Thirst 2.0 Ch. 04

Her Blasphemous Tongue

Disclaimer: This is a rewrite of Thirst; I decided to emphasize some of the more interesting aspects of Monroe's political machinations and her internal struggles, rather than focusing on the romance between her and Mizrah. I removed any scenes from Mizrah's perspective as well. I hope you enjoy it.

The sheet metal roof made a racket as if under the staccato tap of sharp nails under the rain. The abandoned lecture hall at San Toreno Tech College, closed since Hurricane Katrina had rushed through, was built in the style of an amphitheater and perfect for the raucous debates and contentious voting that defined the Syndicate's messy function.

When Karl Hann had, with no small amount of typical Ventrue hubris, presented the red vellum envelope - seriously, vellum? - with the black seal of the Overseer Committee to Monroe, she'd known what to expect. Dissembling. Stalling. A proposal that, while carefully crafted to sound promising and vaguely threatening, would ultimately amount to nothing. Once her trademark patience would have given her the fortitude to tolerate such expected bloviating. Now, however...

"The Committee has authorized me to take whatever your demands are and present them myself, which under Section IV of the Ashland Code is a power they may grant. After all, you agreed to it yourself," Hann reminded her - it wasn't necessary, she and every Kindred present had little choice but to make their mark on the Black Stellae to receive Hunting Grounds in their masters' domains. It was on those volcanic-glass pillars that the domain's laws were inscribed. The whole affair reminded Monroe of children who thought themselves victorious since they'd found a rule that prevented them from having to sit down and talk.

A rule was only as good as the grip it had on people's belief.

"I'm sure we can make accommodations without having to resort to anything like that chain insolence two nights prior."

Anger spiked in her throat again - literally, as if something sharp had risen from the furnace of her gut to stab her, a sensation she was unfamiliar with. Insolence. The Beast perched in her thalamus, whispering in tune with her base desires that such mockery made her look weak should it go unpunished, and uncharacteristically she'd given in. "You think that's all this is, don't you," Monroe growled through her teeth, crumpling the vellum in her hands without even reading a quarter of the document. "Some long-sustained tantrum that ya'll think you can just defuse, let it get lost in the tangle of administration."

She felt eyes widening in alarm around her - Little John, never one for confrontation despite his towering mass, put a hand on her forearm as she rose from her seat at the long table. She shook him off as heat flushed through her veins. "You've never taken us seriously, you look at us the same way the Kine see pigs and chickens."

"Respectfully Miss Carter I protest this characterization." He didn't even bother to sound like he believed it; the greasy way he looked down upon them, perched safely on the lap of Maksim's authority. "Every one of your contributions is admired, and the Committee remains dedicated to your protection. There have been some misunderstandings over the past two years, but that is all buried and forgiven; these nights require no less." His carefully manicured smile was poison in their hearts.

"Easy to say when you live in a penthouse on Saxby," Nettletongue pointed out, her voice like a barbed stinger piercing the surface of a pond. "My company never recovered after you provoked Ariadne and the other moon-cursed. You know she did something to my stock - "

"The case is still open Miss Nettle, last I checked with the compensator secretary." The Ventrue gave a genteel gesture toward the serpentine woman seated at Monroe's side. "You can't expect them to proceed without you doing your part in the investigation process."

"How do I prove anything about their weird voodoo beyond what I gave you? You haven't even changed my geld burden, I can barely keep my boats running," She snarled, a shiver coursing through her body from her torso to the tightly-drawn, black braid hanging down her back.

Monroe and most of the Syndicate were well and familiar with this particular casualty of the Cull, that ill-fated conflict with the Lupines that had consumed the previous year. The party line was that it was caused by their natural aggression toward denizens of the night, but everyone blamed everyone else for its ignition in some fashion. The savages had taken something from all of them, their claws dug into operations nobody had even known about... in the case of Nettletongue, who'd 'inherited' a small cargo-. firm from her brother-in-law under strange circumstances, a series of freakish mishaps had resulted in sunken vessels, lost clients and employee death.

"I understand that procedure can be burdensome, but you'll see that going through the proper channels will pay off if you can produce what is required on your end." The way he turned his palm upward to feign a sort of dignified helplessness reminded Monroe of the way one might beckon a dog. "Did not the Pakhan extend to you a loan from his very own pocket?"

