Clan Novel Giovanni: Book 10 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Justin Achilli

  “Something different. Not related to the Camarilla interest in Boston.”

  “Oh, I understand perfectly. Allow me to outline the situation as I see it. A member of your clan receives me and then decides that something else demands her time more than seeing the initial concern through. In her stead, she leaves a proxy, who also has business elsewhere. And the person who finally does deign to meet me to resolve the matter doesn’t actually have anything to do with the situation in the first place. I’m afraid this doesn’t look very good, Mr. Giovanni. At the very best, even if I determine that Clan Giovanni has not chosen to entertain Sabbat sympathies, it certainly has no intention of forging some arrangement with the Camarilla because it won’t even lend their spokesmen an ear. Am I correct?”

  “Well, no, not exactly,” Chas felt himself grow embarrassed, and then angry. He knew how this looked, and knew he’d have to take a few jabs for it, but there was no need to keep escalating.

  “Oh, not exactly? Well, then, Mr. Giovanni, please tell me exactly what sort of impression I am to draw from the current turn of events?”

  “Look, man, I’m trying to tell you—”

  “Don’t presume such an informal relationship, Mr. Giovanni. I can assure you that even if I chose to ignore the utter disrespect you’ve obviously assumed for myself—which I haven’t—I still would not overlook the fact that the collective Giovanni of Boston have such a low estimation of the Camarilla that they do not choose to treat it as a serious partner even when faced with the possibility of suffering harm themselves at the hands of a mutual enemy. Whether or not you openly embrace our overtures, Mr. Giovanni, ignoring the threat posed by the Sabbat does not make it go away.”

  “Hey, you want to listen to me, here? I fucked up. This isn’t Isabel’s fault and it’s not what the clan intended. I accidentally screwed up the situation with the woman who was supposed to talk to you, and I didn’t know where to reach you. And rather than just no-showing or running with what I thought might be best, I just thought I’d tell you what happened.”

  “Ineptitude!”

  “Hey, pal, sometimes things just go wrong. This is one of those times. Sorry it had to be you.”

  “As you should be. Do you have any idea—”

  “Look, don’t get all fucking sanctimonious. You don’t want me to go back and tell everyone that you’re getting all indignant, ’cause that might hurt your precious relationship or whatever you were just yammering on about.” Chas couldn’t resist the dig. Despite the fact that he had almost defused Gauthier, his temper refused to let him yield.

  Gauthier once again looked shocked. He had never been spoken to so plainly—at least not to his face—by anyone, especially someone who should by rights have taken a deferential attitude. “You had best stop while you’re ahead, Mr. Giovanni. Before you do any more damage to this potentially explosive arrangement, I think you should hold your tongue.”

  “Don’t talk down to me, you stupid motherfucker, or I’ll give you the beatdown of your unlife. I apologized, Isabel will fix everything, so just shut the fuck up and let everything go back to normal.” What the fuck am I doing? Chas wondered to himself, but he couldn’t stop. Gauthier had pushed him too far—with just a few words! Chas, fucking rein it in. You know he was going to be all prissy when you came here, so just let it go.

  But the voice in Chas’s mind didn’t have control—something else did. He wasn’t saying anything he had been actively thinking; the uncontrollable part of him had roused from its sleep and taken over.

  “Threats?” It was a statement, not a question. Jacques’s voice had become ominously deep and his eyes focused into a stare. “I will not have you threaten me. Do you hear me, boy?” This last he punctuated with a snarl and a spit, his fangs jutting out, revealing him as the monster he truly was. Jacques’s hands had become talons; his face twisted into a mask of rage.

  Chas, overwhelmed, shrank away from Gauthier’s withering display—

  —for a brief second, before his own Beast snapped the chain on which it had been tethered. Balling his hands into fists, he charged Gauthier as visions of blood and murder spun through his mind.

  Jacques proved to be too nimble, however, and spun quickly out of the way. Chas barreled past, knocking over a table, scattering the settings across the room. Gauthier looked over his shoulder, his eyes slits, a reedy laugh coming from his demoniacal mouth. Almost too fast for Chas to see, he sprinted toward the kitchen. Indeed, if Chas hadn’t seen the door move, he wouldn’t have known Gauthier had passed through it. Like an enraged animal, he followed, bursting through the door with enough force to hurl aside anyone who had waited behind it.

