TEXT:  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
  Hammer  
   
  and Chisel 
  Written by Chris Ironside 
  Art by Jennifer Thorsen 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   © 
  2017 
  White 
  Wolf 
  Entertainment AB. All rights 
  reserved. 
  Vampire: 
  The 
  Masquerade®, 
  World 
  of 
  Darkness®, 
  Storytelling 
  System™, and Storytellers 
  Vault™ 
  are 
  trademarks 
  and/or registered trademarks 
  of White Wolf Entertainment AB. All rights reserved.  
  For additional information on White Wolf and the World of Darkness, 
  please, visit: www.white-wolf.com, www.worldofdarkness.com and 
  www.storytellersvault.com. 
  
  Table of Contents 
   
   
  Table of Contents 
  Meet Your Maker 
  01 
  One by One 
  17 
  Rules of Nature 
  39 
  Favors for Friends 
  120 
  Safe Words 
  168 
  A Case of Mistaken Identity 
  174 
  Rumor and Reputation 
  189 
  Epilogue 
  214 
   
   
   
   
   
  
  1 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Meet Your Maker 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  April 13, 1999. 3:21 AM. 
   
  Kelly Patterson rolled out of bed. Petite frame clothed in 
  nothing but her own blood, she pulled for the sodden silk 
  sheet. She ached from head to toe, and her bones felt like 
  they were creaking with the effort of supporting her weight. 
  She blinked at the shimmering crimson curtain that fell 
  across her field of vision as the pain spiked. She glanced 
  down when one of her fingers wouldn’t close around the 
  sheet. Her right ring finger was bent nearly backwards 
  between the knuckles closest to her palm. It was, for a 
  moment, strange to her that that should not be the most 
  painful of her hurts.  
  She stood with her four-finger grip on the sheet and pulled 
  on it. Half-way to her feet it stopped, jerked back away from 
  her. Her shoulder cried out at the sudden strain and she 
  nearly overbalanced back onto the bed. She looked back 
  over her shoulder at the one who had pulled the sheet. 
  Kelly felt the thrill of song vibrating in her throat. Tonight 
  
  2 
   
  was a good night at Mitch’s bar. She’d had a good week 
  dancing at the club, and she’d made her rent without 
  having to flirt with more desperate acts this month. Now 
  she was singing, and that was always better. She rose on 
  wings of sound, feeling them swell up from the core of her 
  and carry her aloft. The regulars, her sometimes-friends, 
  were rapt, tonight. Strangers were awestruck. She was 
  soaring. She smiled her broad, red-painted smile around 
  the lyrics at the new guy at the table in front of the stage. 
  He was cute, as far as that went. A little over six feet tall, a 
  darker tone of blond than Kelly herself, broad across the 
  shoulder but not so much that he seemed to loom. His eyes 
  were the prettiest blue she’d seen in years, and they were 
  wide with soul-wrenching awe as they stared up at her. 
  She’d never before seen someone so struck by the sound of 
  her voice, and she elated. 
  “Do I at least get to shower this time?” Kelly asked. Slurred, 
  between the split lips. Stefan didn’t answer her at once, 
  merely letting his pretty blue eyes linger on her battered 
  form. He let the silk sheet drop to the bed at his side. 
  “Why do you make me so angry, Kelly?” he wanted to know. 
  She turned away so she didn’t have to face his blood-
  enforced, silent demand that she answer. “It doesn’t have 
  to be this way.” 
  “You know why, Stefan, and it does. If you want me you 
  must take me, because I refuse to come to you willingly.” 
  “Buy you a drink?” he wanted to know after she’d hung up 
  the mic for the next of the week’s singers. She smiled at 
  him, cool and distant she hoped. She didn’t want to lead 
  him on, and he had so seemed to love her voice. 
  “Yeah, but I’m attached,” she lied. She felt her smile fade 
  as his became…cold? Knowing. She shook her head, sure 
  
  3 
   
  she had imagined it. “If that changes your offer, I’ll 
  understand.” 
  “Not a bit,” he said smoothly and joined her at the bar. He 
  had such intense, beautiful blue eyes. She felt like she was 
  all they could see. “I’m Stefan.” 
  Stefan snarled. Kelly could hear his fangs in it, but she 
  didn’t look around. When she wasn’t looking at him he 
  couldn’t twist her around his finger as easily. His Presence 
  was weaker, an echo rather than the full, radiant blush of it 
  that overwhelmed her. Like the head-to-toe throb was an 
  echo of his body. She staggered for the attached bathroom. 
  He spat at her retreating back, “You will remember that you 
  love me some night, Kelly. But by then, I will have moved 
  on.” 
  Kelly stopped, leaning in the doorway to the bathroom. She 
  wanted so badly to see his eyes, to soothe his temper, and 
  at the same time she wanted nothing more than to rip him 
  to pieces, burn his house to ashes, and never think of him 
  again. “You moved on when you went to the long sleep, 
  Stefan. I never loved you. If I wasn’t chained to you by 
  blood, you would…”  
  She cut off, barely able to even think the words, let alone 
  form them. She shook and closed her good hand around 
  the frame more tightly. Her palm oozed with her blood. 
  “You would never see me again,” she finished, and forced 
  herself to step into the bathroom. Kelly flinched as a 
  bedside lamp smashed against the wall. 
  He smelled pretty great, Kelly had to admit. And even 
  though she’d been sticking to beer, he had been generous. 
  It was so easy to accept when he offered her another. She 
  was fascinated by him in a way she hadn’t been fascinated 
  by a man in years. It was at once thrilling and frightening, 
  
  4 
   
  and the only thing that kept her at the bar talking to Stefan 
  was the fact that his own fascinated attention was so 
  alluring. He was so easy to talk to, and even if his fingers 
  felt cold under hers, she didn’t want to shift away from the 
  light touch. She felt giddy in his presence. When she sang 
  again, she sang for him, and he stared at her so intensely 
  and intimately she felt herself responding with a gush of 
  warmth. 
  Kelly straightened her finger with a wince as the steaming 
  needles of water beat down on her. Her thirst was like a 
  living thing trying to claw its way out from under her skin, 
  but as her blood did its dark work, other, more mundane 
  hurts began to fade. More of her blood swirled away down 
  the drain in a pinkish maelstrom. Only the watery thinness 
  of its scent made it easier to resist the urge to drop to her 
  knees and lap at it before it could escape. 
  “How many are you up to, now?” Stefan asked from the 
  door. Kelly closed her eyes. Corpses flashed across her 
  mind’s eye, death stares accusing and glazed. Some of those 
  she remembered the flavor of, and her own exultation in 
  the same. Hungry as she was, she couldn’t summon a full 
  bloom of revulsion at the remembrance. 
  “More than fifteen.”  
  Stefan’s malicious laugh crawled across her skin as he 
  walked away. 
   
  April 15, 1999. 8:54 PM. 
   
  The crowd was good at Mitch’s, and Kelly kept them well-
  entertained with her rendition of the Eurythmics’ 
  Missionary Man. Max Mason, alone at his table, had stared 
  at her with his slack-jawed entrancement. She liked that he 
  
  5 
   
  was here every week since it had gotten around that the 
  Seneschal got her kicks singing karaoke, dependent upon 
  her for his brush with mortal passion. How it had galled to 
  have her sanctuary violated, at first. But those who came 
  were respectful and she didn’t—often—have to worry about 
  the safety of the mortals she had come to know and, in her 
  way, love. 
  As she hung up the mic, the door opened to the parking 
  lot. She did a double take and nearly stumbled as she 
  stepped down from the low stage when Stefan strode in. 
  Her smile wilted on her lips and she dropped it entirely as 
  he caught her eyes. His own smile was all bright teeth and 
  warmth, but Kelly sensed the fangs in it even if she couldn’t 
  see them. She hated that she thrilled to see him. She flicked 
  her glance to the table behind him, empty while Kelly was 
  on stage, and he glanced over his shoulder at it. Kelly started 
  for the bar, and rather than take the invitation to her table, 
  Stefan moved to intercept her. 
  “What are you doing here?” she hissed at him, low enough 
  that no mortal nearby would hear. 
  “The same as most of these people, Kelly,” Stefan answered 
  smoothly. “I’m here to listen to you sing.” 
  Kelly flashed a thin veneer of a smile at Joey as he 
  congratulated her on a good performance on the way past. 
  It faded as soon as she turned away from the mortal. “You 
  aren’t…” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him he wasn’t 
  welcome. “You shouldn’t be here,” she diverted. I’m so glad 
  you are. Her stomach churned and she stepped up to the 
  bar. She swallowed her self-loathing with another smile to 
  Mitch. 
  The stocky man tossed his pristine white bar rag over his 
  shoulder and crossed his tatted arms. Kelly couldn’t miss 
  
  6 
   
  the light of disgust she saw in Mitch’s eyes, nor the twist of 
  distaste to his lips. Stefan surely didn’t miss it either, and 
  Kelly spoke up to deflect her sire’s ire. “Hey, Mitch. You 
  remember Stefan, right?” 
  “Yeah,” Mitch said flatly, and seemed to dismiss Stefan 
  from his attention. That was not safe either, in Kelly’s 
  experience, but it was safer than showing him disgust. 
  “Good one tonight, Kelly,” Mitch continued, seeming glad 
  for the excuse to talk to her and ignore Stefan. 
  “Thanks, Mitch,” she answered. The memory of being held 
  aloft on her voice was tainted by Stefan’s presence at her 
  side, and her answering smile was weaker than she hoped. 
  “Can I get a couple of beers, please?” Mitch nodded and 
  reached for the fridge. 
  Stefan leaned into the bar and more fully into Kelly’s view 
  as he openly studied Mitch’s back. Her sire was every bit the 
  predator in that stare. She saw his tongue pass slowly over 
  his lips, as if he could already taste Mitch’s blood on them. 
  Kelly could never mistake the dangerous light that gleamed 
  in the oceans of his eyes. Before Mitch turned back, Stefan 
  had regained his smile and was looking over at Kelly.  
  “Sorry I missed the first song,” he oozed. 
  Kelly shot him a warning glance and a tight smile. If he 
  noticed, he made no sign. She tossed a twenty on the bar 
  and took the condensation-sheathed bottles from the 
  mortal.  
  “Thanks, Mitch.” She half turned, paused, and pushed the 
  bottles out to Stefan. If he was hunting tonight, and had 
  chosen to come here, he was not intending to be gentle. 
  She had to divert him from the mortals here. “Stefan, 
  would you take these to the table, please? I just want to 
  catch up with Mitch for a second.” 
  
  7 
   
  Stefan’s eyes flashed dangerously again, but at least this time 
  it was directed at her. Rather than risk embarrassment by 
  making a scene with Max watching the two of them from 
  across the room, he accepted the bottles and, with a short 
  nod, headed for her table. Kelly turned back to Mitch, who 
  was glaring at Stefan’s departing back. 
  “Don’t know why you keep hanging around that creep, 
  Kelly. Smart girl like you doesn’t need an asshole like that 
  in your life.” 
  Kelly quashed the tiny spark of reflexive defensiveness the 
  slight to Stefan brought, and her lips thinned in her smile. 
  “He’s a lot different once you get to know him,” she 
  deflected. Stefan was, but in no way was that better. Mitch 
  grunted a shrug, and Kelly ordered a basket of wings for the 
  table. She clung to the few minutes of chitchat about the 
  bar’s week and the regulars’ gossip, but finally could no 
  longer ignore the weight of refusing to go to Stefan. 
  “What did you sing?” Stefan wanted to know as she joined 
  him at her table. Back to the wall, a half-wall just above her 
  head, right next to the door, she normally felt protected.  
  With Stefan across from her at the table, any sense of safety 
  was gone. She answered him curtly, and he watched her 
  across the table as he faked a sip of his beer. 
  “Sing Madonna next,” he said quietly as he set his beer 
  down on the table. Kelly scowled down at the beer in her 
  hands. 
  “Stefan, don’t.”  
  “Lucky Star,” he said in a voice thick with desire.  
  Kelly’s skin felt like it wanted to crawl off her bones. She 
  was torn apart by his blood’s demand that she please and 
  her own revulsion at it. She clutched for an island between 
  the two forces and told herself it would keep his attention 
  
  8 
   
  off the mortals. “Yes, Stefan,” she agreed quietly. 
  “There’s a good girl.” How her heart soared to hear that, 
  even as her stomach dropped into a pit. 
   
  April 18, 1999. 1:21 AM. 
   
  Kelly kicked off her heels as she stepped into the hall of her 
  condo. She sighed out of the leather bomber she wore over 
  the evening’s little black armor. The world looked odd for 
  a moment as she lost the extra inches of height until she 
  readjusted. She’d been in those shoes entirely too long 
  tonight, but at least Lucina had been content. The dance of 
  deflection from and invitation to the Prince’s company was 
  as exhausting as any of the most abandoned cavorting, for 
  all that it was conducted in slow motion. Still, she had a 
  knack for it, and she’d been at the top of her game. The 
  Prince had come out well ahead of the curve, all things 
  considered. 
  She started into the space, hearing Gordon asleep on the 
  couch in the living room. Some night, perhaps with the 
  Prince’s favor, she could afford a place large enough for her 
  ghoul to have his own room. Barefoot as she was, she made 
  no sound on the thick carpeting. With a delicate touch on 
  the door, hinges well-oiled so she might move about her 
  haven while Gordon slept without waking him, Kelly 
  slipped into the second bedroom of the place, converted to 
  her office. She didn’t bother with the overhead light; the 
  desk lamp would be more than adequate as she sharpened 
  her senses. A frisson of premonition passed down the nape 
  of her neck as she approached the desk. 
  Kelly reached out and turned on the banker’s lamp and 
  froze with her hand on the chain. A disordered pile of 
  
  9 
   
  polaroid photos was spilled across the blotter on the desk. 
  Kelly guessed there were three dozen altogether as she 
  reached slowly to pushed them aside with the barest touch 
  of her fingertips. She was careful to reach only with her 
  hand, and not with her mind, given what was portrayed. 
  A woman, blonde. Her left eye was swollen shut, and her 
  nose trickled blood and snot. Her face glistened tearfully in 
  the flash-glare in the pictures. She was gagged tightly 
  enough that her cheeks were straining. Sweat made the 
  blood pinkish. She seemed to be bound to a chair. Kelly 
  shuddered. Below the pictures a twice-folded piece of paper 
  was revealed. She felt another prick of premonition as she 
  saw Stefan’s hand in the “Kelly” written in artful script 
  across the visible surface. 
  Kelly recoiled sharply, as if the paper below her hand had 
  suddenly burst into flames. She took a half step backwards 
  and found that she was hoping it had. She didn’t want to 
  read it. She didn’t want to go back where she could touch 
  those pictures. She wanted to burn the desk and its burden 
  where it stood. She knew he wanted her to read his letter, 
  and it was only a matter of a dozen shuddering seconds 
  before she was helpless to give in to his desire. Kelly swiped 
  the pictures aside in two quick motions and plucked the 
  paper from between them. She turned her back on the 
  woman’s plight with a final pang of relief that at least it had 
  not been her this time. Kelly turned her eyes to the page 
  and read. 
  My dearest Childe, Stefan began.  
  I was disappointed in your performance this week. It lacked 
  the passion I know you can put into your voice. You are 
  nothing but a warbling fool when you do not put your heart 
  in your song. Kelly felt warring pangs of guilt and shame 
  
  10 
   
  and anger all at once. As I left you to your little games for 
  Lucina, I found myself thinking of why I returned from the 
  long sleep. Wondering, really. The nights are so long and 
  empty. 
  Kelly ached with that loneliness. It had become so ever-
  present that she had become blind to it in the aftermath of 
  Stefan’s departure. Far from improving, it had worsened 
  since his return. When he had slept, she had known he was 
  beyond reach. Even then, it had been a constant, cold 
  drone of pain. She could become numb to it, after a while. 
  Unless she was reminded. Unless she remembered. Those 
  moments of weakness had kept her returning to his tomb, 
  to speak to him and, in what she had thought was safety, 
  tell him the secrets of her heart. 
  I told you what it was that brought me back and gave me 
  reason to rise again. Your love, even as I slept, pulled you 
  back to weep for me. You were so beautiful in my dreams 
  and as you whispered your devotion into them. I heard your 
  heart singing to me and, on its wings, I flew up from the 
  abyss of the sleep of ages. We both know words do not suit 
  to describe your voice, and I will not betray my inadequacy 
  in the task again here. Kelly shivered with mingled 
  revulsion and a creeping tingle of pleasure. 
  What you offered me the other night was not what I expect 
  from you. You did not give your heart to your song to me. 
  I worried that you had begun to forget what passion is, or 
  that I demand it from you when I allow you to serenade me. 
  I was at my wits end to find a way to fulfill my sire’s duty 
  and encourage you to success, I admit. Until Bethany. 
  Kelly’s eyes didn’t quite make a full glance toward the 
  pictures on her desk at her back. She imagined she could 
  feel the heat of the woman’s captive form, as if she were tied 
  to the chair tucked in there. 
  
  11 
   
  When I revealed myself to her in the moments before I 
  slaked my thirst, her fear was exquisite. I was struck by the 
  epiphany that this would be a thing to show you to remind 
  you of what passion is like. Bethany, I knew, would be your 
  muse. It took some doing, but I believe I finally captured 
  the aspect of it for you. Do enjoy, my childe. 
  In your heart always, Stefan. 
  Kelly crumpled the note in her fist and seethed. She hated 
  Stefan with the heat of a star, hot and roiling in her chest 
  so that the Beast strained at the edge of its leash. She could 
  see the twist of frustrated fury in his expression as he would 
  have raged and demanded that she (Bethany) show him 
  what he wanted to see. Sing better! That’s garbage! I want 
  to hear it done right! She could feel the hard slap of his firm 
  palm as it threatened to unhinge her jaw. Bethany would 
  have had the added suffering of the gag’s biting 
  constriction. Kelly closed her eyes and added Bethany’s 
  name to the litany of mortals who had died because she 
  would not. 
   
  April 27, 1999. 3:09 AM. 
   
  Wendy’s warmth vibrated with complaint as Kelly’s phone 
  chirped from the bedside table. “Leave it, won’t you?” she 
  pleaded. Kelly gave her a soft smile and a gentle nip on the 
  neck. Wendy giggled and wriggled away. “Now you have to 
  leave it. I still have gratitude to show you for my new 
  watch.” 
  Kelly withdrew from the mortal as she rolled toward the 
  phone. “You know I can’t, Wendy,” she said, and ached for 
  denying the mortal her wish. Wendy sighed and snuggled 
  up behind Kelly. Even the band of the watch, the only thing 
  
  12 
   
  Wendy wore, was warm against Kelly’s belly as Wendy 
  wrapped an arm around her hip. 
  Kelly picked up the phone and glanced at the display. 
  “Blocked,” it read, and she scowled lightly. She connected 
  the call and answered, “Kelly Patterson.” 
  “I want you.” 
  Kelly felt a bolt of cold deeper even than the grave chill she 
  existed in as Stefan’s voice was carried to her. She tried to 
  stifle the stiffening of her back at the sudden, unexpected 
  confrontation with him. Wendy’s curious sound and the 
  lifting of her lips from the back of Kelly’s shoulder told her 
  that the effort had not been enough. 
  “Come to me.” 
  Kelly’s eyes closed and she trembled. Alarmed, Wendy’s 
  warm hand rose to her shoulder. Kelly almost recoiled from 
  the touch as in her mind the mortal’s warmth was 
  superimposed with the cold firmness of Stefan’s un-
  calloused hand. “I can’t,” she managed at last. “Not now.” 
  “What is it?” Wendy wanted to know. Kelly could only 
  shake her head in a vain effort to deflect her lover’s 
  concern. 
  “You don’t love her, Kelly,” Stefan oozed into the phone. 
  Kelly felt cold tears welling behind her eyelids and squeezed 
  them closed tighter to keep them trapped. “Come to me. 
  You need it. You need me.” 
  “Please,” Kelly managed. Her voice was small and she could 
  feel Wendy’s heart speeding as it beat against her back. 
  Wendy’s breathing was deepening, heating where it 
  brushed past Kelly’s neck as if her growing, angry concern 
  was venting. “Don’t.” 
  “Come to me,” he demanded more forcefully, and Kelly 
  
  13 
   
  couldn’t bite off the gasping whimper that escaped her. She 
  shook her head in denial but couldn’t bring herself to speak 
  it. Would he hear her? She thought he might. 
  “Kelly,” Wendy began insistently, but trailed off as a silent 
  sob hitched Kelly’s shoulder under her touch. 
  “N-no,” Kelly finally managed to force from her 
  constricting throat. It was a pathetic sound, more pleading 
  than refusal. She was forced to hate herself for speaking it, 
  even as she hated herself for the sound of it. 
  “You will not choose the mortal over me,” Stefan said. Kelly 
  couldn’t help but quail at the rising tone of rage in his voice. 
  It sparked in her a habit of trying to make herself small, to 
  cower before him, and do whatever it was that was necessary 
  to calm him. 
  “Stefan,” Kelly mewled. Her senses were honed to every 
  whiff of scent and brush of touch as she had bathed in 
  Wendy’s living essence. They were more than adequate to 
  pick up the dull, wet splat as one of her tears left a blooming 
  poppy in the pillow below her. 
  “Kelly, don’t do it. Whatever it is, don’t do it,” Wendy 
  urged in a whisper as her grip tightened on Kelly’s shoulder. 
  The steely edge of hatred the name brought out in Wendy’s 
  voice was unmistakable. It was as sharp and gleaming as any 
  kindred’s hatred, in that moment.  
  Kelly sobbed once, helplessly. She shook her head violently. 
  Whether she was refusing the mortal’s urgings, Stefan’s 
  demands, her own blood-enforced need to please and obey 
  him, or her own resistance to him, she could not have said. 
  The phone creaked in the strength of her grip as she 
  teetered on a razor’s edge. 
  “Come to me, or I kill her,” Stefan said coldly. Kelly’s 
  answering, wordless cry of negation found only a dead line. 
  
  14 
   
  She scrambled from the bed without a second thought. 
  “Kelly, don’t!” Wendy shouted and jolted to follow her. 
  Kelly didn’t slow, snatching up jeans and Redwings jersey 
  with fingers that barely seemed willing to respond through 
  the panic. She had to get to him. She sprinted for the door, 
  clothes clutched to her front in a haphazard two-handed 
  squeeze. 
  “I have to, Wendy,” she half-shouted, half-wept over her 
  shoulder. “He’ll… You don’t understand what it’s like. I’m 
  s--.” Kelly cut off. She had nothing left to fight his blood’s 
  demand for devotion. She couldn’t tell Wendy she wanted 
  to stay with her, that she was doing this for her; he wouldn’t 
  allow it. Kelly fled. 
  Stefan stood silhouetted in his doorway, dawn glowing grey 
  on the Eastern horizon, as Kelly’s brakes squealed up to the 
  curb. She fled toward him, blind to the sun, only desperate 
  to appease him. She left a trail of bloody tears to mark her 
  path across the lawn. The door closed on them. 
   
  April 28, 1999. 2:41 AM. 
   
  Kelly lay, only half-aware, and stared up at the stucco 
  ceiling. Such a ludicrous material for a ceiling. In her daze 
  it seemed to form half-glimpsed faces that leered down at 
  her. The hiss of the shower from somewhere else was like 
  their laughter. She deserved that laughter, and as she 
  drifted in and out of blackness, she listened for it. Her eyes 
  slipped closed. One did; the other wouldn’t respond all the 
  way.  
  Dawn would come soon, she thought suddenly. It must, she 
  believed fervently. She didn’t have to move, she soothed. It 
  would hurt too much to move just now, she assured. Easier 
  
  15 
   
  to just lie here and drift, and listen to the laughter. Heat 
  and terror. Incandescence that melted her eyes in their 
  sockets and seared away her throat’s ability to give voice to 
  the agony in the same wash of golden light. Helpless flight 
  and cowering mewl blending into cool darkness and colder 
  laughter. 
  The laughter stopped. That was okay, she thought. The 
  crimson veil across the thin sliver of vision she was forced 
  to keep was blocking any sight of the faces in the ceiling, 
  anyways. Faces in the ceiling? Kelly wasn’t sure why she 
  thought there were faces in the ceiling. That was okay, too. 
  Dawn would come. 
  “Edie tells me you’ll be at an event on this weekend.” 
  “Yes,” she thought she said. Her lungs wouldn’t draw air to 
  speak, though. A mist of blood settled on her lips, splatter 
  from the wisp of air that had passed them. She was 
  momentarily amazed she could even feel it added to what 
  was already there.  
  Edie knew. Kelly saw it in Edie’s eyes when the harpy saw 
  her and Stefan together. Perhaps she had read the visions 
  in their minds. Did she laugh? 
  “For Lucina?” Was there hesitation? Lucina knew, too. She 
  hid it better, or else cared less. Nothing to be done, for that. 
  Stefan kept to the Traditions. 
  “Yes,” she thought she wheezed. It would hurt more, she 
  knew. It would hurt more than she did now. But it would 
  only burn for so long, she hoped. More than fifteen. 
  A grunt of disappointment. Irked steps and a flush of 
  shame rose together in her awareness. She wanted the 
  darkness that would come with dawn. She wanted to 
  promise him she would break her plans with the Prince and 
  be at his side. He wanted her at his side, and that was almost 
  
  16 
   
  enough. He would be angry if she wasn’t. 
  “You’ve ruined my bedding in here again,” he charged. 
  “I’m sorry,” she thought she managed. 
  “You’ll replace them in the evening,” he demanded. 
  “Yes,” she thought she agreed. 
  When Stefan moved to pull the heavy blackout curtains 
  that would shield her from the coming dawn, she wanted 
  so badly to plead with him to leave them open. Her voice 
  wouldn’t come. 
   
   
  
  17 
   
   
   
   
   
  One by One 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  September 21, 1996. 10:03 PM. 
   
  Hunger rippled under Kelly’s skin, like her muscles were in 
  convulsive revolt against the stillness of her corpse. Her 
  fangs ached in the front of her mouth, but she soothed 
  herself. She would feed, soon. Someone here would be 
  drawn to her inviting smile and glow of inhuman allure. 
  Everyone liked a blonde; some bled for them. One would 
  come, and she feigned a sip at her martini as she let her eyes 
  pass over the crowd. 
  The Clam Shell wasn’t a very popular bar, but it had a 
  steady clientele. In the largely conservative city of 
  Milwaukee, few were out far enough to be seen frequenting 
  a bar like this. Kelly knew the tremulous hesitation that 
  preceded the first visit to a bar women frequented to meet 
  other women. She knew the creeping doubts about being 
  recognized, the embarrassment that would come even just 
  imagining its occurrence. She empathized with them, but 
  they were not the subject of her thoughts, tonight. She 
  
  18 
   
  fought for them in the halls of power. For their right to feel 
  safe in coming to be among her banquet. 
  There seemed to be no neophytes here, tonight. A 
  Thursday night, edging past ten, the women here were on 
  the hunt every bit as much as she was, if for different prey. 
  Some sat stools and leaned into hard drinks and glanced 
  around at the others that paired off with bitter resentment. 
  Those, she dismissed. Sometimes, she liked the dulling 
  tingle of alcohol in their blood, and when desperation was 
  a factor she would risk the impediment the drug presented. 
  But she wasn’t so hungry, yet. Her thirst was insistent, but 
  not demanding. The couples, too, she ignored. She could, 
  if she wanted to, insinuate herself into one of them by 
  plying a more active form of her allure, but she always felt a 
  skein of guilt coating her soul when she gave in to abandon 
  and gorged herself on a pair of mortals.  No, she wanted 
  blood, but not the burden of feeding past satiation. Kelly 
  swept her gaze down the bar again, and that was when the 
  small crowd parted and she saw her. 
  Chestnut hair fell in waves over bare shoulders. In the bar-
  sign neon advertising Pabst above and beyond her, it had 
  the luster of finely polished wood. Chiseled features, just 
  tending toward severe, glanced down the bar. Brown eyes 
  as rich as dark chocolate glittered in the reflected murder 
  ball lights from the small dance floor where a handful of 
  women danced to Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss A 
  Thing. Her cheeks, smooth and silken, were barely touched 
  with the brush of makeup. The pink tip of a tongue 
  touched pink-painted lips, wet them, and Kelly leaned 
  forward. 
  Kelly felt herself falling in love with the mortal and recoiled. 
  It was hopeless. The mortal’s beauty was radiant. It 
  captivated her as thoroughly as any hypnotist’s voice and 
  
  19 
   
  pulled her toward it more insistently than a black hole 
  swallowing a galaxy. Kelly struggled to pull back from that 
  event horizon even as she tumbled past it and was shredded 
  by the massive forces beyond. When the mortal glanced 
  back to her drink at the bar in front of her, and the fall of 
  her hair took the sight of her face from Kelly, it felt like a 
  piece of Kelly’s soul had vanished along with it. She was out 
  of her seat fast enough that it almost fell backward. 
  Kelly didn’t see the couples she pushed back, nor hear the 
  muttered deprecations that accompanied her brusque 
  stride toward the mortal at the bar. The woman looked 
  around as Kelly closed with her and for just a moment there 
  was a glimmer of surprise in her eyes before Kelly was there. 
  Kelly’s smile beamed, and it was backed with the 
  supernatural awe she inspired in others. The woman 
  opened her mouth to say something and Kelly drowned in 
  the way her lips moved around the shape of sound. The 
  mortal’s eyes were so bright and desirous as they warmed in 
  the blush of Kelly’s power. 
  “Oh,” the woman said, after a beat of stunned shock to find 
  Kelly right behind her. 
  “Kelly Patterson,” Kelly greeted, and barely managed to 
  soften the thickness of all-consuming need as she thrust her 
  hand forward. It was all she could do to hold on to her 
  control and not push herself against this woman in carnal 
  abandon. “Buy you a drink?” 
   
  September 25, 1996. 12:06 AM. 
   
  Kelly swallowed against the raw edge in her throat. Hours 
  of endless singing had taken its toll even on her resilient 
  corpse. She had not been able to summon the intensity that 
  
  20 
   
  Stefan demanded. She was a disappointment, again, and he 
  had left her begging him to give her another chance. He 
  had sent her away because he couldn’t stand the sight of 
  her, or the sound of the voice she couldn’t bend to his 
  demands. She stumbled into her room and fought back the 
  tears. 
  “Go then!” Stefan had raged. “Go to the little slut you’re 
  thinking about when you sing for me!” 
  Megan. Even deluged as she was by the betrayal of Stefan 
  she knew her love for the mortal to be, she couldn’t let it 
  go. It had been two nights since they’d met, since Kelly had 
  had the sound of the mortal’s voice in her ears and the 
  touch of her at the end of her fingers. She felt the distance 
  between them as if the concrete of the city that separated 
  them were slowly grinding her to paste. She needed Megan, 
  and Stefan had seen it—heard it—in the performance he had 
  demanded of her. 
  Kelly gave in. Stefan didn’t want her in the house; he had 
  made that abundantly clear. And she couldn’t quite 
  summon the desire to hunt when she knew that Megan was 
  out there. Would she be sleeping? Kelly wanted to drink in 
  the lines of serenity that would describe the mortal’s sleep. 
  She wanted to see sleepy lips, soft and dry, whisper her 
  name. She felt like the air in the room weighed a hundred 
  pounds as it was made heavy with the need for these things. 
  She fled it. 
  The battered engine of the Honda Accord cranked, and as 
  it shuddered at red lights and stop signs she feared it would 
  stop. Not, she knew, because it meant her makeshift repairs 
  had failed her yet again, but because it would slow her 
  approach to Megan. She managed to summon a glimmer of 
  hope that it would die, so that she could have a good excuse 
  
  21 
   
  to put off what she was intent on doing. She knew, though, 
  that even if the car didn’t make it, she would simply 
  abandon it because she could not go another hour without 
  being near to Megan. 
  Kelly pulled up under the streetlight in front of the 
  tenement where Megan stayed. She imagined she could feel 
  the sedate, sleeping pulse of the woman’s heart from three 
  floors below it. She imagined she could hear the woman’s 
  dreamy murmurs of love and devotion. She imagined she 
  could hear Megan’s heartbeat pushing slow mouthfuls of 
  blood onto her waiting tongue as she bit into the shoulder 
  and savored. Kelly shuddered and cut the engine. 
  The fire escape barely made a sound as she clambered up 
  above the alley. She felt her blood infuse her with 
  preternatural grace and strength. Her thirst grew as she 
  tapped the power of her kindred blood but in those 
  moments, it didn’t matter; it got her closer to Megan. Kelly 
  practically perched on the edge of the fire escape landing, 
  leaned precariously out over the railing. The mortal’s 
  apartment was only the next set of windows, and she 
  strained at the edge of her senses to pick up the slightest 
  sound from there. If she could be content with the sound, 
  then she wouldn’t have to enter. She wouldn’t have to risk 
  discovery as she watched her sleep, or have to explain how 
  she’d gotten in. Or why she was knocking on the door after 
  midnight. 
  Kelly felt the tension that kept her fangs in check ease and 
  ignored it. There was no one to see; it didn’t matter that 
  they grated across her lower arc of teeth. She had to hear. 
  The breeze shifted and suddenly there was Megan. Not just 
  her sleeping, sedate whisper of breath and beat of heart, but 
  her voice. Kelly gasped, as if breathing for the first time in 
  hours. She swooned and clenched her fingers around the 
  
  22 
   
  rusting safety rail. In her mind’s eye, Megan’s stern features 
  and intelligently-vivid eyes smiled at Kelly as they had the 
  other night. Megan. 
  “You sure you don’t want another glass…?” 
  Megan’s snippet of words finally caught in Kelly’s mind 
  beyond the simple elation of hearing her voice. Kelly’s eyes 
  snapped open. A hot knife of jealousy and hatred lanced 
  into her. Distantly, she felt the ache in her jaw’s muscles as 
  her teeth clenched. Like blood spreading through silk, her 
  vision began to go red around the edges. Megan—her 
  Megan—was with someone else. While Kelly had endured 
  Stefan’s disinterest and anger, someone else had been with 
  her Megan. She shook on the edge of letting that fury free 
  of its bonds in her heart. Perhaps, she struggled to consider, 
  it was a friend, or visiting family member. It could be 
  innocent. Kelly squeezed her eyes closed again and the 
  breeze wafted past her senses. 
  “—met this woman the other night. She seemed okay, pretty 
  and smart and all, but the more I thought about her after 
  she was gone, the creepier she got. I kept thinking how she 
  stared at me all night, and it really gave me the—” 
  Kelly’s eyes snapped open again. Lids or red curtain of rage, 
  either was as blinding, however. Creepy? Did the fool 
  woman not recognize love when she saw it? Kelly’s thoughts 
  sputtered and lost form. Words ceased to form in her 
  internal monologue as it was subsumed in quicksilver 
  pulses of instinctual urgency. How could she…? Rip and 
  tear. I would have… Scream and destroy. As the aged steel 
  under her blood-empowered grip tore and gave voice to its 
  torment, a single cohesive thought managed to surface. If I 
  can’t have you, no one will. 
  Kelly turned toward the fire door and with a bestial scream 
  
  23 
   
  of rage ripped it out of its frame to send spinning to the 
  alley below. 
   
  September 25, 1996. 1:31 AM. 
   
  Kelly stood and stared in horror. She looked down at her 
  hands, fingers curled as if clawed. The first three fingers on 
  her left hand stung fiercely where the nails had been ripped 
  out of the beds. The slow drip of blood from her hands was 
  just one of the many red rivers that burbled in the small 
  apartment. The stink of death, of mortal bodies losing the 
  constant, unconscious muscle control of life, filled the air, 
  but it was muted in her nose behind the ocean of blood. 
  Flashes of memory came unbidden. 
  The frame of the door splintered. Voices rose in cries of 
  surprise and shock. Prey things had such timid hearts. The 
  burst of frenzied beating was what drew her eyes. Two prey 
  things leapt from a couch and scurried for cover. Fear came 
  off them in waves. “Kelly?!” prey shouted in confusion. 
  A thick rivulet of blood escaped the clench of her throat as 
  Kelly gagged. She clamped her hands over her mouth to 
  keep it from spilling to the floor; to keep herself from 
  wasting it. She turned from the bodies on the floor and 
  squeezed her eyes closed. There was no escape in blindness; 
  her memories continued to assert themselves in a 
  quickening rush. 
  The interloping prey died first. Its spine broke with a heavy, 
  wet crunch as Kelly’s knees drove into it. The prey went to 
  the ground with a grunt of surprised pain. Kelly could smell 
  the adrenaline in its sweat and in the blood that spilled 
  when she reached down and folded the prey’s head nearly 
  backwards between its shoulder blades. Screams of terror as 
  
  24 
   
  blood gushed from a throat torn by raw, unholy strength. 
  Somewhere, Kelly was aware of sirens approaching. She 
  tried desperately to remember what that meant, and why it 
  made her feel afraid. All she could think of was the bodies 
  waiting, staring, behind. Megan. Kelly couldn’t stop the 
  gush of blood that rose from the warm slosh in her belly 
  and overflowed the thin-fingered dam of her hands on her 
  mouth. It splashed and splattered as it poured into the 
  sodden carpet at her feet. 
  “Stay back!” prey warned as it came into view. Snub-nosed 
  gleam of nickel plating. The prey’s claws shook and 
  wavered. Light and heat was nothing but a spur as Kelly 
  rushed it. She barely felt the first round go into her chest; 
  the other two missed entirely. Then she was on the prey, 
  and the hurt and rage could be free. Fangs found flesh and 
  muscle ripped like tissue paper. 
  Kelly swam in misery, barely managing to tread water and 
  keep her head above the surface. Self-loathing splashed into 
  her mouth as the waves of it crashed over her. She choked 
  on it as she didn’t on the blood welled up into her throat. 
  She struggled against the panic of drowning. The sirens 
  were closer, and a different kind of panic rose. A viciously-
  determined species of self-preservation rose. She had to get 
  out, she had to flee. Now, she was the prey. 
  Bone parted to hands given strength beyond mortal limits. 
  A lung dug aside and left to hang so that fingers could scoop 
  out the heart. Bitten like an apple, blood-rich tissues 
  suckled like candy. Lapping at the precious warmth spilled 
  from rent chambers to course down her wrist and forearm. 
  Blood-warmed fingers slid wetly along her sex as she gorged. 
  When Kelly hit the sidewalk three floors below the window 
  her ankle snapped, and she gave a cry. A bloody handprint 
  
  25 
   
  bloomed on the hood of her car as she stumbled and caught 
  herself. She struggled against the urge to ignore the sirens 
  and lick the paint clean. The need to survive was too great, 
  and its demands too insistent. She staggered and stumbled 
  around the front of the Accord and fumbled keys. The 
  sirens were so close as she slotted the key in the ignition 
  and turned it. The engine clattered and chugged and failed 
  to turn over. 
  Cheek slid wetly across the sopping carpet as tongue darted 
  out to salvage the spilled bliss. Hair matted to neck and 
  shoulder squeezed like a rag through a ringer for the few 
  drops that could be chased into a waiting mouth. Orgasmic 
  relief exploded like fireworks throughout her, as if she 
  could feel each and every one of her cells rejoicing at the 
  infusion of living blood. The prey would not hurt her again, 
  she knew, and elated. 
  “Come on!” she demanded and smacked a wet palm against 
  the wheel. Blood splattered in small droplets inside the 
  windshield and she pumped the gas pedal. She turned the 
  key again and the engine chugged, chattered, and then 
  turned over. Kelly gave a wordless cry of relief and threw 
  the car into gear. The cobbled-together engine complained 
  as she urged it to speed. Behind, the lights of cruisers were 
  just beginning to stain the facings of the buildings red and 
  blue. She turned off the street as the headlights roared 
  white and bright around the corner. 
   
  September 25, 1996. 9:56 PM. 
   
  “Yes, I understand. Thank you, Jonas.” Kelly flinched 
  under the glare that Stefan turned in her direction as he 
  hung up the phone. Whatever he’s about to do, you deserve 
  
  26 
   
  it. Megan’s voice, accusing and wet with blood splatter on 
  her lips, rose in her mind. Kelly had woken with the 
  mortal’s sightless eyes staring at her from her memory, too. 
  “Stefan,” she began, but he cut her off with a backhand 
  across the cheek. Kelly sprawled as she felt her jaw weaken 
  in its seat. 
  “Shut up,” he demanded. Kelly did, and couldn’t bring 
  herself to look up at him through the falls of her curls. “Do 
  you have any idea what you’ve cost me tonight?” 
  Kelly could only shake her head. She could feel him 
  looming above her, as if his shadow were the weight of her 
  shame and guilt, bearing her to the ground where she half-
  lay propped on her palms. A second of silence stretched 
  between them, then another, and then a handful more. 
  Kelly’s fear rose with each one, her imagination conjuring 
  all manner of thing he might be considering. Her 
  determination to accept it grew with her fear, too. 
  “You’re disgusting,” Stefan accused. Kelly could only nod. 
  “This is what you get for betraying me.” Kelly could only 
  sob. 
  “I’m sure you expect me to punish you,” Stefan said as the 
  echo of Kelly’s misery was absorbed by the paint and carpet. 
  Kelly swallowed and struggled to find her voice. She had 
  killed, again, and for what? Nothing but her own vanity and 
  greed. Worse, she had betrayed Stefan in her love for 
  Megan. Stefan, the one who shielded her from the 
  consequences of her murders. Even though she had 
  betrayed him and loved another. 
  “Please,” Kelly begged, if only because the oozing guilt 
  would pass. She was being eaten by it as surely as if it were 
  acid. She reached for the cuff of his pants and he stepped 
  away. Her hand fell to the floor. You deserve it, Megan 
  
  27 
   
  confided. 
  “It would be a waste of my time,” Stefan spat dismissively. 
  “You won’t learn from this. You’re too stupid and weak. I 
  tried to teach you last time, didn’t I? The first time. I tried 
  to teach you and what did it do but make my arm tired?” 
  Kelly cowered lower. She had felt herself pulled to the 
  woman. She should have fought it harder. She should have 
  never let her heart stray from Stefan, but when she had and 
  realized it, she should have steered it back. “I won’t bother 
  trying to stop you, not anymore. You’re so pathetic that 
  there will doubtless be more of these little outbursts, no 
  matter what I do.” 
  Kelly reached for the cuff of his pants again as Megan 
  laughed in her mind. Stefan stepped out of reach and she 
  watched his back retreat from the room. “Clean up your 
  own mess next time, Kelly.” 
  Kelly crawled into the shower on unsteady limbs and 
  scrubbed until she bled. When dawn dragged her to rest 
  she still felt as though she had rolled in a dumpster. 
   
  January 15, 1997. 1:51 AM. 
   
