Seattle by Lava Lamp - Part II - Episode II

  Roderick makes a surprising discovery; Withrow departs for parts West;
         Bashir prepares for visitors; Emily meets a new friend.


Seattle, late August, 1997

	He was walking - staggering - toward a battered pickup when 
Roderick saw him. He was tall, gaunt save for a beer belly that hung out 
of his soiled flannel as one foot wearily found earth after another. The 
cell phone in his hand had given Roderick pause to reconsider his mark, 
but then his ears picked up the man's half of his conversation. He was 
angry at someone - a woman. He was angry but apologizing. He hadn't meant 
to do it, he growled into the phone. If she'd just let him in, he 
promised, he'd make it all okay. He'd make things just like they were 
before.
	That's what he would have said, that is, if he hadn't been 
yelping in surprise when Roderick's spindly arms stretched from a shadow 
and yanked the prick into an alley. Roderick distinctly heard the woman 
on the other end of the call curse that motherfucking no good son of a 
fucking whore while the phone flipped into the air and tumbled back to he 
sidewalk where it shattered. Good for her, he thought.
	"Now," Roderick breathed into his prey's ear. "I think someone's 
been very naughty." He waited. It was the blubbering and pleading that he 
loved. He waited... and the prey was silent.
	"I said..." he started, but then it struck him that his hands and 
chest hurt, and he smelled blood already. Funny, the Beast didn't lurch 
at the smell. It didn't so much as stand up and give the confines of the 
cage a sniff.  Come to think of it, neither did Roderick himself. With a 
thought he flipped his vision to high-res and saw something thrust into 
his chest. 
	Another moment passed and he realized the thing - whatever this 
was where it shouldn't be - wasn't stuck into him, it was sticking out. 
As he watched, he saw the thing flex - it was pale, fleshy, writhing 
silently. It slurped and he realized it was drinking. He could feel the 
blood in himself. It was warm, strong blood. Some of that, he knew, was 
the alcohol the guy had consumed. A few more seconds passed and the thing 
he'd extruded disengaged from his victim with a sound like a kiss and 
folded back into his chest through a hole it had ripped in his flesh. 
	Roderick still smelled blood and, more than that, felt horror. It 
only grew as he realized two things: his Beast was entirely docile in the 
presence of whatever had happened and his hands were stuck to the corpse 
in his arms. A few tugs told why: though his palms were flat against this 
bubba's chest, his fingers were wrapped around and behind his shoulders, 
through his back and around through again to pierce those same palms on 
the way out the front of his victim's chest.
	Correction, a part of him said. Talons, not fingers.
	Roderick's knees started to buckle, but he stayed up. That same 
part of him wanted to know what kept him upright, so he looked over his 
left shoulder and instantly regretted it. Otherwise he never would have 
seen the wings jutting from his shoulders and stabbed six inches into the 
brick wall behind him.

Raleigh, NC

	Withrow buckled his seatbelt and cranked the engine. It was 
barely 10:00pm and he hated being rushed at the airport.
	"Don't worry," Seth said with a faint smile. "Everything will be 
fine."
	"Just don't get accustomed to my absence."
	"You got it, chief." Seth rapped once on the window in parting 
and Withrow rolled away in the rumble of an aging engine. His beat-up 
Firebird turned into the street and right, towards the western edge of 
town and the airport beyond.
	 Old Shoe spat something that sizzled and stank of urea onto the 
ground and snorted. "Looks like it's just us."
	"I...hope Withrow is safe." Beth looked at the pavement where Old 
Shoe had aimed. A bubbling hole was quickly taking shape. Seth in turn 
stared long at Beth's beautiful, saddened face and put a hand on her 
shoulder. 
	"He'll be fine."
	"Must be weird," Old Shoe mumbled.
	"What's that?" Seth continued to study Beth as she in turn 
observed the pit that had now opened in the pavement. Old Shoe's saliva 
finally stopped reacting with asphalt in a final guff of smoke.
	"Havin' family," The Nosferatu answered. "Weird shit. A long lost 
cousin turns up across the continent and he's a vamp, too? Plus he's 
bugfuck?"
	Beth was nowhere near the conversation and Seth watched as her 
eyes rotated counterclockwise from pavement to a car - Seth's old 
Gremlin, her own cute import hatchback, a truck - and on again into the 
night sky where she stopped, waiting as though she expected a saintly 
wink.
	"We all have family," Seth finally sighed. "Over our lives our 
children will have their own and a million more. One night we'll wake up 
and every mortal alive will be our cousin, just a thousand times 
removed."
	"We already have families." Beth's voice was high and light - as 
high as the sky to which she spoke. "Withrow says that 1 am someone's 
childe, and they are my sire."
	"Pah." Old Shoe spat again and another crackle seared pavement. 
"That ain't family. That's just...." He snorted. "Lineage."
	Beth didn't seem to hear him, entranced as she was by the stars. 
Old Shoe snapped his fingers a few feet away, then waved a hand in the 
air nearer to her.
	"Pah." He spat a third time. "Damn Toreador."

