Chapter 3 - Two Steps Forward Into Darkness
A knock at the door of the Ritz Hotel’s presidential suite.
And a harsh voice cries out,
“Room service!”
The banker and his considerably younger, more attractive mistress spend a few seconds nudging one another beneath the bedsheets, arguing about whether either of them ordered room service. Finally, drunkenly, he slips out, covering himself with a pillow, and opens the door.
“We didn’t order any-” he begins.
The Brujah antitribu swings his iron pipe; a crack, a spatter of blood and tooth flies up into the air, and the naked man goes flying back across the room.
The woman’s horrified shriek is cut short; a gnarled hand claps around her mouth.
“Sorry about the intrusion, ma’am,” the Nosferatu hisses. It draws her close, wrapping its other arm around her neck. “But we’re the Sabbat and we're on a bit of a recruiting drive here, you see.”
They move from room to room. And from floor to floor.
*
The fat-cheeked Malkavian, wrapped in a patchwork dressing-gown, stares at you. His narrow, pinkish eyes glitter at you; his wet lips are constantly trembling, working over silent syllables.
“Come in, Joan, dear,” Eames says, calmly, from her chair. “Don’t mind Daniel. What is it?”
“Regentia,” you reply, bobbing your head at her, “I’m sorry, I…didn’t mean to interrupt, but I was wondering, if you didn’t have any duties for me, whether I could take the night off? It’s really stuffy down in the Vessel, and I’d quite like to clear my head, maybe go to the Whiplash…”
She considers it for a moment, turning her pen over in her hands.
“We’re going to be very busy in the coming nights,” she says, at last. “Everybody will need to pull their weight. No nights off, no special favours. Can I rely on you to push the others?”
“Of course, Regentia,” you tell her.
“Argyll, for one, is downright slacking,” Eames continues. “Someone’s going to have to put him back on the right path. I know he spends a lot of time hanging around you, so he’ll be your responsibility.”
“Yes, Regentia,” you say.
She nods. And something in her face seems to soften.
“Whiplash, eh?” she asks. “I used to spend time at the Whiplash when I was just starting out. I thought the P-N-P was more popular nowadays.”
You tell her, with a slightly embarrassed shrug,
“I just prefer the atmosphere in the Whiplash.”
“All right,” Eames says, tossing her pen down onto the desk. “Head down there. Mingle, make friends with the Toreadors. Relax, have fun…but keep your ears open, yes? I’d be interested to know what the Kindred on the street has to say about recent events.”
“Thank you, Regentia,” you say, bowing, and turn to go.
“Tell me, Daniel,” Eames calls, before you can reach the study door. “What do you make of her?”
You freeze.
A low, prolonged titter.
And the Malkavian whispers, in a rhythmic monotone, dripping with disdain,
“Why, Regentia, it’s a pretty little cunt, that bows and asks, ‘pretty please’. A nervous, pretty little cunt, lying all the while. Is it frightened of you, I wonder? Or frightened of something worse?”
You turn back, slowly, to face him. Old Rabies licks his lips, savouring the moment, and continues,
“No – I have it. Frightened because it dreams of…something. Happy dreams, happy hopes, keeping it afloat, but it fears the night it’ll all come undone. Because it’s too clever to believe in its dream whole-hearted, but it’s too stupid to stop dreaming. They say a rat that’s buried knows it will suffocate, but it scrabbles away, right to the end. Do I have you right, little cunt?”
Holding his gaze, you whisper, holding back your anger and shock,
“You don’t know anything about me, lunatic.”
His wild, raw eyes widen, as if with excitement. He’s leaning forward in his chair.
“I know everything about you, little cunt,” he hisses. “Whether you hide it from them or from yourself, you can’t conceal it from Old Rabies – it’s in the nervousness of your step as you walked in through the door, the way your fingers play at your sleeve, the twitch of your cheek as you whimper, ‘Yes, Regentia’-”
“All right, Daniel,” Eames snaps. “Leave her alone. Joan, you can go.”
You bow once more to her. The Malkavian sits back in his chair, with every sign of satisfaction.
*
Slipping up the spiral staircase, you push back the hidden stone doorway, waiting in the shadows for a moment to check that no Kine are watching, before stepping out beneath the great circular white roof of St Alphege’s church.
Father Nicholas is standing at the high pulpit, his thin fingers turning over a heavy, leather-bound copy of his King James Bible.
“The Baroness said I could head out for the night,” you call up to him.
