Something About Serpents Licking Ears
A single word, echoing through the darkness. A battle cry. A chant of triumph.
Striding down, thigh-deep, into the black Ravensbourne, it’s enough to make the Centurion halt, tilt his head, and listen.
Weep-Not Sorley, coiled and brooding in his chair at the head of the deserted Nosferatu feasting table, hears it, and frowns, before dismissing the sound as the result of old age and too many long troubled nights.
Archbishop Connaught rises from his throne in Amen Court, and claps, to the sound, laughing as he goes.
In her tent, nuzzling at the hair of the gorgeous masked acrobat sprawled in her lap, the Pell-Mell Queen opens her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘That’s it. That’s what they were all screaming about. Clear as you like. Culex. Culex. Culex.’
*
‘It’s merely a matter of impressions,’ Turcov says. A slender youth, dressed immaculately in the full regalia of a butler, opens up the silver cigar case. He hesitates, and then takes two. ‘Wyther will be back soon. Once we know the location of the packs, we’ll take you down there. Take some photographs of you with your foot over a Sabbat corpse, get the Nosferatu to circulate it. ‘Big Game Hunter.’ You keep your sense of exoticity, your adventurous persona...but it will be understood that you’re the man to be taken seriously.’
‘I,’ Julian Fox says, cradling his glass almost overflowing with vitae, ‘Well, yes, Rodyon, quite, quite...’
‘Iacomo dines tomorrow night at the Taurien Club,’ Turcov explains, handing over one of the cigars. ‘Baron Godrick will attempt to pigeon-hole him, waffle on endlessly about the club’s long and direly uninteresting history. Once the Archon is tired of hearing about such things, you can speak at length about your plans to eradicate the Sabbat. It’s good stuff, Julian. A Scourge is needed, I don't think anyone will be able to deny that. Better use of the Nosferatu to control the sewers and prevent dens springing up; funds collected from the Camarilla for the purposes of surveillance. Good, serious, stuff.’
Fox allows the youth to cut off the end of his cigar, and light it. He takes a single, unsatisfactory puff, and says, with feigned unconcern,
‘And, the, ah, the Queen?’
‘Who?’
‘The Pell-Mell Queen. Malkavian. You...you know what they’re saying, Rodyon. About what she’s said.’
Turcov runs a long fingernail down the length of his cigar.
‘They’re saying,’ he says coolly, ‘that the little whore has prophesied that the next Prince of London will be the one who loses it. What of it? I can make predictions of my own, Julian, as well as anyone else, I’m a regular old-fashioned Sibylline oracle. In fact, the cockerel entrails have revealed to me quite plainly that the Queen will find herself quite without friends in this city once this farce is over and done with. Furthermore, the Tarot cards themselves have-’
He halts. And stares up at the muted television on the far side of his study wall.
‘Matthias,’ he murmurs, ‘would you turn the sound on, please, dear boy?’
Onscreen, a short, harried-looking bearded man is being ushered past the cameras of the 24-hour BBC news channel and into a waiting van. The clip is short, and soon replaced by an overhead shot taken from a helicopter.
The presenter’s voice cuts in.
‘-just days before the start of the London Olympics. We’re now hearing that the Bishop of Oxford, Kenneth Shaw, was successfully rescued from his own residence tonight after he was apparently taken hostage by armed men. Neighbours were evacuated from their homes as gunfire lit up the night sky.’
A baffled-looking obese woman, wrapped in a fluffy dressing-gown, gapes at the camera from behind perfectly circular glasses, and babbles,
‘-they just told us to get out, that we weren’t safe, that I wasn’t safe in my own home, didn’t tell us what was going on, I still don’t know what was going on, they were saying it was Al-Qaeda, what would Al-Qaeda be doing in Oxford?’
Turcov leans forward.
Standing behind the woman, loitering calmly with his back turned to the camera, is a familiar figure, tall and dark.
An unseen reporter asks her if tonight’s events give her confidence in the upcoming Olympics; as she responds, the figure glances around, notices the camera, and steps discreetly out of view.
‘That was Iacomo, wasn’t it?’ Fox asks, the cigar wilting in his hand. ‘What - what’s he doing? Turcov? Did you know about this?’
Turcov smiles, without warmth.
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Sommers.’
*
You’re looking at a corpse.
Laid out across the dining room table, before the high, gorgeously framed windows of the college hall, the body looks as if it’s been dead for half a century. Shrivelled, eyeless, torn skin barely dangling from its bones, hair limp and ragged. Its freshly-laundered, tailored suit looks quite plainly ridiculous, the shirt and waistcoat ripped open to expose its chest. All in all, it’s unrecognisable.
So, you think, gazing down at Iacomo’s bodyguard, this is how little we come to.
On the floor beside the Gangrel's corpse lies a gargoyle, a twisted and gigantic shape; its fellows must have carried it here on the night air. You've really no idea how the Oxonians intend to dispose of the corpse.
To your left, a door swings open.
