Annoyed with the world and craving the impersonal solace of code, I stomp into the main area of the Brujah loft. Four strangers, a cow punk, a street kid looking more lost than Roach on a bad day, a rasta, and a guy in thousand dollar leather pants, are sitting on the couches, and nobody I know is in sight. I don't like this. "Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing in here?"
The four of them slowly stand up. I maybe should've asked a little more politely, but frankly, this night couldn't get any worse, and if they don't belong here, they're going to kill me anyway. "And who… the fuck… might you be?" leather pants asks. "Name's Electra," I reply, "and you're sitting in my crib." An eyebrow goes up. "Your crib? Who stayed out in the sun too long and made you primogen? Who's your sire, child?"
I do not like his tone in the least, my instincts say I could probably take leatherboy out before the rest fell upon me, but something tells me that I'm treading on dangerous ground here. "Calliope's my sire. I repeat my question, who are you, and what are you doing here?" As I say the name "Calliope," the lost boy lets out a whoop. "She sure still knows how to pick 'em, always did like 'em with attitude! That's my child!" Calliope has a sire? Somehow I kinda pictured her just emerging from somewhere… well, never mind that now. Some of the tension has seeped away, and the four introduce themselves. The cow punk, looking like a psychotic Al Jourgensen, is Ian, the Rasta is Sid, Calliope's sire is Eddy, and leather pants is Caesar, who introduces himself as Andre's brother. Wow, fuckin' old home week here. At that moment Calliope and some of the others show up, and Eddy tells Calliope how her newest "puppy bitch" was ready to defend the honor of the Brujah haven. She likes that, I can tell. Everyone is getting down, but there's just too much going on in my head, so I retreat to my bits and bytes. "Fucking antisocial geek!" Calliope calls after me, but I ignore her.
I fool around for a while, poking at my new disk, but there's nothing more on it than I found earlier. I start thinking about that crew's invitation to me back in Narnia-land, and decide to do some digging on them. I write to a few people I know who tend to know everybody who's anybody. I'm just getting ready to plug my terminal into the network (can't be too security conscious now, can we) when one of my bulletin boards activates itself-huh? It's showing activity, but I'm not hooked up. With some trepidation I open it up. Hello Electra, I read, been thinking about our offer? This is, bizarre doesn't even cover it. This is not computer science anymore, this is goddamn computer magic. I type a response-yep, somebody's in there alright. We start conversing about the nature of information, while ironically enough my secret admirer won't tell me diddly-squat about the code, except to tell me that it's good for many purposes, including uploading oneself and being forever free of wetware. I'm honestly shocked that anyone would do this-how on earth can you maintain security over yourself? If you're on the net, you can be hacked. That's the guiding spirit of my profession-who would willingly make themselves so vulnerable? These people are seriously whacked, and I tell my recruiting agent so. He or she LOLs at me, and tells me to think about their offer to join them, gives me a 24 hour grace period to consider my answer. I say I'll think about it-while we've been conversing on the one terminal, I'd jacked in the palmtop and found the source of the intrusion, and at this point I flushed 'em from my system. I still have no friggin clue how they got in without the terminal being jacked in, though.
There's just too much stuff in my head, and I need to spill some of it. Calliope's obviously not going to listen to any of it, but Andre's in his office… I decide to bank on our new-found buddy-ness and go throw some of this on his shoulders, especially the stuff that I saw up in Salem. When I knock, he calls me into the office. I flop down into the chair in front of the desk, put up a boot-and take it back down when he stares fixedly at it. Heh, got him. I tell him everything that's been happening since Connecticut, about the hacker crew, about the stuff in Salem, about the way the Tremere made me break my promises. He's sympathetic about the Tremere, and tells me there's nothing else I could have done, and I did the best I could do under the circumstances. He's particularly interested in the killing of that ugly-ass vampire in the fun house, making me go over the details of that several times. He stands up abruptly, tells me to wait, that he'll be back, and leaves the room.
I wait, wait, wait. I'm thinking I might not wait much longer when Andre comes back with his brother Caesar. Andre's got a strange look on his face, and I take my boots back off his desk. The look doesn't go away. "Electra? What can I do for you?" Now it's my turn to wear the strange look. "Um, you told me to wait here? What did you find out about that ugly mo-fo I drained?" Now he's wearing the look again, and I have a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. "You know, all that stuff I just told you?… about the hackers, and Salem…" Nope, he doesn't know, not a clue. What the fuck? I explain to him what I thought had just happened, and he looks deadly serious, nearly as serious as he looked in Springfield. Caesar looks like a smaller thundercloud next to him. I get defensive-I still don't know what's going on, but it can't be my fault. Andre says we've got a big problem, apparently a shapeshifter infestation. I don't suppose there's an exterminator you can call for that. He asks what I'd told the fake Andre, and I repeat everything all over. It doesn't feel quite so cathartic the second time around.
