Stranger in Town

STRANGER IN TOWN



by Rebecca Lloyd



All characters herein are the property of Spelling Entertainment save for

N'kamah/Miriam, Magdalena, and incidental characters, who are property of

Rebecca Lloyd.  Of course, the whole story is peppered with terms that are

property of White Wolf Gaming Company.  This is fan fiction and is not

intended to infringe on copyright laws. Etc. 8)  Also, all Sabbat

characters within are Harmonists, to try and keep the gore down to a

tolerable level.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

N'kamah/Miriam:A jaded Ahrimane spy and warrior.

Magdalena:N'kamah's Ahrimane mentor and contact with the Sabbat.

Camilla:A Nosferatu antitribu deserter

Daedalus:Nosferatu Primogen of San Francisco

Sasha:A Brujah neonate

Cash:Gangrel Primogen of San Francisco

Lorraina:A Gangrel ancilla

A vanful of utterly luckless Brujah

w/cameos from the rest of the post "Cabin in the Woods" cast.



I would rate this one PG-13 for violence.



CHAPTER ONE



Blood rolled in rhythmic layers down the vessel's sweated skin.  N'kamah

caught it on her tongue, then reached up and sank her fangs in around the

wound.  The man was already weak from being hung upside down and bled; he

moaned softly as she sucked greedily at the last of his life.  She was

starved; the first two courses of the Blood Feast had been children, and

she had of course abstained.  Some of the new recruits had grumbled at

this, but Magdalena had brought them back into line with a snarl.  N'kamah

had long since proven herself to the founding pack, and so her

eccentricities were tolerated.



"It is a great honor, Daughter, to be chosen for this."  Magda's voice

drifted through the roar of blood through her veins.  She pulled out and

nodded, taking down the juicebag and tossing his twitching form to a

packmate.  She felt a flash of regret as the poor bastard was carted off,

but reminded herself firmly that her own survival came before some human

stranger's life.



"I know, Mother, and I am grateful."  N'kamah inclined her head to her

Ritemother, who was smiling proudly.  "I will not fail you in this."



Magda beamed.  She was a short vampire, very old even before her Third

Birth, with signs of her Gangrel heritage still lingering despite the

efforts of the Tzimisce flesh-shapers: her pointed, furtipped ears were

pricked, and her catlike tail curled and flowed contentedly.  The rest of

her was plain, brown and friendly-looking: warm brown eyes, brown

half-Romany skin, brown hair cut boyishly short, brown leather clothes.

Like most Ahrimanes, she looked far more alive than their Gangrel cousins,

almost human.  Almost cuddly, in fact, next to N'kamah's own menacing

austerity.



N'kamah wore black, always black, almost like  a Nosferatu.  Her father's

Nilotic African heritage made her unnervingly tall and lean, while her

mother, an Egyptian Jew, had given her a hawk nose, nut-brown skin and

sleek black hair which fell to her midback.  Her first frenzy as a Gangrel

had left her eyes a shocking jewel-like blue, and her Third Birth as an

Ahrimane had left her with a taste for plain, functional clothing and

absolutely no jewelry.  She was often mistaken for an Assamite, and given a

wide berth.  That suited her just fine.



"Try to bring them back still Undead, Kamah," Magdalena said firmly.  "You

know and I know what a bastard Goth is, but he's still Sabbat, and we've

got an obligation to our own.  And Camilla has always been a good friend."



"Of course, Mother."



"And watch out for those damned Nosferatu.  The Priscus would never have

sent Ahrimanes if the San Francisco locals weren't as dangerous as they

come!"



N'kamah sighed.  "Of course, Mother."



"And don't forget your galoshes!"



They both laughed, and N'kamah wrapped her long arms around her Ritemother

and hugged her tight.  They were making light of it all, N'kamah knew;

there was a very real chance that the retrieval mission could go terribly

awry.  But two of her own were trapped behind enemy lines, or even worse,

had deserted the Sabbat altogether.  And either way, she was not going to

let a bunch of soft, complacent "Kindred" get the better of her.



CHAPTER TWO



Daedalus started out of his meditation suddenly, a chill gripping the base

of his skull.  Clear gray eyes opened, scanning the room for whatever had

disturbed him.  Nothing out of place in the clutter of candles and

half-finished paintings; not a hint of breeze, nor strange scent or sound.

His finer senses registered no presence, psychic or physical, in his

guesting room or the adjoining tunnels.  What, then?  Troubled, he rose,

his favorite chair creaking faintly as his big body eased off of it, and

looked around again. Nothing.  But the sense of foreboding would not be

shaken.  Slipping off his gray and black smoking jacket, he reached for his

overcoat as he vanished from normal sight.



Unseen, he moved up the stairs and into the courtyard of the Luna mansion.

The moon was swollen and luxuriously bright; some of the Gangrel were

quietly watching it from their guard posts around the mansion's perimeter.

One, however, was not.  Lorraina, one of Cash's lieutenants, was standing

by the gatehouse, staring blatantly at a small figure on the main stairs

with a smirk on her face.  The object of her scrutiny was, as usual,

Julian's heartbreakingly beautiful descendant, Sasha.  And, as usual, Sasha

was quietly sobbing.



Daedalus sighed as the poor child wept, oblivious as he drew near, her

pretty porcelain-fine face the picture of vulnerability despite her

rough-cut leather clothes.  If only he could offer comfort -- but no, she

was afraid of him, and besides, he probably couldn't help.  The source of

her grief was no mystery; either she was still angsting over her being

almost literally raped into Clan Brujah, or she and Cash had been fighting

again.  Daedalus suspected the latter.  The Gangrel Primogen, though he had

potential, was very young, and really had no idea yet how to balance his

personal life with his duty to his Clan.  This was not a problem Daedalus

himself had ever encountered.  He had no personal life.



His long, chalk-white fingers lingered near her cheek for a moment, near

the scarlet tears that ran unabated down its soft curve.  His talons nearly

touched her skin before he drew his hand back, chiding himself for not

keeping his penchant for self-torture in check.  He had work to do.



The grounds were clear, the sentries in place; nothing out of order there.

He slipped through the door, which Sasha had left ajar, and moved through

the mansion, making his rounds unseen, unheard.  Cash brooded in the

kitchen.  Prince Julian brooded in his study.  Lily tried on negligees;

fortunately her back was to him and he turned his face away and slipped out

before she sensed him. "Oops," he whispered once outside, pain and

self-amusement mixing in his heart.



Nothing out of place anywhere.  Business as usual.  If anything, he should

be bored.  But he could not shake the chill running up and down his spine.



Outside, Sasha and Lorraina exploded into a screaming argument.



Business as usual.



He sighed and went back to his guesting room, flopping into his chair.





CHAPTER THREE



The Amtrak station in Jack London Square, Oakland, was shrouded in fog.

N'kamah walked quietly across the skyway, leather coat pulled tight around

her.  She was hungry again, and tired, and her instincts were nagging at

her.  Something -- a chill, a tightness in her chest, no discernible cause.

Something wrong.



Hunting was easy.  She caught a cab into East Oakland and just wandered

around until a seventeen year old with two pounds of gold around his neck

stepped out of the shadows and pulled a gun on her.  Grin on his face,

bulge in his pants.  Oh, the horrors of urban existence.  She

rabbit-punched him and took the gun, gold and his considerable wad of cash

before dragging him back into the shadows to feed.  She drank shallowly and

licked the wound, leaving him bruised but breathing.  At least, she thought

as she moved on, when she worked alone she could abstain from killing

without dealing with people looking at her askance and muttering

"Harmonist!" in derisive tones.



The vessel's pockets yielded two vials of rock and car keys.  The Mercedes

(black, she noted approvingly) was around the corner, with a full tank of

gas and a shotgun in the trunk.  Better and better.  She left the vials she

found in the car scattered around the little bastard, and called the police

on his cell phone as she drove away.  Across the Bay she alternated Cypress

Hill, Public Enemy and Stravinsky's Firebird on the car's excellent sound

system until her ears rang.  By the time she rolled into San Francisco, she

was feeling considerably better.



CHAPTER FOUR



The Haven was packed, which was no surprise; full moon, Friday night, and

the Brujah had just pulled off a major haul over in Sunnyvale.  Sasha

avoided them as she moved through the crowd looking for a seat.  Lorraina's

needling had pushed her nearly to frenzy; finally she had hopped on her

bike and headed out.  Here was as good a place as any to come; maybe one of

the Toreadors would feel like hanging out over in the Park or something.



She slid onto a stool at the bar, asked for a beer and got a smirk and a

lemonade.  She stared into it sullenly as The Pogues played something

depressing over the sound system.  She was tired.  The fights with

Lorraina, with Cash, with the Brujah, with Julian, even one with Lily last

night -- it was all wearing her down.  And she was hungry, and the very

thought of that shamed her.  Where was she going to get blood?  Someone's

pet?  Rats -- again?  Cash?  She just couldn't handle this.  This vampire

-- Kindred, she corrected herself -- this Kindred thing, she just was not

equipped to deal with it all.  The blood and the Clans and the sick Brujah

things she was expected to do and pressure from Uncle Julian and the

Gangrel's disdain -- and through it all, Cash, her boyfriend, just standing

there, not even bothering to help when she needed him most.  She choked

back more tears, and didn't even notice when someone slid onto the stool

next to hers.



Only the sudden silence from the Brujah's tables made her look up.  They

were all staring at her -- no, at the person next to her.  She looked over

at him -- her.  The tallest her she had ever seen.



The stranger, even hunched onto the seat and swathed in a trim black

calfskin overcoat, was still obviously at least as tall as Uncle Julian or

that scary Nosferatu guy.  Black or Middle Eastern -- dark skin and

cheekbones like scimitars.  No makeup or need for any.  Long, silky black

hair pulled back in a heavy braid.  Beautiful, like a bronze sculpture come

to life, with a manner that was the epitome of cool detatchedness.  A

female James Bond, a mix of Grace Jones and Iman...Sasha didn't realize she

was staring until the woman removed her bottlecap sunglasses, revealing the

bluest eyes she had ever seen, and smiled.



The voice that rolled from the woman's throat was smooth and rich and deep,

soft but commanding.  If a panther could speak, it would have that

voice...."Aren't you a bit young to look that depressed?"



Sasha blinked.  A ripple went through the gathered Brujah, and she became

aware of a creeping sensation on the back of her neck.  "Uh," she

stammered.  "I guess it depends on the circumstances.  Who...?"



"Miriam."  The stranger smiled, a simple, elegant curve of the lips.  "You

are...?"



"Sasha."  She shivered, and suddenly realizing what was giving her and the

other Brujah goosebumps.  Gangrel.  The woman was a Gangrel.  But her smile

was kind, and she was just so cool...



And her eyes, Sasha realized.  Her eyes are...deep down...sad.



So sad...like she knows just how I feel.



"Want to talk about it?"  The woman was pointing to a small, empty booth

across the room.  A faint growl drifted from the Brujah's table.  Miriam

ignored it blatantly.



Sasha nodded, and Miriam led her gently to a seat.  When they were both

settled, she leaned over and whispered, "How come you don't hate me?"



Miriam blinked, looking startled; then recovered quickly and smiled.  "I'm

old, Sasha.  Surviving as long as I have requires some...flexibility.  And

I prefer not to let my Clan think for me."



Sasha smiled hesitantly, starting to relax under Miriam's warm gaze.  She

knew, somewhere in the back of her head, that she shouldn't be trusting a

stranger this easily, even a strange Kindred.  But she needed someone to

talk to so badly...someone impartial.  Someone who actually seemed

interested...



Before she knew it, she had told Miriam everything.





CHAPTER FIVE



The moon rose in silent silver majesty over the treetops; Camilla stood,

arms raised, to greet it.  The secluded glen in Golden Gate Park had been a

gift straight from Lilit; here she could cast her circles without any risk

of human interference.  A near impossibility when one was hideous even for

a Nosferatu...



She was not Sabbat.  She had broken with them, at least in her heart, when

her lover, Goth, had been slain; the pain of his loss, and her part in it,

had been just what she had needed to fuel her desertion.  Her acceptance by

Julian and Daedalus had certainly helped as well.  She was not Sabbat.  But

she remained Antitribu, not through ideological differences or even the

fading ties of Vinculum with her former Pack, but simply through the

changes her time with the Sabbat had wrought upon her flesh.  The eyes.

Those horrible, reptilian eyes, which remained cold and sullen and

predatory even when she smiled with all her might.



Every full moon Esbat ceremony she prayed to Lilit, Mother of Magick, to

give her back her own eyes, to wash from her the stigma that had come from

blindly following her lover into darkness.  The Curse of Nosferatu itself

she had long since accepted, but the eyes...



Nevertheless, her fervent prayers had met with no answer.



She kept the secret of the true cause of her disfigurement from reaching

Julian's ears; surprisingly, so did Daedalus.  She had no doubt that her

stoic Primogen knew full well that her disfigurement came, not from some

blood sacrifice, but from the hands of the Tzimisce priests who had

initiated herself and Goth into the Sabbat.  Nevertheless he had taken her

back without a word on the subject; perhaps at his prompting, so had the

other Nosferatu.  Her feelings about this were beyond gratitude.  It was

very good to be home.



The opening prayers were Enochian; she didn't know what they meant, but

they helped focus her thoughts.  As her droning chant rose through the

moonlight, however, something happened.  A chill ran like wildfire through

her body, making her arms shake and then drop to her sides.  For a moment

she had the wild idea of checking her eyes in her ritual mirror again --

then she put that thought aside.  But there was definitely something.



Something in the air tonight...



Suddenly she felt terribly exposed.  Opening the Circle with her ritual

knife, she grabbed up her tools and fled, shoving them unceremoniously into

her bag as she ran.





Return-Path: 

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 13:27:03 -0700

To: kamala@akos.net

From: rebel@hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Rebecca Lloyd)

Subject: Stranger In Town Chunk Two

Cc: rebel@ocf.berkeley.edu



CHAPTER SIX



Camilla was alive.



Goth had been slain, by the Prince himself no less, and with his own ritual

axe.  "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," N'kamah muttered

sardonically as she steered the Mercedes through the crowded streets.  In a

sect of murderers and hedonists, Goth had always stood out to her as

especially creepy.  Not that Kamah disliked Nosferatu -- actually she got

along with Nos better than most normal-looking Leeches.  Camilla

especially, even if she had been sleeping with the old scumbag.  But

Goth...it came as no real surprise that he had been caught for trying to

sacrifice a baby.  What surprised her, actually, was that afterwards this

Julian Luna had accepted Camilla as one of his own instead of killing her.



Perhaps he did not know what Camilla had been up to before she showed up in

San Francisco...



Charming that little Brujah childe had barely taken an effort on her part.

A little kindness, a little Presence, and the girl was all but weeping in

her arms.  Poor Sasha.  The 'Kindred' always made such a big deal about how

humane they were, how they always asked before they inducted

someone...damned hypocrites.  She was surprised at her anger at them.  She

herself, like all Sabbat, had been forcibly inducted -- in a manner so

brutal it still gave her nightmares and would have driven someone as

fragile as Sasha quite insane.  But then again, the Sabbat never deluded

itself into thinking it was a humane organization.



She liked the girl, in spite of herself.  It was easier for her as an

Ahrimane to like a Brujah, actually -- the blood imperatives of Clan

Gangrel were simply no longer there.  She would have to be careful to be

nasty to the Bru when she encountered them.  Except Sasha.  Being kind to

Sasha had already netted her valuable returns, and besides...she liked her.



Liked her enough to give her real name, in fact, instead of one of her

common aliases or her Sabbat warrior's name.  The fact that she had just

blurted it out like that truly worried her.  It was entirely unlike her.



Strange forces were at work here.



"Oh well, what's done is done."  She popped in a Gravity Kills cd from her

bag and turned onto the road Sasha had said led to the Prince's mansion.



CHAPTER SEVEN



"Cash, please stop lurking in the doorway and come in," Julian said

tiredly, not looking up from his desk.  The young Gangrel primogen coughed

embarrasedly and stepped into the study, then hesitated.  Julian looked up

at him slowly, eyes dull and normally perfect hair askew on his head.

"Sasha?" he asked gently.



Cash shifted uncomfortably and ran his hand through his spiky golden-brown

hair.  "Gone," he muttered distractedly.  "We had a fight, then Lorraina

started baiting her again, and..."



Julian sighed.  Prince of San Francisco, with command over all its Kindred

no matter how old or powerful, he felt absolutely helpless to control the

situation surrounding his own descendant.  She had been especially unstable

the last few nights, probably because she had not fed, and any attempt

anyone had made to speak with her had ended in a raging argument.  And of

course there was Lorraina and the other Gangrel ancillae, who took great

pleasure in needling Sasha into near frenzy...



Cash was speaking.  Julian focused and listened.  "What do you want me to

do, Julian?"



Julian smiled a bit.  "She's your girlfriend, Cash.  Are you asking for my

advice?"



"Uh..."



"Find her," Julian said gently.  "Watch her.  Make sure she doesn't get

into any trouble.  But it probably is a good idea not to confront her.  I

am sure she has a great deal still to work out.  And she needs to feed."



