Clan Novel Giovanni: Book 10 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Justin Achilli

  “I see that I have misjudged you, Justicar. You condemn me with petty, mortal conceits. This political correctness, as they call it, is not a product of the times during which either of us were Embraced. Modern does not mean better, and all your arguments crumble beneath the cold truth. For I know members of the Tzimisce, with whom your clan has struggled since your earliest nights. It is a sorcerer’s war, with both of your bloodlines putting each other to death for personal power. You and the House of Tremere are far worse than any course of action I suggest, because my motives are utilitarian. You slaughter each other over eyes of newt and forgotten spells, and yet you claim a moral high ground when I suggest removing a problem before it becomes dire. Your hypocrisy disgusts me.”

  Anastasz closed his eyes and rubbed them, signaling his weariness to Isabel. Then he dropped his hands to his sides and peered out over the Atlantic Ocean, as if to encourage Isabel to make her final argument or let him go. She saw his growing frustration and played to it.

  “I know all about the situation in New York, Anastasz.”

  The justicar turned, his eyes flashing hotly. “And what does that have to do with what you’re putting before me here?”

  “Pieterzoon told me everything. Well, not directly, but through his liaison, Jacques Gauthier. They asked me to convince the body of Clan Giovanni to help. That’s a dangerous position to take, Justicar. The Sabbat are not pleasant enemies. We Giovanni have maintained our independence by not taking sides—at the request of your Camarilla, if my history serves me correctly—and we’re now being asked to act in direct opposition to that.”

  “Pieterzoon is power mad and Gauthier is a buffoon.”

  “Yes, well, your personal opinion is secondary to the facts of the matter, Anastasz. Whatever esteem you hold for Jan and his compatriots, you have common interest in the Camarilla. That’s why I’ve bothered to talk to you at all. I’m sure you can understand the value of knowing as much as you can about a situation before acting on it, no? I’m not willing to drag other Giovanni into your Jyhad for the sake of Pieterzoon’s ego. But I am willing to strike a deal with the winning side.”

  “New York is part of the means. It’s not the end, Isabel.”

  “I understand that, Justicar, but Jan has placed a tempting offer on the table. I’m sure you’re no stranger to the unattainability of Boston.” Isabel couldn’t resist the dig. Di Zagreb, as well as anyone else who dirtied themselves in Kindred politics, knew that influence in Boston was divided into a seemingly unbreakable three-way impasse between the Camarilla, Sabbat, and Giovanni.

  “So then, what are you doing here, Isabel?”

  “Talking to you, Justicar.”

  “No, you Giovanni. What are you doing here?

  “What everyone in Havana is doing. Waiting for Castro to die.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Pure economics, my dear Anastasz. Once the old man goes on to his final reward, this whole country’s going to become the biggest free market in the western hemisphere.”

  “Triangle trade, Isabel.”

  “What?”

  “Triangle trade. It’s what the Fat Man wants to do, and you’re going to back it with him. When, as you say, Castro dies, this whole country’s going to be the biggest black market in the New World.”

  “So?” Isabel smiled sweetly. “When the change to capitalism comes, greed won’t be a crime anymore—it’ll be standard operating procedure. It won’t even be a black market, because Cuba will establish itself as a governmentally backed international shopping mall. Anything goes.”

  “But that’s only part of the equation. Cuba’s still going to maintain some severe antidrug legislation, because it’ll be in their best interests. Half the government will be against drug trade and keep it illegal while the other half will be on the take, so keeping it illegal will make them rich on bribe money. They couldn’t go too lax on drugs, anyway, because the United States would crush them politically.”

  “Where are you going with this, Anastasz?”

  “Well, if I know you and the rest of your clan, the simple, legal investments will only wet your beaks. Sure, you’ll make millions—probably billions—in the tourist boom, but it’s also part of the triangle trade. You’re going to run heroin from Italy to Cuba, where you’ll either send it in to the U.S. through Boston or sell it and convert the profits to coke and marijuana, then move that through Boston, because that’s where you have the customs vice in your pockets. Then, the money goes back to Italy, where it buys more heroin, which again goes through Cuba, etc.”