  The handle of the saw vibrated down the length of Kelly’s 
  forearm as she dragged it across the thick femur. The blade 
  bound as she hitched a gasping sob and the chink of its 
  snap echoed in the small, concrete-walled space. Kelly 
  turned her back on the grisly task and pressed her forehead 
  into the rough wall. Like a hair shirt, the grating of cement 
  against her flesh soothed as she lay a hand on her roiling 
  stomach. She had been so careful, so confident in her 
  resistance to the helpless vacuum of beauty some mortals 
  were to her heart. Still, she had ended up here. 
  
  28 
   
  The man on her table—What was his name?—behind her 
  hadn’t deserved this fate. She hadn’t thought another man 
  would capture her as Stefan could. She had thought it 
  would be safe. And then he had been there, and she had 
  betrayed her sire again. She had been so careful. There will 
  be more. 
  Kelly bent to the tool case, rusty with old blood instead of 
  age, and recovered a replacement blade. Stefan would want 
  her to be done before dawn. 
   
  July 30, 1997. 9:48 PM. 
   
  Kelly reached for Stefan’s hand as they pushed through the 
  crowd. She was so hungry, and the heartbeats all around 
  were so vibrant. She was going under the tide of life, and 
  she needed the grip of his steely hand to steady herself. She 
  felt a blush of shame at the scowl he shot at her and she 
  barely resisted holding fast when he jerked his hand free. 
  She tried to steady herself, as he wanted. She had to. With 
  a spark of fierce determination, she shored her courage and 
  contented herself with at least trying to find a likely mortal 
  to ply. 
  Laser-light luster in the core of brown hair caught her eye 
  and she jerked her eyes away. Stefan disappeared from her 
  side in the crowd as she was jolted to a halt, and she felt a 
  gasp pass her lips. She couldn’t resist another glance. The 
  shine of the hair had been so bright and warm, and even 
  now she could imagine its soft slide through her fingers. 
  The dancing woman turned and smiled and Kelly felt the 
  floor below her giving way. She forgot Stefan, forgot 
  caution, and slid through the crowd for the woman she 
  loved so intensely it ached in the pit of her chest. 
  
  29 
   
   
  August 13, 1997. 3:00 AM. 
   
  Stefan’s laughter fell upon her shoulders like the lashes of 
  a whip. The gales of it were like sheets of December rain 
  deluging her. In her arms, Delaney lay cooling. Kelly wept 
  into her uncaring shoulder and pleaded with her to come 
  back. She lifted her lips to kiss the strangled throat, as if to 
  clear away the deep black, thin-fingered bruises that 
  bloomed there. They lingered, and Kelly pulled the corpse 
  up against her chest. 
  “T-two weeks!” Stefan managed between belly laughs. Kelly 
  felt very small in the face of his derision. 
  Delaney, I have to tell you something. And Kelly had told. 
  She had told Delaney everything, had shown her. She had 
  thought to find understanding and comfort in the mortal’s 
  eyes. Instead there had only been the kind of revulsion one 
  shows when faced with a spider six sizes larger than it 
  should be. The recoil had been so much like prey’s 
  response. She had felt the betrayal bloom like a mortar 
  explosion in her breast. Delaney’s judgement and disgust 
  had been all Kelly could see, and she had been compelled 
  to silence it. 
  Stefan’s laughter subsided. “I don’t even care that you killed 
  the bitch in my house. You are so pathetic, Kelly. I don’t 
  know what I ever saw in you. Finish the job.” 
  Kelly’s sobs caught in her throat and she looked up 
  uncomprehendingly. What else could she do? She had 
  betrayed Stefan’s Masquerade. She had murdered the 
  woman she loved rather than face the rejection she had felt 
  coming off of her in waves. How was she to finish this? 
  With her own death. She hoped he would demand that, 
  
  30 
   
  she realized. Instead, she asked in a voice thick with agony, 
  “What?” 
  “Drink up, childe,” he oozed and smiled down at her. 
  “Waste not, want not.” 
  Kelly almost recoiled. The malice in his smile felt like a slap 
  and she did avert her eyes from it. Against her will, her fangs 
  came out. Whatever he does to you, you deserve it. Kelly 
  wished Megan would go away; it was not fair that the dead 
  should linger so long. “Now,” Stefan warned. 
  Kelly sank her teeth into the cooling vessel and drank, and 
  for the minutes of her feeding she was free of the pain and 
  loss of Delaney’s death. 
   
  December 23, 1997. 12:12 AM. 
   
  “Stefan, please!” Kelly wailed as she slammed her fist against 
  the locked door to his room. The door he refused to emerge 
  from tonight, as he had the last three nights. Ever since she 
  had failed to entrance him with her voice. She couldn’t go 
  on without a look at him. His absence was eating a pit in 
  her chest and she couldn’t think of anything but the sight 
  and sound and scent and feel of him. Even if he was furious 
  at her tantrum, it would be better than this withdrawal. She 
  needed him as badly as the blood that sustained her. 
  “Stefan!” 
  Silence greeted her. She slammed her fist against the door 
  again, felt the wood absorb the meager impact. She could 
  break it down. She would have to, if he didn’t at least speak 
  to her. She couldn’t tolerate this absence any longer. “I’m 
  sorry, Stefan! I’m sorry, I won’t do…whatever it is I did 
  again! I won’t! I swear it! Just please come out! Speak to 
  me!” she screamed at last and slammed her fist against the 
  
  31 
   
  door again. 
  She could sing. She could lure him out with her voice. If 
  she could find her voice. You’re pathetic. Even the memory 
  of his voice was sweet, but it only whetted her need for the 
  real thing even as she quailed at the thought of failure. “I’ll 
  sing, Stefan. Just for you. Please. I’ll do it just like you want. 
  Just come out. Just speak to me.” Silence answered her, and 
  she beat both of her hands against the wood. She added a 
  wordless, bestial snarl of frustration. All she would have to 
  do would be to defy his will and enter through the door. 
  All she had to do to see him again would be to betray his 
  demand that she stay behind the lock. Kelly stalked away 
  from the door and paced like a rabid tiger in a cage before 
  it. 
  Kelly knew there was a way to be free of her need of him, if 
  only for a little. She could go and hunt for the mortal that 
  would capture her eye and heart. She could flirt with 
  disaster again. It would take the aching need and transform 
  it into the quicksand of obsession, at least for a while. And 
  Stefan would know—Didn’t he always know?—that she had 
  gone to another instead of him. He would burn with 
  jealousy and then he would speak to her again, if only to 
  mock her vain attachment. She would have him back. 
  Kelly stalked for the front door. “Fine,” she shouted over 
  her shoulder. “I’ll find someone else! Then I’ll be done with 
  you, Stefan!” She heard the lie ringing in her own words. 
   
  February 10, 1998. 11:43 PM. 
   
  Had Stefan only been asleep for five weeks? As Kelly 
  clutched her knees to her chest and rocked, it felt like so 
  much longer. Every waking moment was filled with the 
  
  32 
   
  sense of him, and the distance between them. The condo 
  he had arranged for her felt like a prison, and she in solitary 
  confinement. The small sounds of her living neighbors, 
  audible to her keen senses as they bustled and moved and 
  tucked in to their nocturnal slumber, were like the scuttling 
  of insects in the walls. Stefan. Kelly shuddered as the shape 
  of his name floated through her thoughts. 
  She thought, perhaps, that she should have gotten used to 
  this ache by now, but every time she went to his house to 
  dust, and tidy, and ensure he was safe, it seemed to open 
  the wound in her again.  She could go there again, but she 
  had been just the night before and going again meant 
  passing the gauntlet of pink-clad windows and hand-
  holding couples. Be mine. It wouldn’t help. She needed 
  more than just the feel of him behind the wall where, if she 
  pressed her hand to the drywall and concentrated hard 
  enough, she could just feel the cold of his slumbering 
  corpse. Kelly rocked and tried not to cry; she had been lax 
  in her feeding and she couldn’t afford to waste the blood. 
   
  February 15, 1998. 1:52 AM. 
   
  Prey could sense desperation. It startled them; they got 
  jumpy, found reasons to be elsewhere. Disappeared into 
  bathrooms and steered clear when they emerged. A 
  predator’s desperation outweighed a prey’s; even the lonely 
  on this cursed night were keeping their distance. They 
  could feel her need, she thought. It was coming off of her 
  in empathic waves as Stefan’s fury so often did to her. She 
  watched the latest of her would-be-victims shoot an 
  unsettled look over her shoulder at Kelly on the way out of 
  the bar. Even the barflies kept their eyes on their drinks 
  
  33 
   
  instead of meeting Kelly’s inviting look. 
  Kelly stirred her martini with the small pink sword that 
  speared the olives. The bartender shouted last call, and she 
  replaced it with a fresh drink. She laid a ten on the bar and 
  looked over as a woman stumbled in. An instinctive part of 
  Kelly recoiled at the boisterous way she greeted the room at 
  large. Others averted eyes, embarrassed for the woman who 
  was too drunk to be embarrassed for herself. Kelly snuck in 
  another drink order when she glanced over and saw the 
  bartender waffling on the edge ordering the woman out. 
  “C’mon,” she urged, and tried to keep the pleading to 
  polite. “It’s Valentine’s Day, I’ve been striking out all night, 
  I’ve got to get laid.” She pushed against the short-haired 
  woman behind the bar with a taste of her need, and helped 
  it along with another twenty on the bar. She’d been tipping 
  well all night. Kelly got her second drink and turned in time 
  for the sloppy woman to step up to the bar. 
  “Who’s a girl got to fingerbang to get a drink around here?” 
  the brunette slurred. She laughed hard at her own joke, and 
  Kelly tried to force a smile onto her lips. It felt a bit like she 
  was baring teeth and turned it down a few notches when 
  she answered. 
  “Me.” She pushed the martini toward the woman with 
  fingertips on the base of the wide glass. She felt a pang of 
  fear that even being that much closer would give away her 
  hunger, but the mortal had eyes only for the drink as she 
  turned toward Kelly. 
  By the time the mortal’s smile spread, it was too late for 
  Kelly. There was a smear of lipstick on the bright, white 
  front tooth, but she barely saw it. The cheeks lifted and 
  were too rosy with blush by half, but Kelly was seeing the 
  skin beneath. There was far too bright a blue fan of 
  
  34 
   
  eyeshadow above the woman’s hazel eyes, but Kelly could 
  barely see it beyond the depthless sparkle that entranced 
  her. She forgot the thirst, though it lingered as a buzzing of 
  urgency in the back of her mind. More, she forgot Stefan 
  and his absence. Kelly gave herself entirely to this woman 
  and her instant and overwhelming love for her. It was so 
  nice to be free of Stefan’s absence. 
   
  March 24, 1998. 9:45 PM. 
   
  Gordon set the packet on the desk. Kelly looked up from 
  her work. He was uneasy, as he always was, when he 
  delivered these packets. She thanked him dismissively—let 
  him be uneasy, his was to serve not question—but hesitated 
  when he didn’t leave her office. “What is it?” she sniped 
  sharply. 
  “Miss Kelly,” Gordon started. She hated when he made her 
  ask him twice, and her hand twitched on the edge of 
  slapping him. She quashed the urge; the pictures would 
  help. She would be able stop craving and let go of the last 
  abscesses susurrating in her heart. She would have to 
  apologize to Gordon again for her short temper, but that 
  would be then. Now, she snapped at him harshly enough 
  that he flinched. Finally, he found his tongue. “Miss Kelly, 
  I think you better not look at those ones.” 
  Kelly held his stare until he looked down and continued. 
  “She… she met someone this week. I don’t think you need 
  to see them together. It wouldn’t… You wouldn’t like it, I 
  know. Let me burn them before you look, this time?” He 
  looked up at her, hope and fear shining wetly in his eyes. 
  And love, of course. The love of her blood. Stefan. 
  She smiled at him in a way she hoped was consoling. The 
  
  35 
   
  way he ducked his eyes down again quickly told her she had 
  missed her mark. “It’s okay, Gordon. That’s why you follow 
  them. That’s why you bring me the pictures, so that it’s 
  safer. She’ll be fine. This is good. It will be the last time you 
  need to follow her. You can get back to your regular 
  schedule, then.” 
  “Yes, Miss Kelly,” he said, unable or unwilling to hide the 
  gratitude at her promises. Whatever mien he saw in her, 
  she still had her voice control, it seemed. “It’s just … just 
  you remember last time …” 
  Wood splinters and patters like shrapnel against carpet and 
  wall. A roar of rage that shook from her core like an 
  erupting volcano and brought the scurrying prey sounds 
  from the walls. Prey fled, helpless and demanding to be 
  destroyed. Barest glimmer of recognition before she had 
  killed him amid the stink of his own urine. 
  “It won’t be like that,” she promised and lied in the same 
  breath. “Why don’t you go get a drink, if you want? I’ll call 
  you in a couple of hours.” 
  “N-no,” Gordon stammered in reply. “I’ll … I’ll be okay. I 
  want to be here just in case … in case you need someone.” 
  Whatever he does to you, you deserve it. 
  “Alright, Gordon. Thank you.” Kelly turned to the folder 
  of candid photos and the sharp reality that she had no place 
  in the mortal’s life. This distant, (relatively) safe expulsion 
  of her hurt could excise the mortal from her heart. The ache 
  for Stefan would return, but slowly. She would have a few 
  nights of freedom from need of one or the other. 
  Kelly opened the folder and began to cut away a piece of 
  her soul one picture at a time. When catharsis came, it came 
  screaming with the sound of smashing furniture. 
   
  
  36 
   
  November 6, 1998. 9:56 PM. 
   
  Kelly hunted. She needed no blood; the nights had been 
  blessedly free of demands on her reserves. So, too, had they 
  dragged on. The monotony of them had worn under the 
  constant grind of her growing need for Stefan. She 
  struggled against the gnawing urge to go to him until it 
  reduced her to tears. Gordon’s clumsy, awkward 
  consolation had been too much to bear. His pleading that 
  she tell him what he could do to take away her pain only 
  made her remember her own pleading with Stefan to let 
  her take away his dolor. She had at last fled him to the one 
  refuge she knew she could find from his echo in her heart. 
  Kelly slipped among the mortals, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 
  Her early fumbling with the predatory glide seemed so far 
  away, despite being only a few years gone. Mortals looked 
  when she passed, but only those she wanted would let that 
  glance linger. She wielded her preternatural allure like the 
  lantern of an angler fish in the depths. Someone, she was 
  sure, would be able to capture her attention and open the 
  door to forgetting Stefan. She just had to hold on to enough 
  control to capture them. 
  The smell of excitement and fear reached her through the 
  haze of low-hanging cigarette smoke. She was helpless to 
  stop the small gasp of pleasure at the perfect mingling of 
  the two under the sweet, over-strong perfume. She tracked 
  the trail of scent with her eyes, her heart already beginning 
  to ache with the need for whichever of the women it was 
  that had such a smell. When sight found the source of 
  scent, Kelly gave herself into the black hole once again. 
  The woman’s waves of hair were so dark they were almost 
  black. Like aged walnut, they glowed with the soft tumble 
  
  37 
   
  of natural body that didn’t need the hairspray shellac of 
  Kelly’s own coif. Her eyes were widened with wonder and 
  timidity, a deer in headlights but on the edge of bolting 
  toward them. Long throat pulsed with a heartbeat quick 
  and timid. Kelly hadn’t seen her here before. She saw the 
  prey signs of one daring to travel new ground for the first 
  time. Kelly longed to shelter and keep the woman safe as 
  she moved toward her, helpless to stop herself. 
  The mortal looked over right when Kelly wanted her to, just 
  as she settled her expression into the right mix of lust and 
  trepidation. If she showed too much tooth, she would 
  spook the woman. Too much restraint, and she would lose 
  the woman’s interest. She oozed a sense of soft strength and 
  invitation and saw the mortal blink and respond with a shy 
  smile. 
  “I’m Kelly,” she greeted as she came up beside the woman 
  at the bar. “I’d offer to buy you a drink, but I see you already 
  have one. I know that’s not a very good opening line, but 
  I’m hoping you’ll at least give me a chance to show you my 
  conversation is better than my pickup lines.” 
  The woman blushed, looked down, and Kelly’s heart 
  soared. Stefan’s presence slunk away to the recesses of her 
  mind.  “S-sure,” the mortal invited. “I guess.” 
  Kelly slid onto the barstool beside her and leaned in toward 
  her intimately. “Haven’t seen you around here before,” 
  Kelly said kindly. “First time?” 
  The way the blush deepened made Kelly remember the 
  warm gush of attraction she had left behind after the 
  Embrace. “Y-yeah,” the woman agreed with a nod. “Is it that 
  obvious?” 
  “No,” Kelly soothed, and reached out to rest fingertips on 
  the back of the mortal’s hand. Each pulse of her heart was 
  
  38 
   
  like a new push of heroin into Kelly’s veins. “It wouldn’t be 
  to most. Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.” 
  The woman’s blush turned up toward Kelly with just the 
  tiniest spark of answering heat. “I’m Wendy,” she 
  answered. “Wendy Weaver.” 
  “I love your name,” Kelly said, and meant every syllable. 
   
   
   
   
  
  39 
   
   
   
   
  Rules of Nature 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  January 11, 1999. 10:58 PM 
   
  Kelly leaned back in her chair from the Ikea-bought desk 
  and set her pen aside. She rubbed at her eyes and gave 
  herself a bit of a shake. The monotonous drone of her 
  desktop’s fan was the only sound in her condo, but she 
  could hear the shuffling, quiet movements of her neighbors 
  checking locks and preparing for sleep.  She sighed and 
  stretched her short legs out in front of her chair under the 
  desk. Her eyes found the small rectangle of the black and 
  white photobooth snapshot of her and Wendy that she’d 
  taped to the edge of her monitor. That night, her first date 
  with Wendy several months ago, had been an island of 
  peace in her troubled nights. She longed to return to that 
  feeling but managed only to summon the cold memory of 
  it as she stared at the picture. 
  She had just reached for the cheap plastic hull of the Bic 
  again when her phone rang. She reached for the receiver 
  and nestled it into the crook of her shoulder as she 
  answered, “Kelly Patterson.” 
  
  40 
   
  “Kelly!” Wendy exclaimed excitedly, and in a flash, Kelly 
  forgot all about the brief in front of her or the clients who 
  would rely on its completion. Though she didn’t indulge it, 
  she felt a deep desire to sigh with relief. She’d managed to 
  hold out two nights since she had last seen the mortal and 
  was glad that it was not she who had broken the silence 
  between them. 
  “Hey, Wendy,” Kelly answered. She heard the smile in her 
  voice before she felt it touching her lips. “Great to hear 
  from you.” Her gaze slid to the square of photograph and 
  she could almost see Wendy’s dark-haired reflection there 
  animated with the bubbly sound of the mortal’s voice. 
  “Isn’t it?” the mortal joked. Kelly granted her a chuckle. 
  “You busy? You want to get some drinks?” 
  Kelly glanced at her watch and scowled. It was just passing 
  eleven. A quiet slither of suspicion crawled through her 
  thoughts, but she chased it back under the surface. “No, 
  not busy,” Kelly answered carefully. “Just putting the last 
  touches on a brief for James, but I’m about done and James 
  can finish up the rest when he gets in tomorrow. Bit late to 
  be headed out, isn’t it? Don’t you work tomorrow?” She 
  regretted the mention of Wendy’s work at once as it 
  summoned within her the now-familiar crawl of jealousy 
  that Wendy’s co-workers got to spend all day, every day, 
  with her and Kelly was confined to brief, purely-nocturnal 
  visits. 
  “Oh, uh,” Wendy replied, and then hesitated. The phone 
  groaned quietly as Kelly’s hand closed more tightly around 
  it. “I’ve been out for a couple hours already.” When Kelly 
  couldn’t find her voice to answer through the haze of 
  jealousy that stirred and shifted like fog through her mind, 
  Wendy hurried on. “I bumped into a friend from high 
  
  41 
   
  school earlier, and we decided to get some drinks. Jess—
  that’s her name, the friend—said she really wanted to meet 
  you. Apparently, I can’t stop talking about how great you 
  are.” 
  Wendy giggled self-consciously, but Kelly barely heard it. 
  She was too busy basking in the moment of relief at 
  knowing Wendy had been thinking about her, too. She 
  desperately wanted to go to the woman, to see her hazel eyes 
  and the soft luster of her chestnut waves of hair, and to feel 
  the warmth of her arms around Kelly’s cold shoulders. 
  Despite that, she balked. Kelly didn’t think she liked the 
  sound of this Jess person very much. 
  “I don’t know, Wendy,” she replied cautiously. “I just…” 
  She trailed off. It had only been a handful of months since 
  Kelly had had her heart captured by the mortal, and she’d 
  struggled mightily to quash down the dark fits of jealousy 
  and possessiveness that were even now festering like a cyst 
  in her heart for Wendy. How could she demure without 
  explaining to Wendy how dangerous it was for Kelly to 
  meet her friends? The cutting looks and subtle comments 
  from Wendy’s sister-in-law when Wendy had shown up to 
  Christmas dinner with a woman on her arm had been close 
  call enough. 
  “Please, Kelly?” Wendy pleaded, and Kelly felt her 
  reservation being subsumed in her need to be near the 
  object of her fascination. “It’ll be fun. We’re at this place 
  called Glitz. It’s not exactly your kind of music, I don’t 
  think, but there’s dancing and … and, well, I don’t want to 
  have a good time without you.” 
  Kelly sighed. “Alright, Wendy. I know the place. Give me 
  twenty, thirty minutes to throw something on, and I’ll be 
  there.” She was so weak, she chided herself, but she was 
  
  42 
   
  already standing from the chair and losing herself in the 
  anticipation of being with Wendy again. 
  “Great!” Wendy enthused, and Kelly couldn’t help but 
  smile. “See you soon!”  
  Kelly agreed she would and disconnected the call. She 
  walked down the short length of hall to her small bedroom 
  and the attached closet to pull some clothes out. She still, 
  at first, latched onto Stefan’s preferences in her mode of 
  dress, with the bright, lurid colors and exposed flesh, but 
  stuffed those thoughts down and tried to see herself instead 
  through Wendy’s eyes.  
  She grabbed a black leather skirt, laced up the sides, and a 
  black t-shirt with “STARFUCKER” emblazoned across the 
  breasts in red sequins. She added a pair of Perry Ellis ankle 
  boots, a satin choker, and a small backpack meant to be 
  slung over one shoulder as accessories. Wendy liked it when 
  she worked the rocker angle in her style, even if Glitz was 
  more for the EDM crowd. Kelly hesitated only a moment 
  before she slid the matte black bulk of the Glock pistol into 
  the backpack. The way her jealousy simmered, she wasn’t 
  sure having a weapon at hand was the best of ideas, but she 
  had to be realistic about her situation. She was newly-
  minted as the Prince Lucina’s Seneschal, and there were 
  plenty of kindred in the city looking to take a swipe at the 
  upstart neonate before she got settled into the seat of 
  power. 
  A dash of makeup came next, and a quick pass of the 
  clippers to shear her hair off to the length Wendy would 
  expect to see it. Not for the first time of late, she wondered 
  what had possessed her to want to cut her hair off short 
  since meeting the mortal. It was a bit of a nuisance to keep 
  it at the expected length, when every evening saw her 
  
  43 
   
  shoulder length falls of ringlets regrown completely. She 
  dialed a cab to take her to the club, and it arrived at the 
  curb not quite a minute after she hit the street to wait for 
  it. 
   
  January 11, 1999. 11:32 PM. 
   
  Kelly slipped the cabbie some cash and stepped into the 
  street outside the club. She looked up at the sparkling neon 
  sign that showed as well as read Glitz. A bored-looking 
  security guard gave her petite frame a once over, but she 
  allayed him with the ruby red of her smiling lipstick and a 
  wink that made him grin. On a Monday night, there was 
  no line outside bathing in the muffled pulse of bass from 
  inside. She walked in past the bouncer and slid another bill 
  under the slot to pay her cover charge before she hit the 
  club proper. 
  Though there was no line outside, there was no shortage of 
  bodies inside. Monday night or not, the place was at least 
  three-quarters full of grinding, sweating, breathing mortals 
  who filled the room in her keen senses with heat and 
  movement and scent. They were engaged in their own kind 
  of frenzy, one more wholesome if no less ecstatic than a 
  kindred’s more vicious expression. The whole place pulsed 
  with life, as if the people in it were the building’s heart and 
  she was granted a glimpse at the sacred organ.  
  Life, but not light, filled the club. It was dim, though made 
  to seem otherwise with rainbows of laser light. The beams 
  that lanced and fanned into and through the crowd on the 
  dance floor and by the DJ booth were too focused to do 
  more than provide the indication of illumination without 
  revealing much of anything at all. The only real bastion of 
  light was the white panels that fronted the bar worked by 
  
  44 
   
  two harried bartenders trying to keep up with the demands 
  of thirsty patrons. At least, Kelly thought, they didn’t have 
  to contend with a kindred’s thirst as well. 
  The club wasn’t unknown to her. A pair of Toreador 
  neonates claimed unofficial domain here, and she let her 
  eyes trail over the crowd as she sought out the singular 
  stillness in the sea of life that would mark the presence of 
  the undead. She spotted one at the edge of the dance floor, 
  sandwiched between two twenty-somethings with brightly-
  colored hair that were grinding in front and back of him. 
  Jackson, she placed his name after a moment’s thought. She 
  didn’t see the other, Nancy she thought was her name. Not 
  in tonight, Kelly thought, or else cloistered away behind the 
  curtains of laser light and satiating her thirst far from prying 
  eyes. Finally, Kelly saw Wendy at a table with another 
  woman. 
  Wendy was a vision, and Kelly barely saw the other woman 
  at the table as she drank in Wendy’s details. Her hair was 
  in an artful pile of curls atop her head, with a few too-casual-
  to-be-casual strands that escaped the nest and curled gently 
  against the side of Wendy’s long, graceful neck. A tiny 
  glitter of silver caught the colored light of the place and 
  made the hollow of her throat shine with the chain clasped 
  around her neck. She had a loose, white blouse on that 
  hung free of one shoulder. Kelly couldn’t see the shadow of 
  a bra under the silk, nor the strap of one on the exposed 
  arc of soft-looking skin. Kelly longed to taste that skin, and 
  the blood that gave it the healthy blush that coursed 
  beneath it. She lost herself in contemplation of the mortal 
  until she realized that Wendy was leaned into her 
  conversation partner, beaming her broad, white smile 
  across the table. The pique of jealousy doused the lust, and 
  she finally deigned to look at her competition for Wendy’s 
  
  45 
   
  attention. 
  The blonde of the hair was a shade or two lighter than 
  Kelly’s own straw-colored coif, almost platinum. Most 
  would miss the shadow of root, but Kelly felt a small thrill 
  of superiority when she marked Wendy’s friend as a bottle 
  blonde. She was petite, only a little larger than Kelly herself. 
  Her back was to the door, so Kelly couldn’t see her features, 
  but she could see the build that had once been athletic and 
  which had since gone somewhat to pasture. The baby tee 
  that left her midriff bared was black, and at least from this 
  side bereft of logo or art. It strained across the back of the 
  shoulders to Kelly’s preternatural eyes, and though Kelly 
  couldn’t see her chest she had the impression the shirt was 
  strained to contain it. She fought the urge of her fangs to 
  slip free of their restraint. The woman wore simple, tight 
  leather pants, over the waist of which her hips just barely 
  spilled. She had one leg crossed over the other at the knee 
  under the table, and she was bouncing the simple, black 
  pump she wore on her toes as if impatient or irritated. 
  Kelly scowled as she read the woman’s posture and noticed 
  again Wendy’s attentive lean. Jess—Wendy had called her 
  Jess, Kelly thought—was straight-backed and reserved in her 
  chair. With the way Wendy leaned into her, it seemed like 
  Jess was sitting a throne or pedestal and accepting the 
  adulation that was her due. If Wendy noticed, she gave no 
  sign, merely seeming glad to give Jess the attention the 
  woman seemed to feel she deserved. Kelly had more than 
  enough experience with those creatures that truly 
  demanded—and could enforce—that aloofness that she 
  recognized it at once in Wendy’s friend. She had to force 
  herself to confront that term, Wendy’s friend, and remind 
  herself to give the woman a chance. She’d almost talked 
  herself around by the time Wendy finally noticed her 
  
  46 
   
  standing by the door. 
  Wendy’s smile broadened when she spotted Kelly and 
  waved her over. Jess—Kelly was sure it was Jess—looked 
  around to follow Wendy’s gaze and Kelly at last saw her 
  face. It was made up to take five years off the aging 
  prettiness. She didn’t have the kind of handsome beauty 
  that captured Kelly’s heart, but plenty of men and women 
  would swoon at her smile. Her nose was pert and slightly 
  upturned, her brows slim and manicured, her eyes piercing 
  and the blue of the ocean. Her cheekbones were high and 
  accented with blush, her lips full and painted red. The smile 
  she had on those lips was thin and tight, a smile of 
  patronizing forbearance. Kelly endured the long, slow once-
  over that Jess gave her from across the room and consoled 
  herself with the fact that the woman’s makeup was just a 
  little heavy handed, and that the shade of red on her lips 
  was not quite a perfect fit for her complexion. The weight 
  of her gun in the backpack was a distraction and she 
  hitched the narrow strap up as Wendy pushed away from 
  the booth to approach Kelly. Kelly let herself get lost in a 
  moment of deep appreciation for the leg showing under the 
  hem of Wendy’s skirt. 
  “You made it!” Wendy exclaimed, just a little bit sloppy 
  from the alcohol Kelly picked out of her scent as the mortal 
  rushed into her arms. Wendy’s perfume—not the midrange 
  scent she bought from the store but the living scent of her 
  body—inundated Kelly and she felt, for a moment, like she 
  was drowning. Her thirst woke as Wendy’s heart thudded 
  against her breasts, and their lips met, but Kelly pushed it 
  away. It was a different starvation she was determined to 
  feed, and she reveled in the closeness of the mortal. 
  Wendy’s tongue delved to find Kelly’s, and the mortal gave 
  a soft moan into the kiss as it lingered. Finally, blushing hot 
  
  47 
   
  enough to stoke the return of Kelly’s thirst for blood, 
  Wendy withdrew. “Come on,” she needlessly half-shouted 
  over the music. “Let me introduce you.” 
  Kelly felt the warmth of Wendy’s hand slide down her bare 
  arm and closed her fingers into Wendy’s hot ones. She 
  allowed herself to be led back to the booth and the woman 
  waiting there. Was it her imagination, Kelly wondered, or 
  had she caught the low spark of disdain in Jess’s eyes when 
  she glanced at the way their hands were clasped? Perhaps 
  Kelly merely wanted to have a reason to hate the new 
  mortal. She tried to give Jess the benefit of the doubt, and 
  to summon determination not to be the first to show claw 
  (fang) at the introduction. 
  “Kelly, this is Jess,” Wendy bubbled. “Jess, this is Kelly. Isn’t 
  she just gorgeous?” If the scent of the booze oozing from 
  Wendy’s aura was not enough to reveal how deep in her 
  cups the mortal was, the giggle she concluded the 
  introduction with would have been a giveaway. Kelly pulled 
  the corners of her lips into a smile. 
  “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Jess said. She 
  pushed a thin-fingered hand forward, palm down and limp. 
  Kelly stared at it for a moment, not entirely certain what 
  she was expected to do with the gesture. On some level she 
  knew this was meant to be a handshake, but it seemed just 
  a little too much like Jess expected Kelly to bow over her 
  hand or kiss her knuckles or otherwise show some kind of 
  deferential servility. 
  “Likewise,” Kelly answered coolly as she lifted her eyes back 
  to Jess. She twisted her grip as she snagged Jess’s hand, 
  forcing the woman into something approximating a proper 
  handshake. Her fingers might have closed a little tighter 
  than necessary, but Jess didn’t seem to notice. She was too 
  
  48 
   
  busy being shocked by the grave-cold chill of Kelly’s touch. 
  Kelly hoped her enjoyment of the mortal’s instinctive recoil 
  didn’t shine too brightly in her eyes as she released the brief 
  touch and followed Wendy into the booth. 
  “Don’t mind the cold,” Wendy soothed when she seemed 
  to notice Jess’s jerk, and the way she rubbed her palm with 
  the thumb of her other hand in the wake of Kelly’s grip. 
  “She’s got some kind of circulation problem, I think. She’s 
  always freezing. It’s only gotten worse since winter started.” 
  Kelly was spared having to respond when a buxom red head 
  in a white t-shirt a size too small and a black miniskirt an 
  inch too short came to take drink orders. Kelly let her snag 
  the empty shot glasses and Wendy’s empty beer bottle 
  before she offered to the other women, “I’ve got no 
  stomach for shots, I’m afraid, but would you two like 
  another?” Wendy beamed that she would, Jess gave a 
  demure agreement, and Kelly turned back to the waitress. 
  “Three more beers, please, and two…” 
  Kelly trailed off and reached for one of the empty shot 
  glasses. With a quick pass under her nose and a sharp sniff, 
  she identified the type of liquor they’d held. “Two tequilas, 
  please,” she finished as she set the empty shot glass 
  delicately back on the tray. The waitress went away with a 
  promise that they wouldn’t have to wait long. 
  “I’m surprised, Wendy,” Kelly said to the mortal at her side 
  as the woman disappeared into the crowd. “I didn’t know 
  you were a tequila drinker.” 
  “My fault,” Jess answered for Wendy with a note of 
  mockingly-sincere apology. “It’s been so long since we saw 
  one another, I thought we should celebrate a little.” 
  “No fault assigned,” Kelly replied with a tight smile. She 
  tried for a sincere tone, but under it she was roiling with 
  
  49 
   
  rage at a low boil that Jess should presume to answer for 
  Wendy. Kelly could see the subtle light of possessiveness in 
  Jess’s smile as Wendy warmed Kelly’s profile with a grin, 
  and her arm went around Wendy’s shoulders in response. 
  Wendy made a soft sound of pleasure and snuggled into 
  the crook. “I just haven’t seen her drink it before.” 
  “Peer pressure,” Wendy giggled up at Kelly, and Kelly 
  favored her with a small smile. Wendy missed the look Jess 
  gave, but Kelly was finely attuned to such flashes of 
  intention and emotion thanks to her frequent forays into 
  the monsters' balls of her unlife. She certainly did not miss 
  the gleam of insult in Jess's eyes as she was referred to as a 
  peer. 
  “You two went to school together?” Kelly diverted as she 
  tried to allow the increasingly-irritating flashes of Jess’s 
  manner slide off her back. Wendy nodded against her 
  shoulder. 
  “Mm-hm,” Wendy said. “Jess was a year ahead, but we were 
  on cheer squad together. Jess was the one who made sure 
  all our kicks and pyramids were done just right. She was a 
  real slave driver about it sometimes.” She giggled again, and 
  Jess’s tight smile was a match for Kelly’s. 
  Ah, Kelly thought. A queen bee. One of those who became 
  accustomed to fawning devotion from the boys who wanted 
  to fuck them, and the girls who wanted to be them. The 
  sort that never quite lost their taste for the adulation and 
  control as they aged. Well, Kelly thought. It had been some 
  years now since she had feared the might of a mortal queen 
  bee. 
  “Wendy was a bit like a protégé to me,” Jess said as she 
  picked up the thread. “She was always one of the better girls 
  on the squad.” 
  
  50 
   
  “Maybe,” Wendy answered. “But you still got all the boys 
  anyways.” 
  Jess’s answering smile was accompanied by, “True, but from 
  the looks of things that wasn’t really too disappointing to 
  you after all.” 
  “Oh, well … I mean … Kelly is just … She was … I don’t 
  normally …” Wendy stammered, and Kelly finally registered 
  it through the seething. She gave Wendy a light squeeze 
  around the shoulders to soothe her and the hot blush that 
  Kelly could feel rising in Wendy’s cheeks. The drinks were 
  delivered, the waitress granting a moment of reprieve with 
  her interruption. Kelly grabbed her beer with her free hand 
  and lifted the bottle to feign a sip. 
  "What I think Wendy is trying to say is that I am her first 
  foray into alternative relationships and lifestyles." She 
  smiled down at Wendy and was warmed by the gratitude 
  for the intercession on her behalf in explaining a situation 
  Wendy was still somewhat awkward with. 
  "Alternative relationships," Jess repeated as she sipped her 
  own beer. "That's a good way to describe it, I suppose." 
  Kelly's smile melted halfway as she lifted her gaze to Jess's 
  and saw there the judgement that went unsaid. She was still 
  trying to frame her response when Jess continued. "Wendy 
  tells me you're some kind of high-priced lawyer? That must 
  keep you pretty busy." 
  "Wendy over-sells me just a bit," Kelly demurred. "I'm a 
  lawyer, yes, but I'm only just getting my firm off the ground, 
  and aside from some work I did for Eliot Frisk, I don't really 
  have any prominent clients to speak of yet." 
  "Still, your own firm. That's pretty impressive, isn't it? And 
  ... Wait, did you say Eliot Frisk? The Eliot Frisk? The 
  Hammerschmidt Arms Eliot Frisk?" Kelly knew that the 
  
  51 
   
  twist of her smile must have been touched with the cold, 
  vindicated superiority she felt swell inside her at Jess's 
  incredulity. She also didn't care. Let the bitch be awed; it 
  beat her being dead. 
  "Yes," Kelly confirmed with a nod as Wendy disentangled 
  herself from Kelly’s grip to reach for her beer and eyed the 
  shot beside it with the lemon wedge and bowl of finely-
  ground rock salt. "Though not his firm. He was looking for 
  someone else to handle his personal needs and heard of me 
  through a friend of a friend." 
  "Kelly doesn't like to talk herself up," Wendy said with 
  mock conspiracy after she licked her lips so delicately that 
  Kelly was transfixed by the slow passage of the warm tongue 
  along blood-rich tissues. It wasn’t until the gesture ended 
  that Kelly was able to register at last what Wendy had said. 
  She found the strong, alluring beat of Wendy's femoral 
  artery under her fingertips and realized she was kneading 
  the woman's thigh. As Wendy continued, she spread her 
  legs slightly to give Kelly an easier angle to her leg without 
  being obvious about it. Kelly availed herself and stroked her 
  fingertips gently back and forth along that soft line of inner 
  thigh. "She met him because she was at some gala or 
  something for this board she sits on, too." 
  Kelly faked a sip of her beer to avert her eyes and buy a 
  moment to compose her instant urge to shush Wendy 
  sternly. When she had deflected Wendy’s questions about 
  the Camarilla she hadn’t really expected the deflections to 
  become the topic of conversation with Wendy’s old friends. 
  Kelly glanced up as she made a show of wiping her lips with 
  the back of her hand and saw the curious brow lifted across 
  the table.  
  "It's kind of a niche organization. I'm sure you wouldn't 
  
  52 
   
  have heard of it, but sometimes we get a local politician or 
  celebrity stopping by events we attend. I was the new kid in 
  town, as it were, and Chris Hopkins wanted to meet me. 
  Apparently, I made an impression because he mentioned 
  me to Eliot and, well, the rest is history." She waved the 
  matter away as if it were inconsequential and hoped her 
  facade of the same was opaque enough to cover her 
  desperation to change the subject. 
  "Sometimes you just get lucky," Jess agreed, and for a half 
  beat of Wendy's heart Kelly forgot to hate Jess. It felt greasy 
  and she reached for her dislike of the mortal as more 
  wholesome. What did that say about her, that she would 
  rather hate a person than accept gratitude toward them for 
  selfish reasons? She didn’t really need an answer, though. 
  She knew what it said about her and what she was. 
  "Shots!" Wendy interjected somewhat boisterously and Jess 
  was further diverted from her curiosity.  
  Now that the attractive glimmer of envy had faded from 
  Jess’s gaze, Kelly could see the new, vicious gleam of 
  suspicion that had been buried under it. Jess had realized 
  an underestimation, Kelly knew. She may not have realized 
  it consciously, but it would color the rest of the night at 
  least. Kelly let them go through the ritual of tequila 
  drinking and glanced out over the crowd for the Toreador 
  or any new-come kindred. She saw only Jackson again, still 
  on the dance floor and apparently inattentive to his 
  surroundings, the male and female mortals dancing against 
  either side of him notwithstanding. She turned back to the 
  table as the glasses tapped in syncopation. Wendy gasped in 
  a way that made Kelly's fangs ache in her gums. 
  "So, what do you do, Jess? You seem to have me at a 
  disadvantage," Kelly inquired before either of them could 
  
  53 
   
  seize the reins of the conversation. Jess chased the shot with 
  a sip of the cheap beer before she answered. 
  "I teach art history at the Milwaukee High School for The 
  Arts," Jess replied. "Hired right out of college." 
  Kelly nodded. "I've heard good things about that school. I 
  know a few people closely involved with the arts, and some 
  of them had a hand in getting the school built so far as I've 
  heard. Do you enjoy it? Are the students receptive?" Kelly 
  didn’t even have to make a polite lie. She knew of then-
  Primogen Lucina's role in getting the project off the 
  ground, and of several other ancillae in the clan who were 
  now enjoying a new round of laurels upon which to rest 
  about having assisted the now-Prince with such an 
  important boon. Gracis was mentioned nebulously in 
  related rumors, but Kelly had no idea if he was in support 
  of or against Lucina on that project; both were mentioned 
  with equal weight and probability. 
  "Sometimes," Jess admitted. "And some are. A lot of them 
  are trust fund kids whose parents want the name on the 
  transcript. They don't mind writing shallow free verse or 
  splashing paint on a canvas and calling it modern 
  impressionism, but they don't care much for where those 
  terms even came from, let alone anything that might 
  actually make them put some effort in." 
  Kelly commiserated as she felt Wendy's hand on her own 
  thigh, clutching. From the soft tingle of warmth that 
  lingered under the palm, if the music had not been so loud 
  Jess would probably have heard the smack of Wendy’s 
  sudden grip. Kelly realized her fingers were running slow 
  circles up the inside of Wendy's leg, like a searching 
  predator drawn to the growing heat of life burning where 
  the legs met. She didn't stop. "At least you get the serious 
  
  54 
   
  ones, now and then," she offered as the outside edge of her 
  pinky finger brushed the smooth cotton of Wendy's 
  panties. "And you'll know whose work to buy early," she 
  added.  
  From the corner of her eye she could see Wendy blush hard 
  and study her beer as if it were the key to understanding the 
  universe in all its complexity. Her fingernails dug almost 
  painfully into Kelly's thigh and her breathing and heart 
  fluttered like a deer sensing danger but unsure of whence it 
  came. Kelly's other hand tightened onto the moist coolness 
  of the condensation on her beer and she forced herself to 
  focus on the trail of cold water trickling over her fingers. 
  "What do you mean, buy early?" Jess asked, confusion clear 
  on her face. Dammit, Kelly thought. Teachers don't buy art. 
  Wendy was distracting her. 
  "Uh, I mean you can suggest to collectors whose work 
  would be worth keeping an eye on, that's all. Good way to 
  make friends." Wendy's grip abruptly relaxed on Kelly's 
  thigh and vanished. She could still feel the ghost of living 
  warmth on her flesh when the grip returned, steely and 
  insistent on her wrist under the table. Wendy pressed 
  Kelly's fingers the last few inches to nestle against the 
  dampening cotton. 
  It took two heartbeats for Kelly to realize what was coming. 
  The first drove her awareness down to a pinhole's width, 
  and filled her field of vision instead with an opaque curtain 
  of red. The second manifested as a spasm in her gums in 
  time to the heartbeat she felt through her fingertips, a 
  sensation of relaxing control into the comfort of her fangs 
  extended. With a desperate act of will she coughed abruptly 
  and violently. She interrupted Jess saying something that 
  Kelly couldn't make out. She snatched her hand up from 
  
  55 
   
  under the table and clapped it over her mouth to cover her 
  fangs let loose. She shifted her head down until her chin 
  was buried against her chest. The choker's edge cut into her 
  skin and she used the discomfort to distract herself further. 
  She continued faking the cough for almost half a minute as 
  she struggled against the thirst that was crippling her with 
  its electric agony in her every cell. 
  "Good god," Wendy exclaimed as she leaned back from the 
  concerned hunch Kelly gently waved her out of. "Are you 
  alright? What was that?" 
  "I'm fine, I'm fine," Kelly assured as she finally regained 
  control of her thirst and need and fangs. She pressed gently 
  outward with her supernatural Presence to sell the act. "Just 
  a sip down the wrong pipe, is all. Nothing to worry about. 
  I'm sorry about that. It's really quite embarrassing." 
  "We've all been there," Jess said with a hint of genuine 
  consolation. "You sure you're okay, though?" Kelly nodded 
  she was and Jess continued, "Good, I was starting to think 
  you needed an ambulance. Nice friend you have here, 
  Wendy. Only the best nights end when an ambulance is 
  called." Kelly summoned a polite smile for the double-edged 
  compliment and Wendy gave a small chuckle in which 
  Kelly could hear the lingering concern. Kelly didn't turn to 
  take in the expression, or the confusion and hurt that 
  would doubtless greet her when she kept both of her hands 
  firmly atop the table. The subtle shift of Wendy's warmth 
  away from her was proof enough that they would be there, 
  to Kelly. 
  "Well that was exciting. What were we talking about?" Kelly 
  offered lightly, trying to regain the reins of the 
  conversation. She slid it in another direction as Jess 
  hesitated to think, commenting on the ever-present music 
  
  56 
   
  to divert the river of eddying words. 
   