Each of them felt the sting from that one - Monroe saw it in Little Sam's bedraggled gaze, shifting from sullen to ice-cold. She saw it in the way Carmine's jaw clenched, the young Ventrue's cracked pride showing through his cool stare. Yes the Pakhan had been terribly generous with his money, a gnarled vine of usury crawling through each of their gardens; typical Bratva he was, when members of her covenant had proven unable to repay the interest he demanded compensation in kind... whether repugnant labor or giving up precious relics of their human lives, at least a quarter of their number carried debt through Maksim.

"Your petitions will be heard, the lords and ladies of both estate and church will attend to whatever ails you as best as their resources can provide. I'll see to it myself." The Overseers' representative changed his tone with enough suddenness to catch most of them off guard - even Monroe had to admit Hann had Windy City politicians beat.

"How can we trust you?" Tucker rose from his seat with a sort of disturbing speed; she could feel the displaced air from his alacrity.

Karl calmly reached into the sleeve of his finely pressed suit, sliding forth a gilded stiletto - a mark of rank granted to all Ancillae in service of the Overseers.

"I hear you. I don't begrudge your mistrust, and I sympathize with your situation." He pressed the tip of the ceremonial blade into his palm, never flinching as a bead of oily crimson welled to the surface. The Ancilla's Vitae caught everyone's attention, like a kennel of hungry dogs focused on a single chop of fresh meat. "I, Karl Hann, solemnly offer this blood-oath. I will deliver your demands to the Overseer Committee, and will work to see them attended to within the month."

A murmur rose among the gathered. For many of the Syndicate's number, such a pledge was as good as any promises they could receive. Even Monroe, were she not in this state of heightened awareness and outrage, might have believed their struggle ended here.

Is this real? Is he actually operating in good faith?

No. Never.

What if this is real? What if... we can avoid more bullshit, more risking our necks and hearts?

Marley thought that.

But -

They will no longer fear you.

He will lie, and all they will remember is your incompetence.

You know what happens if your power fades.

She'd be nothing then. Just another hungry, fanged maw in the night, and with her leadership broken... they'd be free to end her.

Fear of losing the place she'd fought and killed for, of oblivion creeping up on her lain low in the night, took control. He's a liar... he's a snake. Whenever the reformists throw their lot in with the center of power, they lose. You're right... so what should I do?

Show them you do not fear the Elder Dead.

Fine.

"You're a fucking LIAR!"

All eyes were upon her in varying states of shock. She'd been skirting along a complete break with old etiquette for months, but insulting an Ancilla was akin to... well, challenging a cop. Swearing at a priest. The boat upon which they delicately danced lurched with sudden violence in Monroe's direction, dangerously close to the currents of savagery running through every Kindred's heart.

"Carter chill out," she heard Little Sam stage-whisper a few seats down - understandable that she'd be the most frightened of all of them.

"Yeah come on chief, this is an opportunity we haven't had before," muttered Sherman uneasily as a shadow fell over Karl Hann's statuesque visage. No Ventrue relished their authority being challenged.

They're cowards. You know this. Do not stand alone, gurgled The Beast through a mouthful of gore.

This time she'd listened to the susurrating voice because it was right - in a way she'd fired off the first round, and now she needed it to hit home. "That's why we don't get nowhere," she growled at the gathered members of the Syndicate as much as Karl. "Cuz we're putting our faith again in people like him, who're just an extra step to throwing our demands in the trash."

"But there's no other way to get them to hear us, you can't force their hand with idiot anger." Nettletongue, true to her name, did little to quiet her voice. Unknowingly they were simply strengthening the Overseers' noose around their throats, fearing consequences they'd all suffered in one form or another.

Awaken them.

Her Majesty was a Swiss Army Knife for emotion - as apt at rousing desire as it was at kindling anger, the Blood boiled in her heart as her words linked the Syndicate's members to her, mainlining rage into their fearful minds... but as much as she desired, she didn't let it out in a rush of violence yet. Instead, she rose from her seat and trailed to the back of the hallway, which had been turned into a sort of memorial for those who'd fallen for the Cause. She gently removed the small, lacquered wood box containing Marley's remains, carrying it reverently back to her seat to set upon the table.

