May was confused. Was this supposed to be what Hell was like? It definitely wasn't heaven, that's for sure. If this was Hell, it was actually sort of boring. Perhaps Hell was supposed to be torment through eternal tedium? Even then, they could have set it up better than this. She could do a better job than this. The icy fire of waterlogged lungs had slowly been replaced by a cool numbness. The pounding of blood in her ears from a straining, dying heart had faded away, displaced by the gentle slosh of cold, greasy water. It was dark and slimy. It tasted like... no, she didn't want to draw an analogy there, for fear of what she might have actually taken into her mouth. Above all, it was boring. Maybe she should-
A hand grabbed her hair and yanked upwards. May burst ungracefully out of the slimy water and was dragged up a concrete embankment. Her chest reflexively tightened and she belched out a stream of foul tasting water. May gasped in one deep breath and grabbed her scalp in pain, “Hey!”
May stopped. Something wasn't right there. She had taken in one breath, but no more. She wasn't coughing and spluttering at all. She looked down and felt her wrist. Cool to the touch, and not the slightest trace of a pulse. Her throat felt disgustingly slimy, and still ached from the fluid that had been expelled through it. Yet the pain was muted slightly, passed through a filter of nerves no longer filled with vitality.
“That's right, you're dead again,” a voice said.
“Oh,” May said. That explained things quite succinctly. She looked up, puzzled, “Kaoru?”
“Kaoru!” she squealed, leaping over and embracing him, “You're alive!”
“No I'm not,” he replied darkly, not returning the embrace, or even looking up from the object he was fiddling with.
May closed her eyes. She could already feel it. Even emotion wasn't as strong as it was in that... place. She felt happiness of a sort, and even love for the person in her arms. But her actions weren't directed by them. The actions were what she felt was the right thing to do, the thing she should do. The love was there, but it was a muted, disconnected echo that no longer seemed to have as much of a direct connection with her actions. Still, with effort, she could make the connection, even if temporarily. Had it taken her this long to get used to this the last time? It was hard to say, the last time she was too busy coming to terms with the fact that she had been killed and turned into a vampire. The second time around afforded her a chance to pay attention to specifics missed in the blur of terror and hunger that was the first time she had been turned.
Oh yes, the hunger. May could already feel it within her. The other emotions were muted, indistinct things, brought into true vitality only be an act of will on her part. This was something different entirely. She wasn't starving, perhaps the blood that had been in her during her brief sojourn back to life kept her somewhat sated for the moment. But the hunger was still there. She had gotten so used to accepting its current presence in the back of her mind before that its return was all the more noticeable now.
The two emotions that formed the central drive of all the kindred: Hunger and fear. She had to admit, for all the claims they might make about being civilized where those skinchanging dogs were nothing but bestial monsters, all that civility was nothing more than a mask to cover up the insidious beast that lurked inside them. Strip away a vampire's comforts and you'd be left with nothing more than a ravening beast whose only desire was to feed on the life of others and flee from the sun.
“Get. Off.” came Kaoru's voice.
That mask of civility was much more frail on some.
May let go, a little concerned now. She didn't like the tone of voice he was using, it sounded so much like the voice she heard before. The voice that mocked her while she lay on the ground, skin lashed cruelly open. The voice that told her how worthless she was while she was viciously pinned down and violated. The voice that drove her to flee into the night, in an area of the country she knew little of the customs or geography of, rather than spend another moment with her owner.
She didn't like those kind of thoughts. May looked about for something to distract her from them. The environment didn't help a whole lot. They were in a deep, bricked enclosure of some sort. Despite the lack of any light, her own vision had no problem picking out details, such as the grime encrusted piping, and dark pool of water she had just been pulled from. “Where are we?”
“Drainage canal of some sort,” Kaoru said, standing up and beginning to walk towards one of smaller passages leading out of the room.
May got up, running carefully after him. Her leg still hurt from the sprain she had given it earlier, but like almost everything else, it was muted, indirect, “Wait, where are we going?”