"Thanks, I -- "



"Cash!" Lorraina burst in unceremoniously, prompting a raised eyebrow from

Julian and a startled glance from her Primogen.  She skidded to a stop and

shifted agitatedly from foot to foot.  "Uh, sorry...there...there's a

strange Gangrel outside.  She wants to talk to you and...to the Prince."



Cash blinked.  Julian coughed a bit and said, "Did she ask for Cash by name?"



"Uh, no...no sir.  She just showed up and asked to see the Gangrel Primogen."



"And you're sure that she's one of you?"



Lorraina looked insulted.  "Of course!"



Julian nodded slowly.  "Cash?"



Cash shrugged.  "You frisked her already?  Ok, good.  Let's give the lady

what she wants."  He bowed to Julian and walked out, followed by his

ancilla.



Julian stroked his chin a moment, then glanced beside him as a soft voice

spoke in his ear.  "Do you want me to watch them?" Daedalus asked without

revealing himself.



"It's probably a good idea."



"As you wish."  The office door moved slightly, and Daedalus was gone.



CHAPTER EIGHT



Daedalus tailed the two Gangrel out into the courtyard, where a black 1995

Mercedes-Benz sat radiating heat from a fairly long drive.  A tall, thin

Kindred leaned against the warm hood, her black gloved hands braced on its

surface.  Sleek black coat, boots, hair; eyes hidden behind bottlecap

sunglasses that gleamed chitinously in the moonlight.  She smelled of

sandalwood and blood.



He slipped past Cash and Lorraina and stood beside the woman, close enough

to attack if she tried something but not close enough to touch.  The three

Gangrel remained totally oblivious as he caught a few blowing strands of

her hair on a fingertip and stared at her jewel blue eyes.  Something about

her made him uneasy, but he could not figure out what it was.



"Ms. Rivkis?"  Cash focused on the new arrival.  Daedalus saw the boy's jaw

drop a fraction and suppressed a chuckle.  The woman removed her sunglasses

and smiled, though Daedalus saw a flicker of disbelief in her eyes.

Probably at Cash's youth, Daedalus thought.



"Miriam, please."  She stepped forward; he stayed with her.  Cash blinked

as the woman bowed gracefully and rumbled, "I do hope I am in the right

place."



"Uh, yes.  How did you know it was?"  Cash looked a bit nervous; Lorraina

couldn't even look the woman in the eyes.



"Stevie Ray and I met during his stay in Alabama," she said smoothly.

Daedalus frowned.  The answer seemed too glib, almost as if it had been

rehearsed.  She continued: "We've kept up communication infrequently.  I

only recently heard of his death, and..."



Cash gulped.  He always got a bit distracted when someone mentioned his

sire.  Miriam smiled sympathetically and said softly, "Alabama was getting

old, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do for Stevie's

brood...?"



"It's been taken care of," Cash muttered, then smiled -- thinly.  "But

you're welcome to stay, if the Prince says it's all right."



Miriam smiled wider and looked genuinely relieved.  "Oh good.  I didn't

want to impose.  Is it possible for you to set up a meeting with him?"



"Uh, yeah...sure.  Wait here."  Cash turned and hurried inside, leaving

Lorraina standing there fidgeting.



Daedalus stared into the woman's face, trying to read any subtle emotions

trickling out now that she thought she was not being watched.  Mild

disdain, again probably because Cash was so young.  She herself seemed of a

much older and probably more powerful brood.  Daedalus hoped she would not

challenge the boy for the Primogency.



Faint apprehension, which was normal...



And sadness.  Deep -- the very bedrock of her being seemed permeated with

it, though she hid it well -- old, and unshakeable.  The pain in her eyes

was achingly familiar, and he caught himself wondering what tragic course

of events had stamped such an indelible imprint on her soul.



Detatchment, he reminded himself.



Cash and Lorraina both had apparently sensed a blood kinship in her;

whatever else she was, she was a Gangrel, or a bastardization thereof.

Though she seemed more...urban...than most of them, he noted.  Cleaner,

suaver, more polished.  He would have mistaken her for Ventrue were it not

for her clearly frenzy-changed eyes.  Though, he reminded himself, thinking

of Camilla, there were other ways to create such an odd appearance...



Nevertheless, the Gangrel had recognized one of their own, and he was

willing to stand by their judgment.



For now.



Cash walked out, looking a bit relieved.  "The Prince will see you now."



Miriam smiled.



CHAPTER NINE



N'kamah-who-was-now-Miriam sat in the deep leather chair across from the

Prince of San Francisco, legs crossed primly and sunglasses tucked into her

coat pocket.  The formal introduction had gone smoothly, and the youthful

Primogen had been sent out so that this Julian Luna could speak with her in

private.  Thirty seconds into the conversation, she had lost any secret

desires to laugh in his face.  She had once heard Goth describe him as an

overly romantic human sympathizer, but it seemed there was far more to him

than that.  She watched him now, sitting relaxed in his chair, bright

intelligent eyes fixed on her attentively.  Easy to look at, certainly --

neat, trim, handsome, well dressed, interesting voice, neither

overbearingly forceful nor too hesitant.  Confident, and probably quite

clever.  She decided that lying outright to him would be a bad idea.



He seemed to be listening to something she could not hear; he gave an

almost imperceptible nod.  The hair on her arms rose and pressed against

her sleeves as her instincts nagged at her again.  But she smiled at him

and inclined her head as he spoke to her.



"So, you were a friend of Stevie Ray's?  He never mentioned you..."



"Not a friend, actually," she spoke quickly.  "Just an acquaintance.  In

fact, when we first met we nearly tore each other's guts out."  All of

which was true.



"Over territory or a human?"



"I spilled his beer."



That got her a chuckle.  "That's Stevie Ray, all right."  He leaned forward

a bit and looked into her eyes.  "So why are you here again?"



She saw the glow coming into his irises and almost laughed.  The Piercing

Gaze -- such a typical Ventrue trick.  Of course he was not powerful enough

to grab her mind, but he didn't have to know that.  She swallowed a bit and

let her eyes widen as she stared at him, as she had watched others who were

Dominated do.  "I came because I had not heard from my acquaintance in

quite a while.  I was concerned.  My people in Alabama who knew him were

concerned."



"Are you here for revenge?"



"No."  True enough.



"What then?"



"Concern for his Brood." A muscle jumped in her cheek.  She hated lying.

"What else?"  His eyes flicked for a microsecond towards a spot over her

right shoulder; the skin on the back of her neck crept.



"I don't know yet."



"Are you going to try for the Primogency?"



"No."



"Why not?"



"I don't want it."



"Why not?"



"I'm not interested in the responsibility."



"Good. You won't get it."  He leaned forward again, his expression cold.

"Do you mean any harm to myself or any of my subjects?"



"Not unless someone tries to harm me."



"Fair enough."  He leaned back, relaxing what he thought was his hold on

her mind.  She blinked a few times and looked appropriately confused.  He

smiled warmly and extended a hand.  "I'll be introducing you to my Primogen

at the next Conclave.  Welcome to San Francisco."



She smiled and clasped the hand, feeling only a twinge of distaste as she

brushed her lips against his ring.



CHAPTER TEN



After Miriam had driven off in her black Mercedes, leaving behind an

embossed business card with her telephone number, Julian walked back into

his study with two glasses of wine.



"An interesting woman," Daedalus remarked as he faded into view in the seat

Miriam had so recently occupied.  He accepted his glass with a faint smile.



"What did you think, old friend?"  Julian resumed his seat, taking a slow

sip as he listened.



"Very private, probably not telling the whole truth, but honest, I think,

in what she did say."  Daedalus stroked his chin with one talon, eyes

thoughtful.  "Did you notice her eyes?"



"Yes, remarkable.  That's a mutation caused by Gangrel frenzy, correct?"



"Yes." Though that was not entirely what he had meant, Daedalus mused.  He

picked a glittering black hair off his seat's backrest and ran it between

his fingers.  "I'm not certain what her agenda is in coming here, but I

believe she was telling the truth when she said she meant us no harm.  Or

at least, she hopes she is telling the truth."



"Any suggestions on how to deal with her?"



"Let her settle in for a few nights, see how she interacts with the others.

I will watch her."



"Thank you."  Julian looked uncomfortable for a moment, then said, "I hated

having to use the Gaze on her like that.  It seems an invasion of privacy."



"It's for the good of the city's security.  You did what you had to.  At

least now she will be more trusted at the outset than she would be

normally.  Though I wouldn't be too quick to trust her completely."



"Perhaps after the Conclave we will know more."



Daedalus smiled.  "Perhaps."





Return-Path: 

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 13:30:00 -0700

To: kamala@akos.net

From: rebel@hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Rebecca Lloyd)

Subject: Stranger In Town chunk three

Cc: rebel@ocf.berkeley.edu



CHAPTER ELEVEN



Sasha edged along the rim of the dome atop the Palace of Fine Arts, trying

not to panic as a sleepy pigeon warbled protest against being nudged aside.

Then a big hand grasped her upper arm and hauled her bodily upwards.  She

let out a squeak as the ground spun far below, then blinked as Miriam set

her down carefully at the dome's apex.  The woman crouched beside her,

smiling, and husked, "You should have told me you could not shapeshift

yet."



Sasha settled herself carefully and snapped, "It's not like anyone has

bothered to teach me!"



Miriam blinked.  "That's terrible.  I am sorry.  I did not know...no wonder

you are starving.  Here, have a pigeon."  She scooped up a plump bird, so

deftly it remained asleep, and held it out.



Sasha hesitated, then looked down.  "I can't, Miriam."



"Come on, you're starving.  You can't keep feeding from your boyfriend, or

you'll end up Blood Bound to him."



"Blood what?"  Sasha looked nervous.



Miriam frowned.  "They truly have kept you in the dark about your heritage,

haven't they?"  She stroked the bird gently as she stared out over the

fog-shrouded city.  "I'll have to remedy that..."



"Think you can make me human again?"  Sasha's smile strained against

crumbling.  "That's what I really want."



"Whyever for?"  Miriam pushed her glasses down her long nose and peered at

Sasha curiously over them.



"You KNOW why!  Those bastards...they did this to me, pinned me down and

DID this to me, in front of my boyfriend, just to piss off my uncle and

start a war, they USED me and then they threw me away..."



Miriam laid a hand on her shoulder.  "That doesn't mean you have to stop

enjoying li - -"



"Don't TOUCH me!" Sasha jerked away and ranted, "Don't EVEN try giving me

some bullshit pep talk!  It's easy for you to say things like that, YOU had

a choice, YOU were selected, wanted, trained, YOU weren't taken by force --

"



"Yes I was," Miriam said softly.



Sasha's eyes widened in shock as the rage drained out of her.  Her heart

was hammering away at her ribs loud enough for both of them to hear it in

the sudden quiet.  "You -- but -- you..."



"Sasha.  Sometimes, things just happen.  You can't control them, they get

done to you.  And some of them are horrible.  Humiliating.  Rapacious.

Some of them change your life forever.



"My sire needed cannon fodder for a territorial fight with the Brujah.  He

grabbed me because he was old and needed someone with knowledge of modern

weaponry.  All I was was a pawn."



"But you seem pretty happy now -- "



"Yes.  But that's only because I realized that sometimes you just have to

make the best of what you have.  So you're a vampire.  Or Kindred, or

whatever.  So you didn't get here by choice.  You're still here, nothing

you can do about it, and you have eternity.  You might as well enjoy it.



"Listen, Sasha, all right?  I like you.  You're fiery, sweet and I am sure

you could handle yourself just fine if given the tools you need to survive

-- and more, to live.  To have fun, stand up for yourself, do what you

want.



"How about this.  You ask, I will answer.  Anything you want to know about

being one of us.  Anything I know, anyway.  I'll teach you, no strings."



Sasha's jaw dropped.  Gratitude, relief and suspicion mixed on her face.

"I...I...uh...Cameron and the Brujah won't like this..."



"To Hell with them.  If they're not going to give you proper teaching,

they've no business preventing someone else from doing it."  Miriam

scowled, her blue eyes fierce.



"Cash might get jealous.  And I'll have to see what Uncle Julian says -- "

"Excuse me, but have either of them, however much they profess to love you,

ever bothered to teach you the skills you need to survive?"



Sasha hung her head slightly.  "Um, well -- not really, no."



"And Cash fed you how many times now, without ever bothering to explain the

Blood Bond?"



"Twice.  What's a Blood Bond?"



"Getting to that.  For now -- don't let him feed you again.  Period.  You

have to learn to hunt on your own if you're going to survive without ending

up as someone's slave."  With a deft motion, Miriam wrung the pigeon's

neck.  It never even woke up.  "Here.  It's a start.  Drink."



Sasha gasped.  "You killed -- "



"Yes, since you didn't have the heart to.  Now drink.  He's dead, you can't

hurt him any more than that."



"No.  I just -- " Sasha was starting to cry, confusion written across her face.



"Sasha.  Please listen to me.  You must not be ashamed of what you have to

do to survive.  We have the right to live, just like any other being.  Just

because we need blood to do it does not make us monsters.  Yes, we are no

longer human.  We are more than human.  We are predators.  But we are the

only predators in nature who can leave our prey alive."  She smirked a bit

and patted the dead pigeon.  "Provided they're large enough, of course."



Reluctantly, Sasha took the little corpse and sank her teeth into its limp

neck.  As Miriam watched, her eyes started to brighten, faint glints of the

Hunger rising in them.  She scooped up another bird, killed it and handed

it over.  The girl took this one eagerly, and the next, and the next.  The

fifth still lived, but Sasha was too hungry to notice.  The sixth she

caught herself.



CHAPTER TWELVE



Walking into a cleanroom in the sewers under a major city was something

even Daedalus could not get used to.  He pushed up the stone panel hiding

the keypad, punched in the code, and stepped into the airlock as it ground

open, nose wrinkling as fetid air was replaced with stale and scentless.

Then the door on the opposite wall slid up, and he stepped into the bright,

sterile computer room.



There was an open box of animal crackers next to one terminal; a depression

in the terminal's attendant seat and the steady rattle of its keys

indicated he was not alone.  He smiled a bit.  "Therese?" he asked, loudly.



Someone eeped and a Walkman fell out of nowhere onto the desk, the Rolling

Stones' "One Hit To The Body" beating faintly from its earphones.  "Wha?"

A female voice, perky despite its accompanying rasp.  "Oh! Hi boss.  Didn't

hear you come in."  T. C. faded into view on the seat, a small Nosferatu,

painfully thin, with slits for a nose and lizard scales.  She was wearing a

"Kiss me, I'm French" button on her regulation black overcoat.  Daedalus

decided to ignore it.



Therese hopped up, toeclaws skritching on the rubberized floor, and hit the

Walkman's stop button.  "Here for the report?"



"Yes."  Daedalus peered at her screen.  "You haven't been MUSHing again,

have you?"



"UH, only after I finished," she said quickly, darting across the room to a

table piled with folders.  She picked up a dark blue one and hurried back

with it.  "Here you go, footnoted and everything."



"Good girl."  He gave her a small smile.  She beamed.  "Now keep looking."



Her smile faded.  He patted her shoulder and walked out, tucking the report

into his coat.



"...Miriam Rivkis, legal age fifty four," Daedalus read to Julian from T.

C.'s report.  "Parents deceased, no known living or undead relatives.  She

had a son..." he paged forward, peering at the printout.  "In ninteen

seventy...six.  He disappeared under mysterious circumstances at age ten.

The police report was filed in New York City."



Julian leaned forward.  "I thought she said she was from Alabama."



"Mmn, well, Gangrels move around a lot.  Says here she was an Israeli

national, gained dual citizenship with America the same year her son was

born...which means unless she pulled a brilliant cover-up on us she was

human twenty years ago."  The flesh where Daedalus' eyebrows should have

been raised.  "Says here she was either an operative of or otherwise

connected with the Mossad."



"The Israeli secret service?  Why didn't the Assamites snap her up?"



"Unknown.  Perhaps she left for America before they could..." Daedalus

flipped forward a page.  "She's been sighted in New York, Pittsburgh, Los

Angeles, Chicago, and in several cities throughout Alabama.  Those are the

most recent."

Julian looked relieved.  "Then she was telling the truth."



"About that, anyway."



"Her sire and generation?"



"Her sire never contacted her after her period of independence was

up...that's the Gangrel tradition.  Post Embrace, they abandon the childe

out in a strange place and see how well they fend for themselves before

returning to instruct them.  Her adoptive sire is Magdalena D'Orsino, an

Elder whom we don't know much about.  As for her generation, I can

determine it if I can get ahold of some of her blood."



"A difficult proposition at best."



"Indeed."



"Anything else?"



"She's never been implicated in any breach of Tradition...loner by

nature...independently wealthy...likes cats."



Julian chuckled.



"We're still looking..."



"I don't think that is necessary," Julian said.  "We have already done far

more prying into her past than normal standards of security would dictate.

The Conclave is tomorrow night; we'll see how the others take to her."



"With your permission, Julian, I think that I can arrange it so that we can

both keep an eye on her and use her skills to our advantage."



