Basil and Plischelle led them into the house. Taliavanova went in first, then Jean-Luc Davros, followed by Buckaroo Tokusatsu and Taurial Lily. Jetta, apprehensive and tense-looking, and Mystikite, followed them — with Mystikite trying his best to look nonchalant — and then Elphion, steely-eyed and determined, led in Phineas, who seemed overcautious, his broadsword drawn and at the ready, and then Naruto, whose eyes darted all around the place nervously, his gaze seeking purchase, but finding none. The interior decorators of this place — they must’ve all been Vampires of different eras — seemed to have mismatched the decor a bit.
The foyer they entered had a red and black tile floor, and an ancient-looking, arched wooden frame encasing the crystal-glass-windowed wooden front doors. That led into the living room on the left, luxuriously furnished in modern kitsch. The walls of the house were of oak and red-stained cherry wood, and there were framed movie posters on every wall . . . Old science fiction films from every era, with no thought to whether they “belonged” together: The Day The Earth Stood Still, next to The Matrix, next to War of the Worlds, next to The Time Machine, next to The Fly, next to This Island Earth. And everywhere, there were Vampires milling about — three on the couch; two reading books, one watching a movie on the television (Christopher Nolan’s Inception), and taking notes as he did so.
Another two Vampires stood in the kitchen, casting stares their way as they entered. And another one coming down the stairs, who froze as they stepped into the foyer, and as Naruto politely closed the door behind him. Those Vampires in the dining room, to their right, all looked up from their conversation and their dinners — it looked like they were sucking the blood from rabbits and other small animals — and looked their way, as well. Gulp. Nothing like being the center of attention!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Basil — in a louder voice than was probably necessary — “I have an announcement to make. Come on you lot, listen up! I have found the Chosen One. I repeat: I have found the Chosen One.” Whispers and gasps and murmurs floated through the house. A few more Vampires quickly came out of the rooms on the three floors above them that lined the walls visible on the other side of the staircase as it spiraled up and into the rest of the house. They hung onto the banister, and onto Basil’s every word. “And he’s brought some friends with him. I’d like you all to welcome Mystikite, the Chosen One himself. Jetta, his friend. And her friends, Elphion, Phineas, and . . . Naruto.”
The murmurs, whispers, and shocked mutterings grew in volume. One of the Vampires in the dining room raised his hand, as though he were a student in a classroom. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and a brown wool sweater-vest, and brown slacks, over an otherwise immaculate white shirt that had a single crimson bloodstain on the collar. He dabbed at the blood around his mouth with a napkin with his free hand.
“Yes, Percival?” said Basil. “This isn’t the University. You don’t have to raise your hand to speak.”
“Do you mean Naruto as in the anime character?”
Naruto grinned, shoved his hands in his pockets, and shuffled his feet as he stared at them. “Uh — uh — uh, y — yeah,” he said. “I was — was cosplaying as him. As i — i — if you c — couldn’t tell.”
“So you came from FantazmagoriCon?” said the female Vampire sitting next to Percival.
“Er, yeah,” said Mystikite. “We came from the con. I was . . . cosplaying a Vampire character I created called Mystikite Elric when I was injured, and Jetta here . . . turned me.” Damn . . . did that sound as totally lame coming out of his mouth as it had in his head? He re-ran it in his mind. Yup, sure did. “It’s a long story. But it’s one you might want to hear. No. I think it’s one you need to hear.”
“We’re all ears,” said Basil. “So pull up a seat — all of you, around the dining room table there — and tell us. Tell us, how you came to be here among us. We’ll listen.” He cast his voice louder, to the rest of the house. “Won’t we?”’
His summons was like a magnet. The other Vampires all around them got up from whatever they were doing, wherever they were, and came toward them, filing into the dining room, one by one, until twenty or twenty-five of them stood in the room, packed in, none of them taking the six unoccupied chairs at the table, reserving those for Mystikite and his friends, and Basil.
Well, he guessed, if the invitation is there . . .
