Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 5 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Gherbod Fleming

  Jan stared at her. The mark on her jaw was no longer visible. He began to doubt his own eyes. Had he actually seen it, or was the snake merely a figment of his confusion? Victoria spent several moments smoothing her dress, adjusting strands of hair. She was as flustered as Jan was stunned.

  “I’m afraid I must be going,” she said and marched toward the door.

  Jan did not recover in time to show her out. The door slammed, and she was gone. He stood unmoving and stared after her.

  After several minutes, when he finally turned back to the room, a large figure stood against the wall on the other side of the love seat. The creature, where not covered by its threadbare suit, was hairy—short, brown fur with mangy splotches of gray. The suit might have been elegant once, many years and many more launderings ago, but seemed now barely to hold together. The creature’s eyes were large and completely black—there appeared to be no white, no iris—and set far apart above the gaping hole where a nose should have been. Jagged teeth stuck through one side of its lip, so only the other side of the mouth seemed capable of opening.

  “Well,” it said, “that sure was a sight for sore eyes.”

  Jan steadied himself against the back of the chair. He felt shaky and completely unready to handle the demands placed on him. “What were we talking about before… that?”

  “About her,” said Marston Colchester. “You know, speak of the devil.” He let out a wheeze that Jan had come to recognize as what would be laughter from someone with a nose. “I tell you, I been hanging out with the wrong people. Never had Victoria Ash walk into my suite and drop her panties, thank you ma’am.”

  Jan sat in the chair. “I believe she kept on her ‘panties’ for the entire visit.”

  “If she did, that was about the only thing. My, my. You have to admire a woman who don’t wear a bra.”

  Jan ignored the Nosferatu’s comments. Otherwise, the conversation would never progress beyond the relative merits of various feminine undergarments. This obscene creature was the first Kindred Jan had sought out upon reaching Baltimore. How, he wondered, could Prince Garlotte have ruled for so long while completely neglecting this clan? The prince professed disdain for the Nosferatu. It was a mistake many Kindred made, including, regrettably, many Ventrue. Jan was slightly incredulous that Colchester had attended the more recent conference. Jan had looked over the auditorium rather thoroughly. How could a man of that size go unnoticed? The same way he’d just hidden himself, Jan imagined, during Victoria’s visit.

  Victoria. Jan needed to put her out of his mind; he needed to change the subject, or at least shift the conversation down more productive avenues. “You said you heard the conversation between Victoria and Sturbridge as the conference was breaking up?” Jan prodded.

  “That I did. Now, that Tremere, she’s not one to go running about with no panties on.”

  “The conversation—?”

  “Right.” Colchester settled onto the love seat and ran his fingers across the fine upholstery. “So, your girlfriend the Toreador waltzes up to Sturbridge, real sly-like and smiling the whole time, but she says something about, ‘Are you Tremere going to do Ventrue bidding, and them not bothering to send any help?’ And Sturbridge, she says, ‘If we gotta make do with whats we already got, then we gotta make do.’”

  Jan absorbed this report. The wording was obviously filtered through Colchester’s own vernacular, but the meaning seemed reasonable enough.

  “Then,” the Nosferatu continued, “Victoria asks if Sturbridge wants to talk more about it, and Sturbridge says that she ain’t sticking around. She’s gotta get back to New York real quick-like.”

  “I see.” Over the years, Jan had learned better than to question the veracity of information gathered by the Nosferatu. Victoria has no agreement with the Tremere, he thought. This was significant news for several reasons. The Tremere, secretive and uniformly distrusted among the Kindred, were always a potential danger. The fact that they apparently were not cooperating with Victoria made Victoria less of a threat. Also, the fact that Sturbridge herself did not seem to have much of a rapport with Victoria cut down on the likelihood that Victoria had in some way engineered or been complicit in the assassination of Maria Chin, in order that a more cooperative Sturbridge could join the conference.

  Of course, there was the possibility, however slight, that they had suspected they were being watched and had orchestrated the entire conversation. “Did they meet again?” Jan asked.

  “Nope. Sturbridge hightailed it for New York not too long after that.”