Seattle

	"I'll be home late. Don't wait up."
	Roderick closed the phone even as Cedric acquiesced with his 
usual obedience. The phone was a little scratched and pitted from 
Roderick's claws, but he'd found that they retracted when he shouted at 
them to go away. The wings had folded likewise back into his shoulders 
with a wish. It had taken blood to close the wounds in his fingertips and 
torso, however, and while he'd watched the new white flesh fill the 
gashes like caulk from a tube he'd been able to think only that he had to 
get somewhere he could find out more.
	As he slipped the phone into a shirt pocket he turned the car 
towards the suburbs and the home of Mr. Greene.
	It was different when he got there. The high hedge still ran 
around the front, isolating it from the other houses on the street. Brick 
ranches with open, airy yard after yard lined the neighborhood in 1960s 
splendor, but Mr. Greene's haven had sat further back with an evergreen 
moat on all sides and chain link behind the firs. Roderick snapped the 
chain padlocked around the gate that met the driveway - it hadn't been 
there before in his memory, but now it was rusted and forgotten, twenty 
years old if it were a day. The gate squeaked and Roderick found he had 
to wade against a current of dead leaves and hip-high grass. A sign 
fluttered on the front door informing the world that the house was to be 
condemned by order of the city. That had been 1976, the notice claimed. 
The bare wood of shutters, a door mostly rotted from its hinges, a small 
hill of curled shingles fallen on the walk and a rose bush establishing 
slow dominance over the shattered picture window in the living room - all 
of it spoke of the cheap materials and hurried work of a subdivision home 
and an easy two decades of abandonment.
	"It was all a trick, an illusion," Roderick explained to the 
front door before he kicked it once under the knob and again over the 
deadbolt. It fell in pieces, must and gods only knew what mutant spores 
puffing with a sigh into the air. "Devil's Food Cake," he whispered. 
Vision in high gear, hearing cranked wide open, Roderick pushed through 
to smell nothing but dust and decay. It was dark inside, the walls coated 
in slick black mildew, pictures hanging at odd angles and furniture 
strewn and rotting.
	It took only a few minutes to establish beyond doubt that the 
house lay empty. No one lived here, no one squatted here. The closets 
held clothes, but they were old - suits, shirts, a pair of soiled and 
stained slacks that Roderick could see being used for gardening - Mr. 
Greene knelt beside the rose bush in front. Here a whiff of a woman's 
perfume, the sound of laughter. Then, the sound of screams. Roderick 
could hear digging in the back, someone striking earth with a shovel, the 
aroma of soil. 
	Some rooms could have taken hours to fully explore, but he 
ran his fingers over clothes in one, a chair in another, the edge of a 
mahogany desk in the study. Smells assaulted him, sounds shortly after. 
His eyes closed, he heard Mr. Greene weep ragged sobs, explain to another 
that his cancer made his career impossible now, that he could no longer 
exert the energy for education or its administration. He could see Mr. 
Greene sit at the desk and pour his hands across portraits by the dozens 
in yearbooks and class photos until one night he threw them in the fire 
then howled with mad terror at the greens and blues the ink made in 
flames.
	He saw the sadness in the old principal's eyes as a beautiful 
stranger told him he could still teach, only it would be different now. 
He heard the crying children, felt a wave of shame and sickness when the 
first small victim died.
	Then Roderick saw the last vision he could find - Mr. Greene with 
a cross in each hand facing off with that beautiful woman. She had 
laughed at him, knocked the crucifixes with one sweep of an enormous, 
taloned paw into the fire and then simply reached over to snap the jaw 
from Mr. Greene's own face and crawl with much struggle and many 
contortions from a surreal claymation into Mr. Greene's throat.
	"Holy shit!"
	Roderick's voice seemed too loud when he cried out and his eyes 
snapped open. He found himself in the living room of the house, hands in 
the cold fireplace wrapped around the blackened stump of what must have 
once been a cross. Ash filled his whole head with its scent and he 
realized a reflection of himself stared coolly back from the metal frame 
around the hearth.
	"Mr. Greene was normal like me," Roderick whispered to his 
mirror-image. ''Normal like me, normal like me, normal like me."  His 
reflection shook its head and said, "And now we sleep." It snapped its 
fingers once and  Roderick collapsed on the rotted carpet.