Mystikite sighed a heavy sigh, sat down — the others joined him moments later, gradually — and then he began. Where the hell did you even start with something like this? He had always been a storyteller at heart — it was why he loved roleplaying games so much — and secrets were of no use now; especially not those of his Human life. So, he started with his job at Mechanology, and his work on the NeuroScape. What it was; what it did; building Astrid; what she was now. Who Viktor was, and what had happened to him all those years ago. That part took a while to explain; who Walter was, the serum, who Dizzy was. Ravenkroft. Who he was, what he had done . . . and the army he had created. And then he moved onto his friendship with Gadget, and Zo?. He talked a lot about Zo?; how much he loved her, how beautiful she was, how he missed her already . . . before finally winding back around to Gadget, and his illness, and the invention of the Dr. Manhatten Helmet, and what it could do. And Gadget’s integration of it with the NeuroScape. How that worked, what it did. Then their meeting Dizzy, and the con . . . and what had happened there tonight. And how Jetta had saved him. Then, Jetta told her story. And Elphion, hers. Then Phineas, and Naruto. And so on. Before long, five hours had passed them by . . . and the sun was shining beyond the thick black blankets raised over all the windows. The other Vampires all listened with rapt attention to his tale, none of them stirring, except to suck on the carcasses of the animals before them. Or to sip blood from the wine-glasses arrayed on the table. Some stared at him in disbelief.
But the tale that attracted the most attention was Jetta’s. That she was not in fact a “natural” Vampire. That she had been manufactured, in a laboratory. Created, by Human hands. Engineered.
“Dear gods . . . he really is the Chosen One, then!” breathed Plischelle, when Jetta had finished talking, and she laughed a little. ‘Born from the Touch of one who has never known the Touch, from the Blood of one made by Alchemy and not by any Blood of the Heart!’ It is him, Basil! It is!”
“Yes,” said Basil. “It is.”
“Basil,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder, “we’re saved. It can all end now!”
“That’s it,” said Mystikite. He stood up. “Can someone please explain this ‘Chosen One’ shit to me? Like, in plain English? I’m getting a little tired of hearing myself referred to as some kind of damned messiah when I don’t even know what the hell I’m even doing, okay? So could one of you — please — sit down and tell me what the hell you’re all talking about?”
“Of course, of course,” said Basil. He sat down opposite Mystikite. “You want answers. I can provide them. First, know this. The Vampire Kingdom has existed for millennia, side by side with the Human — or Mortal — Realm. Ours exist beneath the Human world, just out of sight. We call the veil we draw across our society the Fa?ade; we pretend to be Humans, and we hide in plain sight among Humans. Our influence over their society — the tendrils of our influence — stretch deep into their society’s roots and infrastructure. The two are irrevocably interwoven. ”
“Gee that’s comforting,” said Mystikite.
“W — wow,” said Naruto. “J — just like the movies! And the game!”
“That’s more true than you know,” said Basil, smiling a cryptic smile.
“You can say that again,” said Taliavanova.
“Indeed,” said Jean-Luc.
“Ni-bai ni,” said Buckaroo Tokusatsu.
“Right,” said Taurial Lily. “You’d better tell them everything, Basil.”
“Right,” said Basil. “Yes.” He cleared his throat, and folded his hands before him. “There are, within the Vampire Kingdom, ten Great Families of Vampires . . . nine of them from each of eight great nations of the world — and then one other — and each one has an associated Noble House. Ours, my Family, which I will get to in a moment, is the ‘one other.’ First, there are the Zuzhòu, from China, whose Noble House is House Yanluowang. Then there are the Ilusistulu, from Egypt, who belong to House Anubis. Next come the Krovavyfeyri, of Russia, who are of House Chernobog. Then we have the Kwekawosì, who reside here in the New England territories, and are of House Glocester. Next are the Skadegamutak, who hail from the West coast of America, out in California, and are of Lodge Mojave. Then come the Blutmagieria, of Germany, whose Noble House is the House Fólkvangr. Then in France, there are the Démons de la Malédiction du Sang, who are of House La Fey. And in Scotland, the Abhartachana, of House Cúchulainn. And finally, in Romania, we find the reclusive Carodejnícikravi, whose Noble line finds its home in House Mesyats.”
“Wow,” said Jetta, “those are mouthfuls of names. Couldn’t they have picked, like, something simpler? Like, ‘the Smiths?’”
“‘The Jetsons?’” offered Mystikite.
“‘Clan McCloud’,” said Phineas.
“‘The Uzumakis,’” said Naruto.
“Maybe ‘the Ikari’ family?” pondered Elphion.
“I’m trying really hard to impart important knowledge here,” said Basil, with a frustrated sigh. “You wanted answers, right? Well, at least pretend you’re interested in hearing them.”
