Clan Novel Gangrel: Book 3 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  Ramona stared straight ahead as the world was obscured by the steam that began to rise from the soft, white tissue of her eyes. She felt as if she were burning from the inside out, but then the outside, too, began to sputter as from the fire of cigarettes held against her body. Her lips began to sizzle. Exposed skin drew tight over face, neck, arms, feet. Agony and panic mingled within her, fed upon one another. The burning morning sun made the stake through her heart seem little more than a pinprick, and she lacked even the ability to struggle.

  And then the stake moved.

  Through the haze of pain, Ramona knew that her body had burned away, that there was no flesh remaining to hold the stake in place. That was why it moved. But such was not the case.

  A hand grasped the end of the stake between her breasts. She felt herself lifted from the ground briefly as the stake was yanked loose. Its exit from her body was marked by a nauseating sound of suction, the noise of a boot being pulled from muddy ground. The gaping wound in her chest was instantly cauterized by the rays of the morning sun.

  “Go deep, now!” A voice rang in her ears. A voice she’d heard before.

  The face of the stranger was close to hers. His wild hair blocked the sun. He held her by the shoulders.

  “Go!” he roared at her.

  I don’t smell you, she wanted to say. She smelled only the burning… the smoke… her own flesh.

  “Go, you stupid whelp!”

  Ramona turned her head. I can move, she thought absently.

  A great drowsiness was coming over her, even with the burning. She saw the stranger again. He was next to her. She saw him sinking down into the earth.

  Go deep!

  Now the command struck her. Refuge against the burning.

  Go deep!

  And go deep she did. She sank into the ground, and the soil, a cool salve to her burning flesh, welcomed her.

  Go deep.

  Ashes to ashes.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 11:06 AM

  Upstate New York

  Zhavon felt the pounding at her temples before anything else, like somebody was taking a hammer to her head every two or three seconds. It was a hundred times worse than the time Alvina had gotten hold of a bottle of bourbon. The pain shot from her temples down to her ears and then along her jaw, the muscles of which were tensed and cramping, even though her mouth hung open. Zhavon methodically closed and opened her mouth, worked her jaw until the muscles loosened just a little.

  It took her that long to work up enough nerve to open her eyes, and a few more moments then to realize that they were open. She saw only darkness.

  Nighttime, she thought. I’m in a dark room.

  But something didn’t feel right. A lot of things didn’t feel right. Slowly, what her senses registered made it to her brain, and the information was filtered through the horror of the past hours.

  The car, she remembered hazily. I’m not in the car anymore. How long had that lasted? she wondered. Minutes? Hours?

  And before that had been… the girl from my dreams.

  A dull ache radiated from the bottom of her neck. The girl from my dreams, Zhavon tried to recall, she… she… took me in her arms. She… But it all grew so fuzzy after that.

  Pain. Pleasure. Zhavon remembered sucking in a breath, holding it for what seemed like forever. She remembered wanting nothing but for the feeling to continue, to go on and on and on.

  Then there’d been the car. She’d felt sick but been unable to retch.

  And now…? Darkness.

  Needles. Tingling. Coming from her hands. They were asleep. Both her arms were asleep. Behind her. She tried to move them, couldn’t very much. A different sort of pain began at her wrists. Burn. Rope burn.

  Tied up, she realized, but was too weak to do anything except barely take notice. I’m tied up. To a post, or something. It was cold. Like concrete, or stone.

  She blinked her eyes, but the darkness didn’t recede. Aside from the pins and needles, she felt cold. Deep cold. Down to her bones cold. She tried to move her feet, again couldn’t. Tied too? She thought she could feel, through her jeans, rope tied tightly around her ankles.

  The pounding at her temples grew louder and drove all thought away for a while. At some point it receded. A faint breeze was chilly against Zhavon’s face. She began to shiver—or realized that she was already shivering. She could see nothing, but felt that she was in a large, open space, a very large room.

  An eye. She suddenly saw an image of a large, disgusting eye, floating before her in the dark. It couldn’t be. Her mind must be playing tricks on her.