  “I see.” Jan settled back into the armchair and began to massage the bridge of his nose. His fingers, however, still remembered the sensation of Victoria’s supple skin. He was plagued by the ghost image that never was—his hands clasped firmly over her breasts, her body pressed back against his. He shook his head to clear away the mental picture.

  I’ll have to be more careful, he decided. There was no point in overestimating his ability to resist her. I’ll stay away from her, not meet with her in private. But such thoughts raised a dull ache in his chest. If only there weren’t the political games…. If there weren’t political games, she wouldn’t be interested in you, he reminded himself.

  “Marston, can you watch her the next few nights?” Jan asked.

  The Nosferatu rubbed his hairy palms together. “Since it’s for a good cause.” The twisted grin of his half-pierced lip sent a chill through Jan.

  There was no need to show Colchester out. He was simply no longer there. Jan busied himself trying to arrange all the pieces of the puzzle in his mind, and trying not to think about one particularly beautiful piece of that puzzle.

  Monday, 19 July 1999, 2:12 AM

  Federal Hill

  Baltimore, Maryland

  “Would you like to stroll up the hill, sir?” Marja asked.

  “No.” Jan felt confined. Never mind that there was plenty of room in the limousine, even with himself and both assistants. Marja leaned away from him and toward Roel as she gazed out the passenger’s side window at the park beyond.

  “It’s a nice night, sir,” added the driver, Herman. His partner, Ton Baumgarte, in the front passenger seat, nodded agreement.

  “Mr. Abbeel,” Jan said evenly to the driver, “should I require advice of a recreational nature from you, rest assured that you will be among the first to know.”

  Herman returned his attention to Key Highway. The limousine moved slowly along. There was little enough traffic and, even if Jan wasn’t, Marja and Roel seemed to be enjoying this night-time tour of the city. The car itself was a regular rental. Among all the other arrangements and contacts, Jan had seen no immediate need to have his own armored and light-sealed vehicle shipped from Amsterdam and, in fact, tonight had been the first occasion since arriving that he’d desired the use of an automobile. He’d required precious little of his two assistants over the last three nights. The contacts and negotiations had all been with Kindred, requiring Jan personally—no “legitimate” business interests—and so the mortals’ presence had been rendered moot in that regard.

  There remained, of course, the need to feed. Jan glanced at Marja. As she leaned over Roel to look out the window, the taut muscles of her neck drew the vampire’s notice—sternomastoid, sternohyoid, omohyoid—and tucked among them the pulsating jugular. Jan had been so busy the past few nights that he’d neglected to feed, and how he could feel the hunger rising.

  Perhaps that’s why I was so…susceptible to Victoria last night, he started to consider, but then pushed that entire topic from his thoughts.

  This drive was not, after all, a field trip to amuse his servants. Jan had thought he wanted company, though now he was having second thoughts. What he’d wanted most, he realized, was to be away from the Lord Baltimore Inn; more specifically, away from the seventh floor and the suite at the opposite end of the building from his own. He’d accomplished much since receiving this impossible assignment from Hardestadt. A casual drive through
the city should have been a pleasant enough distraction. Yet here Jan was, feeling hemmed in by his sight-seeing retainers, and thinking about the one person he wanted not to think about.

  Damned Toreador.

  Jan couldn’t help remembering the tiny mark on Victoria’s jaw, the serpent devouring its own tail. It was pure chance that he’d seen it. And Victoria’s reaction—that was the strangest of all. New concerns began to take shape in Jan’s mind. A Tzimisce symbol… Could it be that she…? But Jan had difficulty focusing his thoughts. He also couldn’t help remembering the perfect curves of Victoria’s naked back, the luster of her skin, the delicate ripple of her ribs beneath his fingers….

  “What is this place?” Jan asked Marja. Anything was better than thinking, than remembering. He gestured toward the grassy rise that she’d suggested climbing.

  “Federal Hill,” she said.

  “During the American Civil War it was a fort, of sorts,” explained Roel. The young man was as able an executive assistant as was Marja, and another source of nourishment to boot. Neither was aware of the other’s similar, unofficial capacity, or of the common link that made them so valuable to Jan.

