Storyteller...with a speech impediment @friendlyunclej - Tumblr Blog

Bloody Nights Ahead

Prologue

My father’s on another one of his tirades while swinging around a bottle of his own liquor. I’ve just walked in to the house, bruised and beaten, carrying my barely conscious brother who’s in worse shape than me. My mother is probably drugged out of her mind in the bathroom, trying to phase out what’s going on. My father is screaming about my brother and I leaving blood on the floor. He doesn’t care about why my brother’s covered in so much blood that it’s hard to recognize him, like every other night. He doesn’t care that my mother is one wrong pinch away from not waking up again, like every other weekend. He doesn’t care that I can barely see out of my right eye, like every night I leave the house. He cares about the fact that I can’t put sheets or towels down on the floor to keep the blood from soaking into the carpet and he’s concerned about it enough to scream my ears off instead of doing it himself. I try my best to let his string of insults and meaningless screaming flow in one ear and out the other as I bring my brother to his room and drop him on to his bed to rest. With my father still blowing his gasket, I calmly close the door to my brother’s room as I make my way to the bathroom. I greet my mother as I gently take the needle from her hand, remove the belt around her arm, and slowly guide her back to her bedroom to tuck her in for the night. She makes me the same promise she always has about cleaning herself up as I turn the lights off and gently leave the door a few inches open. My father is now in my younger brother’s room, screaming at him about why he refuses to confess who beat him into hammered shit. As with every other time, the less my brother answers, the more likely my father is to give him a few more lumps. I walk to the kitchen and grab the first aid kit from under the sink before returning to my brother’s room as he begins to talk back. My father is beginning to get rough with him, pushing his head around as he repeats the same question over and over.

“Who did you piss off, Shag?” my father shouts, shoving his face towards the ground.

“I asked you not to call me that,” my little brother says as he picks his head back up while continuing to avoid eye contact.

Taking a long drink of liquor, my father slaps him to the ground before demanding again, “Who did you piss off, Shag?”

Putting the first aid kit down, I let my frustration boil over as I yell, “Hey, asshole! Can I patch up my brother now?”

In a flash of movement. my father grabs me by the neck and pins me against the wall about ten feet behind us in the hallway. I’m buried about half a foot into the drywall and it’s a miracle that I still have the strength to struggle. No matter how much I kick, punch, and try to force myself free, he holds me still as if I’m a rat under his boot.

Taking a deep swig of his bottle, he leans in close and spits, “What did you just call me, Clown?”

Unable to wipe his spittle from my face, I say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you an asshole,” his grip lightens as I finish, “I meant to say ‘Blood Puppet’.”

I give him a shitty grin as his grip tightens. I nearly black out before he drops me to the ground. Gasping for air, I can barely make out what he says as he returns to my brother’s room.

He says, “I’ll deal with you after I finish disciplining your brother.”

I force myself upright against the wall as I barely manage to cough out, “Were you always this much of a dick or was it the vamp blood that really did it?”

His footsteps stop just on the inside of the room. I drag myself to my feet as I continue poking, “I just can’t see my mom being into a Grade-A Douchebag without some vamp blood to help sway her decision making, you know?”

He turns around and slowly walks back out. He stops directly in front of me as I continue saying, “I mean, be honest. Was it the vamp leash around your neck that helped you on your path to become Number 1 Shithead of Ustrus or was it just nature’s true calling for you to grab that title?”

Still keeping my arrogant smirk as best I could, I know what’s about to happen. My brother can’t take this beating in his current state without ending up on a stretcher or with a white sheet over him. My mother can’t take this beating because she’s too high to even comprehend what’s going on. As for me, I’ve been taking this beating for the past twenty years, so it’s always a good bet that I won’t keel over from it if I haven’t already. Honestly, it would be a mercy to die from this ass-whooping. But, if any instances from the past are a good indication of what’s to follow, I’ll be faking a smile tomorrow as I try not to succumb to my wounds while working for my wages. All I can do is wait for the beating and hope that at least someone drops a tear if I die. My mind is trying to figure out who would care if I passed away one night when my father’s bottle shatters against my head. Interrupting my train of thought, I fly to the floor and skid into the kitchen about twelve feet down the hall. I barely maintain consciousness as two of my ribs crack from a kick. Next, I feel two fists smash my lower back and I bounce off the ground like a rubber ball. I curl up in pain and look back to see a right hook crack my jaw. As I roll around, I barely manage to dodge his left fist and return with a boot to his mouth. It splits his bottom lip, but it barely fazes him. He’s still human like me, but just a bit improved. As a Ghoul, I don’t know if he can actually get tired. I just know that he gets tired of beating me up after exactly twenty-six minutes. That’s all I need to last for him to let me patch my wounds. At this point in my life, I don’t know if it’d be better to die or not but my body won’t give up on me even when I do. Once he tuckers himself out and returns to his chair to sleep, I drag myself back to my brother’s room and begin trying to stitch him up with the first aid kit. With how beaten I am, it practically takes me all night to take care of him, leaving maybe an hour or two for myself. The only thing I manage to stitch up properly before passing out is the laceration across my left temple from when the bottle smashed against my head. Laying asleep, the same apparition comes to visit me as every other night. Its form changes each time it appears aside from two factors. The voice stays the same, guttural and filled with gravel. The dark eyes are the same, lifeless and devoid of color. Tonight, it’s a withered man dressed in a sharp black suit with a monocle and a top hat, wielding some sort of weapon as a walking cane. I don’t know who it is, but it always says the same thing: “And here the story begins of Carnegie Gunvald, the worthless man who’s worth more dead than alive!” I can’t say that I disagree with him.

A Death Worth Living

“Heyo, Carnie!” my best friend shouts, racing to me from the front door of her apartment complex, “You coming with me to the Fights tonight or making me go alone?”

Limping down the steps toward our train, I tell her, “Ylva, if I still have the strength to, I’ll tag along for a few drinks.”

Noticing that I’m having trouble walking, she asks, “Your old man kicked your ass again, huh? What for this time?”

Holding my still cracked ribs, I nod as I say, “Little bro had a run in with the gambling bookies at the bar. I had to fight them off him again. I didn’t get there until after he got the shit beat out of him.”

“So you fought them after your brother was already unconscious?” she questions.

“I was just trying to pick him up. They started throwing hands,” I lie, trying to make it seem like I never antagonized them.

“Why do I feel like you egged them on to fight?” she tells me with a know-it-all expression.

“Look, I went there to pick up my brother-”

“But you saw them still drinking and laughing at the bar...”

“And I may have shared a few words-”

“In order to piss them off so they would put their fists up...”

“Then I returned home.”

“Half beaten to shit, knowing that your father was going to beat you down even further. Yeah, I know how your nights go.”

Damn, she knows me too well.

“Damn, you know me too well.”

Smiling to herself, I smile a little too as we reach the bottom of the stairs to see the train to work racing off without us. We start racing after it like we’re eight years old again. Well, to be accurate, she races after it like we were eight years old again while I hobble twenty feet behind her like I was eighty years old. In a matter of seconds, I fall to my knees with one hand on my ribs and the other barely holding me up from slamming my face into the concrete. She almost catches up to the train before jogging back to pick me up.

We watch the train disappear into the distance as she says, “Maybe we skip work today, huh? I know some tricks that can help you heal faster.”

“Do those tricks also come with today’s full paycheck? I don’t work today, I don’t put in my full hours. Not putting in my full hours means not enough money for the house,” I tell her as she helps me on to my feet, “I can’t afford that. Can you...you know...give me a lift?”

“I thought you said it’s degrading when I do that?” she responds folding her arms with a smirk.

“It’s more degrading to not have a home,” I respond quickly, motioning for her to turn around, “Just, come on, I know you werewolves are strong and fast. It’ll be like when we were kids except...vice versa, you know.”

She turns around and stands up straight, waiting for me to hop on. I painfully work my way up on to her shoulders and I cling to her back like a damn koala bear. She laughs a little as I wrap my arms around her.

“What’s so funny, Ylva?” I say, straddling her back.

“Nothing,” she responds between stifling giggles, “I just expected you to be heavier with how much wider you are. You feel like a parrot on my should right now.”

I mockingly laugh back to her before saying, “Can we just get on with this, please? We’re going to be late.”

With a final giggle, she starts running off with me wrapped around her back. Oddly enough, she’s actually running faster with me on her shoulders. We’re even keeping up with some of the vehicles on the streets. She races through half the city, bounding over fences like it’s track and field. It’s more impressive once you realize the size differences between us. Both her and I are the same height, maybe less than a centimeter in difference. It’s the weight that’s odd between us. I’m built like a brick wall with shoulders almost as wide as a door frame. She used to call me the “Checkpoint Attendant” back when I played football in school. It’s because I’m wide enough to be a barricade and I never let anyone past me. I used to call her “Night Wolf”. The first reason is obvious: She’s a werewolf. Well, Garou, I should say, since most of her kind don’t like being called a werewolf. The second reason being that she never seemed to sleep. When she wasn’t doing hurdles during the day, she was partying her ass off at night, usually with me in tow. She’s always been athletic, so she’s always been about half my width. Despite spending more time outside than inside, her skin is so pale that most people expect her to be a shut-in. Maybe that’s why everyone is surprised to find out that I’m the one who’s usually locked up at home all the time, despite my darker complexion. Honestly, though, if it wasn’t for her, I’d probably never get out the house and away from my family. Without that group of assholes holding me back, I might have-

“Hey, are you narrating your life again, Carnie? You’ve been pretty silent.”

In all of the two decades we’ve been friends, I still don’t know how she does that.

“How do you do that? Know when I’m narrating to myself?”

“Well, first, you always go dead silent. Second, you always get this real constipated stare going for some reason,” she says, scrunching her face into a pained expression.

“I don’t do that,” I tell her while making the same face.

She lets out a soft giggle as she dashes past a blaring car horn. I let out a deep sigh. She never would have said yes. Even if she had, I probably would have broke it off before she got her hopes up. She deserves better than me, anyway. After all, I’m a twenty-five year old who still gets his ass handed to him by his father for trying to take care of his gambling drunkard of a little brother and keeping his junkie mother from nicking the wrong vein. I ain’t worth a damn.

“Heyo, Mother Gaia to Carnegie! You still with me?” Ylva shouts, snapping me out of my phase.

“Huh, what’s up? Are we here?” I ask her, still crawling out of my self pity.

“Yeah, now hop off before someone sees you koala-ing me,” she says as I painfully drop down from her back.

“I’ll pick you up in my car so we can go to Noz’s Bar after work, okay? My family should have it fixed by then,” she remarks, hoping that I’ll give the same answer as I always do.

“I think I’ll just head home. Gotta give these bones time to mend,” I tell her, limping towards my driving hammer and picking up a number of heavy stakes.

“No, no, no,” she says, folding her arms and stepping alongside me, “You’re going to the bar with me. We’re medicating your pain with liquor, then we’re going to the Fights so I can kick some shit out of some assholes.”

I click my tongue and shake my head as I turn around and begin walking towards the unfinished train tracks. I start walking away from her before she slowly strolls past me and steps in my path. I look up to her eyes and see her usually smiling face replaced with a look of frustration and concern.

“I will carry you out of here if you don’t agree,” she says, moving her hands to her hips.

I smile a little and try to tell her to make me just as the pain in my ribs sends a shock through my body, prompting me to ask, “How long is that ritual to help me heal faster?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I really need a fight tonight and I can’t fight in this condition.”

With a mischievous smile, she says, “We’re leaving a half hour early, then.”

Before I can respond, she dashes off. I make my way down to the end of the unfinished railroad line and begin adjusting stakes to the track. I get through most of the day unhindered. It’s ridiculously slow and excruciatingly painful, but I get enough of the railroad put in that I don’t slow anything down. I get close to the end of the work day when my wounds from the previous night take over and I can barely pick up my hammer. I continue trying to work anyway, knowing that I still need a good few rails hammered in before leaving to get my full paycheck. I try to take a quick breather but get interrupted by some Half-Blood overseers kicking me back on to my feet. If that wasn’t worse enough, it’s now getting to be only a skeleton crew and only a few remain, mostly being the more talkative sort. As per usual, the assholes I work with begin talking shit about me hanging around a Garou so much.

“So, tell us something, Clown Boy. We already know that she wears the pants between y’all two. What I want to know is if she digs up bones for you, too?” Eron asks, a dipshit smile smeared across his face.

“Nah, nah. I bet you that the only bone she plays with is his,” Tony responds as he gives a nasally chortle.

“His bone? Big bastard doesn’t have a single bone in his body. If he did, he’d actually talk back,” Eron says again, trying to egg me on.

“C’mon, real talk, though, my man,” Tony picks up, “Since she’s a wolf, we know she likes it doggystyle. What’s it like taking it from behind for her, though, ‘cause you sure as hell ain’t giving it to her, right?

Tired of hearing their remarks, I fire back, “Honestly, you’re the only one here who would know what that felt like, Anthony. After all, most of your week is spent dick riding Erondale here.”

“Oh snap, the man bares his teeth, finally,” Tony responds, “Eron, what you think about that?”

Just as I try to swing my driving hammer, Eron places his hammer on top to block mine before saying, “I think that he’s been spying on us.”

We share a laugh together as Eron slams my stake in for me. Tony walks down to the next one I placed and drives that one in for me as well.

I wince in pain as I tell them, “C’mon, that’s not necessary. I can handle my work, guys.”

“Hold your hammer above your head, then,” Tony says, testing my words.

I try my best to lift my hammer above my head but it just clatters to the ground as my wounds from last night sends another wave of pain through my body.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Head out early with your girl, man,” Tony continues to insist, taking the stakes from my hand.

Reaching for my hammer, Eron tells me, “Ylva told us about all the shit you go through. Take the night and heal up. Can’t have one of the best human fighters in the city dying on us.”

I hold my ribs together as I turn around and begin to walk back to the front entrance. At the very least, Eron deserves a shovel across the jaw for calling me ‘Clown Boy’, but I let it slide considering the condition I’m in. Yeah, they’re still assholes, but at least they’re decent assholes tonight.

Before I get too far away, Eron shouts to me, “Hey, if you come to the Fights tonight, we can see about making you into a real beast.”

Not understanding what he means and not caring enough to ask, I just lazily wave back to him as I continue limping to the start of today’s track. Once I get there, Ylva’s already waiting for me with a backpack on her shoulder.

“Wow, look at that,” she says, checking the position of the sun, “You didn’t come half an hour early. You came a whole hour early. Guess that means that Eron and Tony listened to me.”

Taking a deep sigh, I tell her, “Yeah, they may make me join their cult later, though. They talked about giving me a way to become ‘a real beast’, whatever the hell that means.”

“Might be worth listening to,” she says as she loops her arm around mine, “Anything’s better than a human around here, right?”

“Yeah, anything,” I say with a glum look on my face.

She squeezes my arm as she tells me, “Anything but that, dickhead.”

Closing my eyes for a quick moment, I simply respond, “Yeah, right,” as I pull myself into her vehicle.

She flips into her convertible like a gymnast and I put up the number ten with my hands like a scorecard. She kicks her vehicle into gear and starts bolting through the city towards the nearest thicket of trees. After speeding through our steam powered metropolis, I follow her to a clearing deep inside of the forest where the nearest trees form a circle around us. She digs just long enough to make a shallow hole about my size and she tells me to lay in it.

“Hmmm...this isn’t how I expected to go out, honestly,” I joke with her as I lay down in the soft earth, “I was betting my old man executes me or, you know, a vampire comes looking for a new blood bag.”

“Oh, please, you’re not dying here. It’s part of the rite,” she says as she begins shoving dirt back on top of me, “Now, lie still until I dig you out of here.”

I do as she says and she proceeds to place a number of totems and artifacts around me. She howls as the dusk sky turns to night. She begins to hum loudly, as if speaking in some odd language. She steps on to the dirt over my body. I expect to be screaming in pain, but it’s almost as if she’s floating over me. I barely feel her weight through the dirt and what little weight I do feel is comfortable, if not euphoric. The only truly painful thing about this endeavor is getting aroused by her performing these "rites” naked. She says that it helps her better connect to Gaia. The first time I was with her during one of these was just after sophomore year. She was practicing what she called a “Rite of Cleansing” on me. I don’t know if it cleansed anything. We just went out for burgers and shakes afterward. I was walking pretty awkward on the way back to the city. Unlike back then, I actually feel something this time. It’s painful at first as I feel my ribs pop back into place. The stitches in my head break and slip out. I even feel some disks in my back slide into proper alignment. Once it’s done, I feel better than I have in months.

I dig myself out of my small grave as Ylva gets redressed and I tell her, “So, that’s what the Garou do, huh? Healing rituals under the moon and stuff like that?”

“Yeah, something like that,” she responds, getting her overcoat and gloves on, “Let’s get moving, Carnie. We’ve got some drinks to kill and some blood to spill.”

As I hand her back all of her ritual pieces, I ask, “Can...uh...you change people? Like vampires do.”

For the first time in all the time I’ve known her, she freezes in her tracks. She takes a long deep pause and a very long breath. She throws all of her trinkets into her bag before answering me.

“Uh...no...not that I know of,” she says, hesitant to answer.

Suspecting her to not be telling me everything, I continue to ask, “You’d tell me if there was one, right?”

Directly after asking, she walks off toward the car as she replies, “Carnegie, it isn’t that fun being one of us. Believe me, you don’t want to be like this.”

“Well, I don’t know,” I say, brushing dirt off the back of my head, “You seem pretty great compared to the other douchebags in the city.”

Nervously squeezing her fingers, she tells me, “Having to constantly fight back an inner Rage isn’t ‘pretty great’ to me, but thanks, I guess.”

She always says “I guess” when she’s bothered.

“You know that you always say ‘I guess’ when you’re bothered, right?”

“Then let’s change the subject.”

“Yeah, let’s change the subject.”

We awkwardly walk back to her car in silence, neither of us being able to think of much else to talk about on the way. Usually, we share silences pretty happily. It’s rare for us to be stunted in silence together. We hop into her car and she starts driving to the scrap yard where Noz’s Bar is located. It’s a rundown bar in comparison to the types of places that are more commonly run by vampires. All of the places run by Kindred in the city are usually much more high end. Beautiful brass and gold plating everywhere with architecture that could hold the world on its infrastructure. Noz’s Bar is almost the complete opposite. It’s covered in rust and built out of makeshift, ill-fitting scraps of metal. The outer shell is only a cover up for probably the single place in the whole city that actually makes me feel comfortable. It could be the endless amount of drinks or the consensual spilling of blood, but something about it makes me feel at peace. Kind of wish that that a bloodsucker didn’t run the place, though. They’re okay enough bosses until they need a fresh snack, but no one likes being looked down upon no matter the situation. If it wasn’t for them ruling the world, I would have told them to shove a stake where the sun doesn’t shine years ago.

“So,” Ylva shoots, interrupting my inner monologue, “Is that oh-so-scary ghost still haunting your dreams?”

With a raised eyebrow, I say, “Yeah...came to me looking like a man in a suit this time. What of it?”

“I could always ask Gaia for you,” she says, taking her eyes off the road to look at me, “She tends to know a lot.”

I just shrug it off and go back to watching the city fly by us. It’s only a few moments before she asks another question.

Taking a deep gulp and readjusting in her seat, she inquires about the ghost’s statements, “Does he still tell you what he always has?”

Glancing back to her and noticing that she’s nervously pinching her fingers again, I decide not to lie and say, “Yeah...same thing he’s been telling me since he showed up.”

Beginning to wallow in self pity, she slams me out of it by saying, “It’s bullshit, you know that right? You’re worth more living. You always have, Carnie.”

Tired of having her save me from my constant self-worth issues, I change the subject, “So, do you know who you’re fighting tonight?”

Clicking her tongue, she smiles as she says, “A Garou from my own tribe named ‘Scars’. He and I got into a tiff about what Gaia’s true desire for us are. We’re settling it the good old fashioned way.”

“How good is he in a fight?” I ask.

Licking her teeth with a bloodthirsty grimace, she responds, “Oh, he’s one of the best in the tribe. Going to be fun trading claws with him.”

