Chapter 17: Southland 4-1

Two nights later...

"I think this is Lil and I's last night in town, mate." E told me as we looked out to the sea. The sea was oddly calm right tonight, with the waves gently crashing against the wooden foundations of the nearby pier. Behind us, the thin-bloods were gathered around the campfire, their partially-undead bodies still needing warmth. Lily was playing guitar for them, some kind of song she wrote before she was turned.

"Yeah?" I asked, turning to him. "What are the thin-bloods going to do without their Prince?"

E chuckled at that, shrugging idly and looking out to the sea. He was silent for a little bit, just watching the sprinkle of stars against the black sky. The air was chilly, blowing past us but only E could feel it. My body was fully dead, so I didn't really feel it. I only felt an echo of sensation, a memory of being cold.

"I'm no prince, Al." E said, finally. "I was just...lookin' out for them, you know? Nobody else would."

"You're harbingers of the apocalypse, remember?" I teased. "You and Lily..where are you guys headin'?"

"Far as three grand will take us, mate." E grunted. "Lily wants to go to Canada."

I whistled at that. "Never heard of Canadian vampires. Just might work."

That made E grin. "Shut the fuck up. But hey...listen, these poor saps will need someone to look after them. Not too much. They're a lot tougher than they look. Hell, they saved my ass more times than I could count. But...you know what I mean."

"Well…" I said. "I don't know if I can. I'm leaving town soon. Just waiting for a guy to contact me and then I'm heading right back to LA."

"Not that far away, innit?"

I shook my head. I knew what he meant. "Not that far away, no."

He patted me on the shoulder. "Hey, mate, I want to tha-"

"You've thanked me a thousand times already." I said, chuckling. "As I said, it's no problem. I was in a dark place. I...needed someone to help."

"No, you gotta understand what it means." E said. "It's just...I felt alone for so long, you know? And I hated Lily for what she made me, but...I couldn't for long. I thought that if I hated her, this fucking nightmare would end. But now that she's back with me, it actually makes things easier."

That made me think about Justine. Why did I think about her so much, especially when I was alone? I felt for E a lot. I knew how he felt, to hate what he'd become, but to feel alone and afraid. It's how I felt when I was first turned. Hell, it's still how I felt. But for E, it was worse. He became a thin-blood, hunted by almost every Kindred he sees. I was just everyone's errand boy. At least I was able to reunite her with Lily. I'd never get reunited with Justine.

"Yeah." I said, my voice almost a whisper. "You seem a little happier."

"Mate...when you said when you came across me, you were in a dark place. You still in that dark place?" He asked.

I turned away from him, sliding my hands into my pockets. The wind blew against my skin again, and yet again I remembered what it was like to be cold. Eternity. That was a long time to be like this. And there was no way out, none at all. At times like this, my Beast awoke from its false slumber, telling me to take my grief and misery out on my enemies, on the thin-bloods. Tear them apart, drink their blood, destroy their hearts. It told me that it would make me feel better, but I knew that was a lie. This whole vampire thing would be better without an antisocial imaginary friend.

"Yeah…" I said. "I think so."

I felt E's hand on my back, patting gently. "Lil and I are leaving in a bit. Just wanted to tell you to look after my mates...they're good people, if not a little jumpy."

I nodded. "I'll do what I can. Take care of yourself, E."

"I will."

E left.

There went the only one that didn't use me as a pawn was also the one that will bring the apocalypse, if his attackers were to be believed. Go figure. A part of me worried about him and Lily. There were some powerful vampires out there, people like Tourette and LaCroix. But part of me knew that as long as they were together, Sire and childe, they'd do just fine. That sense of loneliness returned to me, and I thought of Justine. I thought of my parents, who had called me repeatedly in the past three nights, only for me to ignore my calls. I thought about my sister, and my friends from college. Did they think I was missing? They must've thought I was involved in something horrible.

Funny. Vampires cry blood.

I wiped my tears quickly when I noticed Copper, one of the thin-bloods approaching. Lily had left with E a few moments ago, and I noticed a familiar figure by the bonfire. Knox.

"Hey, someone's here to see you." Copper said. "Doesn't seem to be a vampire."

"No." I said, groaning. "He's worse than a vampire: annoying."

