----------------------------------------
Chapter Eight
----------------------------------------

In the bathroom, Mac sniffed, and wrinkled his nose. He smelt of
sweat, dry semen and a variety of other scents that didn't really
combine well, his chest hair was quickly cementing to his chest,
and his ass stung like a bitch from the rug burn.

Not that he was complaining, mind you. The sex had been
fantastic, once Vic had gotten himself back under control.
However, he was probably going to be doing his job standing up
the next day, and Vic had better not be hoping for a repeat any
time soon. Still, all in all, Mac felt completely sated

He also felt a little guilty too. He *had* been teasing Vic
unmercifully from the moment he'd come in the door. And after the
previous two nights, he should have known better than to push the
man the way he had. On the other hand, he thought he *had*
successfully gotten rid of Kata's scent in his earlier shower.
After all, it had been a fully day since he'd seen her.

Hadn't it?

Mac stopped and stared at the mirror, idly noting the size of the
hickey on his neck, and shivered. For a moment, he felt like
someone had walked over his grave. He just couldn't pin down
*why*.

Then he shook it off and stepped into the shower after taking off
his pendant and hanging from the door knob.

The water was so hot that his skin was red within seconds and he
breathed a sigh of relief. His back was knotted with tension from
the break in -- he hadn't told Vic about the security guard who'd
almost stumbled over him, knowing what the reaction would be.
He'd been in a hell of a lot lighter spots, even as a kid, so
he'd kept his cool. Besides, he *had* gotten the information he
was after, and that was what counted.

Relaxing under the pounding spray, Mac hunted through the steam
for the soap. He was a little surprised to find liquid soap
instead of bars. On the other hand, it *was* Ivory Soap, which he
*had* excepted. Mac squirted some into his hand, then set to
cleaning himself of *all* foreign substances and scents.

>>>~~~<<<

Mac came out of the shower even more relaxed than when he'd
climbed in. The last signs of tension were gone, and he'd finally
managed to get the dried semen out of his chest hair without
having to resort to Vic's razor. Delicious scents filled the air,
so he toweled off quickly, put his pendant back on, then went
into the bedroom. The promised sweats were waiting, laid out on
the bed, so he dressed and went looking for Vic.

Vic was in the kitchen, serving up a plate of food. Chicken and
vegetables sautéed in some sort of sauce on top of noodles. Quick
and easy. A bottle of Mac's favorite Chinese beer was already
waiting on the table, beads of condensation running down the
green glass. A pair of fine lacquered chopsticks sat next to
them. He hadn't even known that Vic *owned* a pair of chopsticks.

Mac frowned. The food also looked very fresh. "You've found an
all-night grocery in the area?" he asked in disbelief. He'd been
looking for one within easy distance for months, since the job
didn't usually lend itself to regular work hours.

"Nope," Vic said, settling down to watch Mac eat. "Whoever stocks
my fridge with blood also brings me fresh food to play with from
time to time."

"Hey! How come *I* don't get home grocery delivery?" he said in
mock-outrage, lowering his chopsticks.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that I can only go out at
night? After all, time spent grocery shopping is time they can't
get me to work."

"Oh. Makes sense, I guess," Mac said, feeling a little guilty
again.

Vic looked towards the covered windows, a frustrated expression
on his face. "There's only so many hours in the night," he said
softly. Then he brightened up. "It'll be better come winter when
the nights are longer, I suppose."

Now Mac was feeling *very* guilty. He looked down at his plate,
all appetite suddenly gone. "I'm sorry."

Vic seemed to drag his attention back to the here and now. "Sorry
for what?" he asked, his forehead wrinkled with confusion.

"Well, it's my fault that---"

Vic cut him off. "Enough with the hair-shirt routine," he said in
an exasperated tone. "If anything is your fault, it's the fact
that I'm here to have this argument. Or is that what you're sorry
about?"

Mac glared at him. "Of course not. But you're stuck with all the
drawbacks of being a vampire because you stepped in front of a
bullet meant for me."

"And if you hadn't, I wouldn't have known to ask Cash to change
you, so you would have been *permanently* dead. And from what the
Director said, I would have still ended up like this. The only
difference is that you would have been dead. Sorry if I can't get
upset about that."

"And you probably would have been Brujah too," Mac added with a
shudder, remembering the San Francisco Kindred thug who had been
behind the bullet that had nearly killed Vic, not to mention
who'd kidnapped and traumatized the still-absent LiAnn.

"Exactly. A fate worse than death. Now, would you please finish
eating before your dinner gets cold? I spent a lot of time on it,
and we do still have a job to do."

Feeling a little better, Mac took a gulp of his beer, then picked
up his chopsticks again. The food was really good. Surprisingly
so, since Vic didn't eat anymore.

"How do you get the spices right?" he asked out of curiosity. "I
mean, I thought you couldn't eat real food anymore."

Vic shrugged. "Well, the taste of food is based mostly on its
scent, you know," he said. "I flavor it based just on how it
smells."

"Is that why you're still cooking? The smell is as good as eating
the food?"

"That and the fact that you seem to live on take-out. You might
consider learning to cook yourself."

Mac waved the suggestion off. "Why should I when I have you
around to cook for me?" He let his grin tell Vic that he didn't
really mean it the way it might sound.

"Riiight," Vic drawled. "And we *are* all supposed to have
hobbies, you know. Agency orders. So what's your hobby?"

Mac thought of the sketchpad back at his apartment and smiled
what he hoped was a mysterious smile. "If you're a good boy,
maybe I'll show you one day."

Vic leaned forward. "Really? Let me guess, knowing you it has
something to do with sex."

"Maybe. Then again, maybe not," Mac said teasingly.

Vic grinned, but both of them knew that they didn't really have
time for a second round. Instead, Vic stood up. "Well, I'm going
to go clean up. If you finish before I do, the files on Ramirez
are sitting on the coffee table. Maybe you can see something I'm
missing."

