Clan Novel Nosferatu: Book 13 of the Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  CLAN NOVEL

  NOSFERATU

  By Gherbod Fleming

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Clan Novel Nosferatu is a product of White Wolf Publishing.

  White Wolf is a subsidiary of Paradox Interactive.

  Copyright © 2000 by White Wolf Publishing.

  First Printing September 2000

  Crossroad Press Edition published in Agreement with Paradox Interactive

  LICENSE NOTES

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  …Like the vampire…dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave.

  - Walter Pater

  Table of Contents

  part one: shrouded beginnings

  part two: beginning to unravel

  part three: beginning of the end

  part one:

  shrouded beginnings

  Friday, 12 November 1999, 3:21 AM

  Beneath Harlem

  New York City, New York

  The tunnels, his home for years, loomed alien and threatening. As he ran, the mold-covered stones were slick and treacherous beneath his normally sure feet. Corridors he should have known seemed out of place, the landmarks all a jumble in his frantically racing mind. “Ulstead,” he muttered unbelievingly, as if saying the name aloud might bring his clanmate back.

  Pug whipped around a corner and flung his back against the wall. South—which damned way was south? He felt blood pulsing through his dead veins, the old involuntary responses kicking in. He realized that he was panting, wheezing as he drew air in through his deviated septum, and he made himself stop. Breathing would do him no good, and the sound would make him easier to find.

  Gunfire. South be damned, he was running again, heedlessly through the darkness. It’s just Nigel, he told himself after a few hundred yards, but he didn’t stop. It wasn’t Nigel that panicked Pug. Nigel wasn’t firing his precious little sub-machine gun just to hear the pretty noise.

  “Ulstead,” Pug muttered again, shaking his head in disbelief. Ulstead was—had been—a rock of a Kindred, a walking, wart-covered, solid side of beef. He should have been able to snap the little man in two, or three.

  But the Eye had opened, and the tunnel had been bathed in pale, blood-red light, and then…

  Pug stumbled. He careened off a wall, almost righted himself, but then wiped out. He landed hard, a heap of short, flailing arms and legs.

  The pale light had shone in the tunnel, and then Ulstead simply hadn’t been there. A smoldering, writhing mass of what had been Ulstead had been there instead, the speckling of dark warts joining together as all the skin turned dark and then flowed away into a spreading, steaming puddle.

  Pug lifted himself to his hands and knees and wiped his face with a sleeve, but the fabric was little improvement over the brackish water in which he’d landed. More gunshots, and not that far away despite Pug’s headlong flight. I shouldn’t abandon him, he thought for the first time. Nigel wasn’t as familiar with the city; he was one of Colchester’s people come up in the past few nights from Baltimore. I shouldn’t abandon him, he thought again, then climbed to his feet and ran. Away. Let them call him a coward. If anybody called him anything, it would mean that he’d survived. Devil take Nigel, and Calebros, and the silent one, for that matter, and this Nickolai they were supposed to be finding.

  Pug wanted to stop and get his bearings; he wanted—in a far more theoretical way—to go back and help Nigel, but his legs kept churning. The fool should have had more sense, should have run instead of stopping to shoot.

  Pug turned another corner, and the world suddenly made even less sense. The bone-jarring collision snapped his head back. His feet flew out from under him. For the second time in the past few minutes, he lay in a painful heap. This time, however, his stunted limbs were intertwined with someone else’s arms and legs.

  “I almost shot you,” Nigel said, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs.

  The fog of fear and concussion was not so quick to lift for Pug. “Where did you…? How…?” He must have gotten turned around somewhere along the way, inadvertently made a loop. The shock wore away quickly now. The two disentangled themselves with all possible haste and scrambled to their feet. Nigel was shaken too, and not, Pug suspected, by the collision. The out-of-towner clutched his sleek, black Sterling to his side. Pug could feel the heat from the gun’s barrel.

  “I was coming back to help,” Pug lied. “Did you…is it…?”

  “Didn’t even slow it down,” Nigel said, shaking his head. His eyes were very small and dark and set close together. He had no chin to speak of. “Keep moving,” he said urgently. “We need to keep moving.”

  “Moving,” said the scrawny creature with the Eye, appearing from the darkness behind Nigel. “Yes, moving…”

  Nigel whirled and fired. The shots that hit the creature’s body drove it back a few steps, but the bullets striking the Eye seemed to sink into a bottomless swamp of fizzling plasma. The wan red light that covered them was not from the Sterling’s muzzle flashes. Pug covered his ears and ran—tried to run. The stone beneath his feet was liquid sludge. He staggered and fell forward onto solid ground. Nigel sank. The sludge turned fiery hot and, in an instant, Nigel’s legs below the knees ceased to exist.