  Fortunately, even the staff had left the restaurant by this time, or bodies would have surely littered the kitchen floor. The room was lit in a sterile white—which suddenly became darkness. Had Chas been able to think clearly, he would have guessed that Jacques could see in less light and turned off the lights to give himself an advantage. In his frenzied state, though, reason had left him and he rushed blindly at where he guessed the light switch to be. A great row of ranges and ovens stood to one side of him; to the other loomed a tall row of shelves stocked with oversized cans of food. Chas gave this second a heavy shove, toppling it and the one behind it like a series of dominoes. One by one, the entire kitchen’s worth of shelves toppled to the floor. The cans and jars likewise fell, some shattering, others clanging loudly. As the last shelf fell, Chas saw a speed-blurred shape streak from behind it. A half-second later, he found a huge metal fork protruding from his chest and he doubled over in momentary shock before jerking it out and spraying a gout of blood across the kitchen. Again, the kitchen doors swung—Gauthier had bolted out of the room.

  Chas roared and followed, perhaps foolishly, fork in hand. Still, Gauthier had drawn first blood, which only infuriated Chas all the more. Bursting back into the dining room, Chas saw the outline of Jacques’s form, backlit by light that poured in from the outside. A pair of headlights.

  Jacques Gauthier laughed once more. “You ignorant brute! You can’t catch me, you know.”

  But Chas didn’t need to be faster. Someone entered the front of the restaurant. Jacques looked over at the intruder in disbelief and Chas took full advantage of the opportunity. He dived at Gauthier with all his might, knocking over the hostess’s podium. As he pinned Gauthier to the ground, he noticed another person outside, in addition to the one just beyond his peripheral vision. He could deal with them later.

  Gauthier struggled beneath him, but Chas’s strength was far superior. Over and over, he drove the heavy cooking fork down through Jacques’s face, using the stabbing motions to punctuate his spoken hatred. “You…stupid…fuck! What… did…you… think… would… happen…?”

  Another voice cut him off in mid-stab and sentence.

  “Don’t move. Jessica! Spray him!”

  A cold mist washed over Chas. He looked up in surprise, a snarl on his face. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Can’t you fucking see I’m trying to kill this guy? Go away!”

  The voice continued, unwavering, “Get thee behind me, Satan. Tempt not the Children of Seth, and return to the hell from which you were spawned!” Beneath Chas, Gauthier bucked, taking his aggressor by surprise and throwing him off. Chas tumbled backward onto his haunches. Like a bolt, Gauthier was off into the night, leaving a viscous trail of blood-gobbets behind him.

  “Goddamn it. Goddamn it. What is wrong with you? Now they’re going to kick my ass over this!” Another cold mist hit Chas in the face. “Creature of darkness! Thief of the living’s blood! A walking affront to the righteousness of God!”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, give it a rest! That doesn’t work! Jesus, where do you people keep coming from? First Frankie’s thing in New York and now this? Who the fuck are you?” Chas peered into the darkness and saw a pale glow outlining what must have been hands. The cold mist came from the left, where he saw a slighter shape wearing some bulky backpack.

 
“The holy water has no effect! Jessica, switch to the other tank!”

  Chas heard a click, heard the hiss that accompanied the bursts of mist and smelled gasoline. “Oh, no you fucking don’t,” Chas growled and leaped toward the black outline with the glowing hands. He swung the kitchen fork upward, calling upon his hellish strength to carry it through. With a sickening wet slap sound, the fork traveled upward, through the unseen man’s mandible, past his mouth and into the upper part of his head, breaking through the topmost bone of his skull like a bullet punching through sheet metal. A feeble noise came from the man, who immediately slumped forward into Chas’s arms. Chas dropped the man and whirled to face his other attacker—a short, thick woman holding some kind of spray gun. She must have bought it at a hardware store; it looked like the kind of thing someone would use to treat their yard with pesticides. The woman stood frozen, aghast at the death of her partner, and Chas slapped the clumsy nozzle from her hand.