“We were just joking,” said Mystikite.
“Well quit it,” said Basil. “This is serious.”
“So is my enormous penis! Have you seen that thing?” said Mystikite. He put his hands a meter across from one another and mouthed the word “huge.”
Basil pounded his fist on the table. “Stop that!”
“Alright, alright,” said Mystikite. “I’m sorry. I kid when I’m nervous.”
“Well I thought it was funny,” said Taurial Lily with a shrug. She smiled at Mystikite and winked.
“As well you should be nervous,” said Basil. “We’re fighting for our lives here. As much as creatures like us can be said to have lives. But, at any rate. Where was I? Oh yes. The Great Families. There is one other Great Family. Mine. We call ourselves Vampyrica Simulacra. We came into existence much later than the other Families did . . . Whereas they all began some five thousand years ago, chiefly on the isle of Atlantis — ”
“The what?” said Elphion suddenly, her eyes widening. Everyone looked at her. She hadn’t spoken up in some time.
“You heard me,” said Basil, turning to her.
“Okay, this just got more interesting,” said Mystikite, leaning forward.
Basil and Taliavanova then told them the story of how Vampires were first created: The Waybridge, the Eidolon, the Draketh. The voyage of the damned away from Atlantis, out into the world . . . while Mystikite and the others listened. All jokes aside, this was fascinating. And to think, this world had existed side by side with his own, his whole life, and he’d never known it. All this time, his entire adult life, he had fantasized about being a Vampire . . . had dreamed about what it would be like . . . Had really gotten into the role. Had worn the gothic attire. Had ritually partaken of blood during sex, with Zo? and other partners . . . And had roleplayed as a Vampire in tabletop games like Vampire: The Masquerade and Hunter: The Reckoning. Had been the one cutting open a small wound in his neck with a razor while the dance club thundered around him; had been the one doing the suckling of the supple, soft neck in the glower of the club’s lights, licking the razor-wound clean. But he had never — not in a million years — at least until Zo? had come home with the story of her attack and her salvation via Dizzy — even suspected that any of it — the hard and fast existence of Vampires; the existence of a “subterranean” Vampire society; the existence of another world, just out of reach of the Mortal one — was actually real. A thing. A reality that had tangible substance to it. No, never. Had he then, or ever, even had so much as a whisper of a thought that any of it had been real — he thought now — then, Jesus Christ, he probably would’ve shat himself and burned his entire Hot Topic clothing collection on the spot, and sworn off ritual blood-drinking during sex forever, and never even so much as looked the other way. Would’ve burned all his favorite Vampire books and comics. And would’ve forever thereafter walked in the daylight, and looked behind him at night wherever he went. Because this shit was neck-deep weird, and fucked up, and holy Jesus God, was it ever deadly. But . . . utterly fascinating. Mesmerizing. Intriguing. Because the rabbit hole just kept getting deeper. And deeper. Every time he turned over a stone in this new, dark world he was a part of, another stone lay there, ready to be overturned, with new secrets — and new riddles — bristling beneath it.
Basil was finishing his story about how Vampires came into existence. “. . . And that is how the nine Great Families came to be. Now, the tenth Great Family . . . Mine . . . the Vampyrica Simulacra . . . We came to be quite a different way. A way you might sympathize with, Jetta. And here’s where we get to how the Civil War first started, as well.”
“Oh?” she said, shifting in her chair. “And how’s that?”