Across town, some hours later

	"I do not care to explain over a telephone," Bashir stated 
flatly. "Merely trust that I am certain. I will expect you within an hour 
of sunset." 
	Hanging up the phone, she turned to Cedric.
	"Madam," he said, voice hesitant at first but steadier as he went 
on. "If Master Surrett is in danger as you say, I should very much like 
to help you do something to aid him, no matter the danger."
	Bashir met the old butler's gaze with something that would have 
been respect were he something other than mortal - this realization 
entered both their minds simultaneously. His perfectly short, combed, 
gray hair and his crisp suit spoke of calm, rational and ordered living, 
but how could she explain this to him? How could she make him understand 
her surveillance of taint in Roderick, or the way she had felt it deep in 
her bones that a mistake was brewing the instant the butler had told her 
of Roderick's call? His well-structured little world would crack if he 
thought demons were real, much less that one were alive and well in 
Roderick's blood.
	"Then get the house ready for guests today, while I sleep," she 
finally snapped. For some reason she couldn't shake Mr. White from her 
mind when she looked at Cedric, his perfectly knotted tie, his 
straight-backed devotion. For a moment she would have sworn a giant 
pyramid loomed behind Cedric, its shadow falling over him, its tip 
creeping ever closer to her even as the Pyramid itself grew and grew to 
fill every comer of her vision save for the terrible halo of the sun 
burning from around its edges, and she swept in a rustle of robes towards 
the hidden stairs to the basement. "We will need nothing to distract us 
tomorrow night, so help us by getting done whatever it is you do and 
getting out of our way!"

Another part of town altogether

	Emily hung up the phone with the world's tiniest recorded sigh. 
Bashir was in mega-bitch mode, and her limited experience indicated the 
Tremere was scared of something.
	"Who was that?" The question came between clangs and whirs of 
pots and spoons and the bizarre machina of mortal food's preparation. A 
smell came from the kitchen along with it, and Emily could pick out beef, 
onions, some sort of nut, a pasta. A part other imagined it smelling good 
while the rest of her recoiled at the stench of dead, seared meat. He 
needed it to live, though, and Emily neatly avoided wondering what he 
thought when he opened her refrigerator and saw bags of blood in neat 
rows beside his beer.
	"Bashir," Emily answered. "She wants us over there first thing 
tomorrow. Roderick's in some sort of trouble."
	The cooking noises stopped as he hesitated before answering, but 
the conversation was interrupted by the doorbell. Rebecca shot out down 
the stairs from above where she'd been doing some sort of housework, 
half-running to keep her mistress from having to lift a finger. Emily sat 
where she was, in a leather chair with a newspaper open on her lap, a 
crossword half-finished. He had gotten her into them lately. It was all 
his fault. She kicked her hearing up as the front door was answered.
	"Might I help you?"
	"I'm looking for an Emily...I'm Withrow Surrett."
	"Come inside. I'll ask the mistress to greet you."
	There was what sounded an uncomfortable pause and the gruff voice 
hrmph'ed and moved inside. "Thanks. I'll just, uh, wait here."
	"Bring him in, Rebecca," Emily called as she stood. Newspaper 
folded, she handed it to the maid as she whisked past to return to her 
work upstairs. Emily straightened her turtleneck - she'd forgotten about 
the visit entirely. It was all a little odd anyway.  Her sire had called 
from Savannah before sunset and left a message asking that she welcome 
the childe of a friend. She really didn't have time to prepare for some 
stuffed-shirt clanmate bullshit tonight, but here he was.
	The last name hit her as a fat guy in black jeans and a loose 
button-up walked into her living room.
	"Evening," he said, holding out a hand. "Withrow Surrett." Holy 
shit, he thought, Anorexic much?
	Emily took the hand in both of hers and smiled. "Emily. Welcome 
to my home. I understand our sires are acquaintances - it's a pleasure to 
meet you."
	"Likewise," Withrow grumbled, looking back and forth a bit to 
size up the house. It was a bit of a McMansion in its prefab eggshell and 
over-plush carpets, but there was a lot of original work on the walls - 
almost entirely watercolors that went with the soft-edged feel of the 
room - and it was all skillfully done. "Nice place. I hear you know my 
cousin, Roderick Surrett?"
	"Yes," and Emily laughed abruptly. "Forgive me, but you look 
nothing like him..." She paused now and added, "The nose. I see it now. 
Same cheekbones, too, though yours are more obscured."
	"He was always too skinny." Withrow's face split in a grin. 
"You're a writer, my sire tells me."
	"Yes... some poetry, mostly novels. I'm not terrible well known." 
She smiled again and realized in an instant that she liked this man. It 
wasn't preternatural charm, just... something. It was all splayed out in 
his aura, an almost pornographically open personality. Whatever he is, 
she decided, is his. He lets others enjoy the same freedom. "My sisters 
got all the talent." What had made her blurt out the last sentence even 
she didn't know and she clamped her mouth shut suddenly. They both felt 
the abrupt withdrawal and Withrow offered a chuckle to fill the silence.
	"Did you say you're Rod's cousin?"
	They both turned to look at Trevor, grinning from the door of the 
kitchen and wearing nothing but a towel. Not a very big towel at that, 
Withrow thought.
	"Uh..." Trevor blushed bright purple and glanced down, then back 
up. "Pants. Forgot them again."

