TAKE

by Greg Stolze

I should have insisted on driving though, crap, the guy beside me might have popped the springs in my Infiniti. He’s giant, a monster, just impossibly huge. His name’s Earth Baines, he’s honky like Loop gridlock and I suspect every night he prays to God that the next time he wakes up, he’ll be Jay-Z.

Fat chance of God answering that one. Not only is Earth a murderous vampire, God doesn’t exist. At least not one Baines would pray to.

“You bettah nevah lemme gitcha alone!” Cypress Hill is blaring from the stereo and he’s rapping right along. “Y’might die inna valley a’ chrome!”

For a moment I think he said “Crone” and it makes me nervous, but I shouldn’t be. The Crone’s on my side right? That would be a lot more soothing if she wasn’t known for teaching best through pain.

It’s two AM and Baines and I are going to go kill a vampire I call Dickhole #1.

# # #

I heard about the Crone from Bella Dravnzie, but I learned about her from Moyra. Bella talks a good game, but in the end she’s all games and talk. Moyra showed me what’s real.

Moyra’s a vampire. So’s Bella. So am I, but I didn’t really get it, didn’t understand what that meant until Moyra took me under the knife and the moon, rinsed my eyes with blood and let me feel it. Bella made me a part of the Circle of the Crone but Moyra it a part of me.

She pushes me, Moyra does. Tells me I need to go deeper, look in the dark places and see what I really am. She pushed me to join, pushed me to leave the Chorus, pushed me to open up my blood to the world and make changes.

Moyra pushes me, but I don’t mind it. It’s odd, now that I think of it. All my life, anyone who pushed me – teachers, my parents, my social worker, my parole officer – didn’t matter who, I resisted. I’m not proud of that anymore. Half the time they were talking sense while I told them to go screw. Maybe if I’d listened, I wouldn’t be like this. Or maybe I would. Vampires are practically my family of origin, turns out.

Besides, look at Baines. He grew up on a farm, wholesome as whole-grain bread, and he’s an ass-kicker, blood-licker, stake-sticker just like me

“You’re a stank-ass ho,” he sings as he parks his Escalade. Maybe not exactly like me. “’Cause you got no soul… yo, this is it, right?”

“This is it.”

Moyra was the second one to call me “Loki.”

# # #

There were four of them. Dickholes #3 and #4 held my arms while Dick hole #2 kicked me. Legs and groin, mostly – I was already gasping from a kidney punch and he was probably worried I’d puke on his leathers if he worked the torso too hard. I was still living, then.

“That’s enough,” Dickhole #1 had said. He was the boss, it was obvious, his jacket was the coolest. “You’re Jake Fischer’s boy, ain’tcha?”

I didn’t say. Partly I was stubborn. Partly, I was hyperventilating and serious pain. I’d like to think I was worried about Amy, too. As I remember it, was worried sick, wondering why she didn’t run. He’d told her to stay put and she stayed. I figured she was too terrified to bolt. Now I know better.

“You look like a scrawny punk-rock version of him,” he said. “I’ma do you favor – help you understand your ol’ man a little, see where he’s coming from. You tell him I did this for you, right?”

Then he bit me. I went limp, and everything I’d never wanted to believe about God and sin and redemption – finally, I could say with confidence that it was all a crock. Everything real was false next to that feeling It’s called the Kiss, all vampires can do it and most don’t even think it’ a big deal. It is though.

# # #

Dickhole #1’s haven isn’t much. It’s the basement apartment of a three flat, and the people who live above him (they’re people, I checked) are at a ball game tonight. They “won” Sox tickets, I had to spend serious coin but no one is turning down a skybox after the big win in ’05.

“What’s the plan, yo?”

“Me in front, you in back. Usual thing. I’ll get in his face, you just make sure he doesn’t get away.”

“I’m your back door man.” Baines says it before he can realize he’s quoting the Doors instead of Public Enemy. I guess you can’t escape your heri tage, especially when it’s classic-rock Midwest radio wasteland. Or the Kindred moral wasteland, I suppose.

He’s taking it well though. I blackmailed him into making Dickhole #1 take it, so letting him drive is the least I could do.

this woman could turn into a bear, see the future, sing dead gods out of the underworld. More though, she’s just that way. She sucks the dumb jokes right out of your brain.