He headed for the bedroom, and Mac watched him go, idly moving
food from plate to mouth. He still couldn't believe how well Vic
had adjusted to his undead state. Then again, as Vic had pointed
out, it was a hell of a lot better than being dead. And someday
he would be joining Vic in that Kindred state. It was still hard
to believe that he could settle down with one person, and even
harder to believe that if he settled down with Vic, it could for
more than the standard mortal few decades. In a way, it was
almost scary. He hadn't been able to make a relationship last
more that six months yet. Did he really think he could go longer
with Vic without one of them getting tired of the other?

Well, maybe he'd find out. In the meantime, the last noodle was
gone and he ran his index finger through the last of the sauce
before lifting the finger to his mouth and sucking it clean. Just
the simple act of cleaning off his finger was enough to bring sex
back to his mind.

Refusing to give in to the urge to go join Vic in *his* shower,
Mac pushed away from the table. Vic didn't have a dishwasher, so
he put his plate and chopsticks in the sink with the dishes his
dinner had been prepared in. Then he headed out to the living
room and the waiting files.

He shuffled through the piles of paper, stopping every so often
to read something that caught his eye. He'd always driven LiAnn
nuts that way. She preferred to organize everything, whether by
date or name or some other significant factor, then read through
every piece of information in a methodical way. Mac, on the other
hand, preferred to work more on instinct. His first pass, he
would skim through, not really reading, just looking for key
words that jumped out at him. Anything that caught his eye was
set aside to read in greater detail.

Ten minutes later, he'd sorted the piles into 'very interesting,'
'sort of interesting' and 'completely useless.' The shower had
just turned off and he was about to start reading the 'very
interesting' pile. He rubbed his chin, feeling the rasp of
whiskers against his fingers, and picked up the first report and
started to read it in depth.

"Find anything interesting yet?"

Mac nearly jumped out of his skin at the quiet question. "Make
some noise, would you?" he snapped.

Vic raised his hands. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." His
hair was still wet and all he'd bothered to pull on was a pair of
sweatpants. Mac was struck again at just how much muscle
definition Vic had added since his Embrace. It really, *really*
looked good on him, but they didn't have the time to go there.
Mac made a mental note to make a long, thorough examination
later, when they had time for the number of hours that would
take.

Instead, he sighed. "No, it's all right. I guess I wasn't paying
much attention to my surroundings. And just a few vague thoughts.
I need to do more reading first."

"All right. Coffee?"

"Thanks."

>>>~~~<<<

By the time dawn approached, they'd gone through Mac's 'very
interesting' pile and had made a dent in the 'sort of
interesting' one. They'd discussed Mac's sorting techniques, the
reasons for dividing the documents the way he had and the
information they'd gone through.

Unfortunately, Mac hadn't come up with much more than Vic had.
Ramirez definitely wasn't Kindred. Vic gave him a quick run-down
on just what a Ghoul was -- something that gave Mac the willies -
- and they agreed that Ramirez probably wasn't one of those
either. There wasn't any *real* evidence that he was even working
for a Kindred, but Mac's instincts, like Vic's, said that it was
likely.

Something was tugging at Mac's memory, though. He ran a finger
down the list of points he'd made on a yellow legal pad, trying
to figure out what it was.

"I've got a few questions for the Director," Vic muttered, going
over his own list. "I don't remember meeting anyone from New
Orleans at Luna's bash. We need to know what the Kindred
situation is in New Orleans."

"Think she'll tell us anything?" Mac said wryly.

"If she won't, I'll call Cash. He gave me his number."

For a moment, Mac was almost blinded by the flash as his memory
finally kicked in. "Cash, of course!"

"Hmm?"

Mac shook his head. "Sorry. I just finally remembered something
Cash told me the morning after your Embrace. We were talking
about the Brujah in San Francisco and he was telling me about
Luna's niece." Mac closed his eyes, remembering the pain in Vic's
Sire's face. "Luna had given permission for Cash to Embrace her,
but the previous Brujah Primogen sent a thug to forcefully
Embrace her as Brujah. He eventually what was coming to him, and
in a very messy way."

"And the point of this little story would be...?" Vic prompted.

"The point is, he said that when Sasha couldn't adjust in San
Francisco, she left town, and the last he'd heard, she was rising
through the Brujah ranks in New Orleans."

"So there is definitely a Kindred presence in New Orleans. I
wonder why their Prince didn't show at the meetings."

At that moment, the phone rang.

Vic groaned. "Please tell me that isn't Ramirez," he said to the
ceiling. "It's too late in the night for that."

The phone kept ringing. Finally, Vic picked it up. "Yes?" he
said. Then he groaned again -- if you could call it that when you
made all the expressions, but none of the sounds -- and pressed
the speaker button.

"Thank you, Victor." The Director. Of course. How convenient. Mac
looked around, speculating on where the cameras would be.

"Now, the reason you didn't meet the Prince of New Orleans in San
Francisco is because there isn't one. New Orleans is a... border
town, for lack of a better term."

Mac frowned. "Border between what?" he asked suspiciously.

There was a theatrical sigh from the speaker. "Kindred aren't the
only not quite humans out there. Even werewolves are just a
scratching on the surface. As well, within each species, there
are sects. New Orleans is a place where they can all come
together and mix freely. No one claims the city, and if someone
tried... Well, they'd be disposed of. Quickly."

"By sects, you mean the clans?" Vic asked.

"Not entirely. Did Moira ever mention the Camarilla?"

Vic shook his head. "Just in reference to you and your 'lapdogs,'
as she put it."

There was a tapping noise. "I'm going to have to have a talk with
that girl, the Director muttered softly. Then she raised her
voice. "There are many ways to look at factions with the Kindred,
clans being just one of them and cities a second. But the largest
division is between the Camarilla and the Sabbat."

Sabbat. Just the name sent chills down Mac's back, and not the
pleasant kind either. He glanced at Vic and saw that the older
man's expression matched what *he* felt: dread mixed with
resignation. These sorts of surprises seemed pretty...
unsurprising when you worked for the Agency.