Seattle by Lava Lamp - Part II - Episode III

  Withrow meets the others; Roderick meets himself; Bashir provides a 
       lecture; Beth performs a dance and Seth ponders the world.


Roderick's Haven, Seattle

	Bashir opened the door herself and looked squarely at Withrow.  
The sun had been down not quite an hour and Roderick had not returned.  
She did not fear for him; she feared for herself and anyone else the 
Malkavian knew.  Now here stood yet another variable in an endless sea of 
unknown factors:  a stranger claiming to be the kook's Toreador cousin?  
She shook her head to herself and sighed openly.
	"Come in.  We must work quickly."
	Emily, Trevor and Withrow stepped through the door, though Withrow 
paused as the other two walked automatically on to the right and towards 
the library where they'd met with Bashir and Roderick a few nights before.  
Offering his hand to Bashir, Withrow cleared his throat.
	"Withrow Surrett.  I understand you're my cousin's roommate."
	"I occupy a portion of the home he owns, at his invitation."  
Bashir's voice was soft but chilly.  Withrow shifted his weight to his 
left hip and looked her up and down.  Her hood was pushed back, her 
sleeves pulled up and tied off, but she wore her usual robes - loose and 
probably comfortable but, Withrow thought, a dead giveaway on clan.  If 
she weren't Tremere he'd eat his hat and every other hat on the block.
	"A Malk and a warlo--…a Tremere.  That must make Sunday dinner 
fun."
	Bashir arched her left eyebrow and replied, "Ah yes.  You are his 
cousin.  Walk this way, we're to meet in the library."
	Withrow sauntered off towards the room in the back, smirking 
slightly to himself.  A butler straight out of a hack-job nickel mystery 
loomed in a doorway to the right, silently watching.  Passing on through 
the mahoganied gloom of the front hall, Withrow's boots drummed the 
floorboards.  
	"No thanks, Jeeves, I'll keep the coat."