Rowen was the first one to call me “Loki”and teach me the myths, about how Lokidefendedthegodsthroughcunningbutdoomedthemaswell.Sheencouraged me to get in with the court, which surprised everyone, I think.

“I know what you’re planning and it’s too soon,” she told me. That time, she told me. “You have a gift you don’t understand. You are a child in this night, and after childhood’s end you can’t be innocent again.”

“I’m not planning anything,” I said, and I was thinking that being a ‘baby vampire’ isn’t a gift, it’s suck, you can’t do anything right, you don’t know anything, you’re scared of everyone else but most afraid of yourself.

“You’re planning to take a life.” That got my attention, because I was. I’d tracked down Dickhole #3, a mortal man. I planned on using him to find the rest of that bunch, then do him. Nothing I could have even thought about seriously when I was alive, but once the black thirst is installed that kind of plan comes pretty easy. “It’s a threshold. Once you walk through that door it locks behind you. Killing a man, or a vampire, or any beast, is a boon to those who are ready, and a tragedy for those who are not.”

“How do I know if I am?”

“I’ll tell you,” she said, and there was not one eyeblink, one twitch, one anything to show that she was not 100% serious.

I did it anyway, of course, I killed Dickhole #3 and #4 too. I just missed Dickhole #2, who was a vampire, but I chased him out of town and that’s probably a death sentence. Probably.

I killed Dickhole #3 before I was even a Hound, and I covered it up real well, I thought. Rowen knew right away. “You have squandered your one chance to understand innocence,” she told me. “You have rushed into a stage too quickly. Let us hope you spend your time as an Outsider more wisely.”

That was the night she called me Loki.

# # #

I’m through the door to Dickhole #1’s apartment and he twitches to his feet as I throw the hammer right at the center of his chest. If that knocks him down while I draw the knife…

But no, he’s too damn fast and then he’s holding something, like a book or a lunchbox, he swings it on the end of a cable and I realize it’s a power sander right before it slams into the side of my head. I fumble out my blade but he swings into my hand, the cord tangles and then knife and tool both skitter away as he jumps on my chest.

Next thing I hear is a high-pitched buzz and I have time to see fast-mov- ing sandpaper before it goes into the side of my face. This is not how this was supposed to go down. He was supposed to be begging for mercy and squealing, not abrading my cheekbone at sixty thousand RPMs, I’ve got my hands on his wrists pushing them back but he’s as strong as me and on top.

“Yomuthafucka!”Ihaveneverbeensogladtohearthosewords.Bainesisrushing up behind him, and I get the thing off my face as Dickhole #1 turns to snarl at him. I feel his body tense and Baines stops like he’s been sandbagged.

Oh no. No no. The Predator’s Taint, I didn’t think this guy was old enough

— Baines is so tough you forget he’s young — Dickhole #1 glares and Earth runs off.

The good news is, the hackles of the Beast work both ways. For just a moment, the older vampire has to fight his instinct to chase Baines, like a dog on a cat, and while he’s distracted I squirm out, we’re both standing and I’m scrambling back while drawing a gun. I’d hoped to do this without gunshots waking the neighbors, but I’d also hoped to taunt him like a Bond villain — and to have a face to do it with. So, fall back ten and punt to Plan B.

I shoot him, and it doesn’t hurt him so much that he freaks, but I think he’s decided to cut and run instead of finishing me off. I get another shot as he heads towards the back door, but I miss. I’m resigning myself to a rain delay and no closure tonight when I hear a meaty thud and some swear words.

“Yo bleedy, how ‘bout some help here?” I rush to the kitchen and Baines is lying on top of him. They’re thrashing around but the big vampire has Dickhole #1 in a full nelson.

“I thought you freaked!” I say, pulling a jagged slat of wood out of my sleeve. He gives me a look. “Faked it. Dag, what kinda punk you take me for?”

# # #

I don’t get the Circle of the Crone. I’m a member of it, but I don’t get it. Half the time I suspect that even Rowen doesn’t get it, that she’s as ignorant as me but on a far larger scale.

Moyra is always pushing me forward, telling me I need to go deeper into the mysteries. But Rowen was always telling me to hold back, understand each stage firmly before building on it to the next.