  January 12, 1999. 12:44 AM. 
   
  An hour later, Wendy had either forgotten or forgiven her 
  moment of pique. Kelly suspected the former, as that hour 
  had also seen three more shots of tequila disappear into the 
  woman's stomach. The poison was working on her, Kelly 
  could tell. Her body was trying desperately to off-gas it, and 
  the cloud of scent around Wendy to which Kelly was finely-
  attuned was sour with the potent drink. She clung around 
  Kelly's shoulders, leaned in with head tilted back to nibble 
  on Kelly's earlobe and neck, at least as much because gravity 
  was working against her as because she wanted to. Kelly 
  endured it almost as much because she felt compelled to as 
  she did to force herself to poke her temper with each of 
  Jess's somewhat uncomfortable and subtly incensed glances 
  at the intimacy. "I like your short hair," Wendy slurred in a 
  whisper against her neck. "I couldn't do this with your curls 
  and two hundred bottles of hairspray a month." Even 
  Wendy's giggle was slurred, somehow. 
  Jess was more subdued with her tequila consumption, and 
  Kelly was careful to seem to nurse her warming beer as well. 
  She steered the conversation toward Wendy when it 
  became obvious they had little else in common, and also 
  because those tales, too, fanned the embers of her feral rage. 
  It felt good to hate in so visceral a manner, and while she 
  despised herself for reveling in it, she was as compelled to 
  do so as she was to luxuriate in Wendy's blissful devotion. 
  Call it nostalgia, rose-colored glasses, or golden age 
  syndrome, but Wendy was much happier to see Jess than 
  Jess was to see Wendy, and Kelly could see the difference. 
  She was adept at her social masking, but Jess was no match 
  
  57 
   
  for a kindred and Kelly knew too many of those to be taken 
  in. Kelly thought Jess could have enjoyed a reunion with 
  Wendy, if Wendy's attention was not so commanded by 
  another. This woman was every bit as much the vampire as 
  any kindred, though it was not blood she drew from her 
  victims.  
  As the conversation stalled for a moment, and Jess glanced 
  away to sip at her beer, Kelly made the decision to kill her. 
  It was a cold calculation. Once, even a helpless drive to 
  murder in the grip of frenzy had been a hot, shameful burn 
  in her mind. It had been a horror from which she recoiled 
  as surely as she did from fire or sunlight. But tonight, in a 
  building that had been throbbing its heartbeat into her ears 
  and chest all night, and with her adoring lover and 
  obsession—yes, it was an obsession, but it was not one that 
  Kelly would allow to hurt Wendy as it had so many others—
  cradled against her shoulder, she made the decision with as 
  little shame or malice as she would over which case law to 
  quote in an argument. Jess was meant to be shaping the 
  minds of the next generation. She had had a kind of power 
  and influence without effort that women like Kelly and 
  Wendy worked their whole lives to gain, and she had 
  frittered it away on self-gratification, on tearing down those 
  around her. On tearing down Wendy. She held her civil 
  smile as Jess looked back, and continued the light, 
  meaningless banter of a night of first meetings wrapping up, 
  and all the while Jess was completely unaware that she 
  would not see tomorrow. Somewhere, very far away and 
  buried under the low roar of a temper she had been stoking 
  since she had first learned Wendy was out with someone 
  without Kelly, a recoil of revulsion squealed. 
  "Come home with me," Wendy slurred as she stumbled 
  along at Kelly's side. The three women made their way out 
  
  58 
   
  of the club in a short line. Kelly flushed herself with the 
  strength of her vitae to support Wendy’s weight as she 
  forced a smile down at the mortal clinging to her. 
  "I can't, not tonight," she said gently, and soothed the 
  disappointment that flashed across Wendy's features with a 
  kiss. "No, I'm going to put you in a cab, and you're going to 
  go home and straight to bed. Call in sick tomorrow, if you 
  can. Or at least take a cab to work."  
  Wendy sighed and leaned harder into Kelly, making both 
  of them take a staggering step away from Jess on the other 
  side of Wendy. Jess didn't think Kelly saw the look of 
  disdain cross her features at Wendy's stumble, but Kelly 
  couldn't miss it. She had glanced over to look for it 
  specifically. "You take such good care of me," Wendy cooed. 
  Kelly saw Wendy into the cab and disentangled herself 
  from Wendy's sloppily ardent final goodbyes. She overpaid 
  the driver to see Wendy home three times over, and then 
  stood on the sidewalk with only the muted throb of the 
  club's din and Jess as company. She straightened and 
  poured every ounce of her supernatural charm out at Jess. 
  She smiled a broad smile and draped herself in the mantle 
  of the chagrined. "Look, I think we got off on the wrong 
  foot. Why don't you let me buy you a coffee before you go? 
  I can give you the name of a collector that's usually 
  interested in new talent. Might get you a finder's fee and 
  one of your students a shot at the big time?" 
  Kelly saw the hesitation and distaste in Jess's instinctive 
  response, but she saw the greed, too. She had had her eye 
  on the watch Kelly had bought Wendy all night. She 
  wanted a taste of the finer things association with Kelly 
  seemed to bring. Kelly saw, too, the sly edge to the smile 
  Jess flashed at her after the beat of pause. "You know, a 
  
  59 
   
  coffee sounds good. Know any place around here?" Kelly 
  nodded and gestured down the sidewalk. She did, in fact, 
  know of a decent coffee house near Glitz, but she had no 
  intention of Jess ever seeing it. 
  "Wendy kept telling me about how you seemed to know 
  everyone, and that you told her you had dangerous clients. 
  I guess you're one of those mob lawyers, are you?" Jess 
  accepted the cigarette Kelly offered but waved off the 
  lighter. 
  "Mm, something like that," Kelly replied around the filter 
  of her cigarette as she lit it. "Not quite, though." 
  "Well you have Eliot Frisk as a client, I guess you mean the 
  Military Industrial Complex. Say, aren't you cold? Are we 
  far?" 
  "No, not them either," Kelly demurred, and even if she 
  didn't stumble like Wendy did, Jess was loosened enough 
  to accept the deflection without pressing. Kelly went on, 
  "Are you cold? Here, I know a shortcut. We're almost there."  
  With a hand on Jess's shivering elbow, shivering but still oh-
  so-hot to Kelly's fingertips, she guided Jess toward a gap 
  between two taller buildings. A drive, it seemed, to some 
  shared loading area or off-street parking. Jess balked, but 
  Kelly's reassuring Presence was enough when combined 
  with the beer and tequila to convince that it was safe. After 
  a moment's hesitation and querulous study of the dark 
  drive, Jess fell back into step with Kelly. 
  "What's this place called, anyways?" Jess asked as their 
  footfalls echoed back from the darkened walls looming 
  above them and blackening the already-snow-heavy sky. 
  Kelly made a sound as if she were trying to remember when 
  in truth she was ensuring that no sound of intruding life 
  would interfere with or observe what she planned. 
  
  60 
   
  "You know?" she asked as she paused in her step, just short 
  of the open, back alley parking lot that was dimly lit ahead. 
  It was softly lit enough that it couldn’t be more than a single 
  bulb mounted on a wall facing the square. Jess drew up 
  short and half-turned, alarmed by something in Kelly’s 
  voice. "I don't think I want to buy you a coffee after all, Jess. 
  I think," she said as Jess turned fully to face her and adopted 
  the slow confusion of the inebriated. Kelly’s muscles were 
  still flush and humming with the power of the blood she 
  had used to bear Wendy to the car. Kelly stepped forward 
  and, as if to a confidant or friend, lifted her hands to Jess's 
  shoulders. "I think, instead, I'm going to drink your blood." 
  Jess gave an awkward kind of chuckle and tried to shrug out 
  of Kelly's grip, but more of Kelly’s vitae was emptying into 
  her muscles. The blood filled her with inhuman power so 
  that the frail woman's struggles—so many years removed 
  from that most acrobatic pastime of cheer leading—were of 
  no consequence. Even as Jess realized she was well and truly 
  caught, and her struggles intensified, Kelly held her firmly 
  and with relative ease.  
  Kelly's fangs came out slow enough for her to enjoy the 
  woman's terror and realization. Her heightened senses 
  heard the throat close on the scream until a sharp, second 
  inhalation opened it. In the hesitation of that breath, Kelly 
  hissed at her and lashed out with her preternatural ferocity. 
  The Dread Gaze killed the scream in a gush of air, as though 
  Kelly had physically struck the woman in the stomach. The 
  sour stink of alcoholic urine filled the air between them. "N-
  no, y-yo-you can't be ..." 
  "No, Jess. What you showed me tonight proved that you 
  can't be, and that since I am damned already I ought to use 
  it for some measure of good." Kelly's voice was far away to 
  her own ears, low and filled with menace, but controlled 
  
  61 
   
  and cold. As Kelly's fangs sank into the adrenaline-spiced 
  arterial flow, Jess finally found her scream for the half 
  second before the Kiss's paralysis took her to the ground.  
  Kelly went down with her and held her close as they made 
  a controlled collapse onto the damp, icy paving below. The 
  shift in blood pressure brought fresh, wild spurting of blood 
  into her waiting mouth, and she clamped her lips over the 
  gout after the first arc half escaped her mouth. The sticky 
  heat splashed across her cheek, ear, and hair.  
  As she rode the pulsing, slowing flow of life, she felt the act 
  was as pornographic as anything she and Wendy had done. 
  She reveled in the sensation of abandon and the lack of 
  shame in indulgence. She pulled it around herself as she 
  ground and grunted on the dying, and then dead, human. 
  Her thirst, which had burned so hot in the wake of her 
  efforts to taunt it, was quelled in an orgasmic crash with 
  every hot gush across her tongue. The feel of that pain 
  leaving, of feeling the most horrible part of her lulled back 
  to its fitful slumber, was more fulfilling than anything she 
  had done with Wendy. 
  The last trickle flowed and Kelly lapped at the cold flesh for 
  the final traces, as a lover in afterglow tasting the sweat of 
  her partner. She lay on the stinking ground, entangled with 
  a body now as dead as her own. Slowly, insidiously, the 
  concerns of her existence began to creep back in. She 
  fought them; she didn't want to let those seconds of nirvana 
  be shattered or tainted yet by anything but its reality. The 
  harder she fought, though, the more insistent they became. 
  She sighed into the dead woman's shoulder and nestled 
  into it as if for comfort and succor. It was only then she 
  realized what she was doing, and what she had done. 
  Kelly heard herself mentally recite all the reasons she had 
  
  62 
   
  had to kill this woman. She heard herself remind that Jess 
  had been a terrible person, who had tormented more than 
  one girl (Wendy) and student with shame and belittling. 
  She heard herself cry that Jess had been every bit as sly and 
  wicked as any kindred. She heard herself whisper that she 
  had been protecting Wendy. Every syllable of it rang hollow 
  in her own ears.  
  She had hated this woman for the mirror of herself she 
  knew Jess to be. She saw all the same cold manipulation in 
  how she kept Wendy close, in how she used Wendy to feed 
  her what she needed. She had seen the bitterness in Jess at 
  having that taken from her and couldn't face it. She had 
  had to destroy it. It had felt so good to destroy it, and she 
  had known, too, that it would. She had wanted it to. 
  Kelly frantically shoved herself to her feet and off of the 
  sightless-and-yet-accusing woman. With a choked cry, she 
  threw herself to the side and reeled. One arm took the 
  impact, while the other hooked around her midsection. 
  Her stomach clenched, and her throat tried to close greedily 
  to keep its contents in check. She gagged soundlessly, and 
  as her throat relaxed, a trickle of the still-warm blood flowed 
  like bile from between her lips to splatter on the wall.  
  How dare she try to use Wendy as a shield against herself? 
  How dare she even consider that any of the petty failures 
  and moral laxity Jess had displayed were even remotely so 
  bad as to earn Kelly's judgement? She felt sick again and dry 
  heaved. Kelly leaned her forehead into the wall and closed 
  her eyes. The alcohol in Jess's blood weighed like a cloud of 
  poisonous fog in her mind. Eyes closed as they were, she 
  spun in place without moving an inch. Her forehead ached 
  with the rasp of rough brick as she heaved again and spat 
  another rivulet of blood bile at her feet. She felt it splatter 
  her bare shins and ignored it. 
  
  63 
   
  Kelly forced herself to confront a list of those who would 
  be hurt by this single act. She traced the ripples of her sin 
  through family, friends, students, and co-workers. She 
  forced herself to envision the vigils; the weeping of 
  desperate parents on the evening news pleading for the safe 
  return of a daughter they would never know was already 
  dead and deaf to their cries. She deluged herself in the 
  vivid—oh her imagination had always been so vivid, hadn't 
  it?—detail of the empty-casket funeral when those who had 
  loved finally accepted the truth. Or perhaps it would be the 
  aching sighs of loss in the final months of old age, the empty 
  hope of survival, somewhere, that had become more habit 
  than belief. She imagined children, scared and confused 
  about why their mother was gone, why she had left them.  
  At some point through the parade of imagined damage she 
  felt warm tracks of stolen blood on her cheeks and heard 
  the dripping of it to the puddle of her vomit below. She 
  opened her eyes and watched the tears fall for a moment 
  before she forced herself to straighten and turn to face the 
  body and the glazed gaze. 
  Jess stared up at Kelly, slack-jawed and empty of life. Kelly 
  could Embrace her. She could correct her mistake. Jess had 
  already shown she could probably swim with the sharks. 
  But Kelly’s Embrace without permission would embarrass 
  the Prince and, Kelly thought, the cost would be 
  astronomical. She could spend centuries repaying the boon 
  to the Prince. It churned her stomach again to realize that 
  she was not going to Embrace this woman just as much for 
  the cost of doing so as the revulsion of condemning her to 
  the Dark Blood.  
  She dug her cell phone out of her bag and dialed Gordon 
  to call for a ride and to tell him to bring the saws and bags. 
  She wanted to scream at the moment of his hesitation 
  
  64 
   
  before his agreement, to scream into it that she didn't need 
  his judgement. She did not scream. Instead, she drove 
  herself to face it and understand it. Even this man, enslaved 
  by the most potent power she had ever heard of that one 
  might use to chain another, was sickened by her act. Or 
  afraid of her for it. Stefan.  
  Kelly waited for Gordon to disconnect the line and then 
  sank back to sit against the wall and stare into Jess's eyes 
  until he arrived. 
   
  January 12, 1999. 2:17 AM. 
   
  Later, as Kelly worked the saw down through cartilage and 
  tendon and muscle to separate forearm from bicep, she 
  kept returning to what she would tell Wendy. She had 
  already come to accept the fact of her murder. It was not a 
  thing to be shied away from, but rather to be dealt with. She 
  had moved into the future mentally in order to soften the 
  sting of the past. She couldn't tell Wendy what had 
  happened, but she wasn't sure she could live with the secret 
  between them.  
  What would Wendy think? She had introduced Kelly to 
  Jess and three hours later Jess lay dead, being dismembered. 
  Could Wendy live with what Kelly had done, what Kelly 
  was going to get away with doing? That was the kicker, 
  wasn't it? Kelly wondered to herself. It was bad enough that 
  she had killed—again, though Wendy wouldn't know that 
  this wasn't the first—but she was going to get away with it. 
  Gordon worked in grey-faced silence beside her. He had 
  never really gotten used to this part of his life with her, and 
  for all that she sometimes thought him dim or inept, she 
  admired that part. How much worse for him must it be to 
  
  65 
   
  be accomplice to someone else's murders? To be as 
  compelled to protect a monster as the monster itself was 
  compelled to do this harm? It was a wonder he kept his 
  humanity, or even his sanity. She would add to that burden 
  before she was done with him. Perhaps it would come down 
  to whether he broke under that weight measured against 
  his continued usefulness. And then what, she wondered to 
  herself. Then he would join Jess in the basement storage 
  closet, being sawed into easily disposed of pieces for his 
  replacement to discard. 
  When the grisly work was done, Kelly numbly bid Gordon 
  care in his disposal and went up to her bed. There were still 
  a couple of hours before dawn, but they passed in a 
  featureless blur for Kelly. Mostly, she saw the parade of grief 
  she had observed once already tonight as the ripples of her 
  sin expanded across her mind’s eye. Repetitious or not, she 
  faced it. She welcomed it, in fact. Every step of its 
  participants echoed in her mind with the voice of 
  condemnation. A shimmering red film of tears obscured 
  her vision as she began, but the crimson wash couldn't dim 
  the accusation in the eyes she imagined she saw, dead and 
  glazed, in the darkness. 
   
  January 12, 1999. 8:34 PM. 
   
  Kelly pushed the blinking red light on the answering 
  machine in her home office. The electronically-tinny 
  woman's voice announced, "Monday, January twelfth, ten 
  twenty-three AM." A gentle tone sounded and then 
  Wendy's voice floated up to her. "Uh, hi, Kelly. I tried your 
  office but they said you didn't come in today. I ... A 
  detective just left the station. He said that Jess is missing. 
  He said she never got home after we went out on Saturday. 
  
  66 
   
  Can you call me? I’m worried and scared. He was acting like 
  ... Well I don't know what he was acting like. Just call me, 
  okay?" 
  The counter on the machine ticked down to 4 and then the 
  helpful female voice returned. "Monday, January twelfth, 
  twelve nineteen PM." The tone repeated and then, "Kelly, 
  it's Wendy again. Where are you? I need to talk to you. Call 
  me. Please." 
  A tick down to 3. "Monday, January twelfth, one forty-four 
  PM." Kelly began to hate the soft tone between time stamp 
  and message.  
  "Kelly," Wendy began in an exasperated gush of breath. A 
  pause where Kelly could hear her inhale sharply. Her voice 
  quavered. "Kelly, I don't know why you're not calling me 
  back, but this is important. Do you know where Jess is? Call 
  me."  
  Tick, and 2 blared balefully up at her as she stared at the 
  small speaker in front of her. "Kelly this is ridiculous. Your 
  office still hasn't heard from you, you aren't answering your 
  home or cell. What's going on? Now I'm worried about you. 
  Call me please." 
  The counter helpfully informed Kelly it was about to deliver 
  her last message. "Monday, January twelfth, five twenty 
  PM." Kelly was jarred as, instead of Wendy's quavering and 
  near-frantic tones, she heard a man's voice. "Ms. Patterson, 
  this is Detective Dorst of the Milwaukee PD. It's been a bit 
  of a day trying to get in touch with you, but I finally got your 
  number from your associate Mr. Gibson. If you could call 
  me back at 555-631-0976, extension 202, I'd appreciate it. I 
  just have a few questions for you pertinent to an 
  investigation. Well, I can give you the details when you 
  reach out." 
  
  67 
   
  Kelly played the last message back and felt her senses 
  sharpen as she tried to read the cheaply-relayed tone. He 
  had the casual manner of a professional, she could tell that. 
  If there was anything but cool politeness in his words, either 
  she or the recording was insufficient to reveal it. She played 
  it a third time and still came up dry.  
  She thought she recognized the Detective's name, but she 
  couldn't place from whence. It wasn't likely something from 
  her professional life, but it felt like it was; for obvious 
  reasons she didn't handle trial law where a Detective's name 
  might be common. This was ... She rifled her memories and 
  finally came up with a headline she'd read at college. 
  Someone had dropped the paper on her desk as she'd been 
  cramming for midterms in her second year. "Your 
  hometown's in the news, Kelly," Joshua had said. 
  "Hero Cop Blackballed in Milwaukee," the headline had 
  read. Given the story's relevance to law enforcement, and 
  she'd still had foolish hopes of trial law, she had read it 
  eagerly. Detective Lincoln Dorst, the Boston Herald had 
  assured, was a hero cop. He had uncovered a ring of corrupt 
  cops at Police Headquarters skimming from the evidence 
  locker to run guns and drugs into the streets. He had 
  stepped over the thin blue line and, without the support of 
  IAD, built a case and shut them down. There had been 
  eight arrests, and indictments against the police chief and 
  captain of the squad had only narrowly been avoided. Both 
  had resigned. In response, the article continued, he had 
  recently found himself being transferred from the precinct 
  at the HQ to a much smaller and quieter precinct. With an 
  arrest record that  the newspaper had promised was 
  impressive even when compared to Detectives from other 
  major cities, Det. Dorst was being put out to pasture. She 
  remembered reading that the justification given to the press 
  
  68 
   
  had been "a negative impact on officer morale." She 
  remembered, too, thinking that a case like his was the kind 
  she would leap at taking. 
  No call to Lieutenant Wilkes would put this hound from 
  her trail, Kelly knew. She felt the boundaries on her 
  existence close in around her as her options narrowed. She 
  was, so far, only a person of interest. Of course, she would 
  be. She was one of the last people to see Jess alive, so far as 
  anyone but she yet knew. She did not think Dorst was the 
  kind of man who would be put off with a simple lie.  
  She wracked her brain, trying to think of who else might 
  have seen the two of them walk away from the club. There 
  had been the drivers in the taxi line, but she knew most of 
  them would have lost interest in them when they passed the 
  next waiting cab. Had there been a bouncer at the door? 
  She couldn't recall. Kelly reached for her cellphone and saw 
  the message indicator in the top corner of the screen. A 
  small, blocky numeral 3 sat superimposed on the corner of 
  the little spool of tape image. Kelly dialed voicemail. 
  As Wendy's messages became ever more frantic and 
  wounded, Kelly closed her eyes. She could cut them short 
  with a twitch of her thumb to the delete button, but she 
  forced herself to face every syllable. The last, the most 
  panicked of the messages from only an hour before Kelly 
  rose, she replayed. She let the greasy guilt flow over her until 
  it seemed to seep into her pores and ooze along under her 
  skin. This is why she had to leave Wendy alone. This is why 
  she had to cut ties, fake her death, do anything to push 
  Wendy away and remove herself from the mortal's life. She 
  would do nothing but destroy her, piece by piece, until she 
  did so.  
  Kelly knew she wouldn't. 
  
  69 
   
  Kelly deleted the last message and gathered her papers for 
  her meeting with Lucina as she ran through a quick script 
  of what to say to Detective Dorst. She would have to call 
  him; probably go in to make a statement. Did the club have 
  security cameras outside watching the street that would 
  have caught her and Jess leaving on foot? She didn't have 
  time to check before she returned the call. She had to get 
  ahead of this somehow. There was no way they would find 
  the body, and Kelly knew they needed that. Unless she 
  made a mistake. Unless they managed to corner her with 
  evidence, even if they managed only to arrest her on 
  suspicion. She clicked the latches closed on her briefcase in 
  near-perfect unison as she stared at the telephone on her 
  desk. 
  She was too focused to really register her fingers on the keys, 
  or to hear herself ask to be connected to extension 202. A 
  moment of music later, and the familiar easy voice 
  answered. "Robbery Homicide, Detective Dorst speaking." 
  "Detective, this is Kelly Patterson returning your call. I just 
  received your message. I understand something's happened 
  to Jess?" Kelly was careful to keep her nomenclature 
  personalized, attached. 
  "Well, we don't know that yet, Ms. Patterson. Unless you 
  do?" His question sounded like a joke, but she knew it was 
  anything but. Some criminals would volunteer just about 
  anything if simply asked. 
  "No, Detective. I'm afraid I don't. I had a message from a 
  friend of mine you spoke with earlier, which I received just 
  before yours. I'm afraid I tend to sleep most days, as I have 
  several international clients and it's easier for me to work 
  nights than for them to get entire corporate headquarters 
  to do so. I'm sure you understand." 
  
  70 
   
  "Oh, of course Ms. Patterson. I understand. I'm sure you 
  just had ear plugs in or something and didn't hear the ring. 
  But now that I've got you, on the line that is, I'm going to 
  need you to come down to the station and make a 
  statement, please. How does tomorrow morning sound?" 
  "I'm afraid that won't work for me, Detective. I have a 
  conference call with a client tonight, but I can stop by 
  around ten, ten thirty? If you don't mind working late." 
  "Oh no, Ms. Patterson. I practically live here. I'll see you at 
  ten, then. Precinct sixteen. Do you know where it is?" 
  Kelly rattled off the address, which surprised him until he 
  added. "Oh right, now I remember. You're a lawyer; of 
  course, you'd know where the cop shops are." 
  "Corporate contract primarily, Detective. Don't worry, I'm 
  not one of the ones putting scumbags back on the streets. 
  At ten, then." Kelly disconnected the line and felt a chill 
  deeper than that of the grave to which she could never quite 
  become accustomed. Dorst was a dangerous man. 
   
  January 12, 1999. 9:26 PM. 
   
  "Are you okay?" 
  "Kelly! Where have you been? I've been calling all day. I 
  think your receptionist hates me." 
  "I'm sorry, I wasn't able to get a phone. I had to jaunt out of 
  town with Frisk for a few hours to attend a meeting he 
  wanted me to sit in on. Like an idiot, I left my cell on my 
  nightstand." 
  "Oh ... I-I'm sorry," Wendy answered. Kelly knew she was 
  apologizing for what she had thought, for the suspicion of 
  an affair, or of trying to avoid her. Maybe even of being 
  involved in Jess's disappearance. She felt vaguely nauseated 
  
  71 
   
  by the knowledge. "A Detective stopped by my work this 
  morning. He said Cal—Jess's husband—reported her 
  missing. She never came home after being out with me. 
  With us, I mean. But the Detective ... Durn or Droff or 
  something ..." 
  "Dorst," Kelly supplied. 
  "Right, Dorst. Did you talk to him? I ... I didn't want to give 
  him your number, but I had to tell him you were there. He 
  ... he said people had noticed us, but I don't really 
  remember much after ... after, well. Was that wrong?" 
  "No," Kelly soothed her softly as she pulled into the parking 
  lot at the Hyatt. "No, you did the right thing, Wendy. You 
  should cooperate, but I think you should talk to a lawyer 
  first, and make sure you have one with you if you talk to 
  Dorst again." 
  "What? Why? Am I going to be in some kind of trouble? Do 
  ... do you know what happened to Jess?" 
  "No, Wendy," Kelly lied so smoothly she almost felt the 
  slime of it on her tongue. "It's just a good idea. Listen, call 
  my firm, make an appointment with James Gibson. He'll be 
  able to make sure the Detective doesn't get the wrong idea 
  about anything, okay? It's just for your own protection. I 
  know cops, and they can get ... overzealous trying to close 
  cases." 
  "I don't think I can afford ..." 
  "Wendy," Kelly cut her off with a somewhat stern tone. 
  "You can afford it. Just make the appointment, I'll take care 
  of everything else." 
  "Okay, Kelly. I trust you. I'll call him tomorrow." 
  Kelly barely heard herself mumble her apologies before 
  disconnecting the line. The sound of her own voice, 
  
  72 
   
  screaming at her until she felt very small inside and very 
  dirty, was too loud. 
   
  January 12, 1999. 9:58 PM. 
   
  The 16th had been passed over for extra funding for over a 
  decade, and it looked it. At one point or another, it had 
  earned a reputation as the precinct cops got dropped into 
  when firing them or making them disappear wasn't an 
  option. Year by year, other precincts transferred their burn 
  out, their controversial, their snitch cops here, and the case 
  closure rate kept dropping. There had, every year for the 
  last three years, been a major expose on the state of the 16th 
  featured front page on the Milwaukee Banner. When city 
  funding for training, equipment and renovation had been 
  tied to closure rates, the problem had only gotten worse. 
  Now, it seemed the place was barely holding itself up as she 
  approached down the sidewalk. She caught two of the blue-
  clad men leering at her openly and knew that a traffic stop 
  or a jaywalking ticket from them was more than likely to go 
  badly. For them, should it be her on the other side, but 
  most women did not have her edge. 
  The sounds of bustle and phones and voices washed over 
  her as she pushed in through the door and approached the 
  Duty Sergeant. A moment later she was directed to sit and 
  wait, and she selected the first available seat. She folded 
  herself into the chair next to a Latino woman in a halter 
  top and miniskirt whose arms were marked with track 
  marks and tattoos. On her other side sat a hobo, snoring 
  loudly as he slumped in the chair and drooling on his still 
  snow-damp shoulder. The odors rising from both were 
  wretched, and human, but they were also a reminder that 
  you didn't have to stink or look like a whore to be the worst 
  
  73 
   
  person in the room. She blinked up as she realized she'd 
  heard her name in the tone of a repetition. 
  The man standing in the pushed-open, saloon-style door 
  looked to be nearing his fifties. He wore a rumpled blue suit 
  and a white shirt that looked at least two days into its tour 
  of duty. His simple blue tie was loose, and the top button 
  of his collar was undone. A small, dark coffee stain marked 
  the cuff of his suit jacket. She could see the shoulder holster 
  that bulged against his ribs, and the ankle holster backup 
  piece he wore under the wrinkled blue slacks. He was white, 
  pale even, with a barely-brushed mop of brown hair. His 
  build was athletic, though. This was a man with a workout 
  schedule, and one who kept it. There was not an ounce of 
  fat on him that didn't seem carefully measured and added 
  to cushion the gut against sucker punches, or the face 
  against broken cheek bones. His smile was easy and polite, 
  and as phony to her sharp eyes as a three-dollar bill. 
  Accustomed as she was to seeing the predator's glow in 
  someone's eyes, she saw it easily in his. This man was a 
  hunter, implacable in his need to pursue and catch. Her 
  own predatory nature woke and stirred and inclined her to 
  bristle, though she forced the urge away. 
  "Yes, sorry. Detective Dorst?" She rose from her chair and 
  glided across the dingy tile floor to offer her hand. 
  Dorst confirmed his identity and took her hand. He gave a 
  jolt at its chill and then a laugh at the abrupt withdrawal. 
  "Sorry, you gave me a start. Cold out there, is it? Glad I 
  didn't keep you waiting too long." 
  "Cold enough for Milwaukee in January," Kelly confirmed 
  with a tight, strictly-polite smile. "I'm not sure how I can 
  help your investigation, though I'll be glad to tell you 
  anything I know."  
  
  74 
   
  Dorst nodded as he led her to the Detectives' pit at the 
  Robbery Homicide division. Well, Kelly wondered, if you 
  could call three desks a pit. This wasn't the best 
  neighborhood; it was hard to imagine three men keeping 
  up with the murder investigations here. Only one of the 
  other two desks was occupied, by a somewhat corpulent 
  black man leaned back in his chair and snoring. There was 
  a mickey of Jack dangling loose and half-empty from his 
  arm beside his chair. 
  "Have a seat, please. I appreciate you coming in. I'm sure 
  you understand I have to dot the Ts and cross the Is on this 
  one. I just have a few routine questions. You know how it 
  is." 
  Oh yes, Kelly thought. She did know how it was. Someone 
  was putting pressure on this case, pushing for a resolution, 
  and he was on a fishing expedition. "Of course, Detective. 
  As I said, any way I can help." She tried to give him a 
  reassuring smile but he seemed to miss it as he flipped a few 
  pages in his note pad. 
  "So, you were at Glitz on the night of Monday, January 11, 
  is that correct?" Kelly confirmed it was. "And you were there 
  to meet Wendy Weaver and Jessica Carlton, is that correct?" 
  "Wendy called me around eleven and invited me to join 
  them there, yes. I understand they were there for a couple 
  of hours before I arrived." 
  "Right, yes. That's what we got from the staff." He tapped a 
  page in his notepad after flipping back once. "I hear things 
  got a little steamy when you got there." Dorst looked up at 
  her with lifted eyebrows over the top of his notepad. 
  "Wendy had a few drinks and we are in a relationship. Is 
  that somehow relevant, Detective?" Kelly couldn't help the 
  blunt edge of indignation that crept into her voice, nor 
  
  75 
   
  resist the tiny flex of a scowl between her brows. 
  "Well, I don't know Ms. Patterson. Is it? What's your 
  relationship to Missus Carlton? Any reason she might have 
  been jealous of Wendy pawing you?" 
  "She wasn't pawing me, Detective. We were behaving as any 
  couple would. And no. I'd never met Jess before that night." 
  "So, she wasn't ..." He trailed off and waggled his hand, 
  making a kind of two-toned whistle. "You know, a switch 
  hitter?" 
  "If she was, Detective, I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps you 
  should speak to her husband about that." Kelly's self-control 
  was slipping. He'd found a wedge into her temper and he 
  was prying at it. She could see it in the intensity of his eyes. 
  She struggled with herself to ratchet it back into line. 
  "Maybe. That's a good idea. Thanks." He made a point of 
  flipping to the last page and making a note. This, at least, 
  was familiar territory for Kelly. Police, and lawyers, often 
  used note-taking as a spur. It tended to unsettle people to 
  have their words written down in an official manner. He 
  was careful to conceal even most of his pen from her. He 
  was good at the trick; his loss that it didn't work on her. 
  "But just to confirm, she didn't seem jealous to you, or 
  maybe upset by the pawing?" 
  "No, Detective," Kelly replied with simple sincerity, and 
  ignored the ‘pawing’ jab. "Jess and I discussed some stories 
  about their time on the cheer squad and in school together, 
  we chatted about our work, I had a couple of beers, and 
  then we left so I could put Wendy in a cab." More notes, 
  and Kelly saw him dart a glance to try to gauge the reaction 
  to his jotting on her expression. She showed him nothing. 
  "How come?" 
  "I'm sorry?" 
  
  76 
   
  "How come you put her in a cab? Sounds like she was ready 
  to go." He lifted his eyebrows inquisitively over his pad 
  again, changing tactics as he began to click the button on 
  his pen in short, chaotic bursts. 
  "It's rape to have sexual relations with a woman in a state of 
  intoxication, Detective Dorst," Kelly replied icily. "I'm 
  surprised I have to remind you." 
  "Intercourse." When Kelly blinked at him in confusion he 
  continued, "It's illegal to have sexual intercourse with a 
  woman in a state of intoxication. But you girls don't really, 
  you know ..." He made a lewd whistle and pushed his pen 
  up in the air. "I guess that kind of makes you the lucky ones, 
  eh? No next-day-regrets rape reports." 
  Kelly felt her shoulders straighten, and the indignation 
  nearly tipped her over the edge of control. By raw effort of 
  will she clawed her way back to some measure of her 
  lawyer's neutrality. "Did you have another question, 
  Detective? I believe I've answered that one." 
  "Alright, so after Wendy left," he continued as his eyes 
  ticked down to his notes with his pen click-click-clicking 
  away. "You and Missus Carlton headed North on State 
  Street. Where were you going?" 
  Kelly felt her world tighten further. Someone had noticed, 
  or a camera had shown her. She licked her lips and replied, 
  "My car was parked a couple of blocks over. I don't like 
  parking at clubs. Never know what kind of idiot is going to 
  come out drunk and plow into a parked car." 
  "Smart," he allowed. "Were you going to give her a ride 
  home?" 
  "Pardon?" 
  "Why was she following you to your car?" Click-click, click-
  click-click-click went the pen. 
  
  77 
   
  "Ah, no. She'd asked to walk me to the car. We had ... not 
  really gotten on well, and she wanted us not to leave it on a 
  sour note," Kelly lied. She sprinkled in truths to bury the 
  deceits. 
  "So, you two argued." It wasn't a question, and the clicking 
  stopped to be replaced with the soft hiss of pen bleeding 
  ink into paper. 
  "No, we didn't argue, Detective. We just didn't really get 
  along. I'm sure you've met people you just didn't get along 
  with; that doesn't mean you wish them any harm." 
  "No, I guess it doesn't. So, on this walk, Missus Carlton 
  didn't say anything to you that might have provoked an 
  argument? Say, calling you a sinner, or maybe your, ah, 
  girlfriend? Turns out she was pretty active in the church." 
  She enjoyed the momentary flash of disappointment in his 
  gaze as he realized he had missed the mark. 
  "Not all religious people are prejudiced, Detective. And not 
  all prejudiced people are religious." 
  "Sure, you just start to see patterns in my line of work. Old 
  friends meet out of the blue, one of them finds out the 
  other, now a dyke ..." Kelly's eyes must have flashed at the 
  pejorative, as his brightened again with the scent of blood 
  in the water. "Has a few years’ worth of shower room scenes 
  tucked up in the ol' spank bank—do you girls call it that?—
  and maybe decides to take it out on the new girl." 
  "Sorry to disappoint, Detective. It was nothing so exciting 
  as that. She walked me to my car, called a cab, and I drove 
  away. We agreed that we had had a rather unpleasant 
  evening and wouldn't repeat it, and I drove home." Kelly 
  reminded herself that he was trying to put her off balance, 
  that he was playing a role. She reminded herself of his 
  decorations and commendations and eventual plight that 
  
  78 
   
  ended him across this desk, in this station, from her. She 
  had to, because she had begun to wonder how easy it would 
  be to make him disappear, too. 
  "You know what company she called?" he asked as he jotted 
  again. "Did she have a business card from them or use a 
  phone book or something?" Kelly said she did not, and he 
  continued. "Shame. Alright, and what time did you get 
  home?" Kelly did some quick mental math and was not 
  quick enough. Her hesitation was enough to bring back 
  that blood-in-the-water light in his gaze as he lifted it. 
  "Happen to know, Ms. Patterson?" 
  "It was about one thirty AM, I think," Kelly offered. When 
  asked if anyone could confirm that she added, "Gordon 
  Bantz. He's my roommate. I woke him when I came in." 
  "Do you usually do that, Ms. Patterson? Wake your 
  roommate just to tell him when you get home?" 
  "Only when I bump into the side table and break a vase in 
  the middle of the night, Detective," Kelly lied dryly. 
  "Right. Tricky thing, furniture. It just seems to get in your 
  way when you least expect it." He jotted another note. "This 
  Gordon Bantz, is he as hard to get a hold of as you are, Ms. 
  Patterson? Got a number I can reach him at?" 
  "I can ask him to call you when I get home. I'm sure he's 
  already in for the night." 
  "Sure. Or I'll just try him there tomorrow, I guess, since I 
  got your number already. Just one last question, Ms. 
  Patterson," he added. Kelly could detect the coiled pounce 
  coming in his words and was still barely braced against it as 
  his eyes came up sharply from his notepad. "Did you kill 
  Jessica Carlton?" 
  Kelly knew her reaction was half of his heartbeats too slow, 
  and her tone of indignation was shaded with hollowness. 
  
  79 
   
  She rose from her seat stiffly as she said, "I came here to 
  answer your routine questions, Detective, because I wanted 
  to help. But so far all I have received from you is insults, 
  accusations of being a rapist, and now an accusation of 
  murder. I think this conversation is over, Detective Dorst. 
  I suggest if you wish to speak with me again you make 
  arrangements through my attorney." 
  He didn't rise to follow as she turned on her heel and 
  stalked for the exit. "I'll do that if I have any more questions 
  for you, Ms. Patterson," he called lightly behind her. "I'll just 
  do that." 
  Too late, Kelly realized she hadn't actually denied it. 
   
  January 17, 1999. 9:12 PM. 
   
