Clan Novel Toreador: Book 1 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Stewart Wieck

  Leopold had tried to sculpt Stella’s likeness, but she was one of his many failures. She’d been sympathetic; but more than that, she would have been an excellent model, for Leopold knew enough of the tragedy in her life to lend depth to any work she modeled.

  Stella was a small woman, perhaps only four and half feet tall. Her hair short and attractively styled, she was just old enough to look mature and to possess little crinkles around her eyes, but youthful enough to pass for someone perhaps not even of drinking age. She’d been timeless as a mortal, and now as a Kindred she truly was.

  Unless the Caitiff were not like other Kindred. It was claimed that the blood was getting even thinner now, but a Kindred like Stella used to be the lowest grade of vampire. The blood her sire had fed her was too weak to transfer much other than the trappings of vampirism—the need for blood, vulnerability to the sun, and a little more. No indication of clan was passed, though, and so she was clanless unless a primogen would claim her.

  Leopold had thought about presenting her case to Victoria, but he shied away from that because he didn’t want his discussions with Victoria to center on a different woman. It was damn foolish. He knew that, but it didn’t change how he acted.

  He thought Stella deserved to be a Toreador because she saw the world through artistic eyes. She’d made a poor living as a decent photographer as a mortal, and it was work she continued, though she now specialized in night photography for unavoidable reasons.

  “Let’s hope this sets things even,” Stella said as she approached Leopold.

  “What do you mean?”

  Stella grimaced, the memories hurting her too, but she said, “Two bad encounters and then one good one. This will make a second good meeting, and things will be even.”

  The Toreador laughed. “Don’t expect karma to be part of a Kindred’s life, Stella.”

  She was close now, and Leopold hugged her. When she warmly returned his friendly gesture, Leopold reprimanded himself for thinking so horribly about her clanlessness. He admitted to himself that she was the kind of girl that would suit him if they could both still be Kine and never have been exposed to so much more of the world than he wished he knew even now.

  Stella’s grimace was intact. “I don’t expect anything out of Kindred life, Leo.” She was the only person who called him that. The only one who had ever called him that who had not been immediately corrected. It was the name she’d cried that night after she’d drained every drop of red from the man who had assaulted her, and Leopold hadn’t wished to make an issue of it then. For some reason, he continued to let it slide.

  “Let’s hope we get better than this guy got, at least,” Leopold said, thumbing his hand at the two-and-a-half-foot-high bronze sculpture in the center of the alcove.

  “It’s the devil, I suppose,” said Stella. “Seems like all the sculptures here tonight are rather demonic.”

  “As are the guests,” Leopold suggested. “But, you’re right. The piece is called Satan and was sculpted by a man named Feuchere. Look at him.” Leopold pointed to the center of the work. “Satan, that is,” he added.

  The leathery-looking wings of the statue were partly unfolded so that they hid Satan’s face. Inside this region of shadow, the horned and taloned plotter sat with his chin in a hand and his head cocked akimbo. And though the representation was that of a beast, the human qualities of the figure showed through and Stella felt a swelling of compassion as she gazed upon that face at Leopold’s request.

  Leopold said glumly, “It’s the kind of work my condition should allow me to realize.”

  Stella gave him a sad look. “Your block is still stopping you from sculpting Kindred? I’m sorry, Leo.” Leopold was tempted to tell Stella about his recent success as the urge to share the news with someone friendly to him was great. Instead, he remained glumly silent, and he let that silence tell his lie for him.

  They stood in silence for quite some time, and Stella used the opportunity to examine Satan more closely.

  “You can do work at least this good,” she said at last.

  Leopold nodded, graciously accepting her praise. Then he said, “Have you seen my new piece on display here tonight?”

  Stella brightened, delighted to move the conversation onward and away from oppressive thoughts. “No. No, I haven’t. I would be honored if you would show it to me.”

  Leopold took Stella’s arm and moved to exit the alcove. Then he stopped and suddenly inquired, “You’ve not seen Hannah here tonight, have you?”