Basil lowered his head, then sighed. Then, he continued. “The story of my Great Family. Yeah. What a tale. Italy was, once — and ironically, given the Vatican being there — a mecca for Vampire-kind, a place our kind could go for shelter, resources, protection, and fellowship. It was where the Nine Families could gather in peace with one another. Notice I said nine, for back then, my Family did not yet exist. But it would soon. For humans, Italy was a dangerous place; exsanguination after dark was a frequently seen cause of death, due to our kind’s presence there. People knew about us — and were frightened of us — and so they stayed away from places where we were known to gather. But da Leonardo da Vinci — yes, the Leonardo da Vinci — the one and only — he was . . . different. He wasn’t afraid. The proto-scientist in him did not fear Vampires or death at their hands. Instead, he was fascinated by us, intrigued by our abilities, the legends about our strength, agility, and speed . . . And of course, our predation on Human blood. He wished to study us. Understand us. So, using his wits and his ingenuity, he managed to capture not just one, but several Vampires after they had, as a pack, fed on two young boys that da Vinci had seduced and dosed with laudanum as a tranquilizer that he knew would affect the Vampires. He subdued the three Vampires using a mixture of embalming materials and proto-anesthetics that he developed. He cut off their heads. Vivisected them. Dissected their bodies. Performed autopsies. Studied their . . .” He swallowed heavily. “Anatomy. Their physiology. Their brains. The way their systems processed blood . . . and of course, their blood itself, and its secrets. Now, obviously, he didn’t have an electron microscope, and had no clue about DNA or genetics. Yet da Vinci was able to guess that the blood carried some form of ‘instructions’ in it that told the body how to transform itself from that of a human being into that of a Vampire . . . and thus armed with that knowledge . . . he managed to distill a formula that somehow coaxed the dead blood back to life . . . and then injected himself with a mixture of their blood and that formula, via a primitive syringe he had made himself — yes, he figured out the Human circulatory system well before William Harvey — and that very night, Leonardo da Vinci became a Vampire.”
“Okay, whoa, hold up,” said Elphion, holding up her hands. “You mean to tell me that Leonardo da Vinci — the guy we all learn about in school — was actually a Vampire?”
“Y — yeah,” said Naruto. “That’s — that’s a st — st — step way too far. I mean, i — i — isn’t it, Phineas?”
“Aye,” said Phineas. “Tha’s an awful big fish story yer askin’ us to reel in, Mr. Wroethisbane. Tha’s a bigger fish story than Big Fish.”
“Just Basil, if you please, Phineas. But anyway. From the year 1508 onward, da Vinci was a Vampire,” insisted Basil. “Everything history records of his life from that date onward is a fiction, crafted by the Vatican to avoid scandal over da Vinci’s alchemical pursuits and his homosexual love affairs . . . and of course, his becoming — as one secret manuscript in the Vatican’s archives describes him — ‘a creature of darkness, born unto the arms of the Devil; a grave loss to the realm of men and Christ.’ But that’s not the important part.”
“What is the important part?” asked Mystikite. “And what does this have to do with the Civil War? You take a long time to get to the point, Basil.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“The point,” said Basil, glaring at Mystikite, “is that a curious state of affairs soon presented itself. Da Vinci, though now a Vampire, was not able to transform others into Vampires by the usual means . . . meaning he could not, by direct oral infusion of his blood into their mouths, transfigure, say, one of his youthful male lovers into a Vampire. But, he could Create others via a transfusion of his blood — provided the means of a transfusion existed, which meant that he had to invent the world’s first transfusion pump. So, once he had perfected that, he took a score-and-three young men — twenty-three of his male pupils, some of whom were also his lovers — and gave them transfusions. Soon, he had made twenty-three new Vampires, and had taught them all he had learned about their ‘kind,’ their ‘race.’ They too could not make new Vampires by traditional means; like their ‘Creator,’ they too could only do so via transfusion. Realizing how this could be abused, and the chaos it could lead to, da Vinci and his pupils formed a secret society: The ‘Dissertatio de Coven,’ a Coven of the Scientific, a ritualistic, almost-Masonic order designed to test the moral fiber of those who might wish to become like them, nearly-immortal and more powerful than most humans, and of course, cursed to survive on human blood. And so, it continues to this day. ‘Dissertatio de Coven’ no more, we are now the Vampyrica Simulacra. Great Family, and Coven in one. We supply the other Great Families — and the other Covens — with scientific wisdom, engineering knowledge, and the power of technology, some of it otherworldly in nature. That is who we are, and what we do. And it is we who first started the Civil War, in its nascent stages, by means of our very existence. Half the other Great Families — the Ilusistulu, the Skadegamutak, the Blutmagieria, the Abhartachana, and the Carodejnícikravi — have never accepted our status as one of their number. They have always shunned us as ‘fakes,’ as charlatans, as poseurs, and as ‘artificial’ beings. As ‘imitation’ creatures, as freaks. They don’t like us, and though they’re happy to accept our counsel and our technology — our weapons to fight their turf wars and to defend themselves with — they’re also happy to grind us under their heel and disgrace our name, curse us, and ridicule us behind our backs. And so when we spoke up, in favor of finding the Chosen One . . . in favor of seeking out the truth of the Prophecy . . .”
