Michael was Kindred, his family’s debt repaid, but he was yet low in the hierarchy, so he merely commanded the security force. Nevertheless, like his father, he did what was required of him and he generally did it well. He obviously had the loyalty and respect of the men in his employ, for when he stepped into the room they remained relaxed and in position. Not one of them adopted a more effective stance or a more professional demeanor. They all obviously gave everything they had without concern for appearances.
“What’s the situation here?” Michael asked.
One of the men replied, “Mr. Giovanni’s office is secured, sir, with the possible exception of beneath the desk. We called out for him, but there was no reply.”
Michael turned to look at the desk as well. He squinted his eyes for a moment and seem to concentrate his senses on it, staring with such force that he seemed to expect to peer through the solid wood construction. Benito knew his cousin possessed extraordinary senses, even a sixth sense of sorts, so if anyone could pierce the shroud obscuring these assassins, then it might be him. If he failed, then he was undone. And likely dead as well.
The assassin commander seemed to reach the same conclusion, for he shuffled from the center of the room toward the far wall where the couch stood. The other assassin followed carefully, seemingly placing his feet where the commander’s trod as well.
The life-preserving instincts in Benito’s mind demanded that he make a final effort to draw attention to himself, no matter how helpless the chances, but the Giovanni ignored them; he was too fascinated by the powerful forces at work now: the environment-piercing senses of Michael Giovanni versus the cloaking veil draped over the area by the assassins.
The assassins won handily, for though Benito’s cousin seemed ill-at-ease, his powers were too feeble.
Michael Giovanni’s intense gaze lingered on the desk for a moment more, and he said, “No one is there.” Benito watched as the guards relaxed their weapons. But before the tension drained from their bodies, they were re-alerted, for Michael—eyes still fiery slits to illuminate the deepest shadow—continued a slow appraisal of the room. “Something…” he muttered.
When Michael’s wary gaze passed over Benito, the captive Giovanni did give into his life-preserving instincts and he struggled mightily by kicking and twisting with as much energy as before. But the assassin choked and restrained him even more viciously, and in that second, Benito understood he was doomed. In the face of such power, nearly any Kindred would be, and Benito decided he could not mourn a death that drew the attention of one so mighty as this commander. It would be like a newborn gazelle expecting to live despite the determined predation of a healthy cheetah.
Finally, Michael stopped and said, “Damn alarm is driving me to distraction.” The Giovanni made a slashing motion before his throat as he glanced into the hallway outside the office door. A few seconds later, Michael relaxed. Benito realized that, though the alarm was silent to most, it was only so to those who possessed senses as ordinary as his own, while Michael must hear it even in this room. Benito wondered if the assassins heard it, and he concluded they must.
Then Michael suddenly craned his head toward the ceiling again. “I said turn it off,” he shouted testily through the open office door. “Don’t play games with me now, Daniel.”
A voice carried from the hallway, “I didn’t reactivate it, sir. The schematic indicates that the alarm was activated from Mr. Benito’s office again.”
At that, the security guards immediately readied themselves once more. Benito even believed the assassins seemed troubled by the news. Benito was certainly confused.
Only Michael appeared unflapped, and he spoke in the direction of the desk. “Spirit, quit your hauntings. Benito has never confirmed your existence to me, but I’ve always known you must be here. Quit these games now, or your master, who will be informed of your impudence as it is, will have no reason to show you mercy.”
A pause, then Michael’s eyes glanced toward the ceiling and back to die desk. “Good,” he said. Then, to his men, he said, “Find Mr. Benito. Even a false alarm such as this must be investigated thoroughly.” Benito shook with helpless, hopeless rage. Randall clearly saw an opportunity to extricate himself from Benito’s service. He wasn’t doing anything contrary to Benito’s commands, and because Benito’s voice was choked off, no new orders could be given. Randall was therefore protected from the safeguards Benito had in place to punish the wraith. If the Giovanni ever escaped this predicament, then Randall would pay for this; but treachery in a crucial moment was the price of forcing spirits of the dead to aid you.