Copper and I walked from the boardwalk to the bonfire. Knox greeted me with his signature wide smile, like he was a kid at an amusement park. Tonight he wore jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt underneath a bomber jacket. The katana he'd gotten from the Asian vampire was sheathed into a scabbard on his back. He looked absolutely ridiculous, but I was beginning to expect it was all an act.

"Hey, man!" Knox said, greeting me. "Tung is ready to see you."

"Finally." I said. "What kept him so long?"

"No idea, dude! I'm just the messenger." Knox said defensively. "Follow me, I'll take you to him!"

I said my goodbyes to the thin-bloods for the night. Tonight, I've got some domestic terrorism to commit.

Tung was hiding in the old gas station near the end of town. Knox drove into the abandoned lot and parked, looking over to me with a sad expression, saying, "Aw man, it was nice knowing you…"

That alarmed me. "What? Why? What do you mean?"

He burst out laughing. "Aw man! You shoulda seen your face! You were like, 'Why? What do you mean?' Aw man, I totally scared you!"

I scowled at him. "Kid less."

Knox sobered. "Alright, see that huge, rusty, hollowed-out oil tank behind you? Bertram is in there."

"Right." I said. "See you around, Knox."

"Yeah, man." Knox replied.

I got out of the car and walked through the cut-out entrance to the oil tank. The inside was surprisingly well-lit, with a few lamps set up all around to light the place. Bertram must've set up the electricity in there himself, because it all looked very homemade from the way the wires were duct taped to the walls. There was a desk next to a mattress with a fancy-looking computer, one of those new slimmer ones that cost a fortune. A man who I presumed was Tung stood by the mattress.

Therese told me that the Nosferatu were hideous but that was an understatement. Bertram looked like he was a burn victim that had gotten his skull bashed in several times. He was completely hairless and had massive warts bulging out of the back of his skull. He seemed to be missing an ear - no, one ear was fused to his skull as a fleshy mound, and the other stuck out and pointed, with a golden piercing near the tip. He had a nose piercing on his pointy nose and beady red eyes, like a mouse, with a maw of jagged, sharp teeth. Did all Nosferatu look like this? And I thought I had it bad.

"Look who made it." Tung greeted me, a natural drawl to his voice. "You must be Algernon. Thought you'd never find me, huh?"

"Honestly, I was beginning to think so." I said. "How'd you know I was looking for you?"

"I've gotten good at knowing when I'm wanted." Tung said.

I nodded. That was a good enough answer for me. "How do you know about me?"

"News travels down the Kindred grapevine like wildfire." The Nosferatu explained. "And that courtroom spat between LaCroix and Nine Rodriguez is a juicy little morsel. Not only that, but the star pupil of Maximilian Strauss himself, Justine Sanders, the poster child for the young Tremere herself violating the first tradition? You at the middle of this all? How interesting."

Justine Sanders, a star pupil? Both Jack and Tung knew her name? Just how prolific was she?

"That's great." I said. "So you know I survived."

Tung chuckled. It was an ugly sound, like a cough and a pur. "Oh you did, did you? Well, I wasn't worried. So, why'd you find me? What did you need?"

"I need to get to the warehouse for Mercurio." I told him.

Tung tilted his head. "Hm? Oh! Never mind. The warehouse, though… I've been watching that place. The Sabbat has a bunch of lowlife humans working day and night to move stuff through there. There's some major staging going on."

"So I should only expect to encounter humans there?" I asked.

"Far as I can tell." Tung confirmed. "The humans seem to know the score from the way they've been talking. I think most of them have aspirations of joining the next graduating class of shovelheads. Ugh, losers."

I frowned. "Wait. They know they're working for vampires?"

"Yeah. The Sabbat like everyone to know just who they're dealing with." Tung explained. "So if you get in there and have to bust a few heads...don't feel bad. Think of it as 'upholding the Masquerade' - that's, um, our word for the rules that keep us secret."

The Masquerade. Finally, I had something to call it other than "the rules". I didn't feel particularly nervous about killing, not anymore. I already had blood on my hands at this point. If cracking a few skulls this time was going to help keep vampires secret, then I was all for it. I had a bit of frustration to vent out anyway.

"Can you get me in without me being detected?" I asked.

"Yes I can." Tung said matter-of-factly. "Once we're at the warehouse, however, you're on your own. You'll have to get in the place and plant the explosives in the middle office to bring the whole structure down."