Julian blinked, then smiled.  "I'm listening."



CHAPTER THIRTEEN



Camilla prowled the tunnels alone, lost in thought.  The San Francisco

underground was a bizarre mixture of natural caves, sewers, storm drains,

maintenance tunnels, and layer after layer of abandoned basements and mines

-- and that was just what the humans had built or discovered.  One could

get lost down there quite easily.  Which sounded like a good idea to

Camilla at the moment.



Daedalus' last Hosting had been a disaster, with Goth nearly turning the

whole of the San Francisco Nosferatu against the comparatively humane

Primogen.  Though Camilla had neither helped nor hindered Goth's efforts,

she remained painfully aware that ruining Daedalus, destroying him if

necessary, had been the primary reason that the Sabbat had sent her and her

lover here.



She had come here to bring him down.



And, she had lost her nerve when in return he accepted her back into his

realm without comment.



At first her greatest fear had been that the Kindred here would learn that

she had been of the Sabbat; then it had been that the Sabbat would learn

that she was no longer of them.  Now it was both.  It was only a matter of

time before the Sabbat investigated the botched mission.  Eventually they

would learn that she was not dead.  No matter how well she hid herself,

they would find a way.  They would hear of the Nosferatu woman with devil's

eyes, and then they would swamp the tunnels looking for her, slaughtering

all who got in their way.



Yet warning the Kindred here would mean revealing what she had been, and

probably being executed for it...



The two dilemmas tugged her back and forth betwen them, and neither could

gain the upper hand in her heart.  So she wandered the tunnels, silently

asking Lilit for guidance, her devil's eyes glowing coldly in the dark.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN



A huge, white Himalayan cat sprawled in front of the space heater, his

rumbling purr filling N'kamah's practice room.  Barefoot in a black

unitard, hands taped, she shadowboxed, watching her form in the mirrors

that lined one wall.  Snap-kick.  Roundhouse.  Stance.  Elbow thrust.  She

segued smoothly into traditional katas, her cold, sweatless body moving

effortlessly though the many forms.  Grabbed up a practice staff from the

matcovered floor without breaking rhythym.  Thrust.  Strike.  Block.

Counterstrike.  Spinkick.  Turn.  It was an effort to remember to breathe,

but it helped her keep her concentration once she got started.



The rhythym was a moving meditation for her.  Her mind cleared slowly, the

efforts and frustrations of dealing with Sasha melting away as her muscles

warmed and stretched.  Slowly she went through the last two days' events,

ordering her thoughts on them as if she were reorganizing a mental file.

Goth -- dead.  Camilla -- missing, presumed reaccepted by the local

Kindred.  Whether this was part of some scheme of hers, N'kamah could not

tell.  Two very young Primogen, a Prince of moderate age and good

intelligence, and a Brujah Childe as malleable as they came.



Things were going well.



She snatched up the katana next to her foot and unsheathed it, tossing

aside the staff.  The whicker of whirling metal filled the air.  Sasha was

such a sweet, lost girl.  N'kamah thought she would make an excellent

pupil.  Hopefully good enough that if -- when, she chided herself, think

positive -- when the Sabbat took San Francisco, she could be recruited

instead of killed.  It would be a shame if she had to die.

N'kamah's hand wavered, then both dropped to her sides, the sword hanging

from one carelessly.  She blinked.



She could never have killed the girl herself, she realized.



She just did not have the heart.



In fact, she cared for Sasha too much to even think of killing her.  And

that was very, very dangerous.  It could get her herself killed if it got

in the way of her duty.  But still...



Suddenly katas seemed tiresome.  She put away her equipment and walked out,

pulling on a black silk robe embroidered with a scarlet tiger.



Boxes still littered the split-level bungalow; save for necessities, she

was nowhere near done unpacking.  She stepped over one of them and picked

up the phone, dialing a voicemail number.



Her voice was uncharacteristically cheery as she spoke into the receiver.

"Hi Mom.  College is ok so far, the Dean's kind of a character though.

Very domineering, but I can handle him.  Haven't met all my professors yet.

The first two look younger than me.  Heard from Cousin Ralph -- he flunked

his finals and got expelled.  No word from Cousin Edna yet.  Made a new

friend.  I'll call back later. Love you. Bye!"  She made a face as she hung

up.  Appropriately innocuous sounding as Magda's codewords for things were,

they made for some very silly conversations.



Tonight was the Conclave; she would need a dress.  Her watch read four AM.

A nap, then shopping some time that afternoon.  She plodded up the stairs

to bed, throwing off her clothes and peeling the tape off her hands, and

snuggled into the mounds of silk sheets.



As dawn came she dreampt of lying in the cold earth, fire in her veins and

madness pounding in her skull.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN



Daedalus sat, exposed to normal sight, in his chair at the Conclave table,

taloned hands folded before him.  The other Primogen were also in their

seats, save Cash, who stood somewhat awkwardly next to Julian's chair.

Lillie in a classic Versace, looking politely curious.  Cameron, whom

Daedalus thought looked like an insurance salesman in his too-new-looking

suit, boredom written across his face.  Julian, calm and businesslike as

always.  Other Kindred drifted around the room, though he was the only

Nosferatu present.  Sonny, Julian's favored childe, standing against the

wall behind his sire's chair.  Lorraina, looking apprehensive next to the

couch.  A gaggle of curious Toreador.  And Miriam.



She stood in the doorway to the hall, eyes down, waiting to be called upon,

her expression vaguely amused.  The glasses were gone, her eyes lined

subtly with kohl and her lips painted a dark rich burgundy.  A sleeveless

mandarin-collared silk gown, midnight blue and perfectly fitted, draped her

long form gracefully.  Her muscled arms bore bands of hammered copper.  Her

feet, incongruously, were bare.  She outshone Lillie.  She outshone

everyone in the room.



He could not take his eyes off of her.  And that worried him.



Cash coughed.  "My Prince, fellow Primogen, I wish to present a fellow

member of Clan Gangrel to the Kindred of San Francisco.  Her name is Miriam

Rivkis.  She seeks acceptance among us."  Daedalus hid a smirk.  Poor Cash.

He clearly hated such formalities.



"Then let her come forward," Julian said smoothly.



Cash beckoned; Miriam moved to the table.  Cash took his seat and she stood

beside him, eyes down.  Amusement smouldered through her lashes.



"Another Gangrel?" Cameron burst out, sounding long-suffering.  "As if we

didn't have enough of them around already -- "



Cash lunged forward in his seat.  "Considering how Brujah keep murdering -- "



"That's enough," Daedalus said quietly.  They both sat back, scowling, and

Miriam's eyes turned to him.



He looked back at her.  Saw mild surprise, and something akin to a

tactician's interest.  She was sizing him up.  That was just fine.  But

then she smiled, just the barest curve of her lips, and he felt his chest

tighten.  Outwardly, he remained stony, immovable, focused.  But inwardly

he thanked whatever gods were listening when she looked away.



Julian was speaking.  "...no one has any objections to accepting her?"



Daedalus looked around.  Cameron sat sullenly; Lillie shrugged and gave

Miriam her best Dazzling Smile.  Miriam smiled back politely, but did not

look impressed.  Probably doesn't like Toreador, Daedalus noted.  Cash

smiled, a little shyly, and nodded at Miriam.  Then Julian's eyes turned to

him.



He stood slowly, and said, "I have no objections...but I would ask a favor

from our new member, if she would see fit to grant it."  His eyes flicked

back to Miriam: she looked startled.  Then the calm Monal Lisa smile

returned.



"If the Primogen of the Nosferatu would but name his request..." Her

velvety rumble sent a ripple through the crowd.  His heart stirred and gave

a restless thud, and for a moment he doubted he could go through with this.

But he could think of no other way to keep close watch on her without

risking embarrassing himself.



"As the Prince's Enforcer I occasionally have need of assistance in

performing various tasks related to my position..."  A louder rustle.  No

one had ever heard Daedalus ask for help before.  "If your Primogen has no

objections...?" Cash shook his head, blinking rapidly.  "And with the

Prince's permission, I would like to offer you the opportunity to become my

assistant in these matters."



Julian nodded approval, and all eyes turned to Miriam.



She actually looked to be at a loss for words.  But her iron composure

returned quickly, and she inclined her head.  "I would be honored to accept

the position.



"Just," she added, her smile quirking, "don't ask me to make you coffee."



A chuckle ran through the crowd.





Return-Path: 

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 13:41:22 -0700

To: kamala@akos.net

From: rebel@hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Rebecca Lloyd)

Subject: Stranger In Town Chunk 4

Cc: rebel@ocf.berkeley.edu



CHAPTER SIXTEEN



N'kamah bounded skyward as the lupine's claws raked toward her, flipping

over its gigantic arms and out of reach.  Its roar of frustration shook

down bits of slime from the tunnel wall.  "Caine's fangs, Daedalus," she

griped as she dashed for her Uzi, which was lying in a puddle of Nosferatu

blood a few yards away.  "How did this thing get so far into the main

tunnels?"



"By slashing through anything and anyone that got in its way," Daedalus'

voice echoed back grimly.  His chalk white hands was streaked with lupine

blood, but the damned monster just kept healing itself.  "Watch your head,

Miriam."



She scrambled through the mud, just dodging another piledriver paw as she

hunted for her gun.  Then she heard Daedalus gasp and stifle a curse.  Her

hand found the Uzi and then he grabbed her, pulling her close to him and

laying a finger over his lips.  He looked -- worried?  Afraid?  His grey

eyes tracked back and forth, and she blinked in confusion.



The werewolf's eyes crinkled in equal confusion; muzzle wrinkled, it

snorfed loudly at the air.  Then it tromped through the muck towards where

they were, huge head sweeping back and forth as it searched for them.

Daedalus led her back and to the side, watching as the hairy behemoth

lumbered past obliviously.



N'kamah stifled a growl at the scent of vampire blood on its fur.  She and

Daedalus both were running dry of vitae from the fight, and the Beast

wanted to come out and play.  But one glance from Daedalus and she pushed

it down, though she grumbled inwardly.  He was too damned easy to agree

with.



The werewolf shuffled to a stop, looking around, tiny yellow eyes gleaming

madly above its frothing muzzle.  "LEECH!" it boomed, voice echoing off the

tunnel walls.  "Unclean...things come face!  Come die as deserve!"  It

shifted, orienting on a rat's panicked scramble down a side tunnel, a low

growl vibrating in its throat.  Then it turned back and bellowed, "Filth on

Gaia, my claws make clean! Come die!"



N'kamah shook with rage.  The thing came down here, completely unprovoked,

to slaughter the Nos in their burrows, and it had the temerity to call her

people monsters?  Her talons slid from the tips of her gloves, parting the

leather with soft pops.



"No," Daedalus hissed in her ear.  His grip on her shoulder was like a

vice.  She turned and glared at him; he stared back, hard, his mouth a

line.  Flashes of anger gleamed in his eyes, but he fought it down even as

the lupine continued to roar curses and threats at them at the top of its

lungs.  Her wonder at his struggle took the edge off her killing-hate.  Why

fight to keep from frenzy?  It was their best ally against the werewolf,

who was all but in frenzy itself.  It would give them strength and aid

their courage.  Why did he hold back?  Two of his own were dead, and if

they did not kill this thing, many more would die...



She knew, after three weeks of working under him, that it was not cowardice

that made him choose to stand there, hiding them both with his powers,

instead of attacking.  He was twice the fighter Goth had ever been, and by

far braver and more loyal.  She had seen him dive through a collapsing

tunnel to rescue a trapped neonate, and reach through a fire to save a

favorite rat ghoul.  Fortunately, they had not had to face any Sabbat...she

had no doubt that he would have made short work of them, possibly even if

she had blown her cover and helped them.



"Why?" she mouthed.  He just shook his head.  The thing continued to stomp

around blindly.  She swallowed her rage and checked her Uzi for muzzle

blockage from its swim.  It was clean.  Full clip of silver bullets, and a

dead bead on the back of the thing's neck.  Not yet, said Daedalus' eyes.



She had half a mind to stake the old bastard and take on the thing herself.

In her wildform, a gift of the Third Birth, she could have done it easily,

but if Daedalus was conscious to see the change he would know her for

Sabbat right away.  Assuming the wildform was a secret known only by the

Ahrimane warriors, and the Ahrimane remained entirely within the Sabbat.

Something the Nosferatu doubtless knew, as they ended up knowing just about

anything...



She did not stake him or Change or fire or leap at the lupine monster.

Curiosity alone held her back.  She watched his face, trying to discern his

reasons for wrestling down the awesome power of the Beast.  She almost did

not notice when a second werewolf appeared from thin air beside the first.



A faint splash drew her attention back; she froze.  Then another blurred

into sight beside the first two, and another, and another.  They snuffled

around, growling savagely, as Daedalus moved partway in front of her,

whether to hold her back or help his powers conceal her she did not know.

What she did know, but had been distracted from by her own outrage, was the

fact that werewolves always run in packs.



This 'Kindred' had just saved her from Final Death.



She holstered the Uzi with shaking hands and let Daedalus lead her away as,

howling in frustration at the loss of their quarry, the entire pack

vanished from the tunnels.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN



The entirety of Clan Nosferatu of San Francisco rarely gathered in any one

place at the same time, but the murder of two of their own was enough to

draw them out.  A silent crowd milled in the Great Cavern, circling the

mirror-calm lake in its center, dozens of eyes on the funeral barge moored

on its shore.  Daedalus stood at the water's edge beside it, stolid in his

black coat as he stared at the two shredded figures lying upon the bales of

paraffin-soaked hay that lined the boat bottom.  They waited for him to

speak, more out of resignation than respect.



Camilla lurked at the edge of the crowd, her eyes drawing the occasional

nervous glance from one or a few of the others.  Her chest tightened at the

attention, but she was determined to pay her respects.  The Lupines had not

just slaughtered two of her clanmates; they had killed off half of the bare

handful of neonates the Nosferatu had managed to create this century.  The

other two -- the lizard-faced hacker Therese, and her spectrelike

broodbrother Nameless, sobbed openly, blood streaking their sunken cheeks.

Sadness gripped Camilla as she watched them; the lack of fellow young ones

left them isolated, bereft of easily made allies and friends.



Just like her.



Finally Daedalus stepped forward, drawing breath to speak.  "I've called

you all here to join me in mourning the loss of Eric and Shadowchilde,

neonates, murdered in an unprovoked attack on our burrows by Lupines.  Both

were of the brood of Damian.  In recognition of his loss, I have gained the

permission of the Prince of the City for Damian, or others of his choosing,

to create two neonates, provided that acceptable and willing candidates can

be found."



A slim chance at best, Camilla thought bitterly.  But at least Daedalus had

tried.  The others seemed surprised at the Prince's concession, and rather

impressed that Daedalus had gained it so quickly.  Across the lake she saw

Therese sniffle and smile a bit.  The poor girl.



Daedalus continued.  "To prevent this from happening again, I am arranging

to track these Lupines and exterminate them.  Our networks in the greater

Bay Area are already working on this, and I will offer substantial rewards

for information that leads to these creatures.  As always, your safety is

my first concern."



Camilla felt a prickling on the back of her neck.  Her demon eyes narrowed

and she looked around quickly, scanning for danger.  Nothing.  She began

scanning the crowd, the feeling getting worse as she looked over the

familiar, and familiarly hideous, faces.



"Does anyone have anything to say?" the Primogen asked.  There was a

collective headshaking.  Even Damian and the neonates were silent.

Daedalus sighed, and nodded.  "Then let the ceremony begin."



He reached beside him, to a pitch-smeared torch thrust into the ground, and

wrenched it free with one talon as his other sliced through the barge's

mooring-rope.  The craft drifted away slowly as even the faint rustles of

the crowd fell silent.  Daedalus gripped the torch with both hands,

murmuring under his breath as he stared at it.  A shudder ran through the

Nosferatu as a flame flared up at its tip, growing to a great crackling

tongue of fire above Daedalus' shaking hands.  A wave of atavistic fear hit

Camilla as well as she saw the flame, but then the Sabbat trance-training

took over, calming her slightly.  Daedalus stood firm, even as his eyes

blackened from fear-frenzy, as the fire crept down towards his skin.



Then, with a roar, he flung the torch onto the barge, which exploded in a

fireball.  A collective scream rose from the crowd, full-throated and

savage, as they broke and scattered outwards for the tunnels, letting the

death-fear take them completely.  They surged past Camilla in a flood of

black-clad bodies, beginning to sweep her along with them, the whole of the

cavern on the move.



Save one.



As she stood as still as she could and stared with hypnotic intensity back

at the fire, a single figure across the lake caught her eye.  One, standing

back near the main entryway, tall and black-clad and free of deformity.

One who stood still even as Daedalus himself raced past her, tearing at his

mourning-cloak.  Watching the burning barge, fascination glittering in her

jewel-like eyes.



Shock and old love rushed through Camilla at once as she saw the stranger's

face.  Her jaw dropped open.  Then N'kamah's blue eyes found her, and

stared deep into her own across the flames.  The Gangrel's thin lips moved,

mouthing her name.