“To the surface. Seems the fuckers that led us here were right after all.”
“What do you mean?”
Wordlessly, Kaoru pointed to the wall and continued walking. May looked at the wall, confused. “Chicago Municipal,” she read aloud, “Hey, Kaoru, we're in Chicago! That means-”
“-That I can get something useful done,” Kaoru finished for her.
“I was going to say that I could get back to Milwaukee,” May said sourly.
“Then go,” Kaoru said, not even looking back.
“Why, aren't you coming along?”
“No.”
“Why not? Aren't you the Prince there or something?”
“I don't care, I can get more done here.”
May rolled her eyes, but continued walking after him, “So what's your big plan then?”
“I've heard a few things about the Chicago underground,” Kaoru said, “There's supposed to be some sort of 'Underprince' here who has his own little kingdom of worthless dropouts who were too pitiful to handle things on the surface.”
“Worthless dropouts?” a voice said from around the corner ahead of them, “I think that's a bit harsh.”The thick steel door slammed behind them with hollow bang. Kaoru and May looked around the large room. With a little effort, one could see that it had been originally designed to hold excess runoff during flood conditions. May sort of hoped that the city had more like this one as back-up, because this one sure as hell wasn't going to be used to hold tonnes of rainwater if the current occupant had anything to say about it. The pipes, dirty brickwork, and plain concrete floor had been hidden under layers and layers of decoration.
Not cheap decoration either, May looked closer. The rugs were deep and vividly coloured, she felt self-conscious stepping on them with boots that had slogged through prehistoric mud and dinosaur shit. Tapestries were hung on the wall. Some looked a little threadbare, but it was the wear-and-tear of history, rather than lack of adequate care. Exquisite tables made from rich oaks and maple served as platforms to display intricately carved marble statues, racks of glittering jewelry, and expensively framed pictures. May made a note to, at some point, check if the Chicago Field Museum had any missing pieces that matched some of the things she saw in here.
The centerpiece of the room was a long table, the kind meant to sit a huge dinner party. It sat beneath a wall dedicated wholly to large maps of Chicago. The dinner table had each spot meticulously set out, silver cutlery, plates, and glasses arranged with almost scientific precision. Yet their glow was slightly tarnished by a minute layer of dust. Those who were invited to sit here weren't the types to eat food or use silverware. The maps all seemed to have later additions, corrections, and revisions placed on them. All in a careful script. The maps included Chicago proper, some of the outlying regions, Gary, Milwaukee, and even the Chicago tunnel systems, the El, and far older, historical maps. May was a little disturbed at the large number of hand-written additions, pointing out numerous tunnels, shortcuts, and secret spaces that weren't originally marked on the maps. Even more disturbing was that a large amount of the 'revisions' seemed to outline territorial boundaries that quite differed from county, precinct, or neighborhood lines.
"Please, do make yourselves at home," a figure at the head of the table said in an impeccable British accent, "You would be Kaoru Shibara, and your companion, then, I assume is May Hawthorne?"
"How the fuck would you know?" Kaoru said.
"I make it my business to know both my subjects, and those who reside within my territory who don't consider themselves my subjects, Mr. Shibara."
"First off," Kaoru said, "I'm not your subject. Second, the city is under the praxis of Prince Lodin, not you, Maxwell."
A chuckle came from the figure seated at the head of the table. He was clad in a suit that obviously cost a minimum of four figures. His voice flowed with culture and eloquence. It made his face, a hideously warped thing, mottled brown and gray, with tiny, yellow eyes and a puckered mouth full of needle-sharp fangs, stand out with greater contrast. "He has no control that I do not give him. He's a mere figure-head, if you will."
"He'd disagree," Kaoru said, picking up a chalice sculpted out of what looked like gold and studded with multi-hued gems, "And the fact that he has his personal estate, as well as three private suites at the city's most expensive hotels reserved for him, while you're down here with sewage and rats, gives more weight to his opinion than yours."
"My dear Mr. Shibara-"
"Don't act like we're acquaintances, tunnel-worm."