I also had to sneak, I realized. If I got into a gunfight, this astrolite in my backpack would blow me up. Sure, I could take a hit and a few gunshot wounds like nobody's business, but I was pretty confident that I wouldn't last a nanosecond in a chemical explosion. Not with all of the fire.

"Alright. Let's go." I said.

Arming explosives is time consuming. Arming explosives is even more time consuming when you've never done it before, and are reading from an instruction manual in Russian how to do it. It's even harder when the only Russian you know is from a girl you dated back in college who taught you a few words. And even still, it's harder to arm explosives when twelve guys at you are shooting at you with full autos. The only people protecting me were the ten thugs I'd enthralled, shooting back at them, but they were mindless. They didn't have the skills necessary to take down most of the thugs on the grounds of the warehouse, which made them go down quickly.

Soon, someone came out with a full-auto and splattered my thralls' blood all over the windows, leaving me all but defenseless. I heard footsteps coming up the metal stairs in droves, so I did what I could to slow them down. Commanding the splattered blood in the room, I created a wall of hardened blood over the door, which they began banging on as soon as they got to it. It would keep them out, but not for long. Not once they figure out that the wall is brittle enough to be blown to pieces by a shotgun.

"Come on...is this the word for 'blue wire'?! Ugh, I should've taken Russian in college." I growled to myself. I relied on my best judgement and connected the blue wire to one of the jacks, and the little light on the bomb turned on. That meant it was on, from what I'd read, so that was good. Now all I had to do is set the timer.

Then I heard a shotgun cocking. I was out of time. There was a loud bang as the blood wall I'd created shattered, allowing the dozen or so Sabbat thugs through. I took cover behind the table, narrowly dodging a shotgun blast directly to the head. Instead, it shattered the window behind me, which gave the thugs outside a clear enough way to start shooting into the room. I was cornered. Working as quickly as I could, I set the explosives to blow in five minutes. Then I kicked down the table, using it as cover to keep them from turning me into Swiss cheese with their AKs.

"Alright, you fuckers want to play?" I growled, standing up once they all began to reload. I summoned my blood forth through my pores, and it began to cover every inch of my body, forming into a shield. They began shooting again, but the bullets just harmlessly bounced off as if I was a living tank.

"Oh fuck!" One of them exclaimed.

I lunged straight at one of the thugs, burying my teeth into his throat and ripping out his jugular. Blood began to spew from the open wound, which I used to form a javelin-like object. I threw it at one of the other thugs as their bullets bounced harmlessly through me, and it went straight through his head. Finally, I unsheathed my knife and lunged again, stabbing the third thug in the room in the heart repeatedly, then kicking his body down the stairs and making all of the other thugs lined up fall as well. Vaulting over the railing, I began to sprint over the exit, weaving and dodging through all of the thugs that got in my way. I crashed out of the window and landed fifty feet down in a roll, getting behind cover just in time for my blood shield to wear off.

Taking out my pistol, I took a few potshots at one of the thirteen thugs out shooting at me. One began to rush at me with a fire axe, so I quickly caught him in the eyes, shouting, "Fight for me!"

The thug stopped in his tracks and he turned the other way, attacking his comrades. They were surprised when he axed one of them right in the face, downing him instantly. A few began to shoot at him, which gave me the chance to take cover behind one of the freight cars. I used my powers to see the auras of thugs moving in on me, and heard heartbeats approaching me from behind. I got under the freight car and began shooting at the thugs' ankles, making them fall down, then shooting them in their foreheads once they fell. Those firearms training classes were really coming in handy. I wasn't the best marksman, but I could at least aim for the head now.

I felt one of the thugs grab my ankles and pull me from under the train. He got on top of me and tried to wrestle the gun out of my hand, but I was stronger. Kicking him off, I sent him flying into the wall, killing him instantly and no doubt shattering a few of his bones. I got up before any of the other thugs could take advantage of my prone position, and projected my blood shield again. One of them was armed with an axe, swinging it in a wide axe which seemed to go through my armor and get me in the stomach. I quickly grabbed his wrist and shoved my gun into his mouth, shooting him and using him as cover to block the other gunfire.