  The pounding returned. The eye was gone, if it was ever really there.

  Mama. Zhavon mouthed the word. Her dry lips stuck together for a second. No sound escaped. Quietly, she began to cry.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 9:05 PM

  Meadowview Lane

  Hayesburg, New York

  He was waiting for Ramona when she rose from the earth that night. “Come with me.” The stranger’s voice conveyed a sense of urgency but not fear. Though his sunglasses hid his eyes, occasional movements of his head indicated that he was aware of every nightsound around them.

  Ramona lay unmoving on the ground. She was captivated, for the moment, by the sensation of her body separating itself from the earth beneath her. The ground had welcomed her, had taken her in and shielded her from the sun. She had been of it, and it of her.

  Ashes to ashes.

  Now she was again a distinct being, and something intangible was lost in the transformation—a peaceful sense of wholeness faded, was replaced by her personal needs of the moment, by the pain of her scorched body.

  Ramona’s throat was parched. Her eyes were so dry that her eyelids stuck when she blinked, and opened only with difficulty.

  The stranger watched her carefully from where he crouched in his ragged clothes. “Come with me,” he said again, but this time his words were less harsh, as if he understood the adjustment between perspectives that she was going through.

  Of course, Ramona remembered. He had sunk into the ground with her. Small clumps of dirt were lodged in his tangled hair. She stared hard at him and found herself reluctantly comforted by his presence. He was so much like her, she realized, and there was none of the anxiety about him that was always so obvious with Jen and even Darnell.

  With effort, Ramona licked her blistered lips. The sun had taken its toll upon her, and though the earth had protected her, it had not healed her. As she sat upright, her skin cracked and split where it stretched. She licked her lips again, tasted blood.

  “Call me a stupid whelp,” she said to the stranger. “Asshole.”

  He frowned at the affront but, rather than reply, turned and began to walk away.

  Ramona’s stiff muscles tensed as she saw him leaving. She couldn’t let the stranger go! She was drawn to him—this creature, this vampire, who had sunk into the protecting arms of the earth with her. Ramona scrabbled to her feet. Sharp pain coursed through so much of her body, reminded her of the fiery demise she had nearly met that morning, but she forced her battered and blistered parts into motion.

  The stranger hadn’t gone far into the trees. Ramona quickly caught up. He didn’t look back at her, but Ramona could tell that he’d wanted—expected— her to follow, and she was irritated at how easily she’d fallen into his game. But there was something about him, about his every stride—confidence, assurance. Ramona had seen men like that on the streets of L.A.; not the pimps or the more flamboyant drug dealers, but some of the others, some of the gang leaders, who walked down the street lacking any fear. Like them, the stranger carried himself with an unconscious swagger. His steps were easy, natural. His every motion indicated control. He was completely devoid of fear.

  Fear.

  Fear was what Ramona had lived with since the change. She, Jen, Darnell, Eddie—they had all bonded out of fear. Fear had led them to leave L.A., where so many of their kind walked the streets at night, where too many un
known dangers lurked.

  Fear had remained their companion wherever they traveled. In Texas, that… thing—Darnell called it a werewolf; Ramona didn’t know what it was, didn’t care as long as she stayed away from it and its kind—had appeared out of nowhere and ripped Eddie to shreds.

  In New York, the Sabbat had swooped down upon the travelers.

  Last night, some bastard with an eye the size of a softball had stabbed Ramona in the back, had run her through with a wooden stake and carried off Zhavon.

  And none of these nightmares even touched upon the personal fears that plagued Ramona—the suspicion, the fear, that some vital remnant of her mortal life was slipping away every night.

  The stranger, just a few yards ahead, made his way through this wooded part of the small town as if none of those fears had ever touched him, as if he’d achieved mastery over them.