They stared at each other for a minute, neither seeming willing
to ask the inevitable question. Finally, Vic sighed and said,
"All right, we'll bite. What exactly is the Sabbat?"

They could hear the Director chuckle at the phrasing. "Well, you
don't really to know *exactly* what they are. The shortest answer
is, we are the Camarilla and they are the enemy, and that's all
you need to know, but I doubt you'll settle for just that."

"Damn right," Mac muttered under his breath. Trusting the
Director is not something you did if you wanted to stay alive.
While she could be trusted to *some* extent, she would sacrifice
them all in a second to get the job, whatever it was, done. It
was why she was the Director and they weren't, he supposed.

"Well, I give you the almost a simple explanation then. The
Camarilla want to live side by side with humans, and formed the
Masquerade to do so. The Sabbat don't think of humanity as
anything other than a food source. Cities they control tend to
have runaway crime and violence. They are the worst of our kind."

"Worse than the Brujah?" Mac said a little louder this time,
unable to keep from sneering.

"Mac, your prejudices are showing," the Director said, tsking.
"And yes they are. One little example should do, I think.

"For the most part, the Sabbat choose who to Embrace just as
carefully as the Camarilla do. The basic Embrace is even the
same. Then they bury the fledgling."

"They what?" Vic broke in, looking a little green.

"They bury them. After bashing them over the head with the
shovel. If they survive to dig themselves out, they are welcomed
into the family, so to speak. If they aren't strong enough, they
die. Permanently. And surviving that doesn't guarantee that you
won't be disposed of later on for not being strong enough or
vicious enough."

Mac was starting to feel a little nauseous himself at that point.
"Point taken," he said. "Sabbat bad, Camarilla... not completely
bad."

The Director chuckled again. "Exactly. So being from New Orleans
means that Ramirez, if he reports to a Kindred, could be a
servant of a member of either the Sabbat or the Camarilla." Then
her voice turned icy. "If it is a move by the Sabbat on Toronto,
it end *now*. I will not have my city turned into a bloodbath."
 

Mac gulped at the venom in her voice, but agreed completely. If
the Sabbat was as bad as she said, he wouldn't want that either.

"Understood," Vic said, then hit the disconnect button.

"Just when I think things can't get any weirder," Mac muttered to
himself.

"Well, now we know that I could have done a lot worse than
Brujah," Vic said.

"I'm still not sure about that one," Mac said. "So, now what?"

"Well, Ramirez still needs to make up his mind. In the meantime,
he's lost one processing plant, so he needs to set up somewhere
else. That means he needs some specialized equipment. I'm sure
that the Director can trace those sorts of purchases."

"Right. And I still have a museum to break into."

"You sure you can do it?"

Mac glared at Vic, pissed at the worry in the man's voice. "Are
you kidding? I could do this in my sleep. In fact, why don't you
come along and see."

The phone rang again. Vic just hit the speaker button.

"Remember boys, no Agency help means *no* Agency help. Victor
stays out of it, understood?"

Mac sighed and grimaced. "Understood," he said. "Spoilsport," he
added under his breath as Vic hung up again. He was kind of
hoping he *could* take Vic along, if only to show off. The
disappointed expression on his lover's face seemed to say that
Vic wanted to come along too.

"Dawn's almost here," Vic said, glancing at the heavily shrouded
windows. "You staying?"

Mac shook his head regretfully. "Sorry. I've got a lot of
preparation for tonight."

"All right. Well, I guess I'll see you after you pull off the
break-in of the decade, even if it's one that hopefully no one
will ever know about."

"Decade?" Mac sniffed. "Try the century."

"Whatever. Just be back here well before dawn or I'm coming
looking for you. Got it?"

"Got it," Mac said, smiling slightly. He carefully put aside the
papers they'd been going through and headed for the door,
stopping to collect the jacket he'd discarded earlier. Much
earlier.

"And Mac?"

He stopped at the door, looking back at where Vic sat in a puddle
of light cast by a floor lamp. "Yeah?"

"Be careful."

For a moment, the soft comment almost raised his ire again, but
then he smiled. "Careful is my middle name. You know me, Vic."

As he closed the door, he heard a muttered, "Too well. That's why
I worry."

Mac chuckled as he headed down the hallway for the stairwell.
 

----------------------------------------
Chapter Nine
----------------------------------------

When Vic woke, it was early evening and he had the start of a
pounding headache. He sat up and winced as the many aches and
pains made themselves felt. Glancing around, he realized that
dawn had caught him going over his notes in the living room,
where he'd gone back to the files after Mac had left, and he'd
simply collapsed where he was, sitting on the couch. No wonder he
felt as if he'd been twisted into a pretzel. It was a good thing
that the drapes were pulled tightly shut. Otherwise, he'd already
be dust.

He stood and stretched, wincing at the popping sounds coming from
his joints, then headed for the kitchen. A mug of bagged blood
went into the microwave long enough to reach... well, blood
temperature, then he drank it quickly, trying to ignore the
rather lifeless quality to it.

After that, a long stay under the spray of a very hot shower with
use of the showerhead's massage features. By the time he turned
the water off, he'd probably used a week's worth of hot water,
but he felt reasonably 'human' again. A quick shave, clean jeans,
a T-shirt and his favorite boots and he felt ready to face the
night.

That was when he noticed the light flashing on his cell-phone,
telling him that he had a message waiting. He picked up the
compact device and flipped it open -- as always, resisting the
urge to say "beam me up, Scotty" -- and punched in the code to
retrieve the message.

"Mr. Mansfield," Ramirez's voice said from the tiny ear-piece,
his annoyance clear, even in a recording. "It is one in the
afternoon and you are obviously ignoring your phone. Not the
proper behavior of someone hoping to do business. Do call me at
the club. At your earliest convenience, of course," he added
sarcastically, then thoughtfully provided the phone number before
hanging up.

Instead of calling Ramirez right back, Vic dialed a different
number. "He called," he said briefly. "Any preferences on how to
play this?"

There was a long pause before the Director answered. "Come down
here to make the call. That way I can monitor things."