  More shots. Pug scrabbled to his feet and ran. Above the screams and the hiss of smoking brimstone, he imagined he heard the click, click, click, of the Sterling’s empty chamber. There were no more shots, of that he was certain. But then there were only the sounds of a pounding pulse in his ears and his wheezing as he ran. And his own screams.

  Tuesday, 1 June 1999, 2:37 AM

  Mezzanine, the Fox Theatre

  Atlanta, Georgia

  The few, wispy clouds did not obscure the stars, but rather added an illusion of depth, of reality. Victoria leaned back in her seat, taking in and finding comfort in the expanse of crisp night sky. She did not care that the vista was ‘merely’ a projection upon the grand auditorium ceiling. She did not care that the Moorish battlements were but a decorative framework for stage and balconies. In some cases—very many, it seemed—illusion was quite preferable to reality.

  It was impossible to view the night sky in Atlanta. Oh, the sky was there, of course. But the
re were no stars, no sense of the infinite. Only a hazy pink glow, electric illumination bleeding from horizon to horizon, obscuring what, to a Kindred, was one of the few anchors in time. All too often, loved ones passed beyond; cities, nations rose and fell; forests burned; even mountains once impenetrable were scarred by modern man. Only the oceans and the stars, it seemed, remained constant, and this city offered observation of neither.

  What it did offer, however, was opportunity.

  “Good evening, Ms. Ash.”

  Victoria did not start, nor did she so much as look away from the soothing faux-heavens. She hadn’t heard him approaching, but neither had she expected to—not if he didn’t wish to be noticed. “Do you have what I asked for?” Victoria said, not rude but, at the same time, not encouraging familiarity.

  “I do indeed,” Rolph answered.

  Not every member of his clan, contrary to popular belief, smelled as if he had rolled in week-old refuse. That was the first thing Victoria noticed after his unheralded arrival: the absence of stench. It made dealing with Rolph tolerable. Ugly, Victoria could abide for a short while, but those more aromatically challenged of Clan Nosferatu were never welcome in her presence. Not that she had anything against them personally. Victoria prided herself upon her magnanimity. She did not begrudge those more grotesque beings the hunting grounds that were beneath her station, or the filthy little burrows they carved out of the dirt; she merely saw no reason to allow those creatures to offend her sensibilities by coming near her.

  She turned toward Rolph, reached out her hand. Thankfully, he wore a long robe with a hood that concealed most of his face. In the darkened theatre, she could barely make out the unnaturally pointed chin and the large nose, sharply bent. Rolph handed her a legal-sized manila envelope.

  “Thank you,” Victoria said. Rolph bowed slightly.

  She opened the envelope and began to sift through the contents—casually, so as not to suggest that Rolph had done her too much of a favor. The Nosferatu were the elephants of the vampire world—they never forgot. The tiniest bit of aid rendered was filed away in their memories, a debt to be called due perhaps years later, quite often at the most inconvenient of times, and sometimes by a different member of the clan, in a different city or on a different continent, as if they shared some communal sense of recall.

  “Is everything to your satisfaction?” Rolph asked.

  Victoria continued to sift through the envelope’s contents: photocopies of deeds, business records, cash withdrawals and deposits for various bank accounts. “It seems to be,” she said nonchalantly.

  In truth, the records were helpful, but hardly vital. They would help Victoria solidify her presence in Atlanta, her adopted home. The financial information pertained to the former interests of a former Kindred, Marlene, a Toreador of ill repute, who had met an unfortunate end. The establishments, each of which Marlene had controlled to varying degrees through intermediaries, reflected the banal vulgarity that had also been Marlene’s dominant quality: strip clubs, adult bookstores, ‘lingerie’ showrooms, and so on.

  Victoria was not enthused by the prospect of peddling vice, but she did have her pragmatic bent. If a mortal proprietor was already accustomed to handing over profits to a mysterious silent partner, what could be the harm in assuming that role? It was also a very practical preventative measure to ensure that no one else moved in on what had been Marlene’s territory. As the old saying went, “Nature abhors a vacuum”, and Victoria thought of herself as nothing if not a force of Nature.

  “Yes, I believe this will be adequate,” Victoria said.

  Rolph might have smiled within the shaded recess of his hood. “We are pleased that you have chosen Atlanta as your new residence.”

  Victoria smiled, recognizing, though still not averse to, flattery when she heard it.

  “Despite Prince Benison’s best intentions,” Rolph continued almost conspiratorially, “there is a certain…cultural and artistic sensibility that is lacking among our Kindred. From what I have heard, I suspect you are more knowledgeable in those areas than was Marlene.”

  “Ha!” Victoria coyly raised two fingers to her scarlet-painted lips, as if to restrain further comment upon her predecessor.