  Isabel’s eyebrows rose and her mouth curled up a bit at the ends. “Not bad, Justicar. Not bad at all. But it won’t affect you at all, will it? Boston’s already a Giovanni haven, Venice has always been one, and we only need a few Kindred handling the operation here. It doesn’t matter if Cuba becomes a Sabbat or Camarilla playground—both of you will shut your mouths for a few points.”

  “But we don’t have to, Isabel. That’s where I’m headed with this. It would be equally profitable for us to watch every import-export company that sets up in the area and shut down any that smell like Giovanni. In fact, it would be more lucrative for whoever comes out on top to run you gravediggers out of business—because they could then charge you whatever they wanted to keep the lanes open.”

  “I’m willing to play that game, Anastasz. The Kindred have long been masters of such maneuverings, and this is simply one more. Who knows—Cuba may even turn out to be Utopia, where Kindred can go about their business without that awful, artificial baggage that your ideological war seems to thrive on. The Giovanni are glad to take such risks, Justicar. It is our bread and butter, our vitae, and we have done it for more than a thousand years, since the nights of the crusades and before. Dealings like these are our raison d’etre. Can you say the same? Cuba is ours—it is only a question of when.” Di Zagreb turned his shoulder away from Isabel, remaining silent.

  “As I said, though, Justicar, we are willing to deal with the side that wins. We have no illusions as to your superior numbers, and in truth, we would prefer to deal with the Camarilla, as it is almost universally more civil and urbane than those cackling lunatics of the Sabbat. But don’t think for a minute that you have any influence that we don’t allow you to have. It would be a bitter fight between us, and one that you would almost certainly win. But at what cost?

  “Keep that in mind, Justicar. For the time being the Giovanni side with no one, but our sympathies lie with the Camarilla. And also keep in mind that we offer our sympathies by choice.”

  With that, Isabel turned and walked away. The Tremere justicar thought on the meaning of her words. Perhaps he still had much to learn, after all.

  Friday, 23 July 1999, 8:17 PM

  Westin Peachtree Hotel

  Atlanta, GA

  Marcia Gibbert rose early—she knew she had to be up before Isabel to do what she needed to do. She walked over to the end table, took out a pad of paper emblazoned with the Westin logo and a pen from her bag, and prepared for Isabel a note.

  I—

  I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry to leave you without any help, but the prospect of another night is too much for me.

  I guess Jake Almerson still owes you a favor.

  —M

  With that, Marcia covered herself as much as she could with a bathrobe, took an elevator to the top floor, climbed the access stair to the roof, and walked into the last, fading rays of the sun.

  part three:

  the middle of nowhere

  Night unknown

  The cargo hold of the Pride of Roderigo

  Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean

  Once again, despite his wishes, the dead man woke. Trapped within the stifling box, immobilized by the hundred pounds of dirt that occupied the box with him, he nonetheless felt the stirrings of consciousness, followed by the rolling left-right-left of the ship listing at sea.

  Above him, the sailors bolted back and forth across the ship�
�s decks like trained monkeys in a carnival. The ship no doubt had a few passengers as well, but for a thirst as great as that of the dead man’s, the numbers aboard might dwindle by as many as half—so he had chosen instead to weather the months-long trip under the cold aegis of torpor. But the dead man never quite reached that deathlike state; he had awakened as many as twenty times, each time closer and closer to the perilous act of rising, bursting from his rude berth and drinking his unholy fill of vitae from the oblivious kine with whom he shared the vessel.

  How shameful, to be reduced to this, the dead man thought to himself. To flee to the odious and barbaric New World. A New World, indeed! I have watched the rise and fall of a score of new worlds! This is simply another in a long line of rises and falls of mortal insects.