Maxwell shrugged, "My apologies, Mr. Shibara. I was merely going to point out that you, of all people, should know that true power does not lie in material possessions."
Kaoru's eyes narrowed, "What would you know of it?"
A grotesque smile was thrown at him, "I know why you happen to know so much about the figure-head Prince. Even while you acted the part of a disinterested assassin and hitman, doing odd-jobs for him for seemingly nothing but favours, influence and material, you were actually gathering as much information about him as you could. His contacts, the places he frequented, where he went into his daily torpor, the specifics of his security systems, the holes. You were ready, at a moments notice, to take either out him, or everything that supported him, in one fell swoop. You were setting it up so that, if you felt the need, you could take complete control of Chicago's surface kindred within a single night."
May looked up, "Kaoru?"
"You don't have much of a nose," Kaoru said, "maybe that's why you don't worry about getting it cut off for poking it too far into things that don't concern you."
"Everything in this city concerns me, Mr. Shibara."
"I can make certain things much more of a concern to you, Maxwell," Kaoru growled, "such as wondering if you're going to survive this night."
Maxwell laughed, "I have no doubt that you could, Mr. Shibara. But seriously, do you think I would invite you into my haven with that knowledge?"
Kaoru's hand went to his katana, "A better question would be 'Why should I care?'"
"Because I have information about the Antediluvians," Maxwell said. May noticed that while his voice was still the epitome of cultured graciousness, the pace had picked up ever so slightly.
Kaoru's hand slowly returned to his side, "Go on."
"Come, sit, we have plenty to talk about," Maxwell said.
"Is this really necessary?" May asked as she sipped from the expensive glass, "I feel like I'm at some sort of fancy dinner party."
"Think of it more as a business meeting," Maxwell said, "There's a few things that need to be discussed."
Kaoru waited silently, staring at his own glass of blood with something approaching disdain.
"Your blood's getting cold," Maxwell said amiably.
Kaoru didn't respond.
"Right then," Maxwell said, without a hint of awkwardness, "Down to business, since you don't seem to be the type to stand on ceremony. Kaoru, what do you know of the antediluvians?"
Daggers were glared, "Why the hell are you asking me? I thought you were the one who knew all the interesting things about them."
"Because I want to establish a common ground, just so I know how ignorant you are on the subject."
"Seems you know too much already, why should I freely give you more?"
"Too much," Maxwell chuckled, "Yes, I know far too much, to the point that I likely can no longer travel to the surface ever again."
"What, why?" May asked, feeling like she should contribute something to the discussion.
"The same reason any of us have to restrain our movements, fear of life and limb. In my case, it's because my... pryings have come to the attention of a certain organization which has, to put it lightly, a someone substantial reach," Maxwell smiled, "On the plus side, it has given me a wealth of information concerning a common threat between us.
"Kaoru, you've done some research into the antediluvians. How much, I don't know, but I assume you know the more common facts-"
"What's an antidiluvy?" May asked.
Two sets of eyes bored into her. She shrank a little, "No, seriously, I've heard about them, but what actually are they?"
"How much do you actually know about them?" Maxwell's voice had an edge of impatience, it was obvious she was not the focus of his interest here.
"Well, they're really old, and apparently they're going to eat all of us, or something."
Maxwell smiled, as to a child, "They're our patrons, for lack of a better word. They're the third generation of kindred, after Caine and his offspring, which are all dead. They have the power of gods, and should they awaken, will attempt to reclaim the blood of their children and children's children."
"Oh, so big bad then," May said bluntly.
"Yes... big bad."
"Was there a point to all this?" Kaoru asked impatiently.
"Yes," Maxwell said, "Ravnos is dead."
"So?"
"Who's Ravnos?"
Once again May was the center of attention. "What? I'm just curious."
Maxwell took a deep breath. Being undead, he had no need to breathe, but sometimes one simply has to take a deep breath, "Look, am I going to have to explain everything to you? Kaoru, you of all people should know to train your childer better."