“Okay, whoa, stop, hold up!” said Mystikite. Goddamn it, why couldn’t he just get to the important shit? Why all these useless history lessons? He leaned forward and stabbed the table with his finger to punctuate his words. “What. Prophecy! That’s. The part. You’re not. Telling me! The part. I need. To fucking. Know about!”
“Calm down!” roared Basil, standing up and once again pounding his fist on the table. “You are a guest in this house! We saved your miserable un-lives, remember? Now show some respect for the mysteries of your kind! The wonder of what you are! The history behind your quite-frankly-miraculous existence! Because — get this — that’s all you have now! Understand? That’s it. You’re one of us, now. One of the creatures of the night. Whatever — whoever — you were before? Doesn't matter. Doesn’t exist anymore. This — the history I’m imparting to you — the stories I’m telling you — that is all you are now. A living horror story. So settle down. Enjoy the tour of mystery and imagination I’m taking you on. Because it’s all you’ve got. All of you. From now, until eternity. I had to get get used to that fact. And now, so do you.”
He sat back down slowly, glowering at Mystikite. Jetta said nothing, simply sat with her hands folded in front of her. She didn’t look at him. Mystikite sucked in, and let out a breath. Basil’s words had hit him like a hammer slammed into his stomach. He was right. Damn him, he was right. He had no lines in this play, right now. And he had no right to demand anything of Basil, or the others here. No right at all. They had saved his, Jetta’s, and the others’ asses back there. And, he was also right on another score: All he would ever be now — to the Mortal world, at least — was a horror story; a tale told on Halloween night to frighten children, or to chill the bones of a hot prospect on date night. Nothing more. What were a few more stories told, on top of that?
“You, uh . . .” he began. His mouth felt suddenly very dry. He cleared his throat. “You were saying, Basil?”
“Er, yes,” said Basil. He cleared his throat, too. Apparently, his own outburst had made even him uncomfortable. “Yes. I was saying. I was coming to that bit, when you interrupted me, you see. Our kind has what we call ‘Dark Gifts.’ They’re different for each of us. Some of us don’t have them at all. The Coven known as Na Siúlóirí Intinne . . . well, wait. I suppose I should briefly explain about the concept of ‘Covens.’ And about the very foundations of the Vampire Kingdom itself. And I warn you, here is where you’re going to find the story to stretch the realm of the believable. But since you’re a part of this world now, you may as well know the secret.”
Mystikite chuckled. “As if it doesn’t already do that in several places? And — what secret?”
“The secret I’m about to tell you,” said Basil. “And here is where the tale really goes off the rails. Again, I warn you, it’s hard to take the next part . . . well . . . seriously, for some people. But, I tell you, it is the truth. And who knows. Being of the . . . I suppose you guys would call it the ‘geek’ persuasion? You might find it easier to believe than most folks would, but . . . really, I’m warning you, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to wrap your heads around. Really, it isn’t.”
“Go on,” said Mystikite. “I’m listening.”
“Well,” said Basil, clearly a little unsettled by his own tale-telling, “it goes like this. Well, wait. Perhaps I should show you. We smuggled something out of the Great, underground ‘Vampire Library’ in Cambridge before it burned two weeks ago. Krycek’s doing. It contained all the great texts of our kind, all the sacred manuscripts of our lineage and our heritage. It was a sad loss. But we saved what is perhaps the greatest of those texts, the most ‘holy’ of them, if anything to us can be said to be holy. The text that has shaped our existence now, and that of our society, for the past five hundred years . . . the text handed down to us through the ages, the text that inspired the leaders of the Great Families, five hundred and twenty-one years ago, in 1506, in Paris, to put aside their differences — well, for the most part — and work together to build a society, to structure their world. The text that resulted in the creation of the Vampire Kingdom as it is today. Brought to us — we know now, at least — not from across the sea, and not across the sands, as was thought then, by some mysterious benefactor . . . No. But instead, from across the ocean of Time. Plischelle . . . if you would be a dear . . . Fetch the it for me, would you? The Book.”
“Basil,” she breathed, “are you sure you want to show them that? It’s forbidden for — ”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure. Why not? They’re part of our Family now. They’re Emarginato. And they’re on our side. Fetch it.”
“Yes, Basil,” she said, obediently, and went off into the other room.
Mystikite leaned forward on the table. “This book,” he said carefully, “you’re saying it came from . . . what, the future?”
