Time: Tuesday afternoon, October 22. The day after Jim and Blair have visited Camera della Luna and learned about the Kindred.
"Ellison, " Jim answers the phone from his new desk. His first "full" day with the San Francisco Police Department will be tomorrow. This morning has taken care of weapons qualification and he really has nothing on the docket for the evening except reviewing the files on the cases he has been assigned to take over.
"Jim, it's Cash. Do you have a couple hours you can spare me?" The voice on the phone is crisp, one professional talking to another.
"Well, there's nothing really urgent here right now. Why?" Jim is leery, this man, the Kindred, the "vampire", both draws him in and repels him.
"I'd like to take you to our Armory and get you something powerful enough to stop one of us. Police issue ammo just doesn't cut it."
"I'll bet," Jim mutters under his breath. Blair Sandburg, his partner, cocks an eyebrow at the detective. Jim mouths, "Cash." to the observer and the detective's heart falls as Blair perks up and gestures for the phone, his face alight with questions. Sandburg is fascinated by the Kindred, considering them a cross between an unknown culture and his favorite erotic fantasy.
"Blair says 'hi'. He wants to talk to you." Jim reluctantly hands over the phone, but unashamedly listens in on his partner's part of the call.
"Hi, Cash," Blair almost bounces in his seat. "Got your e-mail, thanks, man."
"No problem, ask anything you want. Like I said, I'm treating you like a favored fledgling - like I wish I had been treated - nothing's off limits. Let's get together for lunch or dinner sometime later this week and I'll show you the wolf thing. But today I'm taking Jim to get him some additional firepower. Unless you want the 'surefire ways to kill a Kindred' lecture..."
"No thanks. I *hate* guns," Blair interjects. "I'll wait till we meet for lunch."
"Okay, see you then, oh insatiably curious one." Cash gently teases the inquisitive anthropologist.
"Bye, Cash, here's Jim." Blair hands the phone back with a grin.
"Jim, did you and Blair drive in together today? If so, I'll pick you up so he's not stranded. I can drop you off afterwards wherever you need to be."
"Yeah, that would be good, meet you out front of the station in a half hour."
++ Later ++
Blair waves as he peels off to head for the employee parking area as a sleek black Lexus LX 470 pulls up, Cash behind the wheel.
"What, no Harley?" Jim inquires as he opens the passenger door.
"I don't like getting soaked any better than the next guy, Jim, and it'll probably *pour* in an hour or so from the way the clouds are moving in. By the way, you guys watch out on the hills in the rain. This town's real hard on cars and the streets get oil slick after a light rain." Cash dons his dark glasses against the fading light as he pulls the truck away from the curb.
Jim settles into his seat and observes the driver. The alert posture and the deft handling of the truck reassure him somewhat. A siren screams in the distance and first Jim and then Cash automatically track it before it would have been audible to a normal mortal. "How is it for you, the hearing?" Jim inquires, his own enhanced senses are sometimes overwhelming.
"Sirens make me want to howl, they *hurt* my ears. You probably have a longer range than most Kindred, but it's a lot the same, except we don't 'zone' on sensations. By the way, does Blair have a copy of the self published Burton monograph? I found TWO of them in the library, I'm sure Julian could spare one of them."
"Looked us up?"
"Just returning the favor." Cash grins back. "Interesting reading, if a little dryly academic for my tastes."
"Thesis-speak." Jim shudders in sympathy.
The truck is moving through an industrial area now, increasingly shabby warehouses line the darkening streets. "Rough neighborhood," Jim comments.
"Yep, but discrete. I need to warn you about the guy that runs our Armory. He's Kindred - Malkavian, one of the few in the city, they don't even have a primogen on the council. They are crazy, the whole damn clan. Something in their blood, if they aren't insane before their Embrace, they are afterwards. Marcus was a Vietnam era vet..." Cash's voice trails off and he grimaces, tapping his forehead, "He didn't quite make it out of the jungle. If you know what I mean." The Gangrel slants a hard glance over at the ex-Army Ranger, "But then both of us know how *that* can happen. But he was a good soldier and a good man, so we put up with him." Cash pulls up in front of a dilapidated warehouse, its exterior only marginally better maintained than the derelict buildings on either side. "Come on, Ellison."
"Okay to bring a weapon in?" Jim inquires coolly.