  “All right. What the fuck is this about?”

  The woman only stammered.

  “Hello? I’m talking to you, you crazy bitch. What, you can shoot me with holy water and set me on fire but you can’t talk to me?” Chas shoved the woman backward, sending her asprawl over a small dinner table. The spray gun dangled uselessly aside. The woman’s eyes gaped as big as saucers. She choked out some kind of simple, repetitive prayer, presumably for protection, but an answer didn’t seem likely. “I’m fucking serious here. Who the fuck are you people? If you’re vampire hunters, I think you need to do a little more homework next time, because that holy water crap doesn’t work.”

  The woman kicked weakly as Chas advanced, her stout legs unable to turn back his greater strength. He slapped her on the thigh, sending her spinning sideways, and stopped her just as her head ended up before him.

  “Now, are you going to give me a fucking answer or do I have to eat you?”

  Still the woman protested weakly, too terrified by being so close to such a monster to summon her strength.

  “Jesus, you freak, you’d rather die? Fine. Fucking have it your way.”

  Chas bit down as hard as he could, not even bothering to find a large vein or artery. The woman finally found her voice and shrieked, a long, shrill wail that could have shattered glass. When he had finally drained her to the point of collapse, he licked the wound and it sealed. With any luck, when whoever found this mess tried to put two and two together, they’d assume some sort of fight between two lunatics, one with a fork through his head and the other wearing an atomizer filled with bizarre liquids. Fuck ’em—it didn’t scream vampire! and it was probably weird enough for the police to keep it quiet from the media.

  With that, Chas adjusted himself as best he could and drove back to the Milliners’ guesthouse. He’d have quite a job explaining himself to them and to Isabel—but that was best accomplished on another night.

  As Chas drove away, Gauthier slunk from the shadows and sated himself on the woman’s remaining blood. Then he fled into the night.

  Sunday, 25 July 1999, 1:18 AM

  The Malecon

  Havana, Cuba

  “I have a proposition for you.”

  Anastasz di Zagreb, justicar for the sorcerous Tremere vampires, tilted his head, encouraging her to go on. “Yes, and it is…?”

  “You and I, we are much alike,” Isabel began. It was a thread that made the Tremere none too comfortable—he was familiar with the debased Kindred of Clan Giovanni and he was aware of a certain quirk that this one in particular indulged while feeding. He wanted nothing more at the moment than to be as little like her as possible. “And our histories share more than one sympathy.” Anastasz hated this part. The Kindred and all of their petty games irritated him, and his preference was to be either “in the field” or in his own sanctum. No doubt what would follow this pretty-but-cold woman’s requests would be some unpleasant request couched in the form of a favor. The Tremere was familiar with such double-bladed social engineerings—his own august position was the result of hidden favors and boons exchanged. His predecessor, the potent Karl Schrekt, had been miraculously left unconsidered for reelection to the justicar’s title. Instead, at the assembly of the Camarilla’s Inner Council in 1998, the Tremere had put forth the dark horse di Zagreb. Isabel’s pending offer was surely some similar ruse, carefully couched in eloquence and deceit.

  “Our clans have both risen from the ashes of others. We both hail from long, distinguished lines of sires who saw weakness and chose to light a candle rather than curse the darkness. I don’t pretend to know the secrets of those fateful nights”—don’t patronize me, you florid bitch, Anastasz thought—”but I do know that our clans both rose like phoenixes from the folly of others. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “As much as it displeases me, I concur. Where are you headed with this, Isabel?” Such insolence! Moments like this allowed Anastasz to savor his position. To think that one as young as himself—a Kindred for only one century—could speak with such insouciance to a scion of the Giovanni! But then, Anastasz remembered, it was only the strength of the Camarilla that allowed him this luxury. Were Clan Tremere as removed from Kindred affairs as the Giovanni, his title would have meant nothing. She would have crushed him like a beetle, if only he hadn’t had the ubiquitous ivory tower behind him.

  “Patience, Justicar. Do not leap to judgment. Allow me to explain.”

  “Then be about it, Isabel. The summer nights are short and I am hungry.” Masterful! Dismissive yet authoritative! Perhaps the game of politics had its benefits after all….