Andre asks me to call all the Brujah together in a few hours' time. Most of them are already laying on their lazy asses at the haven, and I page the few who are out on the town. A few hours to kill, hmmm… seeing as how hunger is never far from my mind, I decide to fill the hours by taking my supper. What bar shall it be this time… down the road to Brighton, perhaps, a dive in Oak Square called Castlebar. Skinhead oi-boy gives me the eye when I walk in. It'll be pleasure draining this one. We start chatting, he's your basic racist lout. I play the naïve white girl willing to have her eyes-and whatever else-opened by this obviously learned, experienced man. He almost catches on a couple of times, but I've got him. I suggest we leave, and he's agreeable. We walk outside, and there's a van, with two more skins-uh-oh, I'm not liking the looks of this now. I start stammering something about how I'm not interested in his friends, but they've grabbed me-grabbed me! hell, they're no more human than I am!-and I'm tossed in the back of the van. Then the blows start.
I come to unable to move and feeling like I've been through a meat grinder, weak as a kitten. I can't move because I'm bound in what looks like several rolls of electrical tape, which is probably what's holding my body together. A lot of my blood appears to be on the van walls and floor. They didn't tape up my mouth though so I ask them who the fuck they think they are. They laugh at me. "We're the free vampires you wish you were, punk bitch. We used to be like you until we saw things clearly, realized how the unclean blood of the dog-races were polluting our bodies and bloodline and got the hell out. Your kind of Brujah makes us want to puke up blood, all nicey-nice and subservient to the Prince. Don't you know there's a better way? You seem like a tough smart girl-you could join us, if you think you could handle it."
Join them? I'd rather join the fucking Lupines, and I tell them so. Guess the boys don't want me anymore then, 'cause the back door to the van swings open, and as I drop to the pavement one of the skins calls out to me "You crawl along home, whore, and you tell your masters that we're here, and the city will soon belong to the Anarchs, the Prince's head on a stick in front of that museum he's so proud of!"
Thud. I land on my stomach on the side of the road. Ow. I'm too weak to bust out of the tape. I look around-I'm still in Brighton, not far from St. Elizabeth's Hospital. That is a fucking bad thing-if somebody finds me, they'll bring me straight there, and I can't let a doctor take a look at me. Talk about your Masquerade breach. Footsteps are coming, shit, nothing I can do about it-I hear two young men exclaim at the site of me, and feel them roll me over. "Oh my god, lady, are you ok? What happened to you? Everything will be ok now, we'll get you to the hospital!" Lady? I don't think I've been called that since I was fourteen, and then it was always along the lines of young-lady-you-better-shape-up-right-now. They're cutting the tape with pocketknives, and I'm finally able to move. I actually don't think any bones are broken, but I've lost a lot of blood. "No hospital" I croak at the kids. They look confused. "There's reasons I can't go, they'll be looking for me there, can you hide me somewhere?" "Um, I don't know, shouldn't we call the police or something?" "No, no police, please, I just need to clean myself up, drink some… water, I'll be fine…" "We could take her back to the dorm," said the other one. I take stock of my rescuers. One deadhead, one spooky kid. Must be freshman roommates. The spooky kid wanted to call the police. I look at the deadhead. "That would be great, if you would do that-I know I must look a mess…" exerting what charm I have, willing him to go along with it… and he does. "That's cool, no police, man, we'll take you back to our place."
They help me to a BU dorm, takes forever to walk there but we can't exactly call a cab. I can feel their blood through their skin, mustn't do anything about it now… I figure once I get them alone, I can take enough from each of them to fix myself back up without doing any permanent damage. We arrive at the dorm. "I, uh, don't think I can go by the desk guy like this." "That's ok," says the spooky kid, "we know another way in." Of course they do. Probably what their respective dealers use. Pot for the deadhead, coke or something for the spooky kid. We climb a few flights of stairs and finally I'm sitting down. There's no sink in the room, so spooky kid goes off to get me a bowl of water. Deadhead sits down next to me. I must be sitting on his bed-the room looks like somebody drew a line down the middle. Jerry Garcia smiles down on this side of the room, Marilyn Manson scowls over the other side, presiding over what looks like every damn book that Toreador Anne Rice has ever written. Deadhead reaches over to pat my hand-"Your hand is freezing! Do you want a blanket or something?" His hand is really, really warm. Fuck it, now or never. When he turns away from me to reach for the blanket, I use all my strength to whack him upside the head. I'm on him before he hits the bed, drinking, oh yes, this is what I needed…
