes sure the human woman and Gwendolyn are all right, then comes to me and Calliope. He shakes his head at the sight of my sire, but says she'll heal, once we can get her back to Boston. We still have to wait for dark, but the house is secure. Andre's apparently been here all day, having expected Thomas to bring the women here, but the Sabbat were an unexpected complication. That was gutsy of him to have come on his own after getting my email-he may have questionable taste in women, but no one can question his bravery. Or foolhardiness, if there's really a distinction.
With nothing to do but wait, and seeing as how I'm starting to really get on Calliope's nerves by constantly checking up on her, I ask Andre if I can explore the house, try to find my tool kit and knives. He looks a little surprised that I'm asking, but says of course, and comes with me. We find my kit, and keep poking around. The basement is clearly a vampire haven, used recently by the Sabbat, but not a recent construction. I looked askance at Andre, only to find him anticipating my questions. "Yes, childe, I was a frequent visitor here, along with Gwendolyn…" He tells me a bit about their relationships; I don't really want to hear it, but it could be useful later, you never know, and he's obviously in some pain about this. Could he really love that human woman? It seems too that there's more than hearts at stake here, pardon the expression; the relationship between a high-ranking vampire and the leader of the Lupine pack created a long-standing truce between vampires and Lupines, an unusual situation to say the least, if Thomas is anything to go by. I observe as much to Andre, who laughed bitterly, saying only that yes, Thomas is something to go by. We return to the others; I still don't know what I think of Andre for what he's been doing, but I feel for the first time that through our conversation I've become an individual to him, not just obnoxious Calliope's uncouth offspring. And I certainly have gained some political knowledge-only I wonder if it will do me any good, if Andre can continue to be primogen of the Brujah after this…
As we rejoin the others, Calliope's at her obnoxious best cursing everybody out as they discuss what vehicle to take back to Boston-it seems we'd all fit in Andre's car, but only if Calliope rode in the trunk, and she flat-out refuses. I side with her-hell, I don't think I'd let anybody put me in a trunk either, and I'm physically functional at this point. Somebody points out that the Lupines must have had a vehicle, and the problem is solved-Brujah in one car, everybody else in another. That's the way it should be anyway. Calliope's threatening to kill me if I carry her out on my back, but there isn't really any choice in the matter. I do have to fight to resist the urge to sing "Pony girl, pony girl, won't you be my pony girl" as Andre and I bring her halves out to the car; I'm foolhardy with the best of them, but I'm not suicidal… The trip back is uneventful, and Brujah Central is a welcome sight indeed.
Chapter 7, in which the power goes out and boons are called