  I will feed as soon as we get back, Jan thought. It was not wise to neglect his own welfare, and it seemed he might need his strength in the upcoming weeks if Victoria continued to challenge both his authority and his control over himself.

  Herman did not see in time the large figure that stepped out into the street just in front of the car. The impact jolted all the passengers. Jan instantly forgot all thoughts of Federal Hill, of Victoria. The dual airbags inflated and shoved Herman and Ton back against their seats. No one in the back was wearing a seatbelt. Jan and his assistants slammed into the seats before them.

  “Oh my God,” Marja said, picking herself up from the floor. “We hit someone.” Then she noticed the blood gushing from Roel’s nose. Jan noticed as well. “Roel, you’re bleeding. Are you—?”

  Her question was cut off by the bullets that started tearing through the car. The passenger’s-side windows shattered. A spray of automatic gunfire ripped apart Ton and Roel. Glass, blood, and bullets were everywhere at once. Marja jerked spasmodically as she was hit. She was knocked back onto Jan, and he against the door. Bullets exploded through his arms, his chest, his face.

  Herman freed himself from the deflating airbag and flung his door open. Jan reached for his door handle a split second after his driver managed to stand and raise his own semi-automatic pistol, aiming across the roof of the car at their assailant. But Herman was slammed into the car from behind. His weapon clattered to the ground, and he slumped after it with a small arrow completely through his neck.

  Not an arrow, Jan realized. A stake.

  Jan’s door was open, but instead of fleeing, he used it as a shield. He grabbed Herman’s gun and flung himself back through the car, over the bodies of Marja and Roel—away from whomever had fired the stake. The gunman on the other side of the car was surprised to see Jan coming straight at him through the shattered window, and even more surprised as Jan unloaded the pistol’s clip into him. Jan had never practiced with one of these modern weapons. He was as surprised as the gunman, whose chest and neck seemed to explode.

  Jan forced himself the rest of the way through the window as his assailant collapsed in a heap. The Ventrue’s first instinct was to flee, but then he saw the assault rifle in the hand of the inert gunman. Jan dropped the empty pistol and grabbed the new weapon. He whirled toward the front of the limousine. The creature that the car had hit stood unharmed among the wreckage of the bumper and grille.

  War ghoul, Jan thought, though he couldn’t be sure. He’d never seen one up close before, but it was too damned big to be completely human; that and it had a large horn sticking up from the middle of its forehead. The effect was more rhinoceros than unicorn.

  Jan let loose with the rifle. Dozens of bullets chewed into the hood of the car, the pavement. A tire exploded. So did a streetlight half a block away. Jan blew to hell everything in sight—everything except the ghoul. And then the gun stopped firing.

  “Shit.”

  Jammed? Out of ammo? Didn’t much matter. Jan ran for the grassy knoll. After the first few yards, he remembered that somebody back there was firing stakes—out of a shotgun? A crossbow? So Jan tried to weave as he ran, not to make too steady a target. It might have been a good idea, but he almost managed to trip himself, and quickly gave it up.

  At the top of the hill, he paused and looked back. Three shapes were pursuing him up the slope of the park: the rhinoceros, another more human-sized figure, and a creature on all fours. Jan tried the assault rifle again. He pointed the gun and kept pressing the trigger, but no more shots fired.

  “Shit.”

  He threw the weapon to the ground, then turned and fled in earnest.

  Sabbat.

  The word bounced through his mind every few steps.

  Sabbat.

  But how could they have sneaked into Baltimore with all the patrols operating north of Washington?

  They couldn’t have. But somebody had sure as hell just shot up his staff.

  Sabbat.

  Shot up his staff? Shot up him!

  As Jan wove among the trees on the crest of the small hill, he tried to take stock of his injuries. At the very least, he was still mobile. Otherwise, he’d probably have been destroyed by now. He thought for a brief moment of Marja and Roel and Ton, their blood pooling in the floorboards of the limousine, and of Herman lying on the pavement pierced by a wooden stake. But there was no time for sentimentality. Survival must come first.