  “Forgive the unwarranted comparison,” Rolph said quickly, lest he had offended. “Some of us remain hidden away from society, and polite conversation does not come easily to our lips… That, and the Toreador we have grown accustomed to here have been of a certain…base element…”

  “Well then,” Victoria said at once, “we will have to show everyone different, won’t we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  It seemed so obvious to Victoria. What could be more natural? She wasn’t sure why she’d waited this long to embark on such a course of action. “A coming-out. A grand party.” Instantly, her mind was racing; she formulated countless plans, motifs, decors, with each passing second. She could host the gala here at the Fox, or perhaps at the High Museum.

  “Of course,” said Rolph. “How fitting. Will there be art?”

  “Ah, so you are the art lover, are you?”

  “I appreciate beauty…from which I am so far removed.”

  Victoria felt a lump in her throat; she was nearly moved to reach out and actually touch Rolph’s arm. How quaint—a beast pining for the beauty that was his antithesis. How her mere presence would enrich these creatures’ lives, here in this southern, backwater city.

  “Have you tried your own hand at the arts, Rolph?” Victoria asked, speaking as might a parent to a child.

  The Nosferatu nodded. “But I have not had much success, I’m afraid.”

  Victoria nodded sympathetically. “What…sketching, painting?”

  He nodded again. “And a bit of sculpting. Though my creations were as deformed as I am. Or more so…if that is possible,” he added with a self-deprecating shrug.

  How ghastly indeed, Victoria thought. But she was determined to show pity to this creature. “I will exhibit my private collection of sculpture,” she said magnanimously.

  “You have a private collection?”

  “Most certainly. One of the finest in the world. And you will be invited.” The words were out of her mouth before she could reconsider. Victoria’s enthusiasm momentarily waned, but she maintained the veneer of her smile. She didn’t relish the prospect of socializing with Nosferatu, but it was done. She couldn’t uninvite Rolph, and the city as a whole would benefit from her largesse. So she would go about making her coming-out the event of the season, of the year, for this tired city, perhaps the decade. She began formulating the guest list at once. Dear, conniving Benito would have to attend, of course. And if all Victoria had heard about Prince Benison was true, then she would be able to instigate a delightful bit of mischief by inviting certain individuals: Benjamin, for one, leader of the city’s Anarch resistance, who, nonetheless, would be granted safe passage to an Elysium; and the Brujah archon Julius came to mind as the perfect guest for her purposes. Perhaps he would be able to attend as well.

  “I would be honored to attend.”

  “Hm?” Victoria had almost forgotten about Rolph. “Oh, yes. Of course.” Yes, she would have to allow him to attend. Even in his inclusion, however, there was a sliver of redemption. Inviting a Nosferatu was the type of unexpected exploit that Victoria liked to undertake. Unpredictability, to her way of thinking, was synonymous with freedom. There were beings in the world—beings as arcane and mysterious to the Kindred as were the Kindred to mortals—that would usurp control of her destiny if she allowed them to do so. By doing what they could not have anticipated, Victoria asserted her independence. The more unpredictable the better. Even in such a small thing as this.

  “Of course you will be welcome,” she said to Rolph. “And your friends as well.”

  As Rolph bowed again and showed himself out, graciously not taking any more of her time, Victoria congratulated herself on her latest stroke of spontaneity, which no one—and no thing—could have predic
ted.

  Thursday, 3 June 1999, 10:29 PM

  Beneath Manhattan

  New York City, New York

  Calebros allowed Umberto to ‘lead’ his elder along the unlit passage. Those younger occupants of the warren seemed to think that Calebros never left the grotto, his “office”, that he never ceased poring over the countless reports and clattering away on his time-tested typewriter. Perhaps they were not grossly mistaken in those beliefs, he reflected. The particular curvature of his spine, along with the merciless arthritis that racked his every joint, did not make for ease of movement. Calebros preferred to stay put. The youngsters also would not be inaccurate to assert that, as for company, he preferred that of his Smith Corona to them. Still, they mistook his unwillingness to venture beyond his sanctum for an inability to do so. They assumed as much.

  “Undisciplined,” Calebros muttered.

  “Pardon?” Umberto paused and turned back toward his elder.

  “Keep moving or we’ll never get there,” Calebros scolded him. Umberto, crestfallen, continued onward.

  Undisciplined intellect, Calebros thought. Assumptions are but the signposts of an undisciplined intellect. That’s what his sire, Augustin, had always said, and truer words were never spoken.

  For several minutes, the two hunched creatures continued onward, Umberto slowing his steps so as not to outpace his elder, Calebros slowing to avoid stepping on the shuffling fool before him. Eventually, they approached a ladder.

  “There’s a ladder here,” Umberto said.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Calebros said, and, when Umberto continued to hesitate, added, “I do know how to use a ladder. Get out of my way.” His talons clicked against the metal, but the slippery, fungus-covered rungs did not prove an impediment. There was pain as he climbed—his shoulder, elbows, knees, and neck—but the discomfort was no greater than that which challenged him when he rose from his resting place each evening.