Vic snorted. "You can obviously monitor things *here* just fine,"
he said, a bit surprised at how little bitterness he felt at
that, even though he still planned to hunt down and remove those
cameras and microphones.

"True," she replied, no apology for it in her voice. Not that
he'd *expected* any. "But it's more difficult to whisper in your
ear from this distance. Sunset is in twenty minutes. Be here in
forty-five."

"Yes ma'am," he told the dial tone sarcastically.

>>>~~~<<<

Vic nodded to a few of the evening regulars as he headed down the
hallway to the Director's favorite briefing room. None of them
were Kindred or Ghoul, and he figured that they didn't know
anything about that side of the Agency either. Part of him wanted
to should "How can you not see?" at them, but then he remembered
that he had worked for the Agency for more than six years without
ever realizing that his boss was anything but what she seemed to
be: A cold, manipulative bitch who had the occasional flash of a
more sympathetic nature.

Well, maybe that assessment was a little unfair. But she did have
her bad days. He hoped that this wasn't going to be one of them.

She was waiting for him, casually seated in the swivel chair
behind her very modern looking desk, wearing something a little
slinkier than usual. The bodysuit was made of black leather that
was so tight and shiny that it looked like she had taken a quick
dip in a pool of crude oil. Vic shifted uneasily, trying to
ignore a flash of arousal at the sight. He wasn't really
attracted to her, but was helpless to fight the feeling. He just
thanked his lucky stars that she'd never turned the full force of
her sexuality on him the way she seemed to delight doing to Mac.
No wonder the young man got twitchy every time he was in the same
room as her.

She tapped a long fingernail on the top of the desk in front of
her. "Very good, Victor. You're actually two minutes early. I do
like promptness in an agent. Now, we have a phone call to make,
do we not?"

Vic moved around the desk to stand behind her as she pressed a
button on her phone, and the sound of ringing filled the air. A
moment later, it stopped.

"What?"

My, my. Ramirez sounded irritated, Vic thought to himself. "You
wanted to talk to me?" he asked, allowing amusement to bleed into
his voice.

"Took you long enough. Don't you check your messages?"

Vic leaned back against the edge of the desk, a picture of
casual. The Director frowned at him, but he was immersing himself
in the role he needed to play. "Of course I do. However, I also
have a job to do. I called as soon as I had a moment free."

"You should have found one sooner if you really want to do
business with me."

Vic snorted softly. "We have a product and a service that can be
sold anywhere. We don't have to do business with you."

"If you want to do business in *my* town you do."

The Director bristled at that comment, and Vic prayed that she
could hang on to her temper. Ramirez was treading on her position
as Prince of Toronto and she was obviously furious at the man.
"Whatever. So what's the word?"

There was a pause. "I want proof that you can sell me what you
are claiming. A dose of Candy and a sample of your enhanced
street drugs. My people will examine them, make sure that you
aren't cheating me."

Vic laughed harshly. "Fat chance, Ramirez," he said, ignoring the
hand gestures from his boss. "The second, fine, but we are not
handing over a sample of Candy for your chemists to analyze and
duplicate. That, you get when we have an agreement ironed out.
Capiche?"

"All right. Bring examples of your jazzed up versions of street
drugs to the club tonight. If they are everything you say they
are, we'll deal for the process and the Candy. We might even be
able to come up with a research and manufacturing deal for the
future. I trust this is acceptable?" Ramirez added sarcastically.

"It will do for now. I'll be by later tonight, then."

"Try not to make it *too* late," Ramirez said, then hung up
before Vic could reply.

Vic slumped in reaction to the release of the tension from the
last few minutes, then looked to the Director, waiting for her
verdict.

"Well played," she said grudgingly. "But risky. What if he turned
you down?"

"Then I would have backed down on the Candy issue," Vic replied.
"But if I can do this without allowing anyone outside the Agency
a shot at Candy, I will. Any objections?"

"None at all," she said soothingly.

"Good."

"Well, the conversation also confirms what Agency sources are
saying: Ramirez hasn't been having much luck in replacing some of
the more specialized equipment that was destroyed in the
explosion at the farm. Unless he finds some way of importing it,
or another source locally, he's not going to be able to fill the
demand he's been creating. If that happens, angry customers are
going to be coming after him."

"Just what this city needs: a drug war," Vic muttered to himself.
"I assume you'll have those samples for me?" he asked, raising
his voice.

The Director pushed an ornate box towards him. He opened it and
found it spit into several padded compartments. Each compartment
held a small glass jar, tightly sealed with wax and clearly
labeled as to the contents.

He closed the lid with a snap. Despite the beautiful exterior,
the box made him sick to his stomach. The cop in him was
protesting, and all he could do was remind himself that even cops
used drugs as bait to stop the distribution of even more drugs.
He still didn't like it.

He put the box to the side. "Any luck tracking this Guylaine
person he's working for?"

The Director's expression immediately closed up. "That does not
concern you."

The only thing was, Vic was *not* going to take that as an
answer. Not this time. "The last time you said that, Mac, LiAnn
and I ended up in a warehouse rigged to blow. You were so focused
on stopping Pucci that you were willing to hand Mac and LiAnn
over to a man who wanted to kill them."

"I didn't know what Michael was planning--" she started to say.

"That's the point!" Vic broke in harshly. "You *should* have
known. You, of all people, should have known better than to just
take him at face value. But you were so blinded by a personal
vendetta that you didn't even *try* to find out what he was
really up to. Well, I'm not going to let that happen again."

The Director stood slowly, and Vic started to wonder if maybe
he'd pushed her too far this time. Her eyes were glowing a
brilliant silver and her lips were drawn back in a grimace that
showed, all to clearly, her fangs. Vic gulped. He'd never seen
her so... not human before. "I am your Prince and you will not
question me," she hissed.

"I am one of your agents and I will," Vic said firmly, even
though he couldn't stop himself from backing away physically.

