Ashes-and-Blood on Chicago Chronicles

The Delivery — Tuesday, 22 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Tue, 22 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

Wabash Avenue / Blue Island Avenue / Indiana Avenue

Chicago, Illinois

The delivery driver was parked on a side street off Wabash with his dome light on and a clipboard in his lap. Late thirties. Heavy through the shoulders. The Cutlass Ciera had a lender’s sticker in the rear window and an expired city sticker on the windshield, and the magnetic sign for Gino’s East was peeling off the driver’s door in the cold.

The Assessment — Monday, 21 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Mon, 21 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

Succubus Club

Chicago, Illinois

The snow on Wabash had the quality of something that wanted to be forgotten. Thin, grey, laid down on pavement already black with salt and melt, tracked through by boots that had somewhere better to be. Monday night. The federal holiday had cleared the office towers and left the street to cabs and delivery trucks and the particular emptiness of a city that had stopped working but hadn’t yet started drinking. Sable parked two blocks north of the Club and walked, because the walk was the preparation, and because at thirty-three degrees the cold put color in her cheeks that would fade once the vitae settled. She timed it. Walked in while she still looked alive.

The Old Neighborhood — Sunday, 20 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Sun, 20 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

Robert Taylor Homes / CHA Utility Tunnels / Nosferatu Freight Tunnels / South Side

Chicago, Illinois

The Dan Ryan south of Chinatown, rain hardening to sleet against the windshield. No moon — or a moon behind cloud so thick it might as well have been no moon. The city fell away north. Steel mills lit the horizon behind her like a distant war, the way they’d always lit it, the way they’d lit it when she was seven years old riding the bus south from downtown and her mother pointed and said, that’s Gary, and Gary is where things get made, and that’s why it’s ugly. Denise knew things about beauty and ugliness that Sable was still working out.

An Unexpected Meeting — Friday, 18 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Fri, 18 Jan 1991 16:35:00 +0000

Palmer House / Sherwin-Williams Building / The Cave / North Side / Succubus Club / South Pilsen

Chicago, Illinois

The Palmer House smelled like brass polish and old money and the quiet desperation of men who’d come to Chicago to sell buildings nobody wanted to buy.

Darius found him at the bar. Third stool from the end. The convention lanyard was still around his neck — MIDWEST REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT FORUM — but the badge was turned backward, as though the man had already given up on being recognized. Craig Hessler. Mid-forties. The kind of suit that fit better when the market did.

The Railroad Eccentric — Thursday, 17 January 1991, 4:35 PM

Thu, 17 Jan 1991 16:35:01 +0000

Clark/Division / Pedway / Succubus Club / Tremere Chantry

Chicago, Illinois

The bookkeeper from Ravenswood had been alone at a bar called Sterch’s with three bourbons past his credit limit and a wedding ring he kept turning with his thumb. Tomas took him in the alley behind the kitchen. Two points. Clean puncture, licked and sealed, the man back on his stool before the ice in his fourth drink settled. The blood sat in Tomas like ballast — warm weight distributed evenly through the chassis, hunger pushed to a distance where it became data instead of imperative.

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.

The Starlite — Friday, 11 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Fri, 11 Jan 1991 16:28:00 +0000

Starlite Motel / Cottage Grove / North Side / Clark Street

Chicago, Illinois

The Starlite Motel smelled like the last tenant and the one before that and the one before that. Room 9. Dishwater curtains, a radiator that clanked every forty seconds, an ice machine at the end of the hall that cycled on the hour. Twenty-eight dollars a night, paid cash, no questions asked.

Darius opened his eyes to water stains he’d memorized three nights ago and lay still for ten seconds, listening. The building talked to itself — pipes, wind, the couple in Room 7 watching something with a laugh track. He sat up. The .357 was where he’d left it. The garment bag hung in the closet with the micro-cassettes stitched into the lining. His watch read 4:52. Sunset twenty-four minutes ago.

The Debrief — Thursday, 10 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Thu, 10 Jan 1991 16:28:01 +0000

Tremere Chantry / Succubus Club / Near North Side Chicago, Illinois

The parlor smelled like binding glue and radiator dust. Nicolai sat in the wingback chair with a volume of Thucydides open on his lap, the Greek text angled toward the lamp. A ten-year-old boy in wool trousers and a cardigan buttoned to the throat, legs not reaching the floor. The eyes were wrong. They’d been wrong for six hundred years.

Tomás closed the front door behind him and stood at the threshold until the ward pulsed once against his sternum and released. He crossed to the center of the room and delivered the report standing.