  Ramona quickened her pace. Her legs faltered. She put a hand to her chest, to the jagged wound, only slightly healed over, where the stake had forced its way through her body. She almost called to the stranger to slow down, but she couldn’t bring herself to so great an admission of weakness. Despite thinking that she might be able to learn from him, she resented how the stranger had treated her— confronting her and disappearing, giving her orders like she was his to boss around. His confidence, so compelling in many ways, bordered on arrogance. Ramona was not about to bow down to him.

  That was only one concern, however. As she stumbled after him, the image foremost in Ramona’s mind was of Zhavon being carried away by that creature with the deformed eye.

  Zhavon.

  Ramona’s legs grew shakier with each step. “We’ve got to get her back,” she said at last, thinking that the stranger might stop to reply, and she could rest.

  He didn’t stop, or even look back at her. He only grunted and continued on his way.

  Ramona kept on after him. Her muscles ached after a night in the ground. Her chest and back throbbed from the damage done by the stake. Finally, as she was afraid she couldn’t go on, he came to a halt.

  The stranger’s dark sunglasses turned to face Ramona impassively. He pointed to something in the shadows. “There,” he said.

  “We’ve got to get her back,” Ramona said again, but then her gaze followed the line of his finger.

  Lying in a heap among the sparse underbrush was an unconscious woman, a large, African-American woman in a flowered nightgown. Ramona wanted to yell at the stranger, to convince him to help her find Zhavon and bring her back. Instead, Ramona found herself taking tired steps toward the woman. The stranger stood and watched as Ramona dropped to her knees beside the prone figure.

  “We’ve got to…” Ramona began, but the words stuck in her dry throat. She felt her fangs, seemingly of their own accord, lower to full extension.

  The woman on the ground was unconscious but very much alive. Ramona touched a knot on the back of woman’s head. She hadn’t come with the stranger by choice—at least not her own choice.

  For the second time in as many nights, Ramona was unable to command her muscles, but this time she was not paralyzed. Slowly, she leaned forward, lower, closer to the helpless woman. Ramona had fed from Zhavon last night but had lost much blood to the stake. The sun, too, had taken its toll. To heal, Ramona’s body required blood.

  She placed her hands on the woman’s shoulder and head, and something about the woman’s face gave Ramona pause. A blood memory tugged at her. Ramona knew this woman—or at least Zhavon, of whom Ramona had drunk, knew this woman. Ramona stared at the face, and a name drifted into her mind—Irma. Aunt Irma.

  The world around Ramona began to spin. For a moment, it was last night again, and she was feeding on Zhavon—and she was Zhavon. Their blood mingled, mixed.

  Ramona’s eyes rolled back in her head as the bloodlust took hold.

  Beware lack of blood; the hunger will take control.

  Her fangs sank into mortal flesh, and with the blood she felt strength return to her body. Blood and strength. Strength and blood. She drank and was renewed. The heart beat, forced blood into her mouth. Its contractions grew labored, but still she drank. From far away, a voice cried out, Irma. Aunt Irma. The bloodlust that was Ramona drank and grew strong, drank until the heart beat no longer, until blood and life were no longer in that body.

  Irma. Aunt Irma.

  Ramona sat back on her haunches, stared at the body before her—the sagging flesh, the death pallor—and knew that this was what would’ve become of Zhavon if the creature with the eye hadn’t intervened.

  “Feel better?” the stranger asked from behind her.

  Ramona, stunned by her fierce gluttony, turned slowly to meet his gaze.

  “Tanner,” he said.

  “What?” Her voice was weak. She was distracted by the sensation of the blood changing her, healing her dead flesh. From the inside out, the hole from the stake filled and closed. Her burned skin regained a portion of its elasticity, but the worst of the blisters remained.

  “Tanner,” the stranger repeated. “My name’s Tanner. Not asshole.”

  Ramona wanted to stand. She wanted to face him eye to eye, but she was afraid she’d fall if she tried. So she glared up at him from where she kneeled beside the rapidly cooling body. “You took this woman from that house we were next to,” Ramona said.

  Aunt Irma.

  Ramona had never been in that house, had never seen with her own eyes the woman on the ground. Yet Ramona knew.

  Tanner didn’t answer her accusation. He stood; he watched.