“Yep,” said Basil. “Sure did. From across time. We know that now. We didn’t know it then. All we knew then was that it was written in a strange tongue — a tongue we now know is modern English — and illustrated with what, at the time, were positively profane drawings. The language was one that then, we could barely translate into Middle English and French. But that with some difficulty, we managed to understand. Later, in years to come, we would know — for certain — that the Book came from sometime after the year 1991. And that, ironically, we had inspired its creation.”
“But how’s that possible?” asked Jetta.
“Basil,” came a voice. It was Plischelle. She stood at the opposite end of the room, holding a large object wrapped in cloth. She walked forward and laid it on the table between Basil and Mystikite, and proceeded to unwrap it.
Murmurs of awe and wonder washed over all the assembled Vampires in the room as they nodded and whispered to one another, as Plischelle unwrapped the package. Basil then took hold of what lay beneath: A tattered, stained, dog-eared portfolio of plastic page-protectors, about two hundred of them, all stitched together with binder-clips. In each one, a yellowed, tattered page rested behind a sheath of plastic, two columns of printed text barely still visible beneath, some of the pages featuring black and white illustrations — most of them beautifully rendered ink drawings. The front piece of plastic had stuffed into it a piece of cardboard, and printed on it was a cyan and off-white marble background, a crimson-red rose, and a picturesque scene with a Vampire bending over a human victim in a columned, Grecian courtyard. The words Vampire: The Masquerade stood out beneath this in stark but elegant lettering.
Mystikite gaped, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.
“No,” he breathed, and barked a disbelieving laugh. He looked up at Basil with a dumbfounded smile on his face. “No way. No fucking way!”
“I . . . wow,” said Elphion. “I mean . . . just . . . Holy . . . you’re shitting me, right? You gotta be shitting me!”
“You’re kidding me, right?” said Jetta. “You’re goddamn kidding me.”
“No, no, no, no,” said Phineas, laughing. “This has gotta be a joke, lad. Ye canna be serious.”
“Ha!” laughed Naruto. “Ha ha ha!” He slapped the table, grinning. “I knew it! I knew you guys were connected to the game somehow!”
“It’s not a joke,” said Jean-Luc. “You’re looking at an ancient relic, five hundred years old. This book does indeed come to us from 1506, in Paris.”
“Wow,” said Elphion, her jaw agape. “I mean . . . just . . . Holy shit in a . . . I . . . There’s just no way.”
“It comes,” said Mystikite, “from 1991, White Wolf Publishing. What’re you trying to pull here, Basil.”
“I’m not pulling anything,” he said. “Time travel is real, too.”
“Oh right,” said Mystikite. But was it so hard to believe? Really? After all he’d seen, after all he’d witnessed . . . After all. Vampires were real, and were a thing. Psionic powers were real, and were a thing. Virtual worlds were real, and were a thing. Living, sentient artificial intelligences were real, and were a thing, now, too. As were terrifying man-animal hybrids and whatever Ravenkroft had become. Werewolves, for that matter, as well. And — sigh — superheroes. So was it that much of a stretch? To imagine someone — some lunatic, somewhere — building a time machine and taking this book — of all books — back in time to 1506, Paris, and giving it to a bunch of lost, wayward Vampires and telling them to go build a society for themselves? Maybe even —
“It was a Vampire from the future, wasn’t it,” he said. “Who took the book back, I mean.”
“What do you mean?” asked Basil.
“Well it would make sense, wouldn’t it?” said Mystikite. “A Vampire from the future wants to ensure that the Vampire Kingdom gets started in the first place. So he or she takes the book back in time, to Paris, 1506, and gives it to the Vampires back then. Creating an ontological paradox, a loop in time.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Basil, looking ponderous for a moment. He shrugged. “I suppose it could be true. Truth be told, we don’t know where or when the book came from. All we know is that it arrived. And then years later — 1991 — White Wolf Publishing releases the game — we’re pretty sure that its creator, Mark Rein-Hagen, must’ve known some of our number and interviewed them — and the Vampire Kingdom erupts into a frenzy that tears it in two again: Half of the Kingdom is in a state of hysterical paranoia, screaming about how the Fa?ade has been compromised, and the other half is ecstatic, because finally, the dawn of a new era — the era of the Book — has arrived . . . and the Era of the Prophecy draw nearer. It is the beginning of the Civil War.”
“Why’s the book so important?” asked Mystikite.