The Succubus Club — Thursday, 10 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Thu, 10 Jan 1991 16:28:00 +0000

Allerton Hotel / Clark Street / Succubus Club Chicago, Illinois

She woke to the sound of the radiator and Michigan Avenue below, muffled under an inch of new snow. Six-twelve by the clock on the nightstand (the Allerton put real clocks in the rooms, brass and glass, the kind of hotel detail that survived from the era when guests expected to be treated like guests and not like credit-card numbers in transit). The phone hadn’t rung. Not Modius, not the Gary chain, not anyone.

The Nightclub — Wednesday, 9 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Wed, 09 Jan 1991 16:28:00 +0000

Succubus Club / Starlite Motel Chicago, Illinois

They took the Buick. Sable drove. Michigan Avenue to State Street, the lake wind cutting between buildings like it owned the corridor. The Succubus Club’s neon bled pink and violet onto wet pavement.

Wednesday was looser than Tuesday. The doorman waved them through. Sable touched Darius’s elbow – a gesture, not a grip – and moved toward the back corridor. Modius first. Then the room.

Darius took the bar.

The Recruiter — Tuesday, 8 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Tue, 08 Jan 1991 16:28:00 +0000

Succubus Club / North Side / Allerton Hotel Chicago, Illinois

The Starlite Motel smelled like the last tenant and the one before that. Room 9: dishwater curtains, a radiator that clanked every forty seconds, an ice machine at the end of the hall that cycled on the hour. Darius had catalogued every sound the building made in two nights of waiting for a phone call that never came.

He showered. Dressed. Checked the .357 in the nightstand and left it. The micro-cassettes stayed in the garment bag lining. Two nights since Hell’s Pasture. Two nights since Lodin looked him in the eye and said he’d have word before dawn. The silence wasn’t absence. It was architecture.

Appetite — Sunday, 6 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Sun, 06 Jan 1991 16:28:00 +0000

Succubus Club / Allerton Hotel Chicago, Illinois — January 6, 1991

The line outside the Succubus Club went around the corner on State Street and she stood in it for exactly as long as it took the bouncer to see her face, which was four seconds. The velvet rope opened the way velvet ropes had opened for her since before the Embrace, since the first fake ID and the first borrowed dress and the first door that decided she was worth more inside than out. She didn’t look back at the people still waiting. She never looked back at the people still waiting.

Hell's Pasture — Friday, 4 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Fri, 04 Jan 1991 16:28:00 +0000

Starlite Motel / West Side / Hell’s Pasture / Drake Hotel Chicago, Illinois — January 4, 1991

The body in the bathtub hadn’t moved in twelve hours. Same position, same folded arms, same parchment skin pulled tight over Mediterranean cheekbones. Sable had arranged the hands that way — crossed at the wrists, some instinct about the dead she’d picked up from a life spent around people who weren’t alive enough to know the difference. The onyx pendant sat in the hollow of the throat. The fluorescent buzzed overhead.

Fool's Errand

Thu, 03 Jan 1991 05:00:00 +0000

Piccadilly London, England — October 1969

The auction house was dark except for a light in the back. A gentleman in a waistcoat with a cup of tea and a paperback novel. The transfer confirmed. A brown paper package tied with string. Sign here, please. Thank you, sir.

Roarke pushed the door open. The bell chimed. He stepped onto the pavement.

A half-second of wrongness. The street was too quiet for Piccadilly at seven. The couple was gone. A car idled at the far kerb with its lights off.

The Auction

Thu, 03 Jan 1991 04:00:00 +0000

Piccadilly / Mayfair Hotel London, England — October 1969

Roarke took Natasha. Black cab to Piccadilly. The auction house was a narrow shopfront between a tailor and a tobacco merchant – dark wood, brass fittings, glass cases full of naval memorabilia. A viewing area. A dozen men in tweed. Cold cuts and tea in proper cups.

He found it in the back corner. Lot 47. Admiral Tourney’s journal. The right-hand page, near the bottom, in handwriting that had gone tight and private: My greatest delight, though, was a memo from A relating that another fragment of the so-called Book of Nod has been – and the page ended there.

Pawns in the Game

Thu, 03 Jan 1991 03:00:00 +0000

Queen Anne’s Mansion South London — October 1969

At 5:47 the bedroom door opened and Lodin stepped out in the suit from the blue suitcase. He listened to the report without interrupting. The customs inspector, the Mesmerize, the hotel, the call. He was quiet for three seconds after Roarke finished.