We laugh for a little bit together as I say, “Got any idea who else is going to be fighting? I feel like getting my knuckles roughed up.”

“They always have someone there worth fighting,” she says, eyeing me up and down, “We’ll be able to find someone willing to fight you. Want me to head back to your house so you can don your usual colors?”

Taking a moment to consider if it would be worth pissing off my old man, I smile as I tell her, “Why not? Worse thing that happens is my father tosses a bottle at me.”

“Fat chance,” Ylva says with a smile as she turns the car towards my house.

It doesn’t take very long for her to drive us to my place. There’s no enforced speed limits and, if there were, she wouldn’t care about them, anyway. Once at my house, I walk in, expecting to find my father screaming at something again. As it turns out, he’s not home so we walk in without being disturbed. Passing by my brother’s and mother’s rooms, I notice that the former is gone and the latter is already sleeping. Ylva waits outside my room while I quickly change clothes into my usual fighting colors and walk out.

On our way back to the car, Ylva remarks, “You know that if you don’t want to be called ‘Clown Boy’, it probably doesn’t help when you wear bright purple to beat people’s heads in, right?”

Closing the door behind us, I remark, “Eh, I kind of like the irony. After all, what stings the pride more than getting your ass handed to you by a ‘clown’?”

Hopping into her car, she agrees while speeding through the streets towards the scrap yard. We trade smiles before she lets loose a few howls at the moon. The other Garou in the city respond with the night finally upon us and we find our way to Noz’s Bar. The outside of the building still has people rushing to make their way into the place, nearly getting tetanus scraping past the walls. Although the exterior is nothing get excited over, the inside is a work of genius. The bar is a fifteen foot tall wall that spans the entire hundred foot width of the building. It’s got eight people behind it at all times, and not only does it separate us from what all the rumors claim to be an orgy room behind it, but it even holds the second floor up. Above us, Noz looks down at the revelry, only really coming down to enjoy front row seats to the Fights. The twenty to thirty servers working the floor are all dressed up in burlesque or lingerie, both the men and the women. It serves humans, Garou, Vamps, even animals from time to time. All of the staff are either Half-Bloods or Ghouls, according to the owner. The owner himself is a Nosferatu, whom some say could be one of the oldest around with secrets from when the city was first being constructed. He usually has some of the best women upstairs with him, too. Surprising, considering that he’s pretty damn painful to look at. Ylva and I step into the establishment and immediately beeline for the bar. We order our usual, which is about ten shots of liquor. We divide them up equally, clinking glasses together before knocking the first one back like it’s medicine. She howls in celebration and the entire place howls alongside her. Seems like a good number of her tribe came in from the outskirts of the city to watch her whoop this dude’s ass. She and I down our second drinks just as the music starts playing and Ylva is feeling it. The whole floor is jumping and dancing around as tunes start filling the entire room courtesy of two enormous gramophone organs. They’re two massive organs, modified to play music from working gramophones connected to each separate key. The two organs have foot pedals that can record the last nine key strokes and then play them on repeat, allowing the organists to either join the dancers, pick up another instrument, or mix even more sounds in. Right now, the current beat is a hard-hitting and chaotic mixture of low brass notes, high tempo flutes, and insane drums. The sparse vocals thrown in match each tempo slam and tickles every body of the room into action. Ylva is getting wilder and wilder, dancing around and whipping her hair around like a weapon. I’m leaning against the bar, just enjoying the sounds of the bar and tapping my left foot to the music as I watch her begin to skip out to the dance floor. She holds my gaze with hers and glides away as she motions for me to follow with her fingers. I stay back and laugh as I watch her dance her ass off. She sticks her tongue out at me and begins to sway her hips back and forth, jokingly licking her lips to try to drag me out on to the floor with her. Before long, I cave into the temptation, walking out to her with a shot in each of my hands. Thanks to my size, people naturally dance around me instead of into me. We down our third round and I’m too loose not to join in with her. I’m lanky and awkward. She’s fiery and precise. I get lost in futile dreams again, lying to myself just long enough to lose track of her. It takes me a few moments but I find her talking to probably the ugliest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. The giant engraved belt buckle indicates that he’s the owner of this establishment, the one and only Noz. The rumors weren’t kidding about Nosferatu getting the ass end of the Vampire deal. Noz is wider than me, skinnier than Ylva, and almost a half foot taller than both of us. His skin is emaciated and covered in gangrenous veins that stretch throughout his whole body. The veins look to be filled with some dull green fluid. His teeth looks like someone tried to curb stomp the back of his head with them placed on the curb but didn’t have the strength to get the job done. His eyes are a bright red, deep inlaid within a head that’s completely devoid of hair. He’s wearing a sharp black suit with grungy aviator goggles around his neck and a crumpled top hat that’s slightly off-kilter. He seems to be using a makeshift sickle as a cane to help his limp. The man standing next to Ylva is also talking to Noz and he seems to be a slightly older man who I’d guess would be in his forties or fifties. He looks to be wearing piecemeal battle armor, cobbled together by layers of fabric and furs. He’s got war scars on his arms, neck, and the right side of his face. One of the scars is a deep cut through his right eye, which looks like he should be blind in because of. As the conversation continues, they both seem to get pretty wound up, eventually leaving the discussion while disappointingly tossing their arms into the sky. The old man, who I’m assuming is Scars, walks back to a large group that’s dressed similarly while Ylva walks back to me. She grabs my hand and pulls me back to our drinks at the bar.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as she furiously downs her next shot.

I down my own shot as she answers, “I’m not fighting tonight.”

She slams back another shot and I follow suit as I say, “I’m pretty sure that we can convince the bloodsucker to reschedule the fight between you and Scars for tomorrow. He’s missing out on not letting you two duke it out.”

Visibly upset, she orders a bottle while replying, “Scars is still fighting tonight. I’m the one being benched, Carnie!”

“Who the hell is he fighting then?”

“I don’t know! That Leech won’t tell me!”

“Fuck him, then! Let’s get the hell out of here! You don’t fight, I don’t fight.”

I pick up the bottle, toss down our payment with a tip, and pull her towards the front entrance of the bar. I notice that Noz and Scars are having another conversation, which the bloodsucker seems pretty damn smiley about. Taking a swig from the bottle, I tell Ylva to wait a moment as I march my way towards them.

“Hey, Leper!” I scream, turning the whole bar silent.

The music screeches to a halt. The dancing drops to a stand still. The servers stop in their tracks. The bartenders all place their cups down. All eyes are on me and the head vampire, who I just insulted.

Not giving a damn, I continue saying, “You have any idea what you just missed out on? Having two of the best Garou in a whole tribe fight each other? You have any idea how glorious that would have been?”

Chuckling a bit before approaching, Noz speaks with a deep baritone voice filled with enough gravel to pave a sidewalk, affirming, “Oh, I know exactly what I did, young man. I prevented two of perhaps the best fighters to have ever walked under my roof from tearing each other to shreds. They would have ruined each other so bad that they wouldn’t be able to fight for another month or two. However, do you know what YOU did?”

“I believe I just called out a Nosferatu in his own bar. What of it?”

“You see, this is why you humans are at the bottom of the food chain nowadays. No respect unless it’s beaten into you. If I wanted, I could have every person in here tear pieces of flesh from you until you weren’t anything but a smear.”

He raises his left hand and every Half-Blood and Ghoul in the room drops what’s in their hand. Every vampire bares their fangs at me while every Ghoul loads or draws a weapon. He drops his left hand and they all calm down, returning to their pacifistic jobs. I don’t bat an eye.

“Yet,” he begins, returning his attention to our conversation, “You don’t seem to care. Is that it? You don’t care about your life, kiddo?”

With liquid courage fueling me, I exclaim, “The only thing I don’t care about is a limp-wristed, good-for-nothing, tongue-biting, plague-faced Leech and his army of dolls. Ylva and I came here to fight. Her whole tribe came out here to see that fight. I came out here to spill blood and I’m starting to want yours. You give her Scars and I’ll take on any one of your damned Blood Puppets or Vampire-Lites. Any creature, dead or alive, I’ll fight right here, right now!”

With a menacing smile, he repeats, “ So ‘you came here to spill blood and you’re starting to want mine’? You really have a death wish, don’t you, kiddo?”

He swings two fingers of his left hand at me and two Ghouls dive from the bar, racing towards me. I slam my fist into one of their jaws, laying them out. The other one tackles me to the ground, trying to choke me. I break her thumb back and drag her up to her feet. I grab a nearby wine bottle and crack her skull open as I smash it over her head.

I toss her to her boss’ feet as I scream, “We keeping the fights dirty or going into the cage? Your call, Old Man!”

The entire room cheers and shouts in a triumphant hurrah. The music starts back up with guitarists playing their tools of trade, modified to be attached to steam whistles. The music playing crashes into everyone’s chest like war drums on the horizon. My heart starts slamming against my rib cage harder than I ever thought possible. I can feel my blood pounding my head like sledgehammers against concrete. I’m getting worked up to a point of no return. There’s more adrenaline in my veins than blood at this point. I’m higher than I’ve ever been and I don’t want to come down.

Ylva is cheering me on as I stare down Noz before I ask, “So, who the hell am I fighting?”

“There’s a fire in you that I like, boy,” he says with a gnarled smile, “I think I have the perfect battle for you.”

Waiting to hear his announcement, Ylva and I toss the bottle to her tribe as she squeezes me so tight that it feels like my back is about to snap in half. I lift her up to squeeze back and she kicks her feet in the air, laughing with glee. Still foolhardy in believing this is going to have a fairy tale ending, I relish holding her in my arms. I daydream back to a summer in the forest we spent together after our last year of high school. For a moment, I earnestly believe that those days could some how return...

Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen again.

As the center of the floor is cleared, Noz walks up to the center of the ring. The cage slowly lowers as people begin to quiet down to a hushed murmur in anticipation of his announcement.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Creatures and Cretins! You know that the Fights always start with high stakes and tonight is no different! However, we do have something special this evening! A Human believes himself tougher than the usual stock of cattle and I do believe that he may just be! He’s willing to step in the ring with anyone and anything! He has told me that he has come here to spill blood and that he is starting to want some of mine! Now, wouldn’t that be something to see!”

The entire building shakes with the amount of roars, howls, and cheers that erupt from the crowd at the aspect of Noz joining the fray.

“Alas! Vampire versus Human is too boring of a fight!

The entire building begins to shake with the amount of boos erupting from the crowd after hearing that.

“Don’t worry! We have something which should be just as entertaining! We have a man who has experience in aces! From what I’ve heard about him, he’s fought more than the majority of my best fighters! He’s buried more people than he can count and has trophies to prove every single one! The first man in the Fights tonight is the Ahroun Garou himself, Scars!”

The Bar shakes as the applause returns to approval. Ylva is cracking her knuckles, stretching her arms, limbering up her back, and popping her neck as she prepares to be the other first person up. She even ties her hair back, pulling her silver and raven locks into a single well-bound tail. I should be happy, but the only thing filling my mind is an all too familiar voice.

“She’s going to be disappointed,” the ghost whispers in my ear, turning every other sound mute, “But, you...Congratulations, old friend of mine. You’re getting your wish.”

As I glance up, I see Ylva with a distraught look on her face. I glance around Noz’s Bar and see the room divided. Half are excited and cheering. The other half are booing and staring daggers at me. I finally snap back into it as I hear the rest of Noz’s announcement.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking! This isn’t going to be entertaining at all! A Mutt versus a Blood Bag? But, I got a way to make it hold your attention! This fight is No Quarter Given!”

The entire room turns to intrigue and I start to shout in excitement alongside everyone else. Ylva tries to pull me away, a dire look in her eyes. I walk towards the cage, a smile across my face.

“Carnie, you can’t do this. He’ll kill you,” she tells me, trying to talk me down, “Just throw the fight, alright. Go down after the first punch, take your lumps, and I’ll jump in if it gets to be too much, okay?”

I glare at her with an offended visage plastered across my face, saying, “ ‘Take your lumps’? Did you really just tell me to do that, Ylva?”

Realizing how bad that was, she tries to backpedal. She stammers and fumbles her words, trying to say and promise anything to get me to walk away from the fight. I don’t listen to any of it. My mind is stuck on one thing and one thing only: A damn bloody fight. As I walk into the cage, I don’t listen to a word Noz says while the metal bars lower around Scars and I. I’ve locked my eyes on to my opponent, studying his movement and the trophies sewn into his body. I look for possible past injuries to exploit or weaknesses to break open again. I find none. My smile grows wider. Noz makes one last announcement before I can have my fun.

“For the first time ever! We have a Fight Absent Rules! A Fight With No Limits! A Fight Between A True Wolf and a Human With True Fire In Him! On the left, Scars! The Ahroun Garou Who’s Been Fighting Since Before He Left The Womb! On the right, Carnegie! The Worthless Man Who’s Worth More Dead Than Alive!”

Upon those words, Scars and I go to war. He tries to take it easy at first, so I spill first blood. Directly after, he starts slamming me around like a ragdoll. I feel my shoulder dislocate so I pick him up and slam him to the ground with it to realign my bones. The fight gets bloodier and bloodier as we go back and forth. He pops a claw for a wild swipe at me and I narrowly dodge it, preventing him from taking my head off. I pick him up and send him head first into the bars. I hear a satisfying crunch just before he to lets his beast out. He transforms into a large wreathe of muscle, fur, and fangs. He howls to the moon and his whole tribe joins in. All but Ylva. She’s still trying to yell at me to just lie down and take the beating. Each time she says that, all I want to do is kick his ass even harder. The fight doesn’t last much longer after this, though. I get torn to shreds, clawed all over with my guts miraculously not spilling out of me. As I’m breathing my last, another werewolf hops into the cage to shield me. At least the final show I get to watch is Ylva whooping some ass. The next thing I see before nearly blacking out is Ylva returning to her human form as she kneels down next to me. She cradles my head as I glance past her to notice Scars’s dead body. He’s reduced to a puddle of red ground beef topped with a sprinkling of auburn and grey fur. Ylva’s bloodied and scratched up, but still looks good. I try to have one last daydream as the lights dim but my mind doesn’t seem to want to give me any peace. I see Noz talking with two people. Their silhouettes look familiar, but my vision is going hazy. They walk closer alongside the head vampire. They talk to Ylva, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. I can’t hear a damn thing anymore. They have to drag her away from me. I try to crawl to her. A long dark boot steps in front of me. A clawed hand wraps around my throat and lifts me into the air. I can’t feel anything below my waist. There’s a numbness clawing its way up my spine. Within a moment or two, I start losing feeling in my shoulder blades and my arms fall limp. My vision is fading more, going in and out of focus. I can barely make out that it’s Noz holding me up by my neck. He tilts my head to the side. My vision fades out then back in again. I lock eyes on Ylva being held back by the two familiar silhouettes. One last daydream finally manages to seep into my mind as the ghost appears again, rushing past the three of them to get to me. Just as the ghost makes contact, I feel what I can only imagine are fangs slamming into my throat. There’s an tinge of pain then immediate ecstasy. My vision clears in these final moments and I see Ylva in all her glory. I bask in it before I finally realize who the familiar shapes are. It’s Eron and Tony, those fucking assholes. Noz sucks the last bit of blood out of me and pulls away. He drops me to the floor like a sack of potatoes before slitting his own wrist with a fingernail and dripping the blood into my mouth . The last thing I see before my lights go out is Ylva, clutching something to her chest while tears stream down her cheeks. For what feels like a moment, it’s darkness. A cold empty void absent life. No dreams nor nightmares. No warmth nor cold. Only memories as a fleeting comfort. The next second, I’m blinded by the light flipping back on. I’m convulsing and writhing in pain as I feel my body burn from the inside out. I spend the next three weeks either comatose or awake long enough to feel my body destroy itself. All of the sinew in my form tears itself to shreds then rebuilds into twisted strands of muscle and skin. Each day is worse than the last. Every waking moment is welcomed and left by a guttural scream as I try to fight back the pain. During the first week spent in my fever dream, I can barely make out anything. I know that I’m still in Noz’s Bar. I think he dragged me up into his office when I went into my first coma. During the moments I’m awake, I find myself surrounded by glass and reflections. The wounds I received from my fight are stitch themselves back together, leaving behind deep scars. There are four small blots of red, two on each side of my neck. From those blots, I see odd waves beginning to form. I hear someone yelling outside but I can’t make out who or about what. As I try to reach the window that overlooks the bar, I take one step and feel my neck seize up on me. The odd waves seem to be moving now, pulsing rapidly. With each pulse, a tidal wave of pain slams my body and all I can do is shout in horror as I feel a wildfire course through my body. Before falling unconscious again, I manage to force my eyes open as I lie on the floor with my forehead against the glass panes of the window. My vision is shot already from what feels like tears flowing out of my eyes. All I can see is a pale flash of movement being stopped by five brown blobs before my head slams against the wooden floor as the pain becomes too much to bear. This is repeated for the entire week. The grooves of fire-like waves spread from my neck and across the right side of my head. It stops a knuckle away from the corner of my lip but continues to stretch past my temple and along the back of my head. I see that the tears which were ruining my vision were blood instead of water once I’m able to see my reflection. The second week gives my whole body a dip in lava compared to the first week’s endeavors. In the beginning, Noz is the first thing I find after waking up to the first round of wildfire in my veins. He walks away as Eron and Tony pick me up by my arms and set me on my feet in front of his desk. He says something to me, but the hammering in my skull keeps me from hearing anything. I’m in and out of consciousness constantly until I feel Eron stick a knife into my left leg. Something in me jolts up and I grab his throat. My legs strengthen and flex, forcing the knife out as I pick Eron up into the air. I throw him five feet high into the ceiling and see a chunk of concrete fall. When he lands, I pin him to the ground with his own knife. It’s as if my body is on auto-pilot, grabbing Tony by the ankle and tossing him out the window ten feet behind us. He flies to the opposite end of the bar, destroying one of the gramophone organs that softened his landing. I return to Eron, still struggling to pull the knife out of his shoulder, and bear my teeth as something compels me to bite into his neck. Before I can, a stiff pull at my collar sends the back of my head into Noz’s desk, knocking me unconscious. When I wake up, I’m bound to a bed in a straitjacket and belts as Eron and Tony are playing cards. I snap my restraints, drop to my feet, and tear my jacket to shreds as I ask them a few questions.

“What the fuck is happening to me?” I shout, feeling pulses of burning waves continue to surge throughout my body.

Eron, jumping up and hiding behind Tony, replies, “Yo, man, we told you we could make you into a real beast, didn’t we?”

I snarl and take a step forward while they skip backwards as Tony tells me, “Look, man. We didn’t expect it to be this painful for you. We were honestly making bets on if you’d die like the rest.”

“The rest?” I scream, losing control of my voice as I lurch towards them.

Noz responds, invisible to the eye but his voice filling the room, “Many Nosferatu die during the Embrace. You’re a hopeful candidate for me, boy. From what E and T told me about you, you can take punishment. I’m hoping that’s true.”

Before I could look around for him, I feel a guttural shriek leave my body as the pulses of wildfire burns through my veins again and floor me. The next time I wake up, I hear every voice in the bar pound into my ears and shake my entire body to its core. All of my senses are bombarded by every cheer, wail, fight, crashing glass, and heavy steam whistle. I can make out one voice in the crowd, and it’s asking about me. Pushing through the pain, I shakily stand on my own two feet and try to hobble my way out of the room, only to find a chain around my neck holding me to Noz’s desk. I cry out as loud as I can, but my throat is already gone and my voice along with it. Nobody in the crowd hears me over the revelry as another tide of agony lulls me to sleep. The third week is the worst as the monster that plagues my dreams returns. Eron and Tony wake me up with a bucket of water. It’s night time and I’ve been writhing around in so much pain while I slept through the day that the wooden floor is missing a few boards. I jolt up like a wild animal and reach for the two of them before the chain link leash holds me in place. They stumble back, terrified of me.

“Calm down, childe,” Noz says, throwing a rat to my feet.

Out of sheer instinct, I drop to the floor and sink my teeth into it. I feel a rush of blood spill out of the creature before being sucked into me, turning it into an empty blood bag. My nerves calm and my mind clears a bit, but I’m hit by an influx of pain as I try to return to my feet.

