Taking Care Of Business
I don't think I'll ever get enough of Renny. He's so much fun to play off of. Thanks, Ken!--Maer.
Friday, 05 Aug 2011
Natchez MS
0500hrs, local time
The red Toyota pulled in front of the Devereaux-Shields House Bed & Breakfast. Renny sighed and turned off the engine, handing the keys to Irina in the passenger seat. "Thanks for letting me borrow the car tonight. It was probably a lifesaver."
"Not a problem." Irina slipped the keys into her pocket but made no move to get out of the car. "What happened?"
Renny closed his eyes for a moment and shuddered. "Beyond what you already know, I don’t think you really want to find out. I really don’t." He leaned back and rolled his shoulders, the bones cracked slightly. He looked at Irina directly. "Suffice to say that Midnight is dead, an ancient evil has been destroyed and that southern fried screw-up of a Tremere is likely to get us all killed tomorrow if we ain’t real, real careful."
"You mean Zadie." It wasn't a question. Irina stared out the windshield, frowning. "Tell me again how that aura thing works and why it'll give it away."
"Well, it's kinda like this. For folks that can see it, Auras are kinda this glow. It changes with your mood or your state of bein'. It flashes when you lie, just a touch. So you know it when they fib." Renny shrugged and continued. "The thing is, most of the time it's one color, more or less. Certainly it was for Miss Witchypants up until tonight. Medium blue, because of her magic." Renny's brows lowered along with his voice. "Then she decides to make a snack outta the thing in Midnight's basement. It’s something they don't talk about, but a Vamp can actually drink another vamp, even to the point of killing them. And if they do, sometimes, they get a piece of the soul of the Vamp they killed. Not to get all metaphysical or anything. Well, if they do that, it shows up on the Aura of the Vamp that did the drinking, both as a combining of the Aura of the dead Vamp but also as Black streaks. They call that Diablerie, 'cause it sounds fancier than murder."
He paused and studied Irina's profile, the glow of the porch light gleaming on his glasses and making them opaque.
"Anyway, the thing in Midnight's basement was really old and had an aura like a vomiting LiteBrite so now Miss ‘I-am-so-not-a-Tremere’ does too, along with the streaks."
"All right," Irina said to the windshield, turning the information over in her head. Jesus, we're screwed. "And how common is this ability to see auras, Renny?"
"There are a couple of Vamp types that have it. Around here it would mostly be Tories, Malkies, and the aforementioned Tremere. Which means that Malkichick deputy already knew, as will ‘Ms. Evangeline’ the first time she sets eyes on our friend, the White Witch of the South. Not sure who else. There is at least one or two more Tories in the area." Renny shook his head, like Irina wasn't getting it. "The big issue is not so much what she did but whether anyone cares. The big ‘D’ is certainly considered impolite and one of those potentially ‘shunning’ events, but given the way things are circling the drain at the moment, it may not make a difference. If Cotton finds out he'll know what happened to the thing and will assume we are in league with Midnight's killers, which we were. Accidentally. He might take that sorta thing personal." He shook his head again, making his glasses shimmer. "Other folks might not care so much. Certainly if Cotton gets kiked tomorra then we may be cool, part of the folks midwifin' the ‘birth of the new order’ or some such crap."
"You said that Nozzies can disguise their looks. Good enough that you can't see what they actually look like." Irina turned back to Renny. "If I've got this right, the only way anyone would know what happened is looking at her aura. Can we disguise her aura? If they can't see it, the secret's safe. Right?"
"The easiest way is just to make sure that no one who can see auras can see her."
"Which is going to be hard to do, since she's been ordered to show up at Eliza's with the rest of us." Irina looked out the windshield again and frowned, thinking. "Is Eliza in the don't-care camp or the off-with-her-head camp?"
"The 64 thousand dollar question to be sure, though if I was a bettin' man I'd say she and her sister are hoping to be heads of whatever new order comes outta the showdown between Cotton and that gang of redneck Gangrel."
That brought her head around again. "You mean Charlie Cord and his friends. What do you know about them?" Irina thought Cord had been rather civil throughout the night, despite his repeated warnings he wasn't a nice man. Rather, she'd found him efficient in what he did best--which he'd taken no pains to hide. He was also supremely confident in his abilities and didn't strike her as someone with anything to prove. A good man to have in your corner if you needed wetwork done. A month ago, the cop in her would have been appalled and not a little angry that she could assess someone like Cord so favorably. But a month ago, her life had been a very different thing. "How many does he have on his side and when do you think this showdown's kicking off?"
"I dunno if you've been keeping up with current events but it’s already kicked off. You don' think Midnight spontaneously combusted did you? I guess they figured that they’d be blamed for the death of the thing in the basement and decided to strike first." Renny snorted softly. "My guess is that tommorra night there's going to be a showdown between Cotton and the Gangrel. Not sure which side the Evil Sisters are gonna fall on, or the folks we were hanging out with tonight."
"Or Marcus," Irina added. "As I understand it, I'm his ghoul and where he goes I go. Hopefully, he'll declare himself Switzerland when Germany and France go to war. Better yet, Norway. It's out of the line of fire."
Renny chuckled to himself. “Or more likely he'll declare himself Emperor of the Selenites and try to fly off to the moon.”
Renny paused, leaned over to Irina, and switched to a more conspiratorial tone. "Tangential to what I was talking about earlier. Mr. Johnson decided he wanted to retain my services and gave me a big check to show his earnestness." He pulled the check from his jacket pocket. "Given the current uncertainty I was hopin’ to endorse the check and have you take it and open an account at Cotton’s bank with it. That way if something unfortunate happens, either to'em, or my relationship with him, the money would at least be available."
He's already getting ready to run. For a second, Irina envied his freedom. She would be running only if she could convince Marcus and the Agency to run with her. Which might be doable. I'll have to call Marcus before he goes down for the day. Put a bug in his ear. Irina silently took the check from Renny and checked the bank printed on it. Hmm. Downtown. Convenient.
She pulled a pen from her cargo pocket and handed it and the check back to him.
"No time like the present. I can set this up for you later today."
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