Mr. Greene's One-Time Haven

	Roderick woke and groped for his alarm clock before he realized he 
wasn't at home.  Panic nearly overcame him before the wind blew a swath of 
leaves across the tattered rug and he remembered where he was.  Next were 
the dual realizations he'd spent the day at least partly exposed to the 
elements and that he had no memory of falling asleep.  As another light 
breeze ruffled debris, his hand shot to his pocket for his phone only to 
find it wasn't there.  A quick pat-down didn't turn it up anywhere and he 
leapt to his feet resolved to get the fuck out of this house.
	"Ah, finally awake."  His reflection addressed him from a broken 
piece of glass leaned against the far wall, a chunk of what was once the 
window overlooking the front yard and over-grown roses.  "What, leaving 
already?  I didn't bring you here just to have you run away again.  Do you 
think it's accident I let you learn all about the demise of the vampire 
your city knew as Mr. Greene?"
	Roderick sat back against the fireplace.  "You're him.  You're the 
demon."
	His reflection shrugged.
	"You took over Mr. Greene's soul and consumed him from the inside 
out."
	"I took what was mine," the reflection replied.  "But that's 
ancient history, twenty years if a day.  I must admit, your situation is 
different."
	"Humph."  Roderick fished in his pockets and let it with a cheap 
disposable.
	"A taste for danger!  I like that!"  His reflection grinned.  "Not 
too smart for a vampire to carry a little vial of explosive fuel in his 
pocket, is it?"
	"We all take risks," Roderick murmured around his cigarette.
	"Yes, we do."  His reflection nodded its head sagely.  "But we 
digress.  I need to talk to you, Roderick.  I want to help you in your 
present circumstance.  You're in a good deal more trouble than you can 
imagine, and I can get you out of it if you cooperate."
	"The fuck I am," the Malkavian growled.  His eyes creased at the 
corners as he squinted into the mirrored glass.  "The only trouble I got 
is you, and I already beat you once."
	"Ah, yes, that's the very thing."  His reflection shifted its arms 
around behind its back and paced out of view, as though crossing the room 
and back.  "My silly little student.  Your friends know I'm here.  I've 
tried to warn you:  Bashir is not ignorant of the power we possess and she 
will move to destroy you."
	"You used to possess power over those who submitted to you," 
Roderick countered evenly, a curl of smoke wafting from his nostrils as he 
flicked ash into the grate beside him.  "I never submitted.  I fought you 
and won - on the astral plane, no less.  I beat you on your home turf."
	"Mr. Greene fought me," the demon-image said, stepping back into 
view.  "So did the Gangrel whose remains you recovered in your own yard.  
So did most of those who needed me.  It's a sad state of affairs, how 
little appreciation you've gotten for the work I did on my benefactors' 
behalf, but that's how it is these days.  The fact is, that's what I do - 
I help people."
	"And my ass sprouts lilies every Easter."
	"Roderick," and the reflection shifted positions to cross its arms 
over its chest.  "Those people were consumers, destroyers.  All they knew 
was the pleasure of unmaking what they found in the world - lives, things, 
people, personalities, joy, power - but they were unfocused.  They lacked 
direction.  I won't deny that they were not 'good' if you want to use such 
a narrow way to view the spectrum of motivations, of means to ends, but 
they were.  They were real and existed already in this state when I found 
them, consumed with a hunger they couldn't name before I ever entered 
their lives.  I raised them up and satisfied that unidentified gnaw in the 
pit of their being.  I gave them opportunities they never would have had."
	"And they were destroyed."
	The reflection settled back onto the floor again, sitting 
cross-legged and cleaning its teeth with a toothpick Roderick didn't 
possess.  "If you believe this immortality line the elders are feeding 
you, Rod, you're dumber than I thought.  Sure, you'll live forever, but 
have you ever met anyone who did?  If all the vampires who'd ever been 
made were still around you couldn't get up in the evening for want of room 
to stand.  You all go, sooner or later.  It's just a question of what gets 
you.  My friends at least went out gloriously."
	Roderick finished his cigarette and lit another off the butt 
before flicking it into the fireplace.  "I'm different.  I didn't submit 
and I beat you.  All you are is a reflection in a piece of glass and claws 
that I didn't ask for.  Neat tricks, but so what?"
	"Roderick, listen to me," his reflection ordered, face hardened.  
"I am offering you a choice.  I am inside you now.  I did not choose to 
be, but I am here and I can manifest.  You have seen some of my power and 
I promise you, if you do not obey me - work with me - I will consume you 
just as I did Mr. Greene and all the others.  You are nothing more than a 
soul to me, and every soul has a weak point or seven.  I've already seen a 
couple of yours.  I need you to shut up and do what I tell you or your 
vampire acquaintances will destroy you before you ever get a chance to 
come up with a snide reply."
	Roderick smiled slowly and he saw his reflection flinch.  He 
smiled wider.  "You need me," he said.  "You're trapped inside and you 
need me.  I'm in control - I think if I weren't then you already would 
have taken over, and if you could take over in the future you'd just be 
sitting back waiting for it to happen.  If I get destroyed, so do you, and 
you're not in charge, and you're scared."  He laughed abruptly.  "Who's my 
bitch?  You are, you are!"  Throwing his arms into the air he whooped and 
spun around a couple of times, singing it over and over.  "You are!  You 
are!  You are!  You are!"
	In the shard of glass, his reflection roared.