“That tasted like shit,” I tell him, grinding my teeth so hard that I feel them shift a bit.

Laughing aloud, Noz replies, “Oh, I know. But it’s kind of a rite of passage to taste one of those as a Nosferatu. I believe Eron and Tony would call it hazing.”

Through another cascade of aches and feverish burning, I push myself to my feet and lock eyes with my reflection. My clothes seem to have been clawed away, which I’m betting was more Scars doing than mine. My entire body is covered in a low pulsing orange glow and I can still watch as some of the wiry waves continue to grow and stretch across my body. My eyes have changed from a dull greyish-green to an ocean of red. My head, which was full of messy strands of curled black hair, is now bald aside from a small uneven strip stretching from the center peak to only a few inches back up my scalp. My fingernails are nearly sharp enough to be claws. Despite having not consumed anything in weeks, I’m not tired, thirsty, or, even more surprisingly, dead from starvation. Instead, I’m just really damn...

“Hungry,” an uncomfortably familiar voice growls in the back of my head.

I turn around and see the black specter that has always haunted my dreams grinning. I take a few steps toward him and see that he’s changed. His red eyes are the same as mine. The dark smoke that usually envelopes him washes away to show a savage mirror image of myself. He’s lacking all form of color, as if I’m looking at him in monochrome. The specter’s skin is paler than the moon. He lacks hair of any form and isn’t glowing like my still searing body. This creature is eerily calm, disturbingly collected, and unnervingly focused. His very presence feels like violence and voracity personified.

“You’re not supposed to be real,” I tell him in disbelief, “I’m awake. You’re only supposed to be in my dreams.”

“No, not your dreams,” he responds, stepping towards me, “Your conscience. Now, we don’t have one, though. We don’t need it. Now, I’m as real as you and, most importantly, we’re going to be doing this together.”

He walks into me and I expect to feel him bounce off my chest or knock me on my ass, but all I feel is a rush of agony as the searing fever inside of me grows. Instead of flooring me, I embrace it and let the specter exhale as he whispers, “Just don’t forget to feed us and, I’ll give you this hint now, rats aren’t going to cut it.”

Giving one last grunt, I lock eyes with Noz, who’s staring at me with intrigue. He watches me pull through one of the last excruciating pulses of the Embrace before asking, “So, you met the Beast, my boy?”

“Get this chain off of me,” I respond, growing tired of the metal chafing my neck.

Chuckling again, he simply tells me, “Get it off yourself. It’s only steel.”

I start pulling at it for a few moments and Eron cracks, “Come on, Noz. He’s not going to be able to. He’s a failure like the others. Give T or I a shot.”

Pissed at his words, I continue to jerk more and more violently as Tony pops in, remarking, “If he ain’t broke it by now, he’s not going to, Noz. If you want a stronger childe, you got Eron and I begging for this.”

Enraged further, I give one last vehement jerk on the chain before I feel the leg of Noz’s desk shift and almost break out a floorboard. Instead of the wood flying across the room, the chain link snaps about five inches from the leg of the desk. I grab on to my metal leash with both hands and growl like a madman as I tear it in two. Eron and Tony try to run for the door, but I dash twenty-five feet in less than a second and stare them down with the chain still in my hand. They begin begging for their lives, thinking that I’m going to suck the life out of them. I snap out of my rage as it finally dons on me what’s actually happened.

“Did you actually make me into one of you?” I ask Noz, locking eyes with him while I coil the chain in my left hand.

“Of course,” he tells me with a cocky smirk on his face, “Do you see any other Nosferatu in the room?”

I should be mad. I should race across this room and get myself killed trying to tear his damn head off for turning me into this monster. However, I’m more curious than upset.

Returning my glare to Eron and Tony, I ask Noz, “Did you turn them, too?”

“No, my dear boy,” he says, standing up from his seat and appearing behind them, “These are my two Ghouls. Have been for a while now. More loyal than hounds, these two.”

“They certainly bark like some,” I say, turning towards the door.

“Alright, hold on, now, Clown Boy,” Tony says, stepping up to me, “We vouched for you for this shot. You don’t get to-”

My foot cuts him short as it crashes into his abdomen, sending him flying into Noz’s arms. Noz’s heels grind against the floorboards as he catches Tony’s unconscious body. Eron pulls out a wooden stake and nearly slams it into my chest. What would have been a guaranteed stab before, my newly improved reactions help twist me out of the way and snap his arm. He screams in pain while I calmly bend down on my knees and slide the stake out the front door. I lean against the wall as I watch Noz set the still unconscious Tony down on the floor before slowly helping Eron walk away. They exchange a few words before Noz uses a nail of his to slice his wrist open, proceeding to drip his blood into their mouths.

After Eron stops himself from insulting me again, Noz walks up to me and places a hand on my shoulder as he says, “My boy, you have much to learn. First of which will be the few things that can hurt us, like stakes,” before jamming a wooden stake of his own into my chest.

I feel the stake smash through my ribs and pierce my heart. My entire body locks up as a painful jolt of electricity shocks my entire system worse than the past two weeks. Paralysis seizes me but I’m still conscious, seeing Eron and Tony stand up. Eron’s arm uncomfortably snaps back into place with the bones sliding back under his skin, which then reforms and stitches together in a matter of moments. Tony stands up and struggles to walk forward as I hear the bones in his chest crumple, crack, and push his deformed midsection back into place. As they stand behind their master, Noz tears the stake from my chest and I shout in pain as it feels like barbed wire being dragged out of my chest.

Barely managing to stay on my feet, the Beast inside tells me to tear off his head, but I fight it off to ask, “Is that the only fucking lesson, you old dirty bastard, or should I expect more of that tonight?”

“First, I’m your ‘Sire’ if you ever find yourself needing to refer to me professionally,” he retorts with a wink, “Second, we have so much more to get to, my dear childe.”

He goes on to tell me that he’ll be revealing everything I need to know about being a Nosferatu after each pulse from my final throws of the Embrace. For the rest of this night, he explains to me the major dangers for our “kine”, as he calls us. The common ones are what everyone knows, like sunlight and fire. Decapitation seems self-explanatory to me but he still explains it regardless. Extreme cold is a problem for vampires and is the only surprise for me. He proceeds to tell me about our sleeping habits and the “Final Death”. It barely holds my attention as the only thing I can think of now is finding someone to fight with or feed on.

As Noz drones on and on about the intricacies of “torpor” or whatever he calls it, the Beast begins to nudge, “Are we really just going to sit here waiting for that hole in our chest to reform or are we going to feed on something to speed it up?”

Dipping my chin lower and placing my hand over my mouth, I whisper back to it, “What do you expect me to do? Jump on Noz and sink my teeth in? Believe me, it’s crossed my mind.”

Answering back, his voice is angrier as he nearly shouts in my ear, “Then why haven’t you yet? You can take him. You know you can. You can take on anyone now.”

“Shut up.”

“What? Don’t like hearing the truth?”

“Just shut up, I’ll find something soon.”

“Like what? A godforsaken rat again? You try to feed me that, I’ll personally take control and find the closest heartbeat walking on two legs.”

“I said to shut up, dickhead.”

“Asshat.”

“Piece of shit.”

“CLOWN BOY!”

“FUCK YOU!”

Snapping out of my brief conversation with the Beast, I look around to see Eron and Tony cowering behind Noz. I look down at his desk and realize that I just splintered the top of it after slamming my fist. Noz stares at my bleeding hand and waits for me to lift it out of the wooden splinters.

As I do, Noz asks, “Are you two done with your conversation?”

I simply nod as I readjust in my seat. He continues on for hours, just before dawn breaks. Before falling asleep, I open the door to retrieve the wooden stake I slid out earlier only to find it missing. I feel as if someone is staring at me, but I can’t seem to notice anyone around. I don’t tell Noz, Eron, or Tony about it before nodding off as dawn arrives. Violently reawakening the next night, I feel migraines pounding away in my head as if someone is driving a railroad stake through my ears.

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey...won’t cut it. Let’s get to hunting,” the Beast says, rousing me awake.

Forcing words through my seizing body, I reply aloud, “This shit better not be a regular thing. I really cannot see myself waking up to your dumbass voice every night.”

Replying offended, the Beast says, “My ‘dumbass voice’ is the same as your voice, dumbass.”

“Don’t call me a dumbass. Come up with your own insults,” I retort just as loud as before.

“Can’t do that when we’re the same person, dumbass.”

“We’re not the same person.”

“You want to bet?”

“I’d rather fight.”

“And a fight you shall receive soon, my boy,” Noz shouts, standing over me, “But, first, I need to teach you about the Beast you’re talking to and the blood you’ll need to control it.”

Giving a deep sigh, I take a seat in front of his desk as he begins to drawl about my “new” friend and how my bloodlust is only going to get stronger if I don’t sate it. Starting with the actual act of feeding, Noz tells me that a bite from a Kindred’s fangs actually fill the victim with pleasure. He follows it immediately by warning me about the Beast taking over if I go without drinking for too long. The rest I don’t really give a damn about, so I tune it out. He speaks about not needing to kill when you feast, how some feasting may be consensual, blah, blah, blah. I’m pretty sure that Noz could have just talked me to death before turning me.

“You know? I never really enjoyed you narrating your shitty life back when I was just a hellish nightmare and I still don’t now,” the Beast tells me.

“Be quiet,” I whisper when Noz has his back to me, “You don’t get to talk about me narrating my shitty life.”

“Who does?” he retorts, “Your sexy little-”

“Werewolf!” Noz yells, having moved on to different types of blood without me realizing.

“What?” I stammer, nearly jumping from my seat as the Beast chuckles behind my ears, “What did you say?”

Turning around to face me, he explains, “I said ‘Now on to the Werewolf!’ You’ve been paying attention, yes?”

He points to the usually bare wall behind his desk, revealing bullet points of each type of blood written on the wall. In a bit of irony which I’m almost certain was lost on him, Noz wrote it on his wall with blood. Eron and Tony’s, to be exact.

Skimming through it, I simply tell him, “Uh, yeah, yeah. Animals are crap. Blood bags are bullshit. Grab a human if I can. Rats taste like shit and always will. What-the-fuck-ever, O.D.B. What about Werewolves?”

Giving me an inquisitive look, he asks, “What’s an ‘O.D.B’?”

Desiring more to move on with the Werewolf topic rather than explain his nickname, I sigh before saying, “Could we just continue with the Werewolf topic? Please, sire.”

“Well, when my childe asks so politely, how can I not?” he continues while wearing a grin that I want to claw off, “The blood of a Werewolf, or a Lupine if you like that word better, is extremely potent for us Kindred. Ironic considering the fact that our blood is life-threatening to them. Picture the most potent adrenaline in the world. That’s what their blood is. It’s ridiculously delicious, double as filling as a normal human. However, the side effects can prove to be...catastrophic.”

Intrigued by every word, I ask, “How so?”

He answers, “Well, not only do you become obnoxiously paranoid and short-tempered, one of those two you already possess...”

I growl a bit in response.

“The vitae it becomes beckons the Beast due to its much more savage nature, lubricating the slope which leads into a frenzy. So, just to recap, Werewolf blood is a hell of an adrenaline shot but it could lead to more carnage than intended. You understand?”

The Beast impishly whispers, “Oh, we understand. So, when are we finding our favorite little ‘Night Wolf’?”

Ignoring him, I tell Noz, “Got it.”

Patting me on the shoulder, he says, “Good, my boy. You are learning. We’ll go through what else you can do with blood tomorrow night.”

The rest of the week passes quickly, now with Ylva back in my thoughts. As each day passes, I feel my hunger increase and thoughts of blood seeping down my throat almost becomes unbearable. I try my best to think about my time as a child, trying to find something happy to take my mind off of it. The only enjoyable memories I have as a child are of me and Ylva together. Even those are becoming sour as the Beast now speaks up whenever she pops into my head, saying things like-

“So, when are we going for a nighttime nature hike, Clown Boy?”

Right on queue.

“When you understand not to call me ‘Clown Boy’, you goddamn leech,” I respond under my breath so that Noz doesn’t think I’m referring to him.

“Then, how about I call you ‘Checkpoint Attendant’? Does that get you in the mood?”

Continuing to try my best to ignore him through these final days of the Embrace, all of my thoughts return to Ylva. I don’t know if it’s because of me or the Beast, either. Unfortunately, I’m also confused on whether it’s me or the Beast who wants to stick my fangs in her. According to what Noz tells us, a Kindred’s bite is actually euphoric. I wonder if-

“Of course, she’s going to like getting bit. She’s a damn werewolf.”

God, I need to find a way to shut him up.

“Fat chance getting me to shut up on an empty stomach.”

Burying my face in both hands, I do my best to quiet my mind only to continue having him poke and prod me tirelessly. Each night brings a worse pulse of heat than the one before, indicating the Embrace ending soon. Noz finishes teaching me the rest of the intricacies to being a Kindred and a Nosferatu. My head continues to pulse with the dire necessity to feed. When the last night of the Embrace comes, Noz presents one final lesson.

“Last but not least, I think it’s best if you experience the true effects of a proper torpor,” he tells me while I check a mirror to see all of the waves across my body losing their fiery glow, making the changes permanent.

Hoping for one of the things I’ve been craving since I’ve changed, I ask him, “Does that mean that I’m finally getting to enter the cage again?”

Snapping both of his fingers, he tells me, “Not exactly.”

I turn around to see the entirety of his workforce now standing between him and I in his office. The count is exactly forty-two to one, all Ghouls including Eron and Tony. None have weapons with them, which is rather disappointing. However, pretty good odds are that I’m not walking out of this room. I’m more than okay with that as I stare them down.

“So, my childe,” Noz speaks up again after allowing me to take in my situation, “I know you can take some punishment, so that’s why I brought in all of my employees to get this done as quick as possible. On top of all this, I do have an order for you, my boy. No. Fighting. Back.”

I don’t respond to that request. Noz waits for an answer until his patience runs out a few moments later. He bows his head in dismay before taking a step back and clapping his heads. All forty-two employees rush me like they’re in heat. The Beast and I growl at them, reveling in the bloodbath that ensues. Torpor isn’t as relaxing as how Noz described it to be. All there is is a blank slate of nothing all around me. I caused plenty of damage but I know that I “died”. It’s not the Final Death, or at least I hope not. No dreams come to me while I recuperate. The one thing that wakes me up is the Beast snarling in my ears louder than a handful of steam whistles. My eyes shoot open and I feel weight all around me. I hear gravel shift, late night whistles blow, and voices disappearing around me. Machines are still whirring above, vibrating the ground around me. Forcing my hands open from the rigor mortis, I shoot my arm up, expecting to be buried deep. The majority of my arm feels the nightly rain splatter across it, leaving just under my elbow still below ground. I take my shallow grave as an insult with a fistful of gravel in my hand. Hearing light footsteps approach me, I sit straight up and the gravel washes away as I grab the throat of whoever walked within reach. It’s a child, a young boy covered in oil and dirt. With my hunger stronger than ever before, I can practically see his heart rate spike, pumping blood to every major vein and artery in his body. He’s young, maybe ten or eleven. He shouldn’t be working yet, but our overlords never cared about age when a job needed to get done. Looking around, the surrounding area feels familiar, yet I don’t have much of a mind to find out. The Beast is clawing at my eyes with its demand to feed.

Glancing at the terrified boy’s neck, I feel him shaking in my grasp as the Beast shouts, “I need blood. We need blood! The boy is weak and defenseless. Drain him already!”

It’s hard to resist as I instinctively bare my teeth, but I glance up to his face and my grip loosens. He’s got a dark black ring around his right eye accompanied by slight swelling around his left. The hooded jacket he’s wearing is torn and tattered, allowing me to see the wrappings around his right arm beneath the sleeve. I hear metal supports and straps clang against each other as he tries to kick loose, revealing that he has a metal brace around one of his legs. Placing him down gently on the ground, I manage to fight back the Beast and regain control.

Before the kid gets back to his feet, I ask, “Who did that to you?”

Rubbing his neck as he lies on the ground, he responds, “What do you care? You nearly took my head off.”

As the Beast tries to rouse me into feeding again, I squeeze my eyelids shut to resist as I tell the boy, “Sorry about that. It’s just that I used to know some kids who got beat before I-uh.”

Seeing him still terrified as he returns to his feet, I simply take a deep sigh as I continue to say, “I’ll just leave.”

Turning around, the Beast continues to shout and curse at me. It wants me to drink the kid like a juice box, but I can’t bring myself to. I consider other places to go until I realize that I can’t remember where I am in the city.

“You’re lost, aren’t you?” the kid asks, sneaking up to my side, “Thanks for not drinking me.”

Momentarily caught off by not noticing him approach, I tell him, “Don’t mention it. Besides, I want a fight if I’m going to have a meal. Was hoping that you knew someone. That’s all.”

The boy releases a depressed sigh as he says, “Well, I do. He’s my new foster dad, and he’s an asshole.”

My eyes were scanning the nearby streets before they shot back to the kid after hearing him speak of his father, prompting me to ask, “How long have you been with him?”

“Only a month,” he says, bending over and holding his right leg, “Only a month and I’ve been beat more than the three years I’ve been an orphan. I thought I had it good, at first. Got a mother and an older brother out of it as well, but they’re practically useless. I was hoping that the orphanage would have sent people to check in by now and take me away, but they won’t. It’s as if they just forgot about me.”

As he says that, my eyes widen with intrigue as the Beast quiets just long enough for me to realize where we are. I turn around and see the unfinished railroad back where I dug myself up, spikes and tracks lying alongside my grave intended to have been on top of me the next day. The oil and blisters on his hands remind me of when I was working the line a month ago. The truth hits me like a stomp to the gut or a knife in the ribs.

“Your old man is a Ghoul. Your older brother is a deadbeat who gets beat to shit and returns home too drunk to hold a conversation. Your mother spends hours in the bathroom, alone and in silence due to a needle in her arm,” I growl through clenched and bleeding teeth, “Is any of that accurate?”

Stunned for a moment, the kid stutters as he says, “Who are you, mister?”

“Take your time getting home,” I tell him as I dash off towards my old house.

I’m infuriated and I can feel that familiar burn in my chest grow again. I was gone for weeks and it just donned on me that none of my own family cared to search during the three weeks I was stuck in the Embrace. They found a replacement, another kid to use as a punching bag, instead of trying to find some way to lay me to rest. My Beast is laughing joyously as all I feel inside is the desire to shred someone into minced meat.

In what feels like less than ten minutes, I’m outside of my old home. Keeping to the shadows, I stalk my old family. My former mother is in the bathroom, tying the belt around her arm with new bruises around her neck.

The Beast snarls, “She was weak when you were alive and she’s just as weak now.”

Silently agreeing, I make my way over to my former brother’s small window and notice that he’s grabbing his dice, his set of cards, and a few extra bottles before walking out. He’s healing well, but he’s missing a few front teeth.

The Beast gives a snicker as he says, “He’s always been dead meat. Surprised he wasn’t next to us in the ground. Just a lost cause for us to drain later.”

Flinching at the thought but not arguing, I sneak in through the front door as he leaves the house. After taking a number of minutes to stare at the back of my father’s head, I slowly make my way through my old home. The hole in the hallway wall he slammed me into is still there, a pile of drywall and splintered wood boards still making it awkward to step around. Gradually making my way to my old room, I see that everything which was mine is already gone, everything from the carpet to the paint on the walls. The walls and carpet already shows some wear and tear, revealing to me that they didn’t wait long before calling me dead and gone. I notice drops of dried blood next to the kid’s bed. I kneel down and use a fingernail to etch a message into his wooden bed frame then I stand as still as possible in the corner of the room between those blood spots and the door.

“There’s going to be four bodies after we’re done,” the Beast tells me, “Which are we killing?”

“Only one,” I snarl back, “And it’s one we’ve always wanted.”

The Beast chortles in anticipation and we wait nearly two hours for the kid to get home. The moment he walks in, it starts to sound like a record repeating itself.

“What the hell took you so long to get here, ‘Earwig’?” my father says, boisterous and enraged.