  Stella said, “The Tremere? No I haven’t. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t believe any Tremere are here yet.”

  “Is that odd?”

  “Oh, very,” she said. “The Tremere are very political, and I can’t imagine a gathering like this at which they did not have someone here early in order to spy on everyone else. I call them gadflies, which is what Rolph must be for the Nosferatu.”

  Leopold didn’t know such things himself, but he trusted Stella to know. She was working hard to learn the ropes of Kindred society. Nothing else was working to her benefit, and her willingness to tackle such situations suggested to Leopold that she would find a way to overcome her clanless status, even if supposed friends like himself continued to be assholes.

  Stella asked, “Did you need to see her for some reason? If so, I’d be careful. She drives hard and dangerous bargains. At least that’s what I hear.”

  And then they both heard something more. A commotion just outside the alcove was drawing the attention of all the nearby Kindred, and Leopold and Stella stepped out just in time to catch a royal entrance.

  Stella’s mouth dropped and she stared at the emerging figures. Leopold, though, had other things on his mind, and he still needed a moment alone.

  He whispered in Stella’s ear, “I’ll meet you at my sculpture later.” She nodded slightly, so she at least heard him, though he wasn’t certain if she listened too.

  Monday, 21 June 1999, 10:33 PM

  The High Museum of Art

  Atlanta, Georgia

  The attention of many of the guests was suddenly drawn toward the center of the room. Victoria was grateful for something that gave her direction, so she did not have to linger at the entrance any longer or choose her own first conversation. There would be charges of favoritism if she chose poorly. Now fate had intervened, so any expectations of social niceties would be forgotten.

  She approached the ruckus. Sipping from her red-filled flute, Victoria smiled at Clarice, a young Ventrue who stood nearby. The blood coated Victoria’s lips and she carefully licked it off before saying, “Something interesting, I hope.”

  Clarice was polite, “There’s much of interest here tonight, Ms. Ash.”

  “‘Victoria’ is fine,” the Toreador corrected. “As a Ventrue you should learn that most Kindred prefer titles in keeping with their apparent age, not their actual age.”

  “That’s odd,” Clarice admitted. She was a tall and heavily built woman. By no means fat, she was full-figured, though she retained a degree of physical grace, which Victoria appreciated, because this rather plain woman needed something to compensate for her deficiencies. Clarice’s drab, conservative clothing certainly did not alleviate her need.

  Victoria disagreed, “It’s not so strange really, if you consider the instinct for the Masquerade that many Kindred have accumulated for several centuries. It seems a small thing perhaps, to avoid a scene where an older man calls a younger man “Sir” or “Mister” when they appear to be of the same station, but I suggest to you that it would seem less foreign to you if you lived in a climate where the existence of our kind was not forgotten or overlooked as it is today.”

  Clarice didn’t have any means of responding to such a statement that carried so much authority. Nor was she seemingly prepared for the length of the retort. She could only salvage her Ventrue pride with a quip: “Your case appears sound to me, Victoria.”

  And then they reached Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s Count Ugol
ino and Sons. A small crowd of a half dozen Kindred besides Victoria and Clarice had gathered. A tall, slender man, whom Victoria imagined was the Setite she’d been convinced to invite, was among them. Javic, not yet free of Cyndy, stood aloof from the rest of the group, but he had been drawn by curiosity as well. The other three Kindred were the African-American Ventrue Benjamin, who was a close friend of the Prince’s wife Eleanor; the sole Brujah, Thelonious; and the center of attention, the Kindred known only as the General.

  This was only the second time Victoria had seen this last Kindred. All she knew was the common knowledge: he was Malkavian; he was recently awakened from Torpor, which he had evidently spent inside Stone Mountain, a huge chunk of granite east of Atlanta; and he had been witnessed by the Gangrel called Dusty stepping from the mountain.

  In years past, or so Victoria had been told, Benison had been relatively loathe to accept new Kindred into Atlanta. The destruction brought by the Blood Curse changed all that, and indeed a majority of the Kindred in attendance thus far this evening were either new to town, including Victoria herself, or even newly Embraced. The General was part of that group as well, but Benison doubtlessly would have granted him permission to remain regardless, since the Prince too was Malkavian.