He shrugs, disinterested, and doesn’t look up.
You turn, and head out between the low wooden pews; then it’s down the whitewashed steps and out into the baking summer night.
*
Your route takes you around to the east of the park, circling around twice near the Vanbrugh Castle road to check that you’re not being followed; your fingers clench at the thin alchemist’s knife, sewn into the pocket of your jacket.
The sim card is buried in a plastic bag, beneath the bench on the south-western side of the steeples of Greenwich Observatory; circling west down the hill, hopping the black railings, you head down, towards the Ravensbourne and Deptford Bridge.
The city is silent; the heat has driven the people out, to the bars and greenery on the outskirts.
The phone is shut in a biscuit box, in the wastepaper bin by the side of the deserted Harp of Erin pub. You snatch it out, quickly, and duck around the alleyway to the south, shoving the delicate little plastic card into the back of the mobile, before clicking on the only number saved there.
‘Home’.
It rings, and rings.
A click; and Dubrik says, in a harsh monotone,
“This stone is a key, for without it nothing may be done.”
You repeat after him, reciting the words from memory,
“If I should call it by its true name, the ignorant would not believe it were so.”
Silence. And a sigh.
“Yes,” Dubrik says, “and how are you, Joan?”
“Well, thank you.” you tell him meekly. “I’ve been…trying to discover more about what Eames is up to. What she’s keeping below the chantry.”
You explain about the escape tunnel to Lambeth; for good measure, you mention what you overheard about the Docklands and Giovanni.
Dubrik waits, patiently, until you’ve finished.
“As Eames’ power grows in London,” he explains, “the Tremere elders across the country will be looking to her to drive the Giovanni out of the city – their wealth in the East End has forever been an irritation to the mages’ rule. A shame you could not have learnt more…but if you’re right about the tunnel, that’s certainly very useful. I doubt the Sabbat will have the strength to make use of it, at least until the summer’s over, but still…excellent work.”
“Is it…enough?” you ask. “Enough for me to come in?”
“My dear girl,” Dubrik replies, sorrowfully, with an unmistakeable sympathy in his tone, “if it were up to me…but even my power is limited over the London Sabbat, and they do not accept charity cases. You need to contribute something tangible. You need to find evidence of the creature Samantha Eames is keeping beneath your chantry. Do this, and I swear – you’ll be welcomed in as a hero.”
*
You stroll downriver, towards the Ravensbourne’s confluence with the Thames. Near the Overground railway bridges, you toss the sim card into the water.
A little further along, you slip into the unlit building site under the northernmost bridge itself. Aiming high, over the spiked iron railings and the sandbank below, you hurl the phone outwards.
And just before it lands, and sinks with a splash that’s far louder than it should have been, a cheerful voice cries out,
“Joan! Joan!”
Oh, no. Oh, no.
Argyll pushes his way in through the wire fence, hopping merrily through the abandoned cement bags and coils of wire.
“Hello,” he says, as he approaches. “Thought I saw you down by the roadside. You out for a drink as well? I told Father Choirfucker I was heading across to Lambeth to borrow some of their books. Did you throw something in the river?”
He turns out, squinting into the darkness of the water beyond.
“You know,” he adds, “I thought I heard Eames say you’d gone to Soho. I wouldn’t have wasted an opportunity like that. Bitch has me working like a goddamned ghoul...”
What will you do?
A) Tell him you didn’t throw anything in the river, and that you decided you’d rather go for a breath of fresh air than head to Soho. He may be suspicious, but he has no proof of anything. He doesn’t even like Eames – as long as he doesn’t think you’re up to anything serious, perhaps he won’t think to tell her.
B) Push him forward onto the railings. You’re not strong – but then neither is he. He’s seen more than enough to implicate you. If he puts two and two together, he could betray you to Eames, or blackmail you…and once you’re both back in the Vessel, it will be very hard to deal with him. After all, nobody’s watching, and nobody knows he’s here. Once he’s staked, you can kill him and dump him in the river. You’ve come too far to back out now.
C) Invent something. Come up with a lie about an old Kine heirloom that you wanted to dispose of. He could be suspicious that he’s never seen such a thing before, of course, and he’ll still be aware that you lied to Eames…and who knows if you’ll be able to come up with something convincing?
D) Confess the truth to him. You know he doesn’t like Eames, or the Chantry, or the life of a Tremere. Is it so absurd that he’ll want to come with you – to live free, in the Sabbat?
