Everyone Must Start Somewhere

Friday, 19 Jun 1925
Histoire Oubliée, New Orleans
03:30 am

I was much indebted to Ember. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have flinched and insulted the Prince when she put the snake bracelet on my wrist. Strengthened by Ember's guidance, however, I was able to take the strangeness in stride. Of course, my curiosity nearly got the better of me once the eerie thing went still and Ember’s gentle touch on my arm recalled my good manners. If I wished to inspect the bracelet, I had better do it elsewhere, lest the Prince find my scrutiny of her work disrespectful. In truth, I only wanted to understand how it worked. What was its function? Why did she give me that bracelet? If I could answer the first question, I could deduce the answer to the second.

It wasn’t the only question plaguing me. Not by a long shot. I had more filling my head during the trip back to Ember’s establishment. Though Ember had seen me fed upon waking me, I could feel tiny tendrils of hunger sliding through me. I would have to feed again soon and not for the first time I thought of the pretty women circulating at Court, offering their necks as they would a cup of tea. I recalled how they didn’t object when sipped upon by women, unlike most mortal women might have. Their pleasure seemed just as genuine and intense with the women as with the men. My experience with the opposite sex—or sex at all, really—was damned near zero, but I knew what attracted me when I was still mortal. Would that change now that I was one of the undead? Would a marked preference brand me as strange? Or worse, a fraud? Would I have to pretend to be a lesbian amongst the Sabbat? I wasn’t sure how the land lay …

"I don't think sexuality will be your major concern, child."

I wasn't aware I'd spoken but apparently I had. I came out of my thoughts and found us crossing Ember's threshold, her hand on my arm as she led us to a private lounge off the front hall. It was subtly furnished, neither too Victorian or too modern. I settled in a chair and answered her as she closed the door.

"But it is a powerful tool in my arsenal, isn't it? I would think, if I may be so bold, that you would know how to wield it effectively." I thought back to a certain summer in college with a young man who seemed strangely persistent in his efforts to get close to me … and how his efforts had made me feel. "It can cloud your mind, though. Heady stuff." Ember graced me with a serenely amused look but refrained from comment as she slipped from one lamp to another, turning them on. Encouraged by her lack of condescension, I broached the other matter weighing on my mind. "How often would I have to feed? Will I stop being so hungry when I wake up? Or will it get worse? There's still so much I don't know."

"Every vampire is different." Ember took a seat facing me, every inch a queen. "The more elder, the more likely you are to be able to wake earlier and need blood less immediately."

I remembered how I felt waking up the morning after Court. Shaking like a drunk with the DTs, the hunger chewing its way out my gut. I tried to imagine Ember in a similar state and my imagination failed.

"Is it a matter of age or control? Both?" I ventured, hoping she'd elaborate. She was the perfect picture of control. I couldn't picture her any other way. "And speaking of control ... Do vampires normally get one of these?" I held up my wrist, the snake bracelet gleamed in the lamplight. "The Prince gave me this. Can she control me with it or is it a charm? Protection, maybe?" I didn't bother hiding my curiosity, even though I didn't dare say anything outright that might smack of suspicion. I was still trying to gauge the boundaries of behavior amongst the vampire kind. If what I saw at Court was anything to go on, rank and respect were sensitive subjects and transgressions could be deadly.

Ember shook her head, the movement graceful. "I don't know what that is, exactly, but I suspect it is Delilah's own brand of magic."

I turned my wrist in the light, examining it as best I could. "It's gold. It's screaming to get stolen off me. Nothing I've got is fancy enough to wear it... except for that evening dress I just got. Even then it's not the same level," I added thoughtfully. The evening dress I'd bought might get me through the door of a fancy hotel or even a dinner club, but wasn't rich enough for the opera or a formal State gathering. Then again, with vampires, details in dress might be different. Aware I'd been silent a beat too long, I said, "As for being magic... what kind? I mean, if it's protective, I'm glad to have it. If it's ... spying on me, I wonder why. Will it be able to see what I'm doing like a crystal ball?" Which would be mighty handy, actually. "I suppose it's faster than the telephone and the Prince would be informed up to the minute. But ... if it's magic, wouldn't that mean it would. ... smell like magic?"