  Nights passed, and Kelly almost managed to forget Dorst 
  and his questions. Gordon had, as expected, backed her 
  alibi. He was, at least, reliable enough to do that. Or, rather, 
  his enslavement was. And so, it was with some surprise that 
  she received the knock on her door, and the sight of the 
  rumpled Detective—in a grey suit instead of blue—shortly 
  after awakening. She froze as she peered through the 
  peephole, and was startled by a second brusque knocking, 
  accompanied by, "Ms. Patterson? It's Detective Dorst. I'd 
  like to speak with you, please." 
  She backed away from the door and, in Mandarin, assured 
  her clients that it was not serious, but that she must end 
  their conference call early and would continue to make any 
  necessary adjustments to the purchase contract for the 
  shuttering Stellar Steel plant. Kelly disconnected the call 
  and pocketed her cell phone as she went to open the door 
  to the limits of the chain. "I believe I asked you to speak 
  
  80 
   
  with my attorney, Mr. Gibson, if you wished to talk with 
  me again, Detective. I have nothing further to say." 
  "Just a couple of quick questions. I was in the area and 
  thought I'd stop by. I'm sure you don't mind one or two 
  questions, right? To clear your name? I'm sorry about 
  before," she could hear the lie in his voice, but also knew he 
  hadn’t considered the needling personal. “I promise I’ll be 
  polite. Can I come in?” 
  “Do you have a warrant?” When he shook his head and 
  opened his mouth to continue his patter, she cut him off. 
  “Then no, Detective. You cannot. You may ask your 
  questions; I don’t promise to answer them.” 
  Dorst rubbed his hand across the back of his neck as he 
  consulted his notepad. “I’ve done some checking around 
  town about you since we spoke. Seems a lot of people have 
  heard of you, seen your car. I guess a lawyer like you tends 
  to get known by all sorts, but the strange thing there is, I 
  made a note about you saying you did mostly corporate law. 
  Thing is, even the CIs seemed to know about you." He 
  flipped back a few pages in his notepad and nodded, 
  adding, "Yeah. Yeah, I have it right here. Anyway, your ride 
  kind of stands out, but you know the damnedest thing? I 
  can't find any records of you owning a car like that. I'm sure 
  it's just a clerical error, but it's been a chore." 
  "Did you have a question, Detective?"  
  "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did. So, I did some calling about Missus 
  Carlton, too. You had told me that she called a cab before 
  you drove away. Was that on your phone, or hers?" He 
  looked up from his notes, peering at the half of Kelly's face 
  he could see through the crack. 
  "Hers," Kelly lied, and closed her lips tightly to indicate she 
  would volunteer no more. He gave her three or four 
  
  81 
   
  seconds to change her mind and flipped a page in his 
  notebook before he continued. 
  "That's weird, Ms. Patterson. Because we got her phone 
  records today—her husband is really being helpful, you see—
  and the last call we have from her phone was to him, letting 
  him know she'd be going out with Wendy and you the night 
  she disappeared. How do you explain that, do you think?" 
  "I'm certain I don't know, Detective, but if I had to guess I'd 
  say perhaps she had a second phone that her husband 
  didn't know about." 
  "Right, right," Dorst agreed with a congenial nod. He jotted 
  a few notes in his pad. "That could be it, yeah. Except ..." 
  He hummed thoughtfully. "It doesn't make any sense. She 
  was a homebody. No problems in her marriage. No one 
  seemed to have any grudges against her at work. And, like I 
  said, active in the church, you know." 
  "That's all very interesting, Detective, but I'm not certain 
  you should be discussing the details of an ongoing 
  investigation with me. If there's nothing else ..." 
  "Just one more thing, Ms. Patterson, please, if you'll indulge 
  me." Kelly stopped with the door halfway to shut. He leaned 
  a little to meet her eye through the crack. "Do you own a 
  pair of size 6 Perry Ellis boots, heeled?" 
  "I own many pairs of shoes and boots, Detective. You will 
  need a warrant to get more." She shut the door. 
  Through it, she heard, "Thanks for your time, Ms. 
  Patterson. I'll be in touch." 
  Kelly seethed as she listened to him whistle his way casually 
  back to the elevator and then longer still until she heard the 
  faint ding of its arrival at the ground floor. If they were 
  looking for her boots, they had found what they thought 
  was the scene of a crime. She flashed to the sickened 
  
  82 
   
  heaving she had done next to Jess's body, the way her vitae 
  had splashed to slushy ground and the wall of the building. 
  Yes, she thought. It was entirely possible they thought 
  they'd found her kill site. Damn her. She wished, just for a 
  moment, she had had that implacable frigidity with which 
  Lucina approached mortality. 
  Kelly moved into the bedroom and the walk-in closet there. 
  She grabbed the offending boots from the rack, and the T-
  shirt and skirt she had worn. Her stalking path took her 
  into the kitchen, and she dragged a black garbage bag from 
  under the sink. With her armful of objects, she returned to 
  her room. Her senses dialed up as high as possible, she 
  combed over the clothing. Finally, across the toe of the left 
  boot, she found the faintest trace of her own vitae splashed 
  there. It would have left a break in the blood spatter, she 
  knew. Kelly cursed and stuffed the clothes into the garbage 
  bag. Dorst would be watching her place, still. Maybe waiting 
  in the lobby downstairs. If she took this down now, or 
  dropped it into the chute, he would have it. She stuffed the 
  bag into the corner of her closet as she tapped her nails 
  rhythmically on the door frame. 
  The situation was getting out of hand, and it was time to 
  put a bit of pressure of her own on the case. She dialed 
  Gibson from her cell as she strapped on her shoulder 
  holster and threw a leather jacket over top of it. "Kelly," 
  Gibson greeted after realizing it was her. "You sound ...  
  stressed." 
  "You could say that, James. Dorst just showed up at my 
  front door." She was impressed with the cool confidence of 
  his reply. 
  "Did he. Well, that's unfortunate. What did he want?" 
  "They pulled her phone records," Kelly said. "He picked up 
  
  83 
   
  a discrepancy in my statement." 
  "The cab," he guessed, and she confirmed. "I thought that 
  might prove to be problematic. Anything else?" 
  "He was asking about whether I owned a particular size and 
  make of boots, as well." 
  "Of course, you don’t have those boots," he said. 
  "No," she said, letting the lie ring in her tone. "Of course, I 
  don't." 
  "Right," he replied, and in it she read his understanding. 
  "Well let’s be sure you don't pick up a pair in the next few 
  days, just in case. What do you want to do?" 
  "Let's fire a warning shot across the bow, James. I'd like you 
  to file a complaint with his Captain about harassment. It 
  won't go anywhere in the 16th, but we'll get a better idea of 
  who is pushing this and why this one is getting his full 
  attention. Maybe he just doesn't like me." 
  "Maybe," Gibson offered, but neither he nor Kelly thought 
  it likely. Not with Dorst. "You sure you want to do that 
  already? Biting back this early could end up encouraging 
  him." 
  Kelly had to admit he was right, but if the pressure to 
  resolve this rose above Dorst, she needed to know. She 
  would know by the results of the warning shot, and so it 
  had to be done. "Yes, James. File the complaint tomorrow 
  on my behalf, please, and keep me informed. And call 
  Lieutenant Wilkes for me. Tell him I'd like his opinion on 
  the case that's being built. I'll make sure he knows what that 
  means." 
  "Kelly ..." Gibson trailed off, and she knew the quandary he 
  was facing. It was Gordon sawing body parts. It was Wendy 
  being questioned at work by a homicide Detective. It was 
  
  84 
   
  being close to Kelly. She dragged everyone around her 
  down into the slime and filth and horror of who she was. 
  "I understand, James. But there are some things that cannot 
  be allowed to come to light, as you well know. Just make 
  the call, please." 
  "Fine," he sighed. "Yes, I understand. I'll call him first thing 
  tomorrow."  
  Kelly thanked him and disconnected the call. She placed 
  another quick call to Wilkes, left him pleading with her not 
  to make him get her a copy of the case file, and then headed 
  down into the city. As she hit the street from the ramp that 
  rose from the underground parking garage, she could see 
  the out-of-place Toyota Carola parked half a block up from 
  her front door. She turned her car away from it and was 
  rewarded with the flare of headlights as she began to take 
  the turn at the end of her block. 
   
  January 17, 1999. 9:32 PM. 
   
  Dorst was slick behind the wheel. He knew the shortcuts 
  and alleys and he managed to keep up with her for three 
  blocks, but the Carola was just no match for the Viper or 
  her reflexes. Kelly barely had to strain her own skills before 
  she lost him. With her foot to the floor once she was safely 
  out of his sight, she sped back to the house in order to dash 
  upstairs and recover the bag of clothes and boots. She 
  leaned on her supernatural speed where she could and 
  made the street in the car she'd left running in less than a 
  minute. She was just pulling around a corner when the 
  Toyota rolled back to the front of her condo to wait. Well, 
  she thought, he was good, and worse, patient, but she had 
  won this particular engagement. 
  
  85 
   
  Kelly gave a start when the electronic jangle of her phone 
  drew her attention to her pocket. She shifted awkwardly to 
  fish it out and answered it. "Kelly Patterson," she said, but 
  barely got it out before Wendy cut in. 
  "Kelly, we need to talk." The sound of her voice, the hurt in 
  it that was so obvious to senses she had sharpened in her 
  attempt to evade Dorst, made the bottom drop out of her 
  guts. 
  "What's wrong?" She didn't want the answer, not to 
  whatever was making Wendy sound like that. 
  "Kelly where were you on Monday? Dorst said ... Dorst said 
  you told him you were sleeping." 
  Kelly didn't answer at once. So Dorst had gone back to 
  Wendy. And Wendy, it seemed, had done exactly as Kelly 
  had done; spoken to the Detective without Gibson. Neither 
  one of them was doing herself any favors. "Why did you lie 
  to him, Kelly?" Wendy pressed. "Or did you lie to me?" 
  "I didn't lie to you, Wendy. I lied to him. Did you tell him 
  where I was?" It was, she thought wildly, always so curious 
  how one sin seemed inevitably to lead into myriad others. 
  "... No," Wendy answered at last. "I told him if that's what 
  you told him, then that's where you were. I said I didn't 
  know where you were." And, Kelly realized, Wendy truly 
  believed that last. One more of the slow, inevitable steps 
  toward the dissolution of Wendy’s trust. 
  "Listen, Wendy. Dorst seems to have it in for me. He was 
  knocking on my door earlier tonight, and I saw him sitting 
  outside my building. He's pretty good with the dirty cop 
  tricks, and while I know them ... I'm worried he's going to 
  twist anything you say or do to make it fit his case, instead 
  of making his case fit the facts. Trust me, okay? You know 
  the 16th is full of rotten cops. He's just looking to make a 
  
  86 
   
  pay grade, alright? Right now, I'd be a good one to even put 
  suspicion of murder on, whether it's true or not." 
  "I ... Okay, Kelly. I'll ... I'll make sure I send him to James, 
  just like you want." 
  "There's a girl," Kelly soothed. "Just let James deal with him. 
  That's what I pay him for. He knows all the dirty cop tricks, 
  too." Kelly took heart in the fact that Wendy sounded at 
  least a little surer as they signed off the call. Dorst, though, 
  was starting to tread on dangerous ground. She knew she 
  wasn't entirely stable when it came to Wendy, but she also 
  knew she couldn't afford to be reckless. He was a good cop, 
  and probably at least a decent man. She didn't want to kill 
  him. 
  Kelly pulled up to the curb by a school she had visited only 
  once before. The high school was dark and had the peculiar 
  silence of a building abandoned or inhabited only by the 
  undead. She retrieved the bag from the trunk and carried it 
  up to the school. A quick glance to either side showed the 
  street deserted. She rapped on the door, and listened to the 
  sound echo down the long, empty halls of tile and locker. 
  She gave it a few minutes of delay, and then knocked again. 
  Finally, a few more minutes of waiting having passed, Kelly 
  sensed the timid presence creeping up to the door. 
  "What ... Who is that? Why do you want to come here?" 
  Anastasia's child-like voice queried meekly through the 
  doors. 
  "It's Kelly Patterson, Anastasia. I wanted to ask you a favor, 
  and to ... to ask you to tell me about how you were the envy 
  of the whole school." 
  She knew the lie sounded obvious even as she spoke it, but 
  Anastasia didn't seem to care. "Oh! Kelly!" she greeted, and 
  Kelly heard the door unlatch. "Oh, you're just as pretty as 
  
  87 
   
  the last time I saw you. Did I ever tell you I was the prettiest 
  girl in school?" 
  An hour later, the bag and its contents incinerated in the 
  school's furnace, and Kelly laden with memories she didn't 
  want about cute high school boys that had wanted to kiss 
  Anastasia before the accident, she finally escaped back into 
  the night. The street was just as empty as before she had 
  entered, and she went to start the drive back to her condo. 
  As she turned onto the street she saw Dorst's car still there 
  on the curb, and as she met his eyes through the windshield 
  he gave her a wave. Then she was in the underground and 
  headed up to the condo. There was no way he'd be getting 
  a warrant for tomorrow, not with the complaint of 
  harassment going in early. But she was not eager to be in 
  her haven when a warrant was finally served there. 
  Dorst had already proven to be more disruptive to her 
  existence than a city full of kindred. She wondered if her 
  associations with mortals were not only destructive, but self-
  destructive. 
   
  January 18, 1999. 9:17 PM 
   
  The fluorescent hum of the office lights irritated Kelly. She 
  wished, not for the first time, that James could manage with 
  the dimmer desk lamps as she could. She sat across from 
  him at her desk, a police file opened in front of her. She 
  scanned evidence lists, reports, and memos as Gibson sat in 
  silent observation. His heartbeat and the whisper of his 
  breathing felt like a violation of her sanctuary, echoing as it 
  did from the glass walls of her office. 
  "So, they don't have much," she concluded. It was 
  something of a relief, but they had enough that that relief 
  
  88 
   
  could turn to doom in a few hours. 
  "No, aside from the boot print, and the bit of her blood 
  they found in the alley, they seem to be largely leaning on 
  the fact that you were the last one seen with her. There's a 
  very plausible gap, of her returning to the club, where she 
  and you have good isolation. Factually, anyways." 
  "But Dorst isn't buying it," Kelly concluded. Gibson agreed. 
  "Alright, did you get any response to the complaint?" His 
  hesitation told her it wasn't good, and she impatiently 
  waved him on. 
  "They took the complaint, but it's not going anywhere. I 
  heard a lot of 'we take this seriously but we can't pull good 
  cops off of important investigations without some proof.' 
  They don't want this buried; not yet, anyways." 
  Kelly's nails tapped out a rhythmic line on the desk as she 
  pondered. The walls of the world closed in a little tighter, 
  and though the office was spacious and open, she felt a 
  frisson of claustrophobia crawl up the skin on her spine. 
  There were only two possibilities, then. Someone cared 
  about the teacher—“the teacher," what a cold name to give 
  a woman—or someone knew Kelly was involved and was 
  hoping to embarrass her. She would have to trace the 
  connections back from Jess if the first one, which could 
  draw Dorst's attention. That path would require a delicate 
  step indeed across very thin ice. The second ... Well, the 
  second was perhaps easier to deal with, though it may still 
  require her to deal with Dorst in a way she would more than 
  prefer not to. 
  "Thank you, James," she said as she closed the file and slid 
  it back across the desk to him to take with him. She stood 
  behind the desk to indicate the dismissal. 
  James rose, and adjusted his round-framed glasses. "Listen, 
  
  89 
   
  Kelly. I didn't want to suggest this yet, but I think it's getting 
  close to where you have to make the decision. I know a guy 
  that can ..." 
  Kelly cut him off with a wave of the hand. "Let me stop you 
  right there, James. We're not even close to considering that, 
  yet. And if it comes to it, I'll take care of it. This is my mess, 
  not yours. You're in deep enough already, and I'm going to 
  try to keep you out of it beyond the legal options." When 
  he nodded, and she read the gratitude in his expression, she 
  added, "Give Jillian my best, please. Good evening, James." 
  "Good night, Kelly," he replied, and made his way down to 
  the street. 
  Kelly began the list of those she had crossed, or who would 
  be jealous of her rise and status. She distantly enjoyed 
  raking her soul over the coals of their hatred, and knew she 
  deserved each searing scar from it. 
   
  January 21, 1999. 8:38 PM. 
   
  Kelly's eyes snapped open and she sharpened her senses at 
  once. An unspecified, but urgent, fear washed through her, 
  something that terrified in an instinctual manner that 
  could not be ignored. She took in the distant sounds of life 
  and movement and machinery in the hotel around her. She 
  smelled the cheap soap bar's faux lavender, too sweet by 
  several shades, that had been poisoning her suite all day. 
  She smelled Gordon, too, in the dregs of his take-out meals 
  and the tang of his body odor. She dampened her senses as 
  the fear dissipated until, after a few minutes, like a dream, 
  she forgot it. 
  There was no murmur of television—God, she hated that 
  this room came with a television—so she knew Gordon was 
  
  90 
   
  out. He would sit in front of that box for hours, just staring, 
  if he was able. It had been a struggle in the nights since she 
  had moved into the Hyatt Regency to keep him occupied 
  enough to stay away from the idiot box. Fortunately, 
  Gibson was working on a case that had called for the 
  investigator's services, and so Kelly had gladly lent him to 
  her associate's needs. Kelly lifted her hand to her brow and 
  closed her eyes. 
  She was tired. She was homesick. She missed her carefully 
  constructed existence of control and competence. She 
  thought of Stefan, and his desperate flight from one 
  distraction to the next, his constant quest for next flash and 
  flare, and the deep depressions he would fall into between 
  objectives. His melancholies were so different than her 
  thrashing rages, but one was merely an echo of the other. 
  Stefan had turned to the Long Sleep to endure. She could 
  do the same, she knew. Just close her eyes and drift in 
  blackness for a month, a year. A decade. She could start 
  over; he managed it, nor was he the only member of the 
  city's population to vanish for stretches of months. If she 
  warned Lucina, and made arrangements, she might even 
  retain her standing ... 
  With a growl, Kelly opened her eyes and rolled out of the 
  bed. She wouldn't succumb to the lure of that; not after 
  how much she had hated her sire for it. She didn't want 
  oblivion, she wanted her existence back. As wretched and 
  limping and hurtful as it was, she wanted it back. Dorst was 
  the problem, not her. Dorst and his goddamned tricks and 
  his needling. But, she knew, if it wasn't Dorst it would be 
  another. Dorst was only the agent; it was just her ill-fortune 
  that he happened to be an extremely effective one. She 
  pulled jeans and a crew neck sweater from the suite's dresser 
  drawers. Her dry cleaning was hanging on the hook on the 
  
  91 
   
  back of the door, but she didn't want a suit tonight. She 
  had things to do and people to visit where a suit would hurt 
  more than help. 
  As she clipped another mop of curled blonde hair from her 
  scalp, she amused herself for a moment by wondering what 
  the cleaning staff might think, were they to notice that every 
  night saw a new garbage bag full of hair down the chute. 
  The amusement soured when she wondered what Dorst 
  would make of the same discovery. Mirthlessly, she 
  completed making herself up. After a final check on her 
  gun and magazines in the shoulder holster under her open 
  leather jacket, she grabbed up the day's rental car keys from 
  where Gordon had left them on the side table. 
  As she rode the elevator down to the lobby she had a flash 
  of apprehension, a revisiting of the first moments of her 
  night. If her body could have lifted the hairs on her arms, 
  or pimpled her flesh with goosebumps, she felt sure it 
  would have. Suddenly the elevator car felt very small, and 
  she felt every inch of the hundreds of feet that yawned 
  below its floor. Kelly reached out to snatch hold of the rail, 
  and focused on the solid, stable feel of its cold brass under 
  her palm as she plummeted.  
  The moment passed and Kelly scowled. She needed to put 
  an end to this. She had told Wendy not to let Dorst rattle 
  her cage, but in this as in so many other things she was a 
  hypocrite. She was rattled, and she thought the worst part 
  of knowing that was that she believed she should be. She 
  was struggling against it, she would struggle against it to the 
  point of murder she knew, but on some level, she accepted 
  it as her due. It was penance, her hair shirt to wear, as if it 
  could scour away the slimy skein of sin. Kelly barely noticed 
  the lobby pass by and only the heightened threat of leaving 
  her den brought her back to attention. 
  
  92 
   
  "That was a neat trick, with the rentals. Kind of ironic, 
  though." 
  Detective Dorst stepped away from the wall in the shadow 
  of the hotel's long, arching awning. She smelled alcohol on 
  him, at least two nights old. He was heavy-eyed, as well, with 
  bags that told Kelly her sleep was not the only troubled of 
  late. Good, she thought with vindication. At least she was 
  shaking him up nearly as much as he was her. That he had 
  tracked her to the hotel, though, was troubling. She 
  struggled to keep the surprise from her features as she drew 
  up short and turned slowly to face the man. She didn't, 
  though, try to suppress her scowl of consternation. 
  "Another one with alerting the hotel staff that I wasn't a 
  guest with the do not disturb order on your room. Must be 
  hard to get any work done up there in a hotel room. 
  Spending a lot of time on the phone?" He moved in closer 
  and buried under the deodorant and coffee and cigarette 
  she smelled a man who had not showered in half a week. 
  "Detective, you have already forced me to file one complaint 
  for your harassing behavior; would you like me to file 
  another? Perhaps you'd like to reconsider speaking to me 
  before ..." 
  Internally, Kelly bristled when he cut her off. The wave of 
  his hand carried with it his aromas in a deeper draught. 
  "Talking to your lawyer. Right, right. You like to say that, 
  but you know who it turns out who also likes to say that? 
  Gordan Bantz. And we both know who his lawyer is." 
  Her vindication faded. She had made a mistake; Dorst was 
  not shaken. He was burning himself up, chewing through 
  his energy like a cheetah in full pursuit, whose chase was a 
  matter of life and death for both pursued and pursuer. He 
  was a wolf tracking prey through the arctic, alone and 
  
  93 
   
  desperate. He wasn't haggard, he was starving. She 
  wondered if that is what Jess had seen in Kelly's eyes in the 
  moments before her death. 
  "That's a cute end around, Detective, but we also know it 
  won't stop me from getting a restraining order if you 
  continue this reckless and disruptive behavior. I'm perfectly 
  willing to file complaints on Gordon's behalf as well." Kelly 
  put her hand on her hip, and she saw Dorst's eyes tick to 
  the Glock holstered inside her jacket when it opened with 
  the posture. He tensed, but Kelly hadn't intended to 
  threaten him with the weapon. Not consciously, anyways. 
  "Since you're digging into my background, Detective, you 
  know I'm licensed. And there are all kinds of crazies out 
  there who think a woman like me looks like a perfect 
  victim." 
  "Right, sure," he agreed. "Thing is, Ms. Patterson, I'm just 
  following up on leads. You see, forensics is really great. 
  Don't know what I'd do without them. For instance, did 
  you know that alcohol doesn't affect how quickly blood 
  freezes? I didn't, not until a couple days ago. So, the lab 
  techs were able to nail down when Missus Carlton's blood 
  hit the wall. Of course, most of the blood we found couldn't 
  be tested; contaminated by the snow or something the lab 
  said, but that sample on the wall was good. Told us right 
  about when she was killed." 
  "So, you've found a body then?" Kelly inquired icily. Dorst 
  chuckled. 
  "No, not yet, Ms. Patterson. Not yet. What we did find were 
  tire tracks near where she was killed. Sorry, where she went 
  missing. Turns out, they're the same tread and depth as the 
  tires on Gordon Bantz's car. Imagine that?" He pulled his 
  notepad and flipped it to a rubber-banded page. "Yeah, 
  
  94 
   
  exact match according to the lab. Really crazy what they can 
  pull out of thin air. Can't imagine what we did before the 
  geeks got hired." 
  "Tell me, Detective," Kelly returned coldly enough that his 
  easy smile faded a shade. "Is there a particular stratum of 
  society that doesn’t warrant denigration from you? It seems 
  every time we speak, I learn of a new group of people you 
  seem to have poor opinions of and insulting names for." 
  Dorst's smile came back full force and twisted to a wolfish 
  baring of teeth. "I guess I figure once you cross the line into 
  killing people, you can handle a little rough talk. I don't 
  meet a lot of squeamish killers." Kelly narrowed her eyes 
  and opened her mouth to respond, but he carried on over 
  her. "Anyways, here I am. We're going to need your client 
  to come in for another round of questioning. Explain why 
  his tires were at the scene of a crime." 
  Kelly crossed her arms and let her jacket fall closed over the 
  gun again. She chuckled and shook her head as she smirked 
  at the Detective. "You're a piece of work, Dorst. If you had 
  enough to say conclusively that those were Gordon's tires 
  he would already be in custody. But he isn't, or you 
  wouldn't be here harassing me. I'd bet there are several 
  hundred or thousand cars on the streets of Milwaukee with 
  the same tire tread and similar depth. You don't have 
  anything to tie him to the location, because he wasn't there. 
  I wasn't there." 
  "That's funny," Dorst replied from behind his wolfish grin. 
  "I thought you said you weren't a criminal lawyer." 
  Kelly returned her own feral smile. Two strange dogs 
  meeting in an alley with a fresh cut of New York strip loin 
  between them would have bared less fang. "Just because I 
  don't practice it doesn't mean I don't know it. Kind of like 
  
  95 
   
  how I suspect full well you know how to act with courtesy 
  and respect." 
  Dorst gave a snort at the barb. "Fair point, Ms. Patterson. 
  Fair point. Fact remains you'll need to make yourself 
  available tomorrow. Thought I'd give you a heads up that 
  the tread was enough to get us a warrant for his car, and 
  house. Which, I believe, is your house too, isn't it? Or was 
  until you moved in here. At any rate, you'll want to be there, 
  I'm sure, to make sure the warrant is on the up and up, legal 
  eagle that you are." 
  At least, Kelly thought, she had been anticipating this. She 
  countered smoothly, "Well obviously I have a conflict of 
  interest with my client, Detective Dorst. I suppose I'll have 
  to refer Gordon to new representation." For just a moment 
  Dorst's eyes flashed with a thrill of victory, until he noted 
  that she was still holding her full, toothy smile. His faltered 
  a whit. "I'm sure Mr. Gibson would be content to represent 
  us both." 
  Dorst laughed. "Talk about a conflict of interest," he 
  barked. Kelly let him laugh until he realized she was still 
  smiling. 
  "Gordon and I have been cohabiting for almost three years. 
  We are, according to the State of Wisconsin, eligible for 
  joint representation. No, Detective. There is no conflict of 
  interest in an attorney representing both of us in court, as 
  we are considered cohabitants and are under a cohabitation 
  contract." Kelly had to struggle to keep her fangs in check 
  as she watched Dorst's smile drain away. His eyes lit with 
  the fury of a wolf who’s had the rabbit snatched from his 
  jaws. 
  "Oh no, you're a dyke. No way that flies," he shot back, and 
  wagged his finger under her nose. "You don't get out that 
  
  96 
   
  easily." 
  "Detective Dorst, even if I did have something to 'get out 
  of,'" she said, uncrossing her arms to add a set of mocking 
  air quotes. "You're wrong. I could cite you the precedent 
  but I'm sure that would bore you. It's all very dry stuff. Took 
  me hours of research. So, you'll see Mr. Gibson there 
  tomorrow, who I'm sure will adequately represent both of 
  our interests." 
  Dorst visibly bristled. Now, she knew, he was rattled. She 
  took pleasure in the victory, but still the knowledge that this 
  was just one battle in the war dragged at her. The thrill of 
  victory was short-lived. "I know you killed her, Ms. 
  Patterson. A teacher. Someone with family who loved her." 
  Kelly leaned forward, and she didn't know what it was—yes, 
  she did, monster that she was—in her gaze that backed him 
  up a step, but she was thankful for it and sickened by her 
  gratitude. "Then prove it, Detective." It was only half a dare, 
  Kelly knew. Somewhere, screaming in a locked room in her 
  heart, a piece of her was pleading with him instead of daring 
  him. 
  "I'm going to, Ms. Patterson. You count on that."  
  He turned on his heel and stalked off without another word 
  or glance. Kelly straightened and watched him go until he 
  disappeared around the corner.  
  Gibson would ensure the search warrant got not a hair 
  more than it was due. This was old hat to him, making sure 
  search warrants turned up nothing. And her home office 
  was protected as a registered business space covered under 
  attorney client privilege; he would need a federal warrant to 
  enter there. If the FBI, DOJ, or IRS were involved she 
  would have heard about it long before now. Still, there was 
  always the doubt that nagged, and it was too late to return 
  
  97 
   
  there tonight. That would be probable cause for them to 
  enter without a warrant. Dorst had ensured that, by telling 
  her the warrant was coming in the morning. She judged 
  they'd come out about even in tonight's exchange as he 
  vanished from sight, and she pulled her cell from her 
  pocket. 
  "Gibson here," came the tired reply after several rings. 
  "James," Kelly greeted. "You sound like you could use some 
  good news." 
  "You have some?" he brightened. 
  "No, I'm afraid not. Just the other kind." He sighed, and she 
  carried on. "I had another visit from Dorst." 
  "Good god, the man's suicidal," James answered. "What was 
  it this time?" 
  "They've matched a tire tread at the scene to Gordon's car. 
  Apparently, that was enough for them to get a warrant 
  signed. They're going to be executing it tomorrow." Kelly 
  wandered around the parking lot beside the hotel as she 
  looked for the license plate that matched the rental fob. 
  "I hope the place is clean," he answered. "You obviously 
  can't go back now to double check." 
  "It's clean," Kelly provided. "But you're taking over as 
  Gordon's primary attorney. I'm going to need you there 
  tomorrow to make sure the warrant is executed properly, 
  and that Dorst doesn't go poking around where he's not 
  supposed to." 
  "You moved into the hotel?" Kelly confirmed that she had, 
  some nights ago. "That's good at least. Alright, Kelly. I'll be 
  there first thing. You're leaning on the cohabitation 
  contract, are you?" At least, even in this moment of crisis, 
  she could appreciate his professionalism. 
  
  98 
   
  "You got it, James. I wish I could afford to give you a raise. 
  Make sure you find out which judge signed the warrant. 
  This is pretty thin justification; it could be the next step in 
  whoever is playing this game with me." 
  "Right. I'll be in touch after sundown tomorrow." 
  Kelly thanked him and disconnected the call as she finally 
  spotted the black BMW sedan. She climbed into the car 
  and made her way to the Barrens, and Milwaukee Park. She 
  had an appointment to keep that Dorst had almost made 
  her late for. 
   
  January 22, 1999. 1:42 AM. 
   
  Kelly used a set of tweezers from her purse to pry the bullet 
  fragments from her shoulder with a wince. "Jesus, guys," she 
  complained as the 9mm fragment tinkled to the pavement 
  at her feet and she started on the next. "Where the hell do 
  you buy your ammo? Bullets aren't supposed to shatter like 
  this when they don't hit brick." 
  "Buy?" Wrecker replied, in his almost-endearing dimness. 
  Kelly had, for a time, wondered if it was merely an act, a 
  wounded bird display to lull or lure predators. She had long 
  since abandoned that idea. Akawa gave a snort of laughter 
  that Kelly heard as if it were the yip of his reaction in his 
  wolf form. 
  "At least we got your top off," sniped one of the others 
  whose voice she didn't recognize except vaguely and she 
  smirked through her fangs in its direction. 
  "As if you know what to do with it," she retorted to laughter 
  from the others. "So, listen, it's all fun and games until 
  someone brings up an ask, but I have one." 
  "Why does it always seem like you're coming to us for favors, 
  
  99 
   
  even though you never seem to do any in return?" groused 
  Wrecker, scowling above his folded, muscled arms. Kelly 
  showed him no fear, despite being well over a foot and 
  three hundred pounds his lesser. Instead, she scowled with 
  insult. 
  "Really," she replied flatly. "I never do anything for you." She 
  could sense Akawa hanging back in the tall grass just a bit, 
  not disinterested in the conversation, but not showing any 
  intent to join it. From the corner of her eye, she watched 
  his gaze follow the back and forth. "You really sure you want 
  to go down this road, Wrecker? You really want me to 
  embarrass you in front of all your friends?"  
  She punctuated the quietly cold question by plucking the 
  last fragment from her skin and letting it clatter to the 
  pavement. The ragged wound in her shoulder healed over 
  with a quiet sucking sound. 
  Wrecker cut his glance to Akawa, apparently saw no help 
  coming from that quarter, and instead bolstered his 
  courage with the support of the handful of others in the 
  gang that seemed to back him. Kelly quietly made note of 
  them. Finally, he looked back at her and squared his 
  shoulders as he lifted his chin, as if she was going to be 
  cowed by his bulk. She wasn't stupid; she knew he could 
  hurt her if it came to that, but it would never come to that. 
  He just hadn't figured it out yet.  
  "Fuck yeah I do," he spat at her. "Every other time we see 
  you, it's 'Blood Brothers do this' or 'Blood Brothers do that.' 
  But we never get anything from you. Fuck, last time you 
  stopped by, we stood around with our thumbs up our asses 
  by Marquette. Didn't get to smash no one. So maybe this 
  ask, you just forget about." 
  "Right, you did say something about never getting anything 
  
  100 
   
  from me, before," she returned coolly. She tugged on the 
  sweater, and as she strapped on the shoulder holster, she 
  continued. "Funny thing about that, Wrecker, is that it's 
  complete bullshit. Yeah, last time you were backup. I 
  trusted you assholes to have enough sense to keep a cool 
  head until it was time to not have one. I figured you were 
  hard enough to know that, sometimes, a job sucks but you 
  just have to do it when the pay is good."  
  She looked up when she finished buckling the holster. 
  Someone handed her jacket to her, and she slid it over her 
  shoulders. "Oh, but I almost forgot, you have the bright 
  idea that the pay isn’t good, I guess. You think I don't give 
  you enough. Well, I told you a while ago that so long as you 
  played ball you got a space at the grownups table to talk and 
  be heard, so let's hear it. What do you want that I'm not 
  providing?" 
  Wrecker seemed like a fish just struck with a bat after being 
  lifted from the water. His mouth worked a few times, a 
  physical symptom of his brain losing traction as he tried to 
  process 
  acceptance 
  of 
  his 
  grievance 
  instead 
  of 
  marginalization of it. The low murmurs in the crowd were 
  just beginning when he seemed to settle on his strongest 
  trick. With a deepening scowl and fangs extending, he 
  loomed over her. "You're fucking with me," he charged. 
  "You know what your end of our deal was, and you're just 
  pulling fuckin' elder tricks to try to turn it around." 
  "No, I'm literally asking you what you want that I'm not 
  providing. I agreed to arrange things so you guys were more 
  or less left to your own devices, and I haven't heard peep 
  one about the Camarilla, the Sheriff, or the Scourge 
  coming down hard on you. You wanted to have a voice at 
  the table, and I haven't had a single call that when you 
  wanted someone to listen to you, you couldn't get it. 
  
  101 
   
  Fucking hell, Wrecker. I'm literally doing that right now 
  and you're giving me lip about it. Put those fucking fangs 
  away before you put your eye out, for Christ’s sake." 
  Wrecker backed off half a step, but Kelly matched it. She 
  loomed in return though she was looking up at him. "I've 
  got you secure territory, I've got you safety. I've got you 
  fuckin' prestige, and action, and all the blood you can 
  drink. I raced you through the heart of elder territory, 
  because sometimes you just have to say fuck you to 
  someone and I bloody well know it. And you're going to 
  stand there, dripping in the embarrassment of riches I've 
  lauded on you, and tell me I’ve done nothing for you. 
  Because a couple weeks ago you had to stand around on a 
  different block for a few hours, instead of in this park." 
  "Well, I mean ... When you put it like that … I--we--wasn't 
  really ..." the huge kindred stammered, and his arms came 
  uncrossed to hang at his sides. Kelly backed him up another 
  half step as she closed again. She was edging into a danger 
  zone, and his Beast wouldn’t lie still for much more of it, 
  but she had to make the point. 
  "You weren't really, what? Thinking? No, I guess you 
  weren't." She was sure to cut her narrowed glance at those 
  around she had marked from before, and most of them had 
  the good grace to drop their eyes rather than meet her stare. 
  A few hold outs weren't bad; she didn't want the Blood 
  Brothers spineless, but this wasn't a good time for her to 
  deal with some kind of insurrection. "You have my phone 
  number," Kelly continued in a softer tone as she relented. 
  "If you want something, use it. But I think I've made sure 
  you've never had reason to, haven't I?" When Wrecker 
  returned only murmurs, Kelly brought back the icy edge to 
  repeat, "Haven't I?" She turned off the intensity when he 
  finally agreed loudly enough to be heard by everyone 
  
  102 
   
  watching on. 
  "So, what's your ask?" Akawa finally contributed as the 
  tension diffused.  
  He was a sly one, Kelly could see. Doubtless he had heard 
  the whispers of the others, goading Wrecker into reaching 
  for more and in the process biting the hand that fed. He'd 
  probably, in anticipation of Kelly's next return to them, 
  subtly goaded them himself to bring the matter to a head. 
  Testing her, maybe, or more likely simply getting her to 
  remind them of how good they have it under his leadership. 
  Perhaps he should take the form of a fox, instead of a wolf, 
  she considered. 
  "Simple enough, I think. And," she added with a sharp 
  glance at Wrecker. "It works to your benefit, too." 
  "Usually does, with you," Akawa answered, and she got the 
  distinct impression it was not she to whom the answer was 
  addressed. "What is it?" 
  "You guys know the 16th?" The smirk of acknowledgement 
  was all the confirmation she needed, and so she continued. 
  "I think you've got some Camarilla loyalist fingers in there, 
  stirring pots that you want to keep to yourselves. I'll deal 
  with it, but I just need you to track down who it is." 
  "The fuck we look like? Ironside?" Wrecker sniped. She let 
  it slide, since elders meddling in his turf was an 
  understandable sore spot. She wanted them a little pissed 
  off about it, anyways. 
  "Ironside was a lawyer," Kelly corrected him gently. To 
  Akawa, "You up to it?" 
  The tan-skinned Native man sucked his teeth and studied 
  Kelly's eyes. She met his gaze levelly. He could probably 
  guess at her reasons, if he didn't know them already. But 
  the 16th was close enough to Anubis territory that they may 
  
  103 
   
  not keep as close an eye on it. It was halfway to a Rack 
  district, given how lax and corrupt the cop presence was. 
  Finally, without taking his eyes off of Kelly he said over his 
  shoulder, "Stitch? You had a cousin worked at the 16th, 
  right?" 
  A woman with a sleeveless denim vest as her only top 
  chimed in, "Yeah. Hugh still works there, last I heard. You 
  want me to give him a call?" 
  "Me, I don't much care," Akawa replied, his gaze lending 
  subtext to his voice. "But I think Kelly here does." Kelly 
  acknowledged the debt with a nod for Akawa's benefit 
  alone. 
  The Anarch game dispersed, and Kelly took the highway 
  back toward the city core. As she drove, she dialed. She was 
  disconnecting her tenth call by the time she was pulling 
  into the parking lot of the hotel, but she already had a good 
  idea of how she'd settle with Akawa and his people.  
  Stitch wasn't the only one of the Blood Brothers with family 
  in the area. Another of them, one she recognized as AJ, had 
  a sister. A sister with a rap sheet as long as Kelly's arm for 
  hooking, possession, and resisting arrest, and she was sitting 
  in a cell at the pen waiting for a court date on her latest 
  case. Now, it only remained for her to position AJ to have 
  Akawa's ear. 
  As Kelly walked up to the front door of the Hyatt, neither 
  Dorst's car, nor person, was anywhere in sight. 
   
   
   
  January 22, 1999. 8:42 PM. 
   
  Kelly woke to the jangling vibration of her cell phone on 
  
  104 
   
  the nightstand. She did not wake with the shapeless, sharp 
  fear tingling through her nerves like electric shocks of the 
  night before. Kelly grabbed the phone and connected the 
  call. "Kelly Patterson," she announced. It was Gibson, as 
  promised. "I'm glad you're punctual, James, but I didn't 
  need an alarm clock. How did it go?" 
  Kelly pushed herself up in the bed and leaned against the 
  loosely-attached headboard as she listened. It was, at least, 
  heartening news. The police had collected tire tread 
  imprints, as Kelly had expected, but James explained the 
  Detective had not seemed pleased with the results. The 
  common areas were combed, but the only thing recovered 
  were the fragments of porcelain buried in the carpet where 
  Kelly had smashed, and then cleaned a vase after giving her 
  statement to Detective Dorst. Her foresight had, according 
  to James, frustrated Dorst to no end. At one point, three 
  hours into the search, Dorst had tried to enter the office. 
  "I rather thought he was going to punch me," James 
  explained. "He was in quite a rage." 
  "Given that I'm sure you could have taken it, I almost wish 
  he had. There was nothing in there that would have helped 
  him. No offense, but it would have put a tidy bow on this 
  little situation." It would have, she knew. The case might 
  get kicked to someone else, but only Dorst would persist 
  like this. He was nearing the end of his sprint, and if he 
  didn't bring the gazelle down soon, he was going to starve 
  to death.  
  "The only thing they left with is questions about where the 
  outfit you wore that night had gone. It's not enough to 
  justify another search, I don't think. Oh, and before I 
  forget, the warrant was signed by Judge Matthew Brant. I 
  made some calls around the courthouse this afternoon 
  
  105 
   
  during lunch recess. He seems to be one of the good ones. 
  Apparently, he and Dorst go way back. Something about a 
  corruption charge he tried." 
  Kelly winced inwardly. "Yeah, I know the case. It's what 
  landed Dorst in the 16th instead of the Police Chief's 
  office." 
  "I've known cops who would prefer to die than to step 
  across that line, so he's got that going for him." Kelly's teeth 
  grated at the reminder. James seemed to give her a moment 
  to absorb it. "Anyways, it looks like the warrant might have 
  been the last favor he had from Brant. Dorst has been 
  making a bit of scene about this, behind closed doors. Kelly 
  ..." He trailed off with a hesitant tone whose flavor she 
  couldn't identify. 
  "Yes?" she prodded and he gave in. 
  "Be careful, alright? He's starting to look like a cornered 
  animal." He's going to catch his prey, or he's going to starve 
  to death, Kelly couldn't help but answer silently. 
  "Thanks, James. I will be." And, she thought as she 
  disconnected the call, she would be. After a fashion. But 
  first, she thought it might do some good to be a little 
  reckless.  
  Kelly dressed quickly in jeans and a t-shirt and though she 
  threw on her leather jacket she left the holster and its 
  accompanying gun in the drawer, tucked under her jeans. 
  She wouldn't need it tonight. She snatched up her purse 
  and grabbed the new rental's keys off the table on the way 
  out of the suite. As she pressed the button to summon the 
  elevator, her cellphone was ringing in her ear. The doors 
  opened as a man picked up on the other end. 
  "Hello, Joel. It's Kelly," she said as the doors slid closed and 
  she started her descent to the lobby. "You're a smart guy, 
  
  106 
   
  Joel ... Where's the nearest cop bar to the 16th?" 
   
  January 22, 1999. 10:18 PM. 
   