  Anger had consumed the dead man for nigh upon decades—while he’d once sat in the courts of kings, he had now been reduced to fleeing from a murderous coterie of usurper-merchants. His once-powerful lineage had crippled itself centuries before in atonement for its hubris, and now it suffered another, similar fate, though this time brought about by the very family that had been Embraced into its ranks.

  The ignominy! With but a look, I could crumble any of their number to dust, yet they hunt even potent Cainites like me in packs, worrying us like hounds. Hate boiled in the dead man’s lifeless veins, the blood within them cold with the stillness of its stasis, but burning with impotent fury. To once have reached such heights! To have talked with God and His angels! To have held the lives of thousands in my grasp! And now, so basely to flee from a band of incestuous rogues armed with the brutality of ambition. You were vain, old one. You looked too far ahead and allowed these enemies to creep into your ranks. Why didn’t they listen? Japheth and Constancia both knew. But of course, the Old One in all his martyred wisdom… We have been fools.

  The dead man, though, had not been a fool in planning his escape. Certainly, a few of his get might have fallen. Proud Elodie, her silver hair spattered with her own blood and that of the vulgar Giovanni. Jehovie, Urdra and Abelard, all burnt to ash by Giovanni torches. Even his own blood-siblings, the other childer of Matron Constancia, had met the Final Death here and again. In the filth of the sewers, the Giovanni hid, striking when even the most astute disciple of Ashur had laid his nightly fears aside and planned to sleep away the hours of the day. They streaked themselves with excrement to hide their own mortal smells; the undead among them wore heavy wools and smeared themselves with the unsavory fluids of their relations to mask their own charnel odors. They crawled up from waste tunnels, hid beneath previously unmolested bones in sarcophagi and scuttled out like malicious spiders from cenotaphs and gravestones. Like houndsmen, they rode up to their sires’ loggias and sanctums, waving torches, brandishing knives, and blackened stakes. They licked their lips as they put the childer of Ashur to the flame or into the recesses of torpor. They did it with a ruthless resolve, catching the fleeing spirits of those who made a desperate bid to escape their bodies and binding them into the glistening bones of freshly dead cadavers, or the fiendishly aborted corpses they ripped from their own sisters’ wombs. Steeped with their own blood and the vitae of their elders, the Giovanni devoured the Cainites who had made them from within—and atop it all, they dared to call themselves Kindred, after the wishes of those selfish bastards who convened in England! Of all places to set precedent, why would anyone choose a land where Scots were considered people and men knew their ewes carnally!

  Can you hear me now, God? Can you hear me beneath these decks? From under this layer of pine and the shit of worms? Damn them all for not lifting a finger as their precious Kindred drowned in their own vitae before them!

  The dead man knew, though, that revenge was a dish best served with the spice of age. Flight was his only choice—flight to stab at the vile Giovanni during some night yet to be seen. With money obtained by selling the fingers of saints almost four centuries before, he booked freight “passage” on the Pride of Roderigo. When the ship arrived at its Cuban port, a family of exiled Waldensian descendants would transport the precious cargo to the North American mainland. From there, the wooden vessel would travel by cart to the swamps of the Creoles, who knew better than to ask questions of the dead or those associated with them. If nothing else, the dead man would be dumped in the swamp, rising only when the time was right and the rays of the sun could not scorch him. From there, he would gather around him the stupid denizens of the New World, taking their blood as he wished and sharpening his knife for use against the throats of the Giovanni once they had hunted the rest of his kind to extinction. The plans for travel had no flaws—he had corresponded with the Waldensians for generations through his spirit messengers and knew he could depend utterly on them. The Creoles were French Catholics, or black and Spanish mutts with their own barbaric customs, among whom few would dare to provoke an obvious vessel of the dead. The simple coffin itself had been rubbed with a great quantity of oil and then beeswax, to prevent the salty ocean air or humid New World climes from rotting it away. Yes, all the plans lay in place. Even if disaster befell, provided the dead man could move and speak a few words, he could transfer his own soul into the secret dark of the Underworld, and from there plan how to return to the world of the living kine.