Placing what sounds like three bags of food on the table, the kid replies, “I missed the last train because the food order took longer than usual. Had to walk home in the rain.”

Pulling out a delivery box from a sack and opening it, my father frustratingly shuts it as he shouts, “All of this shit’s drenched in rain water! I can’t eat this!”

“Sorry, sir,” the boy replies with a timid voice, “But, I couldn’t get a ride home and the rain only got worse. I did my best t-”

A plate shatters against a wall as my father asserts, “Your ‘best’ needs to get better! Slow walking is no excuse for ruining food! Now, clean that up, ‘Earwig.’ ”

Putting a surprised yet pleasant smile on my face, the kid surprises me by shooting back, “My name is Ludwig and you can clean it yourself!”

He’s breathing heavy and his heart starts slamming against his chest. The kid tries to apologize, but it’s too late. I can feel my father’s blood running hot from the other side of the house.

“We should attack now,” the Beast suggests, eager to feed.

“Not yet,” I reply, waiting for him to get closer to Ludwig’s room.

The next thing I hear is a grunt from the kid and him flying into the closed bathroom door on this side of the house. The door breaks inward slightly, allowing the scent of my mother’s horrid sweat to fill the house. Through the disgusting refuse wafting around the house, I catch a whiff of blood as the back of Ludwig’s head is cut open. He falls on to his side and touches the back of his head, smearing his blonde hair orange with blood as he looks up in horror. The smell of fresh vitae fills my nostrils and the Beast nearly grabs the steering wheel. I manage to barely regain control so as not to leap on Ludwig. Our father relies on his old tricks, so he’s slowly walking down the hall as he shouts about how it’s Ludwig’s fault that he’s getting hurt. The kid quickly crawls into his room and tries to shut the door behind him. Father picks up the pace just enough to interpose his hand between the door and the wall. Ludwig continues trying to shut it but is simply tossed across the floor as the door flies open. He nearly touches my feet before he slides to a halt. He tries desperately to crawl under his bed as our father locks the door after stepping in. He drags Ludwig out by his ankles, pulls him to his feet, then knocks him back down to the floor on the right side of the bed, directly next to the dried blood from the previous times. Ludwig gets hit by a few more swings, interrupting his attempts to apologize. Our father is shouting louder and louder about him not allowing his son to disrespect him like that. He’s so loud that our neighbors on both sides of the house can hear. As always, they don’t do anything. Letting up just enough to allow Ludwig to glance to his bed frame, I see the expression in his eyes change. My fangs ache and my hands clench into fists as I wait to hear-

“CARNEGIE!” Ludwig shouts before our father can land another punch.

Pausing in surprise, our father tries to ask why he said that name but I interrupt him with a kick to his lower spine. A sickening pop comes from his back as he flies face first into the wall three feet in front of him, leaving a large imprint as he falls backwards. Ludwig rolls to the side before getting crushed by him then crawls behind me. Clutching his back in pain, my father tries to roll over just as I slam my right foot into the center of his chest. He coughs up blood after an excruciating crunch of bone escapes from under my foot. A splash of blood hits my face and I lick it off my lips.

The Beast pulls my attention aside, calling out, “Stop playing with your food and consume this mealworm!”

I shout aloud, “NO! I want him to fight,” answering the Beast as I allow my father to return to his feet.

He gets up in a flash and leaps off of the wall with a kick. I grab his leg with both hands before sinking my teeth into his calf. I take a chunk of flesh out of it as I swing him back down to the ground. He manages to limp back up on to his feet and I let him throw a flurry of punches at me. Before the Embrace, his strikes were too fast for me to even register before getting hit. Now, it’s as if he’s a ninety year old man in a wheelchair. He swings with his right fist and I claw it, painting some of the nearby wall red. He tries his left fist, so I repeat the lesson and splatter the bed with his blood. Desperation mounting in his eyes, he feebly kicks at me and I stomp in his support leg’s knee, laughing a bit as he crumples to the ground. He tries begging for his life. I grab him by the collar and set him on his knees.

Tears in his eyes, he asks me, “Why are you doing this to me? I did everything I was told!”

With a malicious grin and my blood thirst piquing, I grab his neck as I reply, “Because I want to!”

Futile in his requests for mercy, I slam him into the ceiling by the throat and watch his eyes turn bloodshot from the strangulation. My grin grows wider as I tease the Beast.

“Hurry up and sink your fangs in before I do it myself!” it shouts at me.

Shoving my other hand into the top of his rib cage, I tell the Beast, “No...he’s not going to enjoy this.”

Refusing to give the lowlife the euphoria which comes with a Kindred’s bite, I rend his head from his body. In one fluid motion, I pull his neck and head from his shoulders with my right hand as my left hand tears his body away. The blood flows like a river from his neck and I sink my teeth into it to suck it dry before all of it soaks the carpet. After finishing the decapitated head, I toss it to the side as I lift up his body and slam my fangs into the stump of the neck, still drinking greedily. Once it’s empty, I let it slump to the ground as the warm blood calms my mind and quiets the Beast. For the first time since my death, the Beast goes completely silent after a satisfied murmur.

Hearing feet shuffle behind me, I twist around to lock eyes with Ludwig after forgetting that he was still in the room and I tell him, “Sorry, that you had to see that.”

His hands are shaking but his breathing is steady as he says, “I’ve seen worse and he deserved it. Are you going to do that to the others?”

I expect the Beast to pull me towards sinking my fangs into them, but I’m relieved by the absent silence and respond, “No, that son of a bitch was enough. I’m going to go make sure that the others straighten up their acts before the night’s up, make sure they do right by you. I’ll drag this body out of the room and-”

I’m interrupted by banging on the front door. It’s a stronger arm than my former brother’s and the night is too young for him to be back already. The door unlocks and two sets of feet enter. I can smell the liquor on their breath as they shout for my father to join them. I don’t recognize their voices as I step closer to the door. The body is still fresh and the room is still rife with the scent of blood. The two men make their way to Ludwig’s door then proceed to slam their fists into it. I let out a low growl, just loud enough for them to hear. They stop for a second then whisper back and forth before one runs outside while the other continues to try to break down the door.

Stopping me from opening the door, Ludwig pulls me to the desk next to his bed as he tells me, “There’s a small hole behind my desk. I use it to sneak out at night when I’m tired of being here.”

Huh...I should have thought of that.

“Ludwig, you don’t have to help me,” I tell him, placing a hand on his shoulder, “But thanks for doing so.”

He gives me a worried smile before hugging my legs as he asks, “Is your name actually ‘Carnegie?’ ”

Stunned by the show of affection for a bloodsucker who just killed his foster father, I just stare at him, not being able to think of a response.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me,” he says, releasing me as he turns back towards the door.

I pull the desk aside and tear the metal panel away. The hole is only large enough for him. He seems like a smart boy, so I’m pretty sure the shock from what I did just made the size slip his mind.

“Stay safe, Ludwig,” I tell him, “I’m going to return tomorrow night to make sure that your mother and Everett learned their lesson. Just warning you now that there’s going to be a lot more blood and carnage to come. I’d rather you not see it.”

“For a monster, you’re pretty soft, Carnegie,” the kid says with a dickhead smile.

I smirk back at him as I widen the hole by shoving my shoulder through it. I step out into the rain which is now falling harder. Footsteps begin to approach just as the door to Ludwig’s room flies open. Before the man running around the house can spot me, I step backwards into an alley and wait to see what they do. Ludwig loses track of me as I become invisible to the naked eye. The man in his room demands answers on what happened to his “boss”, pointing to the bloodstain that was once my father. Ludwig tells him that a crazy Half-Blood fought him, shouting about how he failed the Royal Family one too many times. The man eats it up with a distressed expression, but I can hardly believe it. That sack of crop feeder was actually a Ghoul of the Royal Family, the incestuous bastards who’ve ruled the entire city since it’s creation a millennia ago. They’re also the strongest vampires in the land and, if I’m to believe what Ludwig told my father’s friend, I just slaughtered one of their personal toys. Generations of inbreeding has turned their minds to mush, leaving this city in a dumpster fire about to be run by two of the most batshit crazy vampires who are betrothed to each other. The Prince and Princess of Ustrus, soon to be King and Queen, are the most psychotic, deranged, and irrational leeches in the world. It’s not going to be long before they start splaying entrails across every street in the city on a wild goose chase. Releasing a deep sigh, I make my way to my brother’s favorite stomping grounds as the Beast returns after using one of my vampiric abilities.

Giving a guttural laugh, the Beast says, “So, are we hoping to eat the Prince or Princess then?”

“Neither,” I tell him, wading through a massive crowd in search of Everett, “Once we get our old family straightened out, we’re leaving the city.”

“Fat chance with that look in your eyes,” the Beast remarks, “With everything that Noz has told you about the displeasure around the Royal Family, you’re not going to miss out on what’s next. You know why?”

I don’t answer while I continue scouring the gambling halls for my brother.

“It’s because a war’s on the horizon and you taste it,” he tells me, revealing the truth that I didn’t want to face, “It’s on your lips. You can lick the air and grow hungrier by how soaked it is in anticipation of the blood that’s going to fill it. You want a piece of that. Hell, you want the entire fucking thing and you’re not going to leave until you get it.”

I wish that I could argue and prove him wrong somehow. Unfortunately, it’s impossible for me to think of a rebuttal. The Beast leaves me to my search and, soon enough, a smash of glass echoes across the tables, leading me to my former brother. On the way, I realize that I won’t be able to stay invisible long with so many people around me since a strong nudge is enough to reveal me. As the other gambling night owls get up to investigate the fight, I take my time to find some better attire than the bloodstained and dirt soiled scraps of fabric wrapped around me. An unconscious, rotund drunkard loses his dark grey shirt just before one of the wait staff finds their red vest missing from the locker they left it in. She won’t miss the vest, as it’s filled with holes and loose strands but she will be rather upset at the loss of the pocket watch she left in it. Unfortunately, I’m unable to find a replacement for my dark brown trousers, tattered and riddled with a Garou’s claw marks, but I do manage to find some hefty coal miner’s boots. I don my new attire and drop my unseen passage as I make my way towards the back of the establishment. The crowd of people are packed outside the backdoor of the building, standing in the area where all of the wasted booze and trash gets thrown out. The rain is washing away the usually horrid smell, allowing them the opportunity to get a decent show. The performance tonight is the same every weekend, starting just after midnight. Everett, my former brother, got caught counting cards in a desperate attempt to win enough money from the gambling halls so as to pay off the debt he owes to the owner of these very same gambling halls. Before he was tossed outside, he had a bottle smashed over his head, evident by the stream of crimson rolling down from his hair. Currently, he’s withstanding the second act, getting pummeled by the owner’s enforcer. The enforcer is built like a brick shit house but hits like a sledgehammer. Despite not needing them, he uses a pair of brass knuckles to really drive the punishment home. Everett receives a dislocated jaw, cracked nose, two broken ribs, an eye swollen shut, and a split open upper lip before the owner starts the third act, which is berating him in front of the other gamblers so as to make him an example. It’s a broken record at this point, considering how many times he’s had to give this speech over my former brother’s barely conscious body. The only surprising thing I hear is that Everett has actually paid off his debt tonight, but doing it by gambling at the same establishment he accrued it at rubbed the owner the wrong way. The games at the gambling halls aren’t regulated or controlled by the owner of the building. He just takes a share of any and all profits made on his establishment, so Everett still managed to pay off his debt by gambling here. He’s just getting the shit kicked out of him because he was able to find a loop hole and exploit it. After giving him his proper talking to, the owner and enforcer leave Everett to bleed in the rubbish where he belongs as they usher the people back into the building. Everett is barely able to open an eye as I stalk the owner back to his office. His enforcer cracks a joke about how easy brass knuckles make a fight. The owner laughs as he counts the dirty money Everett dropped at his feet before getting thrashed. They’re regular humans so they don’t notice me sneak into their office until I’ve locked the door. His office is far enough in the back that nobody hears their screams. It takes me less than a minute to deal with them. The owner tries to warn his enforcer about me as I twist the man’s head around. The owner takes out a machete to fight me, but he’s terrified and slips on a bottle as he tries to charge me. As he stumbles but manages to stay on his feet, I grab his wrist and break it, picking up the machete for myself. He tries to yell at me about money hidden under his desk as he puts his back against a wall and tries to slide along it to the door. I cleave him in two, from his left shoulder through the middle of his right thigh, before he can reach the doorknob. I grab the enforcer in one hand and the upper half of the owner in the other after strapping the machete to my waist with some loose rope. I also pocket the two brass knuckles as I carry their bodies off with another eleven feet of rope. I leave them in Everett’s room, hanging by their necks with their eyes towards his door. The top half of the owner is still dripping as he softly swings left and right. The enforcer’s face is towards the door while his body is facing the opposite wall. My former mother is trying to sleep off her latest hit, so she doesn’t notice anything. The men have left already and Ludwig isn’t in his room. I worry a little about where he might have gone as I go back out into the rain to find the drug dealers. They’re easy to locate due to the number of junkies twitching outside their front door. Her suppliers live in the neighborhoods closer to the edge of the forests. They turn out to be two meek Thin-Bloods, so they’re dealt with almost as easily the other two I killed less than an hour before. The cook I leave alive, making it clear that he’s not allowed to deal to any mother’s living in a certain sector of the town. He refuses at first, so I tear the head off of his friend. Both pieces of him wither to a rotting corpse in a matter of seconds as the Final Death arrives. The cook complies to my demands. I carry his friend’s two pieces back to my former home and sneak them into my mother’s bed. I place the withered head on her bedside table and the body lying at the foot of her bed. I find and crush all of her needles then place their pieces around the body. Ludwig helps me find her stash of drugs, having returned from bringing Everett back home. I leave the house with what feels like almost a cinder block worth of drugs to dispose of it and Ludwig follows me out.

As we walk towards the forest, I ask him, “None of that stuff I just put in there freaks you out?”

With a glum expression, he says, “I’ve seen badder things done in the orphanages when the fancy vampires come looking for food. Some more bloody bodies won’t change how bad my nightmares are.”

“Still,” I continue to press, “That was your foster father I tore in two and I’m terrorizing both your foster mother and foster brother, too. None of that rubs you the wrong way?”

“I’ve had a pretty big number of foster homes,” he tells me while sneezing from the rain, “He was the worst father I’ve ever had and the mom doesn’t care enough to even look at me. My foster brother is okay when he’s not drunk. He’s been drunk almost every day since I got to the home. You’re the only person so far who actually calls me by my name. Wish you were my brother.”

The conversation stops after I hear those words. It hurts knowing that someone actually wants to be my family. It pains me even more that he’s the kind of kid I wish Everett was growing up. We walk in silence for a while until a shape steps out in front of us and growls. It’s on all fours and stares at us from about thirty feet away. Ludwig takes a step closer to me, but I tell him that it’s okay. The eyes are the color of blue ice and the hair is a familiar mix of silver and black. He calms down after I tell him that she’s a friend.

“I was just on my way to find you,” I shout to her, taking a few steps closer, “Sorry that I didn’t come earlier. There’s not much time left in the night but we could go for a drink at Noz’s, if you’d like. I kind of got some pull around there now.”

I give a half-assed chuckle, hoping that she’ll chuckle back. She doesn’t as she steps closer to us. It’s not until she’s within ten feet that I can hear her wining in sadness. Not wanting to provoke her in any way, I stay still as she approaches, waiting for her to make a move. I blink once and she’s standing in front of me, rain hitting her naked body. I lower my right hand to cover Ludwig’s eyes.

Sniffing around me a little bit, she almost can’t believe her eyes as she stares at me, saying, “Really? That’s all you have to say? You’re sorry that you didn’t come earlier? That’s all I get?”

“Uhhhh,” I say as I try to think of something before she slaps me across the face. Her hand slams against my cheek before I can come up with anything.

“A whole month,” she tells me, fury painting her face, “You were gone for a whole month before I heard any news about you.”

I stare her in the eyes, admiring the icy blue once more. It feels like an eternity since I was this close to her. It puts my mind at ease that she’s still okay. It doesn’t help that she’s fighting back tears.

“Look, I wanted to see you sooner but I couldn’t,” I tell her, trying to put my hands on her shoulders.

She tenses up as they reach her, prompting her to shoot back, “You ‘couldn’t?’ Really? What the hell was keeping you?”

She waits for a response and my mind races trying to think of one, bouncing from lie to partial truth to laying out the entire story about my Embrace and everything in between. I begin to reply, “I’ll tell you everything if-”

She smacks my arms down off of her shoulder then tries to swing back around to give me a punch across the jaw. I shock her when I catch her fist with a single hand and hold it still as I finish saying, “I’ll tell you everything if we share a drink at Noz’s bar before dawn comes.”

Looking at her fist, her eyes flash from anger to surprise to worry as I let it go. She looks me up and down in an awful look of pain before glancing down to Ludwig, who’s trying to peak through my fingers.

“Is it just going to be you and me or is your new brother coming, too?” she asks with a frustrated sigh.

“It’s just going to be me and you,” I tell her, putting my hand on Ludwig’s shoulder, “Just...put some clothes on before his nose starts bleeding, will ya?”

Rolling her eyes, she walks back into the rain to retrieve her clothes while I pull Ludwig off to the side.

“Ludwig, I need you to go home.”

“What did she mean by calling me ‘your new brother’?”

“Nothing, kid. Just head back, alright?”

“I want to talk to her some more, though.”

“I’ll try to convince her to later, but I need you to go home, now. Understand?”

“But-”

“Ludwig, you saw what I can do. She can do just as much and she’s very angry with me because of what I’ve done. I don’t want you around if she and I start fighting, alright? You need to go home. Do you understand?”

“Fine,” he reluctantly says, rolling his head back in annoyance.

As he walks away, I shout to him, “We’ll talk more tomorrow night, alright?”

He flips me off as he walks away. When I turn around, Ylva is standing closer than before, wearing a tattered military jacket over an ill-fitting corset wrapped around a collared shirt that looks like it’s been mauled. The shirt is stained with blood and looks like she shoddily stitched it together, making it roughly the right size for her. It’s odd as I know that there are plenty of seamstresses in her tribe who would be able to stitch it properly. Her worn grey pants are caked in mud and frayed at the end. Her boots are heavy soled, tied up in buckles and strips of fabric. She always wears earthy colors and this is no different. The only odd new addition is the torn shirt, which seems to have be a dark tone of purple. Another new addition is a shoulder harness accompanied by a brass cover and a sheathed sword.

She says, “You’re buying the first round,” before walking off towards the scrap yard.

I tell her, “I owe you that much.”

She snaps, “You owe me a hell of a lot more than that, Carnie!”

I follow with a dumb smile on my face. I missed hearing her call me that. We don’t really talk on the way to Noz’s. The walk to the bar mainly consisted of Ylva staring at me while I would try to glance back at her. She would always awkwardly avert her eyes. She used to never turn away when I looked at her. We step into Noz’s Bar only a few hours from dawn, so it’s pretty scarce. The majority of the staff are collecting bottles, cups, glasses, even the occasional scrap of clothing. A few are scrubbing the blood out of the cracks in the concrete floor. We sit down at the bar and I put my hand up as I call out for one of the bartenders by name. The one that walks down is a cool and collected Ghoul with a constantly emotionless face by the name of Bartholomew.

“Hey, Carnegie,” the soulless ginger says, placing down a glass cup he’s cleaning, “What’s your choice of poison tonight?”

“Ten shots of whiskey, if you don’t mind,” I tell him, glancing to Ylva.

She seems tense as she adjusts the sword on her back and says, “Doubles, if you don’t mind.”

“Uhhhh,” Bartholomew stops, recognizing her, “You’re not allowed in here, anymore. You know that.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” I ask, holding my hand out for Ylva to stay.

“Didn’t Noz tell you?” he responds with an odd look on his face.

“I may have made some threats. It’s nothing. Let’s just head out,” Ylva says, trying to stand up from the bar.

“Let’s just...wait. Who did you insult? Who did she insult?” I question, flipping between both of them.

They answer simultaneously with a resounding, “Noz,” and the only reason why I’m surprised is that no one told me before.