The strings of their hearts were stretched toward her, hooked on her every move like tense steel springs. Tucker hissed between his teeth at the handling of his best friend's ashes when Monroe slid the lid from the box, tipping it forward to show the gray powder within, hiding a pair of curved white fangs. "This was our representative that we sent to them. None of ya'll knew court manner and ritual like Marley did, and not even half of you were half as good-hearted. They killed him to remind us that we're chattel, and you're concerned that I called their tool out for what he is? You actually trust their creature?"

She twisted the metaphysical wires dug into their amygdalae with each carefully chosen word, each expertly sculpted gesture. "Tucker... you got something you've been wanting to say to them. You've said it to us for months, but here, now, is your chance. Mr. Hann, you wanna hear him out?"

"I am not here to soothe your emotions. I'm here as your last chance to get your message across to your goodly masters," the Ventrue reminded them with the callous dismissal of undeserving nobility. "If you have no demands to levy, then I suggest - "

"Fuck you."

Those words were the second gunshot she'd been waiting for. Tucker was on his feet now - if the Damned could cry, she knew tears of fury would be crawling down his dusky cheeks. "She's right. We cringe and shrink a'fore those liches. We beg for just a bit of relief, and they murder us." The other Brujah slammed his fist on the table, rattling Marley's ash-box, but rather than flinch away she felt the thirty gathered Neonates reeled in, ever closer. "So here's your message you can take back to 'em." A crude gesture followed.

The dam broke.

"Carter's right... we don't have anything to fear from you," Vorath laughed. "Maybe you should turn tail and go back to Maksim, let him know you fucked up by kickin' the hornets' nest." The Gangrel's mirthless smile was a display of fangs that reminded her of an angry mandrill, round green lenses of his shades reflecting Hann's increasingly outraged expression.

Thank you yet again, Vorath. Monroe couldn't help herself. When Karl made eye contact with her she smirked. "Run home to your master before we send you back to him... lotta Kindred here who'd take out on your fool head what Maksim's done to our own."

Technically one could say that hostilities began with him, as his own Beast flashed before his eyes and he uttered a sound not far from a gigantic rattlesnake. Karl's fangs gleamed in the meeting house light as he brought the force of his Dominance down upon her, his command to "Kneel!" as metaphysical as verbal. Perhaps he knew about the Syndicate's cultivated resistance to those sorts of controls and had acted anyway; perhaps he was ignorant.

They didn't need to know that she'd roped him along as well, using her own blood magic to stoke his outrage beyond its restraint.

In a dramatic show of defiance, the whole scene choreographed carefully to reach this point, she called to her brothers and sisters of the Ashland Syndicate to come to her aid. The sight of all two and a half dozen Vampires throwing themselves on the object of her ire nourished the very core of her monstrous being, the rush of power as addictive as nicotine. Tucker's gnarled fists, Nettletongue's chair, Sherman's pipe wrench rose and fell in a rapid-fire rhythm that made her recall Yusuf's music.

Karl Hann, his jaw smashed and his limbs bent at odd angles, had cursed and howled as Sherman hammered a broken chair leg into the ancilla's unholy heart - staking a Vampire was a sight that dredged up something dreadful in the collective human psyche. Like exorcizing a demon, there was a dark ritual to it that many of them had partaken in, for while it did not technically result in a Vampire's Final Death, it came dangerously close. Thrown into torpor, drying beneath his suit into a hollow-cheeked corpse, they'd packed his remains in a wooden crate and tasked one of Vorath's thralls to haul him back to Riverside, at the gate of Pakhan Maksim's mansion.

Caught up in her infectious tumult, the thoroughly roused rabble went forth into the night to hunt, to feed and revel. To fuck and partake with rabid energy in the things that made them more than simple gore-drinking corpses.

Later on, she'd wonder at herself - why had she thought about the dead guitarist in that moment? Of further mystery was the fact that while her Majesty was considerable, she'd never wielded it with that much potency or across such a wide gathering.

The next night, at the weekly Dark Mass...