When the guards dispersed to investigate every corner of the office and the other rooms on the floor, the assassins slipped from the office and into the hall. They moved down the hall and passed a trio of men who crouched over computers and other instruments.
Then they moved to the stairs, to the first floor, and finally out of the building.
Floating unseen amidst so much activity, Benito felt as a shade passing from life to death. Perhaps only as a wraith would Benito gain revenge on Randall.
Monday, 21 June 1999, 10:22 PM
The High Museum of Art
Atlanta, Georgia
Victoria smiled as she closed the door of Heaven behind her. The black portent of the Tenth Commandment was forgotten at the sight of her party. It was glorious.
From her slightly elevated vantage atop the few steps on the gallery side of the doors of Heaven and Hell, Victoria took in the sight and scenes of her party. Statues and sculptures so grotesque that their assembled whole made the gallery seem the lair of a decadent and mad king. Vampires dressed in rags. Vampires dressed tactfully and expensively. Servants bearing trays of crystal flutes filled a hairsbreadth shy of the lip with rich ruby blood.
All of this was amidst of a veritable maze constructed from sheets of the same opaque, shatterproof glass that lined the outer windows of the High. The eight-foot-high and ten-foot-long sections of glass divided the gallery like crooked snakes. Here were long stretches interrupted only by a narrow portal. There were numerous broken sections that created a maze capable of hiding an individual no matter the direction from which one attempted to view him. Anyone not armed with lenses like those in Victoria’s glasses, that is.
All this was spread before Victoria, and for a moment the scene seemed a choreographed dance. With Victoria’s arrival, though, the rehearsal was over, and these dark and dangerous figures amidst the gothic and terrible set would begin to play games in earnest.
Or at least they had better, for Victoria played no other way, especially tonight, when the auspices were right, and she planned a bold move to catapult her toward the Princeship of Atlanta. The secondary ambition of becoming a powerbroker in this city—becoming an integral part of the new structure—was very secondary now that her entrance had been made through Heaven. She was an angel accepting a fall so she might rule this rabble.
The population of Kindred in Atlanta was still greatly diminished from its level prior to the Blood Curse, but the dozen or so Victoria expected within seemed a suitable lot. Even the sole Caitiff Victoria noted was dressed pleasingly, although like many other Kindred, Victoria harbored vague fears about these clanless vampires. This new breed of Caitiff was often not clanless for the traditional reason of a dead or missing sire who might otherwise claim the childe, but because they were too many generations removed from the source of Kindred power and their blood was too thin to support the kind of differentiation and power that a clan identity provided.
The Time of Thin Blood was one name Victoria had heard applied to the recent proliferation of Caitiff. But this one—Victoria believed her name was Stella—showed some class. She was a dainty little thing and sported little in the way of defining feminine attributes, which to Victoria meant Stella lacked voluptuousness, but the Caitiff was dressed in a tuxedo which granted her petite frame and short-cut hair a certain charming and sexual quality. Victoria determined to keep her
eyes on that one.
It was such Kindred that populated the fourth floor of the High Museum of Art. The room seemed suddenly larger now that people were within it, for they suggested scale to the vaulting ceilings and the sometimes enormous sculptures spread across the room.
The room was long enough to justify the use of the opera glasses Victoria carried in a pocket sewn into her pseudo-Grecian garb. She did not utilize the special lenses of those glasses now, but she knew there were a handful more Kindred present than those she could see at the moment, so some must be tucked into the alcoves of glass.
These alcoves would allow the Kindred here some sense of privacy, for they would imagine themselves safely out of view for a few words with a friend or foe. And they would be thus protected from everyone but Victoria, who was a marvelous lip-reader.