“This book,” said Basil, “inspired the leaders of the Great Families to organize their society . . . to stop the blood-feuds . . . to come together to create a structured Kingdom . . . to create ritual, order, and discipline among Vampires. To create, for all time, a system of governance and a social structure that all Vampires could live under . . . Well, I say all. Not all Vampires want to live under it, of course. That’s why we ended up with the Iterum Redire and the Vivo Bestia in the first place. More cracks in the wall. More build-up to the Civil War. The Iterum Redire are those Vampires that wish to live under a social order to begin with . . . Abide by the rules of the Fa?ade; become part of a Coven; act in accordance with the governing parties of each City — the Eldens, the Council of Elders, the Convocation of Souls, etcetera. The Vivo Bestia on the other hand, are those who do not wish any of this. Just like the Book describes — or rather, predicts — there are those who will rebel against such a social order, those who will reject it utterly, and who will wish harm to it . . . who will desire to destroy it, in fact, act against it. Krycek is one such Vampire. But it goes beyond that . . .”
“The Prophecy,” said Taliavanova, speaking up for the first time in a while as she rose from her seat, and pacing as she spoke, “came from an alien god, as we explained earlier. But more on that in a moment. Covens — as Basil was going to say — are like little micro-societies within the greater whole of Vampire society. Get it? They’re like Sacred Orders, which sort of refine and hone the . . . well, the Dark Gifts that come with the Creation of a Vampire. Now, some Dark Gifts are like telepathy. Or telekinesis. Or precognition. While others . . . well, others are more subtle. Like maybe a preternatural sense of danger. Or an ability to sense when an event of amazing importance is close to happening. Right? There are seventeen Covens. Basil’s Great Family is a Family and a Coven, two for the price of one. I won’t bother naming them all. But two are important to the Prophecy. One of them was my Coven — the Na Siúlóirí Intinne. We were a Coven of telepaths and telekinetics, trained to use our Dark Gifts to precision. They’re now on Krycek’s side of the Civil War, unfortunately. The other important Coven here is the Legion of Orogrü-Nathr?k. And they’re a lee-ttle more complicated to explain.”
“The Legion,” said Jean-Luc, smiling, and swelling with obvious pride, “is my Coven. We have existed for only a hundred and eighteen years, now, but — we are diligent in our devotion to our god, and we do not waver in our faith that if we but follow the thread of His Immortal Dream, we will find Salvation in the End. After all . . . He has led us this far, hasn’t he? He is the one who gave us the Prophecy. Let me explain. A hundred and eighteen years ago, in Tunguska, Russia, there was a great explosion of light and fury. Many thought it was a meteor. But it was not. It was the birth, unto our universe, of Orogrü-Nathr?k. The Lightbringer. One of the Eidolon — the beings who first summoned the Draketh into our world, and brought forth our Ancestors from Atlantis. Made flesh, and bone, and brought into our dimension. And when he came forth, from that explosion, a psychic wave emanated . . . and crashed into the minds of every Na Siúlóirí Intinne.”
“We all felt it,” said Taliavanova. “I remember being in the Kremlin, in Moscow. In my bedroom. I was masturbating at the time — ” Mystikite blinked. Taliavanova looked around at their startled faces. “What? So sue me. Parts of me are still Human. Anyway. It came flooding into my mind, an sudden onslaught of images, and words. We’re not sure if Orogrü-Nathr?k delivered the Prophecy, or if he simply triggered a precognitive episode in each and every one of us. All I know is that I blacked out, and when I awoke, I was sitting at my writing desk, and I had scrawled out a missive . . . the words of the Prophecy. None of us wrote exactly the same words, the same exact prophetic screed. But all of the passages said basically the same thing. Mine was the most eloquent, though, the most coherent. So it’s the agreed upon, ‘canonical’ version of the Prophecy. It goes like this.” She closed her eyes and cleared her throat, and stood with her hands behind her back, her legs slightly apart, as though preparing to recite a speech in a school play.