Again, I was running hard against the brick wall of my ignorance of the vampire world and the rules by which it worked, the science that underpinned the rules. I was fully aware I was clinging to Ember like a needy child, hoping she'd be able to explain the whys and wherefores quickly enough to keep me alive until I could stand on my own. As such, I was reluctant to be a nuisance. I knew her patience wasn't endless. As some point, I'd finally reach her limit.

Apparently, that moment had not yet arrived. Ember gave it some thought before saying, "Most wouldn't be able to sense it. After all, can you smell it?"

I gave it a sniff. A hint of rose from Ember's bath soap met my nose. "Nothing. But I'm not a ... a ...voodun priestess." I eyed the bracelet again, thinking of the assignment ahead of me and the cover story I'd have to devise. "If I'm supposed to be cast out of the Cam penniless and exiled, how do I explain having this?"

"It's just a bracelet, little one," Ember said. She wasn't laughing at me, but the sense of amusement came through nevertheless. "You're not penniless."

"I'm …" I was penniless, actually. I didn't have a blessed sou on me when Roy and Sam found me and I'd been living on everyone's charity since then. But rather than assert Ember was wrong, I decided looking confused was the more politic stance. "I'm not?"

"You're not even exiled." Ember inclined her head, a monarch granting a boon. "You're just going to say that you didn't like the way we operated."

"Hmm. Okay." I thought on it, rearranging the persona in my head, drawing up another example. "Less pariah, more a spoiled trust fund kid who's on a tight financial leash? I could make that work, yeah."

Ember fixed me with a look both concerned and peaceful. "You'd best be able to if you want to live once you cross over."

"Why shouldn't I go where I want?" I intoned, trying the new character on for size. A little more petulance, I thought, a wounded sense of entitlement. I jerked my chin at the night outside and put a little more sneer into my expression. "Eat when I want. With whomever I want. We're talking Gods to cattle here." That much I did understand of the Sabbat—their disdain for humanity. I fixed that feeling in my mind, draped my new persona in it. The fit wasn't bad, though the coat it cut wasn't exactly to my liking. But then again, very little of this had anything to do with what I liked or wanted. Certainly not where it concerned the Sabbat. The Camarilla, at least, seemed willing to accommodate the human condition. They took the position that it was ultimately unwise to disregard the source of their living. Say what you want of Darwin and his views on natural selection but if vampires were another sort of animal parallel or even higher on the food chain than humans, Mother Nature still made a good amount of sense. The Camarilla rules seemed to follow along similar lines. That wasn't to say that they didn't also have practices that chafed my sense of rightness, but new as I was to all of this, I could see the logic behind them from a survival standpoint. At least, I hoped so. If I were wrong …

I slid a look at Ember, dropping all pretense. "Tell me straight: how likely are the Sabbat going to want to bind me to them? Do they do that sort of thing? They have their own society, right? Their own brand of loyalties. How do they enforce and maintain them? Does anyone here know? Or ...," I faltered, as an insidious thought slipped through my brain and past my lips before I could stop it. "Pardon me for saying this, but is this just a convenient way to get me out of the way? Who am I inconveniencing?"

"You have an inflated sense of your own importance if you believe that anyone cares to go to this much trouble to get you out of the way."

Ember was serene as always, seeming neither offended nor surprised at my words. If anything I got the feeling she'd seen it all before. Perhaps she had. I had no clue as to how old she was or in what circles she'd run. Ever the classy lady, she kept her feelings from showing. It made her a mystery and one that I wanted to crack, even though I had to acknowledge that there were some mysteries best left unsolved. Like my own murder.

Like hell.

"If the Prince or the Sheriff wished to have you gone, there are much more direct ways," Ember continued, with the air of a woman contentedly stroking a pet cat though her hands and her lap were empty. "And none would miss a clanless newborn."

"True. I could have just been left where I lay for the Sabbat to find me. Much less bother." At least she was willing to be honest with me, even if I offended. Sensing Ember might be willing to be honest a little more, I tried another avenue of inquiry. "Do they ... regularly kill when they eat?"

"I do not know regular. I'm sure some do."

Was that a flicker behind her eyes? It might have been a trick of the lamplight. It was hard to tell. Ember was always so self-contained. Regardless of the questions I threw at her, I had yet to see her flummoxed.