“We are eternal,” she told me. “We have no excuse for impatience.” That was why it was such a shock when she told me to take a baby.

# # #

“First thing I want to know,” I tell Dickhole #1 as I pull the stake from his chest. “First thing, I… y’know I’ll start with an easy question. What’s with the power tools?”

“What’s your name?” “Richard Holden.” “You’re kidding.” “Why’s that funny?”

“Because I’m not Invictus. I’m in the Circle.”

Richard can’t get much paler, but he would if he could. Nice. He’s heard of us.

“Are you familiar with the myth of Loki? Norse god, trickster type. Noteworthy for gaining the strength to defy Odin and Thor by consuming the heart of someone more powerful.”

“No man, you… shit, you can’t…”

# # #

The rumor is that the elders of the Circle all commit diablerie, that they not only kill other vampires but devour their souls, their very essences. It can’t be true because Kindred like me can see it. Then again, the rumor usually says there’s ways around that, if you make the proper offerings, know the proper rites, cast the proper spells.

It’s not a rumor that soul-stealing is possible. It is, and it works, and it makes you stronger. Rowen told me all about it.

“It’s not for you,” she said. “Not yet. Perhaps not ever. The quick path is the slippery one.”

“I thought Loki was a slippery god?”

“You are barely a killer. You lack the experience to even foresee a decade, but you would take an eternal action?”

“I want…”

“I know. In time you will. In time we all gain the power we desire, and it is always enough to punish us. The punishment is always enough to teach us to desire more power.”

For the first time, I see her smile.

“Before you take a soul,” she says, “Take an infant.”

# # #

The night after taking down Dickhole #1 – Richard Holden, it’s stupid, it’s a freak coincidence, only Moyra says coincidence is just a higher spirit’s way of talking to you – I’m in the maternity ward. It’s hellishly bright, everything is beige or pink or baby blue, everything is clean. I shouldn’t be able to get in here. Rowen fixed it, she set me up with a couple helpers to do everything.

The NICU, the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, has glass walls, I can see through them and the sick babies, the prematures and the ones born addicted, they’re there under heat lamps like fries at McDonald’s. I’ll take one of them, if I take one. If I can even do this. I can’t. I don’t want to.

I talked to my dad earlier tonight. It’s bad. He’s a ghoul, which means he’s somebody’s slave, which means I’ll always suckle hind tit. Christ, why did I think up that metaphor? Shit, why did I just invoke Christ?

Dad’s an addict and to him I now bleed junk, which means he’s a lot more attentive than he was when I was eighteen, or when Mom bailed out on us. He doesn’t even remember Amy, but he sat up and paid attention when I mentioned she was a vampire. Just like every junkie, he’s always interested in scoring.

Dad thinks Baines set me up, let me and Richard tussle and would have made some kind of deal if Holden had killed me. I’d hate to believe it, but all the facts fit. I’d hate to think Earth is that cold. Or that he could outsmart me.

Rowen sent me here with two guys, Fritz and Emmanuel. Emmanuel’s putting the forgetting eye on the staff while Fritz jimmies locks and disables the cameras and stuff. This joint has loads of security, which is reassuring, I guess. The children are the future.

Fritz pokes his head around the corner and nods. I can’t move. He gives me a look, a very “what are you waiting for” look, then glances at his watch and I start walking. I’m not sure I can do this but, hell, I guess I can’t let Fritz down.

I look at the babies. Pick out a swarthy little one. He’s kicked off his blankets. No, she, her little cap and booties are pink, her name’s “Immacula.” Her legs are curved like horseshoes, are they supposed to be like that? I come closer and suddenly this feels absolutely right.

“Immacula Mondino,” I say, “You are my own.”

I didn’t kill Richard, I forced him to drink my blood. Last night and tonight I did it, soon he’ll be enslaved just like my father is. When I did it, I opened my wrist with my teeth again and now I do it in the NICU, standing over Immacula Mondino. I wet my thumb and trace blood on her head and just like Rowen told me, I know what symbol to make. I’ve never learned it, never seen it, but it comes.

“I claim you for the Circle of the Crone,” I say. Just like Rowen said over me in my crib.