The death-fear finally took Camilla then, and she turned and ran screeching

into the tunnels.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN



Miriam flowed through the slow dancelike kata, Sasha doing her best to

mirror her movements.  The dew-wet grass squished deliciously under her

bare feet, the moon poured down, and Miriam was smiling at her.  "You're a

natural," the woman murmured, deep voice warm with approval.  "You're

really learning very quickly."



Sasha felt her cheeks heat, the blush coming easily on a full belly.  "I'm

doing my best," she mumbled, fighting the reflex to flub the kata out of

nerves.



"You think too little of your abilities.  Now, let's go over your lessons

while we keep this up. No no, keep moving.  You can do both at once.  Just

let your muscles remember for you.  Now.  What are the rules of the hunt?"



Oh God, Sasha thought, mind racing.  But the physical rhythym of the kata

relaxed her automatically, and after a few deep breaths, she felt it come.

"Discretion first.  Cover your tracks.  Always lick the wound, it makes it

heal up and go away. Uh..."



"Dispose of any bodies, human or animal."



"Y-yeah."  She stumbled a bit, caught herself.  "Uh...ensure secrecy from a

human vessel through...theft of memory, deception, or...uh...seduction.  I

feel pretty bad about the idea of making someone fall in love with me just

for their blood, Miriam."



"I understand,"  Miriam replied.  "Ah -- don't tuck your chin.  That's

better.  You have to remember, we're doing what we do to survive.  You

don't do this for power or fun.  And as long as you don't abuse the trust a

willing donor puts in you, where's the harm in making sure they won't

talk?"



Sasha blinked, feeling her stomach unknot.  "Well, um, I guess if you don't

treat them badly, and since you have to..."



"Alternatively, you could do what I do."



"Go trolling for rapists and muggers?"



Miriam grinned a bit.  "They jump you, you whack them on the head, drink

what you need and take their wallets before they wake up.  They won't

report you because, after all, if you do get brought in the reason they

were in that dark alley at 2 AM will eventually come out...rarely do you

find a criminal stupid enough to risk that."



"Can't say they don't deserve it."



"I agree.  Go on, then."



"Um...don't be any crueler than you have to be.  Don't kill unless you have

to.  Don't drink except out of hunger, but fill up as soon as you feel

hungry, so you won't risk losing it and endangering someone."



"Or yourself."



"Um, yeah.  And never kill except for survival."



"And...?"



Sasha gulped.  "Um, no kids.  And no pregnant women.  Not like I would,"

she muttered, disgusted at the thought.



"Good, excellent."  Miriam ended the kata and padded across the grass to

the car.  Sasha had had her doubts about bringing a Mercedes in on the

Golden Gate Park walking trails, but it was amazing what a pair of wire

cutters and a good driver could do.  And Miriam was as good as James Bond

in the movies.  Miriam rummaged in the trunk, coming out with a couple of

bottles of craftbrewed beer.  "Break time," she announced.



Sasha grinned.  But her grin faded as she heard the crunch of gravel under

an approaching car.  A big dark-gray sedan pulled up behind the Mercedes,

and her senses tingled.  "Oh God," she choked out.  "Miri -- "



Cameron opened the passenger door and stepped out, a phosphorous shotgun in

hand.  He leveled it at Miriam as she turned, but he didn't fire.  Three

more Brujah stepped out of the back seat and pulled their guns as well.

Sasha lunged for her own gun, mind racing no no no, not Miriam, she's my

friend -- but Miriam, calm and stony, held up a hand, and Sasha reluctantly

backed off, trying to calm herself.



"Well, well, the Brujah Primogen himself, what a nice surprise," the tall

Gangrel breezed, leaning back against her car, the picture of composure

despite the four shotguns leveled at her.  "To what do we owe the honor of

your visit?"



Cameron smirked, staring at Miriam rudely for a moment.  Then he said, "I

heard a rumor that a Gangrel was actually trying to teach one of my

neonates.  I had hoped it wasn't true, but now I see..."



Miriam looked innocently baffled.  "But it seemed quite clear to all of us

that the Brujah Primogen in his wisdom had decided to leave the training of

his Clan's neonate to others -- "



"What the HELL are you talking about?" Cameron demanded, taking a half step

forward.  The other Brujah growled and muttered threateningly.  "I never

gave permission for anyone to --"



"Nevertheless, with the girl going completely untrained, and thus

endangering herself and others, it seemed safe to assume that you intended

to allow whomever chose to undertake the task, as you had assigned no

Brujah to do so."  Miriam's words were acid-sweet, her faint smile hinting

slyness.



The Rage started showing in Cameron's eyes, turning them a deadly silver.

"Nobody trains Brujah but Brujah.  You've broken the rules, and I'm not

going to take this kind of insult from a Gangrel!"  He leveled his gun --

Sasha's heart froze and she tensed to rush him --



Fwisht!



Cameron's shotgun clattered to the ground.  Miriam had lunged forward,

grabbing him by hair and belt before he could react.  Superior Brujah

strength might have saved him, but she leapt skywards, clearing the sedan

completely, leaving him with no leverage.  She landed on the other side and

slammed him against the car, pinning him and pulling his head back to

expose his throat.  She glared over his shoulder at the others, fangs out

and eyes blazing crimson with lava-colored swirls.



"Try it," she hissed.  Cameron gasped and struggled, feet kicking in the

air, but her knee in his back and her elbow at the base of his skull kept

him immobilized.  His hands were pinned between his midsection and the car

window, his belt buckle biting into his thumb so hard that Sasha saw it

turn dead white.   Miriam's fangs tickled the cords in his neck, her tongue

teasing at the vein.  His eyes went huge and the other Brujah cursed in

astonishment.



"Drop your toys," she snarled, drawing a delicate line of red under

Cameron's chin with her left fang.



He swallowed, pinkish sweat starting on his forehead.  "Do it," he choked,

the silver leaving his eyes.  She licked the wound away delicately and his

eyes slid closed.  Sasha saw terror and desire mix on his face and stared

in astonishment.  Miriam had him completely under her control.  And in

spite of himself, he liked it...



The rest of the shotguns hit the ground as the Brujah milled backwards in

confusion.  Miriam shifted her grip from Cameron's hair to the back of his

neck, pulling him back in a painful arch, her other hand reaching over to

stroke his chest.  His tie shredded.  "Now, listen to me, you little worm,"

she whispered intensely at his ear as he shivered.  "You may not care about

your own childer, but I do.  I'm not going to let some neonate get killed

because of the negligence of your Clan.  And by the rules of the Kindred,

teaching a childe of another Clan isn't a bloodhunting offense.  In fact,"

she murmured, parting the fabric of his shirt with a single claw, "it isn't

an offense at all if I don't claim her as my adopted childe.  Which I

haven't.  So until you assholes start nurturing your own as they deserve, I

will continue to teach the girl."



"W -- why?" he croaked, skin trembling under her finger.



"Because even if she doesn't break the Masquerade through her lack of

education, no childe should have to run around without a clue about even

the basics of survival!"  She shook him for emphasis; his teeth rattled.

"You shame your clan with your neglect of your own.  You shame all of us.

And the poor childe shouldn't have to pay for your negligence."



Tears started in Sasha's eyes as she felt her heart melt in her chest.  She

had never expected anyone to champion her like that, especially not someone

who had only known her a few weeks.  And a Gangrel, too!  Cash would be so

happy that finally someone in his Clan would support their relationship.

And an older Gangrel at that, one even Lorraina seemed to fear...The other

Brujah snarled angrily at the open gratitude on her face -- except Cameron,

who still hung, rapt with fear, from Miriam's hands.



"Don't fuck with me, Cameron," Miriam whispered.  Then she dropped him, and

sank back into the shadows, vanishing completely.



Cameron leaned heavily on the car, chest heaving.  He reached up

mechanically and straightened what was left of his tie, his hair stuck

damply to his forehead.  The other Brujah just stood there, stunned, til he

looked up, eyes bloodshot.



"We kill her," he grated, humiliation and rage resilvering his eyes.



"FUCK YOU!" Sasha heard the scream before she realized it was her own, saw

everything redden and slide before she felt her body move.  Her hands came

up and slammed a Brujah aside as he tried to stop her, knocking him bodily

into the others.  Their guns were still on the ground.  Her heel pulped a

hand that reached for them; its owner howled.  She cleared the hood of the

sedan in two bounds and crashed into the still-shaken Cameron, bearing them

both to the ground.  She grabbed his ears and slammed his head back into

the gravel, again, again, again, til he got his feet under her and shoved

her off.  She screeched and scrambled for him again; he sat up, backhanded

her hard and pinned her down when she hit the turf.



"That's enough!" he snarled in her face as she writhed and growled, rage

juicing her deliciously with singlemindedness and power.  She barely heard

him, and when they brought the stake to paralyze her she threw him off and

ran barefoot into the woods.



CHAPTER NINETEEN



"Where are we going?"  N'kamah asked the Brujah cheerily, despite the steel

manacles binding her hands in front of her.  Her leather coat was ripped

from when they'd hit her with the van; her broken shoulder was slowly

healing even though they had knocked it out of alignment tossing her into

the back.  She had lost her shoes, and one foot was a pulped mess with a

tire track slowly filling in over the arch.  But her smile never wavered.



The eight young Brujah in identical bad suits glared at her and fingered

their phosphorous guns.  It was very dim, and she could barely see their

faces as she glanced around her.  All the vehicles windows but the front

windshield had been blacked out to conceal from those within where the van

was headed and, from those without, the fact there was a kidnapped Gangrel

trussed up in the back.  For once they weren't using Sasha as a driver; a

ninth badly dressed bruiser had taken her place.  In fact, Sasha was

nowhere to be seen.  N'kamah hoped she was all right.



The van went over a pothole; a bone in her wounded foot popped and she

grimaced in pain.  Then she reassembled her charming smile and said, "The

least you could do is tell me why you were so insistant to meet me that you

didn't call ahead first.  I've always got time for fine young men in my

schedule."



They shifted uncomfortably, probably remembering Cameron dangling helpless

from her hands.  The Primogen's naked terror had been delicious.  It must

be rare for them to witness what a real vampire was capable of --



A rifle butt slamming into the side of her head broke her train of thought

all but physically.  "Shut up, bitch!" one of the bruisers snarled as he

lowered his gun.  "You know you're gonna die, so you can cut the bullshit."



She stared at him, a few hints of crimson starting in her eyes, and lapped

at the line of blood that ran down into the corner of her mouth from her

torn scalp.  Then she smiled again, slowly.



The Beast snarled inside her, wanting the little upstart's white throat

between its jaws, now, now.  Patience, she told it, and let a few more

glints of its presence shimmer in her eyes.  The Brujah who had struck her

shuddered and looked away quickly, and the Beast rumbled in faint

satisfaction and waited, crouched within her.



Finally the van ground to a halt and the driver looked back with a grin.

"Welcome to the Barrens, girlygirl," he said, then nodded to the others.

"Bring her, we'll do her under the old pier."  The one closest to the door

slid it open, letting in a dim trickle of light from the fog-shrouded

streetlamps.  Then they jumped out, dragging her bound body with them none

too gently.  Pieces of meat came off her foot as it scraped along the

broken asphalt: she hissed and let the pain fuel her growing frenzy.



She looked around as they carted her towards the sound of lapping water;

the thick fog concealed everything but the time-shredded remnants of a

wooden pier, one streetlight, and the already-fading hulk of the van.  All

nine crowded round as they carried her; no one wanted to miss the show.

And, she noted, they were utterly alone with her.  Her smile became a grin;

her body sagged.



A little groan, like defeat, escaped her as she collapsed within her bonds.

The Brujah chuckled, and almost didn't notice as what they carried kept

sagging, and sagging, until it was an empty coat bound with rope and

chains.  But when the manacles hit the mud with a wet clang, they looked,

and yelled in surprise.



She drifted above them, the fog flowing through her as she flowed through

it, and could not chuckle as their cries vibrated what passed for her body.

Mist has no throat.  They spun around and around in confusion, aiming

their guns at shadows, rainbows of fear and frustration igniting in their

eyes.



Lovely.  She started to swirl downwards, drifting unseen among them as she

waited for an opening.



It came quickly.  The driver drew breath to shout orders to the confused

group; she flowed into his lungs, expanding the rubbery dead flesh until he

began to choke.



Then she reformed.



He ripped apart like a rotten melon, his vitae oiling her skin as she

exploded nude from the steaming remains, claws out and eyes full of

hellfire.  The others howled in terror as their leader burst right in front

of them, and were too shocked to react as she sprang free and slammed into

the one who had struck her before.



She lunged for the Bay as he struggled in her arms, but he didn't have half

of Cameron's power and they went under easy.  Phosphorous bursts fizzled on

the water's surface as she sank her hungry fangs into the little bastard's

neck, gulping messily as his screams bubbled.  It was over quickly; she

stopped short of taking his soul, as the stain that would leave on her own

would have given her away to the psychically gifted.  Not worth it.

Instead, she just popped his head up above the waves and let a panicked

shotgun blast from his kin finish him.  Two down.  Dropping the shriveled

meat that was left, she waited patiently for the gunfire to run out.  Then

she stepped from the water.



Three were in frenzy already, and piled over themselves trying to figure

out whether to run or attack.  The other four were struggling to reload.

One poor bastard lost it completely and snapped his shotgun in half when he

couldn't still his hands enough to slip in the shells.  Stupid childer.



She grinned as she approached, wider and wider until it split her face and

she let the Change come.



Her ears lengthened into bare catlike pyramids as her hair fluffed and

bristled, creeping in a tangled carpet down a back now hunched with muscle.

Her wounded foot and shoulder throbbed as her bones popped and lengthened,

knees reversing and toes sprouting talons.  Her face lengthened into a

muzzle thorned with a double row of teeth; her scarlet eyes grew cat-slits.

Her lean, scarred body bulged with coils of sinew, skin stretched taut

under a sparse layer of black fur.  A tail dropped between her massive

thighs.  Her hands lengthened, her talons going glitter-black, hard and

heavy as laquered iron.  She flexed them, and let a chuckle rumble from her

throat before she gave the Beast its freedom.



The Brujah broke and ran, most to the vehicle, but two stumbled blindly

into the fog.  She blurred after them with a hiss and caught them in four

bounds, pinning them down and shredding their upper bodies to jelly.  Four

down.



The others struggled with the van's ignition, screaming at each other at

the top of their lungs; they got it going just as she turned to deal with

them.  She leapt through the misty air, landing cat-soft on the roof and

digging in her claws, muscles bulging as she peeled it back layer by layer.



Inside, a ragged chorus: curses, screaming, oh God where'smygunwhere''s my

-- you left it on the beach you stupid fuck oh God monster monsterwhat we

gonna do give me that damn grenade and shut up! You shut up, that thing

will blow -- oh gaaAAWWWWWD!



She stared down at them as the van lurched like a wounded animal, steadying

herself with a talon punched entirely through the roof.  Then she let go

and dropped through into the crowd, and the world went red.





Return-Path: 

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 13:47:44 -0700

To: kamala@akos.net

From: rebel@hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Rebecca Lloyd)

Subject: Stranger In Town Chunk 5



CHAPTER TWENTY



"Those things killed nine of my men!" Cameron ranted, eyes silver and hair

askew.  Daedalus sat stone still in his conclave chair as pinkish drops

flew from the enraged Brujah's lips and pattered on his cheek.  Then he

reached up with a black linen handkerchief and wiped them away, letting an

annoyed frown creep over his features.  Cameron barely noticed; he was as

close to a roaring frenzy as any of them had seen him get, which was

probably why he was screaming in the other Primogen's faces.  "Nine Brujah!

That's almost half my Clan in this Godforsaken city -- "



"Watch your mouth," Julian said coldly from the head of the table.



Cameron hissed in a breath, his whole body trembling with barely restrained

rage.  Actually, for a Brujah he was exhibiting a fairly admirable amount

of self-control, Daedalus mused.  Eddie Fiori would have been trying to

forcefeed Julian the Conclave table by now...



"You, your Enforcer and his filthy Gangrel assistant -- " Cameron smirked

as Cash let out a growl and Miriam, who stood behind her Primogen's chair,

arched an eyebrow "-- promised to have this werewolf problem under control

by now.  But instead, they continue to slaughter us with impunity!"



"The situation is being taken care of, Cameron," Julian said with strained

patience.  "If you wish to help it along, you might consider offering

Daedalus your assistance."



Daedalus coughed as all eyes turned to him.  "It might not be that simple.

The Lupines are using the Spirit Realm to move about.  Their ability to

pass in and out of this layer of reality makes them all but impossible to

track, especially since Kindred have no comparable abil -- "



"Fairy tales!" Cameron scoffed.  "There's no such thing as a spirit world!

You're just concocting more elaborate Nosferatu lies to cover up your own

incompe -- "



"Shut UP!" Miriam's defensive snarl rang out over the Conclave table.



Daedalus' chest tightened; he turned to her in shock.  The Primogen stared

at her, dumbfounded by her outburst, though Cash looked somewhat pleased.

Cameron started turning an ugly white, but it was Julian's calm voice that

broke the sudden silence.



"Miriam," he said gently, "It is traditional for non-Elders to speak at the

Conclave table only with the permission of their Primogen."



