The Rail Baron — Wednesday, 16 January 1991, 11:30 PM

Thu, 17 Jan 1991 00:00:00 +0000

Union Station Marshalling Yards / Drummond’s Warehouse / Succubus Club

Chicago, Illinois

The Cutlass south on Canal Street. Rain on the windshield and the city thinning out — lower buildings, fewer lights, the geometry of track and siding asserting itself through the dark. Union Station glowed to the north. The marshalling yards spread south.

Darius counted police. Two cruisers at the first intersection. An unmarked van at the south freight entrance, engine running, no lights. A K9 unit walking the fence line on Lumber Street. Lodin’s cordon, facing outward, watching for a terrorist threat that didn’t exist.

Annabelle's Party — Wednesday, 16 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Wed, 16 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

Succubus Club, Private Lounge

Chicago, Illinois

Rain on the Succubus Club’s awning, eight o’clock on a Wednesday, and America was going to war. The doorman held the door and didn’t offer an umbrella and Sable climbed the narrow stairs to the private lounge where the air changed. Cooler. The particular silence of a room where nobody breathed.

Sir Henry waited at the top of the landing. Dark suit, burgundy pocket square. He took her arm and said she looked extraordinary and it wasn’t flattery — it was a warning. Thirty Kindred in the lounge above, candles on exposed brick, a baby grand piano against the far wall. Annabelle Triabell stood beside it in conversation with something very old — Critias, Brujah Primogen, whose patience was measured in millennia. She wore something cream-colored and simple that cost more than a season’s rent at the Allerton, and when she laughed every head in the room turned toward the sound.

Chapter 6 — Annabelle's Party on Chicago Chronicles

The Rail Baron — Wednesday, 16 January 1991, 11:30 PM

Annabelle's Party — Wednesday, 16 January 1991, 4:35 PM