"I'm going to infiltrate them, be like them to blend in. How much like them do I have to be?" I was really involved now, unwilling to drop it even as my voice dropped lower and my gaze hit the floor. "I mean, I've never fed from someone before, much less killed anyone doing it. How is it done?" I tried to picture it and failed. I looked up from the carpet. "It's starting to sink in."

"You don't have to pretend to be experienced." Ember gave me a tiny smile. "Just unhappy with how we try and stay close to humanity rather than disdain them for the prey they are."

All right. Fine. I tried to think it through. "I'll need to learn enough control to remain myself through it all, to keep myself from getting sucked in, taken over. If that happens, then I'm no longer working for the Prince. I'm working for them. That ... quite frankly scares me." It did, really.

"As well it should."

So much hinted at in her tone, volumes and volumes. Hoping to draw out a little more knowledge, I continued. "You know, I've run across a lot of people when I still was ...." I kicked off my shoes and drew my knees up and hugged them. "Well, let's just say that there are those still breathing who would make the perfect Sabbat, it being closer to their true nature. I'm not like that." I dared look at her then. "I know I'm my own brand of pain-in-the-ass, but I know I'm not like that." I took a deep breath and counted off the obligations on my head. "The Prince. The Sheriff. Rosatti. You. The grandson. That's a lot of balls in the air."

"I am not a ball in the air, just a guide."

Again, if she disliked the metaphor, she didn't show it. Neither did she seem irritated by my words. "Do you ...?" I stopped, thinking better of it, and finished lamely, "A guide I'm grateful for."

"Do I what?"

She still that air of stroking a cat, but was that a sharpening of her gaze? I had to answer, but if I said what I'd originally intended … No. I needed to be careful. Everyone had their boundaries and I was stepping awfully close to hers. "You ... Your trade. It puts you in a position to ... guide a lot of people. It gives you an in on a lot of deals, grants you access to a lot of information. Information is currency and it behooves you to develop assets that can bring that currency in. And I'm ... going to be doing that for the Prince. Will I be doing that for you, too? That's what I meant by 'ball'."

"That has yet to be determined. But only if you choose to even then. My people work for me because they love me, after all."

Ember said it simply, as if no other possibility but their love existed. I'd been her guest for two nights but it didn't take me two minutes to verify the truth of her statement. I had eyes. I immediately saw how her women loved her. I liked to think she gave that love back. She didn't seem to be the sort who would repay devotion with cruelty. Such a person, with that much adoration coming her way, would be very powerful indeed. Influential. Someone not to be reckoned lightly.

Like another person I could name.

"I'm alive because the Prince has decided to let me live so long as I am useful," I said then, stating the painfully obvious. "I understand that. I owe her. But you are Ventru and you've spent a lot of effort on me, too. So I owe you something in return even if love doesn't enter into it." I paused, realizing I'd uttered something dangerously close to a lie. Love? No. But I had to admit it would be incredibly easy to fall under her spell and love her. I don't know what surprised me more in that instant—that I recognized the possibility or that I acknowledged it was already happening. "I like you, Ember. More than I thought possible. Maybe more than is safe. But I like you. And because of that, I want to keep things ... reciprocal. A favor for a favor. Isn't that how it works?"

"I have expended some effort, yes. We can certainly repay favor for favor for the time being. But I think perhaps you will grow to love me in time. Most do."

Again, it was an assertion of simple fact, a truth of the Universe. Given how I came to my feelings for Ember, I wondered, Is this how you'll be with the Sabbat? Turned by pretty words? Toughen up. "Is the Prince loved?" I asked her then, dragging myself back to the task at hand.

"Delilah is respected and loved by many. But of course, hated by many as well. Uneasy rests the head..."

"Who hates her? Besides the Sabbat?" Now we were getting somewhere. If Delilah seemed uneasy to her own Court, who else thought her vulnerable? "If I'm going to be walking the mine field, it's best if I do so with a map. Don't you think?"

"Aren't they enough? But even excluding them, those who wish to not be controlled...or those who wish to wield the power themselves would hold hate in their heart."