Also set within some of these alcoves were the sculptures that were the artistic attraction of the evening. No Toreador party was possible without such pretension, and Victoria was worldly enough to understand a portion of it was pretense. But whether it was her variety of Kindred blood or an appreciation built over centuries of watching change that caused her to feel thusly, Victoria did hold a true respect for this art form. The profound conflict of time in sculpture was what attracted her. Each piece cast in bronze or carved from marble or granite was as eternal and enduring as the Kindred, yet the brief gestures and fleeting moments captured within the pieces were archetypically mortal.
For guests who could not appreciate the work, the sculptures would at least provide a semblance of an excuse to strike up a conversation on other matters entirely.
Where Victoria looked across the room, a hooded figure held his champagne flute aloft in a silent toast to Victoria. The Toreador knew this must be Rolph, an unfortunate yet noble-hearted member of the horribly disfigured Nosferatu clan, who had obviously accepted Victoria’s invitation. Victoria regretted the invitation for a moment, for like most Toreador, she preferred beauty, and the hideous Nosferatu hardly passed that test. But she wanted the Nosferatu in her power bloc, and when it came to political allies, the information-grubbing Nosferatu were among the best to count as friends.
The robe Rolph wore was far from sumptuous, but Victoria expected that at minimum it did not smell of the sewers and underground the Nosferatu preferred to frequent. That was consolation enough for Victoria; she could expect no more.
She nodded back to him in acceptance of his appreciation. She could not see a face within the dark folds of Rolph’s hood, but she imagined him smiling before he took a small sip of the fresh blood that thickly coated the crystal flute.
“Milady?”
Victoria absently took a flute of her own from a tray a servant offered. She looked to return Rolph’s toast, but he was gone. Nosferatu had a way of doing that. They were masters of moving unseen. Their wretched ugliness demanded it, for otherwise their mere presence would shatter the Masquerade.
Victoria did another quick sweep of the room. She saw Cyndy trying to insinuate herself into the proximity of Javic, a Gangrel new to Atlanta who had requested and received permission to dwell here from Prince Benison. Javic was a Slav, and Victoria knew his story included something of the recent events in Bosnia, but she did not know whether this Kindred had been on the giving or receiving side or even whether he had been mortal or immortal at the time.
He carried himself confidently enough, so perhaps he was an elder. That, plus his dark and rugged good looks, was what must have attracted Cyndy to him, Victoria supposed. That and the mystery of him, for he was still practically a stranger. Like many Gangrel, or so Victoria believed, Javic appeared to prefer his own company to the virtual exclusion of all others, as he made no effort to entertain Cyndy. Victoria wasn’t even certain where he dwelt, though Atlanta was green enough to support a clutch of Gangrel within as well as outside the city.
Cyndy noticed Victoria watching her and beyond that, looking at Javic. She made a dismissive gesture toward Victoria and tried to place herself between the Slav and her hostess. All she managed, though, was to draw Javic’s attention to Victoria.
The Toreador allowed a coy but lingering smile to move her lips. Javic’s expression did not change, but the fact that he held her gaze for longer than a glance was as good as a smile back. Besides, it infuriated Cyndy, who tried to take Javic by the arm and step him elsewhere. But that was too much for the Gangrel, and he shook her off so quickly and deftly that Cyndy almost fell. In fact, she would have, but Javic recovered before she did and saved her from a disgraceful collapse. His help was mechanical, though, and had nothing of the intimacy Cyndy might spend a long night trying to engender.
Victoria noted Leopold stepping into the hidden confines of a nearby alcove that contained a bronze enlargement of Jean-Jacques Feuchere’s Satan, which Victoria had arranged to borrow from a Los Angeles museum. She thought she might not return it, but she wasn’t sure what the ramifications of that would be. There was presumably a means to make the proper people out West forget it had been loaned, or at least to whom it had been loaned.
Victoria watched with amusement when Stella stepped in that direction as well. They would be hidden from plain view, but Victoria suspected nothing would pass between them that required the use of her opera glasses.