"These are the teachings of our Dark Saviour: "In a fit of rage I abandoned the city, to wander for many a quiet night. I know not how many times the moon coiled, for I nearly starved in my travels. From time to time a lowly shepherd sated my hellish new thirst, but the wilderness and fields are no place for one such as I..."

The priest droned on, his words becoming a sort of undifferentiated pious mush. Monroe was well and familiar with the Torments of Longinus, the supposed progenitor of their kind. The whole affair struck her as a meager exercise to make sense of senseless creatures such as they, even if she'd once believed fervently that God had a place in mind for them. She knew better now.

Seated in the far row of uncomfortable pews of smooth-carven wood, Monroe was normally able to tune out these de facto mandatory sermons. When the priest finished lecturing them on the virtues of never straying beyond Ashland's borders - a mix of common-sense advice to avoid savage things loping through the shadowy wetlands off the road, and to keep the flock in their place - then would come the Weekly Tithe.

After that, no doubt one of the Enforcers would pluck her forth, dragging her before the Overseers to answer for staking Karl... what had come over her? She'd dreamed of such violent catharsis but to actually act upon it was almost suicidally foolish. Now she cursed herself, dreading whatever they might do to her.

Would she be staked in turn? Would they maim her, perhaps by cutting off an arm like they had with old Strauss? Considering what they'd done to Marley, would she be subject to the worst of punishments, tied to an iron pipe and left out for the sun to consume her?

Monroe squirmed under the burden of it all, distinctly uncomfortable.

Never at home in her Sunday Best, her obsidian-shiny blouse felt as if it was sticking to her skin though she couldn't perspire without the Blush of Life; no reason to maintain it here amidst the other Damned. Even the flowing skirt of modest linen, draping over her crossed knees, somehow felt like a humidity-soaked burden. Every emotion remained sharpened - especially rage, vindictiveness and sensitivity to the injustice she and her kin had been subjected to.

Fear, of course, over her impending punishment.

Carter's attention wandered, her parasitic mind hunting for a solid concept to latch onto; she sought her closer confidants in the Syndicate, spread as they were amidst the Ancillae and those Neonates too weak to join their number.

Seated directly to her left, Tucker gazed sullenly ahead. His stooped form looked gaunt under the faded white of a suit that reminded her of a newscaster in the Nixon Administration. In the pew behind, Nettletongue's sea green turtleneck emphasized her cobra-like aspect, and while she didn't exactly appear starving, Samara was another story. The little Gangrel looked like she'd washed up, tangled in seaweed from the gulf. Her face was drawn and sickly, as if she'd been left in the beach sands for too long.

So many of those under her charge looked similarly ill-tended. Vorath was eyeing the priest's ghoul like an aperitif; Manny was wringing his ring-glittering hands in anxiety; Calda, a pious believer and usually an eager participant in services, stared ahead listlessly.

They were starving.

To the shifting remains of her moral compass, their suffering was an ethical affront. Her conscious mind whirled with frustration at the unfairness of it all - hungry and drained, relegated to hunting grounds where quality prey was only found with tedious effort, their masters drank their Childers' Vitae from the vein. That servants of the Overseers dwelled in downtown opulence and drank from trafficked blood dolls wrankled her; even the blood dolls lived in plush luxury.

The Beast, however, saw an opportunity... a way to avoid, or at least to dilute, the consequences of what they'd done to Karl Hann.

It felt as if the priest was staring directly her way as he traced the end of an ebony wand beneath scripture, inked on parchment as old as Isidoro. His words made the veins in her ears throb. "And I spotted, in the stable yard, a monk of lean and airy countenance, and there he flogged an ass that was clearly too exhausted to move more than an inch with the heavy load it bore. Yet the monk whipped the creature again and again until it collapsed to its knees, weeping and crying rudely for succor. The man's eyes flashed with rage, and he bellowed and frothed at the mouth like a beast. With alacrity I stole his whip from his gnarled hand and turned it upon him. Over and over again the whip met flesh, until there was no flesh left upon him and he begged for my mercy..."

Wrath. How fitting. Had word reached the priest, perhaps, of her unmerciful treatment of Maksim's creature last night?

"Those Kindred who accept the truth of God's plan in their lifeless hearts may study and pray in such a place as I have wrought, and the lifeblood of our divine purpose will flow within their ranks..."