Kaoru stood up, "This is getting boring, and I could care less about a dead antediluvian."
"Mortals killed him," Maxwell said quickly, "They belonged to the same organization that experimented on you."
Kaoru slowly sat back down. He took a small sip of the blood.
"I figured that would catch your interest," Maxwell said with a toothy grin, "This organization is also one of the main reasons I cannot leave these tunnels... aside from the Sabbat, that is."
"I'm waiting," Kaoru said.
"They call themselves the Technocracy, from what little I've learned, they're a-"
"The Technocracy?" May asked.
"Mr. Shibara, could you please silence your-"
"She's not mine, and if you talk down to her again I will put your head on her plate and let her do what she wants with it."
May stood up angrily, "Okay boys, if you're about done with your little dick-waving contest, I was just going to say I've heard of them before. It's how I got into this whole mess in the first goddamn place!"The Chicago River was not as dirty as it used to be. That wasn't to say it was a clean river by any stretch of the imagination. The Chicago River was a sluggish, filthy line of oily taint, rife with floating trash and semi-solid remains of fish unfortunate enough to wander in from Lake Michigan. It was better now than it used to be, when the meat-packaging industry was still in full swing here and environmental regulations were much more lax. Though those times had long gone, the memories of hundreds of gallons of pig and steer blood dumped in the river remained etched in the dark embankments and swirling through the cloudy waters.
A disturbance rent the surface. A roiling disrupted the monotony of gentle, oily waves. A second later a splintered log shot into the air, propelled by its own buoyancy, and crashed back into the water with a greasy splash. Several more logs followed the first's example. Almost unseen, several coils of sodden hemp also floated to the surface. It was almost as if some crudely assembled raft had been simultaneously demolished and dislodged from the river-bed and only now rose to the surface.
A pale hand reached out of the water and sought some sort of surface to grip onto. It found one of the logs and held on tightly. Natalie pulled herself out of the dark water, coughing and retching. A second later she pulled out a waterlogged backpack, attached to which was a waterlogged Kouzo. Paddling frantically she began to make her way towards shore."You were really civil out there," May said to Kaoru as he cautiously shot the multiple deadbolts to the door.
They had been given a small, but adequate room for the day. "So what about it?"
"I don't know," May said, flopping down on the bed, "It's just... doesn't it feel good to be back?"
"No."
"Yeah, same here, it's weird, isn't it?" May said, looking up at the ceiling.
"No, it isn't weird. I just spent... I don't know how long, traipsing through imaginary worlds with a bunch of foul-smelling dogs and an annoying tagalong, and now I don't know what time it is, what's happened to all my plans here, or what's even going on in general. Everything's been thrown out of order and it's pissing me off."
"But... but at least you're alive?" May said hopefully. He was getting that tone of voice again, she didn't like that tone of voice.
Kaoru turned on her, his eyes choked off her breath far more effectively than his hand around her throat did, "I'm not even properly alive!"
May was released and Kaoru stood up, beginning to pace, "I shouldn't even care about it. The whole thing was stupid and unreal. It's gotten in the way of everything, and now I have this goddamn Technocracy thing to worry about. It's hard enough trying to root out the fuckers who have been messing with my head, but I also have to worry about an annoying little twit like you tagging along and further complicating things by giving me half-memories involving you."
There was nothing May could say that would avert this sudden outpouring of wrath and she knew it. All she could do is try to make herself as small and unnoticed as possible, which usually didn't work. Oh god, it was just like old times, she waited for the abuse.
It didn't come. May looked up. Kaoru was staring at her, "What?"
"I was..." May faltered, then realized there wasn't much point in trying to hide it, "I was waiting for you to hit me."
The rage in his eyes was momentarily coloured by confusion, "Why would I hit you?"
"Because.... because that's what you've always done."
"Well that was then," Kaoru said sourly, "This is now. You're not the one I'm pissed at, you're just a peripheral annoyance."
"I'm a... what?"
"You're not important, at least not enough to warrant physical violence."