  The silver Mercedes looked out of place in the parking lot 
  of Lucky O'Tooles, though if you left out the lightless parts 
  of the sign it read only, "Lucky Tools." Around the sleek car 
  were sedans ten years out of date and showing the russet 
  battle scars left from Milwaukee winters. The ramshackle 
  wooden structure that seemed to groan and sway under the 
  weight of snow clinging stubbornly to its roof looked about 
  to topple over and swallow all of the cars, luxury or not. 
  Kelly walked up to the door of the bar and shouldered her 
  way inside as she kicked the slush from her shoes on the 
  frame. The room was closed in, dim in a musty kind of way, 
  suffused with cigarette smoke and classic rock from a 
  jukebox that needed a new speaker. Knots of men and 
  women stood around the claustrophobic space, and though 
  there were no more than a dozen, fifteen at the outside, it 
  gave the air a palpable humidity. She brushed snow off of 
  her shoulder as she scanned the bar; the man she was 
  looking for would not be here in company, boisterous and 
  unwinding after a day of shaking down dealers and busting 
  whores, but rather perched alone, brooding like a gargoyle. 
  Detective Dorst was hunched over a tumbler of amber 
  liquid devoid of ice. It was three fingers full, and he stared 
  into it as if into the deepest of wells. It was, Kelly more than 
  suspected, a bottomless well for him. He didn't look up as 
  she strolled into the bar, nor when she stopped behind him. 
  She could smell the sour reek of the cheap bourbon, not 
  just in his glass, but oozing from his pores. For all that he 
  smelled like a man who should be unconscious on the 
  
  107 
   
  floor, perhaps in a puddle of his own urine, he sat his bar 
  stool steadily. 
  "Mind if I join you, Detective?" 
  Dorst's eyes rose to meet hers in the mirror. She saw the 
  flicker of rage twist through his features in the warped 
  reflection, giving his face a funhouse strangeness for a single 
  pulse of his heart. Then she saw it dull, along with the 
  hunter's gleam in his eyes.  
  "Sure," he said carefully but without a slur. "Why not? You 
  sure you don't want your lawyer here?" 
  Kelly gave him a small, gracious smile as she slid onto the 
  barstool. "I think we both know that's no longer necessary, 
  Detective." She waved over the bartender and, from the 
  corner of her eye, watched Dorst study her in the mirror. 
  She ordered two more of what he was drinking and turned 
  to watch him down the bourbon in a single swallow before 
  holding out the glass for refilling. Kelly waited until her 
  own glass sat, stinking, on a bar napkin at her elbow and 
  the bartender had moved away to continue running a rag 
  through a glass beer mug.  
  "It might not have come down from the top yet, but it's only 
  a matter of time until it does. And you played your last card 
  getting the search warrant." 
  Kelly tried not to enjoy his flash of surprise too much. She 
  needn't have bothered, as it faded into a look she very much 
  disliked. The cold loathing that rose as the surprise faded 
  stung deeply.  
  "You're pretty happy with yourself, aren't you, Ms. 
  Patterson?" he said. "Feel pretty smug? Pulled one over on 
  me and the world and got away with murder?" 
  She averted her eyes down to her drink and lifted it to run 
  back and forth under her nose. It smelled about as 
  
  108 
   
  wholesome as the last hobo she had fed from, and maybe 
  more toxic. She reveled in her disgust. "No, Detective 
  Dorst. Even if what you accuse me of were true, I doubt I'd 
  feel smug about it." She lowered her glass and met his gaze 
  again when he scoffed and emptied his glass. 
  "Why don't you drop the act already?" he griped bitterly and 
  waved the bartender over for a refill. "We both know you 
  fucking did it." 
  In all seriousness, though how serious Dorst did not know, 
  she replied in the wake of the bartender's leaving, "You 
  wouldn't prefer me to drop the act, Detective. I can promise 
  you that." 
  "You think I'm scared of some rug-munching shyster? What 
  are you going to do, sue me? Go ahead. You'd be lucky if 
  my pension covered your rent." He resumed staring into his 
  glass, and Kelly found the confirmation she had been 
  looking for. The last time she had seen that look in 
  someone's eyes, that self-loathing resignation, it had been 
  in her own reflection as she lied to herself and said she 
  would leave Wendy. 
  "How long were you on the wagon?" Kelly asked gently. She 
  saw him scowl, his jaw tighten, but she gave him the 
  seconds of silence he needed. 
  “Two years," he finally muttered. "What the fuck do you 
  care?" 
  "Because I don't like to see good people make bad 
  decisions," Kelly answered, and Dorst snorted. Kelly lifted 
  her glass for another delve into its sour bouquet. 
  "I thought I was ill-mannered and a bigot?" Kelly nodded 
  her agreement. 
  "You are," she confirmed. "But I said a good person, not a 
  perfect one." Kelly watched him over her glass as her lips 
  
  109 
   
  tingled with the alcohol she tipped against them in her 
  feigned sip. Dorst was watching her as if dully trying to 
  pluck the trap out of her words.  
  "No, Detective," Kelly answered his unspoken question. 
  "I'm serious. You probably won't believe this, but I was 
  actually quite inspired by what you did once upon a time. I 
  would have fought for you, if I'd passed the bar when you 
  got blacklisted." 
  "So, you're just here to rub my nose in my life," Dorst said 
  and drained his glass. He made to reach for his wallet, half 
  turning off his barstool but she drew him up short with a 
  light touch on his arm. He froze at the contact, and she kept 
  her voice sincere and soft. 
  "I'm not, Detective. I just want you to consider the idea that 
  maybe I'm not a perfect person, but I'm a good one." For a 
  moment, she thought she'd almost convinced him. Then 
  he shook his head and stood from the bar. Kelly stood with 
  him. 
  "You go ahead and tell yourself whatever you need to sleep 
  at night, only I guess you don't sleep at night, do you? Kelly 
  the lesbian late-night lawyer," he sneered. "But I know the 
  truth. You're a killer, and I'm not done yet. I'm going to 
  bring you down." 
  Kelly put her hand out and stopped him from tugging a 
  sheaf of bills from his wallet. "Let me get it, Detective. It's 
  on me as long as you promise you'll hit a meeting 
  tomorrow." She could see Dorst had to struggle to hold 
  onto his scowl. 
  "Should have been drinking the good stuff, then," he said 
  at last, and stalked past her to the door with the over-
  cautious forward lean of a man deep in his cups. Kelly 
  watched him go as she handed her credit card to the 
  
  110 
   
  bartender. 
   
  January 23, 1999. 10:31 PM. 
   
  "Gordon, it's Kelly." 
  "Oh, hey, Miss Kelly. Did you like the car I got you today? I 
  know you said comfortable was more important than fast, 
  but that one's kind of both." 
  "It was fine, Gordon. Yes. Thank you. I need you to do 
  something for me." 
  "Anything, Miss Kelly." 
  "I know, Gordon. I know. And I love you for it. I need you 
  to file a complaint with IAD, but don't do it yourself. 
  Something anonymous. Detective Dorst has fallen off the 
  wagon, I'm afraid, and he's accepting bribes in the form of 
  bar tabs from people he's investigating." 
  "Anonymous ... off the wag ... he's investi ..." 
  "The most recent was a bar called Lucky O'Tooles, near the 
  16th. I'm sure they'll know it." 
  "Got it, Miss Kelly. Can… can I call you when it's done?" 
  "Of course, Gordon. I hope I see you before morning 
  tonight." 
   
  January 26, 1999. 
   
  It had been good to be back in familiar environs the last few 
  nights. The warrant defeated, Kelly had moved back into 
  her condo and spent the following evening indulging her 
  minor victory with Wendy's help. She had, for a time, 
  convinced herself that it was an impulse borne of some 
  
  111 
   
  wholesome desire for companionship. But the deeper and 
  deeper she slid into her entrancement, the more she sought 
  to remove any barrier between the woman's living body and 
  her own, to take every bit of warmth and beauty and life 
  into herself, the more she realized how sick it made her. It 
  was at once an intense vulnerability and compulsion to 
  control that which made her vulnerable. To destroy it, piece 
  by piece. At least, Kelly thought as they lay with Wendy 
  exhausted and dozing in the circle of her arm, the mortal 
  seemed not to notice the flavor of her ardor. At least, she 
  amended to herself, she had not succumbed to her senseless 
  and dangerous desires entirely. 
  It had taken her three hours the night after to track down 
  the name gifted to her by Akawa, and another one to 
  arrange the girls Wrecker asked for. Well, another to 
  convince Wrecker they all had to come back in one piece.  
  Her opponent seemed to be a dark horse, a Ventrue 
  possibly looking to make her bones in the clan by flexing 
  muscle on the Seneschal. Or else to convince Lucina that 
  clan Ventrue, more specifically Kris Macalister, would 
  prove a more profitable investment as Seneschal. Gory had 
  been hesitant, at first, when she'd called him for a couple of 
  bored Anubi looking to make a little extra money. But after 
  she had explained that if she didn't handle it roughly 
  enough for Lucina's benefit—as she was certain Lucina 
  would hear of it—then it would end with Kris's Final Death 
  instead, he got on board. 
  She forced herself to attend after the three of them caught 
  up to Kris, and to watch every blow of baseball bat and tire 
  iron. She immersed herself in it, with every keen sense. Kris 
  could have been considered beautiful, at first. Not to Kelly's 
  tastes, but she would not want for companionship if she 
  desired it. By the end of it, the woman hanging broken and 
  
  112 
   
  dripping vitae in the chains in front of her could have been 
  mistaken for a Nosferatu were it not for the blood. Kelly 
  knelt in front of her and lifted her chin. The cold, thick 
  vitae that oozed down over her fingers and gloved her hand 
  to the knuckles was at once repulsive and delightful.  
  "You understand your mistake, don't you Kris?" she had 
  heard herself say, as if from across the room. She heard her 
  neutrality and was afraid of it. "Are you angry, Kris? Do you 
  think I've treated you harshly?" 
  The kindred's eyes had swum in and out of focus in front 
  of her. Her fangs had been broken along with most of her 
  teeth and her lips, but Kelly could tell they were extended. 
  She memorized the gore-flick victim's mask, and she leaned 
  on her anger at the hardship this upstart had inflicted on 
  her to hold her stomach steady when it began to lurch.  
  "The next time I have to send for you to be staked, Kris, it 
  won't be bats I inflict on you, but dawn. There is more on 
  the line than your ambitions. We are trying to keep the city 
  afloat, and we are trying to make it a better place for all 
  kindred. So," she had concluded as she wiped her hand on 
  the kindred's shoulder and let the chin sink back to the 
  shattered chest. "You're going to take your licks, you're 
  going to be careful about how you recover from them, 
  you're going to pull your weight for the good of the 
  Camarilla. Make your clan proud through your diligence. 
  I'll give you a call in a couple of weeks, and we can chat 
  about what you've come up with." 
   
  January 30, 1999. 10:10 PM. 
   
  Kelly returned from Mitch's bar, Wendy’s disappointment 
  as they'd parted ways after the performance closer to her 
  
  113 
   
  consideration than Kris's shattered face, and experienced a 
  jolt of realization. Dorst's car was parked on the street, 
  discretely but she had been keeping an eye out for it. 
  Gibson had informed her two nights ago that he'd been 
  suspended without pay and placed under investigation.  
  Her own case, hopelessly tainted and thin to begin with, 
  was kicked out of the district attorney's office as DNP—do 
  not prosecute. The precinct Captain seemed to lose his fire 
  to close the case, and Jess Carlton, former cheer squad 
  captain, former high school popularity contest winner, 
  former abuser of Wendy, was doomed to enter the 
  thousands of open cold cases still filed away somewhere in 
  the deepest parts of the police records hall. Even the 
  mortals, Kelly thought, preferred to bury their unjustly 
  dead where they couldn't see them. 
  She checked her pistol in her handbag as she rode the 
  elevator to make sure the safety was off and that a round 
  was chambered. Her jaw relaxed and she checked her ready 
  stance as she found the door to her unit was still closed and 
  locked. She had somewhat expected him to be waiting for 
  her inside; if it went poorly, it was easier to explain having 
  shot an intruder. She was not entirely surprised he had not 
  made that mistake, though. Dorst wouldn’t risk 
  interruption by a nosy neighbor, or risk that she would just 
  turn around and run once she saw the signs of the break in. 
  He was too smart for that, even if she was sure he was 
  pickled in at least two days’ worth of drink. 
  Kelly unlocked the door and headed inside. She threw the 
  bolt, slipped the chain into the lock, and did a quick sweep 
  to ensure Gordon wasn't home. The mortal was not, for 
  which she was grateful. No telling how he would respond 
  to what she planned, but sometimes a little shock therapy 
  was for the best. It had done wonders for her, when she was 
  
  114 
   
  Embraced. 
  Her boots went into the closet, and the gun into the back 
  of her waistband. She flicked off lights and relied only on 
  the diffuse reflected glow of the yellow bathroom light from 
  the cracked door. Kelly leaned back against the wall by the 
  door and waited, senses dialed up and alert for the whine 
  of the elevator's electric motor.  
  She had time to abandon the plan. She could survive the 
  drop to the ground outside her condo. She could call the 
  police when he showed up at the door, as long as he didn't 
  kick it in. She could call the police now; his car was parked 
  on the street. But she wasn't going to do that. The cheetah 
  was starved, the chase had been a failure. And, she knew, 
  in this case the cat should have fed. She was not going to 
  let one of her killings inflict another. 
  It was five minutes before the elevator began its descent 
  back to the lobby from her floor. She checked her courage; 
  shored it as she began to waver again. She could just let him 
  go. He would die, was already dead. But maybe that would 
  be cleaner; maybe all she was doing was inflicting a longer, 
  more torturous destruction. She was drawn from her 
  reverie by the pound of a fist on her door. 
  "Ms. Patterson!" Dorst called through the door. He was at 
  least as far gone as at Lucky Tools. "Ms. Patterson, I have to 
  say, you got me. You almost had me going with that 'good 
  person but not perfect person' shit, Ms. Patterson. C'mon, 
  open the door. I know you're in there. I want to thank you 
  in person." She could hear, though he didn't know she 
  could hear, his muttered addendum. "C'mon and open the 
  door, you uppity dyke." 
  Kelly took the mental equivalent of a deep breath and 
  moved for the door. She put her hand to the lock and knob 
  
  115 
   
  but turned neither. Instead, through the door, she said, 
  "You don't want to do this, Dorst. You don't have any idea 
  what you're dealing with." 
  "Yeah, no, I finally do. I get it now; you helped show me, 
  Ms. Patterson. Even when they lose, the bad guys win. I'm 
  on board. I've been reborn." They do, Kelly answered 
  silently. They do, but you still have no idea. You will, she 
  added and turned the bolt. 
  Kelly closed her eyes and braced for what was coming as she 
  turned the knob. Dorst's foot hit the door as soon as the 
  latch clicked, and the chain was ripped from the frame in a 
  splinter of wood. The door flew open into Kelly, and she 
  couldn't help but cry out as it cracked her cheekbone. The 
  room spun for a moment as her brain bounced off the 
  inside of her skull and she stumbled back away from the 
  door.  
  Dorst was there, a wall of mass rushing toward her, in the 
  blink of an eye. His hand went around her throat hard 
  enough that a mortal would have gagged. She had just 
  begun to regain her senses, to muster her considerable will 
  to hold back the instinctive drive to murderous vengeance 
  against the assault, when his fist crashed into her face. Kelly 
  struggled harder, redoubled her efforts, and clung to self-
  control by a thread. 
  Dorst rode her to the floor and pinned her with his bulk. 
  His stink was full of fear sweat, adrenaline tang, and 
  alcoholic fog. He was three days from a shower and she 
  could smell every minute of it. His heart, driven by rage and 
  hatred, hammered in her senses and brought her back 
  through the blackness that closed in as the blows ceased.  
  Both of his hands closed with lethal intent around her 
  throat. The back of her head bounced off the floor as he 
  
  116 
   
  throttled her. Spittle blotted out part of her field of vision 
  as he panted and seethed through bared, gritted teeth. His 
  eyes were wide and wild, and dull with drink and 
  resignation. Kelly lay motionless, staring up at him with 
  present, intelligent, and fearless eyes. 
  "Why won't you die?!" he raged down at her, and she felt his 
  spittle mingle with the vitae oozing from her bruised and 
  broken face. He was not seeing what she had seen in Kris's 
  face. Not yet. If she let him continue, he would. She toyed 
  with the idea as she prodded and embraced the aching, 
  piercing pain that throbbed like needles into her. "WHY 
  WON'T YOU DIE?!" 
  Kelly felt her vitae twitch, felt the pain soothed and washed 
  away by degrees. She felt her skull crunch back into place, 
  and shards of bone slice through knitting flesh to settle 
  back into their proper form. Her vision cleared, her 
  thoughts cleared. Her wrung-out neck forced his hands 
  away as the bruising faded, and the esophagus opened. Her 
  thirst tried to grab the bit of her self-control in its teeth, but 
  she wrenched it back. She would have some relief from it, 
  soon. She could be patient. 
  "Because," Kelly said to him from between extending fangs 
  as he tumbled backwards off of her and scuttled crab-like 
  for the door, "I'm already dead." 
  "N-no, y-y-you can't ..." He lifted a hand to his head, gave it 
  a shake as if trying to dispel a hallucination. As she rose, 
  whole, if bloodied, and with eyes blazing with every ounce 
  of her constrained, predator’s fury, she loomed over him 
  and he shrank back. 
  “I told you, Detective. You don’t understand, you don’t 
  know what you are getting involved with. You should have 
  listened, but it’s too late now.” Dorst reached for his gun, 
  
  117 
   
  but she was faster, and sober. She lunged forward and 
  twisted it out of his hand before it was even fully clear of 
  the holster.  
  “If you try for the backup,” Kelly hissed with narrowed eyes 
  as she pointed his own nickel-plated .45 at his face. “I’m 
  going to have to kill you. Cool off, listen, and you get a 
  choice about whether you walk out of here.” She 
  punctuated her statement with a confident cocking of the 
  automatic. A needless gesture, but one that had a 
  recognizable sound and implication. 
  When Dorst lifted his hands to his sides, half-feral with 
  terror and looking half-convinced he was dreaming, Kelly 
  lowered the gun, though she kept it cocked at her side.  
  "I meant what I said at the bar, Detective. You're a good 
  man, even if you're an asshole. And I'm sorry you got put in 
  the middle of something you had no chance to get out of 
  in one piece. It wasn't your fault; it had nothing to do with 
  anything you would understand. But there was only one 
  way this could have ended for you, if it didn't kill you." 
  Dorst licked his lips and blinked up at her. He slowly 
  lowered his hands, and when she didn’t point the gun at 
  him again, he used them to push himself to his feet. Kelly 
  lowered the hammer on the man's pistol, clicked the safety 
  on, dropped the magazine to the floor and quickly worked 
  the slide to take the round out of the chamber before she 
  returned the gun to him. He hesitated only a moment, 
  during which she encouraged him with a lift of the 
  gleaming length. He took it and slid it into the holster. 
  "It doesn't have to end for you, Dorst. You don't have to 
  stop being a good man or doing good things. You still have 
  a chance to change things for the better. But it means just 
  being a good man, and not a perfect one." 
  
  118 
   
  "I'm not like you. I'm not a killer," Dorst said. She heard the 
  pleading under the words, but knew it wasn't directed at 
  her. "I'm not a killer," he repeated, and it rang as hollow as 
  any echo. 
  "Are you sure, Detective?" Kelly pressed coolly. "If I weren't 
  what I am, I would be dead. You killed me, for all intents 
  and purposes. Can you really say you aren't a killer?" 
  She could see his lip quiver as her words filtered in, and his 
  chin sank to his chest as he stared down at his hands. "I 
  don't ... I didn't mean ..." 
  "Oh, yes you did, Detective. You meant every bit of it. I 
  admit, I got a little fuzzy after the first few hits, but I gave it 
  some extra seconds to make up for it. If I'd been anyone 
  else, anything else, I'd be dead, and you'd be a killer."  
  Kelly took two steps forward, and with the tips of her cold 
  fingers, lifted his head as she had Kris's. His expression was 
  as broken as hers, just in a deeper, more lasting sense. "But 
  now you know, don't you, Detective? Now you know that 
  you can be a killer and live with it, still want to do good 
  things with your time on this earth. You know you can be 
  a good person, without being a perfect person." 
  She watched him fold in on himself as each of her words 
  seemed to add ten pounds to his shoulders, until as she 
  finished he was kneeling in front of her. Her fingers still 
  gently forced his head back so that even from the floor she 
  could stare into his eyes. "Kill me," he pleaded, tears 
  coursing over his cheeks. "I can't live with it. I'm not you." 
  "You can, Dorst," Kelly assured, as she cupped his cheek 
  and wiped a tear from his eyes with her thumb. "And you 
  can still do more good than you do harm. Serve me, 
  Detective. Let me show you how to carry it and move 
  forward." 
  
  119 
   
  Kelly waited until he finally nodded and cast his eyes down 
  before she closed in with her bite. It was both to soothe her 
  raging hunger and to grant Dorst a reprieve in temporary 
  oblivion as she drank him just to the point of 
  unconsciousness. He didn't even stir as she urged a thin 
  stream of her vitae past his lips. 
   
   
  
  120 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Favors for Friends 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  March 12, 1999. 2:00 AM. 
   
  Milwaukee’s night accepted Kelly without fanfare as she 
  drove from Stefan’s haven. Left him there rather than bring 
  him back to the condo they had shared since his waking a 
  week ago. The performance engine purred with constrained 
  fury, and it was a voice she now appreciated in a whole new 
  light. Until she had woken this evening, she had felt much 
  the same. There had been an engine of rage and violence 
  running in her heart, with enough power to bring down a 
  building or raze a city. And had she not almost done just 
  that? Flashes of crimson abandon threatened to overwhelm 
  her and she pulled over with a sharp jerk of the wheel. The 
  car sat askew as one of the tires jumped the curb just before 
  it came to a stop. With leather steering wheel creaking 
  under the straining twist of her grip, she closed her eyes 
  against the flood of images and memories.  
  The worst of it faded, and a tiny voice in the back of her 
  mind mocked her quavering revulsion at the vivid 
  
  121 
   
  memories. She had enjoyed the release and try as she might 
  to deny it she could not. In those minutes of abandon, as 
  she shredded flesh and spilled hot life in pulsing arcs, as she 
  dove upon ravaged veins and arteries, she had felt close to 
  the peace and contentment she strove so hard for. In her 
  music, in her work, in Wendy. In anything but the one 
  thing that seemed to give her a look at its glowing nirvana. 
  She was disgusting. 
  The car’s engine had stalled out and she cranked it, giving 
  life to her machine as quickly as she took it from the people 
  around her. Working clutch and gas in jerky motions, 
  blinking back the shimmering scarlet screen of tears, she 
  wrenched the car down from the curb and started away 
  again. She wasn’t going to allow herself to cry again. She 
  had cried too much in the last week; more than she had in 
  the half year leading up to it, she was sure. And besides, 
  didn’t she have what she wanted? He was gone again (oh 
  God, please not again). She had her haven back to herself 
  (without his touch, his smell). She could return to the 
  semblance of life she had constructed in defiance of his 
  abandonment (to earn his love). 
  Kelly had never poured so much of herself into her 
  performances as she had just hours ago. She felt drained in 
  the aftermath, like she had fed the very fires of her existence 
  into the songs until it had burned away everything that kept 
  her supported and stable. Why had she done it, she 
  demanded of herself? She should have bored him. She 
  should have left him wanting. He might have gone back to 
  sleep, then. But she couldn’t bear to see that blankness in 
  his gaze or know the oozing cold of his disdain. That was a 
  sinkhole into which she couldn’t force herself to step; better 
  to stare into the slavering maws of a dozen werewolves than 
  feel that again. Better to greet the sun than to feel that 
  
  122 
   
  again. She hated Stefan and how much she needed him. 
  As she guided the sleek animal into its berth below the 
  (empty) condo nestled into the beating heart of Downtown, 
  she hesitated with her hand on the key. It wasn’t too late; 
  she could return to his haven, plead with him to come back 
  with her. She could give him what he would undoubtedly 
  want after her singing. Her stomach at once fluttered with 
  anticipation and twisted with disgust at the thought of 
  sharing a bed with him again. But he would stay. The 
  engine died and with eyes closed and brow against the arc 
  of the wheel, the leather seam digging a furrow across her 
  skin as she pressed into its unyielding hardness, she listened 
  to it tick tock click clack as it cooled. If only her own needs 
  were so easy to cool. 
  Her haven welcomed her. It rang with the unique silence 
  of an empty tomb. Like a burglar, she eased the door closed 
  and the locks into place. She pulled off her boots and 
  padded carefully into the office. She feared disturbing the 
  silence, and tread around it like it was a coiled viper waiting 
  to strike if antagonized with the slightest noise. She should 
  feel comfortable, safe from the world in her haven. She felt 
  like an intruder as she sat at her desk and buried her face 
  in her hands. She had (to see Stefan again) work to do, 
  things to focus on that were critical beyond measure. She 
  had (to hear him humming) to concentrate. All she wanted 
  was his hands on her shoulders. 
  With a sigh she turned from her desk and leaned back in 
  the swiveling chair. The single, black and white photo of 
  Wendy was still pinned on the board in the office. Candid, 
  unsmiling, carrying trash from the now-familiar house of 
  her parents to the curb. No snow, in that image. How long 
  had she been dragging Wendy into the Hellscape of her 
  existence? Why did she persist? She could let her go, now, 
  
  123 
   
  couldn’t she? Give her freedom from the endless hunger of 
  the blackhole that Kelly represented? Now that Stefan was 
  back. She should break up with Wendy. She wouldn’t. 
  Kelly’s head fell back into the welcoming embrace of her 
  chair’s tall back. 
  All of this, everything that had begun to spin out of control, 
  was Stefan’s fault. She tried to believe that, but had he not 
  said it was she that woke him? Her weakness that had drawn 
  him out of his dreams and slumber and back to the night. 
  Back to her. She felt sick but had no idea whether it was at 
  being the instrument of her own destruction or with the 
  lack of him in the condo. She was pathetic, she derided. A 
  man had died, and would go unknown and unmourned, 
  and all she could think of was (Stefan) her own petty 
  problems. 
  “Get a fucking grip,” Kelly snarled at herself, and snapped 
  the spell of silence. She forced herself back to her desk and 
  began the boot process of her computer. She leaned on the 
  rage, rage she had only last night craved to be free of, and 
  fed herself into it until it burned away her stasis. She could 
  deal with the Wendy situation later. She had work to do, 
  for now. A few minutes later she allowed herself to become 
  lost in the labyrinthine halls of law. 
   
  March 12, 1999. 8:55 PM. 
   
  Wendy’s warm lips pressed a slow trail of soft, wet marks 
  down her throat. The welcome of her flesh was manifest in 
  its nearly searing heat as it pressed along Kelly’s cold corpse. 
  Delicate, hesitant fingers explored the taut expanse of 
  Kelly’s belly, stroked the curve under her breasts, rested 
  where a heartbeat should pulse and didn’t. The beating of 
  Wendy’s heart was strong enough for both of them as it 
  
  124 
   
  drove the relentless rivers of blood through her living veins. 
  The smell of her body, of her excitement, drenched Kelly’s 
  senses. 
  Stefan’s cold lips touched lightly, icily, down Kelly’s throat 
  opposite Wendy. Fire and ice mingled as their fingers 
  twined, and then separated again to pursue their own 
  explorations of her body. His cold rigidity pressed alongside 
  her, his hardness tight against her hip. Kelly gasped her 
  helpless submission to his ministrations as he pinched her 
  nipple into firmness. The points of his fangs grazed her 
  collar bone and she felt her stomach tense with a 
  convulsion of pleasure. 
  Arms spread to encircle them both, to pull them into her 
  until she could scarcely tell where she stopped and they 
  began. Kelly gave herself to them. Her body tingled with the 
  memory of living warmth in the wake of Wendy’s touch. It 
  tingled with cold electric jolts of pleasure as Stefan set her 
  nerves afire. She felt tension building toward release as their 
  fingers delved into the light, blonde hair above her sex. Her 
  hips rocked upwards of their own volition as she tried to 
  force their teasing touch to the sensitive nub they stopped 
  just short of. Another gasp slipped from her lips as Wendy’s 
  hot mouth closed around her nipple, and Stefan’s cold 
  fingers delved into her. 
  The ache of her fangs throbbed in time to Wendy’s 
  heartbeat, the pulse of that life echoing through her nerves 
  as the hot tongue encircled her breast and tasted the death 
  on her skin. As if joined to Wendy through Kelly, Stefan’s 
  curling fingers moved in time to the heartbeat and stroked 
  the deepest parts of her until she felt herself contract 
  around him. Her back arched as release came, and her cries 
  of pleasure echoed in the shapeless void in which the three 
  of them floated, together. She tasted the tang of Wendy’s 
  
  125 
   
  excitement in the kiss that silenced her cries, and then, as 
  fang points pricked the tongue that searched her mouth 
  insistently, her blood. Kelly came again at the first fiery 
  blush of that flavor. 
  Then Stefan was on top of her and her legs wormed around 
  his hips. The head of him pressed against her lips and she 
  struggled to pull him into her, futile struggles against his 
  immeasurable strength. Then Wendy was there, between 
  them, panting her need as Kelly could not. Blood ran thick 
  and crimson from between her lips and dripped onto 
  Kelly’s chest. Stefan was lured to it and leaned down to lap 
  at the hot, sticky life on Kelly’s breasts. Wendy’s body 
  welcomed Kelly’s fingers and gripped them fiercely, even as 
  Stefan—at last—filled her with the hard length of him. 
  Waves of release flooded her one after another, and Wendy 
  coated them all in the blood—too much blood—that flowed 
  like ambrosia from between her lips. 
  Hot and cold, alive and dead, they writhed together. Kelly 
  tasted Wendy on Stefan, and Wendy tasted Kelly on him, 
  as well. All of them tasted the living blood that flowed until 
  it filled the void and they floated in an ocean of it, until it 
  made them all red and slick and squelched between them 
  as they moved and rocked and roiled. Kelly felt Stefan’s 
  pleasure pulsing cold and rich and bloody against the back 
  of her throat even as her own pleasure drove her hips up 
  into Wendy’s lapping tongue. She felt Wendy’s nails dig 
  into her hips as her pleasure crested around Stefan’s girth, 
  and Stefan’s moaning release pulsed into Wendy below 
  their kissing forms. Kelly opened her eyes to take in her 
  lovers, to see what she had known so far only by touch, and 
  screamed.  
  Desiccated, drained of all vitae and with flesh stretched dry 
  and tight around bones, Stefan’s mummified body twitched 
  
  126 
   
  and jittered and thrust awkwardly between the still, blue-
  skinned legs of Wendy. Dead and staring up at Kelly with 
  lips parted in the final gasp of life that had been taken from 
  her, Wendy jerked with each of Stefan’s awkward 
  thrustings. Kelly tumbled away as Stefan began to grin, to 
  bear his yellowed teeth and growing fangs, as Wendy’s 
  death-glazed eyes began to turn toward her in accusation 
  and hatred. Kelly screamed again and felt the terror and 
  revulsion of the sound like shards of glass in her throat. 
  Kelly came awake with a start and a gasp and fought the 
  thick folds of her duvet and blankets that seemed to be 
  trying to strangle her. She panicked, and the red sheen of 
  the Beast’s fear began to descend until she heard the silence 
  of the place, and the remembered echo of blood scent faded 
  with the immediacy of the dream. She fell back into the 
  tangle of the bedsheets and wished she could pant to relieve 
  the tension. The condo rang with silence, still, but through 
  the walls, floor, and ceiling she could hear the quiet whisper 
  of voices and movement. She clung to those small sounds 
  of life, alien to the void in which she and her lovers had 
  hung, and like a lifeline it drew her back to stability. 
  She threw a hand up over her brow and lingered in the last 
  dregs of the dream. God, she thought, and immediately 
  regretted it. She had never been overly religious in life, and 
  that had not much changed since the Embrace, but she was 
  sure that if there was a God he had little to do with dreams 
  of that sort. The mummified image of Stefan, and the 
  death-touched pallor of Wendy’s flesh, drew a shudder 
  from her and then the last fog of dreaming burned away in 
  the light of consciousness. Kelly untangled herself from the 
  heavy blankets and sat on the edge of the bed. Her feet on 
  solid ground, she at last began to feel something like 
  normal. 
  
  127 
   
  Kelly sought solace in the hot needles of water from the 
  shower and found none. She dried and dressed in a black 
  suit and pencil skirt and tried to ignore the quiet of the 
  place as her neighbors settled in for the night and the 
  sounds of their living began to fade, one by one. When the 
  phone in her office rang it disturbed the silence as abruptly 
  and frighteningly as a gunshot. Kelly jumped at the jangle 
  and berated herself for her nerves during the second ring, 
  and on the third answered. 
  “Patterson,” she said, though she had to try twice as her 
  voice was little more than a croak for the first. 
  “Jesus, Kelly,” Julie Montareaux chirped. “You are difficult 
  to get a hold of these days. You always seem to be out of 
  your fancy new offices.” 
  “Julie,” Kelly greeted with a measure of pleasant surprise 
  tinged only lightly with dread. Surely, she could trust herself 
  around Julie. At least as much as she did with Wendy. The 
  dead eyes flashed in her mind’s eye but she forced them 
  down. “Sorry about that, it’s just been crazy lately, and I was 
  out of town until just a couple of ni-days ago.” 
  “I know how it goes,” Julie commiserated. “And we thought 
  it was bad when we were pulling all-nighters cramming for 
  exams, eh?” She laughed, but Kelly could only muster a 
  small chuckle. 
  “The all-nighters haven’t gone away,” Kelly replied in the 
  wake of Julie’s laughter. “The stakes have just gotten 
  higher.” 
  “Preach it, sister,” Julie said, and then carried on at once. 
  “Listen, I, uh, I need a favor Kelly. Let me buy you dinner? 
  We can talk about it then.” 
  “Sure, Julie,” Kelly replied as she looked at the half-
  completed job sitting on her desk and desktop. It would 
  
  128 
   
  keep. She’d made some good progress on it the night 
  before. “But I’m not letting you buy me dinner; it’s my 
  treat.” 
  “No way,” Julie said in the stubborn tone Kelly knew so 
  well. The last time she’d heard it, the two of them had 
  ended up tandem bungie jumping. “It’s me asking the 
  favor, so dinner’s on me.” 
  “Alright, Julie, I give. Where do you want to meet?” 
  “How about Danny’s? Say, half an hour?” Kelly agreed, and 
  they signed off. She set the receiver back in its cradle and 
  sighed.  
  She loved Julie, as a sister rather than the perverted love she 
  felt for Stefan, or the insidious and demanding love she felt 
  for Wendy, but she wasn’t sure the two of them had 
  anything in common any longer. What remained of her 
  time at college in her heart and mind were memories of 
  light that she tried not to think of too often. Still, she wasn’t 
  willing to deny Julie anything; if it hadn’t been for Julie, 
  Kelly would have probably flunked or dropped out of law 
  school more than once. 
  She grabbed up her keys and headed for the diner that her 
  one-time-friend preferred. The city slipped past, cold and 
  weighted heavily with fresh snow. What a beautiful lie of 
  purity the snow presented, Kelly thought. A blanket of 
  cleanliness that belied the seething pit of monsters that 
  bred and strove at its heart. Her family. She felt like an 
  intruder in the blanketing sameness of the snow, like the 
  snow would be stained black with the touch of her foot. 
  Was there no place that felt like home, anymore, she 
  wondered silently? The only answer that came to mind (in 
  Stefan’s arms) she refused to acknowledge. 
  Julie wasn’t there when she arrived, but she took a booth 
  
  129 
   
  seat by a window and watched the occasional drift of 
  glittering snow outside as she breathed the tart aroma of 
  coffee and waited. There were a few couples in other 
  booths, and several men in coveralls seated at the counter. 
  Kelly drifted in and out of awareness of their conversations 
  as she watched the parking lot. Fred the foreman was a hard 
  ass, she learned, and Cathy was shorting time cards to save 
  on overtime. Susan was lucky to have Greg, and she didn’t 
  know what she was throwing away by cheating with 
  Charles. Justin just had to get his head on straight and get 
  off the sauce. Amber was doing fine, and so were the kids, 
  and wasn’t it just lovely to see James again? She envied them 
  their simple concerns. 
  Kelly glanced away as Amber came over to offer a top up on 
  her coffee, which Kelly politely declined as a wash of 
  headlights flashed through the window. Eyes squinted 
  against the glare in the moments before it switched off, she 
  turned back to see Julie cutting the engine of her Chevy 
  Cobalt. The plain-looking brunette, in her U of M 
  sweatshirt and two- or three-year-old blue jeans, waved 
  happily as she stepped out to the much more subdued glow 
  of the interior light. Kelly forced herself to smile and 
  offered a lift of her hand in return. Julie made a show of 
  stopping next to the sleek black Viper and making a “that’s 
  hot” gesture with her hand before she trudged into the 
  diner. 
  “Hey, Amber,” Julie called over the counter as she kicked 
  the snow from her heavy boots at the door. 
  “Hi there, Julie,” the waitress greeted familiarly in return. 
  “Just have a seat anywhere, hon. I’ll be with you in a jiff.” 
  “Oh, I’m here with a friend tonight. Just bring me a coffee 
  when you get a chance, will you? And my regular?” 
  
  130 
   
  “Sure thing,” Amber waved over her shoulder, and Julie 
  headed toward Kelly’s table. 
  When Julie stopped next to the table and stared down at 
  Kelly expectantly, it took Kelly a moment to register why 
  and, somewhat chagrined, she scooted out of the booth to 
  hug her oldest friend.  
  “You can’t have been here long, cold as you are,” Julie said 
  as they separated and took their seats opposite one another 
  at the booth table. 
  “No, not long,” Kelly deflected with a small shake of her 
  head. “It’s good to see you again, Julie. How’s Geoff?” 
  The expression Julie returned was telling, and Kelly 
  mentally prepared herself to hear at least a small tirade 
  about Julie’s long-time boyfriend. Instead, Julie said, “Well, 
  that’s part of why I asked you to come to dinner. But there’s 
  time for that later, right? I want to hear what you’ve been 
  up to that’s got you behind the wheel of that beast.” 
  Kelly experienced a moment of shock until she realized that 
  Julie was referring to the car in the lot. “Oh, that,” she said 
  dismissively. “I probably should have stuck to my old 
  Accord, but I felt like treating myself a little while back. It’s 
  good for business to look successful.” 
  The two of them dove into reminiscence and light 
  conversation as Julie worked her way through the heaping 
  plate of hash, eggs, bacon, and sausage that Amber brought 
  over along with the coffee. Kelly apologized to Amber and 
  begged another cup as she’d clumsily let the coffee go cold, 
  and Amber obliged. Half an hour later, as Julie leaned back 
  with a low sigh of contentment at the filling meal, Kelly had 
  almost managed to return to the easy companionship she 
  had shared with this woman for so many years. Almost. The 
  sounds of her chewing had reminded Kelly a little too 
  
  131 
   
  poignantly of the sound of blood-slick bodies moving 
  together in passion and abandon for the ease to manifest 
  fully. 
  “You sure you don’t want anything? Even a muffin? They 
  have great cranberry muffins here.” 
  Kelly shook her head. “No, thank you, Julie. The coffee’s 
  fine. I had a late lunch with a client.” She was a little 
  surprised she didn’t feel a prick of guilt over the lie, but she 
  welcomed the relief. “So, what’s on your mind? You 
  mentioned needing a favor.” 
  “Guh,” Julie groused, and pushed her nearly-empty plate 
  away. “It’s stupid. I mean, it’s probably nothing. Just …” She 
  trailed off and Kelly prodded her gently with an exhortation 
  to continue. “It’s just, Geoff’s been acting weird lately. He 
  always seems distracted, and he’s been getting calls at all 
  hours of the night. You… I mean, that private investigator 
  still works for you, right? Jerry?” 
  “Gordon,” Kelly corrected gently. “Yes, Gordon still works 
  for me, and I had to hire another recently to help cover the 
  firm’s caseload.” Julie chewed her lip, and Kelly gave her 
  the time she needed to screw up her courage. She watched 
  the colors of her friend’s aura shift and swirl hesitantly 
  through determination and hurt and love and grief. 
  “What’re his rates like? Do you think I could hire him?” 
  Julie finally asked in a rush. Kelly had practically seen the 
  question forming in the shades of aura and showed no 
  surprise. 
  “No,” she answered, and Julie looked crestfallen until she 
  continued. “But if you want me to get him to help you out, 
  I’ll be glad to. Do you really think something’s going on 
  with Geoff? Maybe he’s just finally getting ready to pop the 
  question.” 
  
  132 
   
  Julie snorted her disbelief at the suggestion. “Not Geoff,” 
  she assured. “He is many things, but the marrying kind is 
  not one of them. Which I didn’t really care about until…” 
  “Until he started acting weird,” Kelly supplied and Julie 
  nodded her agreement. “Alright, Julie, I’ll put Gordon on 
  him for a week or two but you need to know that he’s not 
  going to pull any punches. If it turns out Geoff is, I don’t 
  know, screwing around on you or something, it’s going to 
  come out. Are you ready for that?” 
  “No,” Julie answered with a weak laugh. “God, no, I’m not. 
  But I need to know what’s going on with him; if he’s in 
  some kind of trouble, I need to know. Jesus, I’m such a 
  wimp.” 
  “I don’t think you are,” Kelly assuaged, and reached across 
  the table to rest a hand atop Julie’s. Her flesh still held the 
  memory of the warmth of her coffee cup and her friend 
  didn’t start at the touch as so many others did. “It’ll be okay, 
  Julie, even if it isn’t. We’ll get to the bottom of it and then 
  we’ll cross whatever bridges we end up at.” 
  “Thanks, Kelly,” Julie said with enough relief that it echoed 
  in subtle ripples through her aura. “I don’t know what I’d 
  do without you.” 
  Kelly shook her head and waved away the thanks. “Don’t 
  thank me yet, Julie. I don’t know what Gordon’s going to 
  turn up, and I’m going to hate being the bearer of bad news 
  if it comes out there is something going on. But I’m glad to 
  help as I can.” 
  Julie smiled her thanks again and Amber brought over the 
  bill. Kelly tried to pay for dinner, but Julie was adamant and 
  Kelly didn’t struggle too hard. Julie had a stubborn streak 
  in her a mile wide when she wanted, and she insisted since 
  Kelly hadn’t had anything but coffee. The two exchanged 
  
  133 
   
  another hug and Kelly stood next to her car as she waved 
  Julie out of the parking lot. A few years ago, she would have 
  felt rage at the idea of Geoff stepping out on Julie; now, she 
  felt only a cold species of determination to untangle the 
  puzzle. She was revolting. 
  Kelly got into her car and headed for home as she hit the 
  speed dial on her cell to reach out to Gordon. 
   
  March 16, 1999. 8:58 PM. 
   
  The last several nights with Dorst and Gordon returned to 
  her had been difficult and soothing both. Stefan continued 
  to swirl through her thoughts, surfacing like the dorsal fin 
  of a shark to cut through the waters of her mind and with 
  as much instinctively understood threat. She seemed 
  incapable of pushing his presence away to that tiny corner 
  of her mind in which he had dwelt as he slept; he was not 
  beyond reach as he had been then. She had only to drop 
  what she was doing and seek him out to have his hateful 
  (beautiful) eyes on her, or to cast aside her responsibilities 
  to have his blood as hers again. But her boys were back, and 
  safe. Wendy and her family were enjoying their stay at 
  Disneyland and safely removed from Stefan, and she 
  managed to take some measure of comfort from both 
  truths. 
  Gordon was only too eager to keep her apprised of his 
  progress on the investigation into Geoff. Kelly half-
  suspected he thought she’d sent him away out of some fit 
  of pique at Stefan’s unannounced arrival in the haven and 
  feared that should he fail her, he would again be sent away. 
  She tried to soothe his fears but knew that it was pointless; 
  there was some measure of neurosis she had come to expect 
  and accept that came with his bonding by blood. It wore on 
  
  134 
   
  her, at times, and at others made her feel sick to have 
  inflicted it upon him, but she endured both. 
  About Geoff, Gordon had made little progress in the first 
  couple days of investigation. It seemed, at first, that Julie’s 
  suspicions were unfounded. Kelly was glad of that, but 
  cautiously so; it had been a long time since she had been 
  content with merely the appearance of propriety. Lucina 
  was the image of polite society when she wanted to be, but 
  Kelly had seen the monster behind the curtain when Kelly 
  had arranged for Raul’s humiliation. And before, too, 
  when the Prince had come to collect the staked Union 
  members. No, Kelly knew that just because something 
  looked on the up and up did not in any sense imply that it 
  was on the up and up. Her wariness proved valuable when 
  she woke on the third day of the investigation to find 
  Gordon sitting in the kitchen, chatting with Dorst. 
  “More good news?” she inquired from her bed, not 
  particularly concerned with her interruption of their 
  discussion of the Detroit Red Wings’ season record or 
  chances for a Stanley Cup. She pushed herself up against 
  the pillows and headboard and tugged the sheet up to cover 
  her chest for some measure of modesty before they entered. 
  Gordon was first, but Dorst was right on his heels. They 
  practically collided trying to fit simultaneously through the 
  door into her bedroom. Kelly rolled her eyes but let them 
  sort it out themselves. At least they’d stopped most of the 
  jealous glaring after the trip to Chicago. It had been worth 
  the few hundred dollars it had cost to force them out into 
  the city together. They didn’t have many opportunities to 
  make friends or have a social life, enslaved to her as they 
  were. At least, though, they had each other. She could 
  appreciate bonding through shared misery. 
  