  Such Kindred were invariably demented in some manner, though like many madmen they could often appear sane. Some, like the prophet of Gehenna named Anatole, hid their madness behind no such facade, and he and other Malkavians claimed their madness came from too often seeing the truth overlooked by other Kindred who still dwelt too much in the world of Kine. In essence, Malkavians like Anatole insisted there was a Masquerade greater than the one perpetrated by Kindred on the Kine. With her healthy fear of unseen powers, Victoria accepted this madness of the Malkavians as wisdom. Most others did not.

  Because Malkavians intrigued her so, Victoria had made certain the General received an invitation to this party. She was delighted he had attended. Authentically delighted. Unlike some Kindred awakened from Torpor—the deep sleep a Kindred slips into for as long as a century at a time—and especially ones waking now, when the last hundred or fifty or even twenty years had brought so much change to the world, the General seemed at ease with the new world and took little time to adapt. Either that, or he was powerful enough to overcome a deficit of knowledge.

  Victoria and the others assembled watched the Malkavian with interest. His clothes already stripped from his body and strewn across the floor, the General clambered onto the podium that held Carpeaux’s great work. His muscular and naked body was not unattractive, and though he sported a grand physique, Victoria saw nothing that particularly dazzled her. Her charms worked better when men were more impressive than this.

  The General crouched at the feet of Count Ugolino, where he summoned a grotesquely inappropriate tetes d’expression in conjunction with the four naked sons of the Count who crouched, reclined, or fainted at his feet. His expression of comical happiness made Victoria shudder, for the son nearest his position held a plaster incarnation of fear and even terror upon his face. Completing the tetes d’expression, the other sons displayed other emotions, none of them joyous, for the Count above them was soon to devour them. The Count himself sat above his sons, but his powerful body was hunched and his face twisted with madness, and he ripped at his face with fingers bent like claws.

  The General was as wild-haired as when he had first presented himself to the Prince and the council of primogen. He no longer wore the uniform of the Confederate soldier he claimed to have stolen from the racks at a souvenir store in Stone Mountain Park, but which the Prince greeted as a sign that the General had fought on his side and perhaps at his side in the War of Northern Aggression. At the time, the newcomer introduced himself only as the General, which of course led everyone to wonder if he had been one, though Benison did not recognize him. He refused to answer most questions put to him, and when the Brujah Primogen Thelonious demanded better answers, the General nonchalantly ripped the tongue from his own mouth and placed it on the table before the nonplussed council member.

  Benison had laughed and granted the General permission to remain. If Benison needed another reason, an insult to his constant enemy the Brujah was reason enough.

  With his tongue presumably regrown, the General now climbed to sit alongside the Count, his butt cheeks wedged over the face of the fearful son he’d mocked a moment before. The Malkavian was in much better health than months before. In fact, his previously wasted frame now rippled with muscles so that he seemed a twin of the plaster Count. And as the Kindred spectators watched, the General literally became one with Count Ugolino. As some Kindred had the ability to sink into the earth—and clearly the General possessed that ability, if he had slept within Stone Mountain for the one hundred and thirty-plus years since the Civil War—he either became somewhat discorporeal or otherwise attuned to the structure of the plaster and slipped within the Count. As this transition took place, the Count’s expression of madness slowly shifted to the beaming jocularity preferred by the General.

  Victoria tried to make sense of this potentially profound, potentially whimsical, potentially ridiculous gesture of the General’s. She looked around and the others seemed at a loss too. All except Javic, for he stepped away from the scene shaking his head. He could have been dismissing the event as ridiculous, but something in his earnest refusal struck Victoria as knowing. Javic’s irritation with Cyndy finally overcame him again, and he shook the Toreador from his arm with a swift jerk that sent Cyndy to the floor. This time, he did not catch her. Victoria would have laughed aloud and pressed her advantage over the young Toreador, but she did not wish to transform Cyndy from a passive to determined enemy. A Prince needed friends, which was exactly what Benison largely lacked.