There it was: Torments 35, verses 3 and 4. The signal to rise and give tribute of their heartsblood, that part of the dark mass they all despised regardless of their piety. Heavy red curtains behind the altar drew aside, revealing the Helgethene Chalice - either a priceless old world antique, or a chintzy modern creation depending on whom you asked. It had aspects of both in Monroe's eye, with it's Faberge-gilded rim inset with rubies, as well as the five needle-tipped medical hoses that fed into its base.

The forty-odd Neonates and roughly one dozen Ancillae formed a queue, with Monroe shuffled somewhere near the middle. The pressure of ritual behavior and herd mentality drove her ever closer to the Chalice, above which sat Bishop Odovico on a throne carved from black marble. He extolled a God that had long abandoned this world in Latin, a chant-dirge as five Kindred took places around the Chalice and inserted a needle into their wrists.

The sight was almost hypnotic, that wine-dark blood pumping into the crystalline glass. Each of them were obligated to give five heartbeats worth of their essence, roughly enough to awaken from daysleep three times... given the difficulty of hunting, of attending to their individual dramas, it was a ruinous price.

Not a one of those who paid the Blood Tribute could escape enervation. Each who came away from the grail wore starvation on their faces. Corra Wilson leered outward with glassy blue corpse-eyes, lips pulled back like a maw to reveal the saber sharpness of her growing teeth. Vorath, his token smile replaced by an unwholesome snarl - his black curls usually fell about his face in disarray but now they framed his visage like matted fur. William in his obscuring gray suit, complete with a bowler hat five decades out of style, seemed a piscine shadow, smelled like it too.

Five more ahead of her formed a circle around the vessel, hooking themselves to it as Odovico and a small chorus of blue-robed Ancillae chanted to the low hum of a small pipe organ; she imagined the Bishop's stare beneath his silvery veil from his sunken sockets, hanging over her like a guillotine blade... the pressure made her want to jump out of her skin, to throw a Catechist tome through a window or some other ridiculous outburst. She was yet under this... spell, whatever it was, that was affecting her judgment; rendering her a potent storm where she should have been a barely noticeable doom-zephyr.

After she gave her tithe, drained of strength, she would likely be pulled from the procession, or perhaps snatched off the street and stuffed into a van.

What the hell am I gonna do?

You can't kill them. They are old and grave, you are young prey. The Beast was louder than ever, more lucid than she'd ever heard this aspect of her internal monologue.

If I run and hide they'll find me, and I'll have nothing and nobody when they come.

Sherman's fists clenched behind her, the steely bones in his knuckles popping - his anger was like smelling salts passing under her nose. He wasn't alone either; all neonates despised parting with their hard won blood, and with little to show for it. Imagery of last night's violent staking of Karl played on repeat through her mind unbidden. Such a display of uncivilized behavior offended all, from bottom to top, not just because it reminded everyone of just what they were beneath the pomp and politics. It was a stark message, that should the younger licks find the will to unite they could topple their elders who were few in number; yet the youth's cowardice and self-regard proved a looming bulwark rarely overcome. Easier and safer to scrape by in the muck on vile blood than to risk oblivion for a better eternity.

But as of late Monroe had been able to surmount that wall and directly threaten the Overseers; all she needed was to somehow pull the others up with her and convince them it was their own desire to do so... before she got ashed, of course.

They cannot ash all of us.

'Course not... what's that got to do with anything?

The Beast licked its dry chops, the afterimage of its shadow playing in her mind's eye. Here is our opportunity to thin the blood of their ire. A single blasphemer is burned at the stake and forgotten but three dozen?

Three dozen blasphemers? It alarmed Monroe how quickly she leapt at the opportunity to escape (in)justice without considering the realistic range of her abilities, or the moral implications. To inspire an act of desecration and defiance in church was much harder than simply rousing her people against a single arrogant Ventrue (even if Karl Hann may have very well been negotiating in good faith) as it went against the pious inclinations of at least a third of her Syndicate; her Majesty was no weak thing either, but at best she could incense... ten Kindred at the very most.

We are more than once we were, that red voice reminded her. Torporing their messenger was no fluke.