“How long has it been?” I continue to prod.

Both still answering simultaneously, they say, “A month.”

“Why didn’t anyone here tell me?” I ask Bartholomew specifically.

He doesn’t answer so I say it louder for the whole bar to hear. All of the workers stop working to lock eyes on me. Standing up from my seat, I slowly spin on my heel and notice that every person looks to the ground as my eyes meet theirs.

Sitting back down at the bar, I stare at Bartholomew and he continues cleaning a glass as I say, “Well, if none of you are going to tell me, where’s that disgusting son of a bitch at so I can ask him myself?”

“He won’t like that you called him that,” Bartholomew says, picking up another cup to clean.

“Was that my question, Bartholomew?” I tell him, staring him down as he looks away with a miffed sigh, “Look at me.”

Defiantly doing so, I place my hands on the bar as I say as calmly as I can with the Beast clawing at me to kill every single person here, “If Noz is here, I’d like to speak with him. Is he on the premises?”

“No, Carnegie,” he responds with a tired exhale, “He’s gone to talk to the Royal Family. He won’t return until tomorrow night.”

“Well, in that case,” I begin to say while grabbing two bottles of whiskey from behind the bar, “Ylva and I are going to be enjoying some drinks while I relieve you all for the night.”

Upon hearing that, the majority of the bar drops what they’re doing and leaves. The only ones left aside from Ylva and I are Eron, Tony, and Bartholomew. Eron and Tony rush downstairs from Noz’s office with stupefied looks plastered across their faces, ignoring Ylva as they run up so close to me that I can feel their breath.

“Why the hell are they leaving?” Eron shouts, throwing his hands in the air.

“Noz only lets them out after they’re done cleaning and this is nowhere near finished. What the hell, Clown Boy?” Tony screams, fired up next to Eron.

Hearing a nickname everyone knows not to call me, I grab Tony and Eron by the throat. I lift them off of the ground and wait for their faces to turn blue before I ask my first question.

“What did you just call me?” I snarl, pulling them closer to my face.

Tony coughs out, “Look, I was pissed, man. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, we made a mistake, bud,” Eron hacks up, struggling to breathe, “C’mon, Carnie. We-”

My grip tightens as I tell them not to call me that either. They gasp for air after I drop them to the floor. Letting them scurry away, I yell after them to come back with Noz before returning to my seat. After watching them run off into the rain, I turn around to see Ylva smiling a bit while Bartholomew is setting up glasses.

“Aren’t you going to leave?” I ask him, uncorking a bottle.

“Got no other place to go. I sleep in the back ever since Noz got this death trap,” he says as he pours three glasses and distributes them between us.

“What’s this?” Ylva asks, swirling the mystery liquor in her cup.

“It’s the most expensive import in the bar, usually only drank by Noz himself,” he replies, holding his cup out to clink glasses.

Ylva and I knock our glasses into his as I ask, “What are we toasting to?”

“Unemployment,” he responds, finishing the drink in a satisfied gulp, “After tonight, I’m surely getting fired by the regnant for this shit.”

“Nah, nobody’s getting fired. Don’t worry about it,” I tell him, placing my cup down, “I can talk to him. He’s got a soft spot for me as his childe.”

Chuckling a bit to himself before turning around to kick open the door behind the bar, Bartholomew tells me, “Yeah, sure. Keep thinking that, boyo. I’m going to have one last peaceful rest before I lose my job, my home, and my blood supply. Don’t leave claw marks on the bar, you two. Or do...I don’t really care at this point.”

I turn my eyes to Ylva and she playfully flicks her eyebrows up a few times before we burst out laughing. She and I finish our special drinks before we start pouring each other shots. It tastes like a special mead, filled with a number of spices neither of us are familiar with. It’s sweet against the tongue, flows down smooth then bites back right at the end. I can see why Noz usually keeps it for himself.

Turning to Ylva, I say, “I...uhhh...I missed your laugh.”

Smiling for a moment then turning back to anger, she tells me, “If you missed it, you would have found me a lot sooner.”

Stinging my smile away, I tell her, “Look, I’m sorry. You should have been the first person I found.”

“Yeah, I really should have been,” she tells me, slamming a shot down in front of me, “You’re old family didn’t even want your body. Did you know that?”

I slam the shot back with her and let her continue uninterrupted as I pour the next round.

“They got your body a week ago. I asked if I could see it and your dickhead of a father told me that I wasn’t allowed to because I’m not family. It was bullshit, so I threatened his life. He promised to show me the next night. I came over and got jumped by him and two other Blood Puppet bastards. He made Ludwig drag me out. Surprised that he could, honestly. Kid’s nice, too. He was the one who actually told me what they did with you.”

“What’d they do? I know for a fact that they didn’t give me a funeral,” I remark as we finish our second round of shots.

Pouring our third pair of shots, she continues, “You’re right. The heartless assholes didn’t. They just shoved you in a hole somewhere in the train yards. I spent most of my nights looking for you, but couldn’t find anything. I held a funeral for you alone.”

Picking up our shots, I notice her shaking a little bit as I tell her, “Thanks for that. I appreciate it.”

She slams her shot down to the bar with a resounding, “Fuck you, Carnie!”

I gently place mine back down while she continued to shout, “You haven’t explained anything, yet. Don’t you think that I deserve that? Don’t you think that I deserve to know what the hell happened to my best friend?”

“Of course, you do,” I tell her, picking her drink back up before it spills more, “Just calm d-”

“How do I calm down after my best friend since the age of four miraculously returns to life? How do I calm down after searching for him for three weeks, believing him dead for an extra one, and then following his scent around the city? How do I calm down after watching a man, who I’ve seen take beating after beating for his family, tear his own father in two?”

“Wait, you saw that?”

“Yeah, I also saw you break through a giant concrete wall to get out. Before you ask, I’ll let you know that I also saw how you got rid of your mother’s drug habit tonight.”

“Just hold on, let me just say that-”

“On top of all of that, I can only imagine what you did to Turkovsky and his lap dog, Gio, but I have a pretty good idea considering that you left with their weapons on you and two sacks tied with rope. I can even still smell their blood on you.”

“Listen, they deserved it and y-”

“Carnie, that’s not what bothers me. People die, that’s fine and all. They were all piece of shit lowlifes who were going to die horrible deaths with or without you speeding up the process.”

“Then just calm down and tell me what you want me to explain!” I shout, annoyed by the number of questions and interruptions.

Taking a deep breath and wiping a tear away, she asks, “How am I supposed to calm down when you don’t have a heartbeat, Carnie?”

Placing our shots down gently, I breathe in all the pain I didn’t know was possible for me to feel as I say, “Can we just take another shot before I tell you everything?”

She nods and finishes wiping away a few final tears before I tell her all that has happened to me since my last night with her. I let her know about the Embrace and how painful it was. She listens to me as I talk about how Noz kept me chained and tied down for the majority of it, not allowing me to leave the office. I only inform her about Noz teaching me about being a Kindred, not the specifics. I even tell her about what I did earlier tonight, proudly giving her the details about tonight’s affairs.

Finishing our sixth shot by the time I’m done telling her everything, she says, “I knew it! I fucking knew that you were still here. I could feel it. I swear.”

“Yeah, you were right,” I tell her, placing down an empty shot glass, “Sorry that it cost you getting banned from here, though. Going to miss you once we get the Fights back up in full swing.”

Laughing a bit as I pour some more drinks, she tells me, “Oh, believe me. Once the Fights are back up and running, I’m participating if that Leper wants me to or not. No offense.”

“None taken,” I say as I lift my shot and hand her one, “You really think that I’ve gone so soft that a simple Bloodsucker Slur is going to hurt my feelings?”

“Well, I just thought that,” she pauses, pointing to my face, “You know...with your new look that you wouldn’t want me to say certain things.”

With a smug smile on, I tease, “What? Is something wrong with my makeup? Did my mascara start running from the tears I was shedding earlier when you were on your tirade about how I fucked up?”

Laughing again, she tells me, “Shut the fuck up! I wasn’t crying.”

Wanting to keep the good times rolling, I say, “Oh, right. It was the rain. It got caught in your hair and just dripped into the corners of your eyes. Yeah, yeah, I’d buy that.”

Struggling to drink our seventh shots through bursts of giggles, we enjoy a minuscule moment of peace. It allows an old daydream to creep into my head again. Damn, I miss these daydreams.

“You’re making me sick,” I hear snarled from the back of my mind, “Are you two going to run off into the sunset next, huh? Her carrying your burnt ashes away?”

Closing my eyes in pain, I whisper as low as possible, “Can’t you just let me have one nice thought?”

“One nice thought before you break her heart again? Fat chance, big guy,” the Beast sneers, leaving back into the corners of my mind with a sickening chuckle.

When I open my eyes, Ylva is staring at me with a quizzical look as she says, “Good to see that you still narrate your own life. At least a few things stay the same.”

Forgetting to tell her about the Beast and not wanting to bring it up now, I simply agree, “Yeah, it’s still about the same.”

Not fully believing me, she gives me a worrisome, “Yeah, still the same, I guess.”

Fearing what question she’ll ask next, I glance outside to see the stars still in the night sky. For the first time, I’m wishing that the dawn could come quicker.

Still keeping a doubtful look in her eyes, she asks, “So, is there any way for us to turn you back?”

“No,” I say sternly, beginning to pour our eighth shots, “Why would I?”

“Do I really have to answer that?” she responds, not understanding the kind of blessing this is.

“What? You can’t tell me that you actually enjoy being one of them,” she says, laughing it off.

Once she looks back to me, her laughing stops, seeing my face with a resolute expression on it.

“Carnegie, come on. You can’t-”

“I can’t what? Can’t enjoy no longer having to deal with some piece of shit beating me half to death every other night?”

“No, it’s just that-”

“Just that I was meant to continue trying to take care of a deadbeat mother and a worthless younger brother, yeah? A worthless younger brother who was one step away from turning into just another lowlife scumbag? A deadbeat mother who was more concerned about keeping a needle in her arm than her own children safe?”

“Carnegie, you aren’t a-”

“A monster? Is that it?”

She goes silent.

“Ylva, I’ve never thought that I’d enjoy being this, but this is the greatest I’ve ever felt. If there’s a problem, I can fix it. I can make it vanish like I did tonight. My brother needed to get scared straight and, the moment he finds those hanging bodies in his room, he will be. My mother needed to quit cold turkey, so I took out all the options she has. Ludwig is a good kid, you’re right about that, and he deserves a damn better family than the one I had so I helped nudge them that way.”

The Beast gives a roar of approval to coax me to continue.

Leaning in closer, I tell her with confidence, “For the first time in my entire life, that worthless Blood Puppet who terrorized me and my family is never coming back to haunt anyone.”

“You think that makes you better than them, Carnie?” she shoots back as she pulls her head away from mine.

“No, I’m not better than them,” I say, staring deep into her eyes with a wide smile, “I’m a hell of a lot worse.”

Wiping tears again, she picks up the rest of her bottle and drinks directly from it before saying, “Yeah, it does, I guess.”

She stands up with the liquor in hand and begins walking away, dawn finally beginning to break as she says, “Look, I’ve got to go and take care of things with the tribe. I’ll be back tomorrow night and we can talk more, I guess.”

“Ylva,” I call out, stopping her before she leaves, “I really did miss you the most. I’m sorry that I’m not what you wanted me to be.”

She takes a moment to respond. When she does, it’s like a stake gets shoved into my heart.

“I’m just glad you’re alive. That’s all, I guess.”

Turning around in my chair, I watch her leave with dawn arriving over her shoulder. Sluggishly dragging myself upstairs and into Noz’s office, I lie down under a heavy tarp in a corner as two things dawn on me. First, I’m still missing a wooden stake. Second, I always wore purple whenever Ylva and I went to the Fights. Weeks go by as I try to settle my thoughts. I’m going through the motions now as I continue my new nightly routines. My former mother has been better, actually providing Ludwig and Everett with care for once. Everett still gambles, but he’s cautious with his money now. Just as I hoped, it seems that waking up to two corpses hanging in his room terrified him enough to keep him from going into severe debt again. They’re both improving together, giving me hope that they won’t relapse. Ludwig and I still talk during the nights. Directly after work, he spends his nights strolling the streets alone. Despite obviously being alone, he always speaks aloud, assuming that I’m always around to hear it. I usually speak back before joining him on his walk for a bit during the nights where his assumptions are correct. He’s a smart kid, albeit a bit too trusting of the night. He has told me that he loved the city’s night life too much not to walk around it, despite having been run off by a few “crap” people from time to time. Ylva and I spend most nights together. It’s not too different from before my Embrace. We still can’t keep each other from laughing. We still practice fighting together, which is one of the better parts since she doesn’t have to hold back as much as before. Eron and Tony still give us shit when we show up at Noz’s Bar together to drink. Once the Fights started back up after two weeks or so, we’d still fight just as hard as before. I would normally find myself on the sideline, though, since not many vampires were welcome in Noz’s Bar. He told me that it was because he had a bad reputation with the soon-to-be rulers, but I could tell that he was lying and still is. Regardless, Ylva and I were the same, more or less. The only topics we had to tiptoe around were what happened to Scars and why I enjoyed being a Kindred. She’s the head fighter of her tribe now, which comes with more responsibility than she wanted. It seems that I’m being groomed to take over for Noz once he “makes a decision”, which comes with more trouble than she wants to be worrying about. I tell her not to, but, if I’m being honest, she’s the only one between us who cares enough to worry. I’m unnervingly ecstatic about possibly taking over Noz’s turf, even if he’s becoming more and more of an obstacle with each night that passes. Noz and I have hit a rough patch, even though that’s not accurate to say. It’s more like we’ve got stuck in a mud patch with all four tires sunk a foot deep into the ground and the smoking engine just turned from white puffs to pure black with bursts of orange flames. The best way to explain our current relationship would probably be to start at the night after allowing all of his workers to leave without finishing cleaning up the place.

Having slept in his office, I woke up to the end of a conversation between Eron, Tony, and my sire as Noz says, “I don’t care what he threatened you two with! You know that the workers aren’t meant to leave until this place is spotless!”

Eron tries to cover their asses with, “With all due respect, he’s your childe and a full fledged Kindred. What are we supposed to do to stop him?”

Raising his voice, Noz affirms, “Perhaps use the stakes I bestowed both of you!”

Tony, always knowing how to make things worse, interrupts, “For the record, Eron never found his after teaching Carnegie about stakes, sir.”

With a domineering glare and display of teeth, Noz yells, “You mean to tell me that you can’t replace a piece of sharpened wood by yourself?” as he backhands Tony, sending him soaring across the bar and past the observatory window.

I hear Eron choking as Noz continues to tell him, “Now, you and Tony will be joining the other workers in making this establishment immaculate! If you do not keep these workers in line, I will pull your head from your body! Do you understand?”

Before allowing him to answer, Noz throws Eron directly away from the office, slamming into the pipes that help echo music throughout the bar. Seeing them bent out of shape, Noz shouts to the rest of his terrified workforce, “If that’s not fixed by tomorrow night, half of you won’t live to see what I’ll do to the rest!” before slamming the door to his office shut.

“Wow,” I say, walking out from under my tarp, “Way to promote a positive work environment there, Noz.”

“That’s ‘sire’ to you, boy!” he roars, still baring his teeth.

Not backing down but not wanting to escalate, I simply say, “My apologies, sire,” as the Beast tells me cut his head off.

Knowing what my voice sounds like when I’m being an asshole, he simply replies, “Oh, shut your damn mouth. If you had enough respect to call me that upon request, you would have had enough respect so as to not tell my workers to leave my bar in shambles.”

Shrugging as I sat on the corner of his desk, I say to him, “They’re all pretty hardworking people. They deserved a little break.”

“Really? That’s the reason you want to give me?” he tests again, knowing that I’m lying, “Eron and Tony may be worthless but at least they had enough loyalty to tell me the truth about your little Lupine guest.”

I grit my teeth as I fight off the urge to gut him like a pig. I manage to force out, “Then, I guess I’ll just cut to the chase then. Why’d you ban her from the bar?”

“Oh, don’t play coy, little one,” Noz says, stepping towards me, “It was obvious that you two were too close from your previous life. If I hadn’t of done that, she would have found you before you were finished. Besides, she’s an insolent and disrespectful little mutt, anyway.”

Digging my claws into my own hand to keep me from fighting, I respond, “Oh, so it was some kind of sick mercy?”

“Not mercy,” he says, “Convenience. With how wild those dogs can be, she could have derailed your progress and took your attention off of the lessons I needed to teach you. It’s simple: Taking away distractions means improving focus. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Oh, I understand,” I tell him as I walk by, moving past him towards the window, “If that’s the case, then when will she be allowed back? After all, my Embrace is finished, so there’s no longer the threat of her ‘derailing my progress’, right?”

Feigning approval, his expression immediately flips from a disgruntled grimace to a false grin of delight as he pats me on the shoulder and says, “You know what, my childe? I’ll lift the ban next time I get to speak with her in my bar. How does that sound?”

Waving to Ylva as she walks into the building, I say, “That sounds fantastic since she’s back already.”

She returns my wave with a smile as she readjusts the sword on her back. I hold open the door as I say, “Shall we?” to Noz. Visibly forcing himself to play nice, he walks alongside me to Ylva, who has already started helping some of the workers after eyeing fresh welts and contusions on all of them. I take her place in helping clean up the barroom, starting by checking on Eron and Tony while she and Noz go to the bar to hash things out. Their conversation gets loud a number of times, drawing everyone’s attention before my sire shouts at them all to return to work. They part ways, barely more amicable than when they started, but Noz tells me that she’s allowed to return under supervision which I will have to provide. He makes it clear that it’s nonnegotiable before moving back up the stairs to his office. As I return to helping clean the Bar, Ylva hands her sword off to Bartholomew for safekeeping before returning to assist as well. It doesn’t take us much longer to clean, perhaps another hour or less. As soon as we do finish, the workers all take a moment’s rest in the bar to thank Ylva and I for helping. We try to tell them that it’s no problem, but it only prompts them to reveal to us that no one had ever helped before. We ask about Eron and Tony helping to which they all laugh. I notice them already making their way back up the stairs to join Noz at his observatory window. Glancing around the workers to see how badly they were reprimanded, I begin to notice just how many more scars each of them actually have. Looking up to the office, I see Eron and Tony talking to a disinterested Noz. He locks eyes with me, an agitated look painted on his face. Always one to poke the bear, I tell Bartholomew that everyone here deserves a drink loud enough to piss off the man staring down at me. He turns and walks away from the window as his workers all pull up to the bar with smiles on their faces. Not all of them join and the ones that do only stay for a single drink before leaving, but they enjoyed themselves for once despite their bruises and welts still being raw. The only ones left are Ylva, Bartholomew, and myself. Ylva and I are joking with Bartholomew, trying our best to get him to show any other emotion than the stonewall stare he always has. We joke about life, animals, weather, gangs, districts, weapons, and the list goes on. We only get him to laugh once the jokes turn towards the rulers of Ustrus, even swaying him to crack a few about the soon-to-be King and Queen. We all get a hardy laugh, but he still doesn’t crack a smile despite what sounds like the engine of a steam train sputtering to a halt come from his mouth. Afterwards, he makes his final sweep around the building to check for any unnoticed or forgotten items, leaving Ylva and I alone. She and I start off calmly speaking about all the things she did during the day. She seems to be pretty complacent with her position in the tribe, now. However, she’s still itching to return to the Fights. I tell her that they’ll be back up in a night or two, along with come changes I want to enact. She doubts that Noz will approve of them. Unfortunately, she’s right. Soon after that topic, the conversation turns serious as we start discussing what Noz did to his workers.

“So,” Ylva says as we down a shot, “That’s who you look up to, huh?”

“I never said that I looked up to him,” I tell her, a bit ticked off by the assumption.

“Well, you’re the one who enjoys being like him.”

“I enjoy being a Kindred. I enjoy being a Nosferatu. Doesn’t mean that I’d enjoy being my sire.”

“Really still can’t believe that you actually refer to him as ‘sire.’ ”

“It’s just a formality. Don’t mistake that for respect. He’s still a Bloodsucking douchebag.”