The bomb was going to explode and I still needed to be much further away from the warehouse than I was. Using my will, I thickened my blood shield quite a bit, expending more of my blood to do so and began running. I ran up the side of one of the freight cars easily and vaulted over, landing on the ground in a roll and sprinting across the train field. Guns and bullets flew, but I managed to aim-dodge them for the most part, through some of them managed to get me in the chest and shoulders. I made eye contact with a few of the thugs and compelled them to slow the others down, which they did to the best of their ability, though not too effectively. Eventually, I made it across the train yard heavily wounded, but alive.

Barging through one of the metal doors, I sprinted through the hallway, ducking low to avoid the bullets that were coming after me. Once I went through the hallway, I made a sharp turn and climbed out through one of the holes in the wall. There were three thugs waiting for me there, but I managed to get rid of them quickly because they didn't have guns. One of them took a little bit longer because they were a vampire, but he went quickly once I used his buddy's fire axe to slice off his leg and behead him. His body turned to ash at my feet and I kept running, now limping because of one of the wounds I'd received. As soon as I got to one of the thugs, I tackled him and fed on him while using him as cover to avoid the other gunshots.

Two more minutes. I had to leave as quickly as possible. It was times like this that flight or Jack's teleportation ability - or whatever it was - was among my list of skills. Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. I hopped into one of the freight cars and waited until the thugs walked around to find me, then I took off running. I reached an old train station that was about two miles away from the warehouse, hoping it was safe enough. It was just in time, too, because as soon as I reached it, there was a resounding boom that I'm pretty sure they'd be able to hear in Canada.

"Whelp…" I said as I watched the massive cloud of smoke drift up into the night sky. "That's making the news. Good job, Al, you're a terrorist now."

I heard a howling sound, one that was dangerously close. My luck being what it was, I assumed that a werewolf was now coming to bite my head off. Instead, I saw a wolf - a not-half-human one - run across the top of one of the trains. Once the wolf got close enough, it leapt off and landed in front of me. Then I saw the wolf morph into a humanoid form, a long-haired man wearing cargo pants, knee-high combat boots, a linen shirt and a long overcoat. He had on dark shades, but they just barely obscured his glowing red eyes.

Was this a werewolf? No, his skin was pale as bone. He had to be a vampire. I recall reading in Dracula that the man himself could turn into animals. Maybe that's what this was?

"The warehouse…" The wolf-man said, glancing at the column of smoke that rose to the sky, then back to me. "Your handiwork, I presume?"

"W-What are you?" I asked, a little shaken. "Are you a werewolf?"

The wolf-man chuckled. "Not experienced much in the creatures of the night, are you? For future reference, you might keep in mind that werewolves aren't in the habit of introducing themselves."

I liked this guy. "So...you aren't going to kill me?" I asked.

"I hadn't planned on it." The man told me, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Who are you?" I asked. "Why are you here? Have you been following me?"

"I see my reputation, for once, does not precede me." The man said. "My name is Beckett. I haven't been following you per se; we've just coincidentally been at the same place at the same time...for different reasons. So sorry if I unnerved you."

I lowered my guard. It was a bit jarring to go from running from an army of Sabbat thugs to having a conversation with Beckett, the not-werewolf.

"It's fine. You didn't." I said.

"Tell me…" Beckett began. "Have you seen or felt anything strange since you were first Embraced?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Embrace means 'turned'." Beckett elaborated.

"A lot of weird things." I answered.

"Such as?" He asked.

"How much time do you have?" I deadpanned.

Beckett was unaffected by my snark. "Hm. Most of my contacts here report sensing something unusual in the night air. Like a sense of dread or pressure… but I'm not native to these parts, so I can't tell if it's irregular."

"No, trust me, that's just LA." I said.

He smirked. Then he mused, "Since you're still fresh, perhaps you're not attuned to it."

I shrugged. "You're probably right. No, everything I've experienced is apparently perfectly normal for vampires."

"Hm." Beckett said, his brows furrowing. "Well, it's been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but there are rumblings for me to discredit. We shall, I'm certain, meet again. Or never again. Goodnight, young one… and be careful, you're very likely being hunted by the Sabbat."

That gave me a chill. The Sabbat hadn't been a problem so far, but I had a feeling that the mindless thugs I'd been fighting were only the tip of the iceberg.

"Right…" I said. "Night, Beckett."