  135 
   
  “No, Miss Kelly,” Gordon said at last, once they’d entered 
  and taken up relaxed positions leaning or sitting on the 
  various bedroom furniture around the room. “I’m afraid 
  not. It looks like something is going on with Mr. 
  Handscomb, but it isn’t infidelity.” 
  Kelly arched a brow. “Drugs? Gambling? Mob debts?” she 
  inquired, and Gordon shook his head. 
  “No, Miss Kelly. It … It looks like he’s been tapped by one 
  of the city’s kindred.” He fished in the messenger satchel he 
  had hanging against his hip, pulled out a manila envelope 
  that had its flap held closed with a twist of string, and 
  passed it over to her. Kelly took it from him and worked 
  the string as he continued.  
  “As you know, Miss Kelly, he’s an investment banker with 
  First Milwaukee Savings and Loan.” Kelly nodded that she 
  did know as she pulled the small sheaf of high-gloss photos 
  from the envelope and began to flip through them. The 
  somewhat shaggy lank of Geoff Handscomb, a man Kelly 
  had always thought didn’t quite live up to the potential 
  Julie had, was featured in conspiratorial conversation with 
  another man she recognized but couldn’t immediately 
  place. Who was that, she wondered as she listened to 
  Gordon.  
  “I did a little digging into his work. He was recently put in 
  charge of managing the Teacher’s Union pension fund. It’s 
  not on par with the Police Union’s pension fund, but it’s 
  nothing to sneeze at, either. The problem is it looks like he’s 
  skimming from it and funneling it to several offshore 
  accounts. I lost track of the money from there; it went down 
  into a Cayman account and then vanished.” 
  Kelly flipped through the photos again and studied both of 
  the men featured. The meeting was taking place just inside 
  
  136 
   
  the mouth of an alley. She recognized the street, she 
  thought. It would be a few blocks from First Milwaukee, she 
  was sure. Not the kind of neighborhood where many 
  people bothered to look into alleys as they traveled through. 
  Most would be too involved in their own business, or selves, 
  to bother to notice. That whisper of familiarity continued 
  to nag at her as she studied the man Geoff was meeting. 
  Her memory spun, like wheels on ice, and failed to catch. 
  “Alright,” Kelly said without looking up from the pictures. 
  “So, what makes you think it’s a kindred?” 
  “He, ah,” Gordon replied in a tone of discomfort, and 
  hesitated until Kelly lifted her gaze to his and then he 
  hastened to continue. “He got a real strange look on his 
  face after meeting the man in those pictures and went 
  straight back to the bank to jump on his computer. I 
  followed him in and, ah, he completely ignored one of his 
  coworkers when she came to stick her head into his office. 
  He just kept working like she wasn’t talking to him.” 
  “Very good, Gordon,” Kelly praised absently as she let her 
  gaze sink back to the photos. That was indeed a sign of 
  kindred interference, she reasoned. Dominate, probably. 
  Some kind of command implanted in his mind that he 
  would be compelled to fulfill once it was triggered. 
  Undoubtedly by the man in the pictures. That narrowed… 
  Suddenly her mind caught traction and her memory kicked 
  forward as it lurched back into motion. 
  It had been at the Elysium hosted by Tommy Johns, his 
  effort to reclaim his reputation after the disaster of a jazz 
  concert. Jonas Myabb had been there; they’d spoken. She’d 
  only just recently vetted him for Gory. As he’d been leaving, 
  the man in these photos had been the one to collect his coat 
  and settle it around his shoulders. The deferential posture 
  
  137 
   
  and expression had been unmistakable; this was a man 
  enslaved to Myabb’s blood. She cursed under her breath. 
  “Miss Kelly?” Gordon inquired nervously at her swearing. 
  She waved aside his concern and slipped the pictures back 
  into the envelope. 
  “No, it’s nothing, Gordon. You did very well. But it’s 
  obvious this is a bit above the level of danger I’m willing to 
  put you in. I’d like you to go back to your regular duties 
  now, please. I’ll take care of it from here.” He looked like 
  he wanted to argue, and Dorst looked like he had 
  something to say about her willingness to take on dangers 
  she didn’t want her mortal servants facing, but neither said 
  anything. “Alright you two, let me get dressed. Dorst, 
  thanks for watching me today. Sleep well, alright?” 
  The two left her room and she indulged in another 
  moment of relaxation before she forced herself up and into 
  motion. Kelly plucked hangers from the racks and held 
  them against herself as she gazed into the full-length mirror 
  on the back of the closet door. She realized she was sliding 
  back into the habit of considering how Stefan would view 
  her in the clothes, and with a scowl snatched a last hanger 
  free to haul out and hang over the edge of the bed. It held 
  a severe slacks and blouse combo that would bore Stefan to 
  death. As she buttoned the blouse and tightened the simple 
  leather belt she felt like a traitor but swallowed it fiercely. 
  A page to Eric brought the car around within half an hour, 
  and he greeted her simply as he held the Town Car’s door 
  for her entry. She returned the greeting in kind and 
  directed him to M.E.C.C.A., Milwaukee Exposition and 
  Convention Center Arena, when he’d retaken the wheel.  
  “Party tonight?” he inquired as he navigated the smooth-
  riding car into the streets. She shook her head as she 
  
  138 
   
  watched the city roll past outside the windows; there had 
  been another heavy snowfall during the day, it seemed. 
  “Not tonight,” Kelly answered. “But I need to get a hold of 
  Myabb. He’s usually at some function or another there. 
  Seems like a good place to start.” Eric nodded and the ride 
  passed in silence until he tuned into WBIT to pick up the 
  beginning of Barth’s show, even though it was still an hour 
  off. 
  Kelly was glad for the distraction, and she hummed along 
  to the songs in order to keep from wondering where Stefan 
  was, what he was doing, what he was wearing. To keep 
  herself from ordering Eric to turn around and return her 
  to her haven so that she could change into something 
  brighter and more revealing, as Stefan preferred her to 
  wear. She smoothed the buttons of her blouse as if it were 
  a rosary as she let herself go into the music. Eric’s tapping 
  fingers on the steering wheel were only slightly off tempo 
  and she let him continue. 
   
  March 16, 1999. 11:01 PM. 
   
  As the massive complex of MECCA appeared outside the 
  tint of the windows, she directed The Driver, as Eric was 
  known, to keep the car close. She didn’t expect to have to 
  make a break for it, but it somehow soothed her to know 
  she could, at a moment’s notice, step back outside and be 
  on her way to Stefan’s side. Eric pulled up to the curb a few 
  hundred feet away and killed the engine as she headed 
  inside. It didn’t take her long to find the small gathering of 
  monsters that murmured quietly as they moved from one 
  rather uninspired sculpture to the next at the private 
  showing. The security at the door recognized her name, and 
  she was allowed entry with a minimum of fuss; it seemed 
  
  139 
   
  almost as if they’d been prepared for her unexpected arrival. 
  Word must have gotten around about her crashing that art 
  showing before she’d left for Chicago. 
  As she suspected, Myabb was in the crowd. The narrow 
  nose and coif of dark hair was unmistakable, even as she 
  glimpsed it only briefly from the corner of her eye. Edie 
  intercepted her before she could make her way across the 
  small space to the man. The harpy of Milwaukee swept into 
  her path to the swish of silk skirts and sparkle of diamonds. 
  “Good God, Kelly,” Edie whispered in scandalized tones. 
  “What are you doing here? Showing up at this soirée will 
  practically ruin your reputation.” 
  “Good evening, Edie,” Kelly replied and glanced around 
  the room again. “What do you mean? How could any event 
  I attended alongside your illustrious self ruin my 
  reputation?” 
  Edie’s answering smile was all plastic gratitude for the 
  compliment. “Just look around you, dear,” she said in that 
  same scandalized whisper. “This art is absolutely atrocious. 
  I think you did a terrible thing encouraging Tommy by 
  hanging his painting at City Hall. He suddenly thinks his 
  fumbling efforts at creativity are worthy of public display. I 
  mean, really, would you just look at the size of the cock on 
  that one?” 
  Kelly followed Edie’s subtle gesture to see the indicated 
  sculpture. It was a nearly-perfect recreation of David, except 
  the penis was as large as a third leg, and it wrapped around 
  the feet of the sculpture like a snake, or a vine. It confused 
  her to see, and she blinked as she tried to think of why 
  Tommy would have done such a thing. He could have, at 
  least, changed the base sculpture. “Oh dear,” she said to 
  Edie at last. 
  
  140 
   
  “Just terrible,” Edie agreed solemnly. “I think he would like 
  us to believe it’s a self-portrait.” She snickered and Kelly 
  favored her with a smile. 
  “What an unfortunate deformity to have,” Kelly replied 
  dryly. “And an unfortunate choice to attempt to showcase 
  it.” Edie gave a small, acidic laugh. 
  “Oh yes, that’s right,” Edie said lightly. “I seem to recall 
  hearing something about your preferences being … non-
  traditional.” 
  “Something like that,” Kelly answered absently. She tracked 
  Myabb with her eyes as he broke off his conversation and 
  moved across the room to join in with Tommy’s small 
  group. “Truthfully, I’m not here for the art. I didn’t even 
  realize Tommy would be having a showing tonight.” 
  “I envy you, dear,” Edie said. “I’d have given up a childe to 
  be ignorant of tonight’s little do. Still, professional 
  obligations being what they are…” She trailed off and Kelly 
  gave her a sympathetic nod. A fourth figure joined with 
  Tommy and company, and Edie watched with Kelly as she 
  drew a check book from her clutch. “Oh no,” Edie 
  breathed. “It looks like he’s sold a piece. We’re going to be 
  putting up with these monstrosities for decades now.” Kelly 
  snorted her amusement and Edie gave her a grin. “Ah, but 
  you’re clearly here on business, and I should stop being a 
  pest. Maybe I can go ensure that no one else does anything 
  to encourage Tommy to do one of these again.” 
  “Good luck,” Kelly wished her, and meant it. Even the 
  pieces that showed a glimmer of talent showed absolutely 
  no originality, that she could see. Nor was there, to her eye, 
  any kind of theme to the collection. Except, perhaps, for 
  Tommy’s penchant for oversized phalluses on the 
  sculptures. Kelly wondered briefly if he was trying to tell 
  
  141 
   
  them something as she made her way toward the knot of 
  kindred surrounding Tommy. 
  “All the old masters were men, because it was a patriarchal 
  artist’s society,” Tommy was explaining as she approached 
  his orbit. She felt the subtle inclination to attend him and 
  forced it aside. His Presence seemed a weak and 
  inconsequential thing beside the lower-case-p presence of 
  Stefan. “So obviously all their art was male-centric. They 
  might as well have painted or sculpted with their cocks. But 
  as our progressive city, with an illustrious and talented 
  Prince at the helm, has shown, women are to be—Oh, hello, 
  Kelly. I didn’t realize you’d be in attendance this evening.” 
  “I’m afraid my visit will be fleeting, Tommy,” Kelly 
  demurred politely. “I just need to steal Jonas away for a few 
  minutes, if it’s not too much trouble.” 
  “Won’t you stay and tell us all what you think of the show?” 
  Tommy pleaded just the right side of politely. She fought 
  off the impulse to acquiesce. He was lucky this was his 
  Elysium, throwing around disciplines as he was. “I’m sure 
  everyone is eager to hear what you think of my sculpting 
  since you’ve previously taken a shine to my painting.” 
  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to bore them with my uneducated 
  opinions, Tommy. I’m afraid I’m a bit pressed for time this 
  evening and couldn’t possibly devote the necessary 
  attention to form a proper opinion. Some other time, 
  perhaps,” she finished, and turned her attention to Jonas. 
  “Jonas? Might I bend your ear a moment?” 
  Presence or no, Myabb seemed glad for the excuse to 
  extricate himself. “Excuse me, Tommy. I’d hate to deny our 
  Seneschal anything she should require.” 
  “I understand completely,” Tommy replied lightly. “I’m 
  certain whatever she has to say to you must be important 
  
  142 
   
  for her to make such an unannounced, and brief, 
  appearance tonight.” With a smile that set Kelly’s teeth on 
  edge he said to her, “However I truly would like to hear 
  your views on male-domination in the artistic world. I 
  would think your experiences in the field of law—another 
  traditionally male-dominated profession—would lend your 
  opinions some extra weight and value.” 
  Kelly forced herself to return a polite half-smile. “It is my 
  experience,” she said as she gathered Jonas by the elbow in 
  a gentle grip, “that all fields are male-dominated, once men 
  get it into their heads that they can do a thing.” She left to 
  a small smattering of polite chuckles, and Jonas leaning in 
  to whisper to her. 
  “Thank you,” he breathed. And Kelly shot him a raised 
  eyebrow as they departed the small gallery space. “For 
  getting me out of there,” he answered her unspoken 
  question. 
  “Well,” she replied. “Don’t thank me yet; I do really only 
  need to speak with you for a moment.” 
  Myabb seemed disappointed but waved in a dismissive 
  gesture. “Whatever. A few minutes not having to stare at 
  that giant co—” He cut off with a flash of embarrassment as 
  he realized what he’d been about to say. 
  “I’m a big girl,” Kelly said drily, and allowed a touch of her 
  irritation at the kid gloves to seep into her tone. “I’ve heard 
  the word cock before, Jonas, and even seen a few more 
  properly proportioned ones in my time.” 
  “Right, sorry,” he said, and she got the distinct impression 
  he would have blushed if he could have. “What’d you 
  need?” 
  “I’ve heard you have some interest in the Teacher’s Union 
  pension fund,” Kelly answered. Any trace of chagrin left his 
  
  143 
   
  expression in exchange for surprise. 
  “How did you…?” he began, but she cut him off with a mild 
  gesture. 
  “Don’t worry about it, Jonas,” she said. “I hear things. Your 
  secret is safe with me, for now. But I want to know what 
  you’re up to there, and what your exit strategy is.” 
  “Well, Gory was trying to put together some capital for a 
  project he was thinking of, some sportsman’s show of some 
  kind, and I had had my eye on the Teacher’s Union for a 
  few months. I knew they were shopping for a new bank to 
  handle their investments. They took a bath a few years ago 
  and are still struggling to recover, and the state’s not 
  helping.” He shrugged. “I figured when I was done bleeding 
  it off, I’d drop ten grand in the guy’s account and call the 
  SEC.” 
  Kelly struggled to control her wince and did so by effort of 
  will alone. It would be one thing if Geoff was embezzling of 
  his own free will, but this was altogether different. It was 
  questionable he would even be able to answer the 
  accusations Julie would undoubtedly throw at him if Kelly 
  told her what he was up to. She pinched the bridge of her 
  nose. 
  “Look, Jonas,” she said when she had control of her voice 
  again. (Stefan would be proud.) “I’d like you to wrap things 
  up a little less … messily. For Handscomb. Find something 
  else to use him for and cover your tracks some other way. 
  I’d count it a personal favor, of course.” 
  “Geez, Kelly,” Jonas said, and lifted a hand to the back of 
  his neck. “It’s a bit late in the game to try that now. Pretty 
  risky.” She knew he wasn’t just trying to drive up the value 
  of the favor; he’d have to find some way to go back and 
  change digital transaction records and perhaps pull some 
  
  144 
   
  strings from on high to keep the IRS and SEC uninvolved. 
  “I have every confidence in you,” Kelly assured him. She 
  was almost able to be honest in doing so. “I’m sure you will 
  find him a useful pawn in the future, as well. More than 
  likely well worth the expense and effort of keeping his nose 
  as clean as yours.” 
  Jonas looked doubtful, and she considered applying her 
  own Presence to him. He seemed to fall under the sway of 
  Tommy’s easily enough. She opted out. “Look, Jonas. 
  What’s Gory need for his show? Maybe you can just take a 
  pass on the plan entirely.” 
  “Two million, give or take,” Jonas said after a moment of 
  contemplation. “He’s trying to draw in the bigger 
  companies, so he wants me to put all the bells and whistles 
  on it.” Kelly cursed silently. That was not an easy sum to 
  arrange. 
  “Alright,” Kelly replied. “Give me a week to make some 
  calls and see what I can do and talk to Gory as well.” Jonas 
  stiffened at that, and she held up a hand to forestall the 
  retort that seemed soon to follow the deepening of his 
  scowl. “Not to yank your lead or go above your head, Jonas. 
  I just want to see what he’s looking for in detail and see if I 
  can make arrangements to help you achieve it in a different 
  way.” He relaxed, a little, and she continued. “For the 
  moment put a stop to the visits from your man to 
  Handscomb, please. They’re not as discrete as you thought, 
  or I wouldn’t have heard about them. Let the heat die down 
  a bit; it’ll be better for everyone.” 
  Jonas did not look pleased, but he grudgingly admitted the 
  truth of her statement and agreed to stop drawing from the 
  fund for a time. The two having reached a temporary 
  agreement, they parted ways—Jonas just a few notches shy 
  
  145 
   
  of genial as his mood had soured—with Kelly heading back 
  to the street. A glance over her shoulder showed her that 
  Jonas was staring at the closed doors of the gallery with 
  something akin to quiet dread in his features, but then she 
  was around a corner. A minute later she was emerging into 
  the light flurry of snowfall that had begun while she was 
  inside. The tail lights of the car bloomed to life as she 
  emerged, and she headed for them with a quick step. 
  “Everything turn out alright?” Eric inquired as he opened 
  the door for her. She smiled a thin smile of thanks as she 
  stepped into the car. 
  “More or less,” Kelly replied. The door closed and she 
  waited for him to take his seat behind the wheel before she 
  added, “If anyone ever offers to sell you a Tommy Johns 
  original, decline.” 
  “What?” he asked, confusion clear in the gaze he turned 
  into the rear-view mirror at her. 
  Kelly shook her head. “Don’t worry about it; I don’t think 
  you get many offers from art dealers anyways.” 
  “Not unless you count dealerships as galleries,” he agreed, 
  and the car slid away from the curb. Kelly let the engine and 
  the hum of tires on pavement, and the occasional thump 
  of windshield wipers, be the only sound in the car as they 
  headed for her haven. 
  Kelly struggled with how to handle the Julie side of the 
  situation. She was toying with Geoff ending up tied to Jonas 
  in the long term, thereby drawing her one-time-friend 
  deeper toward the danger and destruction that were the 
  kindred. On the other hand, she couldn’t afford to weaken 
  Gory, nor by extension, Myabb. Kelly pinched the bridge of 
  her nose again against the headache forming behind her 
  eyes and allowed herself to be distracted by the memory of 
  
  146 
   
  Stefan promising her that all would be well now that he was 
  awake. 
  Perhaps, she considered, it was time for Julie to move on 
  from Geoff. Kelly knew she wanted to be married, and have 
  children, someday, and her time for that was shortening by 
  the year. Not the marrying kind, Julie had said the other 
  night. Probably not the fathering kind, either, she reasoned. 
  It would hurt Julie, at first, but like tearing off a Band-Aid 
  it was probably better to just have it done with. Particularly 
  if Jonas kept up his end and Geoff proved to be worth 
  keeping on-hand for various tasks. That would almost 
  certainly destroy the relationship, albeit in a slower and 
  more agonizing way, and one which would imperil Julie 
  herself. Kelly sighed to herself, thanked Eric for the ride, 
  and kicked the snow from her shoes as she entered her 
  building’s foyer.  
  She had almost decided to arrange for Julie to find a new 
  beau by the time she re-entered her condo and sneaked into 
  her office past Dorst’s snoring form on the couch. Would 
  any relationship begun by her interference truly be 
  worthwhile, though? She felt sure that she could only 
  poison the ground water of such a relationship, just by her 
  proximity to it. Like she was radioactive, and she bled the 
  death of love into all those around her. Or at least the 
  perversion of it. She had to risk it, she decided.  
   
  March 18, 1999. 8:52 PM. 
   
  “Hey, Julie,” Kelly greeted with more brightness than she 
  felt. In the back of her mind, over the nights since she had 
  learned of Geoff’s true reason for the strange behavior, the 
  consideration of how to handle Julie with regards to it had 
  been percolating until only the bitter juice of acceptance 
  
  147 
   
  was left. “We should get together for a drink tonight. I’ve 
  got an hour or so free,” she suggested after Julie’s return 
  greeting, in which she could hear the wariness. Julie was 
  afraid of what Kelly had to say, and though she didn’t know 
  it Kelly knew she had reason to be. 
  “Yeah, sure, Kelly. You still practically famous at Mitch’s?” 
  Kelly gave a snort, though her denials rang hollow even in 
  her own ears. They agreed to meet at the small bar and Kelly 
  hung up the phone to lean back in her desk chair. Tonight 
  was going to be difficult. Julie was going to fight her on the 
  only path forward for all three of them that Kelly had 
  managed to formulate. At least, she considered, as she 
  pushed herself up out of her chair and started for her closet, 
  Stefan had already tainted the purity of her sanctuary at 
  Mitch’s. How much could a simple betrayal of a decade-
  long friendship stain her comfort in the place beside the 
  increasingly-frequent public rape that Stefan inflicted on 
  her there? Unlike Julie, Kelly felt sure she would barely feel 
  the sting of it. It was for the best, she reasoned as she tugged 
  on her tight blue jeans and pulled the turtleneck sweater 
  down. Bad enough that Julie still kept ties to Kelly; if 
  Geoff’s strings were being tugged by Jonas, it would only 
  expose the woman to greater danger. Just like pulling a 
  Band Aid, she thought as she snatched up the keys and 
  headed for the door. 
  The drive to Mitch’s passed in a blur, and the silence of the 
  car was broken only by the purr of its engine and the 
  echoing cycle of rationalization that Kelly inundated herself 
  with. Mitch’s place was busy, though perhaps not quite so 
  busy as it had begun to be on Tuesdays when she sang. Still, 
  it was a Friday night, and bars did a brisk business on 
  Fridays. Thanks to her, Mitch’s was becoming one of those 
  to prosper in the spreading wasteland of poverty that was 
  
  148 
   
  seeping into the bones of the city. She found a parking 
  space near the back of the lot, one of the last available in 
  the small lot, and spotted Julie’s Cobalt parked closer to the 
  street. Afraid of what Kelly had to say or not, it seemed the 
  woman was intent on having her answers. Kelly killed the 
  engine and stepped out into the moderate snowfall that 
  bore the sounds of the city to the ground and gave the 
  domain a hushed, expectant feeling. The sound of her 
  boots in the snow was like tiny bones breaking underfoot 
  and she shuddered at the memories it summoned. She 
  plastered a friendly smile on her face and tugged open the 
  door. 
  “Kelly!” was the pleased, multi-voiced greeting from the 
  crowd as she entered. She lifted a hand in response to those 
  who recognized her and swallowed the guilt she felt at being 
  welcomed so warmly by those who could, at any time, be 
  her prey. She scanned the crowd and saw Julie looking 
  around from where she was talking to Mitch at the bar. 
  Kelly forced her smile to brighten another notch as she 
  made eye contact and made a beckoning gesture. A glance 
  at her table showed it occupied, but a little push with her 
  Presence and a hundred-dollar bill slipped over to cover the 
  small group’s bar tab cleared it out before Julie wound her 
  way over. 
  “Bit pricey for a table, isn’t it?” Julie asked with wry 
  amusement as she approached. Kelly embraced her briefly 
  and chuckled into her ear as she did. 
  “I can afford it,” Kelly said as they parted, and she gestured 
  for Julie to take a seat. She took one herself and scooted it 
  into the table. “I usually only come on Tuesdays for the 
  karaoke, and no one uses my table on Tuesdays. I don’t 
  mind covering a bar tab to have my favorite spot in the 
  place.” And, she added silently, the only seat in the house 
  
  149 
   
  where she could see who was coming in before they could 
  see her. 
  “I’ll have to remember that next time I need a little extra 
  spending cash,” Julie answered with a smirk as she took her 
  seat. Kelly favored the small jape with a smile. Anne, 
  Mitch’s part-time weekend waitress, came by and after a 
  brief chat took Kelly’s order for a beer and disappeared. 
  Julie sipped from the brown bottle in her own hands and 
  looked around the room. The awkward silence between 
  them stretched into a half dozen seconds and Kelly watched 
  her struggle against the urge to ask after Geoff. She silently 
  pleaded with Julie to let it drop, to forget the weirdness and 
  to just take what comfort she could in Geoff’s fading 
  presence in her life. Kelly almost sighed when she saw Julie 
  lose her internal struggle and heard her ask, “So what’d 
  Gordon find? Is it another woman?” 
  Kelly didn’t answer at once and instead turned to thank 
  Anne with a small, tight smile as the mortal delivered the 
  beer. Once the woman was several paces away Kelly feigned 
  a sip of the drink, as if to give her friend time to change her 
  mind, to ask after Kelly’s work, to start a conversation about 
  the state of American politics, anything but what she was so 
  intent on. Kelly was disappointed by the time she lowered 
  the bottle. “No,” she answered at last. “He’s mixed up with 
  some dangerous people, but not in that way.” The relief in 
  Julie’s face made Kelly’s cold heart ache. 
  “That’s great news!” Julie blurted, but her expression 
  melted into one of confusion when Kelly shook her head. 
  “What? I can deal with anything as long as he’s not 
  cheating.” 
  “I know you think so, Julie, but not this time. Not these 
  people.” Julie’s confusion started to sizzle with an 
  
  150 
   
  underlying heat of anger at Kelly’s words. “Trust me, Julie. 
  Please. You … You can’t save a junkie from himself. You’ll 
  just get dragged down with him if you try.” 
  Kelly reached across the table to try to lay her hand on 
  Julie’s, but the woman jerked back in her chair and tugged 
  her hand out of reach. “No, you’re wrong, Kelly. Geoff 
  wouldn’t get mixed up with drugs. He’s no junkie.” Her 
  voice was rising in volume, competing with the Led 
  Zeppelin being piped in through the stereo. Kelly’s 
  enhanced senses could pick out the glittering rime of liquid 
  along the lids of Julie’s eyes and she withdrew her hand 
  slowly to wrap around her beer again. 
  “I know it’s hard to hear, Julie,” Kelly continued, and tried 
  to connect with the power in her blood that would help her 
  soothe the woman but felt herself miss the particular tingle 
  of evocation. “For what it’s worth, I really don’t think he 
  had a lot of choice in the matter.” 
  “What, like he was just born bad? Is that what you’re saying? 
  Some liberal, hippy, it’s all his parents’ fault kind of shit?” 
  Kelly swallowed the spark of ire that rose as Julie spat the 
  words at her from across the table. She could practically feel 
  the attention of the bar on her table. 
  “Julie,” Kelly said, a few degrees more coldly than she would 
  have preferred. “You know me better than that.” Or, at least 
  you used to, Kelly added silently. “I’m telling you that he’s 
  a junkie, now, and I believe you when you say it would be 
  against his will. I’m on your side, okay? Try to remember 
  that.” 
  The mortal’s mouth opened as the scowl deepened and one 
  of the tears slipped out to streak down Julie’s cheek and 
  puddle at the line of her chin. “No…” she began, but the 
  heat and tension drained out of her voice and posture in 
  
  151 
   
  the next moment and she gave a single, low sob. “There’s 
  rehab places. I can take him to one of those. Meetings. 
  Something,” she essayed desperately. The desperation 
  shone in her gaze as she stared at Kelly, pleading with her 
  to say it was so. Kelly’s heart broke as she shook her head 
  and lowered her eyes. 
  “Not from this, Julie. These people … They wouldn’t let 
  him go now even if he could be free. I’m sorry. I wish it 
  could have been different,” she finished, and it sounded 
  lame and weak even to her own ears. 
  Julie sniffled and Kelly squeezed her eyes closed against the 
  confused pain in the single, plaintively delivered, “Why?” 
  “Sometimes good people get caught up in bad things,” Kelly 
  offered as she looked up, forced herself to confront the face 
  of consequence. This was what she inflicted on the mortals 
  she associated with, too. She deserved to see it. “It’ll be 
  okay, Julie, but you … You have to break it off with him. It’s 
  for your own good.” 
  Julie’s sobs came quiet and fast, and she buried her head in 
  her arms on the table. Kelly reached out to rest a hand on 
  her shoulder and hesitated a beat before she finally made 
  contact. “You’ll be okay,” Kelly heard herself say. “I know 
  it sucks right now but it will be better, soon. You’ll be 
  alright.” Julie made no response and continued to weep 
  quietly into her shirt. Kelly gave her the time she needed, 
  and let her hand linger on the woman’s shoulder. She 
  deserved to have this inflicted on her, but Julie didn’t. The 
  minutes slipped past, and Kelly diverted Anne’s approach 
  to check on them with a warning glance. 
  Finally, Julie sniffled and lifted her head to swipe at the 
  streaks of mascara that painted her cheeks with the ghost of 
  her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said briskly, and Kelly 
  
  152 
   
  enfolded her free hand with her cold touch. 
  “No, Julie, you have nothing to be sorry for,” Kelly assured, 
  and this time she managed to swathe the woman in her 
  supernatural allure. What a vile thing, Kelly thought 
  bitterly to herself, to take the woman’s heart from her and 
  rape her all on the same night. “It’s not your fault; there’s 
  nothing you could have done differently. Trust me, I’ve 
  seen this kind of thing before. There really is no blame to 
  be had for either you or Geoff, but you have to break it off 
  anyways, Julie.” 
  “Who was it?” Julie demanded as her scowl began to 
  reassert itself through the bleakness. Kelly had often loved 
  her for her fierce courage and fiery anger—Kelly’s own 
  methodical brand of the same was a fine compliment to 
  Julie’s often impetuous furies—but she silently pleaded with 
  her to let it go this time. It was a vain plea, she knew. “Who 
  did this to him … To us?” 
  “I…” Kelly began, and pulled her hand from Julie’s as she 
  glanced away to answer. “I can’t tell you, Julie.” 
  “Oh, fuck your ethics,” Julie spat at her and leaned into the 
  table. Her half-empty bottle rocked on the edge of tipping 
  over with the force of the motion. “This is me, Kelly. You 
  owe me.” 
  Kelly’s own scowl manifested as she turned back to the 
  mortal. “Don’t, Julie,” Kelly warned. “You have no idea 
  what you’re asking. This isn’t you asking me to write your 
  next paper for Robinson’s class because you want to go to 
  the frat party. You do not take chances with these people.” 
  “Just tell me who it is,” Julie demanded again. “I deserve 
  that much. You can’t just walk in here and tell me to end it 
  with him and not tell me why. You can’t do that!” She 
  punctuated with a fist on the table that silenced the 
  
  153 
   
  conversation around them and forced Kelly to dart a hand 
  out to stop the bottle from an unfortunate demise. Kelly 
  met her seething stare for a moment until the babble of 
  voices, though more hushed than a few seconds earlier, 
  resumed to betray the drift of the patrons’ attention. 
  “I can’t do that, Julie,” Kelly replied evenly. “These people 
  are powerful, and the less you know the safer you’ll be.” 
  Julie’s mouth shot open, but Kelly forestalled her with a 
  look and a raised hand. “I would if I could, Julie. I do owe 
  you, but this wouldn’t be helping you. It would only make 
  it worse if you understood what was going on. Even just 
  telling you what I have, I’ve put you in more danger than 
  I’m comfortable with. I need you to trust me. You can trust 
  me,” she lied, and it tasted like compost in her mouth. 
  Whether it was Kelly’s manipulative power at work, or 
  Julie’s sense finally winning out over her reactionary 
  fighter’s response, Kelly wasn’t sure, but she saw the heat 
  draining from Julie’s eyes again. “I know I can,” Julie all but 
  moaned, at last. Another glimmer of tears threatened at the 
  corners of her eyes as she cried, “God, what am I going to 
  say to him?” Kelly could only shake her head. “What am I 
  going to do?” Julie wept and it forced Kelly’s eyes to the 
  table. 
  “I don’t know, Julie,” she said. “I just know you’ll be better 
  off. I really wish I could have told you something different. 
  I found out a couple of ni-days ago, but I’ve been wracking 
  my brain trying to come up with some other way. There 
  isn’t one, I’m sorry.” 
  But there was, wasn’t there, she thought. She had the 
  Prince’s blessing; she could sire. Would it be so bad, to have 
  Julie with her for eternity? She had been without someone 
  like Julie, someone she could just relax around and who 
  
  154 
   
  really understood her, for a long time. She remembered the 
  nights spent in their dorm, and later the flat off campus 
  they’d gotten together. Just talking about hopes, and 
  dreams, about the myriad injustices in the world and how 
  they would, in their own way, bring an end to them all. Julie 
  was a fighter; she would survive the transition, maybe be 
  stronger for it. She might even like the power of it. Probably 
  would, if Kelly knew her at all and she liked to think she 
  did even after all this time under the night. Then, maybe, 
  even Stefan’s presence might be more tolerable.  
  Or, even if she didn’t drag her friend into the night with 
  her, she could simply make her forget Geoff entirely. Kelly 
  would suffer every minute of Julie’s enforced love and 
  devotion, but perhaps she deserved that, too. Then, 
  though, she would be no different from Stefan. Was she 
  anyways? 
  “I should go,” Julie said, and brought Kelly out of her spiral 
  of self-recrimination. Julie pulled her hand out from under 
  Kelly’s abruptly. 
  “Let me give you a ride. You shouldn’t drive upset.” 
  “No,” Julie said bleakly as she rose. Kelly stood with her. “I 
  just want to drive around for a bit before I go home. Try to 
  get my head on straight.” Kelly nodded her understanding. 
  “If you need anything…” Kelly said, but she couldn’t give 
  Julie the one thing the mortal wanted: her life back. Julie’s 
  tight smile of thanks in return told her the very same 
  thought was running through Julie’s mind, as well. Kelly 
  watched her go and flagellated herself by memorizing every 
  line and hitch of her shoulders, and by drinking in the 
  oozing misery in the shades of her aura. Kelly deserved 
  Stefan. 
   
  
  155 
   
   
  March 21, 1999. 9:21 PM. 
   
  The press of responsibility and the handling of the myriad 
  small crises that comprised her nights drove the immediacy 
  of her misery under a comforting blanket of distraction. 
  Wendy’s anger at Kelly’s admission of intimacy with Stefan, 
  simmering under the multitude of other shades that had 
  thrashed and bucked in her aura and tainted what should 
  have been a joyous reunion—or, at least, a fulfilling one for 
  Kelly—took center stage in her mind. Wendy’s absence had 
  been like the itch of a scab in the back of her mind, and she 
  had so wanted (needed) it to be scratched. But it had not 
  been. Instead, it had been ripped off in a wrenching tug as 
  she’d made admission after admission and watched the 
  wound well and then weep with the blood of the hurts. 
  Stefan had taken Wendy from her, too, now. Or, at least, 
  begun the process. Wendy didn’t understand that it was 
  rape every bit as much as if she’d been attacked in an alley 
  in the city. It didn’t matter that she wanted (needed) Stefan, 
  or the things he made her do; the wanting (needing) in the 
  first place was the violation. Kelly more than half suspected 
  that Wendy couldn’t let herself understand, lest she 
  recognize the shades of the same compulsions in how she 
  looked at Kelly. 
  The nights of ignorance came to a jangling halt as Kelly was 
  just settling down behind her desk to her night’s work. She 
  glanced at her watch and saw it was just shy of half past 
  nine. Her fingers closed around the receiver and she lifted 
  it to her ear absently as her free hand reached to flick on 
  the electric glow of her monitor. “Kelly Patterson speaking,” 
  she answered as the hard disk began to chug and clatter its 
  way to life. 
  
  156 
   
  “Kelly!” Julie practically blurted into the phone and Kelly 
  winced silently and belatedly pulled the phone from her 
  ear. “Kelly, I have great news! It’s going to be okay! It’s 
  alright now, he … he told me everything. I understand, and 
  we are going to be able to get through this. Isn’t that great?” 
  Kelly went very cold and still inside and out, and she was 
  disgusted to realize the first thought to enter her mind was 
  where to dispose of Julie’s body, and that the second was 
  that she was running out of places to dump corpses. A full 
  two seconds later she found her voice and very quietly 
  asked, “What do you mean, Julie?” Immediately, she added, 
  “No, don’t say anything on the phone. I’m coming to pick 
  you up.” 
  “What?” Julie asked, confused and with a prick of hurt at 
  Kelly’s failure to rejoice along with her bleeding through. 
  “No, it’s okay, Kelly. He told me everything and I’m okay 
  with it. I don’t have to break up with him. He told me about 
  the man, and how it’s just like a second job. He’s fine.” 
  “Julie,” Kelly said in a tone that brooked no argument; 
  particularly over the last six months, she’d mastered a level 
  of stubbornness that could match or exceed Julie’s. “I’m 
  coming to pick you up. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t 
  go anywhere, don’t call anyone. Just be ready when I get 
  there.”  
  Julie started to protest but Kelly cut it off by hanging up the 
  phone. Her chair nearly overturned as the force of her 
  standing overwhelmed the casters’ ability to navigate the 
  carpet of her office.  
  “Dorst!” she called sharply as she strode forcefully for the 
  door. The man stuck his head out around the kitchen 
  doorway obediently and their gazes met along the hall. He 
  rushed to swallow his mouthful of cereal and let the spoon 
  
  157 
   
  slop back into the bowl he was holding under his chin. 
  “Yes, Kelly?” he inquired eagerly. She barely took note of 
  his slavish devotion; her mind was running through too 
  many scenarios that churned her stomach far more. 
  “Get your coat,” she ordered as she swept past him into her 
  room. “We’re going out.” She could hear Dorst stuff a few 
  more quick mouthfuls of cereal into his face as he hurried 
  to acquiesce. Kelly swept her shoulder holster from the back 
  of her vanity chair and forced herself to watch in the mirror 
  as she strapped it into place across her chest and against her 
  ribs. She diverted her gaze only for a moment as she drew 
  the pistol and pulled back the slide to ensure the chamber 
  was clear and a round loaded and ready. She left the safety 
  off as she slid it back into the holster; she felt like the gun 
  as she met her own stare, loaded and ready to fulfill the 
  purpose of death. With a disgusted twist of her lips she 
  turned away from the mirror, snatched her coat from the 
  back of the chair, and stalked for the keys and the front 
  door. 
  She must have still been carrying the expression when she 
  met Dorst just outside her bedroom door in his long, sable 
  trench coat that bulged under the arm where his own gun 
  sat, because he drew up short and then back from her. She 
  scowled and shook her head, wordlessly beckoning for him 
  to follow as she snatched the keys from the table and left in 
  a rush.  
  The elevator seemed to flow like sap in the dead of winter, 
  or an elder’s ancient blood. The car bleeped its welcome as 
  she indicated her arrival with the button on the key fob, 
  and then they were roaring across the city at the limits of 
  Kelly’s ability to easily maneuver. Dorst was grim-faced, she 
  saw when she glanced to the side mirror outside his 
  
  158 
   
  window, but determined. He could see the hunter in Kelly, 
  tonight, and it awoke the same in him even if he wasn’t 
  aware of it. Kelly spun the wheel, popped the handbrake, 
  and slid 180 degrees on the snowy streets to pull up at the 
  curb on the far side of the road. She came to a stop with 
  Dorst’s door closest to the abandoned storefront.  
  “Go inside, there’s a backroom. Wait there, be quiet,” she 
  ordered, and with a nod of acknowledgement he hurried to 
  obey. Kelly was giving the car the fuel it craved before his 
  hand was fully clear of the door. The backend kicked out a 
  few degrees before the wide, hot tires burned through the 
  ice to find pavement and traction, and then she was off 
  again. 
  A glance at her watch as she pulled up to Julie’s brownstone 
  showed her she’d missed her promise by three minutes. 
  Close enough, she hoped, and left the car running and the 
  door open as she jogged for the front door. A glance up and 
  down the street showed lights in some of the neighborhood 
  houses, signs of life that would be curious enough at the 
  sound and presence of the sports car let alone at any kind 
  of confrontation.  
  Her knuckles met the cold wood briskly in a rap-rap-rap full 
  of urgency and impatience. Kelly repeated it within 
  seconds, and earned an impatient, “I’m coming, I’m 
  coming, Jesus” from Julie. Kelly ignored her protestations 
  and knocked a third time. “Fuck, Kelly, hang on,” Julie said, 
  just behind the door as the latch slid on the lock and a 
  chain rattled. “Just give me a second, I don’t know what the 
  hell is wrong with you ton—” She got no further as she 
  opened the door and Kelly practically lunged at her and 
  snagged a hold of her elbow. 
  “Come on,” Kelly demanded firmly, and backed the 
  
  159 
   
  exhortation with a wave of her supernatural allure. “Come 
  with me right now, Julie. I’m trying to save your life.” 
  Julie blinked, her gaze glazing just a little with the abrupt, 
  overwhelming sensation of a desire to trust Kelly, to do 
  what she wanted. To earn her approval. “What are you…?” 
  she began again, but Kelly was already dragging her through 
  the door, and she cut off with an urk. 
  “For once in your goddamned life,” Kelly spat at her as she 
  met resistance and Julie dug her heels in. She spun and 
  glowered, “Would you just not fight? Julie, I will explain as 
  much as I can, but not here, not now. It isn’t safe.” As soon 
  tell Kelly herself to stop fighting, she knew, but Kelly had 
  an edge in her grip on the woman’s heart. 
  “Julie?” Geoff called from somewhere inside and above the 
  front door. Kelly could hear his approaching footsteps 
  clearly, though Julie could only hear his inquisitive call. The 
  scowling woman’s expression smoothed into uncertainty as 
  she glanced between Kelly and the closed front door.  
  “Julie, please,” Kelly said more quietly. “Come with me.” 
  When Geoff called again, clearly enough that Kelly judged 
  him at the top of the stairs that lead down to the front door, 
  Julie bit her lip and glanced down at Kelly’s hand on her 
  elbow. The resistance ended and Julie hurried along to the 
  car with Kelly. The passenger door closed and Kelly jogged 
  around the wide nose of the car for her own open door. 
  Geoff appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the 
  light from within as she was sliding in behind the wheel. 
  “Julie!” he called, the exclamation cut in half by the 
  whumpf of the driver’s side door. Then the engine was 
  roaring with eager power and they were skimming away 
  from the figure charging into the street behind them. He 
  was no match for the car’s engine and soon they were away. 
  