  The bullet wounds Jan had suffered were painful but luckily not disabling. He tried to pinpoint the holes, to direct healing vitae to the worst of them. A few bullets that had lodged near the surface popped out as shallow wounds filled. Other slugs would just have to stay in him for the time being. If he survived, he could have them cut out later. One bullet had passed through both cheeks and shattered a few teeth en route. Another had managed to tear away most of an ear. Again, painful but not fatal. Jan lost count somewhere around fifteen bullets. Nothing blood wouldn’t take care of.

  What blood? he wondered, fighting off a wave of desperation. The little healing he’d done had taken its toll, and though he was more whole of body, he now felt fatigue beginning to overtake him. He thought for a moment about circling back, about trying to get to Marja and Roel before they were completely cold, but the assassins might have left a guard for just that reason, and Jan couldn’t hope to win a straight-up fight at this point.

  Holding the fatigue at bay, Jan kept running out of the park and through the neighborhoods to the south. He cut down a side street, then turned south again, pausing at the corner of a building to watch. He didn’t have long to wait before they turned the first comer. The large dog-like creature was first, sniffing along the ground. Following my scent, Jan realized. The next stalker held the leash attached to the dog-thing. Finally, Rhino brought up the rear. He seemed to be limping slightly. Maybe the limo had injured him—but the car had definitely gotten the worse end of the deal.

  Jan watched for a moment longer, hoping they would make a wrong turn, but the bloodhound was following his path exactly. Jan ran again. Each step took more out of him. He cursed himself for having not fed for so many nights. If he had more blood, he might be able to swing wide to the west, to make a large circle, not to the car, but back to the Lord Baltimore. Surely he could find help there. But Jan’s strength was fading fast. He’d never make it so far.

  And wouldn’t Garlotte love for me to run through the lobby of his hotel with a Sabbat hit squad on my tail, Jan thought. Thought of imperiling the Masquerade led his mind back to the limousine and the four bodies in and around it. There was no way for Jan to hide that little faux pas. Garlotte will just have to clean that up.

  Jan stopped again. He shook his head, trying to purge all extraneous thought—he didn’t have time to worry about feeding, or Garlotte, or the Masque
rade—but mostly he just succeeded in shaking loose another piece of broken tooth. Ahead of him was another park. Beyond it, more docks. He’d crossed the neck of this narrow peninsula. He couldn’t see his pursuers at the moment, but he had a sick feeling that they were still back there, that they were still tracking him. The bloodhound wouldn’t lose his trail, and the Sabbat wouldn’t give up. The park, he decided, had nothing to offer. If he climbed into a tree or tried to hide, they would track him down. Maybe near the docks he would run across some roving band of Brujah. Beyond that, he didn’t have much of a plan. Or much hope.

  Lox pulled at the lead constantly, but Terrence held him back. There’s no reason for it to have come to this, Terrence thought. No reason for us to have to track this bozo across the city. But Sonny had bungled his job. Terrence had been surprised when Euroboy gunned down Sonny, but not too upset. Sonny was an ass. He deserved whatever he got. Apparently Blaine had anticipated something like this happening. That’s why Terrence and Lox were there.

  Even holding back Lox, Terrence was outpacing Jammer. In stopping the limo, the horned monstrosity seemed to have busted a knee, and without Bolon or Vykos or—God forbid—the Little Tailor around, there was no one to fix it .Jeez. Terrence shuddered just thinking of those high-octane Tzimisce. He was just as glad that they weren’t there. Sure they were clanmates and all, but they creeped the hell out of him.

  Let Jammer limp, Terrence thought. The big idiot should’ve known better than to use himself as a human—relatively speaking—roadblock. But, hey, you tell him to stop a car, he stops the car. After all, Blaine didn’t pick Jammer for his manners, savvy, or conversational skills.

  Lox jerked more energetically at his lead.

  “Stop your grunting, you stupid idget.” Terrence gave the creature a swift kick in one of its malformed, canine legs. Lox had been a friend, a fellow Tzimisce, before an egregious foul-up had led Vykos to turn him into the slavering bloodhound-of-a-thing he was now. Easy come, easy go, thought Terrence. Compared to some who pissed off Vykos, Lox had gotten off light.