  Ramona looked away from him, but her attention fell immediately on the body, on the woman who would never get up. Aunt Irma.

  “You’re not of them anymore,” said Tanner.

  Ramona whipped around to face him. “You don’t know anything about me!” But she knew she was wrong. He had joined the earth beside her. He’d brought her this woman, watched her feed. He knew more about her than she knew about herself.

  “They are sustenance,” said Tanner. “Nothing more.”

  He didn’t point at the body, but Ramona knew what he was talking about. She knew who he was talking about.

  Zhavon.

  “Where is she?” Ramona asked with a sudden urgency. “Where did he take her?”

  “She is nothing,” Tanner said evenly. “Sustenance.”

  His evasion told Ramona that she was right, that he did know. Her stomach was a tight knot. Tiny droplets of bloody perspiration rose through her undead skin. All thought of learning from him of her new existence vanished, lost to the rising compulsion that was Zhavon. “You were watching me. You saw him,” said Ramona.

  She struggled to her feet, took a step toward him. “You’ve been following me since we were in the city. You saw him.”

  She could see her attacker, the strange eye, just like when she’d been lying on the ground with the stake through her heart. “You didn’t save me right away. You followed him,” she guessed. “Where’d he take her?”

  Tanner folded his arms defiantly. “I didn’t save you right away because you had a lesson to learn.”

  “Where is she?”

  “You still haven’t learned it. Greet the sun, and you still haven’t learned.”

  “I don’t want your lesson!” Ramona grabbed him by the shirt.

  Tanner didn’t move in the slightest. Though Ramona clutched his shirt, he felt as if he were stone embedded in the earth. “You have no choice,” he said. “You will learn… and survive.”

  Ramona released him, took a step back. She saw her own puzzled expression in his black glasses.

  No choice. A threat? she wondered.

  But he had saved her twice—once from the Sabbat, once from the sun. Hadn’t he proven himself an ally, if not a friend? Ramona regarded him warily. He was waiting impatiently, but for what? He didn’t look like he was about to attack her, but he’d shown that he could move with dizzying speed.

  “I know I need to keep my ass out of the sun,” she said with
a sneer.

  Tanner remained unmoved. “You learned as much your first night after the Embrace, whelp.”

  “Don’t call me—!”

  A slap to the jaw sent Ramona reeling. She tripped over the body behind her and landed hard on ground, but in an instant she was back on her feet and ready to defend herself.

  Tanner stood with his arms crossed, as if he’d not moved. His utter calmness unnerved Ramona and chased out any brief thoughts she had of attacking.

  “You’re not of the mortals anymore,” he said, as he pointed toward the ground at Ramona’s feet.

  Not at the ground, she realized, but at her feet, monstrous and deformed as they were. The fire dwindled within Ramona. She was suddenly self-conscious, ashamed of her deformity, of what she’d become.

  “Know that you are Gangrel,” said Tanner. “And that I am your sire. I made you what you are.”

  Ramona staggered backward as if he’d struck her again. The first words drifted away. They held little meaning for her. Gangrel… Sire… But his last statement…

  I made you what you are.

  Ramona’s ears began to ring. She was acutely aware of the tightness of her skin all of a sudden—the blisters, the damage done to her by the sun that even blood had not completely healed.

  I made you what you are.

  The cold body lay before her, between her and this stranger, this creature so undeniably like her. A dead body of her old life, the living corpse of her new hell.

  Know that you are Gangrel.

  “He took the girl and drove north out of town.”

  Ramona thought that Tanner had spoken the words, but she looked where he’d stood and he was gone.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 10:00 PM

  Upstate New York

  The Eye dragged Leopold toward consciousness sooner than he would otherwise have roused. Despite the depth of the cavern that protected him from direct exposure, his mind and body were mired in the thick lethargy that normally claimed him until the sun was fully set. He raised himself to a sitting position on the cold rock floor and wiped from his face the clear ichor that constantly drained around the Eye. The occasional discomfort was little enough price to pay for the insights he had gained.