“Yet you sleep in his office, trusting him not to cut your head off? Smart move.”

“You got another place for me to crash with complete protection from the sunlight and any citizen who feels like killing a vamp?”

She has no reply.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Still can’t trust him, Carnie.”

“I know I can’t, but what other options do I have? Can’t go back to my former home. Sure as hell not burying myself each night just to claw my way back out. I’d ask to stay with you, but-”

“My tribe still blames you for Scars. They say that you fighting him ‘forced my hand.’ Kind of bullshit, if you ask me. Especially since I wanted the fight in the first place.”

“That’s true, but you see my point. Don’t have anywhere else but here to rest safely during the day. Hell, it’s so safe that not even other full-fledged Kindred come around.”

“That is odd, isn’t it? From what it seems, Noz is on good enough terms with his own kind to set up a personal and private meeting with the most powerful inbred bastards in the city. Why haven’t they ever showed up to a fight?”

“I don’t know, but I prefer it that way. Sure as hell don’t want some power-hungry kids making everyone fight to the death just to get their rocks off.”

“I second that,” Ylva says, clinking her shot against mine before we drink them.

We continue to talk for a while about our suspicions around Noz. Bartholomew even joins in, speaking ill about him in a hushed whisper. He tells us about the worst that Noz has done to him, revealing that his wife and daughter were slaughtered in front of him before being turned into Noz’s first Ghoul centuries ago. From there, he continued to speak of similar things done to the other Ghouls and Half-Vampires under Noz’s control. I wish that was the most disturbing thing we heard, but he went on to inform us that Noz’s network of spies reach every inch of the city, regardless of race. Ylva and I try to get him to talk past it, seeing his eyes begin to water.

Ylva tells him, “It’d be a hell of a thing if someone else took over Noz’s Bar, then, right?”

Tossing his cleaning towel on to the bar top, he remarks, “Yeah, if only there was someone the others were fine with being bonded to.”

He eyes me and I give a dumbfounded stare back as I ask, “You don’t actually think that I could, do you?”

“Are you fucking serious?” the Beast snarls in confusion.

“Are you fucking serious?” Ylva announces, placing down her shot in anger.

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” Bartholomew whispers before turning to enter his room. As he closes the door behind him, I swear I notice the slightest grin cross his face.

“He wasn’t talking about me, Ylva,” I claim, seeing her eyes still staring at me in bewilderment, “I’m not the type to be running people.”

Leaving her shot on the table, she stands up with her sword strapped on and tells me, “You’re still as dense as ever, Carnie,” as she walks out for the night.

From then on, I’ve been studying Noz’s adventures outside of his bar. They were incredibly rare before my Embrace, according to the workers’ recollections. Since he met with the Giovanni ruling the city, he’s been increasing the number of times he leaves his bar. If that wasn’t concerning enough, he sometimes leaves for an entire night. I follow him every night I can, even missing some Fights because of it. Trailing him around town, it seems that Bartholomew’s word is true. From the city guard to the person who runs the orphanage, he speaks to every person of interest this side of town. He talks shop with the two Blood Puppets my former father ran with. As it turns out, they’re part of the city’s guards and controlled by a clan higher than the Nosferatu since it seems that he sometimes answers to their beck and call. Other nights, he speaks to the drug dealers and cooks. A very familiar cook is coerced to inform him that his only childe killed one of his best traffickers. Curiously, Noz never confronts me about it. He doesn’t even seem to mind the change of management at the gambling halls, seeing as how it aloud him to personally choose the new boss. In the later parts of the three passing weeks, he begins spending more nights in parts of the city I’m unable to keep track of him through. For those, I begin enlisting Ludwig’s help. He’s had homes all around, which made him better with understanding the rest of the city than I am with the small corner I’ve never left. The kid’s more than happy to help, giving him an opportunity to get out during the night and ask me giddy questions about who I was before becoming a Blood Sucker. I’m always careful to not let slip that he was adopted to replace me as the family crutch. When we’re not talking about that, Ludwig tells me what he knows about the people Noz meets and the buildings he enters. He visits a major guard hideout, a few other clubs, and even a library. He steers away from the cemetery, though. Oddly enough, he looks like he’s trembling in fear as he walks by it. Unfortunately, the next area he decides to visit during the night worries me. Leaving Ludwig at the safety of his home, I pull Ylva along with me the following night. It pisses her off, but I convince her that she needs to show me the deeper parts of the forests her tribe lives in. She continues to try to argue why until I tell her about Noz meeting his contacts around the city in preparation for something. Once she hears my explanation, she races to the edge of town with me in her vehicle. We begin dashing through the forest trees the moment we get there. We find Noz wandering through the forests and keep a safe distance while we trail behind him. After a few minutes of ambling between the trees, Ylva starts to breathe heavily as we approach an odd clearing filled with artifacts and idols. I keep my focus on Noz and see him meeting with a number of Garou dressed in what looks like meaningful garb. I try to step forward but Ylva holds my arm back with a shaking hand. Looking back, her whole form is shuddering so much that the sword on her back is clinking a bit against her clothing. I grab her by the shoulders and ask her what’s wrong. The only words she says is that he’s not supposed to be here and neither should we. She takes a deep breath as she unsheathes her sword, readying to rush into the meeting to kill him. Knowing that it’s suicide for her, I hold her back, whispering that we can do this after we figure out why Noz is here. She tries to push past me again and I use all my strength to pull her back. We begin to scuffle as her rage boils over. Noticing that the meeting has been put on pause after hearing a commotion, I decide to knock out Ylva and carry her away before we’re seen. She wakes up in her car after I’ve driven us back to the scrapyard. She cusses me out for saving her. I cuss her out for throwing a fit before we could find out why he was meeting with Elders. We continue the shouting match until we’re both calm enough to listen to reason. I tell her to come back tomorrow night so we can follow Noz again. She reluctantly agrees as she stomps her way back to the Bar. The next night comes and I wake up inside the yard instead of the office, surrounded by scraps of metal stacked around me like a makeshift tent. I force my way out and race towards the Bar, hearing the music and Fights already in full swing. Stepping into the building, it’s practically at max capacity, filled with all of the usual rabble and some unfamiliar faces. I try to wade through the sea of people, glancing into the cage to see two humans fighting. Once at the bar, Bartholomew tells me that Noz wants me up in his office, facing away from me as he grabs some bottles off the shelves. I ask if he’s seen Ylva. He tells me to meet Noz up in his office again, slipping me a dagger as he turns to face me. He’s got a bloodstained wrapping around his head, covering up claw marks. With a look of worry, I glance through the place and see that a good handful of workers are gone from the floor while those that are working have more clothing on than usual. Checking for the brass knuckles and machete I usually keep on me, I realize they’re gone as I rush up the stairs to Noz’s office, hiding the dagger in my sleeve. I kick the door open to find two stakes racing towards me. Ducking under, I grab the wrists that are holding them and hurl the attackers towards the opposite end of the office. They crash into three others on the opposite end, stalling a handful of other weapons. There’s no time to enjoy it as I feel a frigid hand grab me by the throat and slam me into the ground. I follow the arm to Noz’s sinister face as he lifts me out of the floorboards. Still swinging, I break his nose in a bit before he grabs my fist to hold me steady. I stomp his knee in before he decides to send my skull back into the floor.

Holding my face against the ground, Noz shouts, “That’s enough!”

Sending me careening into the window, the glass cracks as I impact. I struggle back to my feet as I tell him, “Bartholomew said you wished to speak with me.”

As I spit out a clump of blood, Noz chuckles as he remarks, “Always the derisive one, my childe. You certainly have gumption.”

Wiping my mouth, I exclaim, “I’ll show your old ass some ‘gumption’ once I put a stake through you,” trying to advance on him.

Stopped by the ten assholes loyal to Noz in the room, they present their blades as he says, “No, you won’t. Not anymore. It’s about time you be taught some proper respect.”

“Can’t teach what you’ve never had, O.D.B,” I respond, still poking the bear as the Beast claws the walls of my mind to fight.

“I think you’ll find me quite persuasive,” the Leper announces as he steps to the side, revealing a beaten and bruised Ylva tied back-to-back with Ludwig.

“Now, here’s what will happen, childe. You will continue...” he begins to say, but my mind fazes his voice out as I assess the situation.

There’s exactly thirteen other people inside of this office. Two are allies, being Ylva and Ludwig. The kid is too young to put up much of a fight while the other has already been in one. They’re bound together at the wrists and have their ankles hogtied independently. They’re sat on top of the desk at the very center of the room. Ylva is bloodied and bruised, but I’ve seen her fight through worse conditions. She’s still roaring for a good scrap, judging by the fury in her eyes. Ludwig is doing his best to not show that he’s scared shitless, staring at me with panicked desperation. The enemies are a number of unknowns aside from three of them. Those being Eron, Tony, and Noz. Eron is cockily smirking and bouncing from side to side, playfully tossing what looks to be my brass knuckles from one hand to the other. Tony is helping pull the two I tossed earlier to their feet, a worried but determined look in his eyes as he holds my machete firm in his grasp. They’re easy to deal with and are always the first to fold, so they’re nothing to worry about. The seven other workers are all unknown to me. They’re holding weapons with varying degrees of comfort and confidence. The two with stakes are having trouble steadying their hands after I threw them across the room. The three swordsmen are breathing heavily and constantly glancing between me and their regnant in terrified anticipation. The two standing closest to Ylva and Ludwig surprisingly have firearms, which barely worries me as they’re more likely to backfire. They all have varying degrees of apprehension, worriedly glancing between everything that’s going on. Noz, on the other hand, is a whole different monster. He’s already been cut up and worked over a bit. From the looks of it, he tried to apprehend Ylva personally and wasn’t expecting her to put up such a fight. His cloak isn’t hiding any weapons. I know because he’s been walking constantly since he started his monologue, making it easy for me to see anything hidden beneath his clothing. His older sailor pants are torn to shreds and worn through, unable to conceal anything. His vest and collared shirt surprisingly don’t have his rope noose tie for once, allowing me to see some brass and copper supports around his neck. His long coat is covered in blood and torn up from the ground, shortening it from its previous three foot long tail to it now being roughly above his ankles. He’s now covered in deep contusions, large welts, and staunch dents in his body, all of which barely seem to bother or slow him down. He’s an old cobblestone wall and I’m going to need to break him down brick by brick. I just can’t figure out how, until I remember what he said about-

“CARNEGIE!” Noz shouts, bringing me back to reality.

“Are you done now?” I ask, lifting my chin to stare him eye to eye.

“This is what I’m referring to,” he reaffirms, stepping towards me, “The disrespect. The lack of commitment and attention. The sheer disregard for what you need to do to take over. I’m tired of it, Carnegie. All of it.”

“Lis-” I try to say before being cut off.

“No! You listen!” Noz says, grabbing me by the shoulders and walking to the desk, “I’m tired of your disloyalty to me. Many times, all those I work with in the city and answer to have told me to rend your head from your shoulders. To start over with a new childe. Every time, I’ve vouched for you but your incessant affection for these two has proved my choice futile. Not only you, but the three of you have worn me thin.”

He tosses me to the desk and I hold myself from crashing into it, still considering my options as he continues to berate me.

“You’re an imbecile! A softhearted little pup, licking at the scraps of your previous life while ignoring the feast that awaits you in your new one. I have my orders, but I’m allowing you a chance to prove to me where your allegiances lie,” he says to me with a softer tone.

Leaning in closer to my ear but not speaking any quieter, Noz growls, “Drain them dry.”

Taking a deep breath, I glance between Ylva and Ludwig. Ylva’s eyes are staring down Noz like she wants to beat him to death with his own arms. Ludwig’s panicking more and more as Noz continues, seeing the veins in my neck bulge with anger.

I try to reply, “I’m not dr-”

“YES! YOU! WILL!” Noz screams in my ear, shaking the rest of the room to its core.

The Beast snarls, “I’m tired of his tone.”

I close my eyes as Noz continues to shout, “You will feed on them! You will drink them dry, draining every morsel of vitae from their souls! You will prove your loyalty to me and the Kindred or you will watch me rip them asunder with a stake through your heart! NOW, FEED!”

He ends his spew with one final shove towards the desk. I catch myself against it as the Beast scrapes out, “I don’t care what you do with the others in the room. Just give me that ugly Leper as a meal.”

I nod in agreement, keeping my head down between the shoulders of Ludwig and Ylva. I whisper to them, “Trust me,” before standing up straight.

Taking a deep sigh, I give them the best puppy dog eyes I can muster as I say, “You heard him. Time to feed.”

Ludwig starts losing his shit, all composure washing from his form as I bend down to Ylva’s neck. She is as cool as an autumn stream while I sink my fangs into her, feeling my hand pull a dagger from my sleeve to start cutting their binds. I don’t drink enough to kill her, nowhere near it, but she feigns a dead damsel. She remembers my explanation of what certain blood can do for me. However, I soon realize that Noz’s description didn’t give werewolf blood proper justice. Ylva enjoys it almost as much as I do, feeling her heart rate spike as I drink a bit from her. The blood she gives me fills my veins with enough steam to power the entire city. Every piece of me is pleading for a bloody bout as the Beast starts to slam against the bars of my mind. Barely holding him back, I slip Ludwig the knife as I feel the stake stowed underneath Ylva’s shirt.

Feeling my grip on reality fade as the bloodthirst starts to seep in, I lick her neck wounds closed before whispering, “Go.”

Ylva immediately leaps from the table to tackle two people as she transforms into a towering bipedal wolf, tearing away from the desk. She makes short work of the two she tackled, retrieving her sword from one as she rips the throat out of the other. After hearing a pistol backfire, Ludwig stabs one as he rolls behind the desk before I turn my head towards Noz. Riding the wave into a full frenzy, my anger snaps the leash off of the Beast as he drives me into a mad skirmish against Noz. I swipe at his neck and manage to nick his carotid, filling the air with blood. I’m filled with so much adrenaline that I barely feel my old machete slam into my thigh. Breaking his arm off with a single swipe, Tony screams in pain while holding his bloody stump. Eron tries to throw a punch with my brass knuckles, but I dodge it while tearing the machete out of my leg. Holding on to it by Tony’s severed arm, I slam the blade into Eron’s side, severing his left arm before the machete gets stuck in his spine. Before I can tear it back out, Noz rushes me at full speed, slamming me into a cinder block wall with his claws buried into my shoulder blades. Snarling in rage, I headbutt him, smashing his nose further into his face. Reeling back from the pain, I pick him up myself and slam him into his desk with a disgusting crack. In a burst of madness, I begin clawing and striking every piece of Noz I can see, eventually breaking him through the middle of the desk. He loses his right eye, a chunk of his right jaw, some pieces of what used to be his stomach, most of his lower intestine, and a knee cap before he manages to throw me over his head. I slam into the wall behind the desk, opposite the already cracked observatory window. There’s a body that I land on which I wouldn’t have noticed if a piercing pain hadn’t caused me to look back. Looking back at the wound, my right leg has a wooden stake protruding from it, which I apparently have picked up from one of the Ghoul casualties while Noz and I were going at it. I glance further beyond my leg to see that Ludwig is the body that gave me a soft landing. He gives me a look of terror as I realize that me getting tossed into him forced the dagger he was wielding to plunge deep into his gut. Looking around to assess the rest of the damage, the entire office is in ruins, now redecorated with severed limbs and emulsified organs. Ylva has made short work out of a number of the mob while others had succumbed to wounds while caught in the crossfire between Noz and I. She’s now trying to hold Noz still enough to drive her stake through him, but she’s winding down while he’s becoming more and more desperate to survive. Noz can barely stay on his feet with a missing kneecap, yet he’s still strong enough to toss Ylva aside. Seeing Ludwig’s eyes beginning to close and Ylva reverting back to her human form, the Beast tears the stake from my leg, wrenches the machete from Tony’s severed arm, then launches us with a powerful leap at Noz. Distracted by Ylva’s stake in his side, he’s caught off guard as I drive him through the heart with my stake. The momentum of the leap carries through the stab, sending Noz and I smashing through his window. We careen towards the center of the floor, our eyes locking on the way down. He has a look of terrible pain as my stake cracks through his ribs towards his heart. I can feel my face distort into a twisted smile as the Beast and I know that we’ve already won. Noz and I slam against the top railing of the cage and crash into the middle, interrupting a bout. The fighters rush out of the cage in a panic, squeezing through the bent bars as I begin to eviscerate Noz. Giving the Beast full control, I force the machete into his midsection and through the stone floor to further pin him to the ground. I wrench the stake from his chest to hear him cry out in pain as I tear his left arm off. Slamming the spike back into his heart, I whack him across the face with his severed arm before stomping through what’s left of his right knee. Without a kneecap to hold it together, his lower leg easily separates from the upper. I bite his right hand off and spit it to the side just before clasping his throat with my left hand and tearing the stake from his chest with my right. Choking him against the ground, he can barely give out a second scream of pain after what he’s endured.

Having lost enough blood to make him nearly useless and too weak to fight back or try to escape, I ask, “Any last words?”

“I gave the Royals your name. They’ll-” he races to finish.

“Too long,” I interrupt him, sinking my fangs into his neck.

He doesn’t have much blood left after all the punishment the Beast put on him. He’s even told me the dangers of draining a fellow Kindred, but it’s the benefits that I’m interested in. The power I could get from a Kindred as old as him? I’m eager to feel it. I’m restless to see how strong I could become. Above all else, I’m greedier than I am cautious. I drain what little vitae he has left, feeling a cascade of fire return to my body like a second Embrace. His soul flows into me as I continue drinking his blood, and I begin to seize in pain. I curl over and drop to my knees as the taste of blood entices me more. What little connection I felt to humanity begins to fade as our two souls mutilate each other. As the battle continues, I feel his soul begin to lose and I roar across the entire bar, letting out one last arduous wail to strain against the fever. Allowing the burn to seep out of my body, I watch as Noz succumbs to the Final Death, rapidly decaying into ash across the barroom floor. As I turn around to the bar, they all look on in delight and awe before erupting into applause.

Enjoying their approval for only a moment, I watch Ylva limp down the stairs with an unconscious Ludwig in her arms, prompting me to shout, “Move!”

As some of the crowd’s cheers turn into disgruntled murmurs while I push past them, Ylva stops me at the stairs, saying, “He’s lost a lot of blood. We have to get him to the woods. My bag is in my car.”

She tries to take another step and her knees buckle after the fight we just went through, so I warn, “You can barely stand. You can’t perform a ritual in your condition and Ludwig isn’t going to make it to the woods with a knife in his chest. There’s got to be something else we can do.”

“Carnie,” Ylva says with a depressed look, “There’s probably only one way to save him.”

“I’m not turning him into me, Ylva,” I deny as I take him from her arms, “I’m not killing him twice in one night. He may be a tough little bastard, but he wouldn’t survive becoming a Nosferatu. Bartholomew! Help! Please!”

I carry him to the bar, pushing aside a man in conversation with the head bartender, as Ylva desperately asks, “Bartholomew, you told us that you’ve been here the longest. You’ve got to have some sort of first aid with you, right?”

Bartholomew places down a drink as he looks Ludwig over before responding, “I’ve got nothing to help that much blood loss. Certainly nothing appropriate for a boy so young. My ‘mate’ right next to you might, though.”

Glancing towards my shoulder, I see the man I pushed aside a moment ago holding up a drink with a smarmy look on his face. From first glance, he’s a human and I can’t see much else special about him beyond that. His clothes are high class, at least higher class than anyone I’ve met in my side of the city. He drinks from a glass with a pinkie in the air. I hate him already.

He speaks with a voice that sounds like it made a hundred promises and only kept a handful as he tells me, “If you want my help, it’ll come at a price.”

“Yeah, no shit. We can talk payment after you save Ludwig,” I snark back, “You want to save his life on the bar or upstairs?”

Finishing his drink and taking a few seconds to eye me, Ylva, and Ludwig, he admits, “We’ll do it upstairs. More dead up there so it won’t be as awkward. Bartholomew! I’ll need all of your first aid equipment sent up immediately. I thank you in advance for your compliance.”