"Of course," Miriam stammered, abashed.  She dropped a bow aoplogetically

and said, "I will leave if you wish, Excellency."



"That won't be necessary.  But for future reference..."



She nodded, and murmured something apologetic in Cash's ear as well.  He

fought down a grin and looked to Julian.



The Prince settled back in his chair.  "Continue, Daedalus."



Daedalus folded his hands.  He looked at Miriam, and blinked when she

looked away almost shyly.  Intriguing.  He spoke: "The Lupines use guerilla

tactics, tracking an individual or group of Kindred to an isolated area and

then attacking.  They come out of the spirit world one at a time, keeping

some of their members in reserve to ambush anyone who comes to the aid of

their target.  They don't seem to know or care about Kindred Clans or

society; they simply kill anyone they identify as Kindred.  Nor are they

above cutting down any innocent bystanders who get too close.  They see

themselves as holy warriors fighting for a sacred cause, and part of that

cause is to rid the world of Kindred, by any means necessary, including the

slaughter of innocents."



Miriam looked troubled for some reason.  Daedalus stared at her intently,

but she avoided his eyes.



"So," Julian said, leaning forward, "You're saying there is no pattern to

their choice of victims?"



The front door opened suddenly; those assembled jumped a bit, but it was

just Sasha, slipping in with bare feet and dead leaves in her hair.  She

smelled of cool earth and grass and as she shut the door behind her and

peeked in through the archway her eyes locked on Cash and Miriam as if

drawing strength from their presence.  Following her gaze back to the

table, Daedalus saw deep relief on both their faces.  Both?  Miriam caught

him looking and smoothed her face over into an expressionless mask.



Daedalus hesitated, then answered Julian's question.  "That is exactly what

I am saying.  Though not unintelligent, the Lupines simply do not have the

patience to gather the information necessary for a frontal assault on our

seats of power.  They simply pick off whomever among us they run into.

Their victims are chosen by chance.  Which means," he stared back hard into

Cameron's sullen gaze, "That none of us are safe until they are dead."



"What do you recommend that we do, then, Daedalus?"  The Prince looked

concerned now.  Behind Cash, Miriam shifted restlessly.



Daedalus sighed, searching for words that would shed a hopeful light on the

bleak situation.  But there was no getting around it; they were in serious

trouble.  "Stay in groups, try to stay in public areas, avoid the park and

the Barrens until this is over."  He saw Cash and Cameron frown as their

respective territories were mentioned, but he continued without addressing

them.  "Lupines are vulnerable to silver, and to incendiaries, though not

as vulnerable as we are.  No one should go out unarmed, no matter the

circumstances.  Do not try to negotiate with the Lupines; run or fight, and

always assume there are more around than the ones that you see.  Currently

we are assuming that the pack we encountered has at least six members."



"Six?" Cash gulped.  "Daedalus, I've seen what these guys can do.  If

Stevie Ray was still around we might have a chance against them, but as it

is -- "



"We cannot give in to despair," Julian said firmly.  "This crisis can be

dealt with if we can put aside our factionalism long enough to work

together on it.  I know that the majority of our warriors are young and

have never encountered Lupines before.  However, with the proper knowledge

and equipment -- "



"Examples?" Cameron asked flatly.  His Rage was draining down to a

controllable level, but he still looked unconvinced.



"Perhaps my assistant would have something to say on that matter," Daedalus

said, watching Miriam's reaction carefully.  She blinked and hesitated,

then looked to Cash.  He nodded and smiled reassuringly to her; Daedalus

saw her eyes soften a bit.



Miriam stepped forward, and spoke with the expressionless precision of a

military officer giving a status report.  "We take full advantage of their

vulnerability to silver.  Silver is a light metal which when used by itself

is a poor material for bullets; its lack of weight causes it to spin off

course when fired.  To offset this, we use small caliber lead-cored slugs

in relatively inexpensive automatic weapons.  My personal favorite is the

Uzi submachine gun."



Cameron blinked; Julian looked impressed.  Cash looked rather shocked, but

pleasantly.  "Ok," Cash said.  "So that's what we arm ourselves with.  How

do we get close enough to use the guns without getting jumped by six of

them at once?"



"By using their own tactics against them," Miriam replied calmly.  "Certain

of our members have the ability to conceal groups of people from even the

heightened senses of the Lupines.  One or more of these groups, armed as I

have described, will follow an individual Kindred into one of the outlying

areas.  When the animals manifest to attack, it will not even be necessary

to come out of hiding to exterminate them."



Daedalus glanced around the table.  The Primogen and the others assembled

were nodding, clearly impressed, save Cameron, who still looked skeptical,

and Lillie, who looked bored.  Remaining in public areas had never been a

problem for Toreador, after all, and her people weren't warriors, so on an

emotional level she probably saw no relevance to her people in the

discussion.  Of course, she was still practical enough to listen.



"Nice plan," Cameron said, the slightest edge of sarcasm to his voice.  "So

who do you propose gets to be the bait?"



Miriam wasn't looking back at him.  She was looking over at the archway,

where Sasha stood watching the discussion -- watching her, Daedalus

realized.  Watching Miriam.  Watching her with those eyes which despite her

calm, tough expression were as fragile as ever, but hopeful.  Eyes that

thought they were looking at a hero, a champion, an ideal to be followed.

The eyes of a student for a beloved teacher; eyes filled with a delicate

and tentative love.



Miriam squirmed uncomfortably under that gaze, not that of the rest of the

room, which was on her as well.  No; she had eyes only for Sasha, who

inexplicably was hanging on her every word.  And through the crack in

Miriam's composure Daedalus saw again that old and terrible pain.



Then Miriam squared her shoulders and raised her head, jewel eyes sweeping

back to take in the Primogen.



"I shall be," she said firmly.



And Sasha smiled.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



"What am I doing?!?" N'kamah asked herself out loud for the eighth time as

she paced her mansion's immaculate halls.  The boxes were long gone; thick

carpeting muffled her bare feet as she padded along.  She paused at a

gilt-edged mirror in the hall outside one of the guest rooms and stared

intently at her reflection, as if something in her physical appearance

could help her discern the cause of her odd behavior.  Her face was

haggard; hair askew from its braid and faint gleams of crimson in her eyes.

She needed to feed.  No, she had just fed.  She needed rest.  She could

not rest.  She needed...



The temptation to smash the mirror with her fists welled up and she turned

away with a snarl.  What was wrong with her?  She had just volunteered to

risk her very existence to save Kindred she was supposed to be setting up

for death.  She was about to waste even more time with Daedalus and Sasha

and the rest of them when she should be prowling the Nosferatu Kingdom

searching for Camilla.  She was about to go trolling for werewolves on the

sayso of a foppish Prince and his hopelessly disorganized elders.  Being a

deep-cover agent was one thing, but risking all to save those you were

spying upon?  Madness!  What was wrong with her?



She hurried into her kitchen and reached for a phone.  She would call her

Ritemother and advise her of the situation.  Magdalena and the other

Ahrimanes had enough detachment from the normal Sabbat fanaticism that they

would be able to help her without judging her too harshly.  Perhaps they

would even let her come home and send a replacement.  Punishment for her

failure wouldn't be so bad; so she would be blind for a week, and the idiot

new recruits would get to string her up and feed on her blood.  So what?

She could endure that.  The pain and confusion that being in this situation

was causing her, she couldn't --



She dropped the phone and crouched, holding her head.  She had never failed

in a mission, certainly never for emotional reasons.  The Sabbat cared

little for one's feelings when they got in the way of duty; duty was all,

and she was one of their best despite her youth.  She was a military woman,

born and bred, long before the Sabbat had gotten to her; could she with

good conscience neglect her duty just because something about her foes here

stirred her dead heart in painful ways?  Ridiculous!  She was N'kamah,

Stalking Cat of the Ahrimanes!  She was honor bound to be better than this.



All these years of blood and war and horror, she had never faltered, not

even when she still despised the Sabbat for shackling her to them heart and

soul.  Duty first and duty always, no matter who fell beneath her claws;

princes and neonates and human vessels alike, she never faltered, never

showed the least weakness.  A swift death was the only mercy she was

allowed to show her prey; and so she was the master of death, swift and

decisive.  Even those among the Sabbat who despised the Ahrimanes for their

independence were invariably impressed with the unflinching skill with

which she executed her duties.



Duty, honor, expediency.  Mercilessness.  Excellence.  These things

mattered.  Not personal ideals.  Not feelings, though she was free to

indulge them whenever it did not distract from her mission.



Not memories...



"Stop it," she hissed, squeezing the heels of her hands against her

temples.  "Stop it, stop it, stop it."  Her heart banged away uncomfortably

in her chest, and she felt her claws lengthening against her skin.  "No.

No. No no no no no. NO!" She slammed both fists against the floor, denting

the linoleum, the pain in her hands flushing away the torrent of unwanted

images.  She panted, forcing her heart to still and the fire to leave her

eyes.  "Leave me alone," she whispered, and dropped her face into her

hands.



When she had composed herself enough to realize that she was acting rather

ridiculously, she stood slowly and smoothed her shirtfront.  Calm.

Composure.  She grasped for them, got a tenuous hold, and paced into her

study, sliding into a chair.  Propping her chin on her fist, she said to

herself, "Focus.  Find the problems.  Deal with them.  Why am I here?"



She was here to find out and report back what had happened to Camilla and

Goth.  Half her duty was done; she had not yet told her contacts about

Camilla.  She was also here to bring back any survivors of the pair, still

undead if possible, or if it was proven that they had deserted, dead was a

tolerable alternative.



Two nights ago she had seen Camilla face to face.  Her only alternative now

was to go and find her, to confront her and to kill her if she must.

Anything else she did was at her own discretion, so long as secrecy was

maintained and her duty was executed as completely as possible.  Or to

abdicate and let the Sabbat send someone more suited for the task at hand.



Meaning, of course, more brutal...more jaded...more ruthless.  Beings who

would drain Camilla dry, Daedalus if he got in the way, and who would

recruit Sasha probably by dumping her in a grave and --



Stop it!



She clenched her fist until red rivulets ran into every pore and crease at

the ball of her thumb, then sighed, resigned.  She had to go through with

this.  Besides, one of those stupid non-Ahrimanes would probably make a

bloody botch-up of the whole job anyway.



She tromped up the stairs and threw herself into bed.  Dawn was coming.  A

few comatose hours would do her good...



...earth, wet, stale, rot-smelling, things wriggling through it, things

stabbing her, bits of bone, gelid fragments clutching at her face, lips,

inside of her throat...so dry...so dry...burning inside.  Head roiling with

mad images -- where am I?  Who am I?  Where...what...she grabbed a

name...Miriam.



My name is Miriam.



Earth, rock, loam, mud, pressing down on her, sliming her flesh, she should

be choking to death on it but she wasn't choking, wasn't breathing, no

movement nothing no heartbeat -- dead dead dead.  She was dead.  She was

dead.  But she didn't like it there.  Not in the grave.  She was dead, but

she wanted to move.  Move.  Claw upwards.  Climb.  She should not have been

strong enough to burrow through the choking black mess above her, but it

yielded as she shouldered upwards, reluctant as flesh parting, wet darkness

sucking at her hungrily from below.  But up she went.  Hands tearing,

pushing frantically as more moldy dirt tumbled in to fill in the spaces she

made -- like digging a hole at the beach in the wet sand.  She was scooping

out the sand and the water welled up and the edges softened and the grains

slid slowly back in until the hole vanished.  But she loved to dig, giggled

when the holes fell in on themselves, dug out more with the smooth little

shovel.  No, not her, Eric, little brown stick-legs in wet shorts, blind

eyes above a smile bright as the sun.  Sun.  Terror.  Fear of the sun.

Where is he?  Where did he go?



Where is my son?



Up.  She had to go up, or she would be down there forever.  Stretching for

sky, she kicked and clawed and spat black glop back out as it forced its

way past her lips.  Up. Up.  The burning in her belly, limbs, veins,

growing wilder, more demanding, her teeth were too big for her mouth, they

pierced her lip but nothing came, no wet, no salt, no blood.  She was dry.

So dry.  Had to have blood.



She exploded upwards, roaring and choking and puking out wormy earth as

chunks of gravedirt flew around her.  Figures waiting up there looked down,

startled despite themselves, with terrible bright eyes.  She lunged for

them roaring --



Huge chalk white hands caught her wrists and yanked her from the miasma of

her first frenzy as easily as pulling a root from the earth.  Dark coolness

and confusion.  She thrashed, fighting the cold iron grip that held her;

snapped angrily at the shadowy figure looming over her.  But he pinned her

down, dispassionate and firm but gentle, until finally her darkened bedroom

swam into view and she remembered herself.



Moonlight streamed through the curtains.  It was sometime the next night,

and she had been -- remembering?



No.  Dreaming.  Just dreaming.



Daedalus's face was a blurred white oval with black pits for eyes.  "Are

you all right?" he asked softly as he bent over her, the concern in his

voice making her stomach tighten.  "You were screaming -- "



"What the hell are you doing in my home?" she snarled defensively, jerking

her hands out of his grasp.



Daedalus blinked.  "I -- I came to tell you that the Conclave has ended its

deliberations," he stammered, drawing back his hands.  "They have approved

your plan and we should have the weapons, ammunitions and volunteers we

need within a week."



"Fast work," N'kamah commented, smoothing her robe as she sat up.  "Very

well then.  What do we do until then?"



"Keep our heads down, and pray they don't grow any bolder than they have

been."  Daedalus' voice was grim, but she felt his eyes drawn to the line

of her smooth brown leg against her luminous white sheets.  Not half as

unflappable as he pretended, she mused, but she didn't comment aloud.



Instead, she rose, rebelting her robe, and said, "Well, since you are here

and we've nothing better to do at the moment, would you consider coming

down and joining me in a game of chess?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO



Three nights into the security lockdown that restricted the Nosferatu to

the main tunnels, Camilla thought she would go mad.  Though the Nosferatu

certainly had bigger things to worry about than the devil-eyed clanmate

among them, the werewolf situation seemed to heighten their paranoia

towards her instead of decreasing it.  All Nosferatu prefer their privacy;

now there was little for them, and all but none for her with the way they

stared at her as she walked by.  She tried walking around Obfuscated, but

someone in the crowded tunnels was always stepping on her foot or elbowing

her or running into her accidentally, so that didn't work too well.



Finally she had had enough, and since N'kamah had not made an appearance

again and probably would not so long as Lupines were prowling the sewers,

she decided that risking death by werewolf claw was worth it, and she

veiled herself with shadows and slipped away into the side tunnels.



N'kamah.  They had been packmates after Goth had drawn her into the Sabbat

out of spite against the Prince of San Francisco.  They had been bound

together by both friendship and the artificial love cultivated by the

sacred Vaulderie ritual.  But despite the fact that N'kamah was Harmonist,

and opposed to unnecessary killing, Camilla had never seen her shirk her

duties because of her feelings.  No; even after all she had been through,

that particular City Gangrel had never given anything less than her all to

the Sabbat.  It was even rumored that she did not at all remember her human

life, though this could not be verified.  Noble, she was; merciful when she

could be; but humane?  Never.  If, and Camilla was almost certain that it

was true, the Sabbat had sent her to investigate their failure, then

Camilla was in all probability going to die, very soon.



Ironically, the werewolf attack might well have saved Camilla, for it

bought her the time to formulate a plan on how to deal with her former

packmate.  The bonds of Vinculum that bound them were fading, but perhaps

they would be enough to stay N'kamah's hand.  Perhaps --



A shadow detatched from the wall beside her.  Metal snicked against metal

and then pressed against her throat, scissoring her neck between it and the

tunnel wall.  "Become visible, and do not move," N'kamah's grim voice came,

as cold as the razor edge of the katana.



Camilla froze obediently and unveiled herself, knowing that anyone who

answered a cry for help would simply be slain.  She tried to pierce the

darkness to see N'kamah's face, but the tall figure was completely swathed

in black, and a black enamel mask covered her face.  Horns curled back over

her hooded head; a cat-eyed dragon.  Her lips in the pale slice of face

below the mask's snaggled upper jaw pressed together in a grim, colorless

line.



"You survive, Camilla," the figure said simply, black gloved hands steady

on the swordhilt.  "And yet your mission is unaccomplished, and you did not

return to us."



"No," Camilla whispered drily.  "I did not."



"Why?"



Camilla blinked, and hunted for words, to placate more than explain.  But

what came out was "How do you know I was not followed?  We could be

surrounding you even now."



"If you look down and to your left you will notice a small metallic object

against the tunnel wall.  That is a motion detector.  I have seeded a

quarter mile of this tunnel with them; that was how I caught you so easily.

Amazing the equipment that being independently wealthy can get you."



"Assassin!" Camilla heard herself hiss.  "How can you be so casual about

this?  We were friends!"



"We still are, Camilla," N'kamah said softly.  "Which is why I have to

know.  Why did you betray us?  Betray me?  Have you no idea how much it

wounds me to have to come look for you like this?"



"I did not betray you, N'kamah," Camilla replied tiredly.  "I simply..."