‘Oh, you're here,’ Kempe says, quite without surprise, poking her head through into the threshold. ‘Good. Status update: the Hod rounds splintered when they entered your man’s chest, you see. We have enough blood to give him a good feed right away, if we can raise him from torpor - you see, when the Prince heard about the attack, he tracked down the restaurant where the Bullingdon Club was having its weekly dinner and had some of the local law enforcement gather up those who’d passed out and bring them here...in case emergency vitae was required. The problem will be getting the fragments out of his heart, but we’re working on it. I’d say you rushed over here for nothing - to be perfectly fucking honest, one way or another, I’m not entirely sure what you thought you were going to do.’
‘Perhaps nothing,’ you tell her, ‘from your perspective. But I’m glad I did.’
And yet you can’t help but picture the hunters’ stash, loaded quickly away into the vans and away into the night. In the hands of others now, no doubt.
Enough. You did the right thing, for Fellowes and for yourself. You have absolute no reason to feel as absurd and as foolishly sentimental as, at this particular moment, you do.
Kempe says, mildly,
‘I doubt my Prince would come dashing back to see me if I fell in a fight - especially not if he had new toys to play with. Your man's lucky to have an ally in you, it seems. ’
You’re not so sure about that. After all, you’ve been responsible for his falling into torpor on two separate occasions.
‘Come,’ she says, patting you on the shoulder. ‘Let me show you Oxford while we wait.’
*
The Bodleian Library is dark, but not silent; a lilting, haunting voice drifts over the heavy bookshelves.
‘The Duchess Forlorn,’ Kempe tells you, ‘sings for the glory of the illuminative knowledge and for the glory of the darkness that keeps the ignorant enshrouded. I’ll show you the Song of Roland, if we have time. And this, of course...’
You cannot imagine what manner of beast the decapitated head, hung above the old stone fireplace, might have belonged to. Its fur is mottled; a long snout resolves itself in bared teeth and a pair of twisted tusks.
Kempe gives it a critical look.
‘One of our dear Rhodes Scholars sent it over from Botswana last year,’ she says. ‘It was a faithful pet, apparently. Always so interesting to see what mischief our cousins in the Ebony Kingdoms are getting up to. I don’t suppose you’ve been? So many Ventrue got their start out in the colonies.’
‘Like Julian Fox,’ you reply, gazing up at the monstrosity.
Your mobile phone vibrates. A message from Vogler.
You frown. It's a five-word message.
‘Noch kehrt er nicht heim.’
Your German’s a little rusty...haven’t you heard that before, though? Something to do with Humphrey, some social affair...try as you might, you simply can't place it.
Wandering along in Kempe’s wake, you attempt to call him; the phone rings out.
‘I’d heard about Fox coming back to London,’ Kempe says, strolling on. ‘Interesting figure. I suppose he’ll be the favourite. We’ll be lobbying for Brother David, of course. No offence - you know how it is. All of the Chantries are looking to your city - they’re nervous, understandably. Don’t want to be tarred with the same brush. We want to ensure that Tremere interests are being supported - sire!’
Prince Grocyn, descending from the mezzanine above, glances mildly about in two utterly wrong directions before finally spotting you, and gives her an absent-minded wave before strolling out through the shelves towards you. He still has a blood-stained apron tied around his slender chest.
‘It’s done,’ he growls, ‘it’s done. The boy’s hooked up with a bagful of a future government minister’s blood - though, I fear, much of it may be port and vodka. His chest will take some time to heal. He’s slipping in and out of torpor. Give him time, and plenty of blood, and he’ll be almost as good as new. Would that Grip had been half as fortunate. I doubt I’ll find a gargoyle of his like for some time, alas...’
He shakes your hand, with the same slightly dazed, crooked but perfectly amiable expression.
‘Ventrue, yes,’ he says, before Kempe can open her mouth to introduce you. ‘I do know you. Just got off the phone with your Archon, dividing up the, ah, the evening’s proceeds. Had nothing but praise for how you handled that. Just taking the Bishop out in front of the cameras now. Olympic terror threat, they’re calling it. Clever. Good use of the Kine festivities.’
You make a subtle movement to wipe your palm off on your trouser leg, but the old Tremere snatches hold of your wrist and pats down upon it with his other hand.
‘Ventrue,’ says Grocyn. ‘My darling Malory and I, we would like to celebrate tonight’s achievement with you. Toast your Archon. Perhaps discuss the matter of this, this London Prince with you. It seems to me that you and your Archon, you're close, yes? Perhaps you and I might become close as well. Come, come - there are a few stray hours left in the night, but we have beds aplenty, and you will be an honoured guest of Oxford.’
You glance at Kempe. She rolls her eyes, quickly, and grins.
A) Accept their invitation. It will be a useful political opportunity, and you can return to London with Fellowes once he's recovered.
B) Actually, your place is probably with Iacomo right now; he can probably handle the Bishop and the press, but it’ll be beneficial to return to him and the kine military and provide what help you can.
C) Vogler’s message seems a little odd, and it’s strange that you can’t seem to contact him. Perhaps you should get back to London right away.