Monday, 21 June 1999, 10:31 PM
The High Museum of Art
Atlanta, Georgia
Leopold sought the first cover he could find, a decision for which he ruefully chided himself when he realized he should have pushed farther into the room and away from the crowd of Kindred near the entrance.
But he was flustered. Stomaching Cyndy’s whining and posturing on the elevator ride from the parking garage had made him so. He’d been first into the elevator, and though Cyndy was some distance off, the rude ghoul who operated the lift refused to take Leopold up and then return for Cyndy.
If ever there was a Toreador who gave the clan a bad name, then it was Cyndy. A poseur, and beyond that a poser. Her and her damnable strip joints. No wonder Victoria barely took notice of the girl.
To add to his discomfort, he was then thrust into the presence of Victoria Ash as soon as he stepped off the elevator, again at the rude behest of the ghoul. When Leopold noted Cyndy’s reactions, then he knew Victoria must have been there waiting to greet her guests. Why he had thought it would be otherwise, he wasn’t certain. It seemed Victoria ranked higher than most of her guests, so why not await them beyond the entrance?
The ghoul had insisted, however, so Leopold was forced to meet her with scant preparation. He was amazed that he had calmed himself so well, but even so he’d wanted to blurt out that he’d sculpted her. That she was the key to the unknowns that plagued him. But it would have been ridiculous, because in all likelihood, he was ridiculously wrong.
Leopold prayed that Hannah would have something to tell him. He shuddered to think of the Tremere’s odd behavior the night before, but he could still feel her alabaster flesh beneath his fingertips. He suspected he’d never be able to look at her again without imagining that exchange, but perhaps that was as she wished it. The machinations of Kindred were largely beyond him, and those of the Tremere surely were, or at least this one Tremere.
Thankfully, it wasn’t Cyndy who cornered him in an alcove of the strange glass that created borders and walls around the chamber. Instead, it was Stella, a clanless one, a Caitiff, whom Leopold would have welcomed had he not preferred privacy right now.
The Toreador had met Stella on three previous occasions—a high incidence rate for his normal pattern of fraternization with other Kindred. Leopold preferred to dwell on the last of those three times only, for the first two had been gruesome occasions. Regardless, when he saw the pretty young woman approach him, his thoughts flashed back briefly to all prior occasions.
The first was shortly after her Embrace, when some Anarch whose system was flooded with drugs and alcohol must have forgotten he was Kindred, for he’d tried to rape Stella before he Embraced her out
of frustration.
The second meeting had been much the same, though this time it was a mortal who had tried to be rough with her. In her fear she’d reverted to mortal patterns as well, and she forgot that she was now the hunter and the hoodlum the prey. It was only when Leopold stumbled upon the attack during one of this tours of the narrow streets that ran perpendicular to Ponce that she’d unleashed some of her might on the thug. Leopold’s cry snapped her out of that trance, and Stella had sucked the man dry. Leopold then helped her destroy the body, which fortunately turned out to be no one anyone else wanted to find.
The third time had been only a few months earlier, when the two Kindred discovered that they were both attending a showing of the black-and-white classic movie “Metropolis” at the Fabulous Fox Theater, which was only a few blocks down Peachtree from the High. Leopold went as much to see the interior of the Fox as to see the old science-fiction movie. The stars that seemed to twinkle on the ceiling of the theater would have been more interesting if Leopold’s entire life wasn’t spent under the nighttime sky, but the ornate decorations of the place—especially the Egyptian Ballroom with its hieroglyphic-inscribed ceiling—fired Leopold’s imagination.
Leopold had seen Stella first, and he sat apart from her during the show—almost left altogether—because he didn’t want to be a reminder of the previous encounters. However, after the movie, the Caitiff had approached Leopold as if he was a valued friend, not just a timely rescuer. So after seeing who could better feign drinking an espresso at a nearby coffee house, they returned to Leopold’s home and talked for much of the night.
Clan Novel Toreador: Book 1 of The Clan Novel Saga Page 11