"You know why they sent me?"



"Yes."



"And you know what I must do if you refuse to return with me?"



"Y -- " she choked a bit.  "Yes."



"Then you know I don't have to ask for reasons.  But I, as a friend,

Camilla -- I must know.  Why did you leave us?  Why did you put me in this

position?  Please, do not lie."



"I'm sorry, Kamah," Camilla said, sad despite the blade at her throat.  "I

did not know that they would send you.  I know that it must hurt you to

have to threaten me like this.  We're still Packmates, still Bound -- "



"Don't depend too heavily upon the Vinculum to save you, Camilla."

N'kamah's voice was heavy with warning.  "It no longer exists.  I am

Ahrimane now.  All my past bonds are broken."



Camilla's blood chilled inside her.  No chance then.  She was damned.  But

-- "Then why do you still follow them, Kamah?  You hated what they did to

you!  If the bond is broken, then -- "



N'kamah snapped out her words angrily; defensively.  "Perhaps because

unlike you I have a sense of duty and honor to those I owe allegiance to.

My Ritemother is closer kin to me than any sire or human relation ever

could have been."



"Closer than your son?" Camilla felt the words stab home in the hissing

intake of N'kamah's breath.



Twin flares of red in the darkness.  "You know nothing of my son."  The

swordblade trembled.



"Neither do you, anymore..."



The blade pressed hard against her; she whimpered, the sound drowned in the

Ahrimane's angry growl.  "Be silent on that.  Tell me instead.  Why did you

leave?"



"I never belonged with the Sabbat, N'kamah," she whispered, throat

vibrating against the cold metal.  "I was there because that was where Goth

was, and he is gone."



"That is not good enough!  We are your family!  You swore oaths to us.  How

could you prefer the company of these simpering sycophants over those of

true Cainites?"



"They're not like that!"  Camilla heard herself saying.  Images of Julian

and Daedalus filled her mind.  "Surely you understand by now that the

description of the Kindred as simple puppets of the Antediluvians is

blatant propaganda!  They are people -- people, just like us, and in many

cases, better!"



N'kamah was panting softly in the dark.  Camilla wished fervently that she

could see her face, read something of her expression.  Then the swordblade

began to ease away from her neck.  Perhaps she would let her go after all

--



But her hope was crushed by the deadness in N'kamah's voice when she next spoke:



"You have two nights to make your decision: return with me, or come and

submit to my judgment.  Two nights.  If you tell anyone about me, or try to

escape, I will kill my way through these tunnels until I find you again."



Then the sword whickered away, and she felt a cold wind blow past her.

N'kamah was gone.



Return-Path: 

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 13:49:53 -0700

To: kamala@akos.net

From: rebel@hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Rebecca Lloyd)

Subject: Stranger In Town Chunk 6

Cc: rebel@ocf.berkeley.edu



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE



"Say what you want; I'm going." Sasha stared back at the Prince, the tilt

of her chin still childishly obstinate.  But there was new steel in her

eyes, and the sight of it clearly shocked Julian.  Daedalus, however, had

expected it.  He had followed the childe and Miriam to the park on more

than one occasion, and had learned of their secret training sessions.  So

now Sasha has a sensei, he mused.  Good; she needs one.  And understandable

that she would wish to accompany her teacher on such a dangerous mission.

After all, there was a good chance that Miriam would not survive the night

-- and then Sasha would never see her again.



"Sasha -- " Julian and Cash said as one, with the same tired intonation.



"No, forget it," Sasha snapped, glaring at both of them.  "I'm tired of you

treating me like a baby.  You make all this big noise about how we have to

all learn to work together, but when I try to do my part you always say no.

It's hypocrisy.  And I'm not taking it."



They blinked; their mouths flapped; their eyes were full of shock.

Cameron's eyebrows raised and he leaned back in his Conclave seat.

Daedalus fought down a smile, and saw that Lillie was doing the same.



Miriam, standing in a corner of the room a bit apart from the other

non-elders, was as impassive as a stone goddess.  Her eyes were hidden

behind the insectile gleam of her sunglasses; her braid was tightened

severely, flattening her lustrous hair against her skull.  Her clothing was

a simple black unitard, a nod to the fact that anything she wore would in

all probability be shredded beyond repair by the end of the night.  Uzi on

her right hip, spare banana clips taped end-to-end hanging from her

gunbelt.  Julian's suppliers had come through.



"I can't let anything happen to you, Sasha." Julian's voice was heavy with

regret.



"And you think locking me up here will keep me out of danger?!?  What if

those monsters come here?  Daedalus said more than once that there's no

real way to predict where and when they'll show up!  This is stupid!  I

belong with you, and with Miriam!  I have the right to stand with the

others.  You don't have the right to deny me that!"



Miriam's head turned slowly, the rest of her held absolutely still.  Her

braid slipped across the muscles of her bare back with a faint silking

sound.  Her face was stony, expressionless.  But Daedalus knew she was

watching the girl.



"As Prince of this city," Julian snapped, "I have the right to deny you

anything I choose! You're the last of my family, and I won't see you

risking yourself like this!  You know very well that some of us, maybe

many, won't survive this mission.  Do you really want to risk forcing us to

carry you home in a bag?"



Sasha blinked, and looked uncertain.  "No...but it's no safer here than..."



"I don't believe that," Julian replied flatly.  "No; you're staying here,

with Lillie and the Toreador.  Lillie, don't let her follow us."



Lillie inclined her head in agreement, but Daedalus saw doubt in her eyes.

he thought of speaking up against this; the child would indeed be much

safer in a group, surrounded by armed Kindred and Obfuscated from the

Lupines' sight.  And, in his opinion, she should be allowed to defend the

city alongside the others.  How else was she ever going to earn their

respect?



But Cash and Julian were nodding at Sasha implacably, eyes stony with the

authority they believed that they held over her.



"Bastards!" Sasha snarled, and stomped away to her room.  They make her

feel like a childe, so she acts like one, Daedalus thought to himself.  But

at least now they could get on with the hunt.



Julian sighed.  "Miriam, are you ready?"



Miriam nodded.  "I am."



"Then let's get moving."



Daedalus offered the battered overcoat he was holding; she stepped up to

him and let him slip it on over her shoulders, concealing her weapon.  He

fought down the urge to move closer and covertly smell of her hair for what

would probably be the last time, just as he had fought down asking her why

she was volunteering for this suicide mission.  He was certain that her

reasons were as complex as she herself was; in fact, she might not fully

understand them herself.  In any case, her courage had earned her the right

to keep silent.



Provided that she was not setting them all up...



Shaking his head at his own paranoia, he followed her out to the vans

waiting in the courtyard.  Glancing up at the upstairs windows, he saw

Sasha watching them go, her eyes dry and calculating.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR



"How do they know how to find us, anyway?" Cameron asked, his hands flying

over his M-16 as he reassembled and loaded it.  He was very, very good at

it, Daedalus noted.  No big surprise.  The calm in his voice, however, was

a shock; the other Brujah were in a state of barely controlled panic at the

idea of going werewolf-hunting.



"By scent," Miriam replied simply from beside him.  She was slouched

casually against the van wall, as if they were heading to the beach instead

of trolling for Lupines with her as bait.  Daedalus breathed in her own

scent again and again, furtively: sandalwood, and blood.  Human blood.



"Scent?"  Cameron looked incredulous.



"Scent.  The Lupines don't use visual psionic markers, as we do; they

don't, for instance, view photoelectric auras.  Their wolf heritage shows

in their primary dependence on scent; in fact, in their language, metaphors

for perception which we would normally associate with sight are instead

associated with scent.  Even those born human eventually use such

banalities as "this doesn't smell right" instead of "I don't like the looks

of this."  Et cetera."



"So?  I can't sense any difference between the way we smell and a human

smells, for example."



Daedalus heard himself chime in before he realized it.  "Their senses

extend far beyond those of any other being, natural or supernatural.

Though their visual and auditory receptors aren't much better than a

wolf's, they can indeed sense the chemical markers which are a byproduct of

Kindred, Lupine, or human metabolism.  There is a rumor that they can also

smell out a Magus, though Magii are physically essentially human."



"Why couldn't we mask it then, say, with cologne?"  Cameron actually seemed

interested for once.  The van jerked as it went over a pothole; he

muttered.



"My research indicates that the chemical markers are pheremonal, not

specifically something you actually smell.  It's a different set of nerve

endings.  The end result is that the races don't actually smell like

anything different from one another; the pheremone sensors simply leave the

Lupine with the certainty that they are facing, say, Kindred.  This might

also have something to do with why many animals are frightened around us."



"So how can your little invisibility trick conceal us from them?"



"I have no idea whatsoever.  But it does -- that has been proven..."



Miriam was watching him behind her sunglasses.  He shifted uncomfortably

and fell silent.



"Where is our first dropoff?" she asked suddenly.



"Erm...Golden Gate Park," he replied.  Cameron had gone back to prepping

his weapon.



Miriam nodded, and went quiet as well, staring off into space behind her

glasses.  He watched her, and watched her, and watched her, damning this

suicide mission and his own weakness.



The van rolled to a stop too soon.  Miriam hopped to her feet and rolled

aside the door, exposing a hillside covered with trees.  She looked around

carefully, then glanced back.



"Prepare the others.  I'm going."



He was still hunting for a reply when she stepped out of the van and strode

into the woods.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE



The trees whispered to her as she padded barefoot down the path, feeling

the cool earth between her toes.  Danger, they said.  Danger.  Wait, she

replied in the silent language she had long since learned from her

Ritemother.  Tell me when they are coming.  Do not warn me before.



But trees don't know about waiting; they aren't aware of the flow of time,

merely of being, moment to moment.  Danger, they rumbled dumbly, branches

restless in the wind.  And the hair on the back of N'kamah's neck stood and

danced.  But she kept walking regardless.



A shadow flicked through the trees before her; she slipped her hand beneath

her coat and thumbed open the catch on her holster.  She did not like being

dependent on anyone else to rescue her.  But right now she had no choice;

she had to trust that Daedalus would bring the others in time, safely

cloaked and guns ready.



Her sire, not her Ritemother but her first sire, would have sneered at the

thought of depending on non-Sabbat Kindred for anything, especially

protection.  They were cowards, he had told her.  Simpering, backstabbing,

and soft.  They could never be trusted for anything except to take

advantage of you whenever they could.



And now she was risking everything on the slim premise that he had been wrong.



Why?  She asked the trees.  Why?  This is not my war.



We are all, they whispered to her.  We are one.



Stupid trees.



Danger, they moaned gently in her mind.



Then, a low growl.



She caught a musky animal scent and froze; then it stepped from behind a

giant pine, black-tipped grey fur bristling over massive muscles.  Its

taloned hands flexed and unflexed hungrily; a wide, ugly grin split its

wolfish lips.  "Leech!" it rasped.



She saw the warmarks burned through its fur, the white streaks of

battle-scars, and the bracelets of Kindred teeth around its massive wrists.

Saw the heavy silver knife riding a worn belt at its hip.  Saw the

psychotic gleam in its eye.



Oh well, she thought to herself.  I can always mistform and escape if the

others prove as cowardly as Vanyel claimed...



Her right hand freed the Uzi beneath her coat and thumbed off the safety.

Her left slipped into an ammo pouch, felt the leather thong and the pointed

trophies riding it inside.  She let herself back up as the thing coiled to

spring, the genocidal grin never leaving its lips.  Then slid the thong

free and held it and its glittering cargo up:



Werewolf teeth.



"Come get me, you pile of dogshit," she hissed.



Its grin vanished; psychosis took its eyes completely as the air around it

shimmered.  Then there were four of the monsters, roaring, the first

already in midleap.



She stood stone-still, but her gunhand under the coat tracked its descent

and her finger tightened on the trigger.



Then there was a wind, a hot, chattering wind blowing past her from behind:

a wind full of lead and silver.



Daedalus.



She threw herself flat and rolled as the perforated hulk of the Lupine

leader slammed bonelessly towards the ground.  Its claws bit dirt beside

her head, so sharp they went in silent up to the third knuckle.

Deathtwitch rippled over its form; she shoved the Uzi in its ear and

stilled it with a short burst.



DANGER DANGER the trees screamed as bullets shredded their bark.  She took

the hint and kept moving.  Two Lupines down, one with brains blown out, the

other flopping and howling, hamstrung by invisible talons.  Where were the

others?



One, bleeding, roaring, wading blindly into the hail of gunfire, Rage alone

keeping him upright, going after the unseen source of his leader's death.

The other was -- was -- she looked around frantically.



Branches broke above her.



Oh Caine, the trees --!



A huge black shape slammed into her from above; teeth as long as her

fingers met in her shoulder.  It snarled and shook her like a chewtoy,

sending fire down her arm as muscles tore and popped.  She howled and

writhed, fighting the Beast and the urge to Wildform; one look at that and

the Kindred would know her for sure --



White pain stitched up her side and into the Lupine, knocking its jaws

away.  Rich crimson drizzled from a perfectly round hole in its lower jaw.

She lunged forward, fangs out, and fastened on the wound; drank hungrily as

the Uzi bucked and bucked and bucked in her fist.  The thing shrieked as

its ribs splintered inward; then its lungs gave and its voice dwindled to

sucking groans.  Its claws barely raked her back; she braced her free hand

in its fur and kept drinking, her finger holding the trigger down though

the chamber clicked emptily somewhere on the edge of her mind.



A death-howl came from somewhere; Lupine or Kindred, she did not know.  The

thing she fastened to was dry, its supernatural vitality a burning weight

in her belly; she shoved the hairy bulk away with her good arm and snarled.

The Beast had her now, the Lupine's rage adding to her own.  Burn it off.

She let the landscape shift and blur as she pounded towards the hamstrung

Lupine.  Easy prey.  She did not even think of its claws or the mangled

meat hanging from her left shoulder.  Vaguely she heard someone running

behind her; man-sized but growling like an animal.  She threw herself

towards the crippled beast, but the one behind her was faster somehow and

he slammed into her and flung her aside.



"Mine!" she heard herself screech as she regained her feet.  The Kindred

were already surrounding it, emptying their weapons into her prize, turning

its twitching form to a loose red mess.  She would kill them all --



A shape flickered into view in front of her -- another one -- she lunged

for it before the others could get it.  Black and white, this one, stark

and strange; too small, she realized vaguely through the red haze.  No

matter.  It was hers.  She leapt for it, claws out, the forgotten thong of

Lupine teeth trailing from her thumb.



The shock of it catching her woke a thudding ache in her shoulder and

cleared some of the red from her vision.  It had her talons clasped in its

own, and it was strong; rage made her stronger though, and she was forcing

it slowly to the ground.  Then she realized it was yelling at her.



"Enough, Miriam!  Enough!  They're dead!"



Daedalus?



Danger, the trees whispered.



He lunged forward and wrestled her back against the solidity of a

treetrunk; the bony part of his wrist was jammed far back in her mouth; she

couldn't bite.  She twisted and shrieked, gnawing futilely at the

obstruction keeping her from his veins.  He pinned her against his chest,

twisting one of her arms behind her as he yelled into her face.



"They are dead!  We're safe now.  You did it.  You did it!"



Her struggles slowed; she stared at him in confusion, her heart still

beating so hard it hurt.  Done what?  Had she just saved them all?  Why

would she do such a thing?



She sagged slowly, claws and fangs retracting and heart coming to a

reluctant stop.  She could feel his own heart pounding, and realized he was

stroking her hair and that her cheek was pressed against the rough wool

covering his shoulder.



"Where's Eric?" she mumbled numbly against him.



He pulled back and blinked at her.  "Who?"



"Sasha," she repeated, or thought she did.  Firmly.  "Where is Sasha?"

Daedalus moved back and helped her up; her unitard was shredded in spots

but still decent.  The bullet wounds had closed, and the itchy pancakes of

metal dropped out of her epidermis as she moved.  Her left shoulder was one

huge burning ache, front and back.  Once she had some privacy, she could

use Vicissitude to close the streaming wounds.  Until then, however, she

was content to let Cash and Daedalus help her back to the van.



"We got them?" she mumbled, fumbling her thong back into its case.



Cash smiled grimly.  "All four.  Looks like you'll be able to add to that

tooth collection of yours."



"I only killed one myself.  Divide the rest of the trophies amongst yourselves."



Cash blinked, and looked at her searchingly.  "But you took a really big

risk..."



She hissed with pain as they lifted her into the van.  "N-no," she said.

"It is a matter of honor.  One risks oneself for the group one depends on.

I would have done the same even if there were no glory to be won.



"Where is Sasha?" she asked again as they settled her into a seat, and

wondered why she cared.  Let the childe fend for herself if she felt worthy

of it.  It did not matter to N'kamah.  "Where is she?" she asked again, and

cursed the urgency in her voice.



The van shuddered as Cameron started it; the original driver, one of

Cameron's lieutenants, was in a body bag at the back of the van.  He had

not yet shut the door, and N'kamah found herself staring dully into the

trees.



"Sasha's safe at home -- " Cash started, and then a shadow crossed the

square of greenery.  N'kamah focused dully on the Prince; his face was

haggard and a cellular phone hung from his hand.