  160 
   
  “What the hell is going on, Kelly?” Julie demanded. “What 
  is this? This is crazy!” 
  Kelly didn’t answer at once, having already to split her 
  attention between the somewhat dangerous driving and 
  watching for a tail. “Fucking talk to me!” Julie shouted, but 
  Kelly let several more seconds of empty road stretch out 
  behind her before she did. 
  “What, exactly, did Geoff tell you?” Kelly demanded. When 
  Julie started to insist on answers first, Kelly almost 
  connected with the piece of her power that would wipe 
  away any barriers to the answers she wanted. But Stefan’s 
  image flashed in her mind, and she saw Dorst’s tear-
  streaked face as it lit with more love for her than he had for 
  himself, and she balked at inflicting that on Julie. Instead, 
  she cut the mortal off with a shout.  
  “No! No,” she repeated more quietly when Julie abruptly 
  cut off. “Julie, this is more important than you know. Tell 
  me exactly what Geoff told you, right now. There is a good 
  chance that if you don’t, neither one of you will live to see 
  tomorrow.” 
  Julie gaped and from the corner of her eye Kelly saw that 
  she had finally gotten through to the mortal. The fight bled 
  out of her completely and when Julie spoke her voice was 
  quiet and scared. “He told me about the man he’d met, who 
  explained a plan to make a lot of money. I mean, I know it 
  wasn’t on the up and up, but he was only going to be 
  skimming from the bank and those bastards deserve it.” 
  Kelly didn’t argue, but instead resumed her watch in the 
  rearview. “And I know what you were saying about … about 
  drugs wasn’t really true. Geoff explained to me about the 
  deliveries.” 
  Kelly cut her glance to her friend but was drawn back to the 
  
  161 
   
  mirror as a set of lights bloomed in the reflection and cut a 
  glowing line across her eyes. “Deliveries?” Kelly inquired 
  when she saw the sedate pace of the car behind and how it 
  turned off shortly after coming into sight. 
  “Right,” Julie said. “The vials. From his, ah, supervisor he 
  said he was like. Kevin.” Jonas’s ghoul, Kelly recognized. “I 
  mean, it kind of grosses me out, the blood and everything. 
  But Geoff says it’s not like being high, he says it’s great and 
  he just feels better. He even offered to get me some, and he 
  wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t safe.” 
  Kelly pulled up outside the storefront, and Julie looked at 
  it in confusion. “What are we doing here, Kelly? What’s so 
  important?” 
  “Get out of the car, Julie,” Kelly said stiffly. “I need to show 
  you something inside.” 
  “Look, Kelly,” Julie said, and Kelly’s hands tightened on the 
  wheel to the sound of creaking leather as the mortal didn’t 
  budge from her seat. “I know you don’t like this, I can tell 
  you feel strongly about it, but it’s okay. I can just … just take 
  the vials too, and then I’ll be okay, right? You said they’re 
  only dangerous if you know about them or are trying to get 
  off the stuff. Not if you’re on it.” 
  “Julie, I need you to get out of the car, and go inside. Please. 
  Everything will be clear if you just go inside.” She lied so 
  easily to those closest to her, these nights. She could scour 
  herself down to the bone and she would never be free of 
  the coating of slime she felt on herself.  
  “Fine,” Julie said, a spark of her fire returning. The door 
  slammed hard enough to rock the car on its suspension and 
  Kelly jogged to catch up with her around the heated hood.  
  Kelly took advantage of Julie’s angry focus to draw her 
  Glock. She kept it tucked behind her hip, held low and 
  
  162 
   
  concealed. The two of them entered through the door, and 
  Julie stepped backward as she turned to look around the 
  mostly empty space. Her arms came up and she demanded, 
  “Well? Where’s the earth-shattering revelation, Kelly?” 
  Kelly stopped a few feet inside the door, quarter turned 
  away from Julie to keep the pistol out of sight. She met 
  Julie’s challenging gaze and tried to rely on her instinctive, 
  predator’s response to such challenge. It wouldn’t come; it 
  was leashed too firmly by the twisting revulsion she felt 
  trying to strangle her determination. She tried to summon 
  the knowledge of what would happen if this breach of the 
  Masquerade spread, to envision the fire and the sunlight 
  that would come to her and all of the kindred. It was a grey 
  and wavering image that came to mind and broke apart like 
  smoke to escape her grip just as easily. She tried to hate 
  Geoff for his loose lips, Jonas for his poor choices, Gory for 
  the very ambitions she had planted in him, Stefan for 
  making her this thing that had to kill to survive. None of it 
  held for more than the moment it took to ring hollow and 
  deflate like the thin bubble of rationalization it was. 
  At the heart of it all, the cold chord of truth rang. None of 
  the whys or hows of where she stood mattered; it was going 
  to be her finger on the trigger, and it had to be her finger 
  on the trigger. This was the loyalty she had chosen. No 
  matter how many people she enriched or set free of being 
  ground to dust in the apathetic machinery of the (in)justice 
  system, no matter how many cases she empowered Gibson 
  to resolve for the betterment of people all over the city, she 
  had chosen to protect first and foremost the monsters that 
  festered in the bowels of the domain. When kindred were 
  involved, there was only ever one solution. The same curse 
  that preceded their enduring one was what they spread, and 
  always to those they cared for most. No mortal could 
  
  163 
   
  survive with impunity in the presence of monsters. Though 
  she felt like she had been drowning in the sea of conflicting, 
  and slowly freezing, thoughts, Julie’s heart had beat only a 
  handful of times. 
  “I’m sorry, Julie,” Kelly whispered, and her friend’s 
  consternation turned to confusion. 
  “Sorry for what?” 
  “You shouldn’t have trusted me,” Kelly said, and lifted the 
  pistol so that it’s cyclopean gaze was level with the center of 
  Julie’s forehead. The storefront swam in crimson blurs and 
  as Kelly tried to blink through them she felt her vitae run 
  in cold rivulets down her cheeks. Julie’s eyes widened as she 
  stared at, without seeming to comprehend, what she was 
  seeing in Kelly’s hand.  
  “I wish…” Kelly began, but trailed off. There were too many 
  words to fit into the end of one sentence, and not enough 
  hours in the night to say them all. 
  “Look, Kelly,” Julie said quickly as her hands went up to 
  her shoulders. She spoke to Kelly, but at the pistol, as if 
  trying to soothe a strange, growling dog. “You don’t have to 
  do this. I told you … I’ll just … I’ll take the vials too, right? 
  And then … Or I won’t, and I won’t say anything. You 
  know I won’t say anything.”  
  “Why didn’t you just leave him, Julie?” Kelly pleaded as she 
  heard the first patter of her tears on the dusty concrete at 
  her feet. Julie’s eyes ticked down to them, then up to Kelly’s 
  face. 
  “You’re bleeding…” she began, and then, “Jesus Christ, are 
  you crying? What’s wrong with your tears?” Even as Kelly 
  pointed a gun at her, and cried blood, Julie made a half step 
  forward in an instinctive gesture to comfort Kelly, and it 
  twisted like a stake in Kelly’s heart. She couldn’t hold back 
  
  164 
   
  the small cry of pain but lifted the pistol half an inch to 
  draw the mortal’s attention back to it. 
  “Stay where you are, Julie,” Kelly warned as she sniffled and 
  swiped at her cheek with the fingers of her free hand. “I’m 
  so sorry, but there’s just…no…other…” 
  Kelly trailed off as an idea, a beacon of hope in the 
  drowning bleakness of her emotion, blazed to life in her 
  mind. There was another way. It would cost her, dearly, but 
  more dearly than killing her best friend for reasons Julie 
  would never understand? She berated herself for 
  overlooking the solution before, for plunging the two of 
  them into this nightmare because she had conditioned 
  herself to acting alone, to relying only on herself. She barely 
  had time to plunge herself into the recrimination when 
  movement pulled her attention back to the room. 
  Julie had taken advantage of Kelly’s distraction and the wild 
  cry of her rush was just beginning to vibrate in her throat. 
  “Julie! Wait!” Kelly cried desperately. Or tried to. The larger 
  woman’s shoulder slammed into her sternum and turned 
  the cry into a grunt. Her finger squeezed the trigger 
  reflexively and her heightened senses left her dazed in the 
  unexpected flash and crack of the nine-millimeter. The two 
  women went down in the dust in a tangle of limbs, and 
  Julie struck her over and over in the cheek as she continued 
  to scream and sob. Kelly’s skull bounced off the floor as she 
  tried to lift her head and speak through the blows, and the 
  world spun. Then a shadow was rising behind Julie, a 
  familiar, broad-shouldered and beer-bellied shadow that 
  had an arm tipped in nickel-plated gleam. 
  “Dorst! No!” she managed and tried to pull Julie out of the 
  way as the gleam rose behind her skull, to wrestle the 
  stronger woman out of the path of death. She struggled 
  
  165 
   
  against Julie’s grip as she tried to bring her pistol up to stop 
  Dorst before the irrevocable and inevitable happened.  
  The gleam came down in a flash, but not the flash of a 
  bullet given purpose. There was a wet crack as the butt of 
  the pistol hit the back of Julie’s skull and the scream trailed 
  off into a fading groan. Julie collapsed on top of Kelly, and 
  if she’d needed to breathe she would have found it difficult 
  under the deadweight that rested fully on her chest. Dorst 
  grunted as he hauled the unconscious woman off of Kelly 
  and rolled her onto her back beside her in the settling dust. 
  Kelly allowed herself a second to bask in the glow of relief 
  as her hearing finally ceased to ring and she heard the 
  sedate breathing and heartbeat of her friend. She reached 
  up to clasp Dorst’s wrist when he offered his hand. The 
  bruising and swelling in her face was mended by the time 
  she was upright and her blood did its old, healing trick. 
  “Thanks,” she said genuinely. “I’m glad you were here.” 
  “Me too,” Dorst replied, but she could hear the note of 
  uncertainty in his voice. He’d heard everything, of course. 
  Kelly reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her 
  phone. As she did, she instructed, “Tie her up, Dorst. But 
  be gentle. She’ll be going home tonight.” She could feel the 
  echo of relief in her own heart that she read in his 
  expression as she assured that. She dialed from memory, 
  and when the voice on the other end picked up she said, 
  “Jonas, we’ve got a problem I’m going to need your help to 
  clean up.” 
   
  March 22, 1999. 1:03 AM. 
   
  Jonas emerged from the storefront and Kelly flicked away 
  the half-finished cigarette. She stood from her lean against 
  
  166 
   
  the car. “It’s done?” she asked as she stuffed her hands into 
  the pockets of her jacket. 
  “Yeah, I took care of it. She’s going to wake up tomorrow 
  remembering Geoff having gone berserk and cracking her 
  over the head with a lamp. She won’t remember anything 
  about what he told her. She’s pretty strong-willed, but I’m 
  almost positive I got through eventually.” Kelly nodded her 
  acknowledgement and tried not to consider the specifics of 
  what getting through entailed. 
  “Thanks, Jonas. And Geoff?” 
  “Oh, I’ve already tied up that loose end. He, ah, he isn’t 
  going to be telling anyone anything anymore.” Kelly 
  nodded again, and he hesitated before adding, “Thanks for 
  giving me the chance to clean up the mistake. Sorry again. 
  I’m not sure how he was able to talk about me.” 
  “He didn’t,” Kelly started, but was interrupted by Jonas’s 
  men carrying the snoring Julie between them as they 
  brought her to the car waiting to take her back home. “He 
  talked about your man, Kevin, and about your little 
  deliveries.” He winced at that, but Kelly shook her head. 
  “Just be more careful in the future. We’ll call it even since 
  you helped me minimize the loss of life. This time.”  
  Jonas nodded, bid her good evening, and started toward the 
  car as well. Kelly drew him up short when she couldn’t stop 
  herself from inquiring, “And there won’t be any permanent 
  damage you said, right?” The look Jonas turned in her 
  direction was both considering and considerate. 
  “No,” he answered. “She’ll be fine.”  
  Kelly nodded once and dug in her jacket for the pack of 
  cigarettes.  Jonas finished the walk to the car and got into 
  the back seat. She was pushing the filter of the smoke 
  between her lips as it pulled away from the curb. She puffed 
  
  167 
   
  it alight as she turned to watch the tail lights disappear 
  around the corner and then got into her car in the haze of 
  her first exhale. Dorst turned to look at her from the 
  passenger seat as the interior light flicked out. 
  “She was your friend?” he inquired softly. 
  “Yes,” Kelly answered briskly and turned over the engine, 
  which responded as eagerly as ever. 
  “You were going to kill her.” It wasn’t a question, nor did 
  Kelly think he intended it to be one. He knew the eyes of a 
  murderer better than most. 
  Kelly paused, cigarette bleeding blue smoke into the air 
  between them where her hand rested on the shifter. “Yes,” 
  she admitted coldly and gave the engine gas to guide it into 
  the veins of the city. 
  “Good people, not perfect people,” Dorst said in the tone 
  of a mantra, but one which came with haunting rather than 
  calm. 
  Kelly didn’t answer as she headed for home. She was tired 
  of lying to people she cared about, tonight. 
   
   
   
   
   
  
  168 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Safe Words 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  June 1, 1999. 11:51 PM. 
   
  Cigarette smoke drifted blue-grey in whorls as strange to 
  behold as the angles of dreams. They curled in the air and 
  seemed, at times, to wrap around the lines of the woman 
  lying asleep on the bed to the woman who sat across the 
  room watching her. The smoke moved, shaped only in the 
  most distantly related way, by the slow, easy breaths of the 
  woman in the bed. The woman in the chair hadn’t 
  breathed for quite a long time, not by necessity. She lifted 
  the cigarette and breathed by choice. A long rush of smoke 
  snagged the whorls and shredded them like a dam before a 
  flashflood. The woman on the bed shifted, rolled a quarter 
  turn away. 
  Kelly stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the wide, 
  carved arm of the chair, and stood. Wendy would begin to 
  snore soon, she knew, from the posture of her throat. A 
  tiny rivulet of rusty red caught Kelly’s eye from across the 
  room, exposed as Wendy turned unknowing eyes away 
  
  169 
   
  from Kelly. Evidence of what she had given in the throes of 
  passion, and what Kelly had taken as the only real spur to 
  passion she knew. 
  Panting breaths buried in a shoulder as fingers clawed and 
  nails dug into cold flesh. Sweat and blood making breasts 
  slick and hot as they slid against cold and dry. Muscles 
  clenching and excitement gushing as the nails made pits of 
  fire in the skin. A final cry of release as fangs went into 
  shoulder and were gripped and caressed by muscle. When 
  the blood came, so did Kelly. 
  A light wave of hand cleared the blue-grey haze from around 
  her face and Kelly shot a last, lingering gaze at the exhausted 
  Wendy before she moved as silently as Death from the 
  room. The door clicked shut as she eased it closed. Doors 
  and hallway passed, ignored. There was only one room she 
  wanted to be in, and she stopped in front of the door that 
  stood closed on it. Wendy’s office—once hers—stood silent 
  even to senses as sharp as a paring knife. Her hand didn’t 
  rattle the ancient doorknob as she gripped it between finger 
  and thumb and turned it. The office welcomed her. 
  Arms outstretched, lips parted in lines of wanton paint. 
  Breasts glistening in the light of a single candle, giving the 
  pale, Midwestern complexion a dusky, exotic tan. Nipples 
  erect and casting dancing shadows like fangs across the 
  curve. Warm fingers wrapped and clung to the cold arc of 
  rib and shoulder and pulled welcomingly. A living thing 
  burning with need for the dead one whose hunger was 
  darker. 
  Kelly’s fingers pushed aside layers of high-gloss poster paper 
  and her eyes skimmed the artful lines of logo and slogan. 
  She appreciated the touchstone techniques that Wendy 
  came back to time and again, and she was helpless to avoid 
  
  170 
   
  noticing them. There, a line angled just so to imply motion. 
  Here, a slant to text that screamed energy. Everywhere, 
  Wendy. 
  Legs twined and slid. Lips pressed together as tongues 
  danced and spun. Hot clutching and clutched by cold, life 
  to death and death to life. Blood, so sweet and warm and 
  thick, slid across lipstick like gloss, shared between them. 
  Cold tongue sought the coppery pleasure, and warm 
  worked to share it. A heart beat hard enough for two, and 
  its echoes vibrated through its too-still counterpart. 
  Computer fans whirred as Kelly summoned electricity to 
  the circuits. Drives clicked and clacked as she let her fingers 
  trail across blotter, pen, papers. The brief glimpses of 
  Wendy’s psychic residue were weak, tasteless. A sip of water 
  (blood) when she wanted a pitcher. Kelly still stole what 
  comfort she could in the closeness. It eased her need even 
  as it teased her thirst for more. The computer screen 
  showed a Windows desktop and Kelly sat in the chair 
  formed to Wendy’s slightly larger frame and felt the 
  memory of her body. 
  Sharp burn and the smack of steel against flesh. A glitter of 
  rectangular metal catching candle light on the back swing. 
  Ropes pulled and restrained, burned on wrists that twisted 
  in mingled pain and pleasure. Welting flesh hot in lines 
  from fingers that caressed the curve of buttock and hip, but 
  cold and pale even as it welted. Writhing need mingled with 
  shame and humiliation made fangs ache and strain at full 
  extension. The scent of excitement, blooming as the sense 
  of power and control bloomed, fought the tang of blood in 
  the air. 
  Text slid past as Kelly paged through the files on the 
  computer. She skimmed the contents of files selected at 
  
  171 
   
  random. Mental snapshots of Wendy’s work and days 
  formed in her mind as she extrapolated and imagined 
  details and conversations. Coworkers—some faceless, some 
  all-too-clearly imagined in beauty and grace—came and went 
  across the stage of Kelly’s mind. The computer glowed 
  electrically as she turned in the chair and slid open drawers 
  to poke through their contents like an archeologist using a 
  brush to unearth secrets. 
  Pleading for release and held on the edge until vision began 
  to redden around the edges. Danger prickling and tingling 
  in every nerve as a lethal tightrope walk played out. Fingers 
  curled and touched and pinched and choked. The taste of 
  life on parted, gasping lips and thick in sinuses. Sheets 
  damp with sweat and stinking of humanity and sex and 
  blood. Desperate need to be obedient to a will greater than 
  hers at war with the quivering visceral demand to let go of 
  control. 
  Drawers closed and Kelly withdrew from the contours of 
  Wendy’s body. Silent, slow steps carried her around the 
  room, past the drafting table, the art and design magazines 
  in the haphazard fan on the table beside the armchair in 
  the corner. Her fingertips beat a nearly-silent staccato as 
  they trailed like sticks on fence pickets across the backs of 
  shelved books. Perfume, stale and dying and yet tenacious 
  in the air and on the furniture, inundated her and she 
  closed her eyes as she drank it in. The memory of Wendy’s 
  love hung about her still, too, and the two scents were 
  intoxicating. 
  Scrambling urgency to heed a demand for pleasure. Slime 
  of humiliation oozing along skin made sticky with sweat 
  and excitement it could no longer create for itself. 
  Fulfillment cresting like a climax and knowing that this 
  base purpose was the only proper way to be used, the only 
  
  172 
   
  reason to exist. Crawling shame and the taste of spit and 
  dirt as tongue lapped at floor under imperiously cold gaze. 
  Shoe leather gleaming fresh and black and streaked with 
  the touch of the same tongue. 
  Windows, dressed in velveteen gowns of brocade that were 
  divided to show the treasures behind the veil, stared black 
  and starry into the room. Kelly leaned into the desk and 
  stared back as she tried to imagine the grounds below 
  swathed in the golden silk of daylight, as Wendy would see 
  them. The panes showed her only the drab greys and 
  slinking sneakthief shadows of night’s embrace, and the 
  computer’s wan light reflecting from half of her face. She 
  met her own eye in the reflection and saw her pale 
  complexion like the cratered flesh of the moon, hanging 
  heedless over the world that struggled below. 
  Begging for more, knowing that no matter the pain, no 
  matter the cries, it would never be enough. It would never 
  be what was deserved. Ropes squeezing burning lines 
  around breast, and wrist, and ankle. Chair creaking with 
  helpless hips writhing. Palm hot and slick as it met cheek 
  hard enough to echo. Blood, cold and thick, running from 
  a lip swollen with the memory of other blows. Weeping 
  with cathartic climax as bitterly-delivered words scored 
  wounds deep and oozing to punctuate the blows. Release 
  and shame of the self came at the same time. 
  Kelly could feel the shallow valleys where the carpet 
  remembered the travel of Wendy’s desk chair. She bent to 
  run her fingertips along the trail, and in her mind’s eye saw 
  the mortal in a ghostly, brisk display of creative effort. She 
  watched the ethereal after-image move to and fro, adjusting 
  this, touching that, typing something else. She crawled 
  along the floor and ran her cheek along the tracks left by 
  the casters and closed her eyes as she prostrated herself on 
  
  173 
   
  the ground Wendy walked on. 
  Breaking point as pleasure crests and fades. Pillowing 
  breasts heaving in husking breaths, smeared with the blood 
  of tears. Cold, clutching arms wrapped around warm, 
  pounding ribs as weakness wins. Sobs wracking as 
  smoothing hand strokes the back of thick ringlets. Soothing 
  sounds under wretched hitches of weeping apology. The 
  care that never came no matter the pleas, before. 
  Kelly casually brushed her palms and knees off, passed a 
  hand over her cheek and felt flecks of dust settle on her bare 
  shoulder. She reached out and cut the power to the 
  machine illuminating the room. The sudden darkness, and 
  the concealment she felt like a shawl around her naked 
  shoulders as it fell, soothed her. The door closed behind 
  her as she stepped back into the hall.  
  
  174 
   
   
   
   
   
  A Case of Mistaken Identity 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  July 15, 1999. 9:46 PM. 
   
  Kelly fumed as Milwaukee’s lights coursed past the deeply 
  tinted windows of the stretch limo. Behind the shield, Eric 
  would navigate the trawling course until she made clear her 
  destination. She opted not to. It felt good to be in the 
  moving car, aimless and pacing like a cat in a cage. It 
  soothed her, which at the moment was very important for 
  a certain Mayor’s health. He had, it seemed, found a line 
  he would not cross and addiction be damned.  His refusal 
  had nearly cost him his life, and with his, her existence. The 
  bar had been far too crowded for so casual a killing. Perhaps 
  she should arrange for her next meeting to be more 
  private… 
  Memories flashed like bolts of lightning in her mind’s eye. 
  Julie in tears, then terror as she pleaded for her life. The 
  smell of dirt and dust in the air as Kelly was bowled over by 
  a desperate woman, and the tang of her own tears on her 
  lips. Dorst’s lifted arm, the surety that it would end with the 
  bark of a gun and a splatter of brain across her cheeks. She 
  
  175 
   
  felt sick. No, she wouldn’t handle the Mayor so roughly. 
  She didn’t have to. 
  “Look, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” he’d 
  begun, and though he’d continued speaking, she hadn’t 
  had to hear the excuses that would follow. Pleasant 
  apologies that rang so thin to her practiced ear that she had 
  very nearly thrown her martini in his face. The forms of 
  politick refusal never really changed, though they were 
  practiced with shades of skill. The mortal’s was nothing 
  beside Edie’s, or Lucina’s. The seatbelt made a quiet sound 
  of protest as she clenched her fist around it and she forced 
  herself to relax the grip. 
  It wasn’t that Kelly didn’t understand his position. The 
  party was pushing the Landlord Bill hard. With industry 
  returning to the city, real estate was about to boom. They 
  wanted their claws and money in deep before it happened. 
  He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and he had 
  looked hunted enough that he knew it. He wasn’t a fool; 
  you didn’t become a mayor of a major American city as a 
  fool. He knew she had gained an incredible amount of 
  weight, socially and politically, over the last year. He could 
  hardly turn around without running into her name. But his 
  party was his party, and their election funds put him in 
  office. He was between two opposing forces that seemed 
  ready and able to take his mayoral crown if they were not 
  mollified. 
  More, he no longer felt as threatened by Kelly. She could 
  see it in his eyes, and in the slow whirl of color that now 
  and then shone over his shoulder or in afterimage across 
  his gaze. She had been generous and his cocaine habit was 
  very well fed. That made certain suggestions of association, 
  suggestions that her public persona would not weather well. 
  Where she had previously had cards bearing his gratitude, 
  
  176 
   
  fear, and addiction in her hand, now that the game had 
  progressed she’d been forced to discard one. 
  When they’d met, she had been only a whisper in the halls 
  of power. Now, with her face plastered all over MTV and 
  her voice on the radio and her name in the newspapers, 
  there was much more for her to lose in exposing their 
  arrangement. Oh, she could construct layers of remove if 
  they were necessary. His subtle implication of a willingness 
  to let slip her own name if he should find himself behind 
  the eight-ball failed to take into account the ancient forces 
  he had no way of knowing about, but such endeavors were 
  unnecessarily distracting and costly. They were for the 
  moment, and he knew it, in an orbit of mutually assured 
  destruction. 
  A frisson passed down her spine and Kelly jolted out of her 
  thoughts. She hadn’t shivered like that since she was a 
  mortal, and it put her on high alert at once. She had a 
  sinking feeling in her gut that was more than the residue of 
  guilt at having considered murder as an alternative to 
  political maneuvering. She was, in the moment before she 
  did so, certain that she would see a car’s headlights turning 
  a corner half a block behind. She made out four silhouettes 
  in the car and felt the threat as surely as if they’d leered 
  menacingly at her. Kelly turned back to the interior of the 
  car and pressed the button to bring down the screen. 
  “Where to?” Eric asked. She noted his mild impatience, 
  tempered by the lingering caution of her mood as she had 
  left the bar. She used to—still did, sometimes—look at 
  Lucina with that wariness. 
  “We are being followed, Eric,” Kelly replied smoothly. Her 
  ire was fading as the Beast rose. There was blood in the 
  water, and like a nictitating membrane, her inherent lust 
  
  177 
   
  for violence and destruction was closing over her heart and 
  hardening her to it. She felt cold inside. “Do you happen 
  to have a gun handy? I left mine at home.” 
  The chauffer’s cap came off in the same sweep of arm that 
  saw him reach across to the glove box and pull a small black 
  automatic free. He flicked his gaze up to the rearview and 
  aimed the whirling toss of the gun expertly across the back 
  of the stretch.  
  Kelly snagged it two-handed out of the air and gave it a 
  quick, practiced once over. No serial number, safety off, 
  round in the chamber. She didn’t know the trigger 
  sensitivity and kept her index finger laid across the guard as 
  she set the pistol in her lap. 
  “Got ‘em,” Eric announced. “Sorry, I don’t know how I 
  didn’t pick that up sooner. They’re good, how’d you spot 
  them?” 
  Kelly didn’t answer, because she couldn’t. She didn’t know 
  why she had felt the need to look over her shoulder, nor 
  the source of the frisson. It had just been a premonition of 
  danger and though it had discomfited her, she was glad to 
  have felt it. “What do you want me to do?” Eric was asking 
  after a moment of her silence. 
  “Head toward Vernan and Blockside,” Kelly replied calmly. 
  Eric’s eyes flashed shine in the mirror as they flicked at her. 
  “You want to head to the Barrens? That’s twice as far as the 
  house.” 
  “I know. Be calm, don’t let them know they’ve been 
  spotted. Stick to the surface streets.” 
  He nodded into the mirror and turned his eyes back to the 
  road. Kelly shifted slightly on the seat so that she could 
  watch the headlights in the rearview. The gun felt heavy and 
  cold in her hand and lap, and her thumb caressed the slide. 
  
  178 
   
  With Eric, she might be able to handle four. It would 
  depend on how they came, she thought, and whether they 
  were kindred. She realized she was waiting with 
  anticipation for them to try to make a move on the long car 
  and tried to tamp down her eagerness. 
  The old Budweiser factory, furnaces cold for the last five 
  years, loomed over the street even from behind several 
  hundred feet of open parking and loading space. The stacks 
  sat like a trio of pillars supporting the sky and Kelly spared 
  the place a glance. Its sorrowful emptiness was enough of a 
  reminder of what she had yet to do that she could suppress 
  the Beast’s desire to face and destroy her pursuers. Fighting 
  was dangerous, and death was all too often assured for one 
  of the combatants. A glance in the mirror told her they were 
  still there. 
  “Coming up on that intersection, Kelly,” Eric warned with 
  a glance at her. “What then?” 
  As the last of the tumbling fence surrounding the plant 
  passed the window beside her, Kelly judged them to be only 
  a few minutes out from the outskirts of the city. She 
  reached for the other small machine with which she killed 
  and pulled her cell out of the purse beside her on the seat. 
  Two rings, tinny and electronic, and then a gruff voice 
  answered. “This is Eddie. Speak.” 
  “Eddie, it’s Kelly. I find myself in need of a favor, and since 
  I helped you out with that Big V thing and happened to be 
  in your neighborhood…” 
  “What the fuck are you doing in my neighborhood, 
  Patterson? Doesn’t just crossing into the Barrens lower your 
  net worth?” Kelly’s eyes half-lidded at the light jab, but she 
  wasn’t in the mood for ribbing. 
  “If you’re too busy, Eddie, I’m sure there’s someone else I 
  
  179 
   
  could call.” 
  “No, no,” he hastened to assure. “What do you need?” 
  “I seem to have picked up some unwanted attention, 
  perhaps you could delay them a few minutes.” 
  “What kind of attention?” Kelly described the car and the 
  glimpse of its occupants she had had. “Alright, how many 
  minutes?” 
  “In my practice, I have found that fender-benders often can 
  be quite taxing when one or both parties don’t have 
  insurance,” Kelly replied casually, and flicked her gaze up at 
  the mirror again. Her index finger stroked the curve of the 
  trigger guard, on the edge of plunging into it. 
  “Alright, I gotcha. Where at?” Kelly gave him an 
  intersection a few more minutes beyond and hung up. 
  Now, there was but to wait. 
  “Remind me to stay on your good side,” Eric murmured 
  into the windshield, low enough that a mortal would have 
  missed it. She was not constrained by such mortal frailties. 
  Kelly’s tongue stroked the line of her fang, and she watched 
  with anticipation for the destruction that would come from 
  behind. The car drove on. 
  The light was turning red as the limo cruised toward the 
  indicated intersection, but Kelly instructed Eric to go 
  through. Even if the street weren’t deserted in this part of 
  town at this time of night, he would have without question, 
  and his foot never touched the brake as they approached. 
  The car behind put on a sudden burst of speed when it 
  became obvious Kelly’s driver was about to run the red. 
  Kelly’s grip on the pistol tightened and she felt like a coiled 
  spring eager for release. Maybe Eddie would fail, and it 
  would fall to her to put them down that dared to test her. 
  Dimly, she hoped he would. 
  
  180 
   
  The long black car slid through the intersection without 
  pause, and the smaller sedan behind started through. 
  Disappointment and elation warred as the pick-up truck 
  crashed into the tail end of the sedan and spun both 
  vehicles to a stop in the street. The scream of tortured metal 
  was a poor substitute for the screams of the wounded and 
  terrified, though she didn’t acknowledge that fact to herself.  
  “Pull up here,” she instructed, and the car moved for the 
  curb at once. She rocked as it came to an abrupt halt and 
  turned to watch the incident over an arm lifted over the 
  seat. 
  Eddie was climbing from the pick-up truck, and though the 
  wave of his arms and the lean of his aggressive posture was 
  exaggerated to her practiced eye, it seemed to have the 
  appropriate effect on the four clambering, shaken, from the 
  sedan. Mortals, then, she thought. No kindred would be so 
  bruised from an impact like that. One looked to be nursing 
  a broken arm, or sprained wrist. Kelly’s tongue found her 
  fang again but paused as a scowl tensed in her brow. The 
  four did not seem like gang bangers, or hitmen, or even a 
  team of ghouls. 
  The driver was a long-haired man in khakis and a polo shirt, 
  and around his neck hung what looked like a camera 
  viewfinder. He had his hands up, apparently trying to 
  mollify the shouting Eddie. He was, she thought, lucky that 
  Eddie’s rage was a show. A Gangrel unleashed like that 
  would make short work of him. His passenger, the woman 
  with the arm cradled to her midsection wavering on her feet 
  on the sidewalk, was dressed in business casual, and the way 
  she had salvaged a briefcase from the wreck even as shock 
  seemed to be setting in spoke of a practiced assistant. The 
  two climbing out of the backseat were bringing hardware 
  with them, but it was far too bulky to be a weapon. Rather, 
  
  181 
   
  they seemed to be arguing with each other about how best 
  to tend the mangled video camera. 
  “Shit,” Kelly said quietly. She turned back to the front of 
  the car and hunched forward to pass the gun back to Eric. 
  Her thumb found the safety without thought before she 
  gave it over, and his found it again before it went into the 
  glove box. Kelly heard the click of it as she was hurrying out 
  of the car. 
  “—the fuck do you mean, it was an accident?!” roared Eddie, 
  and the long-haired man flinched back. “You ran the 
  fucking red! And now my truck is trashed! Who’s gonna 
  pay for that shit? You think I got money for insurance in 
  this economy?!” 
  Kelly hurried her step. The long-haired man was too 
  distracted to notice, and the two from the backseat had 
  their attention on the camera and their own spat, but the 
  woman saw her. She swayed, blinking at her arm cradled 
  into her belly and then at the case, as if trying to sort out 
  how to grow a third arm. Kelly was only a hundred feet away 
  when she seemed to decide to leave the case and took an 
  unsteady step toward the gowned figure clicking down the 
  sidewalk. Kelly lifted a hand and stopped her before she 
  made it more than two steps. 
  Eddie’s tirade faltered as he glanced over and saw Kelly 
  approaching, and the confusion that flickered across his 
  craggy features would have been plain to anyone not too 
  intimidated, distracted, or injured to pay attention. 
  Thankfully, Kelly thought, at the moment that was only 
  her. She gave him a ‘play along’ look and came up to put 
  an arm around the woman’s shoulders. At first the mortal 
  seemed grateful, and turned to smile over at Kelly, but the 
  gratitude withered and for a moment the woman didn’t 
  
  182 
   
  seem sure whether she wouldn’t rather be far away from 
  Kelly. 
  “Are you alright? That looked terribly frightening,” Kelly 
  soothed, and applied just a touch of her Presence to ease 
  her past the moment of withdrawal. “You look hurt; do you 
  need an ambulance?” 
  “What? Oh, I …” She cut her glance over her shoulder at 
  the long-haired man, and Kelly could see her searching for 
  direction that never came. “I should…” she trailed off and 
  trembled in Kelly’s arms like prey. 
  “Here,” Kelly urged. “Have a seat. You’re shaking, poor 
  girl.” She deftly guided the mortal to the curb and had her 
  sit before Kelly’s fangs did more than edge toward 
  extension. When she set the case beside the seated woman 
  she paused to inhale the aroma of vulnerability oozing from 
  her. 
  “Let me just call my boss, okay?” Long-hair was saying as 
  Kelly shut the woman out of her awareness and turned 
  toward the shouting. “She can sort all of this out. I’m sure 
  they’ll cover your repairs.”  
  Kelly could hear the fear in that admission. They would, 
  she was sure, if this matter ever reached their desks, handle 
  the costs of Eddie’s aged truck, but heads would roll—his, 
  specifically, they both knew—over the cost incurred. 
  Particularly since Kelly herself was now on the scene. 
  “Excuse me,” Kelly cut in gently, and glided in between 
  them as gracefully and lightly as on any ballroom floor. As 
  if she were not edging herself closer to the smoking 
  wreckage of cars in a blighted neighborhood in the middle 
  of the night. She turned her back to the mortal and pulled 
  a card from her purse. “I’m sure there’s no need to get 
  upset. I’d like to pay for your repairs personally. Please, just 
  
  183 
   
  call my office at that number tomorrow and we’ll sort 
  everything out. Enid will be happy to make any payment 
  arrangements you require. Cash, even, if it suits your 
  mechanic of choice.” 
  Kelly held her conciliatory smile and gracefully aloof 
  posture while Eddie went through the motions of 
  grumbling about the situation. He pocketed the card and, 
  with a lightly mischievous twinkle in his eye, said at last, 
  “You got a pen? You’ll need to know where to have it towed, 
  and I’m gonna need cab fare. I got to get to work.” 
  The mischief fled his eyes when Kelly’s flashed, but she held 
  her smile. Eddie cut a glance over her shoulder as if worried 
  the mortal might sense the tone of Kelly’s icy gaze through 
  the back of her head. “Of course,” she crooned. “I’ll be 
  happy to provide.”  
  Fingers dipped into purse again to retrieve moleskin and 
  engraved pen, as well as a billfold. A few moments later, 
  and a hastily-faked phone call ordering a cab to an 
  intersection up the road, Eddie was off and Kelly watched 
  him go for a moment as she marshalled her temper. A final, 
  needless heave of breath to settle herself and she turned 
  back with a sympathetic smile on her painted lips to the 
  now-clustered and somewhat embarrassed-looking mortals. 
  “Thanks, that was starting to get a little intense,” said long-
  hair, as he pulled his pony tail around his shoulder and 
  smoothed it in the gesture of a practiced compulsion. 
  “I’m certain he was merely concerned about his truck. They 
  do not, after all, grow on trees, and this is Milwaukee,” Kelly 
  soothed and moved away from the wreckage to the curb 
  toward them. A slender-fingered hand, cold as the grave 
  and her without the reserves to safely conceal that fact, 
  extended toward long-hair. “Kelly Patterson. Pleasure to 
  
  184 
   
  meet you, if perhaps in less than ideal circumstances.” 
  He took her hand and Kelly nudged with her Presence 
  again to tug his attention away from the start at the chill. 
  “Is everyone alright? That looked like something out of a 
  movie.” She let her gaze drift to the pieces of camera being 
  held by the young men in the baseball caps, and they cast 
  their eyes down self-consciously. Long-hair winced. 
  “I’m sorry, Miss Patterson,” long-hair admitted. “We know 
  who you are. We were following you. It wasn’t really 
  supposed to…” He trailed off and stroked his pony tail as 
  he scowled at the wreck ticking its way toward cool in the 
  intersection. 
  “Following me?” Kelly asked, and lifted a brow. She thought 
  she managed an expert portrayal of surprise, but the bleary-
  eyed assistant blinked at her with a small frown of 
  confusion. “Are you paparazzi, then?” 
  Another wince, and a prick of curiosity from Kelly. “The 
  label sent us to capture some biopic footage, but they knew 
  you wouldn’t be thrilled at the idea and so…” He trailed off 
  with another stroke of his hair. The hiss of skin on dry and 
  split ends irritated her, and some quality of her expression 
  must have betrayed that as he jerked his hand away from 
  the pony-tail suddenly. 
  “Oh my,” Kelly replied. The trembling woman stepped 
  back from her without seeming to notice. She was pale with 
  shock and pain. “And how long have you been following 
  me?” she inquired, searching back through her memories 
  to any recent opportunities for exposure. The assistant 
  squeaked and Kelly’s gaze slid slowly to hers, unwarmed by 
  the polite smile that curved Kelly’s lips. 
  “We only started tonight,” long-hair admitted. “We…” He 
  trailed off and Kelly turned her attention back to him but 
  
  185 
   
  it was one of the younger men who answered. 
  “He said he was sure you would be at your office, so it 
  wasn’t until we heard your car was spotted at the bar that 
  we could pick you up. Only, like, thirty minutes of reel by 
  now.” He seemed to be coming out of the blush of shame 
  at being caught and took half a step toward her. “Hey, 
  where are you going anyways? This place is a dump.” 
  “I guess you could say I’m slumming,” Kelly deflected, and 
  turned back to the assistant. “Are you sure you’re alright? 
  Maybe we should get you to a hospital.” Long-hair and his 
  cohorts finally seemed to notice the woman and her arm. 
  The guilt they showed her lasted far less than that which 
  they had shown for being caught in their tail. “Let me have 
  my car take you to Milwaukee General, just in case. I’ve 
  seen a few personal injuries that only develop after the 
  shock of the collision wears off.” 
  Kelly lifted her arm and waved the stretch closer, and Eric 
  backed it expertly along the curb until it was only a dozen 
  feet away. The red wash of tail lights painted the scene with 
  a scarlet veneer, and the mortals looked at her uncertainly. 
  Long-hair reached halfway to his pony tail and stopped, 
  then licked his lips. “We’ll, uh, we’ll just get a cab. No need 
  to trouble yourself. I’m sure you have somewhere to be.” 
  “I do,” agreed Kelly, and gestured to the collision. “Here, 
  arranging the towing.” 
  The courageous one blinked at her and gave the area 
  another look around. By now, there were the indications of 
  life slinking out of the woodwork to peer at the scene. He 
  looked back at her and scowled, “Here? Are you sure?” Kelly 
  answered him with a tight smile. 
  “We didn’t all grow up with silver spoons in our mouths,” 
  she answered. “I’ll be fine. I’ve heard they’re more afraid of 
  
  186 
   
  you than you are of them,” she added in a lighter aside. He 
  looked at her seriously, as if of her, he could believe it.  
  She waved to Eric, and with cap back in place, he hurried 
  out of the car to her side. “Let’s see these good people to a 
  hospital, shall we, Eric? And make sure that camera is 
  securely in the trunk. I’d hate for pieces to become a hazard 
  in the event of another accident.” She colored her caution 
  with a weighted look and Eric gave a nod. The camera and 
  its film would never find its way back to the crew. 
  Her driver helped the mortals into the back and took the 
  assistant and her case up to the passenger seat beside him. 
  Kelly watched it glide away from the curb as she called to 
  have the wrecks towed away. Despite her petite frame, signs 
  of wealth, and solitude, none of the vaguely menacing 
  bodies that slunk around the edges of her perception 
  seemed eager to test the reason for her confident bearing. 
   
  July 16, 1999. 8:07 PM. 
   
