Nightfall: Las Vegas

Las Vegas
September, 2008

The plants had survived the trip.

That had been one of the bigger issues he'd had.  Transporting marijuana across state-lines wasn't exactly easy, though to be honest they hardly looked like marijuana plants anymore.  The same with the tobacco. Any law enforcement officer would be hard pressed to recognize the red-nearly-black leaves of the 'creatures' as anything but some strange exotic plant.  A sweet boyish smile and a couple hundred dollars patted into the pocket of overweight and underpaid police officer, and he was on his way.

The most important cargo, however, was no plant, and he made sure that the warehouse he'd bought in Las Vegas was secure before he had it moved inside.  The movers were allowed as far as the room just outside of the final resting place before he waved them off, and Jason waited until his sense of smell told him that the sweat and dirt were far, far away from him.

This place had been cleaned until only the residual scent of bleach was left.  That was now being covered with his own mixture of lavender incense and Essence Vitale Absolue.  Soon, it would smell much, much better.

The sarcophagus was opened, and he could feel that part of him attached to the man inside reawaken.  Jason both hated and loved him, and now that he knew what his blood was capable of, he knew why.  The Torpor Connection was next to come alive, and in the back of his  mind he could almost see the Torpored Kindred smirk.

"Hopefully we won't have to move again."  The brown silk robe was adjusted.  A bit of imagined dust brushed absently from the aristocratic face.  Why Justinian had chosen him of all people, Jason would never know.  His sire as refined and wealthy and the epitome of what an aristocratic Daeva of the First Estate was supposed to be.  

"Moving is tedious, Pretty..."

"Stop calling me that, Justinian.  It's demeaning."

There was a soft, almost imaginary laugh in the back of his mind, and his sire was gone again.  Lost to the Fog of Eternity for a few more nights before he pulled Jason under again for more 'lessons'.

Jason had never been what Justinian had hoped to turn him into.  He was crude and crass.  Spoke his mind and yet found himself attracted to the trappings of the First Estate mostly for what they could bring him in the way of control.  His life had never had structure, and the First Estate provided that, along with ample opportunity for temporal power and monetary growth.  Justinian had never failed to tell him how much of a disappointment he was, though now that he was Sleeping, it seemed as if he'd stopped berating so much.

He still did it though.  Every now and again there'd be a 'lesson' that Jason couldn't help but feel was taught only to make him feel about three inches tall.

Though maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.  He'd never had anyone really care enough to want to 'fix' him or make him better than he was.  Not until after his Embrace and he'd gone to Toronto.  V and JD excluded, he'd just been drifting. 

Vegas would be a new start, though to be honest, St. Louis and Toronto were supposed to be the same thing.  As had New Orleans before he'd gotten there and found that there was nothing left of Kindred influence.  Katrina had ripped them asunder, and Jason didn't have the stamina to deal with the half-hearted dead that were trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild.

Blood flooded his limbs, and Jason lifted the taller figure of his sire and took him into the room that had been specifically built for purposes of keeping him safe while in his Eclipse.  The entire thing was on a lift, which--once Jason closed the door--would descend into the ground and vacuum seal itself so that anything that happened to the structure above it would not harm him.  Without air, there could be no fire, and that was what Jason had been hoping for.

"When you wake, I'll sleep.  It'll be my turn, right?"  He knew Justinian wouldn't be answering this time around.  His sire was too far into the Fog to answer again.  It would take too much to pull himself into the half-coherency the House Link afforded him so soon.  "Can you believe I'm thirty-five, and I'm tired?  Crazy, huh?  And you've got another twenty years or more."

The sheet was pulled up and adjusted. Too much and too little.  Fingers running along the edges.  The scent of Betony permeated, and Jason couldn't help but take a long breath.  It was some of the last of his sire's own mixture, the Vitae in it making Jason want to take that final step and sink his fangs into Justinian's wrist or neck or any other vein that was readily accessible.  Bond himself forever to it and get it over with.

He knew where that scent came from.  The source of it.

Vitae Addiction wasn't something he allowed himself though.  Just that addiction to his sire's scent, just as Justinian was addicted to his--and his addiction had nothing to do with Vitae.  Their's wasn't some great homosexual love-affair a'la Anne Rice.  It was a relationship based on obsession, possession, and a little misplaced affection thrown in.  Justinian didn't love him so much as want to possess him and his scent.

And that was enough to keep Jason from drinking.  Once the 'chase' was over, Justinian would lose interest, and as much as he disliked his sire's flightiness, he didn't much relish being on the receiving end of rejection.

So he settled for laying his face on his sire's still chest for just a few moments, breathing in the scent of Betony and blood, before he stood, adjusting his leather riding jacket and grabbing his helmet from the floor.  There was a Prince to Present himself to, after all.  Couldn't hunt without permission.

Jason was many things, but he was not a poacher.

He turned in the doorway, quirking a brow and giving his sire that 'trademark' crooked grin, even if he couldn't see it.