  “Very well. Surely you are familiar with the fate of the Ravnos?”

  Anastasz nodded. Earlier this very month, the Kindred world had shaken at its very foundation as one of the original, Biblical Kindred had awoken from its sleep. The founder of a clan had risen too early for the end of the world and was destroyed, dragging his childer screaming into Final Death with him. Or so the tale was told. No one who was there had been too eager to step forward—and most who had been there had been destroyed. “I am.”

  “Then you understand that they stand poised to retake their fallen status, much as our own sires claimed the mantle of clanhood. Once again, as the rest of the Children of Caine watch the death of their siblings, they mutter their own thanks that it was not they whom fate conspired to harm. But you Tremere know, Anastasz, as well as we Giovanni, that those who are dismissed as weak or few can turn the tables and snatch victory from the jaws of oppression.” Good Lord, thought Anastasz, she certainly is painting this in epic strokes.

  “Many Ravnos escaped the Week of Nightmares with their unlives. The few who remain may take advantage of the weak light in which others see them. Clans have fallen before, and never without dire repercussion. Your own clan and mine came as a result, and it is whispered that the formation of the Sabbat had similar circumstances.”

  “Are you suggesting that the Tremere and the Sabbat—”

  “Of course not. I am suggesting that we strike while the iron is hot. The Ravnos are crippled. Our work is almost done; we must simply finish the deed.

  “Destroy the remaining Ravnos?” Anastasz considered this. It certainly had its merits. A line of mystics and scoundrels, the Ravnos left trouble in their wake. Many Kindred princes of Europe and the New World refused to allow Ravnos in their domains. The Ravnos had no allies, nor did they want them. They practically begged to be extinguished. Such a tactic would not only remove a lingering thorn from the Camarilla’s side, it could consolidate the sect’s strength and allow it to focus on larger threats. And if he played his cards right, he could prove his worth to an Inner Council that harbored doubts about his ability.

  Anastasz stopped, shocked at his thoughts. Was he actually considering genocide? Did he honestly think that his reputation was worth the death of other Kindred? How blind and instinctual a creature had he become, that slaughter and murder were subjects so easily entertained? Even as a predator, he retained a sense of his own humanity—it was the
only bulwark he had against the bestial urges that lurked in all Kindred. If he gave in completely, he would no longer be a conscious being; he would become wholly a monster.

  “Yes.” Isabel’s response snapped Anastasz out of his reverie. “They offer nothing, and it is in the interests of all Kindred that we isolate and remove the threat they are still quite capable of posing.” The moon shone down on Isabel’s face, making her look ghoulish, and her suggestion compounded the discomfort Anastasz felt.

  “This is murder, Isabel.”

  “No, Justicar, this is survival. Death is part of the cycle of all life—and unlife. Perhaps more so for the latter. I assure you, no Ravnos would hesitate to deliver you to your final reward.”

  “That’s impossible to say, Isabel. We are Kindred—our motives are our own. Not all of us are murderous monsters.”

  “You don’t think so, Justicar? You are fooling yourself. The Ravnos progenitor arose from its slumber and destroyed its own children! What more argument do you need to convince you?”

  “I suggest you hold your tongue, Isabel.” The discussion had taken a turn for the ugly. Anastasz whispered tersely, “Whether or not you and your clan claim membership in the Camarilla, we still claim dominion over you. Your words show little regard for the Masquerade, and we are in a public place with mortals about. I will not hesitate to take the necessary recourse—”

  “Listen to what you are saying, Anastasz,” Isabel returned, equally as quietly. “You apply your Masquerade and crusade selectively. The deceitful Ravnos are a far greater threat to the Masquerade than I could ever hope to be—”

  “I’m not going to suggest mass murder based on your cajoling, Isabel. I won’t take a stance against the Ravnos because some bigoted Kindred doesn’t like them. Their witchcraft and illusion are less damning than your own behavior—we know about your little predilection, my dear. We know that you drink vitae only from your victims’ severed heads. And I can assure you that not every Kindred is as jaded and callous as you. I will not be used, nor will I allow my position to be exploited by a clan that refuses to accept the responsibilities of undeath.”