Sucker For Pain

The video was automatically deleted after being played, and Leona fell into thinking for a while: actually, she found the test too easy—or at least it sounded like that. Destroying a painting, even if it was haunted and it was of course necessary to do so, was not really what Leona expected for a major test that Prince LaCroix depicted. She was literally preparing herself for killing, or multiple killings, for that matter.

Maybe there's a catch. Leona thought. After all, she's still all new to this.

"So what's the job?" Mercurio came up and asked.

"Destroy a painting in Gallery Noir." Leona answered, "You are local, do you know anything?"

Mercurio seemed pretty familiar: "Oh you mean that 'Bleeding Cain' portrait thing? It's bit viral on social media, but nobody really took it seriously. Most people think it's the gallery's doing, you know, creating some hypes before the show…but if the boss wants you to destroy it, then it's genuine."

"What do you think it is?" Leona gave back the tablet.

"Could be anything." Mercurio shrugged, "Ghosts, curse, magic, whatever. You are newbie, so let me break it to you: there are loads of weird stuff sharing the night with you guys…oh and you Tremeres have blood magic, too, right? What's the name again? Thaumaturgy?"

Remembering Strauss's "special task" for her, Leona panicked inwardly a little when the subject came to her own clan. But since it's already mentioned, avoiding it will only make it seem more conspicuous, Leona just reacted naturally: "What blood magic?"

She did know zip about this…Thaumaturgy thing. She was being honest.

Surprised at how ignorant Leona was even about her own bloodline, Mercurio sighed, both troubled and worried: "Jeez, you are green…you know what a discipline is?"

"Yeah, it's like a vampire superpower, every clan has their own ones." Leona read about it in Garrett's office before.

"Probably the fundamental difference that sets your bloodlines apart." Mercurio used himself to explain the whole thing, trying to keep it simple and newbie-friendly, "You already have a superman body, which is what we ghouls have, too, but the disciplines can make you guys even stronger and faster, or give you mind-controlling abilities, et cetera.

"However, you see, most of the disciplines can be shared between two or three clans, like the one called 'Presence'—Ventures, Toreadors, even Brujahs can use it, but you Tremeres, you guys are special: Thaumaturgy is only yours to wield, and it's a badass discipline, making people jealous. Guess that's why you guys always seem so sneaky to others."

While saying, he took out two bags of dark, red fluid from the fridge, tossed them to Leona: "You look wobbly, haven't drunk any juice since the Embrace, have you? Take these for a starter."

Feeling the cold, smooth texture of the package with her fingers, Leona's body started to tremble, so captivated by the blood inside that she didn't even reply.

"And by the way, you won't be allowed to have your own food supply in the test—you get every juice bag from me. I will need to measure the amount of blood consumed by you during the whole process, too, it's…part of the assessment." Heard Leona's gulping and coughing, Mercurio stopped, for he knew that she definitely didn't pay attention to a word he said. He shook his head, murmured something like "poor girl", then continued, "Finished your drink, then, I don't want you to start training in hunger."

He opened another hidden door besides the fridge, walked in with a gun and a small dagger. Leona wiped her mouth clean, still a little dizzy, but feeling much better and followed him inside, finding herself standing in a roomy shooting ground.

"Now, Vampire Fighting Class 101," Mercurio smiled, as if training fledglings was great fun to him, "Glock for humans, and blade for vampires. Which one do you want to start?"

"The Glock." Leona didn't hesitate, "I don't want to do close fight with you in bathrobe."

"Surprise! You actually have a sense of humor! Good for you."

And so they started the first shooting lesson for Leona. Picturing it to be very complex, she listened and watched Mercurio with all cautions, but thanks to the supreme physicality she had right now, recoil of one-handed guns such as this was almost nothing to a vampire hand, and she could stay in a posture like a statue, so singly pulling out and shooting was no problem at all in fact—after one hour's practice, she was able to fire in expert precision.

The other more complex and skillful parts were less easy, though, like assembly, filling in bullets and changing magazines. It took her the rest of the night to complete the whole process smoothly, and she still needed to practice in her own time to make sure she would be quick enough for actual encounters.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, she was solely focused on melee and unarmed combat: the hardest bit to chew on in the training. At the first five minutes, she was still untimely shy about body contacts, especially because they were all in close-fitting, skin-exposing gym clothes—but that was before taking several painful hits. After that, screwed it. She just jumped on this athletic, Italian hunk and battled like an animal.