This was true... she didn't know why, but her command of the Brujah Discipline of Majesty had taken on greater potency; where once she cast her hooks into the sea of minds to catch a few hearts, drawing them in her wake, it was as if she'd come into a barbed net. Why though? How did this happen?

Five steps closer... she was nearly at the sacristy now, her fellow childer stepping away drawn and drained as they trailed past like wraiths.

Time to act.

Her pumps clicked up the smooth staircase to the base of the Bishop's throne; she swore she could see his dried out tongue sliding along his upper lip like some desert predator peeking from its barren lair.

Callow Samara, razor-edged Nettletongue, long-faced Wilhelm, and doughty Mercedes took their places around the goblet with resignation. She felt their eyes upon her - all knew what awaited Monroe Carter beyond the Narthex doors yet not a one emerged from the shadowy eaves of their fear to help her. She, who had sacrificed and suffered to bring them together, to hammer these 30-odd Vampires from broken shards into a threatening knife hovering at their masters' throats.

Monroe held the needle-tipped hose in her grasp as she gazed into the tenebrous blood pooled in the massive goblet. What do I owe them? What have they done for me, after all I've given?

Nothing.

Guided by impulse she'd once chained to the brackets of her better judgment, Monroe Carter stepped to the altar and seized the silver censer that yet reeked of myrrh and olibanum. Before the shocked gazes of all in attendance she whirled it above her head and brought it up and under in a smoking arc. Its flanged head struck the gilded crystal and smashed the whole thing to splinters, a tide of ensorcelled Vitae rushing free to stain the marbles floor of the church. It washed around her ankles and cascaded down the steps to flow among the pews, shocking and scandalizing both the pious and the secular.

Monroe cast the net of her Majesty to land amidst her Syndicate, dragging them along through the headwaters of her thoughts to be washed away by the tide of her anger. Throwing the censer with a clatter at Bishop Odovico's feet, she raised her fist above her head.

"Not a drop more!" She raged, cracking the metaphysical whip of her Majesty. "Not until you meet our demands!"

The first to act - likely out of his inclination toward obeisance as much as smoldering anger at the tithe - was Tucker, who rose from his pew. "She's right - you take and take from us, and offer nothing but bullshit sermons and empty promises!"

Like a chain reaction it spread until Kindred both in the line of procession and those who'd already given were shouting their discontent. Odovico had grown deathly still, clasping his iron staff of authority across his lumpen form as if to shield himself from their choler. Ancillae in the audience, both in fear and anger, attempted to quell the incensed neonates first with sharp tugs of their arms, then with bared fangs and even the scatter-flash of Disciplines. The fury she'd stoked, however, was too great for even those undead to bring to heel.

Monroe watched them, moving to the tune of her dirge d'force. Little John tore a portrait of Saint Angelo the Drake-Slayer from the wall, ripping the priceless art out of its frame. Nettletongue and Vorath had wrestled Nina Santa-Carna, one of Odovico's own get, to the ground and were beating her to a screeching pulp. Even Samara had given in to the affliction of impulse Monroe had slid into her gray matter, slipping golden candlesticks into the voluminous spaces of her sleeves. Amidst it all was a tumult of angry shouting that in the end culminated in their many voices crying out at once: "not a drop more!"

Her shoes making sticky sounds as she turned in the spilt Vitae, Monroe regarded Bishop Odovico once more. As his church shattered and broke around him, she expected the rotting old cadaver to censure her at the least, or perhaps even make a move to end her unlife - grotesque he may have been, but such an old predator was a match for far stronger Kindred than Monroe.

To her surprise, he tipped his head forward, a rattling corpse-sigh in his throat suggesting... sorrow perhaps. He rose, and as was the wont of many a Nosferatu, simply disappeared from her perceptions, leaving his throne empty.

She once again found her mind drifting toward Yusuf and his song of destruction as she ascended the steps and, in defiance of previous restraint and long lost deference to the law of the Black Clergy, seated herself upon Odovico's high backed chair. It was cold and hard, and it smelled like corpse ash, aged linen and blood. In spite of that she found herself smiling with mirth.

There was no stopping them now that every one of them was a blasphemer, a heretic.

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