  The plan abounded with safety measures and surety. The only thing left to do was weather the remaining nights until his arrival. And from there, the dead man could bring the full weight of his eons of hatred to bear on the jackals who so desperately deserved it. And to a creature who had walked in Adam’s shadow, who had kissed the face of God, what cost was a few more nights?

  A tiny cost. An infinitesimal cost. A few more nights seemed a minuscule price to pay for the vindication of millennia.

  Sunday, 22 August 1999, 12:32 AM

  Margaret Reilly’s haven

  Manhattan, New York

  “You look tired, Isabel.”

  Isabel stopped in the middle of removing her jacket. “Does that strike you as a pleasant thing to say, Margaret?” She looked at her host with large, brown eyes, trying to read the other woman’s intent. Did she plan to put Isabel off with insults and aggravate her into making a mistake? Or was she just boorish, selfish, and so far withdrawn from polite society like most Sabbat that she spared no effort on civility?

  Margaret, the leader and priest of a pack of rabid Cainites that reported directly to Sascha Vykos, shrugged her shoulders. “You’re not here for me to flatter you.”

  “No, I’m not, but a bit of decorum would certainly be appropriate.”

  “Fine. You look simply ravishing. If I wasn’t dead, I’d want to fuck the hell out of you.”

  “How sweet. If you weren’t dead, though, I wouldn’t give you the time of night, especially in that outfit. Now, do you just want to exchange bon mots or did this invitation have some sort of purpose behind it?”

  Isabel looked at herself as she passed a mirror in the foyer of Margaret’s haven. The witch was right— she did look tired. Unconsciously, Isabel drew in a breath. The events of the past few months had worn on her, and she didn’t intend to let this negotiation go sour as had the one Chas accidentally bungled with Pieterzoon’s flunky. If she had any luck at all, Isabel would find out that Gauthier had been unceremoniously discharged from Pieterzoon’s entourage, so bad a showing had he made, himself. Still, despite the fact that she had no intention of forging any kind of alliance with either the Sabbat or the Camarilla, she did her best to entertain their courtship. If either of them perceived the Giovanni as a threat, either of them could forestall their efforts against the opposite sect and turn their attentions to the necromancers.

  “You’re not going to like the purpose; I can guarantee that. But I’ve never been one to soften the blow, so I’m not going to song-and-dance you with such fruitless consideration.” Margaret’s diplomacy style differed a great deal from Gauthier’s.

  Isabel once again stood stock still. “Then why bother with the pretense of proposal at all? I know
what this is about. It’s about the Sabbat and the Camarilla lined up on either side of Boston and laying claim to it.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Well, it doesn’t take a genius. You’re forgetting something, though.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Not every city needs to be under the thumb of the Sabbat or Camarilla.”

  “Isabel, I think you’re being a bit naive, no? You know that we’re fighting a war, and if a city’s not with us, it’s against us.”

  “But what does that mean? I’ll tell you plainly, the Giovanni have no interest in pursuing an alliance with the Sabbat. Now, wait; nor do we have an interest in leaguing with the Camarilla.”

  “Yes, I heard about how your dialogue with Pieterzoon’s man went. And for the record, the Giovanni have indeed formed relationships with the Sabbat, albeit on an individual level.”

  “You mean Genevra? She’s dead, you know.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Me neither.” Margaret smiled wickedly. “Sooner or later, even the eldest among us has to fall. Genevra’s not the only necromancer to negotiate with the Sabbat.”

  “Well, she’s the only one dealing with the Sabbat who was in Boston. I know Francis Giovanni sold guns to Max Lowell, but that’s a commercial arrangement, not some high-handed philosophical alliance in your religious war.”

  “Such a smug tone! You know that we could just focus on the Giovanni in Boston and turn our attentions back to the Camarilla later, don’t you, Isabel?”

  “I know you could, but you won’t. The very night you make Giovanni enmity a priority, the Camarilla will crawl into Boston from the woodwork. You might—emphasis on the possibility—rout the Giovanni from Boston, but in doing so you’ll double the effort it takes to infest it completely.”