She snarled at him, then swept past. He almost collapsed in
relief when he realized that she wasn't going to just kill him
for questioning her, but she still hadn't told him what he wanted
to know yet, and this case was reaching the point where he wasn't
going to risk his life or Mac's by continuing without *all* the
information available.

The Director was pacing the full length of the room, looking very
deadly and more agitated than Vic could remember ever seeing her.
It was rather unnerving, considering how calm and collected she
usually was, even under the most tense of situations.

Suddenly, she stopped dead in the middle of the room and turned
to face him. Vic stayed as still as possible, feeling like
something small and fluffy under the eye of a predator.

Then she sighed, and the silver glow faded from her eyes.
"Guylaine is my sister."

>>>~~~<<<

I was born in France in 1773 to a minor noble family. Little rank
and even less money. Guylaine was six years older than me and I
adored her. She was beautiful and kind and witty, everything I
wanted to be. Our father had high hopes for her too. When she was
nineteen, he sent her to court as a lady in waiting to the queen,
Marie Antoinette. He hoped that she would catch the eye of a rich
man who would either marry her without the usual fat dowry or at
least take her as a mistress. Don't look so shocked. It was a
good way for a beautiful woman of few means to become rich, and
our father was definitely a pragmatist.

Anyway, I was young and missed her desperately. I begged my
father to send me to Paris to be with her, but he refused. I
thought he was just being cruel. What I didn't know was that
unrest was spreading through the lower classes, and while he
wasn't worried enough to summon Guylaine home, he was not willing
to send his only other daughter into potential danger.

We lived in the country, and I was rather isolated from the real
world. So, for the next few years I read her letters and dreamt
of the apparently ideal life she was living, looking forward to
the day when I would join her and find myself a dashing young
lord who would love and marry me, making my life perfect. Like I
said, I was naïve. Needless to say, I never got the chance. The
revolution happened first.

I'm sure you learned all about the French Revolution in school;
everyone does. All the reasons that it happened, the stresses and
excesses. But they don't teach you about the most important cause
because they don't know about it.

For centuries, France, and especially Paris, had been under the
control of the Camarilla, and it was in their best interests to
keep things peaceful, or at least stable. Then the Sabbat turned
their eyes towards Paris, and where the Sabbat goes, violence
soon follows.

They begin by destabilizing the structure of society, increasing
the conflict between groups -- the classes in this case -- until
the Prince of the city cannot keep the peace. Then, when the
violence breaks out, they use it as a cover as they pick off the
Prince's defenders one by one until the Camarilla are so weak
that they can no longer hold the city. This is what they were
doing in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century, although I
did not learn this until later.

At first, the Revolution did not affect me. My family was, if not
well-liked in the are, at least tolerated as being better than
most. After the seizing of the Bastille, noble families agreed to
give up their privileges, and the common folk took control of the
government, This was the Camarilla's counter to the first feint.
It didn't work. When I was nineteen, the reign of terror began
and the Sabbat's attack had begun in earnest.

When I was twenty, the Revolution came to me. The estate was
attacked by peasants from the surrounding areas. In Paris, Madame
Guillotine had begun her bloody work and she was hungry for more
victims, preferably of the blue-blood kind. Rumor had it that the
bodies were bled to feed the Sabbat afterwards, although I doubt
that. They enjoy the hunt too much to take blood from the dead.

By that time, there'd been no word from Guylaine for more than a
year.

I may have been naïve, but my father was not. When the attack
came, I was bundled into the filthy clothes of a peasant girl,
with coins sewed into the hems. He led me out of the estate
through a hidden passage and we thought we had gotten away
cleanly. Then, the next day, we were attacked by a band of
thieves, one of the many roaming the countryside. My father was
killed and I... well, let's not go there.

Luckily, they didn't find the money in my clothing, and once they
were done, I pulled my clothes straight and headed for Paris on
my own. It took me weeks to get there. While I was no longer
quite as innocent as I had been, my plans were still to find my
sister. Once I reached Paris, though, I quickly lost hope and
concentrated instead on survival.

I'll spare you the details of how I survived, but survive I did.
The streets of Paris were dangerous in those dark days, from
gangs in the day and the Sabbat by night. Both hunted with
impunity. Still, I survived and, to a certain extent, thrived. I
gathered a new family of women and youngsters who would otherwise
have been easy prey. Together, we were strong enough to defend
ourselves. And I quickly learned to look back on my childhood and
sneer.

Then, one night, a lookout called that hunters were coming. We
prepared, but in the end, we failed. Our group had been
successful enough to attract the wrong sort of attention. The
hunters overran us and we died, one by one. I had managed to kill
one, I think, when I was grabbed from behind and slammed into a
wall. I looked up...

Into the eyes of my long-grieved sister.

Guylaine was as beautiful as I remembered, but her eyes glowed
silver, blood was smeared around her mouth and her expression was
cruel beyond belief. She stared at me for a long moment and I was
chilled to the bone. Then she smiled and dropped me, turning to
her companions who had finished their havoc. "This one lives,"
she said. Then they vanished, leaving me behind with the bodies
of my adopted family.

After that, I survived alone. I had lost two families now, and I
wasn't about to make *that* mistake again. And finally, after
several long, terrifying years, the Camarilla launched their
counter-attack. They tried replacing Napoleon, the Camarilla
champion, with the last of the royal family not once, but twice.
When that didn't work, they created the Republic and finally
regained control of the city. Bit by bit, peace returned to
Paris.

But it had come at a price. The Camarilla had regained Paris, but
they had lost many of their ranks. They hunted Paris, like the
Sabbat had, but for potential childer instead of prey. A Ventrue
saw me and decided that I had potential. She tested me, found me
acceptable and Embraced me. And Victor, I had no more choice in
the matter than you did.

So now you know.

>>>~~~<<<

Vic shook his head, shaking off the spell of the story. It would
make one hell of a movie. Still, he'd known that the Director was
older than looked, but more than two hundred years? "Did you ever
find out what happened to your sister? Before you ran into her,
that is."