"No," Julian mumbled, a hurt, baffled look lurking in his eyes.  "Lillie

just called.  She's escaped.  She rappelled down from the roof.  She

just...where...where did she learn to do that?"



Idiot, N'kamah almost snarled.  Serves you right for treating her like a

china doll.  Like chattel.  Caging her.  Humiliating her.  Serves you ri --





Six?



Six?!?



"Daedalus," she croaked.  "How many werewolves were in that pack?"



Stunned silence.  Then:



"Oh God," Cash whispered.



Serves you right, she thought again, and then shocked herself by standing.



"No, you're wounded!" Daedalus cried, grabbing for her.  Her shoulder-ache

melted with her and she slipped through his fingers, wafting up and out of

the van.  They called after her, but she was gone.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX



Flying as an owl required little wing movement; their big, soft bodies were

as light as clouds, and took comparatively little effort to keep aloft.

Which was fortunate, because N'kamah's left wing was one big throbbing welt

from base to tip.  Damn Lupines.  And damn her for being so weak, so

sentimental.  One favorable reflection in an innocent's eyes, and here she

was risking herself again and again to keep it there.  The Sabbat would

have torn off her arms for letting such foolishness divert her from her

duties.



But then again, the Sabbat weren't here.  It was just her, and the remnants

of her human conscience, which she clung to so pitifully.



Her huge moon-eyes swept the forest floor as she glided along; Sasha would

be down there somewhere.  She had probably overheard at some point that

they were checking the park tonight, and in her blind determination to come

to their aid she would be doing her best to track them.



Her head spun.  Lupine blood leeched slowly into her limbs from her belly;

it made her muscles thrum with chained energy.  She had to keep control.

Rescuing Sasha would do her no good if she ended up killing the poor girl

in a frenzy.



After a long while, she scented gasoline; fresh, and a single track

skidding and waving among the trees.  Motorcycle.  She circled and swept

down, following it as best she could around the stiffness in her wing.



The track ended suddenly; Sasha's bike, parked behind some bushes with the

engine ticking down.  N'kamah landed beside it, ignoring the scream in her

shoulder as she shifted back.  "Sasha?" she called.  "Sasha!"



Gunfire exploded to her right; she whirled, groped for her empty holster,

and let out a snarl of frustration as she dove through the brush.  Levered

herself up on her arms, ignoring the pain, looked up: Sasha, backed against

a tree, Uzi in hand, her blouse ripped and oozing clawmarks slashed across

her bare hip.



Two huge hairy figures advanced on the girl, their backs to N'kamah and

their hackles bristling.



Sasha looked up at her; her innocent eyes showed whites all around, like

those of a spooked horse.



Let her die, part of N'kamah whispered.  There is no excuse for rescuing

her.  Once she is dead you will be free of whatever hooks she has put in

your soul, and you can perform your duties without distraction.  You can

tell the Kindred that you could not get to her in time...



N'kamah lowered her eyes slowly, and took one step backwards into the bush



but



Red tears starting in Sasha's eyes.  She could smell them.  And her voice,

a bare whisper: "Please..."



Eric.



"Get away from my childe, you filthy animals," she snarled.



The werewolves grunted in astonishment and turned; she was halfway across

the clearing by then.  Amazement filled their eyes; a single, wounded

Leech, unarmed, roaring towards them with claws out...?  Then they were

facing her, treetrunk legs braced and talons glittering.



"Run, Sasha!" N'kamah screamed as she slammed her shoulder into the larger

one's chest, knocking it to the ground.  Its arms closed around her in a

brutal embrace; claws raked her back, shredding through Lycra, skin and

muscle.  Her talons dug in and in at its ridged belly, burrowing

frantically towards the thump of its pulse; she could barely draw air to

scream.  "Run!"



Hot red splashed down her belly with arterial vigor, but the thing was

about to take out her spine.  She would die.  She would die, and they would

kill Sasha anyway, and Camilla would get away without having to face her

punishment.  She would fail everyone.



No!



She could not die this way, a failure --



She let the Wildform take her instead.



Shredded flesh screamed as the Change made it swell and sprout hair; she

did not seem to have a square inch of skin left anywhere.  But the shift

was true, and she felt the power of it burn through her limbs.



The werewolf barked in surprise as the thing he held grew to match his

size; then he shrieked as her lengthening talons closed around his heart.

It squirmed like a slick, struggling animal in her barbed grip; she

squeezed.  Then pulled.  The twitching organ ripped free with a wet sound

and he sagged, choking out a bloodstained whimper as the life left him.



She heaved him aside as the other slammed into her, trying to pin her arms;

she rolled back, letting him bring her to the ground as she dug her

foreclaws into his shoulders.  Her rear talons flexed eagerly as she

struggled to bring them to bear; dirt and pine needles ground agonizingly

into her back.  She screamed despite herself and shoved his hairy invasive

bulk up to give her clearance, but his jaws came down and clamped around

her throat.



No!  She dug her foreclaws into the corners of her mouth as if prying loose

a pitbull; her thumbclaws found his eyesockets and pushed in until blood

and jelly spurted around them; but he held on, impossibly tenacious, and

his talons under her were digging in, impaling her --



Gunfire.  She felt him shake as it stitched his back; his startled yelp

hurt her ears.  He rolled up instinctively as the silver burned smoking

trails across his flesh -- and she had him.



She had not learned this trick as Gangrel or Ahrimane; rather from a

scraggly white kitten she had once rescued from an alley.  Lessons come

from strange places, her mind echoed as she sank in fangs and foreclaws and

started bicycling her rearclaws against the Lupine's flesh.



He wailed, flopping weakly in her grasp; one of the bullets had shattered

his spine.  Chunks of fur and meat flew as she raked his thighs and belly

down to the bone.



The Rage rode her hard.  She did not stop til his vein collapsed under her

lips and his last twitches died.  But then the pain and weakness crept back

into her consciousness, and she went limp under his bulk.



Lifetimes later, the Lupine's body twitched slightly.  N'kamah listened

through the pounding in her head.  Soft grunts of effort.  Someone had its

arm and was tugging it off her by degrees.  She lay there, observing these

efforts with dull interest, until finally her rescuer grabbed its shoulders

and rolled it off her completely.  The full moon swam into view through a

red haze, cool radiance that did nothing to dull the pain raging through

her body.  Perhaps she was dying, after all.



"Miriam?"  Someone shaking her.  Whispering her name, gently.  A familiar

voice.  Magda?  No.  Someone else.  She squinted, trying to focus on the

face suddenly between her and the moon.



Sasha, red tears in her eyes.  "Miriam, wake up, please!"



She groaned; let me sleep, her exhausted limbs muttered dully.  But the

silly girl kept shaking her and begging and weeping so much that finally

Miriam tried to sit up to make her stop fussing.  Only then did she realize

she was still in Wildform.



Then Sasha was leaning against her, sobbing with relief; nestling into her

massive killer's arms, cheek to her broad breastless ribcage and arms

wrapped so very carefully around her muscled, tattered waist.  N'kamah

choked.



"Didn't...didn't want -- "



"What?" Sasha looked up at her.



"You to see...did not want you to see me like this."  It was true, but she

could not remember why.  Not with her mind clotted with bloody cotton.



"Shouldn't see...don't tell.  Don't tell others...you saw this...me like

this.  Must...they can't know I can do this...please..."  She sounded

ridiculous; sounded like she was begging.  "Please...they'll think...freak,

monster...please."



"You're not a monster, Miriam." Sasha smiled wanly and held her as if

trying to hold her together.  "You're my friend."



Oh...  Her throat was tight.  She forced out the words.  "Please.  Tell

them you ran when I told you to.  Say you have not seen me since."



Sasha stared at her, baffled, as she shrunk back down to her semblance of

humanity.  She must be a sorry sight.  But Sasha was nodding, frantically.



"Promise me."



"Yes," Sasha said.  "Yes, I promise."



"Go now.  Take your bike and go back to your family."



"But you -- will you be all right?"



N'kamah sighed.  "I have to go to earth for a while.  To heal.  It might be

a while before I can re-emerge.  Days...weeks...might be a year.  But I

will heal.  I will be back.  I need you to trust me.  I will be back as

soon as I can.  Now, please...go."



Sasha nodded, forcing herself away; to stand, to walk out of the clearing,

stiff reluctance in her limbs.  At least she did not look back.  Her

motorcycle roared to life; its rumble diminished, and was gone.



"Oh, child.  Poor dear child.  Such faith in a monster...." Reaching across

to her shoulder, she used the Lupine blood in her belly to pinch shut her

wounds one by one.  It took a long time; her head pounded drily long before

the last hole in her skin was gone.  But by then her muscles were knitted

together enough to let her stand.  Yes.  And take a tottering step.

Another.  Another.  No clothes left, but she could stay in the park to

hunt.  Three hours til dawn; she would make a kill of an early morning

jogger and go to earth to heal --



A dark figure stepped from shimmering not-space in front of her: Daedalus,

his face grim and his eyes reflective and unreadable as obsidian.  He

wrapped an arm around her ruined waist and passed a hand over her eyes, his

will hammering against hers.  She almost laughed; the fool, he could not be

stronger in mind than she, but she would play his game.  She sagged

gracefully despite the blare of pain in her back; felt him lift her.  She'd

let him carry her to his lair, play his Phantom of the Opera bit, let him

paw her a little  -- Caine knew he probably hadn't had a naked woman in his

arms for a few centuries -- and when his guard was down she would --



would



?



-- sag into sleep, a sleep as deep and sweet as death --



but not half so peaceful --





Return-Path: 

Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 13:52:16 -0700

To: kamala@akos.net

From: rebel@hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Rebecca Lloyd)

Subject: Stranger In Town Chunk 7

Cc: rebel@ocf.berkeley.edu



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN



Dry pain.  Her veins felt like shriveled, empty sausage skins.  A worm

writhed sluggishly against her finger, hooked partway under her dirtclotted

nail.  She was lying on a cold, smooth surface with a pounding headache and

a gash she could feel clearly in her forehead, the skin hanging open

bloodlessly, a dead mouth.  They had hit her with the shovel again, and

again, and again, til she had dropped --



prey? Person? Food?  What had she been going to do to that strange bald

pale woman again?



-- and greyed out.



She flicked the worm away disgustedly, her movements breaking dried mats of

dirt off an arm which itself felt ready to flake apart, like the flesh of a

mummy.  Her eyelids were glued together by fragments of something that

smelled like rot; she scraped it away and opened her eyes.



Vaulting brilliance; candles everywhere, rimmed in red to her vision and

strangely frightening, flickering against a domed roof covered in crumbling

frescoes.  She lay on marble scuffed with time and use; bolts from long

removed pews stuck up at random from its surface.  An old church, the

windows boarded over and sealed with new plaster.



Empty.



She felt so empty.  So very --



thirsty.



A circle of faces closed around her; pale, grinning, framed by scarlet

hoods.  Strange, strange faces, some terribly disfigured.  Then she saw --

him, leering foxface sprigged with ginger hairs and crazy silver eyes --

the man who...who...



Had BIT her, had bit out her throat and -- and -- and --



buried her alive --



An incoherent snarl was all she managed as she lunged up, clawing for his

face.  Kill you -- destroy you -- filthy perverted --



But hands shot out from all directions and grabbed her, pinned her as he

laughed --



--and brought the chalice filled with --



--blood, it was blood, it was blood and he laughed at her as she drank

hungrily and then cried and groped for it when he pulled it away --



--and he laughed at her as she felt the Vaulderie's terrible addictive love

take her will from her --



--and then stopped laughing, and smiled, with horrible false tenderness.



"Welcome to Hell," Vanyel silked.



A finger brushing gently at her cheek brought her out of the dream, gently

this time, not screaming and clawing.  "I did not know Sabbat cried,"

Daedalus said softly as she opened her eyes.  Half-dried fluid clung to her

lashes; she reached to dash it away and discovered that the pain in her

left shoulder was gone.  She was lying swaddled in plain black wool

blankets on a cot in a dim cavern that smelled faintly of oil paint;

Daedalus stood over her, his face grim but his eyes  -- sad?



She tried to sit up and found her spine and limbs crackling-dry with

bloodhunger; her wounds were gone, but the pain was no less intense.

Nevertheless she felt an odd lassitude which made her discomfort easy to

ignore.  Had the Nosferatu alchemists discovered some tranquilizer that

worked on Kindred?  Or was this some arcane power of his?  Whatever the

case, she could only lie there.



"What have you done to me?" she tried to growl, but it came out an almost

casual murmur.



He blinked rapidly in surprise, then leaned down.  "Not even trying to deny it?"



She stared back at him.



"I-it's no use anyway," his hands twisted into each other for a moment

before he noticed and dropped them to his sides.  "I've tested your blood.

Unless you want to try making something up about biting a Tzimisce in a

barfight or somesuch, there's really only one explanation for a Gangrel

possessing Vicissitude."



She managed not to blink.  "Clever, alchemist.  Very clever."



"I thought so.  Now, do you want to explain why you are here, antitribu?"



She noticed a pile of grey silk on the bedstand.  "I'm stealing your

smoking jacket," she said offhand, grabbing it and slipping it on under the

covers.



He almost smiled.  "Besides that."



"It doesn't concern you, Daedalus."  She was surprised at how gentle her

voice was.  Probably the ensorcelment.



He sighed.  "I am sorry, Miriam, but it does.  I am still this city's

Enforcer, and when a Sabbat spy comes in, ingratiates herself with the

Primogen including me, begins instructing -- if you can call it that -- one

of our neonates, and generally does her best to be accepted by all, it

becomes very much my business to find out why."  The last word echoed over

and over in her magick-drugged brain.  Damn him, he had Dominated her

again.  She felt the truth beginning to form on her lips, and for once

wished she still had a Vinculum tie to her sect to strengthen her

resistance.  But if she had to tell the truth, she would tell the whole

truth...



"I'm after a deserter.  It does not concern you or yours.  This is Sabbat

business.  I don't mean your people any harm, and frankly I would prefer if

no one got hurt.  I don't give a damn about your Prince, your city, your

neonates or any of it.  All I am here for is the one who betrayed us.  Then

I will leave.  It's nothing personal."



He stared at her intensely with those bright gray eyes, weighing every word

she said.  Then he said slowly, "You sound like you are trying to negotiate

with me.  Sabbat don't negotiate."



"Neither do the Nosferatu," she shot back.  "Why am I not in the Prison of

Light?  Why didn't you at least stake me?"



Something flickered in his eyes.  Something vulnerable.  She saw the

opening and tried to lunge at him, past him, but her limbs were heavy and

her mind dull, and all her body did was sit up, slowly, against the

pillows.



"Why, Daedalus?" she asked softly, not breaking her gaze.



He twitched; his eyes tracked away slightly but then locked on hers again.

"Jailing you, thus exposing you publically, would hurt a great number of

people who have put their trust in you.  Much trust.  And it would break

Sasha, probably for good."



Her reflection in his eyes showed sadness.  She tried to school her face to

impassivity and did not quite succeed.



He continued.  "Paralyzing you completely in any manner would make it

impossible for me to interrogate you."



She snorted.  "Interrogate me about what?  I am alone, you already know why

I am here, you probably know who I am after and, if you know anything about

us you know that there is no way to get me to betray my fellows back home."



He nodded slowly, then said, "I have no interest in making you betray your

fellows, so long as they stay out of my territory."  A light blazed up in

his eyes and he leaned over her.  "What I want to know is...why?



"Why did you spend so much time and effort ingratiating yourself with us?

Why did you take the effort to teach Sasha instead of simply propagandizing

her?  Yes, I was watching.



"Why did you risk yourself to save her, not once, but twice?  Why were you

prepared to sacrifice not only your cover but yourself to prevail against

the Lupines?  Why?"



"Do you think that because I am Sabbat, I have no honor?" she managed a

faint snarl.  "I assure you, the opposite is true.  Though politically we

are enemies, my mission is not to see you or an innocent childe die.  My

mission is to bring our betrayer to justice, and I will follow that to the

letter."



"You're avoiding the question." He leaned closer, staring into her eyes.

"If you are here to destroy one of us -- "



"She's not one of you.  She is one of us.  She exists under our

jurisdiction.  Her denial of that doesn't make it any less true!"



"If you are here to destroy one of us," he repeated implacably, "then why

have you spent most of your time here trying to save one of us?"



This time she tried to look away from his eyes, and found that she could not.



"Why?" he asked again, his lips barely moving, his voice gentle, his gaze

spearing through her guts.



"None of your business!" she snapped, trying to convince her hands to close

around his neck.  They flexed but remained primly in her lap.  She couldn't

even get enough anger up to scream inwardly.



"It IS my business!" he snarled, blackness trickling out from his pupils to

overcome iris and sclera until his eyes were obsidian orbs.  "You betrayed

the trust we put in you!  That I put in you!  I should kill you for that

alone!  But I -- have to see, I have to know, why -- why?"  He had grabbed

her by the shoulders, her nose all but brushing hers, his cold breath on

her cheek.