Cash gives a bark of laughter at that. At Jim's questioning glance, he explains, "I asked Julian the same thing the first time he brought me here. I was packing about four kinds of steel, some in places I didn't really want him to see at the time. It's cool. I'd be surprised if you were *ever* unarmed." Cash pulls open his leather jacket to display a shoulder holster.
Jim is unsurprised to see that the holster is worn, the weapon set at just the right angle for a quick draw. "Hope you have a license for that."
"Private security license. I *do* try to follow the mortal law as much as I can, Jim." Cash leads the way to the door. Jim's ultra sensitive hearing catches movement inside, and a very slow heartbeat. [Kindred.]
The door is opened just a slit. "Cash," a cracked voice whispers. "You cannot bring a mortal here."
"Marcus, he comes under the prince's hand. You can trust him." Cash reassures the shadowy figure.
"He will be one of us." The door opens a little wider and bright, furtive eyes peer at the tall Sentinel.
"Perhaps." Cash soothes.
"I know, I saw it." The door swings open, the figure scuttles away into the shadows, though Jim can track him by the sound of his movements and the slightly coppery scent that he is coming to identify as Kindred.
Cash bolts the door behind them and moves to a counter set in the center of the first room. "Today's not a good day for him, I guess. He isn't usually nearly this paranoid, and he's having 'visions' again. I'll tell Daedalus and he can make up a potion. Daedalus is our healer, our medic. There are Kindred doctors, but I trust the Nosferatu more."
Cash goes behind the counter, taking down what appears to be a shotgun and a couple boxes of shells. "What do you like to carry? We can do this two ways, shells for a gun you already have or a new piece. I'll warn you, these are phosphorus, like mini flares, and they are hell on a gun. I recommend a separate piece, but then you have to remember which one to draw." He looks up, inquiring.
"Yes, a separate weapon, I'd rather not have to replace my service piece." Jim pats his own holster. "But flares? Isn't that kind of overkill?"
"Jim, we are hard to take out. Wounds that would demolish a mortal barely slow us down. Decapitation." Cash pulls a long, wicked, bent blade from the back waistband of his jeans and slaps it onto the counter. Jim recognizes an Indian Ghurka blade. "Wooden stake through the heart to immobilize us and then leave us in the sun to spontaneously combust." A twist of the Gangrel's left wrist and a black spike joins the blade on the counter. [Throwing blade, probably ebony.] Jim thinks. "Burn us to death, either open flame or chemical burning will work " Cash lays his gun on the counter next to his other weapons. "Those are the methods." He grins up at Jim, "but *not* all my weapons."
Jim nods, he wouldn't show Cash his 'last resort' either. [Boot blade or ankle holster --or both -- I'll bet.] Jim picks up a part of the Gangrel's lecture, "You said, 'In the sun'... I've seen you in the sun."
"Yeah, but not for long, and it was probably an overcast day. Healthy and well-fed, we can tolerate sunlight for short periods of time. Hurt, bleeding, hungry, we burn. It's the favorite way to commit suicide for us. Fast a couple of days and... 'take a walk into the sunrise' is the euphemism."
Cash loads two shells into the shotgun and picks up the box. "Want to go on back to the range and try this out?" He strips off his jacket, displaying a spring loaded sheath on one forearm, he twists the throwing spike in with a practiced movement, holsters his handgun and slips the clip sheath into the back of his waistband.
Jim nods, trying to reconcile this flint-eyed warrior efficiently rearming himself with the submissive lover kneeling at the Kindred prince's side two days before. "Cash, can I ask you a personal question?" he blurts out as they move toward a door at the back of the room.
"Sure, won't promise to answer, man, but you can ask." Cash replies as he precedes the mortal into the range area.
Jim distantly admires the play of muscle under the tight black tee-shirt of his companion. [Like Blair, short, compact, but masculine.] "What's the deal with you and Julian? The way you knelt by him....." Jim's voice trails off, rather embarrassed.
"Kinda over the top, wasn't I?" an impish grin and a twinkle in the eye showing the Kindred to be anything but offended. "Julian was really ticked at me for talking to you, and I was, uh, trying to placate him with an excess of formality." He pauses. "I *did* break the Masquerade with you. If he had wanted to, Julian would have been within his rights to call a Bloodhunt - a formal execution - on me. He's been forced to do it to his own childe."