Bartholomew glances to me with an eye of disbelief but proceeds to gather the gear from his room. Ylva supports herself against me as we walk back up the stairs to the office. It’s a bloodbath inside. All of the most loyal who joined Noz are laid throughout the room in pieces. The firearms are both destroyed, one having killed its wielder due to a blowback while the other was tossed from its wielder who seems to have had his face clawed off. The two who wielded stakes seem to have been the ones who got the quickest end in the fight. One is buried into the concrete wall, still hanging from where Noz slammed me into him. The other has a small stab wound in his chest with a long stream of crimson out of it. The three swordsmen lay all about the room, torn asunder by what I can only assume was Ylva’s doing. Tony has bled out from his missing arm and Eron has long since passed due to nearly being bisected.

“Find a relatively clean spot to lay the boy down while I instruct Bartholomew on what to do,” the man exclaims as Bartholomew rushes up the stairs behind us.

“You said you were going to help,” Ylva remarks.

“I will,” he says, taking out a flask and sipping from it, “But I can’t operate under the influence of so much alcohol. Bartholomew will be my hands. He’s the calmest person I know.”

Bartholomew places down a long sheet on the cleanest piece of floor before pulling the man’s jacket off from his shoulders.

“What the hell are you doing, Bartholomew?” he asks, spinning around as he relinquishes his coat.

“We need something to support his head. You see anyone else in here with a jacket to roll up, boyo?” he replies, wrapping the coat and lifting Ludwig’s head to place it underneath.

The man responds, “As a matter of fact, I see many bodies with jackets, so yes.”

Placing gloves on his hands, Bartholomew says, “Enough talk. I need instruction.”

Equal parts desperate and hopeful, I leave them to revive him as I help Ylva limp to the broken desk. Setting her down on a relatively sturdy edge, I tear some fabric from what remains of my shirt and begin wrapping it around some of her cuts.

“Hey, Carnie,” she says, wincing a bit from the pressure I put on her wounds, “Are you okay?”

Shredding more of my shirt for additional wrappings, I tell her, “Yeah, I’ll heal after a good rest. You’re the one who’s still mortal, remember?”

“I don’t mean that,” Ylva says, helping me hold a makeshift gauze to her shoulder, “You’re colder than before the fight started. Your skin is paler, as well. What happened once you leapt out of the office?”

“Go on and tell her, pretty boy,” the Beast teases, chuckling a bit in the back of my head.

Twitching a bit after hearing his voice clearer and louder than I’ve ever been able to since the Embrace, I tell her, “I killed Noz. Shredded him to bits then drank what blood was left.”

“Does that come with side effects?” she asks worriedly.

“Oh, you have no idea,” the Beast whispers.

“I have no idea,” I lie, hoping that she’ll leave the subject.

“That’s bullshit,” she whispers, not wanting to pull Bartholomew and his friend from helping Ludwig.

“D’awww, look at your little Night Wolf,” the Beast taunts with a coy laugh, “Getting all maternal and protective. It’s downright disgusting.”

Closing my eyes in annoyance, I tell Ylva, “We can figure it out after Ludwig is okay, alright? Besides, you’ve been through enough tonight. You deserve some rest.”

Finishing up her bandages, I realize that some lacerations on her may need a bit more attention, so I tell her to stay still as I go check to see if they have some leftover sutures. They hand me some that they’re not using on Ludwig. I glance at him and see that he’s breathing again, giving me a faint bit of hope that he’ll make it through.

Returning to Ylva, I begin stitching up her side while telling her, “The kid’s breathing again, so it seems like we won’t have to kill Bartholomew’s friend for lying to us.”

“Good,” she says, looking around the room, “There’s been enough war tonight.”

“Damn,” the Beast shouts, “Pity we couldn’t have at least one more bout.”

Feeling my mangled body, I respond, “Yeah, I’ve had my fill for the rest of the night.”

I stand up and turn to Bartholomew and his buddy. Watching them finish up, my eyes flick wildly across the room. I feel something else clawing at me now, something foreign. It’s not the Beast, whose scratches are almost calming to me. It’s someone else, trying to punish me for something obscure. I close my eyes and try to listen for who it is. The voice screaming at me sounds familiar, but I can’t make it out after all that’s happened. Goddamn, it’s so close, but there’s something like static in the way. If it wasn’t for the interference, I would swear that it’s-

“Oi, Carnegie,” the strange man calls, “Your boy is coming through. Still a bit too weak to walk very far, though. Want to give him a few words before returning him home?”

Ylva gets up and walks on her own as I rush over to see him. His gut wound is stitched up proper with a large wrapping of gauze around it. Bartholomew pulls the gloves off of his hands as he repacks his gear. His friend takes a few more gulps from his flask as I talk to him.

“Hey, there, Ludwig,” I tell him, helping him sit up slowly, “Don’t go too fast, alright? You just came back from Hell’s gate. I’d rather you not return so quickly.”

Taking deep and pained sighs, he responds, “This isn’t my first time getting stabbed.”

“True, but it’s your first time getting crushed and stabbed,” I say, helping him to his feet.

“Yeah, well...you’re fat,” he tells me before chuckling a bit, “Dead people shouldn’t be heavy like that.”

Ylva and I laugh a bit before I say, “Yup, you’re okay. Alright, you little shit, time to get you home.”

The man finishes gulping a bit more from his flask before stopping me, “Hold on there, Papa Kindred. We still have to discuss payment.”

Slightly miffed by his interruption, Ylva tells me, “I can take him home. It’s probably best if I sleep this off, too.”

Nodding in agreement, I watch them leave after gathering her sword and his knife. Ludwig is fast asleep before Ylva even makes it out of the building. She turns a few heads on her way out, half due to the fresh wounds on her naked bloody and the other half due to the sleeping child in her arms. I turn away from the smashed observatory window to see Bartholomew looking around the bar, checking for damage, as his friend leers at the workers.

“Looking at anything that catches your eye?” I ask him with a dismissive gaze.

“Quite a bit, actually,” he replies, pushing his lips into a slight pout, “Nothing I would go after, though. Your workforce simply makes me...well...just a bit sad, ‘tis all.”

“How so?”

“Well, they’re all Half-Vampires and Ghouls working down there. Half-Vampires who were left like garbage by their parents and Ghouls who are no longer bound to anyone. Seems a bit dismal for their future, doesn’t it?”

“By the way I see it, they all just got some true freedom back. That’s a win in my book.”

With an amused smile painted across his face, he remarks, “Oh, how happy I am to hear you say that! This should make the deal to come much easier for you to say yes to, then.”

Scoffing a bit, I question, “You’d know for certain if you would just tell me what the hell it is you want me to do.”

“Oooooh, what a rambunctious one you are. Not only in times of war but times of peace. I find myself growing fonder of you by the second, my dear,” he responds sounding more and more cocky by the second.

“The feeling’s not mutual,” I respond, taking a step forward as I break one of my fingers back into place.

“Just get to the point,” Bartholomew speaks up before I could get to his friend.

Giving a long and drawn-out sigh, the man confides, “Fine, fine. My name is Caster and I have a job for you.”

“What’s the job?” I ask, tired of seeing him in the bar.

“Well, it’s not exactly a job, per se. It’s more like an assignment. A responsibility. A duty you have to do for not only yourself but those you care about,” he begins to drone, trying to deceive me in his speech.

“You know? If I ever learned one thing from my asshole father before I killed him, it’s that if someone starts spitting bullshit the first moment that you meet them then chances are good that that’s exactly what they’re full of. Nothing but bullshit,” I exclaim, growing weary of his presence.

“Carnegie, just give him a few moments,” Bartholomew says, handing me a small bandage, “He usually gets to the important bits once he’s done with his act.”

Glancing down at my leg after being handed the gauze, I kneel down to wrap the glaring whole in my thigh as I tell Caster, “Well, Caster. Seems Bartholomew trusts you enough to vouch for you, so, go ahead, talk my ear off.”

“My dear Nosferatu,” he says, feigning a surprised look, “I’m not hear to talk anyone’s ear off. I’m merely describing to you why you won’t say no to the job...once it comes around.”

“You keep on talking like it may come in the next two hours or the next two months or the next two decades,” I tell him, finishing the tight wrap around my leg, “I don’t like being on layaway with debts, Caster. Either cough up what the job is or count me out.”

“Oh, there’s no counting you out,” he says as he stows his flask, “You’re already in. I saved your pseudo-son from dying. I didn’t interfere with you exterminating a rather important Kindred. I may even forget the fact that a Lupine, a Garou, a bloody werewolf of all things, assisted you in taking over this bar. Despite all of this kindness, it still comes with a price.”

Rushing to him in a fierce dash, I grab him by the collar before growling, “You should feel lucky that I’m even letting you walk out of here with that tone.”

Without flinching or batting an eye, he calmly states, “Now, my dear Carnegie Gunvald. You just killed Noz. I’d rather you not become him. After all, that’s why so many around here like you.”

Realizing what I’m doing, I gently release his collar as I ask, “So, what do I owe you?”

With another grin, he responds, “Well, only since you’ve mentioned it, I would love something as payment for my services. By the way I see it, you owe me three things.”

The Beast mutters, “Is this guy fucking serious?” before he continues.

“For saving your boy, Ludwig, you’ll have to answer a call to action in the future. It’ll be a small letter enclosed with red wax and a strip of barley,” he starts, pointing his hand to the sky to make a point of it.

“A little theatrical, don’t you think?” I ask, folding my arms as I return to the shattered window with Bartholomew.

“Irregardless!” he shouts, continuing on to his next points, “For not interfering in your extermination of Noz, I would request that you inform me of any fights in which you or your Lupine friend, Ylva, are participating in!”

“How would I do that when I can’t leave during the day?” I remark back, still watching the workers below.

“I’ll do it,” Bartholomew answers, “Least I can do for you putting Noz out of everyone’s misery.”

While I sigh as a reluctant confirmation, Caster speaks up before me with a resounding, “Excellent! Always best to make bets on sure things, if you get my drift.”

“Hold up, if you’re making bets then I want-” I try to say before being interrupted again.

“To know what my third request is! Of course! You’re the ‘straight to the point’ kind and I like that,” he interposes, causing me to groan in annoyance louder, “Third and final is simple: You will take over Noz’s territory.”

“What...” the Beast says, dumbfounded.

“What!” the mystery voice yells through white noise.

“What?” I ask, uncertain of his intentions.

“I’m quite certain that I didn’t stutter,” Caster says, taking steps towards the door, “You. Will. Take. Over. Noz’s. Territory. All of it.”

Pulling my stare from the bar and placing them on to him, I realize that he’s genuine in his demand as I tell him, “I’m not-”

“ ‘One to be running people.’ Yes, yes, I know. Bartholomew has already told me your reaction, but, here’s the thing, I don’t care,” he responds, stopping by the door and leaning against it.

I’d be lying if I told him that I hadn’t thought about it, so I tell him, “Nope, not happening. Haven’t even thought about it.”

Scoffing alongside Caster, Bartholomew says, “Carnegie, first, I regret to inform you that you can’t lie even if your life depended on it. More importantly, you’re the only one those workers might actually follow. According to them, you just killed the worst patriarch they’ve ever had.”

I glance back to the workers and notice a number of them look back with a smile before hearing Caster take over the speech, “You may not believe yourself anything more than a soldier, but, I can guarantee, that what those workers witnessed just validated you to be their new Papa Vamp. Congratulations on fatherhood.”

Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I tell them, “You two can’t be serious?”

“That’s almost as dumb a question as ‘Do you care about them?’,” Caster responds, knowing the answer already, “So, with that out of the way, congratulations on the promotion. I’ll be back tomorrow night to get your final answer. Cheers, Carnegie.”

With that, he immediately leaves the office and jaunts down the steps. As he does, he shouts to the bar, “Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Miscreants and Vagabonds! Please, lend me your ears!”

The entire bar comes to a stop and gives him their full attention as he informs them, “Unfortunately, Noz’s Bar has very recently come under new management. As such, all guests are required to leave for the remainder of the night. Don’t fret, my dears! It will be back up and running the following evening! Better than new, I might add! Now, please, to the door.”

With surprisingly little grievances, the guests follow orders, leaving the bar ahead of him. As the last one out of the bar, Caster turns at the entrance and gives a cocky tip of the hat before walking away.

Still looking out of the destroyed window, Bartholomew is now sitting with his legs dangling off of the edge as he tells me, “Well, Carnegie. Shall we join the rest?”

Gazing at all of the workers, I nod, prompting Bartholomew to walk down the stairs first. Taking a deep breath, I turn away from the window and grasp the doorknob as I hear white noise clear from my mind for the new voice to speak.

Noz growls, “Oh, childe. You’ve really done it now,” sending spears of pain into my ears.

Wincing from it, I mumble under my breath, “Son of a bitch,” before making my way to the barroom floor.

Epilogue

The rest of the night is done in perpetual celebration for the workers. Bartholomew is smiling as he pours fountains of drinks for his fellow laborers. They’re all drinking, singing, and dancing, finally having a night of personal debauchery free from Noz’s leash. He keeps clawing into my ears, trying to make me snap. The Beast is enjoying rending him to pieces again, so I don’t mind what feels like needles in my head. The staff go about drunkenly tearing away every sign of Noz. They smash placards and scratch out engravings, all extolling him for one thing or another. The whole building fills with laughs as they break down the large N-O-Z off of the front of the building. It’s pretty damn hilarious hearing Noz in the back of my head, screaming in agony as I watch everything he has built have his name removed from it. As the night starts to slowly break apart for soft hues of daybreak, Bartholomew begins to ask me a barrage of questions before I head off to sleep during the day.

He begins with, “First, you want me to make sure that they clean everything up, right?”

I answer, “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Next, keep all of Noz’s shit in the trash, defaced and dismantled, yeah?”

“That’s for damn sure.”

“After that, bend the bars back in place for more Fights?”

“No, we’ll do more Fights starting at the end of the week. We need to keep this place quiet long enough for me to get used to running Noz’s territory.”

“You mean running YOUR territory.”

“I suppose that’s correct.”

“No ‘supposing’ about it. It’s all yours, but I’ll digress. So, no bending bars back but still opening up again the following night?”

“That’s correct but only for drinks and relaxation. Music included.”

“Good thing that the musical organs weren’t touched then. Aside from all of that, we can go over the workers’ payment and services once you wake up unless you have your desired changes already written up.”

“As a matter of fact,” I say, pulling out a small scroll of paper, “Not too much is changing but here’s the gist of it:

Sex is no longer a mandatory service for anyone. If a worker wants to offer it, that’s their business and my fee will only be half of what Noz charged. Full-fledged Kindred is allowed on the premises, only in the interest of partaking in consensual activities. Fights will now allow full-fledged Kindred to participate. They are only allowed to face other full-fledged Kindred. For participating in a bout, these Kindred are agreeing to consensual feeding from one another after the fight as a display of showmanship. After every bout, any wounds sustained will be tended to under proper supervision. At no time and under no circumstances are fights to draw out to the death, to torpor, and certainly not to the Final Death. Payments for workers’ will increase, splitting what was Noz’s share amongst all of the current staff. I don’t care for money, honestly. The only person below the age of fifteen permitted on the barroom floor is Ludwig Gunvald, who will have an escort of his choosing present at all times. Finally, this building is now under the management and ownership of three people instead of a sole proprietor. Those three being: Carnegie Gunvald; Ylva Melanie; Bartholomew Duygu.

Does this seem a bit much to you, Bartholomew, or is it fair?”

Proceeding to roll my scroll up, I glance to Bartholomew, eyes wide after being caught off guard halfway through cleaning glasses. Still rolling up the parchment, I look around the bar to see all of the workers’ staring at me, frozen in their tracks after listening to all of my changes. Once I’m finished with my list, I hand it to Bartholomew who slowly takes it from my hand. Reading it over for himself, his wide eyes stay in awe as he pockets the paper.

He finally responds, “So...been thinking about this for a while, huh?”

Before filling my mouth with a shot of whiskey, I reply, “Yeah, I have.”

Placing the glass down and trying to focus on the liquid in my mouth, I realize that I have even less desire for this than I had before. As a Kindred, I can’t truly taste anything other than vitae. All food has the flavor of ash and all liquid has the flavor of smoke. I only continue to drink with Ylva because it helps me feel more connected. In a way, it’s as if I’m trying to convince myself that there’s still some humanity left in me. Now, though. I don’t really feel anything when I drink it. Noz did tell me that-

“Diablerie can steal your humanity away,” he finishes, still stuck in my mind, “You’re lucky that I wasn’t able to take you over entirely. If I had a bit more vitae left in me, you’d be stuck in here while I’d be piloting your shell of a body.”

Listening to him, I finally realize that I’d have to work my way back up the proverbial ladder of humanity. If not for my own sake, then to put Ylva’s mind at ease. I’ve lied to her enough. It’s about time I start doing something to help. Maybe even get some daydreams to return.

“No, please, no more daydreams!” Noz shouts again, “It’s pitiful seeing you still imagine another life you’ll never get.”

Sighing deep, I say out loud, “Beastie Boy!”

I feel the Beast perk up.

“Sic him,” I finish, letting their ensuing battle turn into a mind-splitting migraine for a moment before a wave of calm rushes through me.

Opening my eyes, Bartholomew holds a distressed look as he asks, “You got his soul in you, don’t you?”

Nodding but not verbally responding, Bartholomew continues, “There’s a long road ahead of you. All the souls Noz ate tore his mind apart. Don’t make the same mistake.”

“I won’t,” I tell him, sliding my unfinished drink back, “So, any other questions before I curl up under a tarp in a still blood soaked corner of the office?”

Smiling a bit, he requests, “What should the name be? Can’t be ‘Noz’s Bar’ now that he’s dead.”

Thinking for a bit, I tell him, “I always dreamed of having a war room.”

Laughing a bit, Bartholomew agrees, “ ‘War Room’ it is.”

Standing up from the bar, I give one last glance to the staff before heading upstairs. They all give me approving smiles, nods, and a few even mouths a few words of appreciation before returning to their duties. Calmly closing the door behind me as I enter the office, I call out to Bartholomew from the observatory window to say “And keep this open. I like the view better without the glass,” before finding my tarp. It’s under a few of the eviscerated bodies so I pick it out of the bloody mulch. I give it a few good rings to clean most of the chunks off before curling up under it to sleep through the day. A nightmare racks my brain, a supposed impossibility for Kindred. It’s of Noz rending me to pieces in the same manner I did to him. He seems to be smiling more and more with each blow he lands against me. Once I blink, Noz is replaced with Ylva, clawing me to pieces as tears stream down her cheeks. She’s in more pain than I am as she continues to claw away pieces of me. I blink a second time and it’s Ludwig now, stabbing me over and over with the dagger I gave him. He looks as focused and furious as I was when I killed his foster father. He’s not enjoying it, though. When I blink again and the person wailing on me returns to Noz, I fight back and begin killing him for a second time. Unlike the first, he’s smiling as I do it. He begins laughing after I’ve reduced him to less than half a man. Worrying about why, I stomp his head into pieces across the floor before looking around, realizing that I killed not only him but Ylva and Ludwig as well. With the Beast in full control, I laugh maniacally, relishing the wanton bloodshed. I startle awake, swiping at air with my left hand. My right hand soon follows, digging out a chunk of stone from the wall where my fist must have slammed into during my night terror. Realizing that it was simply a dream, I relax with a deep breath before standing up from my tarp. Much to my surprise, the office is clean already. The carcasses and viscera which previously decorated it are now gone, but the damage is still apparent. The crater in the wall is much more prevalent without a body in it. The debris and broken glass from wrecking the office is clear, making the missing window and shattered desk more prevalent. There’s now a short railing akin to a theatre box where the observatory window once was. Stepping towards it, I pause for a moment, glancing down at the desk. It’s still broken in half, the two pieces facing down in a V. The splinters of wood are cleared, showing a fractured separation in the floorboards between the two halves of the desk. Stepping past it, I hear it split more under my weight. The floor doesn’t give, so I pay no mind to it as on my way to the railing. The building is full of music by now, but it’s quite the opposite of what’s usually played during nights of combat. Following my word, all of the staff has ensured that tonight is one solely for rest and relaxation. The melodies filling the air tonight are soft and slow. The floor is full of people, but not so much as to describe it as a sea. There’s enough people so as not to feel congested yet still remain cautious. The staff around are comfortably mixing business with pleasure, indulging in playful whims suggested by the patrons who are present. In regards to the visitors, the majority are regulars whom I’ve seen spend night after night in this bar before. Curiously, there are a healthy amount of newcomers, many with fangs. I’m glad to see that they’re behaving properly, despite what rumors I heard about Kindred parties when I was alive.