For a playboy who spent his night on threesome, Mercurio was amazingly masterful in these dangerous arts, slightly bettered Leona's impression of him: upon first sight, she was seriously doubting Prince's choice of people. Then every time after the training, he would share the information he gathered with her, including the blueprint of the gallery, timetable for security shifts, and even the list of the crew that built and decorated the exhibition, and discussed the plan together.

Exclaiming at his resourcefulness secretly, Leona asked him what he did for a job, and Mercurio just threw up his hands and said he's the man "who can get anything that anybody wants".

And just before Thursday, they learnt an interesting fact: one of the security guards confessed privately to Mercurio's informant after a few drinks in the bar, that the painting was completely normal—all the pictures and videos online were processed, it was nothing more than an advertising campaign.

Mercurio joked that after all the bullshits and tragedies, Leona finally had some luck on her side, but after laughing, this made Leona wonder: was Regent Strauss really unaware of this, or…something else?

Anyway, it was useless to think about this now, tomorrow night was the big night, and she presumed no one above would care enough to respond her doubts: like they said, she was worthless unless she could prove herself worthy. Leona double checked the equipment she got from Mercurio, memorizing the plan, the map of the gallery, the routines of security patrol…

Was it always so hard, too, for everyone? She couldn't help but think about all the Kindred she'd met, picturing how they started their unlife: high and powerful like the Prince and the Prime Judicator, rebels like Nines and Jack, even Garrett…and the Sabbats, like Bishop Bridget and…Zack.

She will find him. Determined her mind so, Leona fell asleep, and woke up on 7 pm of Thursday night, like clockwork. She sat at the bed for a while quietly, got up, bathed and picked a loose, hoodie jacket for tonight, so that when she wanted to she could cover her face and figure. Put the blood bags and 9mm rounds in her waist pack, inserted the knife into her belt, and hid the gun on her back, Leona stood in front of the mirror, making sure that nothing shady would be seen by a passerby.

She looked just like an ordinary girl who's into cyber-punk, functional style, even with a slogan on the back of her hoodie. It says "a sucker for pain" in capital letters.

"I'm leaving." She texted Mercurio, who replied quickly: "Already? You are fearless."

Oh she was scared like hell. But since when dilly-dallying does any good to it?

Gallery Noir was within the walking distance from her haven, which was rather convenient. Just as they had planned, Leona took a detour to avoid the guard at the front door, and climbed up from the back of the building into the second floor, which was where the portrait of Cain was set on display. Her seemingly fragile and harmless nails could cling to the brick wall like hooks, allowing her to go up like a gecko.

Mercurio had paid one of the staff to leave one window unlocked, so she reached to this currently only entrance into the gallery, but didn't rush her way in. Instead, she hanged herself outside of the window, put her ear against the wall and focused, using her vampiric hearing to detect the guard's whereabouts. Lucky for her, the window was carefully selected for its position in a dark, blind alley and its facing towards another building, so nobody saw her suspending high up there.

Small, private gallery like this wasn't heavily protected at night, even before the big event: there were usually two people on duty, one in the camera room and one on patrol, and the one who leaked the big secret couldn't survive without being away from toilet for longer than half an hour after the drinks, so at this moment, there was only one guy in the gallery, and he mainly stayed in front of the monitors, but would go out to check everything once in a while.

Leona could hear him yawning even from outside. Too bad for the owner, but it made things easier for her. She waited until the guard left the security camera room, snuck in quietly and flexibly like a cat, and located her target on first glimpse. Although knowing that the guard would took some time to finish the ground and first floors, she didn't intend to stay any longer: snatch the portrait and go, destroy it somewhere else, that was what she had in mind.

Until she actually saw the portrait.

As if the painting had some special magic, compelling her to stop and look at it properly, Leona literally paused and couldn't take her eyes away from it. The content of the portrait was pretty intuitive: a young, male Carthaginian was hung in the middle of pure darkness, with his head down, his arms folded on his chest and his legs curled up, forced into this position by a kind of crimson, half-transparent strings that came from all directions in the painting, strangling and imprisoning him.

So this…is Cain? The Cain?

Leona was never big on religion, and she only knew some basics about the bible stories, but a solemn air of sorrow and worship surrounding this portrait intrigued her, and she just couldn't let go…

And suddenly, the strings in the painting came alive. They started to squirm on the canvas and reached out for her, and before she could even react, a flood of glowing, red chords cocooned her and dragged her into the portrait. By the time the patrolling guard came to the second floor, everything went back to normal silence. He didn't notice a thing.