  The only Brujah present, and likely one of only two that would be present throughout the night, was Thelonious. He seemed somewhat irritated by the General’s performance, though perhaps it was only the General himself whom Thelonious opposed. Victoria found that funny, for the Brujah were usually in favor of any variety of disruption, especially if it might offend others. But then, Thelonious was an atypical Brujah, which perhaps explained why he had once been the only Brujah Prince Benison would recognize as an official member of Atlanta’s Kindred. That, or it would have looked unseemly not to have at least a Brujah Primogen. Brujah typified the Anarch movement among Kindred of the Camarilla. They were the rebels who wanted to see an end to the conservative, usually Ventrue, control of the organization, and they dressed as rebels will—in clothing that allows them to stand out prominently from those they oppose.

  One of the reasons Thelonious was so atypical was his conservative dress. He favored modern suits and small, round-rimmed glasses. He was a young black man, one who was surprisingly soft-looking for a Brujah warrior, but Victoria had heard tales of how this man had fought Benison and knew better than to be fooled by the large, doe-like eyes that seemed to make evident a meek and compassionate heart.

  Tonight, however, Thelonious was arrayed in traditional African clothing. The loose-fitting robe was bright orange with colorful bands of pink, yellow and green swirling across and around it. He wore a small round hat on his head, and tonight he disdained the use of his usual eyeglasses. Coming back to this fact now, Victoria realized it was actually the first thing she had noticed, for without the glasses amplifying the gentle expression of his eyes, Thelonious seemed suddenly capable of ferocious glares. It was such a look of intense disfavor that he now bestowed upon the General.

  Benjamin seemed very puzzled and extremely disturbed by the General’s display. Victoria felt Benjamin was a very attractive man. In fact, he could have been a poster-boy for the successful modern African-American, which was why Victoria was surprised Benison had accepted him into Atlanta even if he was supposedly an old acquaintance of the Prince’s wife, Eleanor, for what might the Prince hate more than a successful black man, or black vampire? The truth was that Benjamin was Eleanor’s childe, and Beni
son didn’t know it. At least, not yet. Victoria’s entrance through Heaven demanded that the Prince no longer remain bereft of the truth. Thank Heaven, so to speak, for Hannah’s amazing ability to deduce or somehow determine a given Kindred’s sire.

  Like Javic, the two black men departed as well, but they did so together. Victoria smiled. It was particularly important that these two speak to one another. Her plan called for an African-American alliance, and it would be best if these two started before Julius arrived to provide the final glue or impetus.

  The scene flashed in her mind’s eye. Benison killing Eleanor, Eleanor killing Benjamin, Julius killing Benison. If Benison could take Thelonious with him, then so much the better. She smiled at these thoughts.

  Beside her, Clarice shuddered and said, “It’s ghastly. Those children seem so unhappy and now… that smile.”

  Victoria glanced back to the sculpture. It seemed as though the General was going to remain within the Count. If so, she would have to remember he was there, because it wouldn’t do to reveal any of her plots accidentally when no Kindred were apparent. The ghoulish smile beaming at the plaster children was indeed disconcerting, but much was this evening, which was perfect for Victoria. A little nervous tension would help her pot boil later. Besides, Victoria felt this party was an opportunity to reveal to everyone what fearless stuff she was made of. Did they expect impressionist paintings or classical nudes? Every piece on display tonight alluded to a terrible story, whether it was Satan’s fall, the wicked Count’s feast of children, or Caine’s murder of Abel.

  Victoria answered Clarice, “Perhaps the General is only displaying his own artwork for our amusement—his own interpretation of the Count’s terrible predicament.”

  “The Count?”

  “Come now, Clarice. Surely you know your Dante?”

  The Ventrue smiled. “That book about Hell, you mean?”

  “Yes,” sighed Victoria. “Count Ugolino and his sons were imprisoned in a tower to starve to death, so, to save himself, the Count devoured his children.”