Spooky kid walks back into the room, not looking at me at first, puts the water down. Then he turns around, eyes widening as he sees his friend passed out on the bed, and, I'm embarrassed to say, a little blood on my lips. "You… you… you're a vampire!" "Oh don't be silly," I say a little breezily, kinda drunk from the blood filling my veins. "There's no such thing as vampires." I stand up, he backs away a little. "Your friend took some pill or something, he keeled over, I was checking to make sure he was still breathing…" he's not buying it. "Look, if there were such a thing as vampires and I was one, then you wouldn't be able to see me in that mirror, would you?" There's some doubt in his face. "Come see for yourself…" He walks closer, and I'm on him. Not much of a struggle; I think he wanted it. Crazy humans. I drink til I know he's not going to wake up but not going to die, either. At least I'm full now, but fact of the matter is I've managed to fucking royally breach the Masquerade. Time for some thinking… I wash up as much as I can with the water, and by the time I'm done, I've got a plan. Obviously this kid's got a pretty big vampire fixation; who's going to believe him if he starts spouting off about vampires in the dorm rooms? On the other hand, there has to be some explanation for the blood loss. I lick spooky kid's wound, but bite the deadhead again, draining some of his blood into the bowl. I heal the wounds I made, then drag spooky kid's skinny ass over to the deadhead's bed. I open spooky kid's mouth, insert deadhead's wrist, and slam spooky kid's mouth closed. Yep, broke the skin, good enough. I put spooky kid back in his own bed, smear some of the blood on his face, decorate the deadhead's wrist with the rest of the blood, and walk on out the door. So somebody's traumatized for life, and somebody else is going to be put into an intensive psych ward, but hey, I think I fixed my breach, and that's what matters. And now I've got just enough time to get to the meeting…
We assemble in the Brujah lounge, sprawled on various sofas, leaning against the walls. I'm sitting on the back of one of the sofas, Calliope sitting on the seat to my left, basically at my feet-now there's a nice thought, better not show her I'm thinking it. Ian's offering to show Calliope a real good time, and her unequivocal answer confirms for me that nope, she does not indeed prefer gentlemen, if you could call Ian such. Angelica's flying through the air as the bigger Brujah toss her around. I don't think she needs my help, but the Brujah won't pay attention as long as they think there's someone to pick on-I snag her out of the air the next time she flies past me and plunk her on the couch at my right. I look over at Andre, to see if he wants to start things off, but he gestures at me to begin. He seems distracted. I call the rabble to more or less attention, and explain what just happened with the phony Andre, as well as the Anarchs, embarrassing though that is. The Brujah become as quiet as they can, listening intently. 'So," I finish, "basically our own walls aren't safe, and we need some way of identifying ourselves to each other." "A secret handshake?" somebody suggests, and is laughed down-what if your hand has been cut off in a fight? Stupid idea.
A thought occurs to me. "We don't even know if we're all who we say we are. Right now, any one of us could be an impostor. I mean, I think I know that this is the real Andre, but really, that's about it." Calliope scowls at me. "You sayin' you don't trust me, bitch child?" "Calliope" I respond, "nobody could ever fake you." She likes that. Andre hold up his hand. Guess he has been paying attention after all. "There's nobody else but Brujah in this room," he states. We all look around at each other; how the hell could he know? He's acting like a spooky Tremere, and it's freaking us out. "Trust me," he adds, "there are no beings in this room who should not be here. You do need a means to identify yourselves though, nothing physical. I'd like to suggest you not go out alone, but I know how that will be received…" There's catcalls and laughter, and Ian asks Calliope if she'll be his buddy. Her answer is impressive in its anatomical inventiveness. Andre's right about needing a secret password kind of thing though. Ian actually has a good idea-he suggests that it be something that sounds like an insult, because anybody impersonating a Brujah would expect the right reaction to be a rumble.
All kinds of suggestions fly around the room, and it looks like there just might be a rumble breaking out any moment. I somewhat successfully call things back to order, and ask Ian if he's got any suggestions. I can tell from the Sylvester-swallowing-Tweety look on his face that he does. "Here's my idea," he says. "When you meet a clan member, you ask 'Who's the bitch ass ho?' and they say back 'I am'. I mean, no Brujah would ever say that, right?" His idea is good, but the practice? I catch Calliope's eye, and it's all I can do to keep from laughing at what I know is going to happen next. "Ok," I say, "try it out with Calliope then." He turns to Calliope. "Hey Calliope, who's the bitch ass ho?" Ooh, does she look mean. Yep, there goes Ian, sailing across the room before anybody even saw Calliope move. He lands with a thud, holding his jaw and blinking. "Now who's the bitch ass ho?" Calliope inquired with saccharine sweetness. "I'd say you're the bitch ass ho." Ian shook his head a little, probably trying to put his brains back in order, what little there was of them to begin with. "I guess I am the bitch ass ho…"
"That's it then," I say, before the conversation can continue. "The call is 'who's the bitch ass ho?' and the response is 'Ian is'." Everybody likes that, except maybe Ian, but he's in no position to argue. Andre nods that he heard. "Before you all leave," he says commandingly, so we all shut up and listen, "I want you to know that I have not heard from Gina Marie this evening, and that is most unusual. We do have our own way of communicating"-I don't want to know-"and it is something to worry about that I have heard nothing. I ask that you would all take it upon yourselves to look for her the rest of this evening-I can demand nothing from you, but bear in mind that it affects us all when a Brujah is struck down…" He looks tired and worried. We all set out into the city to search.
Chapter 10, in which wolves are at the gate and we need an exterminator