Leaning against the new balcony, I call down to Bartholomew, who’s tending bar directly below me, “Surprisingly good turn out for it not being a night of Fights.”

Glancing around the room before leaning his head back, he responds, “Well, Boss, seems like our new bar rules motivated the workforce to advertise.”

Smiling as I look about the room, I say, “Well, that sounds like a hell of a step up from before.”

Turning back to return my smile, he remarks, “It certainly never happened when Noz was working this place. That’s for sure.”

“Has Caster showed up yet?” I ask, trying to see familiar faces in the mass of people on the barroom floor.

“Nope, not yet,” he answers as he blows dust out of a wine glass, “Knowing him, he won’t hesitate to find us once he gets here. Until then, how about you join the rabble, boyo?”

Scoffing at the suggestion, I attempt to return to the broken desk before hearing Ylva shout, “Bartholomew says that we’re supposed to have something to toast to! Hurry up and get down here, Carnie! I’ve never had wine before!”

Glancing back down, I see Ylva smiling in an elaborate outfit. She’s wearing a red ruffle shirt with a high collar and a short tail that protrudes from the bottom of a corset. The sleeves are torn off, according to the loose bits of strands surrounding her shoulders. She has on long brown gloves, reaching just below her elbows. A dark brown corset covers most of her midriff, black belts and buckles binding it tight against her. Disregarding the cheers and claps after leaving the office, I walk down the stairs and notice that her corset isn’t the only odd attire she came in. Her dark boots now reach up to her thigh, supported by a staunch heel instead of a heavy sole. She wears red pants, leading from the top of her boots to the bottom of a wide belt supporting her sword to her hip. The final surprise addition to her attire this night is her hairstyle. Usually a single long braid of silver and raven, the front of her hair now has two small braided loops dangling past her temples, under her ears, then tying into an immaculate braided bun on the back of her head. I’ve never seen her dressed up so nice. As I walk through a crowd of happy smiles and loud words of appreciation, neither Noz nor the Beast say anything. Much to my surprise, my mind is uncomfortably silent, allowing me to enjoy my short victory lap in peace.

As I get to the bar, Ylva places her her head in her hand as she says, “Hi there, Checkpoint Attendant,” with a coy smile.

I sit down next to her as I say, “Howdy, Night Wolf,” returning her smile with a smirk of my own.

“Be careful talking like that, Carnie,” she tells me with a sudden giggle, “You might reveal to your workers that you weren’t born here.”

Looking around, I remark, “I think they’re enjoying themselves too much to give a damn. Besides, they’re not just my workers. They’re ours.”

Her smile turns toward the crowd of revelry as Bartholomew places out three glasses and begins to fill them with wine. She turns around to pick up her glass and swirl it around a bit, mimicking what she’s seen so many others do.

As Bartholomew and I raise our glasses, Ylva raises hers as well, asking, “So, a toast to a successful reopening, aye?”

Awkwardly glancing from her to Bartholomew, I inquire, “You haven’t told her, have you?”

Giving a wide grin, he responds, “Nope, I figured that you should be the one to.”

Confused, Ylva asks, “Tell me what?”

“Well, I said the workers aren’t just mine,” I reply, nodding towards her, “They’re ours.”

“Yeah,” she says, returning my nod, “They’re yours and Bartholomew’s, right?”

“And I thought that Carnie here was the dense one,” Bartholomew scoffs, snickering a bit as he sets the wine glass on the bar top.

Seeing her with an even more dumbfounded look on her face, I confide, “There’s three owners of the bar now. I’m one. Bartholomew’s another. Guess who I named as the third.”

“Uhhh...” she responds, looking about the staff, “Elisabeth has a good head on her shoulders. Philip and Henry have been here a while. Pauline hated Noz the most. He was always beating on her more than the others.”

She turns to see Bartholomew and I glaring at each other in disbelief and I ask, “Are you really serious?”

Still in confusion, she responds, “Tell me when I get close.”

“Oh, piss off,” Bartholomew says, “Just tell her, Carnie. I’d like to enjoy some wine.”

Chuckling loudly, I tell Ylva, “You’re the third owner of the War Room.”

Placing down her glass, she looks around the room. I’m practically smiling from ear to ear, thinking that she’s imagining all the things she could do with the place. Bartholomew looks on in anticipation, noticing her expressions from his line of sight. She turns back with a giddy grin but saddened eyes.

With her hands shaking and fear in her voice, she asks, “Why me? I have absolutely no idea how to run an establishment. Don’t you remember me getting fired from every job I’ve ever had?”

“You don’t have to run the establishment,” Bartholomew speaks up, “I’ve been running this place since the beginning. All Noz did was grab profits and use the help as punching bags or blood supply.”

“Then, what do I do? Run protection and bodyguards for the building?” she continues to question.

“Yeah, actually,” I tell her, leaning against the bar, “The staff aren’t the best fighters and, now that we’re allowing other Kindred in here, I need a better bruiser than me to make sure that people stay in line. You can teach the workers how to fight, too, just in case.”

Her smile growing wider and the fear leaving, she asks, “Wait, you’re paying me to kick people’s ass when they get out of line?”

“It’s more like you’re paying yourself as the owner,” I reply, grabbing the glass of wine, “Also, we’ll be in charge of organizing Fights and, to be entirely transparent, I need someone who can work in the sun. So, what do you say?”

Tackling me off of the chair, Ylva wraps her arms around my neck and tightens like a vice grip. Desperately trying to return to my feet, she begins thanking me repeatedly as we roll on the ground. More and more of the workers and customers begin staring at us, so I try to whisper some words to get her to come to her senses. In our tossing and turning, her lips accidentally press against mine. We’re transported to when we were curious teens, locking eyes with a shared fever of embarrassment. Snapping back to reality, we spring to our feet and sit back down.

With the staff still staring at us with giggles and chuckles, Ylva and I shout to them, “Back to work!”

Nudging the glasses towards us, Bartholomew holds back a laugh as he says, “Alright, you star-crossed lovers. Shall we toast to being the new owners?”

“We’re not-” I stumble.

“We aren’t-” Ylva mumbles.

“Jaysus, just shut the hell up and drink the damn wine,” Bartholomew barks, clinking his glass to ours.

Bartholomew downs his glass immediately while Ylva and I share an awkward glance. In a flash, we drink ours like it’s water before grabbing the bottle from Bartholomew and pouring more for the three of us. Ylva and I drink until we forget about the embarrassed flush on our faces.

“So,” Ylva starts directly after we finish our third glasses of wine, “What do the payments look like?”

Bartholomew is still sipping on his third glass as he tells us, “In a single word: Lucrative. In an average week, the bar clears around ten thousand. Noz would usually take more than half for himself then a quarter of it for taking care of the building. The rest was usually split amongst us on staff. With how I have it planned, we’re keeping the quarter for taking care of the building and only sticking to half for us to split, although Carnie’s portion is being divided up equally among the help. With all of that, it means about twenty-five hundred is going towards keeping the place supplied and well kept while the staff get about thirty-five hundred to split up roughly twenty ways, leaving Ylva and I with about two thousand each. That sound good to you two?”

I tell him, “Sounds spot on to me. Thank you, Bartholomew.”

Eyes wide in awe, Ylva says, “Of fucking course that sounds good! Praise to Gaia, I can actually move out of my shite apartment complex. Thanks, Bartholomew.”

Nodding in agreement, he finishes his glass of wine before saying, “Good, now, I’m going to leave you two alone. Look, I’ve been watching you two for years now, alright. So when I tell you two this, just know that I mean no offense and all, although I’m so happy that I can finally be crass enough to say that you two are fucking disgusting when you guys are together. Honestly, either bang after hours or get drunk enough to have the courage to.”

Ylva and I both shout, “BARTHOLOMEW!”

Laughing his ass off, he responds, “What? You think I give a fuck? I’m the owner. Ha!”

He walks down the bar to start making drinks for the staff, leaving Ylva and I alone. We stumble on our words a bit, avoiding eye contact for the better part of about two minutes before we can actually finish a sentence.

“I might have created a monster,” I say, walking behind the bar to find some shot glasses and some darker liquor.

Holding her shot in place while I pour, Ylva jokes, “Yeah, just a little bit. We may have to stake him next.”

We laugh a bit as we start taking shots. It still bothers me, though. Drinking isn’t the same after killing Noz, so I stop only after a few. Ylva notices.

“What’s wrong? Liquor not hitting you right?” she asks after finishing her third shot.

“No, it’s not that. I just haven’t felt the same since last night,” I tell her, watching the liquor spin in the bottle.

Staring at me with an odd and intense look, she says, “You’re right. You’re not the same. There’s a lot of black lines all around you, now. Your aura is tainted. Explains why there’s even less color in you, too.”

“I got to fix that,” I reply, pouring her another shot.

“Do you want to?” she questions, leaving the glass on the table, “After all, you told me that you enjoyed being a Kindred. Are you sure you actually want to fix it?”

Feeling her doubt like a sword through the gut, I stare her in her eyes as I respond, “Yes, I want to fix this. I may enjoy the power. Hell, I downright love it. I don’t love not being able to enjoy a drink with my best friend or not being able to hold a smile without it being fake.”

She looks up with a relieved smile before saying, “Alright, good. Then we can figure that out together.”

I return her smile with one of my own before looking away in shame. Not due to me lying to her, I didn’t this time. I’m ashamed because the daydreams came back. Another bittersweet delusion of her and I running out of the city together, covered in the blood of anyone who tries to stop us. A masochistic fantasy that tortures me to the point of no return. It burns almost as much as-

“Sunshine?” I hear Caster call.

Never thought that I’d be happy to hear his voice.

“Never thought that I’d be happy hear your voice, Caster,” I tell him, snapping out of my daze.

He leans against the bar, practically rubbing shoulders with Ylva, and says, “Well, Sunshine, happy to oblige, but I must ask,” pausing to turn to Ylva and reach for her hands, “Who is this precious little ruby?”

Stabbing her fingernails into the top of the bar, Ylva downs her shot before answering, “A woman who’d rather bite her own tongue than buy what you’re selling. I’m taken.”

She always uses the same lie when she doesn’t want guys hitting on her.

Narrowly pulling his hand out from being impaled by her claws, Caster remarks, “Oh, so much fire inside of you. You must be Ylva, then. Carnegie’s girlfriend, correct?”

“Incorrect,” I tell him.

“Incorrect?” he asks.

“I’m not his girlfriend,” Ylva tells him.

“You’re not his girlfriend?” he questions with raised eyebrows.

“She’s not my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend,” I reply, filling her shot glass.

“Oh, you don’t have a girlfriend,” Caster states with a cocky smile and a deeper lean towards me.

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend because he’s not interested in anyone,” Ylva responds, cocking her head with an annoyed stare at Caster.

“Well, I have some people I could intro-” Caster tries to say.

“No, I’m fine.” “No, he’s fine.”

Both Ylva and I answered in unison, which only makes Caster’s smile grow wider as he relaxes deeper into the bar.

“Right...” Caster responds, eyeing both of us with a stupid painted grin on his face, “But you are Ylva, yes? The third owner of the bar?”

Ylva answers, “That is correct. I’m Ylva and I’m the third owner. Do you want to be the first customer I throw out?”

Putting his hands up with a teasing pout, he mocks, “Whatever shall I do, m’lady?”

Ylva finishes her shot, stands up, then cracks her knuckles in preparation to toss him to the curb but stops when I tell her, “Unfortunately, we can’t kick him out.”

“Why not?” she asks, stepping within an inch of him.

Taking a deep sigh, I tell her, “Because I can’t pay him back if he’s dead.”

Glancing to me then back to him, she asks me, “What do you owe him?”

With a shit-eating smirk, Caster leans closer to her face and responds, “In summary, all the land which he now calls his own.”

Ylva glares to me for confirmation and I give a remorseful nod. She grabs him by the back of the head and sniffs him.

“Whoa, whoa, okay,” Caster says, suddenly growing uncomfortable, “Careful with the hands, please.”

She lets go of his head then says to me, “I don’t like how he smells, Carnie. Don’t trust him.”

Handing her the bottle and her drinking glass, I tell her, “Never have, never will,” as she walks down the bar to have a discussion with Bartholomew.

Turning back to me after watching her leave, Caster suggests, “I can see why you like her, but would a leash be too much to ask for?”

Slamming a heavy bottle against the bar, I tell him, “Yes, it would. You disrespect her again and I’ll find out who you won’t cheat on.”

Stiffening up, Caster readjusts his collar as he stammers, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have anyone.”

“I’ve seen you lurking around here before with Noz,” I bluff, trying to get him to trip up, “You always flirt around with whoever you want but back down when it starts getting hot. On top of that, you dress too well to not be taken.”

Clearing his throat, Caster replies, “Perhaps I prefer to look my best. Doesn’t mean I have someone in my life.”

“Really?” I scoff, “You prefer to look your best in the part of the city surrounded in smog and buried in all the scraps of the higher clans? Yeah, I’m calling bullshit. You got someone who holds you to a certain standard, seemingly one who likes tight collars.”

I lean in and wait for him to respond. He coughs a bit then asks for a drink.

“Pass my apologies on to Ylva,” Caster tells me, “Now, a drink please. Something neat.”

Wow, that bluff actually worked.

I pour his drink as I tell him, “I’m surprised that bluff actually worked.”

His eyes flare up in disbelief as I slide his drink towards him. He laughs as he asks, “On to business then, Sunshine. What’s your answer?”

Taking a moment to consider all of my options, I tell him with certainty, “Yeah...I’ll take the job. Still don’t like not knowing what it is, but I’ll do it.”

Slapping his hands together with a joyous smile, he exclaims, “Yes, Sunshine! That’s what I like to hear!”

“Are you really going to call me ‘Sunshine’ from now on?”

“Perhaps, if you like it.”

“I’d rather you not.”

“But I could.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“So, I will.”

“Really?”

“Now, on to the gift,” he says, standing up from his seat and picking up a sizable case.

He places it down on the table as I grab a knife from behind the bar and ask, “So, you’re really turning on me?”

Glancing around the room and noticing that Bartholomew is cool as he’s ever been while Ylva is slowly palming her sword, Caster puts his hands up and remarks, “See? You’re both so combative and paranoid. It’s really quite adorable.”

“What the hell is in the box, Caster?” I demand, still believing it’s some sort of weapon.

“A signing gift, you dolt,” he remarks, taking what looks to be a long trench coat from the box, “All of your clothes are tarnished and in tatters. You need to be at least halfway presentable for this job.”

“Is this really for the job?” I ask in disbelief.

Giving a smile that masks any deception, he simply says, “Maaaayyyybeee,” before tossing it to me and closing the box.

“Thanks, I suppose,” I tell him, curiously looking at the coat and wondering how he got the size correct.

“I should be making my leave,” he exclaims, exiting the building, “Stay vigilant for the letter.”

Rapidly leaving, I fold up the coat as Bartholomew and Ylva make their way back over to me.

Watching Caster dash out of the bar and not even look back, we all glance about with stupefied looks before Bartholomew asks, “So, you ready to learn about the territory you were given and find a way to get your ‘humanity back’? Ylva said that I should help.”

Taking one last shot of pure smoke, I tell them, “Yeah, let’s get to it.”

For the rest of the night, Bartholomew guides me around the lower part of Ustrus, showing me all of the major players in the area while Ylva stays to watch over the bar. We first arrive at the train tracks where he introduces me to my old boss. Fortunately, the Embrace transformed my appearance so drastically that she doesn’t recognize me. She never came down to meet the railroad workers either, so my voice was unfamiliar as well. As Noz’s replacement, she’s convinced to share with me all the details that my sire once knew. I wish I was surprised that the railroad tracks were a massive line of unmarked graves for certain “regrettable” victims of other Kindreds’ feeding habits. On the way to our next destination, Bartholomew makes it clear that it’s a necessary discomfort. Next on the list are the gambling halls. I meet the new replacements for the former bosses. Their office is rather clean, much cleaner than it had been last time I was in it. The underlying business is still dirty, though. The gambling halls is a front to provide Kindred a location that makes seeking out desperate saps to turn into Ghouls nearly effortless. Bartholomew doesn’t need to convince me much to keep this place running. By the way I see it, these lowlifes will be either dead or worse if they don’t make nice with some vamps. Before turning towards the last stop, Bartholomew hands me a pair of old aviator goggles, one lens having a large spindly crack in it, and a large hood with a low hanging cowl. He tells me to put them on and I do once I realize which part of the lower end we’ve come to. Arriving in an alleyway, we meet up with three men. One is the landlord who had seen me grow up from a baby into the sad excuse for a human being I was before dying. The other two are the cook I left alive and who I’m assuming is the new lead drug trafficker after I killed the previous one. Understandably, Bartholomew does the talking this time around, referring to me as the new “baron” around these parts. I never liked hearing that title. Bartholomew tells me that it helps sell the fact that I’ve taken over. I’m still not comfortable with it. On the way back to the War Room, I convince Bartholomew to leave me a few moments alone. He agrees to meet me back at the bar as I begin stalking my way back to my old home. Intending to check on Ludwig, I get there just in time to watch him sneak out with the help of a few other kids. All three are wearing rags covered in soot and oil. It takes all of them to help Ludwig limp out of his room, leaving through another hidden exit. After making sure to not be seen by any normal senses, I follow them back to the orphanage where they play games together and hide from the workers patrolling the interior halls. I leave them be and find my way back to my establishment. Once there, Ylva, Bartholomew and I discuss all of the other pies Noz had his hands in. We all come to a consensus on how they’ll continue to operate as normal. Aside from that, little else is talked about. Bartholomew decides to head in early for once, seeing the War Room being empty aside from the workers. Ylva heads out as well, eager to start packing her belongings now with the money to move out soon to be in her possession. I return upstairs to the office and begin slowly pacing around the room, bothered by a few things. The first worry I have is the fact that neither the Beast nor Noz clawed my mind tonight. Usually, the Beast always have at least one thing to say the moment I wake up and I wouldn’t be too quiet if I was stuck in another vampire’s body like Noz. Tonight, however, has been peculiarly silent. The next troublesome thought is what the hell the job from Caster is going to be. For a man who loves to talk cocky, it’s off-putting just how tight lipped he’s being about something that’s obviously essential. The third biggest thought in my mind is the problem with the War Room itself. The entire building is nearly double the length of the barroom floor and the office combined, but the walls don’t go any further back. I’ve seen the inside of Bartholomew’s room and it's not as deep as the back wall of the office above it. As I begin checking every nook and cranny of the office, there’s no obscured passageway or hidden lever. With my mind stumped, I take a seat against the still broken desk. I’m then reminded of the fact that there’s an unstable crack in the floorboards by the wood breaking apart, sending me through the hole along with the two halves of the desk. Falling about twenty feet, I slam off the edge of one of the two halves and bounce on to cold cement. Groaning as I return to me feet, I’m surrounded by darkness and immediately start trying to find a wall. Stumbling over the desk’s two halves, I find some sort of construction with a lever. I grab hold of it and jerk it down, watching sparks of electricity fly around the room. As incandescent bulbs fill the room with light, it becomes apparent what Noz’s greatest stash was. With what I see, everything in me says that I should close up this place after I’ve had my fun, even pulling me to fix the desk as a marker of where the entrance is. After a few hours of exploration, that’s exactly what I do, but, right now, I’m a kid in a candy shop. Seeing all of his secrets laid out in front of me, the only thought that comes across my mind is a genuine one, appealing to every bit of Kindred and Humanity I have left.

“This is going to be fun,” the Beast, Noz, and myself all remark in unison, beginning my first night of exploration.

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Storyteller...with a speech impediment