She swallowed, realizing she was shaking.  What is wrong with me? she asked

herself again.  She had to break free of his influence.  She had to break

free and escape so she could finish her work here.  Even if she had to kill

him.   But her mind was slowed by artificial calm, her limbs heavy and

sleepy, and her weapons nowhere to be seen.  Except for those she always

had with her, and those --



Forgive me, Daedalus, she said inwardly, shame breaking over her as she

began weaving the charm.



He sucked in a breath, and the blackness began to trickle out of his eyes,

revealing sad gray that softened moment by moment.



"I don't know," she admitted finally.



"That's not good enough, Miriam."  His talon-grip on her shoulders had

gentled, and his thumbs slid caressively over her collarbones.



"But it is the truth, Daedalus.  It is something I have mulled constantly

since the situation changed in this manner.  I don't KNOW why I have risked

myself so much for that child.  All that I do know is that monster that I

am, I am not malicious, and she needed..."



"Lack of malice and self-sacrifice are two different things..." Daedalus

said softly.  "I saw you prepared to die...for her.  Maybe even for us."



"Yes."  She looked into his eyes.  So much pain there.  She cursed herself

for an evil whore for doing this to him.  But duty bound her.  She had to

succeed.



"You care for her that much?"



"Yes." She curled her hands around the lapels of his coat, tugging him closer.



"Even though she is your enemy?" he was starting to tremble as he bent over

her.  "Even though I am -- supposed to be?"



"Even so," she whispered into his neck.



He pulled back a fraction and looked down at her.  "Why?  I know that you

cannot lie to me right now..."



She smiled, surprised at the sadness she felt.  "I don't know," she said

softly.  "I really do not know.  But I do."



He engulfed her in a hug so tight her ribs creaked, and she almost lost her

nerve.  She felt her eyes spill over and she started shaking and something

inside her cracked and shifted -- not again -- and her terror at what was

happening woke the voice of duty in her.  The mission, you silly,

self-indulgent girl, it snarled.  The mission!



God



"Daedalus, forgive me, please," she whispered as her fangs sank in.



Ecstasy.



A hot gush of something heavy and bitter and impossibly rich hit the roof

of her mouth and thundered down her throat.  He stiffened; a groan burst

from his lips as his talons fluttered around her shoulders like startled

birds.  The charm he had woven over her dissolved; so did hers, burst apart

by a torrent of feeling; but his hands were in her hair then and he pressed

down against her, every muscle taut and shuddering...



oh



...and she saw him, different, grey eyes like pale flashes in a leathery

tan and dark curls askew, squinting in the blinding sun at a stone wall

crawling with workers in short linen tunics...



...moaning in the embrace of a massive horned monster which sucked out his

life and replaced it with its own...



...sobbing as he buried the last of his descendants in a lime-pit clotted

with plague victims...



...screaming and screaming and smashing his lair furniture with his fists

as again and again he felt the frustration of forever being seperate,

excluded, alone...



...hugging a small, sickly boy to his chest and feeling the child tremble

with pain as his body ate him alive...



...staring into Goth's snakeeyes as Goth laughed at him and mocked him...



...reaching out to Sasha from the shelter of invisibility, longing to offer

a comfort he never could...



...looking at her, at N'kamah, leaning against the black Mercedes, the

sight of her, the smell of her, the feel of her hair slipping through her

fingers...



She drank and drank until the dry ache inside her unknotted itself and her

body thrummed with stolen power.  He seemed to be weakening; his big body

lay against hers, relaxing slowly.  She would not diablerize him.  She

would NOT.  She just had to weaken him enough to get awa --



His hands stroking her hair, stroking her head back...he was running his

lips over her ear and the top of her neck, leaving cool trails of sparked

nerve endings...he was whispering something to her...



"...have to know," he said hoarsely, and bit down.  Hard.



She screamed against his skin, claws digging into and through the thickness

of his coat as he covered her, her mind coming unhinged, too much pleasure

and pain mixed sweeping her past his own mind and soul and back into her

own...



Through his eyes.



"...Thirsty," she choked as they led her along the tunnels.  "Please, the

cup, please..."



"I've a vessel for you right down here," Vanyel said placatingly.  Be

patient...it's just a little further.  Didn't I say I would take care of

you?"



"...hurts..." she moaned pitifully, and stumbled.  One of them grabbed her

and held her up, walking with her feet dragging along til she got them

under her again.



"Plenty of sweet, warm blood, right this way..." He smiled at her, and she

sobbed gratefully.  Her love, her savior.



They came to a bolted steel door and unlocked it, throwing the bar.

Darkness within; she heard the thump of a small pulse and licked her lips.

Goddess, she was so thirsty...she stepped inside, her legs shaking.



Shuffling in the dark.  A red tinged light seemed to come from everywhere,

especially there, a small lump in the middle, curled up.  About the size of

a large dog --



Or a small boy.



"Mom?"  Eric asked hopefully.  "Mommy?"



She whirled back to the door just as it clanged shut, hammered her fists on

it as hard as she could.  The steel walled room echoed dully with the

blows.  "Let me out!" she cried hoarsely.  "Let me OUT!"



A shuffle.  He had gotten to his feet.  She saw his dim red outline,

flickering with his pulse, take a hesitant step towards her.  "Mommy!"



No no no..."Let me OUT!  Let me OUT!  Don't make me do this!  Vanyel! PLEASE!"



He stumbled forward in the dark, arms out, all smiles.  "Mommy, you're

alive, you're alive!  They said you were dead!"



She could hear the hot, nourishing gush of the blood through his veins.

She could smell it on him.  Her fangs speared her lip and she sobbed and

clapped a hand over her mouth.  "No...oh no..."



He stopped, face screwing up.  "M-mommy?  It'll be ok...if you're sick,

I'll take care of you...I will, I promise..."  Took a few more steps

forward.



"NOOOOO!" She slammed her fist so hard against the door it dented and her

wrist snapped with a sound like a rifle shot.  The pain made her howl but

she kept hammering, more and more and more til her hand hung off her arm

like a lump of dry pulp...



Small arms circled her waist.  "No, Mommy, no!  You're hurting yourself!"

She heard the tears in his voice.  "We'll find a way out of here, we will!"



His heart thudded against her dry, slack belly.  So ripe.  So tender.  So

alive.



"Eric..." she moaned.  The redness blurred her vision; she could not see

his face anymore, only a manikin filled with hot, pulsing blood.  But she

lifted him, with her good arm, so tenderly, and held him, burying her nose

in his hair.  "My angel."



"I'm here, Mommy," he said softly, wrapping his thin arms around her neck.



Faintly, beyond the door: Vanyel's laughter.



NO!  In her mind.  No no no no...



Was it her?



No Miriam, it wasn't your fault, it wasn't your fault please you have to

LISTEN to me --



Daedalus?



She held him so gently.



Daedalus' voice in her mind, desperate: You couldn't have helped it --



So gently --



It wasn't your FAULT --



Until his little heart stilled.



She tore away from Daedalus' neck, an incoherent howl of agony ripping from

her bloody lips as she threw him off.  The cot flew across the cavern and

she dug oozing furrows down her cheek, screaming, screaming.  Daedalus

curled on the floor, limp not from blood loss but from shock, his eyes

round and horrified.  He reached for her, croaking out an earnest whisper,

but she leapt over him and ran screeching from the cavern.  And as she ran,

she was aware of but one noise besides the mad shrills from her throat --



The dry sound of Daedalus sobbing.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT



Miriam.  Oh God.  Miriam...



No.



Wake up.  There's no time for this. Think!



Daedalus slapped aside blinding tears and snarled in frustration as he

levered himself clumsily off his haven floor.  Miriam was gone, driven to

frenzy by the memories he'd unearthed; with a gutful of his blood she could

keep running for hours.  Fortunately he himself wasn't bad off; despite the

depth of her feeding he found he was barely hungry.  He must have taken

back more than he had thought.  Or perhaps Miriam had not been trying to

diablerize him.



He staggered against the wall, holding his head.  That experience had been

far too intimate in its horror.  Shaking off the guilt and rage that wasn't

even his was proving difficult; his heart thundered in his ears, galloping

him towards frenzy.  He bit down through his lip, growling hoarsely as he

forced his heartbeat to slow and stop.  Think.  Don't emote.  Think!



Miriam trying NOT to kill him?  That did not make much sense, however; if

she had been intending to leave him undead, her mercy would clearly cost

her when he recovered enough to come after her.  An antitribu's devotion to

the Sabbat included finishing a mission at any price, including such a

horrid act as diablerizing someone who -- diablerizing a friend and ally.

Her refusal to do so was yet another intriguing mystery about her.

Perhaps, though, she had been too panicked by his invasion of her mind to

finish the job.  Or perhaps...



Perhaps she was so close to completing her assignment that by the time he

recovered fully she would already be gone --



Camilla.



Whipping a veil of shadows around himself, he lunged into the tunnels, bent

low to follow Miriam's scent.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE



Camilla's head jerked up as a faint scream echoed down the corridor outside

her haven.  Slipping from her seat on her narrow cot, she pressed back

against the cavern wall and waited.  Was something running down the tunnel

towards her?  She listened hard, pulse in her throat.  Nothing.



She relaxed, but only slightly.  She was safe, for the moment.



That did not change that fact that her two nights were up.



Two nights is both too short and far too long a time to get one's affairs

in order, Camilla thought to herself as she hesitantly retook her seat.

Not long enough for major accomplishments, yet minor ones just did not seem

to fill up the time.  There were only so many hours that could be spent in

ritual or prayer or reminiscence; only so many favorite books one could

read for the last time, only so many goodbye letters to write or belongings

to bequeath in one's hastily scrawled will.  And yet nothing she did seemed

worthy enough to prelude what she knew was going to happen.  The hours both

crawled and raced by, each one numbingly long yet gone forever before she

knew it, and at the end of each one she became more aware that nothing she

could do could change the simple fact that she was not going back, and that

thus N'kamah was coming to kill her.



She had thought about running.  She had entertained the idea before --

going someplace where her history was not well known and her eyes would not

startle those who had known her before she acquired them.  Moving from city

to city until she lost the Sabbat's trail.



Right.  Good idea.  Idiot.  N'kamah would never stop looking for her -- she

would continue for years, decades, centuries, as inexorable in her

persistence as a glacier crushing its way down a mountain.  That was how

she worked.  That was what she was -- assassin, killer, hunter, now and

forever.  It was in N'kamah's nature.  It might even be in her blood.



The long and short of it was that if N'kamah chose to kill her tonight, and

she had no reason not to -- then this was the end.



Welcome to death row, she thought to herself over and over as she watched

the door of her small room for her executioner.  Would you like to speak to

a priest?  No, sorry, I'm Pagan.  And a vampire.  What would you like for

your last meal?  Meat pie and carrots, sir, and you for dessert...



I'm going crazy, she noted as she stared at the doorway, and tittered

harshly, closing her eyes.



N'kamah had always been the noblest among them; at least she would make it

quick --



"Camilla."



The voice was a harsh croak spoken around a constriction of either grief or

physical pain or both.  But Camilla still knew it.  Her eyes slid open.



"So you've come," she said softly.



"Yes."  N'kamah still wore her dignity about her like a noblewoman's cloak;

she stared back at Camilla unblinkingly, her head high.  But now that cloak

hung in tatters, much like the ripped and bloodstained silk jacket that was

her only physical clothing. Her hair was askew from its braid and matted

with blood sweat -- her eyes were sunken -- faded bloodstreaks stained her

cheeks.  She had bitten through her lip, and the swollen flesh slurred her

speech just perceptibly as she answered.



Her talons glittered like black steel on the ends of her fingers.



"Have you made your decision?" she rasped, eyes dull and unblinking.



Camilla shuddered; her voice caught in her throat.  She coughed.  N'kamah

watched her, face set like the visage of a stone idol. Finally the words

came out, with more strength than she expected: "I'm not going back."



N'kamah sighed.  "I can't convince you otherwise?"



Camilla raised her chin.  "No."  Now that it was said it was easier to

speak firmly.  She raised her eyes and stared into N'kamah's, not

defiantly, but with unspoken finality.  Whatever the cost, she would remain

free.



But when she looked full into those cold jewel eyes she felt a shock run

through her.  The dark, icy blueness was broken inside -- the stone goddess

mask was slipping.  Deep down those eyes were full of sadness.



But her killer's voice remained steely.  "You know that I could just slip a

stake into you and carry you back."



Camilla gulped.  "I'll fight."



"You'd lose."



"I know.  But anything to keep away from those monsters who forced me to

serve them.  To love them."



"Monsters like me?"  N'kamah asked softly.



"NO." Camilla shivered, then looked back at the Ahrimane hard.  "Monsters

like the ones who did this to us.  To both of us...Miriam."



The taller woman hesitated.  Camilla slipped off her seat and knelt, eyes

down.  "I will not go back, my friend.  I will kill myself first.  I will

never serve them again."  She slid out her claws and laid their tips

against the arteries in her neck.



"I envy you," N'kamah murmured.



Camilla's hands dropped into her lap in shock; she looked up.  The Ahrimane

was a black blur extending towards her, claws first.  Her hands came up to

defend herself but N'kamah slapped them aside and threw her down.  She

braced herself for the pain and prayed it would be quick --



The claws dug into her face -- into her eyes.  And then they --



Pulled.



Camilla screamed wildly as her friend's fingers sank in without resistance,

rasping against the delicate nerves in iris and sclera.  She tried to fight

and claw but N'kamah was kneeling on her chest, pinning her hands.  Her

talons dug into her own ribs; she flopped and wailed ineffectually.  Blood

poured down her chest and the sides of her face.



The killer was doing something horrible to her flesh -- she felt it soften

and run as she pushed and pulled and moved her fingers around inside

Camilla's



eye



sockets



oh



God --



And worst of all, as she did her grim work, N'kamah was whispering to her

hoarsely in between the screams.



"It's the best I can do for you," she was saying impossibly, as her claws

mapped agony on the front of Camilla's skull.  Then --



A roar, and N'kamah was off her suddenly, hands sliding out of her eyes and

face as if her flesh was made of water.  A female shriek of outrage.  A

heavy thud against the wall.  Then a man's voice yelling, "Camilla!"



Daedalus?  What the hell was the Primogen doing here?



Then he was kneeling next to her, gently pulling her claws from her ribs

and helping her sit up.  His face was lined with exhaustion and concern.

His --

face?



She could see him.



Her hands flew up to her own face, fingers brushing it gingerly.  The

melted mass she expected -- skin laid open and eyes running like broken

eggs over her cheekbones -- it wasn't there.  Her fingers contacted firm

flesh and whole, if sore, eyes.  She was unhurt.



Then she saw Daedalus staring at her, his eyes absolutely round as he took

in whatever had been done to her.  "You..." he whispered.  "Your..."



"What?" she choked out.  "What?!??"



A small shard of mirror slid across the floor.  She looked up to see

N'kamah leaning heavily against the wall, dust in her hair but her dignity

intact.  Long years afterwards Camilla would still wonder if she had seen

the ghost of a smile on N'kamah's face.



With shaking hands she scooped up the compact and clicked it open.  Wiped

away grains of dirt from the tiny mirror's surface.  Closed her eyes as she

brought the compact up.  Then --



Looked at herself.



A Nosferatu's face, bone-white and lightly scaled, recognizeably female

only by its shape and then just barely.  But not her face.  Not her

features.  Nothing familiar about them at all.  And the eyes --



The warm, human brown of centuries ago.



Daedalus kept looking between herself and N'kamah, mumbling in a baffled

voice.  Camilla didn't listen.  She was watching a blood tear well in the

corner of one of those eyes and run down her cheek.  Then she looked up at

where N'kamah was standing.



"Good luck," the assassin whispered, and then vanished into mist.

CHAPTER THIRTY

EPILOGUE



"Are you sure that you're all right, Kamah?"  Magda's voice was filled with

concern as she rubbed a small hand across her student's back.  "You've been

very preoccupied ever since your return."



If only you knew, N'kamah thought, but she looked up at her Ritemother and

gave her a wan smile.  "I'm sad that we lost Camilla," she said simply.

"Going through the investigation...brought back a lot of memories."



Magdalena sighed, her fuzzy ears drooping a bit.  "I'm sorry that you lost

your friend, Kamah.  You must have cared for her a great deal.  It's always

sad to lose a loved one, especially when they have to die by your own

hands."



She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and said softly,

"Indeed..."



"The Priscus is pleased at your swift and subtle work..."



"Good."



"...which leads me to what I have been meaning to tell you.  Have you moved

back your belongings from San Francisco yet?"



"No," N'kamah said flatly.  "But it is all right.  I can deal with the loss

of a few possessions."



"You won't have to."  N'kamah looked up at her Ritemother, startled; Magda

was beaming.  "The Cardinal has begun plans to move on California; he's

sending in deep cover spies to all the major cities.  One to a city.

You've been chosen to keep an eye on San Francisco.  Permanently."



N'kamah's heart twitched restlessly.  "Oh..." she said in a noncommittal tone.



"Isn't this wonderful?  My ritechilde becoming spymaster for a whole city!"



Is it?  N'kamah thought as she looked into Magda's smiling face.  But she

said nothing.



There was nothing to say.



THE END