She then spoke, in a loud, clear voice, annunciating every word precisely: “‘And there shall come a Chosen One. And they will be Born unto the Brethren of the Blood and the Darkness in the two thousandth and twenty-seventh year of the Man who Bleeds, in the Western Land of the Eagles and of the Libertine Woman of the Torch in Stone Robes. They will be Created by one who has never known the Touch, one Created by Human Sorcery and not by any Blood of the Heart. They will be Born not of the Magic of the Eternal Night, but of the Magic of Man. They will come on the after-eve of a storm, and they will cause a great storm. For their Coming will herald the day when all Children of the Night will know the Night no more, and will Fear the Light of the Sun no more, and will know the Thirst no more, and will again walk Hand-in-Hand with Man, along the Pathway of Peace, in the Garden, as it once was, in the Long, Long Ago, and is to be again, forever and ever. But before all this can come to pass, the Chosen One must do battle with the Evil One, and the outcome of their struggle will decide their fate; to either perish in the fire of their own making or be reborn anew, with all the brethren of the blood-kin of the sun.’”
Taliavanova fell silent, then, as did the entire room. Mystikite sat back in his chair. So. That was it. The part he had wanted to hear. The Prophecy itself. Hmm. Prophecies, no matter who they came from or what they were about — and whether they occurred in fiction or in real life (but when had he ever really encountered one in real life before, except in religion, which he avoided like the plague?) — were always cryptic and vague. But this one, strangely, was pretty specific and easy to decipher. The first part of this one was fairly plainspoken: It gave the date. The year 2027, of the “Man who Bleeds.” That would be Christ, of course, at least in the Western world, which the next part of the Prophecy made plain it was talking about: “The Land of the Eagles,” etcetera. Specifically, America. And born from “the touch of one who has known the touch” . . . that meant the touch of a Vampire. And “one made by Alchemy” clearly meant a Vampire created in a lab, by science, and not through “natural” means. And on the eve of a “great storm.” Well, hadn’t there been a huge thunderstorm just last night? There had been, yes. And wasn’t this “Vampire Civil War” thing coming to a climactic head? And wasn’t the “Chosen One” — or their coming — the cause of it? Now this last part . . . Taken both literally and figuratively, the idea that Vampires “will know the Night no more” meant that what Basil referred to as “the Fa?ade” would be over; the Vampire Kingdom would no longer exist in secret . . . because it wouldn't have to. And if Vampires would no longer fear the sun, and would no longer know the thirst — would no longer feast on Human blood — and would “walk hand-in-hand with man” — that could only be interpreted one way, really: It meant that the Chosen One would somehow help all Vampires become become Human again. But first, he had to “do battle with the evil one.” Ravenkroft, apparently. And the outcome of the battle would decide his fate, along with the fate of the entire, new, “reborn” race of Vampire-kind, who would then be Human again.
Well, if he was the Chosen One, then he was the one who was going to help all Vampires everywhere revert to their Human state. But how the hell was he supposed to do that, exactly? Vampires were, obviously, some kind of evolutionary “offshoot” of Humanity. A mutation that —
Well, shit. He had the answer.
Mutagenesis X-119. Of course!
But only someone of Zo?’s prodigious biotechnological intellect could hope to study it and unlock the secret of using it to de-evolve Vampires back into Human form.
Mystikite sighed a heavy sigh. He had to go back. To Gadget. To Zo?. And — most relevantly to his newfound family, his newly-made brethren of the night — to Dizzy . . . and to face Ravenkroft. The Evil One. He and Jetta had been friends for a long time — for as long as he’d known Gadget, and for longer than he’d known Zo? — and he cared for her, no matter what she had become. And he liked Elphion and Phineas, even Naruto. They weren’t bad people. And Basil seemed like a decent person, even if he was a bloodsucking fiend. Vampires, he — had learned the very hard way — were people too. And if he could help them become Human again — help them regain their lost Humanity, even some of them — then that was something worth fighting for.
He stood up slowly, and began to pace back and forth, thinking. The other Vampires in the room made space for him as he did so. Basil raised an eyebrow and watched him, along with the others on his side of the table.
“Problem, Mystikite?” said Basil.
“No,” he said, his mind alive with thought. “No . . . problem. Yet. Tell me more about the Civil War. And about the Prophecy.”
Basil sighed. “Well. The Prophecy was made over a hundred years ago, and since it was a major event in Vampire History, a copy of Taliavanova’s screed was kept in our Archives at the Library. Guarded. Looked after. And as the penultimate year approached, conversation began about what to do regarding it. And there arose from out of the Coven known as The Tribulators a leader for those viciously opposed to Vampires ever becoming — or even becoming like — Humans again. A hateful, downright evil Vampire with no Humanity in her left to speak of. You’ve met her already. Her name is Krycek . . .”