The Mesmerize. One use?

One use. On a mortal.

Adequate.

He fed somewhere in Mayfair with Natasha and Derek. Came back at quarter past eight with color under his skin. Changed into an evening suit that fit like it had been made for him in this city, which it probably had. Then: all of you, with me, we’re expected.

Settling In

Thu, 03 Jan 1991 02:00:00 +0000

Heathrow Airport / Mayfair London, England — October 1969

They landed at Heathrow at 7:14 AM. October light – thin, watery, apologetic – slanting across wet tarmac. The ground crew directed the Learjet to a private hangar, a long building with high windows that turned the morning into a weapon. Sunlight poured through the glass and puddled on the concrete floor in pale sheets.

The crate sat in the cargo area. Brass fittings catching the light like coins at the bottom of a fountain.

The Trip

Thu, 03 Jan 1991 01:00:00 +0000

O’Hare Airport / Airborne — Atlantic Chicago to London — October 1969

The next evening they loaded the Lincoln Continental and drove for O’Hare. Derek at the wheel. Lodin behind tinted glass. Roarke rode shotgun watching the mirrors the way he’d been watching mirrors since before the Model T.

He saw the tail fifteen minutes in. Dark sedan, two cars back, professional spacing. It had been there since Lake Shore Drive. When traffic compressed at the Circle interchange and every other car bunched together, the sedan held its gap. Wrong behavior. Natasha saw it too. Derek saw it when they told him.

At Ease in the Windy City

Thu, 03 Jan 1991 00:00:00 +0000

Lodin’s Penthouse, The Gold Coast Chicago, Illinois — October 1969

The television was on when Roarke came back from checking the windows. Cronkite. The Moratorium – half a million people on the Mall with their signs and their candles and their belief that holding a placard changes the wiring underneath.

Derek had his boots on the coffee table. Natasha had her Walther field-stripped on a white cloth at the dining table. Julian read the Financial Times in the wingback chair nearest the vault door, one ear cocked toward the steel like a dog waiting for its master’s whistle. Amber was in the kitchen. Garlic and wine and something French.

Rescued from Victory — Nights 3-4, January 1991

Wed, 02 Jan 1991 23:00:00 +0000

Sears Tower / Wacker Drive / West Side 7-11 / Tell It All Offices / Standdown’s Warehouse / Starlite Motel Chicago, Illinois — January 2-4, 1991

They woke in a dead man’s room and the cold had gotten in while they slept — not through the walls (the walls were concrete and steel and built to hold a Prince) but through the glass at the end of the hallway, where January pressed itself against the 107th floor and the radiator had quit because the only person who knew how to fix it was Julian Curry and Julian Curry was in the office down the hall with a bullet through his head.

Vacant Haven — Wednesday, 2 January 1991, 9:30 PM

Wed, 02 Jan 1991 21:30:00 +0000

Sears Tower, 107th Floor — Lodin’s Haven Chicago, Illinois

The town car pulled away from Daley’s and Sable counted the seconds before anyone spoke. Belthazar sat in the front passenger seat with his coat folded across his knees. He hadn’t looked at either of them since the restaurant. The driver was a ghoul with the stillness of someone who had been told not to listen, not to remember, and not to exist unless the car needed turning.

Dinner with Ballard — Wednesday, 2 January 1991, 4:29 PM

Wed, 02 Jan 1991 16:29:00 +0000

Daley’s Restaurant, Gold Coast Chicago, Illinois

The ghoul held the car door at the Hyatt’s lower entrance, and the cold came in like a blade — sixteen degrees and dropping, the kind of January that turns breath to glass before it leaves your mouth. Sable slid into the back seat. Darius followed. Neither spoke. The town car smelled like Armor All and something botanical, an air freshener that cost more than her first month’s rent on State Street.

Welcome to Chicago — Tuesday, 1 January 1991, 4:28 PM

Tue, 01 Jan 1991 16:28:00 +0000

Skyway / Succubus Club / The Cave / Field Museum / Soldier Field Chicago, Illinois

The Skyway was two lanes of frozen asphalt and the skyline getting closer. Gary shrank in the rearview mirror the way a bruise fades — slowly, and you kept touching it to make sure.

Twenty-five minutes. That was the distance between a dying city of seven vampires and a living one with a hundred. The Wastelands rolled past the windows on both sides — tank farms, refineries bleeding orange flame into the January dark, the skeletal remains of factories that had closed before either of them learned to hunt. The Cutlass rattled over expansion joints. Behind it, Sable’s Buick held a steady two car lengths.