  “Sandy Sherman,” answered the tired-sounding voice. Kelly 
  glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was barely eight. 
  “Long day, Sandy?” 
  “Kelly! Oh, I’m sorry,” she brightened. “No, I just…” She 
  trailed off in a sigh. “Look, I want to apologize for the 
  camera crew. It was a decision made over my head, and I 
  told them it was a bad idea. They just aren’t … used to 
  someone not wanting the spotlight time that comes with a 
  hit album.” 
  “It’s not even silver yet, let alone platinum. I’d hardly call it 
  a hit album. It’s alright, Sandy. I don’t blame you…much,” 
  she added in a tone three shades lighter than she felt. “Just 
  let me know next time they send someone, will you? I’ll 
  
  187 
   
  make sure they get me from the best side.” Sandy laughed, 
  though it was short and somewhat forced. 
  “Will do, Kelly. But I don’t think they’ll be trying that 
  again. Cease and desist letters have that effect, at least until 
  legal finds a way around them. I sometimes think they 
  forget you aren’t just a pretty voice.” 
  “I’d like to think I’m a fairly pretty face, too,” Kelly replied, 
  to another brief laugh from Sandy. 
  “Yeah, that too. Listen, I know this sounds kind of shitty of 
  me, but…” Sandy trailed off, uncertain and embarrassed to 
  Kelly’s keen ear. 
  “Go ahead,” Kelly urged. 
  “Do you know what happened to the camera? The 
  operators said they put it in the trunk of your car on the 
  way to the hospital and swear up and down they never got 
  it back.” 
  “Oh? I wouldn’t know. I stayed on the scene to call a tow 
  truck. But you know those types, Sandy. I’m sure one of 
  them is just shopping whatever footage they have to some 
  celebrity gossip rag for a quick payday.” 
  “Hm? Maybe…” Sandy said, but Kelly knew she wasn’t 
  content with that explanation. She would have to be 
  content with none, then, Kelly thought. “Anyways, it 
  doesn’t really matter I guess. They said they never got 
  anything useful.” 
  “Pity,” Kelly answered dryly and Sandy’s answering chuckle 
  was weak. 
  “Uh, was there something you needed, though? I’ve been 
  babbling, but you were the one to call me.” 
  “Nothing much, Sandy, I just wanted to know if you had 
  any numbers for me on merch sales,” Kelly lied. 
  
  188 
   
   
   
  
  189 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Rumor and Reputation 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  June 3, 1999. 9:51 PM. 
   
  Monaghan tugged at the collar of his monkey suit. He hated 
  these fundraising things. People thought there was a lot of 
  money in politics, and Monaghan supposed that wasn’t 
  always a myth, but most of the wealth went straight into 
  campaigns. Which was, of course, why he got into the 
  business. He’d run four campaigns since starting his firm 
  and won three of them. The loss barely counted, anyways. 
  Some mayoral hopeful in a town just large enough to count 
  as a city. None of those could afford his rates anymore, so 
  he didn’t worry too much about what that candidate did to 
  his resume. 
  He looked around at all the bored people milling around 
  the reception room, wondering what miniscule portion of 
  foreign crap they’d be fed at five grand a plate. He tried to 
  pick out the ones who could be good for more than the 
  mandatory minimum donation of fifteen gees. Pickings 
  
  190 
   
  seemed thin. Monaghan scowled. Milwaukee was supposed 
  to be deep rust belt red. Why did these donors seem to be 
  eyeing his client like a pariah? Well, that was why he was 
  here, ostensibly working for Kuper. Market research. He 
  could make do with the paycheck from a city councilman’s 
  campaign, but a mayor’s? There was another Porsche in 
  that. 
  There were, of course, the usual collection of eccentrics. 
  More of them than usual, and at least some of those didn’t 
  seem to be eye fucking Kuper. The eccentrics, Monaghan 
  had come to learn, tended to lean hard to the right. Where 
  had that one been, he wondered to himself as he swallowed 
  champagne. The one that had dressed like he’d walked out 
  of some ponce play like Les Misérables or something. God, 
  his French accent had been wretched. The fruit—Meunier 
  had been his name—could talk however he wanted to, 
  though, and Monaghan would have kept on smiling at him 
  so long as the checks kept coming. “What do elections go 
  for these nights?” he’d asked. Where the fuck was that 
  party? He couldn’t really remember. He did remember the 
  hundred and fifty grand on the check the guy had had 
  someone cut. “These nights.” Those words had stuck out. 
  Fucking weird way to talk. 
  “Oh shit,” Kuper groused at his shoulder. Kuper liked to 
  grouse things. Kuper was always grousing something. 
  “Don’t look now. That bitch Patterson is here.” 
  “Who?” Monaghan asked and exchanged his empty flute 
  for a full one as a guy in a tux that looked a bit more 
  expensive than his own carried a tray past. “Does she 
  donate big?” 
  “Yeah,” Kuper said. “But blue. I don’t even know why she’s 
  here. She could sink the donor lists tonight. Some people 
  
  191 
   
  are starting to call her the Kingmaker, but she’s getting all 
  the wrong people crowned. I still can’t figure out how she 
  stays in tight with the Republicans like she does. Must have 
  some kind of guardian angel.” 
  Monaghan let the bubbles of the champagne tingle on his 
  tongue as he considered her. She seemed to disappear at 
  times into the crowd, several inches shorter than most of 
  them. Her frame was slight, barely a handful of tit, but at 
  least she looked like she had hips and an ass you could grab 
  onto if you bent her over a desk. Jesus, what did it say about 
  him that even his fantasies revolved around work these 
  days? Whatever. She was attractive enough, but he got the 
  impression he didn’t want to try to fuck her. There was 
  something about her, like she was giving him the cold 
  shoulder from across the room before she even noticed 
  him. Monaghan didn’t like feeling like he wasn’t good 
  enough to talk to someone, so of course he drained his glass 
  in one long swallow and switched it out for a full one. 
  “You know her?” he asked and shot a glance at Kuper. The 
  councilman hesitated. “Alright, so what’s she got on you?” 
  “What? Nothing. No one has anything on me.” Even if he 
  wasn’t just on the hook for the Mayoral run, he would have 
  dumped Kuper. There’s only one person you don’t lie to, 
  and that’s your campaign manager. 
  “Alright,” Monaghan said derisively. “Well then, stop 
  looking like she makes you want to piss yourself and 
  introduce me.” 
  Kuper choked on his swallow of champagne. When he 
  finished spluttering he demanded, “What? What do you 
  want to meet her for? I told you, she’s deep into the 
  Democrats.” 
  “Grow a pair. You obviously think you’re going to have 
  
  192 
   
  competition for your seat this cycle, or I wouldn’t be here. 
  I need to know what that competition looks like. Now are 
  you going to introduce me, or did you want to pay me just 
  to be a set piece?” 
  Kuper groused, but Monaghan wasn’t listening. He 
  followed the man through the crowd, pausing a few times 
  to give obligatory greetings to guests. Monaghan kept half 
  his attention on the petite blonde in the clinging black 
  gown. She seemed to know what she was doing in 
  sabotaging Kuper’s campaign. Monaghan watched as she 
  moved from one eccentric to the next, spoke to each briefly 
  and congenially. Like one of their own. Worse, those 
  bastards seemed to defer to her. At least most of them. That 
  guy in the fucking overalls and bowtie looked at her more 
  like … an equal? Fuck, this was going to be a strange run. 
  One for the books. 
  A lawyer wanting a judgeship nomination in exchange for 
  a laughably small donation wandered away and Monaghan 
  tugged Kuper down to hiss in his ear, “Get me over there 
  now, or you won’t have a goddamned cent to run with!” 
  Kuper winced, but whether from the force of Monaghan’s 
  grip on the back of his neck, or from the content of his 
  words wasn’t clear, nor did Monaghan care. Kuper 
  straightened when released and the line they cut was more 
  direct. 
  By the time Kuper was pushing politely past the last 
  obstacle, Monaghan had pumped him for as much 
  information as the man had and could be coaxed to give 
  up. Fucking lawyers. If he had a dollar for every time a 
  lawyer gave him a headache, he’d never have to run another 
  campaign. Harvard lawyer, or so Kuper said he had heard. 
  Some hotshot, hush-hush partner in her firm. Mob? Maybe. 
  But mob never leaned left. He felt his features settle into 
  
  193 
   
  the oft-practiced smile enhanced by several thousand 
  dollars’ worth of dental work. He could win an Oscar on 
  that smile, if they gave them out for one role played 
  perfectly. 
  She had moved beyond the noticeably fucked up guests and 
  was talking to the Jap. He didn’t know who had invited a 
  fucking slant to a Republican fundraiser, but God bless 
  them for trying, he guessed. As long as it didn’t end up a 
  soundbite on tomorrow’s news. Monaghan strained to pick 
  up their conversation as they approached and sought a 
  smooth ice-breaker like any expert salesman. Was she 
  speaking fucking Chinese? Who the fuck was this woman? 
  As if she could hear his thought, too soon to hear his 
  footsteps, she turned to face him and Kuper. The light 
  catching in her brown eyes, giving them flecks of amber 
  around the edges, took his breath away. From a distance, 
  he’d thought she looked boyish from the short-cropped 
  hairstyle. This close, her gloss-painted lips full and curved 
  in a cordial smile, her skin like pale silk he longed to touch, 
  the studious intensity of her glittering eyes was anything but 
  boyish. He cleared a lump in his throat as he realized Kuper 
  was stammering his way through an introduction. The way 
  her gaze slid from Kuper to him at the sound was subtly 
  unnerving. This woman was gorgeous—he was definitely 
  going to be jerking off thinking about her later—but that 
  look in her eyes was terrifying. 
  “Jimmy Monaghan,” he jumped in when Kuper seemed to 
  forget his name in her eyes. He stuck his thick-fingered 
  hand out toward her, and suddenly found himself absurdly 
  self-conscious of the thick callouses on his palm. “But 
  everyone just calls me Monaghan. Or Boss.” 
  What the fuck was he saying? This woman was not going to 
  
  194 
   
  be impressed by his staff. Laugh, damn you, he forced 
  through the shock of embarrassment at her not-quite-
  patronizing smile. His laugh was too late, and too forced. 
  Her hand was as cold as ice when she put it in his. The 
  strength of her grip surprised him, and though he jerked 
  his own grip firmer to match she made no sign of pain 
  when he over-reacted by several pounds.  
  “Kelly Patterson,” she answered, and good God in His high 
  chair, her voice. Monaghan cleared his throat again and 
  jerked his hand back. 
  “Nice to meet you,” he managed. “Jake’s been telling me all 
  about you.” He didn’t fully realize what she was doing until 
  it was done, but with half a step and a fraction of a turn of 
  her attention, she included the slant in the conversation. 
  Whatever. If it gave him a shot at getting into those skirts 
  later, he’d play nice with the immigrants. 
  “Has he,” she replied curiously. Monaghan had never really 
  known a voice he’d call ‘graceful’ before tonight, but he 
  honestly couldn’t put another word on it. Her voice 
  sounded like grace. He wondered if she talked dirty when 
  she fucked. “I assure you, at most half of the worst bits are 
  true.”  
  Monaghan realized he was nearly aghast to hear her 
  demurral. Kuper had called her a bitch, but the senile old 
  fuck must have been thinking of someone else. There was 
  that look in her eyes, but Jesus wept, there was no way this 
  woman could be the enemy. “So, you must be the ringer I 
  heard was coming in from Madison.” He blinked and 
  registered her assertion. 
  “I don’t know about a ringer, Miss Patterson.” 
  “Kelly, please. We’re all friends here.” His eyes ticked to the 
  chink and when she didn’t waver he continued. 
  
  195 
   
  “Kelly, then. Thanks. Anyways, I can’t say I’m much of a 
  ringer. More of a new kid on the block. Jake said your 
  practice was local … family in Madison?” Maybe that was 
  how she knew the money. Harvard wasn’t cheap, either. 
  “No, I had dinner with Senator Kohl the other night,” she 
  answered with a lilt of fingers. “She mentioned the Mayor 
  was most distraught to have lost your counsel. She 
  mentioned hearing you were coming here for a campaign 
  but …” Her gaze ticked to Kuper, measuring. She made a 
  moue that made Monaghan’s sack tingle. “Well, I’m not 
  one to judge by rumor. I’m certain someone merely got a 
  wire crossed somewhere about who you were coming to 
  manage.” 
  Dinner with the Senator. But she hadn’t been in Madison. 
  He’d only left a few days ago, and the Senator had been … 
  Jesus, Monaghan’s in with the Senator’s office had her in 
  Milwaukee for one night late last week. He blinked. Had 
  the Senator come to Milwaukee just to see her? Couldn’t 
  be. Why didn’t he know this woman?  
  “I’m plagued by rumor and reputation in equal measure, it 
  seems,” he managed to say at last. “I’m surprised to meet 
  you here, though,” he admitted. “I hear you’re on the 
  wrong side of the fence.” 
  “Now it is my turn to be victim of rumor and reputation,” 
  she countered. “While it’s true that I have recently 
  supported several Democrat candidates and policies, I’m no 
  enemy to business. I own one myself, after all. I admit, I’m 
  crashing this party. I didn’t receive an invitation to respond 
  to, and so will have to skip out before the dinner portion, 
  but I did manage to arrange for an invitation or two for 
  some friends of mine.” 
  “Well Kuper,” Monaghan said, and clapped his client on 
  
  196 
   
  the shoulder. The thinner man almost sloshed champagne 
  over his wrist. “I think we have a double agent on our 
  hands.” 
  “Hardly,” she answered with a laugh that rang like a bell. 
  Jesus, he had never wanted a woman so badly as he did this 
  one. “But I like Councilman Kuper, and I think he is, for 
  his riding, the best candidate for the city. So, I thought I’d 
  lend what help I could to his re-election efforts, even if the 
  next election isn’t for quite a while.” 
  Monaghan knew in that moment that his fate dangled in 
  her hand. She knew he was here doing research for 
  someone else’s campaign. She knew that the wrong word to 
  Kuper about him, at the right time, would end with him 
  blackballed not just here in Podunk Milwaukee, but maybe 
  in the state. The flipside to never lying to your campaign 
  manager was that your campaign manager was trustworthy 
  enough not to lie to. That meant not ditching candidates 
  mid-run. 
  “Good to get an early start on these things, you know?” he 
  asked carefully, and the way the gentle smile widened 
  slightly he knew she understood the undertones. “Why 
  don’t you make an appointment with my office sometime? 
  We’ll have lunch and I’ll bore you with details about my 
  work.” 
  “I may just do that, Monaghan,” she agreed, and his heart 
  leapt at the idea. “In the meantime, I wanted to introduce 
  Mr. Xu. He is one of Milwaukee’s most recent industrialists. 
  His plastics plant will be ready for operation in the next 
  month. Unfortunately, there remains a small zoning matter 
  to resolve, something about space for a parking lot 
  expansion as the plant will require roughly twice the 
  number of employees as the previous owners had. I was 
  
  197 
   
  wondering if we might …”  
  Monaghan didn’t notice when he fell under the spell of her 
  words. He barely noticed when the slant had almost no 
  accent and for fucking once he could understand one of 
  them. What he did notice was how she got Kuper 
  promising to bring up the zoning approval—without leaning 
  on implied blackmail even once—and Monaghan himself 
  practically begging to make sure he did it at the next 
  meeting. He also noticed when she had Xu cutting a check 
  for seventy-five grand. Later, he would run through the 
  agreement and realize that she’d slipped in a city-funded 
  basketball park. His head was spinning and he felt like she 
  kept trying to drown him into acquiescence with those big, 
  brown eyes by the end of the meeting. He felt wrung out, 
  like he’d just been through the last three hours of a close 
  election waiting for the final tally, but the meeting couldn’t 
  have been more than fifteen minutes. 
  “I think you all have your lovely meal to attend soon,” she 
  was saying as Xu was walking away smiling and thanking 
  Kelly for letting him give an exorbitant donation. “But I 
  wanted to make sure you met an old friend of mine, first. 
  Party crashing, remember? I’m afraid I’ll have to go before 
  the appetizers arrive. You really must meet my friend, 
  however. Mister Detonas? Yes, hello again. Let me 
  introduce Councilman Jake Kuper and his campaign 
  manager Jimmy Monaghan.” 
  Monaghan took in the fruit standing in front of him, and 
  if the apparent value of his suit was any indication, this man 
  had pockets about as deep as the fucking Monarchy. He felt 
  his skin crawl under the too-intense stare of the man’s eyes, 
  but he held onto that smile even if he had to pucker hard 
  to do it.  
  
  198 
   
  He was grateful for the opportunity to look back to Kelly 
  when she continued, “Mister Detonas and I were just 
  discussing 
  the 
  importance 
  of 
  proper 
  journalistic 
  representation in a campaign, and how the wrong media 
  choices can break an otherwise assured election. Don’t you 
  think that’s so, Monaghan?” 
  Who the fuck was this woman? 
   
  June 7, 1999. 1:39 AM. 
   
  The sleek black car rumbled past the corner again. 
  Windows were tinted too dark to see a driver, but you could 
  feel her watching you through them. Peg shivered.  
  “She’s looking for someone tonight,” Click said. “Man, I’m 
  glad it ain’t us.” 
  “Too fuckin’ right,” Peg agreed and reached for the joint 
  Kev had been hogging. “Pass it, fuck wit.” 
  Kev snorted a restrained cough and passed the spliff. Peg 
  took a hit, inhaled deeply, and held it. When she had been 
  little she’d loved those Attenborough nature shows. The 
  sound of the car slowly prowling the blocks was like the 
  tigers when they would growl in the grass. Given the choice, 
  Peg was pretty sure she’d rather have the tiger out there, but 
  if you put a gun to her head she couldn’t tell you why. She 
  let out the smoke and took a second, smaller hit, and then 
  passed it to Click. 
  “I heard,” Kev said, somewhat breathlessly from holding his 
  lungful. Guy was going to get fucked up. This was that new 
  shit. V leaf. You didn’t need to hit it that hard. “She talked 
  a cop into killing himself because he tried to give her a 
  ticket.” 
  “God, that’s such obvious bullshit,” Click complained in a 
  
  199 
   
  constrained voice. He passed the joint back to Kev and Peg 
  kept her eye on the boggart this time. “You’re a fucking 
  idiot. No one can, like, talk …” He paused to let his breath 
  out in a gush. “Someone into killing themselves. It’s, like, 
  impossible to make someone do something they don’t 
  actually want to do.” 
  “Maybe the cop was suicidal,” Kev countered defensively. 
  Peg reached out and took the joint carefully. It was burning 
  low, and she’d just scrubbed off her callouses for all the 
  good it did. Kev didn’t fucking notice. She hit the roach 
  and passed it on as Kev continued, “But Gerald over on 
  Beecher said he heard it from a Rat Packer.” 
  “No man, like,” Click said. He sounded like he was going 
  to go on one of his Encyclopedia Trips. Shit was cool, 
  sometimes, but Peg wasn’t mellow enough for it now. Not 
  with Her cruising the blocks. “The CIA did all these, like, 
  experiments with mind control in the sixties, man. MK 
  Ultra? And they found, like, brainwashing random people 
  into being, like, assassins wasn’t possible. Plus, they gave a 
  bunch of acid to students and people without telling them.” 
  “Imagine? Fuckin’ would’ve stayed in school if they done 
  that,” Kev announced gleefully. He sobered. “No, but 
  seriously man. You seen her. Shit gets weird when she 
  shows up.” 
  “Least she got Corillo to lighten up,” Peg admitted. “I heard 
  that was her, anyways.” 
  “Yeah,” Click agreed, pointing at Peg. “It was Chevy’s, like, 
  sister or something sucking him off when she showed up, 
  wasn’t it?” 
  Peg nodded. Georgina wasn’t a great person anymore, not 
  since she started hitting the rock, but there was a time. She 
  dug a half smoke from the pack in her pocket. “Yeah, that 
  
  200 
   
  was G. Said he’d been coming around and smacking some 
  of the girls around, trading freebies to stay out of the can. 
  Said he even shook down Kenny Q for an eight-ball couple 
  of days before that, too.” 
  “Fuckin’ idiot,” Kev said. “Fuckin’ cop.” 
  “What’d she say happened?” Click asked, as if Peg hadn’t 
  already told the story three times before. That was okay, 
  though. Everyone had to take turns talking, and you all 
  heard the same stories over and over because you didn’t talk 
  to hear news. You talked because the night was pretty 
  fucking scary when it got too quiet. 
  “So, G says Corillo showed up and made them line up so 
  he could pick which one he’d be ‘busting’ that night. You 
  know how it is with the girls and the cops, they just go 
  along. It’s easier, right? Can’t run in those shoes anyways.” 
  The two nodded as if Peg had delivered sage advice from 
  the mysterious throne of her womanhood. She shook her 
  head and went on. “So, he pulls G out of the line and drags 
  her around the corner. Rough, you know? Couple of the 
  girls were going to call Razor but didn’t ‘cause it was 
  Corillo. Cops get to play a bit rougher, you know?” More 
  nods of rapt attention.  
  “So Corillo’s got her back there behind this dumpster, and 
  he was still wailing pretty good on G even though she was 
  going along quietly. G says he usually didn’t get hard 
  without being a bit rough, but he was over the top, you 
  know? She’s got to work still, and it’s not like he pays. 
  “So anyways he’s got her on her knees, and he’s fucking her 
  in the mouth when this little blonde chick just shows up 
  out of nowhere. Says something like, ‘Alright, scumbag, 
  you’re coming downtown.’ G swears it sounded like it was 
  right out of some kind of action flick. Goofy as fuck, but, 
  
  201 
   
  like, serious, you know? Serious enough that Corillo starts 
  begging. Shit like, ‘Oh man, please don’t tell my wife! You 
  know what they do to cops in prison!’” Her small audience 
  laughed.  
  “Fuckin’ guy deserves it,” Kev pronounced heartily. 
  “Right in the fuckin’ cornhole!” Click added with a hitch 
  to his laugh. 
  “You two going to shut up and let me tell it, or what?” Peg 
  waited for the contrite apologies before she continued. 
  “Anyways, so she pulls out this big ass gun. G said she 
  thought it was going to blow a hole in the wall, points it 
  right at his dick, and makes him empty his wallet. Not just 
  that but makes him count out each bill right into G’s hand. 
  Whole time that hand cannon is dead steady on his junk.” 
  Click gave a low whistle. “You remember when Ziggy’s got 
  knocked over?” 
  “Remember like three weeks ago? Duh.” 
  “Shut up, Kev. Whatever. I heard she was talking to people 
  about that. Even that guy, Scut.” 
  “The weird guy that moved in over the Golden Castle?” Peg 
  asked. That guy gave her the creeps. He was always so 
  twitchy. Kind of a shame the weed he slung was so damn 
  good. Click nodded. 
  “That’s the one. Anyways, after she talked to a bunch of 
  people, that cop got busted or something, and the guy 
  they’d accused got off his charges or whatever. Then, like, 
  yesterday I was talking to Franco over at Ventnor, and he 
  said he heard that guy got like fifty mil from the city.” 
  “No fucking way,” Peg shot incredulously. “Franco’s full of 
  shit and so are the people he talks to. The Riverside Seven? 
  Those guys are batshit. You know the stories.” 
  
  202 
   
  They did, and well enough that a beat of uncomfortable 
  silence stretched out between them. No one could think of 
  the stories about how the Riverside Seven were supposed to 
  have broken out of Riverside Asylum without a healthy 
  dose of fear. Shit was like a ghost story. You didn’t mention 
  that shit unless you didn’t want to sleep that night. Peg was 
  glad when Kev broke the silence. 
  “I heard people call her the Senator.” 
  “Why?” Click asked. That was his favorite question, and 
  that often grated on her, but this time she wanted the 
  answer, too. Unfortunately, Kev just shrugged. 
  “Dunno,” he admitted. “But I heard it from Jelly over at 
  Milligan’s the other day. She said she heard it from that 
  Scut guy, that he’d let it slip once that he could maybe get 
  the Senator’s help with something she wanted.” 
  “Senator? That’s fucking weird,” Peg said. She didn’t know 
  why, but the title made the woman seem worse. “Who’s the 
  fucking President, Batman? What kind of senator threatens 
  to shoot a cop’s dick off with a Dirty Harry gun?” 
  “Just telling what I heard,” Kev said impassively. He only 
  got defensive when he was lying. And he’d invoked Jelly. 
  You didn’t talk about Jelly when you were spreading 
  bullshit. The fucking Senator.  
  The purring growl of the engine turned the corner down 
  the street and Peg looked over. She was dazzled 
  momentarily by the brilliant, low headlights but she didn’t 
  need to see beyond them to recognize the Viper coursing 
  the street. The cock-shooting-racecar-driving-corruption-
  busting fucking Senator. Peg shivered again. 
   
   
   
  
  203 
   
  June 18, 1999. 11:02 PM. 
   
  Henry was, as usual, faintly surprised the speakers were 
  keeping up with Kelly’s voice. He was really glad Mitch had 
  poured that extra money into the sound system once 
  Tuesdays started taking off. Man, did she have some pipes 
  on her. She could belt out Aretha Franklin, and twenty 
  minutes later sing Aerosmith sweetly enough to make a 
  man cry.  And it didn’t hurt that she was pretty hot to look 
  at. Henry felt a blush rise to his cheeks and he buried his 
  face in his beer. He was remembering watching raptly as she 
  basically dry humped that girl she came in with on her table 
  a while back. Man, she was such a fucking rock star. 
  Henry never had many friends in school, but there had 
  always been the records, and later, the cassettes. His friends 
  were Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Or Janis. He loved 
  the balls in Janis’s voice. Kelly’s was that and more, though. 
  She had range like he’d never heard before. Henry knew 
  voices. Henry had never thought a human voice could 
  exhibit that kind of range. Henry, in many ways, was deeply 
  in love with Kelly’s voice. 
  “Get you another?” 
  Mitch’s voice startled Henry. He looked up quickly and felt 
  shame blooming hot in his cheeks. Hotter, since they had 
  already been fairly flush. “U-uh, yeah, Mitch, sure,” he 
  answered, despite having a half a bottle of cold beer in his 
  hand. Mitch smiled his bartender smile and turned away, 
  releasing Henry from the barbed trap of social interaction. 
  It was worth the couple bucks the beer would cost, and he’d 
  have bought it anyways. It was only her first song; she’d 
  gotten a late start. 
  “Henry, isn’t it?” 
  
  204 
   
  Henry almost lost his half a bottle of cold beer as he 
  fumbled it. Mitch had distracted him; he hadn’t been 
  watching which way she went from the stage. She was 
  talking to him. She knew his name. That realization sank 
  in and Henry felt his heart leap into his throat. He clutched 
  both hands around the bottle that had almost found a 
  messy—and attention getting—end as he jerked around to 
  face her. 
  Kelly was less than six feet away, separated from him only 
  by a barstool. Her jeans hugged her hips and shaped her 
  legs, the tears in the denim exposing flawless strips of pale 
  flesh. The t-shirt she wore under the studded leather jacket 
  left her midriff bare, and Henry suddenly wondered what it 
  would feel like to run his tongue around the gentle dip of 
  her belly button. Henry couldn’t smell anything on her but 
  leather from the jacket, not even the tinny edge of women’s 
  deodorant. 
  “I … S-sorry,” he stammered and felt his ears set alight. “I 
  didn’t mean…” What didn’t he mean? To almost drop his 
  beer? To stare? To be noticed by her. “Yes,” he tried again. 
  “Henry.”  
  His tongue felt sandy in his mouth and he jerked his bottle 
  up to try to relieve the parch. The neck chinked hard 
  against his front tooth and he winced as he swallowed. 
  “Careful, Henry,” Kelly said with a kind smile. How could 
  her voice be so musical, even just when she spoke? He’d 
  never spoken to her before. “Tough economy to need 
  dental work in. What do you do?” 
  Henry glanced over at her table. She’d been alone tonight, 
  and there was no late-arrival to draw her attention from him 
  as she leaned against the bar. Mitch delivered a short glass 
  of whiskey to her elbow and the smile she gave him was 
  
  205 
   
  genuine, but perfunctory. Her somehow too-intense brown 
  eyes were back on him after barely a moment. 
  “I … I work a press in the barrel plant,” he said, and felt 
  ashamed at the mundanity of his life. He felt like he was 
  wasting her time by telling her. “It’s nothing important. 
  Sorry.” 
  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she countered gently and 
  lifted her glass to watch him over the edge and sniff lightly 
  at it. Only she didn’t sniff. She just held the glass close to 
  her nose, as if the scent was so strong that just that much 
  was enough to inundate her. “You guys work hard for your 
  money, and without you Milwaukee never would have 
  thrived like it did. My parents were blue collar. I know what 
  they did to provide.” 
  “Sorry,” Henry said again and looked down at his bottle. 
  He blinked at seeing the second one nearby and then 
  remembered Mitch and reached awkwardly for his wallet. 
  “No, please,” Kelly said. “Let me.” Before he could find his 
  voice to protest she had made a gesture to Mitch down the 
  bar and put his beer on her tab. 
  “Sor …” Henry began and then sighed. “Thank you. It’s 
  okay, though, you didn’t have to do that.” 
  Her laugh was bright and he flinched from it until he 
  realized she wasn’t laughing at him. Once the instinctive 
  withdrawal faded, he heard the music in her laugh, too. “I 
  know, Henry,” she said and laid her fingers on his shirt 
  sleeve lightly enough that he barely felt the touch below it. 
  “There’s very little I have to do, and I put all of that off as 
  long as possible, as a rule.” 
  He felt himself smile at her wink and almost laughed at the 
  small joke. His mother had always said he had a horsey 
  laugh, though. He tried not to use it. But there was 
  
  206 
   
  something about Kelly that made her mood infectious, and 
  it almost slipped out against his will. He swallowed beer to 
  force the last of it down. 
  “I have to admit, I’ve been a bit curious about you,” she said 
  in the tone of admission as she slid onto the stool next to 
  him. He turned hurriedly into the bar so that she wasn’t 
  sitting between his spread legs and quashed the impulse to 
  apologize. Their shoulders were almost touching. He 
  wondered if he would feel the hard seams of the jacket or 
  what he thought must be the soft warmth of her skin. 
  “Curious? Why? I’m … I’m nobody,” compared to you, he 
  left unsaid. 
  “You’re here every week, all alone, you never get up and 
  sing and the only time you applaud is for me. If I didn’t 
  know any better I’d say you were a spy.” 
  “A spy?! No, I just… Sorry,” he finished lamely. A woman 
  like her probably liked spontaneity. 
  “I’m flattered, Henry. I like devotion in my fans.” He 
  blinked over at her and her smile was genuine and 
  definitely not perfunctory. He felt his balls tighten and his 
  stomach plunge several hundred feet in a heartbeat. 
  “I … I love your voice,” Henry blurted all of a sudden. He 
  wanted more than anything, in that moment, to make that 
  smile widen. “It’s like an angel’s.” 
  Henry felt himself stiffen against the fly of his jeans as her 
  teeth gleamed in the beaming smile. “Cute and sweet,” she 
  said. “You are a diamond in the rough, Henry.” 
  “Oh, I’m not …” he began, but then the words choked off 
  as he realized he had been about to argue with her. He 
  didn’t want to contradict her. He cleared his throat. 
  “Thanks,” he said weakly, and stole another glance at her 
  smile. God, her eyes were so intense. It was like she never 
  
  207 
   
  blinked. 
  “I hear things are getting pretty rough at the plant,” she said 
  as the wattage on her smile toned down and she lifted her 
  glass to drink from it. She licked her lips and Henry’s heart 
  thudded hard enough that he felt faint. “Some people have 
  gotten hurt recently, haven’t they?” 
  Henry nodded and looked down at his beer. Kelly tilted her 
  head a bit so that she could look him in the eye from the 
  side. “Tough time to be looking for a new job, too, right?” 
  Henry nodded again and looked back at her just so she 
  didn’t have to crane. 
  “Yeah. Just got to go along to get along sometimes. It’s not 
  so bad.” But it was. Henry wondered every day if it wasn’t 
  safer to live on the street than keep the job. He’d almost 
  lost his hand a couple times thanks to that damned busted 
  rod. 
  “You want to split some wings with me? I can never eat the 
  whole basket and I don’t like sitting at my table alone.” 
  Henry blinked over at her. 
  “You want me to sit with you?” 
  “Of course I do,” Kelly said with a warm-toned smile. “Plus, 
  I need your help with the wings,” she added in a 
  conspiratorial stage whisper. “Mitch will think I don’t like 
  them if I send some back to the kitchen.” 
  As Kelly leaned back from him the light caught her eyes just 
  so, and they flashed like doll’s eyes. Her too-smooth skin 
  and porcelain-white teeth gleamed dryly in the overhead 
  lights. For a moment, Henry was back in his mother’s doll 
  room. Row upon row of dead but seeing, always seeing, eyes 
  stared down at him. Painted lips smirked their doll’s smiles 
  down at him, and bared teeth as white as Kelly’s. Don’t go 
  with her. She’s one of the dolls. She stares like the dolls. 
  
  208 
   
  Henry swallowed hard and felt a clammy sweat break out 
  across his upper lip. 
  Henry swiped it aside with his cuff and stared hard at Kelly. 
  Her smile was warm and inviting, not the polite smirks of 
  the dolls’ smiles. Her teeth were not quite perfectly straight, 
  unlike the rows of teeth on the dolls. Her eyes were intense, 
  but they looked at him in a way that no doll ever did. In a 
  way that no woman ever did. They looked at him like they 
  wanted him.  
  Henry forgot about the dolls and stood from the bar to join 
  Kelly at her table. Henry forgot to be self-conscious for a 
  while and talked with Kelly, until she sang again and sang 
  just for him, she said. Henry told her all about the busted 
  rod, and how Ungman his supervisor kept threatening 
  people with unpaid overtime if they talked. Henry told her 
  how much he loved Janis, and how Kelly’s voice was even 
  better.  
  Later, when she walked him to his car, Henry told her how 
  much he wanted to give every part of himself to her if that 
  was what she wanted, so long as she kept touching him like 
  that. 
   
  June 19, 1999. 2:30 AM. 
   
  “I’m telling you, she’s Lucina’s unacknowledged childe.” 
  “It’s amazing how much shit you’re full of, even though 
  you’re dead.” 
  Justine leaned back and let Clutch and Ganon argue. She’d 
  tell them to get over it and fuck already, but they just got 
  back from that. She’d fucked a few times since the Embrace 
  herself, but it wasn’t anything like the blood. Justine just 
  felt more frustrated after. She didn’t get what the two of 
  
  209 
   
  them got out of it. They were probably bonded to each 
  other. Maybe that changed it, but fuck her if she was going 
  to take that kind of plunge with another Blood Brother. 
  “Nothing else explains it. Did you ever hear of her before 
  that whole werewolf killer thing?” 
  “He’s got a point,” Justine said, but only to add a log to the 
  pyre of conflict. Maybe one of them would lose it this time 
  and there’d be a good ol’ fashioned slugfest. 
  “Fuck off ‘he’s got a point’,” Clutch spat back. “Yeah, he 
  does, right on the top of his tiny little head.” 
  “Fuck you,” Ganon spat back. 
  “Anytime, anywhere.” They grinned at each other and 
  Justine faked a gagging sound. They rolled their eyes at her, 
  but Clutch let it drop and continued. “No, that flakey 
  asshole Stefan’s her sire. You seen the way she looks at him? 
  Fuckin’ hates that guy. No one hates anyone that hard if 
  they’re not their sire.” 
  “She’s got a point,” Justine added helpfully. 
  “Yeah, ‘cause that proves anything,” Ganon countered. 
  “Lucina obviously gave Kelly to Stefan to raise because she 
  didn’t have permission to sire when she took Kelly. You 
  think that never happens?” 
  “It still doesn’t make any sense. Lucina was Primogen when 
  Kelly was sired. They don’t have to get permission.” 
  “What? Of course they do! The Black fuckin’ Prince just 
  asked permission. Or did you forget how hard Akawa was 
  losing his shit over that?” 
  “Just a fuckin’ act,” Justine offered as answer. “He’s been 
  playing nice with the elders lately, the two-faced fuck. Just 
  putting on a show to say he’s toeing the line these nights.” 
  God, she hated that asshole so hard. He thought he was so 
  
  210 
   
  goddamned cute with his gag outfits. She never saw him out 
  on the front lines, throwing bricks at a museum. Of course, 
  Akawa and Wrecker made sure no one was out doing that 
  anymore. 
  “No way Kristian would stick with him if that was the case,” 
  Clutch said matter-of-factly. “No goddamned way. Guy’s 
  not going to tarnish his rep playing lapdog to an elder butt 
  buddy.” 
  “Yeah, can you fuckin’ imagine that?” Ganon answered. 
  Them agreeing was not the right direction to go in, so 
  Justine let it drop no matter how much she wanted to lash 
  out at the opposition. These two clearly hadn’t put together 
  how fucking brainwashed the Anarchs had ended up since 
  Kelly showed up. Fuckin’ tourist dropping by in her stupid 
  car to play Nines like she had a fucking clue. 
  “Whatever. You still haven’t proved how you know she’s 
  Lucina’s,” Justine redirected. 
  “I mean, isn’t it obvious?” He looked between Justine and 
  Clutch and apparently found no affirmative in either of 
  their eyes. “C’mon! What are you, stupid?” Now that was 
  more like it, Justine thought. Clutch’s fangs came out and 
  Ganon backed off, much to Justine’s disappointment. 
  “Sorry. I mean, though, seriously. She’s what, like, two 
  nights old practically? Who’s ever heard of a fledgling 
  Seneschal? It’s not like Lucina’s ever been known for her 
  progressive outlook. She’s no more friend to the Anarchs 
  than Detonas or Hrothulf.” 
  “Shut up, man!” Clutch protested, looking around wildly. 
  “He’ll fuckin’ hear you.” 
  Justine snorted. “The fuck does he care about a bunch of 
  young bloods? Even if he could hear when someone said his 
  name.” 
  
  211 
   
  “Jaqueline told me he could,” Clutch offered petulantly. 
  “I’m not going to question a Warlock about this shit.” 
  “Maybe Patterson’s just that badass,” Justine said, though it 
  stung to say it and she scowled in response. “She did take 
  down Parovich single-handed.” 
  There was uncomfortable silence as they all considered 
  that. Fledgling or not, Patterson had pulled off some 
  legendary stunts. Justine thought she was an uppity bitch 
  that was just using the Blood Brothers, but that didn’t mean 
  she dismissed Patterson as weak or stupid. She got Akawa 
  wearing a monkey suit for Christ’s sake. That was 
  something even Merik never managed. 
  “Being badass never got anyone to being Seneschal. 
  Decker’s been a badass for a hundred years and he still 
  spends more time out here in the fringes than downtown,” 
  Ganon pressed. He was smug enough that even if Clutch 
  didn’t want to deck him, Justine did. With some effort, she 
  tamped down the Brujah rage to its usual constant simmer. 
  “No, she’s got to be someone’s childe. Maybe it isn’t 
  Lucina, but Lucina makes the most sense.” 
  “I bet it’s Jason,” Clutch offered pensively. Justine shook 
  her head. 
  “Nah, I was working security at a thing, some … 
  whatdoyoucallit. A musical, but it’s all in foreign.” 
  “Opera.” 
  “Yeah, opera. I saw her up in the balcony caught up like any 
  other Degenerate. She’s no Lunatic.” The others seemed to 
  take it without argument, and then the sound of a heavy 
  fist impacting flesh drew all their attention. 
  Wrecker was cradling a broken-fingered hand to his 
  stomach, and Akawa was rubbing his jaw, and the two of 
  them were leaning into one another hard enough that 
  
  212 
   
  Justine was a bit surprised there weren’t sparks or flames 
  flying between them.  
  “Gonna be a long week,” Ganon said quietly. 
  “Yeah,” agreed Clutch somberly. 
  “They’ll get over it,” Justine said and turned away. Still, she 
  didn’t fight the urge to hunch down a little, get small in 
  case one of the two of them decided to take their fight out 
  on someone else. She’d heard Kelly had taken Wrecker’s 
  punch like an Anarch, but it wasn’t an experience Justine 
  was interested in replicating.  
  “It doesn’t matter who sired her, anyways,” she continued 
  when the other two had decided they’d rather avoid notice 
  as well. All three kept their voices down a few notches. 
  “What does matter is the bitch has us chasing our tails 
  instead of fucking up some asshole elder’s salon.” 
  “Haven’t you heard? Not doing that’s the only thing making 
  sure we keep living the high life,” Clutch countered sourly. 
  “You should see the place she’s in these nights. Fucking Taj 
  Mahal.” 
  “Ain’t you happy with your moldy basement anymore?” 
  Ganon chided and Clutch flipped him off. 
  “She’s got us doing bitch work and acting like bitches. 
  Wrecker tried to play it off like he turned her down, but I 
  don’t think she even called the Blood Brothers for the 
  Gracis thing,” Justine said. Clutch and Ganon could be 
  talked into actually doing something once in a while. She 
  just had to bait them properly. 
  “Surprised she didn’t handle it herself again, snag another 
  blood hunt prize. I heard she got the house for the last one,” 
  Clutch said. 
  “No way,” Ganon countered. “She got released. By her fake 
  
  213 
   
  sire. That was her claim.” 
  “Carna let slip to Wilder a while back that Patterson’s got 
  permission to sire,” Justine corrected. “You’re both wrong. 
  And ugly.” She rolled her eyes at the pair of middle fingers 
  that went up simultaneously. “Still doesn’t matter. We 
  gotta make it clear we’re not bitches.” 
  “Yeah? You let me know how that conversation with 
  Wrecker goes. He still drops fang whenever someone 
  reminds him how she did him dirty last time we made too 
  much noise.” Ganon made a no way gesture to punctuate 
  his statement. “I’m gonna find another city to be in when 
  you have that little chat with him. Still probably end up 
  with bits of you on my coat when he splatters you for it.” 
  “Whatever, chickenshit,” Justine sniped, but she didn’t 
  miss the voluminous look Clutch and Ganon shared. They 
  would think about it, at least. Maybe talk about it. That was 
  enough, for now. 
   
   
  
  214 
   
   
   
   
   
  Epilogue 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Kelly Patterson sat behind the broad mahogany desk 
  perched fifteen stories over the city below. The glass walls 
  of her office refracted the warm, if dim, illumination of 
  the banker’s lamp set at the top of the blotter. Outside 
  the bank of tall windows, the wind screamed past the 
  glass. Icy granules of winter’s touch skittered across the 
  reinforced surface of the panes in her sharp hearing. 
  It was a rare thing, she thought, to be able to enjoy a few 
  moments of peace in these troubled nights. She clung to 
  it and traced the line of her faint reflections in the glare 
  of the glass-walled spaces. It seemed to her as if she were 
  watching herself emerge from the ether as she traced the 
  reflections from furthest to nearest. As if a piece of her 
  were coming forward to confront her. 
  What dark prophecies of the future might such a 
  reflection impart, she wondered. Or, perhaps, it would be 
  the burden of memory brought to hang around her neck 
  like a millstone. Would she be gently ground to a 
  smoother finish with rasp and sandpaper, or would new 
  form come in gross distortions as hammer and chisel 
  sheared pieces of her away? Kelly sat, and waited to learn. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/EXTRA/Fiction/Storyteller Vault Fictiion/Hammer And Chisel 3_25_2018.pdf