"Who has the most scope for power then? The visible head of state or someone off to the side? Uneasy rests the head, as you've said." It was as close as I dared come to asking Ember if she had influence over the Prince. She was my mentor but if Delilah fell, would Ember be my protector as well? "Does ... the Prince keep tabs on those inside her Court who hate her? If so, how?" I tapped my bracelet. "I haven't seen any others like these. She's got other spies working for her, hasn't she?"

Ember gave me a look that suggested I was asking a very obvious question. She was oh-so-subtle about it but had she slapped me to the floor, its impact would not have been a wit less. Feeling myself on quicksand, I managed to keep my expression calm. "I don't want to run into them and possibly scotch anything they've got going. Or run afoul of them because I've somehow broken a rule or trespassed or something. Besides, I might as well get all the stupid questions asked and out of the way before I get sent out there. Who better to ask than you?"

"I assume everyone has their ways of gathering information. And the more power you have, the more ways you have."

Still alive. Make the most of it, you.

"And with my being low man on the totem pole, I've got the least power." Again, I was stating the obvious, but I hoped she'd catch my meaning: it was an apology for my idiocy … as well as an acknowledgement of her influence. "But that doesn't mean my friends have to be."

"Everyone must start somewhere, of course."

"Then I'm starting at the right place. Speaking of which ... how do I start taking blood other than in a cup? I really get the feeling it's just not done." Roy and Sam's teasing came back to me and had I still possessed a pulse, I would have blushed at the memory. "And I doubt the Sabbat would take me seriously if I still did."

Ember tilted her head as she looked at me and the sense of her stroking a cat was back. "You must find a way to bite your intended target, then lick the wound healed when done."

"Cozen up to them, then?" Oh, the delicious irony of asking a Madam a question like that. Had my survival not depended on her answer, I would have found it all drolly amusing. "Can you ... nip them anywhere? Or does it have to be like the tales say?"

"Anywhere that you can draw blood, you can use. You may have a harder time convincing your prey to let you bite them in certain places, of course."

"Do you have a ... preferred location? Preferred method? Or is that too personal a question to ask?" I checked the door. Closed, just as she'd left it. "We're alone. I won't tell. You just have more experience and ... I need to learn."

"The ones I feed on willingly let me bite them wherever I choose. The bite is pleasurable to them."

"Pleasureable?" The thought hadn't occurred to me and it struck me silent a moment while I considered it. I knew that drinking the blood had been beyond any pleasure I'd heretofore had. But being drunk from? Again, it deserved some thought. As usual, I did most of that thinking aloud. "Is that because they're mortal? Or is it because you're not? Would ... I find it pleasurable if you ...?" I trailed off as I started thinking it through.

"I'm sure you would, yes, but I will not," came her answer. She never raised her voice but it filled the room. "The Embrace is intensely pleasurable. At least for most vampires. Some have a bite which brings nothing but pain. They struggle to feed."

"How would I know which sort of bite I had unless I ... well… Bit?" I shook my head. Her voice tugged at me, promising secret caresses and whispered endearments in the dark. Which reminded me … "And another thing, about biting and drinking. If you did drink from me ... would my blood bind you? The way it would bind me if I drank from you? Or is that something determined by generation? Is that why you feed on the living? To avoid binding?" As always, my thirst to know the whole story was my lifeline. It kept me from going under, from drowning in the ocean that was Ember. Even though there remained a part of me that wanted to drown, as my liking her slid ever closer to love. "As for pleasure ... does it only come from drinking? Or can you reach it the way mortals do with each other?"

"The only way to know is to bite. And yes, I would be bound if I drank from you and you to me if you drink from me. Carnal pleasure can be had. But most vampires have grown past it or find other activities to be more pleasurable."

"Then before I walk out of here for Sabbat territory, I need to resolve the questions about feeding and biting. Can you recommend anyone who would be. .. safe for me? For both of us?" God only knew, given my inexperience and the hunger, I might be frightened or hurt and either might drive me to kill. I didn't want that.

"I can provide you with a customer. If I ask them to dally with you, then you can take a moment amidst to see how it plays out."

And there it was. I asked. She answered. I had to commit.

"I think that doing it sooner than later would be the smart thing to do. The night isn't getting any younger, or the Sabbat any weaker."

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