The Director shrugged elegantly. "Some. Actually, she did just as
our father had asked: she became mistress to a rich and powerful
man, an envoy from Prague. Unfortunately, he was also Lasombra, a
Sabbat spy and saboteur who had managed to fool the Prince of the
city. He Embraced her. And Victor, if you thought *your* Embrace
was painful, the Sabbat are far worse. Their Embrace ends by
burying the fledgling alive. If they can't dig themselves free,
they are considered too weak to be Sabbat and are destroyed.
Guylaine, needless to say, was strong enough."

"But she let you live, so she couldn't be all bad."

That provoked laughter brittle enough to make Vic wince. "She let
me live because I was entertainment. Over the next century, both
before and after my Embrace, she played a cat and mouse game with
me. Those around me died while I was untouched. Wherever I went,
she followed, playing her game. Then she vanished, about the same
time that I came to Toronto. I heard that she'd gone to Russia,
and the communist revolution twenty years later seemed to confirm
that."

Vic leaned back in his seat, considering the ceiling. It was
covered with a layer of metal, he noticed for the first time, and
there were a few dents in the shine. He wondered just how hard
something would have to be thrown to reach the high ceiling with
enough force to dent even thin metal. "So you think she's
starting the game again," he said mildly.

"Probably."

"And agents who work for you are probably at risk."

"Yes. Dobrinsky as well, as my Childe."

"Any pictures of Guylaine?" Vic asked, still not looking at his
boss. "Could this Kata person be her in disguise?"

She snorted. "Not likely. Guylaine is too vain to disguise
herself, including her rather vivid green eyes. I doubt that the
dark-eyed Kata would be her. But to answer your first question,
no. Lasombra cast no shadows, so they cannot be photographed. Any
portraits of her would have been destroyed during the revolution
and I don't think that she would have had any painted since
then."

"So Kata isn't her, but she does work for her, so her orders
might be to get close to Mac and then kill him."

"Possibly."

Now Vic sat up, eyes glowing and fangs fully out. "But you didn't
think it was important to let us know about this?" he shouted at
full roar.

The Director's eyes flashed, but she didn't move a muscle. "Don't
yell at me, little boy," she hissed. "I decide what you need to
know, and you live with it."

"Or die by it if you make the wrong decision."

"Do you think you can do the job better? Be a better Prince."

Vic was starting to get really nervous now. He'd never seen his
boss lose her temper before, but it looked like he was about to.
"No. In fact, I think I'd make a lousy Prince." Her temper seemed
to drain away. A little. "Doesn't change the fact that when it's
*personal* for you, you develop blind spots large enough to hide
an elephant."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Vic was looking around for
an escape route. Even when he'd thought she was human, he'd known
that defying her was a very bad idea. Even though she had a lot
of affection for them, she was ruthless enough to sacrifice them
at a moment's notice, even on a whim. But he wasn't about to take
back anything he'd said. The stakes were too high this time.

For a moment, though, he did think that after being frustrated by
Cash's intervention, Death was going to catch up with him. He
braced himself, apologizing mentally to Mac.

Then the Director seemed to collapse in on herself, suddenly
looking her age. "Perhaps you're right," she said with a sigh.
"But I don't want this to become common knowledge," she added,
with a hint of steel already returning to her voice.

"Mac needs to know."

"And you can tell him about Guylaine. But no one else."

Vic nodded, relieved that she was going to be so... reasonable.
Their eyes met for a long moment, and he froze. The moment had
passed and the Prince was back in charge.

The sound of her swivel chair was deafening in the silence as she
turned away, breaking eye-contact. "You still have a meeting with
Ramirez to go to," she pointed out.

Taking the hint, Vic grabbed the sample box and beat a hasty
retreat.
 

----------------------------------------
Chapter Ten
----------------------------------------

Mac was whistling and a wide grin threatened to split his face by
the time he made it back to his car. Everything had gone exactly
the way he had planned, almost scarily so. He'd proven he still
had his touch, and he mentally vowed never again to let so much
time go by without exercising his old training.

A little observation the night before had found him the door that
the security guards used for their smoke breaks, and assuming
that they would be too lazy to be constantly disarming and arming
the alarms on that door, he'd used for his entry into the museum.
That assumption was the only real risk in the whole caper.

From there it had been by the numbers. The latest in break-in
clothing had fooled the heat sensors, while the motion detectors
had been old enough that simply moving slowly and deliberately
was enough to keep from setting them off. Timing and convenient
shadows had kept him from being noticed by anyone who might be
monitoring the security cameras. All in all, the path had been so
easy that he was seriously considering writing up a report and
sending it to the ROM to let them know just how lousy their
security was. Really, it was almost insulting.

Getting the bracelet into the case with the sarcophagus had been
a little more problematic, though. His break-in at the security
company's office had told him that the glass case was wired to
detect breakage or even just opening, while the base had weight
sensors that would notice and increase or decrease in the weight
resting on it. He could have disconnected the system, but that
would have been more likely to be noticed. Besides, his method
was more fun.

So, instead he'd used a few drops of acid near the edge where the
glass case met the base, where the hole wouldn't be noticed
without looking closely. Then he neutralized the acid so that he
could use the hole to insert a flexible wire with the bracelet
attached to one end. It was just a matter of getting it into
position, a quick twist to release the gold chain, then a careful
withdrawal of the wire.

Damn he was good.

After that, it was just a matter of retracing his steps and
getting out without being seen by any nicotine addicts, then
sauntering back to his car without looking suspicious.

So now he was riding high on the adrenaline rush from both the
danger of what he'd been doing and the thrill of success. It was
a feeling he remembered well, but hadn't realized just how much
he'd missed. But now he needed to find a way to burn off the
excess energy, and he knew just how he wanted to do it, he
thought as he grabbed his cellphone from the glove compartment.

A moment later, he was cursing as he listened to Vic's recorded
voice informing him that its owner was not at home to pick up the
phone. He thought about trying the man's cellphone number, but
regretfully decided not to. Vic might be with Ramirez, or worse,
the Director. Now that he finally had the man where he wanted him
-- in his bed -- he didn't want to screw it up by letting their
relationship interfere with work or by doing anything else that
might inspire the Director to try separating them.