Cash pauses again, letting that sink in. "How do *you* react when Blair puts himself in danger recklessly?"
Jim nods, thinking of times he had wanted to paddle some sense into his partner, of the times he had pinned him to the side of a squad car, in his face, shaking with fear that the *next* time Blair wouldn't make it
through, of the time he almost didn't. "I can see that he would be furious with you, but why the submission?"Cash's mind clicks, realizing the connection Jim is making. "It's not submission, at least not in the S&M sense." [Well, not for *all* Kindred.] "It's more a thing of power and status. Hey, if you live for centuries, compound interest alone will make you wealthy. So money isn't a big deal with us." [Yeah, right, for those who *have* it.] He pauses.
"But power, Jim, real power... is something money can't buy. That's why the very formal manners, like kissing the prince's hand and swearing on my ring as primogen are important." Cash displays the ring that Jim had noticed on the Gangrel's hand, a wolf's head in front of a full moon. "Manners like that are just layered with the tokens of power. *Every* Kindred that comes formally into Julian's presence kisses his ring. There is a reason we call him the *Prince*; it's a feudal relationship."
Jim considered this carefully. "As Blair would say, 'multiple layers of cultural meaning' - he'll want to know all about the status stuff. Figuring out how it all works together is what he loves the best. He's fascinated by you all. Go on."
[Just *how* far do I go in explaining this?] "Julian's my lover. I think that much was obvious the other night," he starts, taking in a deep breath. "But he *likes* power." [Boy, is that an understatement.] Cash suppresses a chuckle. "We also share a blood bond," he continues, noticing Jim's quizzical expression. "It's too complicated to explain right now, but he *owns* me in ways that a mortal dom could only dream of."
Jim arches an eyebrow, considering the possibilities before mentally clamping down on them. Cash quickly adds, "Of course, it's mutual, and I do 'top' sometimes, but mostly we're just like any lovers ... peers." He shrugs. "Actually, you probably won't see me like that again. We try not to flaunt that we're lovers, more because I'm Gangrel than because I'm a man." Cash looks up at Ellison, seeing how all this is being digested.
"I was hoping that seeing me submit to Julian like that would make you feel like we, Kindred, were less of a threat. Hey, it worked too... I think ... well, at least until I touched Blair." That impish grin slides across his face again.
"Yeah, sorry I shouted at you." Jim is vaguely disappointed at the thought of never seeing Cash and Julian together as lovers, never again seeing the Ventrue's long elegant fingers twisting in the Gangrel's unruly hair. Abruptly, Ellison shakes his head, shaking off the feeling, uneasily aware that he had verged on zoning on the memory.
"It's all right, I wasn't thinking. You don't really know me yet, and let's just say that had it been you with Julian hurt, I'd have been in your face in less than a heartbeat. Anybody gets to him only *through* me." Cash's voice is hard, thinking of the times when he hadn't been there, new to the job, distracted by Sasha or left behind unwillingly.
"Jim, there's one piece of this, though, that's entirely personal." [Confession time, he's not far off base with the D&S stuff.] "I'm the Gangrel primogen, the leader of the clan. I make decisions every day that can mean life or death for nearly fifty people. They *all* owe me that same allegiance that I owe to the prince. 'Primogen' also means I'm on the prince's council, one of the five or six most powerful Kindred in the city. I'm head of security for Julian's businesses and the Luna Foundation. That's part of my job too, I'm not just a bodyguard. I can delegate most of that, thank the gods, but I still have oversight. All of that's a lot of responsibility."
"When Julian permits me to lay those burdens down at his feet, you bet I jump at it. Imagine giving over control, surrendering, not needing to be the one in charge, not needing to be responsible for anything more than pleasing your lord and master. Imagine if it was Blair and the *only* important thing was to serve his every need and be entirely focused on him."
A bolt of arousal slams through the Sentinel, to *focus* on his Guide to the exclusion of everything else would be heaven. [Or to have Blair focused on me like that.] At Cash's mischievous grin, Jim realizes that the Gangrel has done to him exactly what he has done to suspects, made an outrageous statement just to see what the physical reaction would be. [Bet my heart's going like a trip hammer and *scent*... Shit.]
"Cash, you are a dangerous man." Jim growls.
"Ellison, you have no idea." Cash quips back, but with a smile to take the sting out of the words.
The End