"Oyasumi, ya bastard."  He said, pressing the code in.

Though as the door close and he heard the air rush out of the room as it sealed itself, he could swear he heard more of that arrogant laughter.

Sometimes, being in a House was just creepy.

June 17th, 1882
Toronto


The candle had lapped its way through most of the oil set for it, the wick sparking once with a gasp for life, and a very human sigh pushed its way through lips, seductively set in concentrated pout. The quill he had been using to write was set down on his mahogany desk, a gift from his father after he finished his schooling. A deep breath of air was taken, that exasperation in his voice at an idea unrealized, still clothed and cloaked deep in his mind, the vicious angel that was his Muse unwilling to reveal what lay beneath her cloaks just yet…

“Trouble, darling?” The delicate voice of Amanda penetrated the air, which was heavy this eve with a humidity rolling in off the lake. The ground begged for rain, but there had been none since April, a terrible dry spell was bringing all to wits end. Sweat glimmered on her brow as she moved to the candle’s glow, kneeling and resting small hands on the bent knees of his slacks, her large charcoal eyes looking up at him, a knowing and Cheshire smile of her own on her lips.

One hand moved up to fondle the stark collar of his dress shirt, fingers tracing down the undone buttons -- just a few, against the heat -- then running along the seam of the white silk vest his wore open -- against his father‘s wishes. Business etiquette, and all.

“It’s nothing. The whole thing, is nothing,” he lamented, lifting the half dozen sheets he’d written so far over the flame, scowling darkly as the flames kissed the laboured work and immediately engulfed them, his calligraphy seeming to shimmer before disappearing, to be read by the Gods only.

She was in her bed gown, the strings of the light bodice undone, her chest rising and fallen, breath hitching at the sight of her fiance‘s frustration apparent. She rose to her feet, lest her ungainly blonde hair catch aflame. The humidity did nothing for her locks, they were frizzy and impossible to tame on the best of days.

“It will come to you one day, my darling, and your novel will come together masterfully under your guidance. You … are a Master, darling. I have never heard a poet express their desires as you. It is how you bound my heart… Your words entrapped me, and I am forever yours because of them.”

“Then I should cut out my tongue and set you free. You can do better.” He rose to his feet, leaving the pages to burn themselves to ashes. His movements were fluid like a dancer -- indeed, he had been trained to perform all the classic dances, as were all children of his station, his lot in life. The child of a respected and influential industrialist, he had followed his father into the family business, even before his schooling had been complete. But never had he been thoroughly -happy-.

His sultry light brown eyes scanned over their apartment, dressed finely in simple luxury, and they landed on Amanda, immediately warming with adoration for her. “You are truly a Goddess. Come to bed.”

The heavy breeze blowing in from the east was thick with the scents of dying roses and mint. It permeated the bedroom, but Amanda found it intoxicating. He allowed her to undo the remainder of his shirt’s buttons while he sparked a rolled cigarette, laced with opium. She reached up to run her fingers through his dark brown hair, a little longer than was the modern fashion. Another snub against his father.

Business etiquette, indeed.

Passive adolescent aggression at its finest, though he had recently entered his twentieth year.

She fell asleep alone in the bed, languid and spent. He, sitting naked in the corner chair, cigarette resting between his lips, his Muse a foul and wicked temptress, dancing behind his eyes that begged for sleep when no sleep would come.

Events leading to the eventual Final Death of Prince Nikolas are sketchy, but one thing is reported almost universally by the Primogen, the Sheriff, and the Prince's Bodyguards.

He was tormented for a month almost to the point of madness. He claimed that faces in mirrors would appear and then disappear, his own reflection becoming clear without his consent. He'd be found in a trembling heap on the floor of his own quarters, claiming that there were monsters in the mirror wearing his face, mouths full of fangs and tearing and screeching.

That he was followed in shadows, childish voices speaking a myriad of languages that he only knew half of, speaking of death and fear and the destruction of everything he'd built.

Dead fetuses on the steps to his Haven and other such horrors left for him to find.

No one else seemed to see these things or experience them.

Most believed the Prince was finally going insane, his advanced age ripping into his psyche and warning him that he soon needed to sleep.

Nikolas would hear none of it.

July 15, 2008 was the end of it all.

A familiar face entered on the arm of the unfamiliar. A Beast that ripped to shreds most of those before it, two faces of angelic, youthful beauty strode into Nikolas' Court. Demons with the faces of angels. Children with the intentions of the Damned.

And Damned they proved themselves to be.

Prince Nikolas was Diablerized by Mishka Morokai (known to the entirety of the Court as "Lethe"), and before his body was ash she declared herself the Prince of Las Vegas. The deaths of the Sheriff and Nikolas' bodyguards by a silent assassin left no doubt in anyone's minds who and what she--and her Shadow-Child-Companion--were capable of.

To this night, they rule side-by-side. A force to be feared and reckoned with.