So since screwing -- of both kinds -- was out, he needed another
outlet for his high energy, so he would have to go for choice
number two. He put the new car he'd recently requisitioned from
the Agency carpool and modified with Vic's needs in mind in gear
and pointed it towards downtown and his favorite dance club.

>>>~~~<<<

The Cave was Mac's favorite dance club in Toronto. During the
months he'd been waiting for Vic to finish his training with the
hot-headed local Gangrel leader he'd gone there often to work off
his frustrations. It wasn't like he had many other choices.
Somehow, after their fateful trip to San Francisco, he hadn't
been able to work up the ambition to take anyone home -- or go
home with anyone else. Male or female.

That in itself was strange. While he'd been hoping for a serious
relationship with Vic, or at least something close, he'd never
been one to handle celibacy well. The eighteen months he'd spent
in Hong Kong Prison had been pure hell, the first time he'd gone
more than a month without sex since reaching puberty. On the
other hand, solitary confinement *had* saved him from
experiencing a few less than pleasant sexual experiences, he
supposed. However, it did explain why he'd been crazy enough to
flirt with the Director when she'd shown up with her offer.

But since that first night with Vic, he just hadn't been
interested in anyone else. Even the exotic Kata hadn't been able
to get a rise out of him, so to speak. Somehow, he had the
feeling that there was more involved than just his feelings for
Vic, but he couldn't even work up enough outrage to care about
*that*.

So, since he'd been uncharacteristically uninterested in sex,
he'd danced his stress away, dancing himself into exhaustion so
that he would sleep without dreams, several times a week.

The bouncer at the club recognized him, of course, and let him
straight in. Immediately, he was moving to the music, losing
himself in the pulsing beat of the music before he even made it
out onto the dance floor. He responded absently to called out
greeting, but other than that, the only thing he knew was the
dance. It was at times like this, he could understand why there
were religions that included ecstatic dancing in their rites.

Over the next two hours, he danced almost continuously. He had
vague memories of stopping for the occasional drink or pit-stop
but not much more than that. He danced with a blur of partners,
but still somehow danced alone.

But then, as he danced, reality started to blur further, and he
started to see a different place overlaying the reality of the
club, slowly growing in strength. Instead of synthesized
instruments, he heard the wail of fiddles and the beat of hand-
made drums. Instead of flashing neon lights, he saw the flicker
of firelight. Instead of skin-tight outfits in black and metallic
shades, the dancers around him wore brightly-colored, loose
clothing.

He wove through the crowd, now dancing to music that he alone
could hear, unnoticed by the people around him, it seemed. He
could no longer tell which was real, the dance floor or the camp.
Both were so compelling.

Then, finally, the dance floor faded completely from sight and
the camp was all that was left.

In the shadows, he could feel the watchers beyond the reach of
the firelight. Watchers that did not feel human. Suspicious
sounds came from the darkness, like the cough of a large predator
on the prowl, and green eyes flashed, but he wasn't afraid. The
dance was all.

Then a figure stepped out of the shadows and he came to a stop
for the first time. She -- it *was* female, of that he was sure -
- struck him as... dangerous. When she started to weave her hands
through the air, he could see the flash of long nails, or maybe
even claws. Backlit by the fire, he couldn't make out any more
details other than the impression of 'not quite right.'

But then she started to sing, low and seductive, and his wariness
faded away. She began to dance, slow and sinuous, and he found
himself matching her, move for move. She backed away from him,
away from the fire, and he followed her, mesmerized.

Step by step, he followed her into the darkness.

>>>~~~<<<

Mac groaned and shook his head. It felt like there was a full
construction crew, complete with jackhammers, was working right
next to him. His mouth was as dry as a good martini, and it took
him a moment to work up enough spit to moisten it.

Then he opened his eyes and looked around.

Okay, this was *not* the dance club. In fact it looked like
someone's basement, assuming that someone was the Marquis de
Sade. Torches provided the only light and there were chains and
manacles hanging from the drywall at regular intervals. Kind of
like the ones that he was wearing, he realized. Strange devices
whose function he could only guess and wish he hadn't were spread
around the large room with plenty of walk space between them. All
in all, it looked like the torture chamber from a really bad b-
movie.

Mac groaned again and let his head fall back against the wall,
then winced as it set off flares of pain. He couldn't remember
having drunk enough to have passed out -- and that certainly
wouldn't explain his current situation -- so someone must have
slipped him a Mickey.

"Great," he muttered to himself. "All I want is the chance to do
a little dancing and some freak decides to take a liking to me."
The Director was definitely not going to let him live this down.
Assuming she let him live. Assuming he survived long enough for
her to make that choice.

"Freak? Should I be flattered or insulted?"

One of the shadows detached from the corner of the room and moved
forward, gradually coming into focus. It was a woman, someone
he'd never seen before, and yet somehow familiar. She had long
black hair drawn up in a complicated twist and brilliant green
eyes that seemed to suck up all the light in the room. She was
dressed in an elegant wine-colored evening gown that flattered
her, but looked more like it belonged in the thirties or forties.

Mac backpedaled as best as he could, considering he was currently
chained to a wall. "My apologies. I was thinking of some of the
people I've met in the past who play these sorts of... games." He
tried his best to avoid thinking of the time he'd been drugged
and handcuffed to his bed, left there until the Director had
shown up to tease him, then release him. "Not that there's
anything wrong with those games," he added quickly. "They just
don't interest me, so why don't you let me down and we'll just
forget all about this, okay?" He paused and took a deep breath.

The woman just laughed, and he got the sinking feeling that this
was going to get really, really bad. Still, he managed not to
flinch when she came close enough to run a fingernail down his
chest in a way that reminded him of the Director, especially
since he'd already been thinking of her.

This was also the point when he realized that his shirt was gone.
In fact, he was naked from the waist up, although thankfully he
still had his pants. Contrary to the standard image of a dungeon,
this was warm enough that he hadn't noticed his state of undress
earlier.

"Sorry, Mr. Ramsey, but I have too many plans for you to just let
you go." She pinched his nipple -- hard -- and it was all he
could do to keep from yelping.

Somehow, he had the feeling that he didn't want to know what her
plans were, but he couldn't stop himself from asking. "What
plans?"

She moved away, and he breathed a small sigh of relief as she let
go of him. His nipple throbbed hotly in a way that could have
been exciting under other circumstance, but at the moment was
just painful.

Instead of answering the question, she leaned back against
something that looked like an Art Deco version of the rack and
looked at him with a contemplative expression. She smiled softly
and her eyes gleamed in the torch light. "I can definitely see
why my sister keeps you around," she said, more to herself.

"Sister?" Mac was starting to feel like he'd gone down the rabbit
hole and landed on his head. This was Alice on crack.

"Of course," she continued as if he hadn't said anything,
"looking pretty isn't enough. Competence is also important. Just
how competent is he?" she asked, raising her voice.

The sound of someone coming down stairs echoed from a dark hole
in the wall. Mac turned towards that door, and when the newcomer
stepped into the light, he somehow wasn't surprised to see that
it was Kata. "Oh, I'd say he's competent enough," she said,
letting a stream of gold fall from one hand to the other,
glittering brightly.

Mac stiffened in shock, wondering just how the hell she'd managed
to retrieve the bracelet so quickly. For that matter, who had she
known that he was making his run that night? He'd been looking
for watchers and hadn't seen any.

Kata came to a stop next to the woman, who ran a possessive hand
through the thief's dark hair. "Thank you, my dear," she said,
taking the bracelet from Kata and fastening it around her own
wrist. By the time she turned her attention back to Mac, his
thought processes had come back online and he was starting to put
two and two together.

"I take it that you're the mysterious Guylaine," he said bluntly.

"Who else would I be?"

"And you're related somehow to the Director."

"Very good," she said, like a mother praising a young son. Then
she made a tsking noise. "I take it she hasn't told you about me.
No, I suppose she wouldn't have. Her kind are so terrified of
exposure. She wouldn't tell any sheep unless she absolutely
couldn't avoid it, thanks to that idiotic Masquerade. Do you even
know what she really is?"

"Oh, she's a lot of things, I'm sure," Mac said lightly.
Guylaine's pleasant expression slipped for a moment. Mac hid a
shiver. "But I assume that you're talking about her being
Kindred."

Guylaine nodded, showing a little surprise. "She actually told
you? Will wonders never cease?"

"Actually," Mac said, not able to stop himself. "It was more
along the lines of providing the clues and waiting for us to
figure it out." As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to
call them back. That plural might have given away too much.

"Now that sounds more like my dear little sister: everything a
test. That's the only thing we have in common. Tell me, who
figured it out first? You, the ex-cop or the lovely little
oriental?"

That made Mac hiss. Just how long had she been watching them and
why? LiAnn had been out of the country for more than a month now.
"I did," he finally admitted.

"Even better," she said, clapping her hands. "I do love it when
everything works the way I want it to."

"You mean like Ramirez's little accident?" Mac said snidely. "Was
his problem at the farm according to plan?"

"Why, yes it was. Kata did a lovely job blowing up the place,
don't you think?" She brushed gentle fingers against the other
woman's face. Kata rubbed against those fingers, and Mac could
have sworn he heard a faint purring.

"But, but..." he stuttered for a moment before he pulled himself
together enough to form a coherent sentence. "If he's working for
you, why would you destroy his operation?"

Guylaine's expression turned sly. "Because that was the plan from
the start, not that I told him. Can't you figure it out? Let me
give you a little hint: It's easier to take over when your
opponent is busy somewhere else."

Mac thought about it. When the answer came to him, straight from
his old life with the Tangs, he didn't like it much. "He comes in
and takes over the drug trade," he said slowly. "Eliminating the
competition so that the addicts have to come to him. Then, once
he's got a stranglehold on the trade, you destroy his ability to
deliver what he promises. The price of what drugs *are* available
become exorbitantly high, at least until outside suppliers get
wind of the demand and move in. Until then, a major crime wave
starts because the addicts need more money to feed their habit."
He felt sick to his stomach.

"As smart as he is pretty," Guylaine said. "I *am* impressed. It
certainly works well with my plans, even though I've had to move
up the timetable some. Ramirez," she smiled, showing a flash of
fangs, "has already received his reward for his efforts."

Mac's mouth went dry at the note in her voice. It was perfectly
matched with her expression; one that would better suit a cat
about to finish playing with his prey. Next to her, Kata's
expression was a near-perfect match to it. "And where do I fit
into those plans?" he asked, not really wanting to know the
answer.

"You? You, little boy, are bait. The only question was what sort
of bait: Live or dead. Originally, you were going to end up...
dinner." Her eyes flashed and a few beads of cold sweat ran down
Mac's face, making his eyes sting. "But then Kata asked for
permission to test you. I must say, you have lived up to her
expectations."

She reached behind herself and pulled a cellphone into view.
"Congratulations, Mr. Ramsey. You have graduated from dinner
to... dead bait."

Mac could hear faint beeping as the woman punched a phone-number
into the cell, but his eyes were fixed on Kata. The thief's eyes
were completely silver as she advanced, her wide smile showing
her fangs.

"You don't really want to do this," he said around the lump that
was plugging his throat.

"Oh, but I do," she purred, drawing close. She ran her
fingernails down his chest, leaving behind welts that oozed
blood. Looking down, Mac saw that her nails looked more like
claws now. He gulped as she leaned in closer. Dimly, he could
hear Guylaine talking into the phone.

Then Kata's teeth sank into his neck, roughly. There was none of
the pleasure he'd felt with Vic, just pain. Bright red blood was
now running down his chest as Kata started to suck greedily,
sending pain like shards of glass running through his system.

He couldn't help himself.

He screamed.

Then everything went black.
 

Go to Part Four