Roderick's House

	"So Roderick," Withrow asked, "Went astral and ate a goddamn 
demon."  He paused.  "No pun intended."
	"Yes," Bashir replied with nary an acknowledgement of the 
potential joke.  "And now I fear it has retained enough coherence to 
influence him, possibly to overtake his personality.  If that happens, we 
will be in grave danger.  I imagine it would gain strength rapidly.
	Emily sighed and leaned back against the chair in which she sat.  
It wasn't terribly uncomfortable, but she was on edge, her every muscle 
tensed.  She forced herself to relax and stretched out her arms, asking, 
"So what do we do?"
	Trevor also sat silent, watching Withrow as Bashir recapped the 
last couple of weeks for him.  Withrow had largely contained any 
reactions, though occasional disbelief had been writ large in his eyes.  
He'd asked few questions - Bashir was very thorough in her explanation of 
the situation and fairly generous with a few insights into her studies of 
demons.  Trevor would bet anything she knew more about them than she'd 
admit and would bet the rest he'd never find out.
	"We must ascertain how far gone Roderick is.  I have observed 
taint in him and the areas where he moves.  It is imperative that we 
isolate him for observation and proceed once we have an idea of how strong 
the demon is or its after-effects.  We will also, by so doing, limit its 
ability to influence him.  It would be loathe to show itself in our 
presence."
	"Wouldn't it just try to infect us, too?"  Withrow's voice was 
calm and even, but he'd smoked his last cigarette in four long drags.
	"Unlikely.  When was the last time you preyed on four victims at 
once?"  Bashir asked it like it were his name, the time or when the sky 
would fall.  
	"Fair enough," Emily agreed.  "So how do we find him?"
	"Easily - if he has already discovered his circumstance then he 
will seek to investigate immediately."  Bashir fiddled briefly with the 
line of her skirt before dropping it back into place.  "He went out to 
hunt last night before his call to Cedric.  I cannot imagine anything else 
that would so upset him he'd be snappish with his manservant.  He regards 
Cedric with apparent fondness."
	"So where did he go?"  Trevor spoke for the first time, and Bashir 
turned to face him.  
	"Mr. Greene's haven.  He will seek to know how his clanmate fell 
under the demon's sway before assumedly being destroyed.  I do not, 
however, know where Mr. Greene resides."
	"Which is why you included me in the powwow.  Gotcha."  Trevor 
nodded once and fell silent again.
	"Now," Withrow said, glancing sidelong at Trevor with an unasked 
question on his face before looking back at Emily and then Bashir.  "What 
do we do if we get there and he's already…taken over.  Under the demon's 
control, however it works."
	Bashir pondered for a long moment, pausing to relight a clove 
cigarette that had gone out as she spoke.  Everyone tensed briefly when 
blue flame appeared in her palm before touching it to the end of her 
smoke.  "That is a decision we make at that time.  Contain him if 
possible."
	"If not, we destroy him?"  Withrow looked slightly pained as he 
considered it, and all the others marveled silently at the fact he'd let 
even that much vulnerability peek through.  Emily turned her head to look 
out the windows of the library, across the yard at the mound of bare earth 
that marked the grave where lay the Gangrel the demon had first submitted, 
a vampire's corpse refusing to dissolve for a hundred years and more 
before holy water finished the job.  She shuddered, everyone glancing in 
her direction and then out into the yard as well.
	"Yes."  Reaching out, Emily tentatively put her fingertips on 
Withrow's upper arm, then the rest of her palm when he didn't jerk away.  
"It would be the most humane option."
	"We'll see about that," Withrow mumbled, and now his weight did 
shift away.  "Enough yappin'.  If Trevor can get us to this Greene's place 
then I want to hit the road ASAP, and I doubt this library's got wheels."
	"I'd need to claim some things from home," Emily said, standing to 
smooth out her slacks.
	"I'm ready whenever."  Trevor stood and drew a set of keys from 
his pocket.  Withrow remained seated and pulled a phone from inside his 
coat.
	"I am almost prepared," Bashir replied.  "Meet back here in one 
hour.  We must be ready for violence.  Withrow, you are free to roam the 
upper floors in my absence."
	The three of them left the room as Withrow dialed.

Raleigh, North Carolina

	Beth was dancing.
	Seth leaned against a corner, watching the stage and the rest of 
the audience.  A storm had broken earlier that sank enough power lines 
downtown to blacken half the city, but Beth's club was still lit.  Seth 
had shut down Legends for the night, and some of the regulars had joined 
him in a jaunt to the strip joint Beth managed.  A silent laugh lifted 
Seth's chest once as he pondered a city with what, five vampires,, and two 
of its most popular after-dark entertainment venues were run by leeches.  
There were a dozen dozen bars and small clubs, but few claimed to be 
nightclubs in any grown-up, metropolitan sense.  Even Seth would have to 
admit they didn't live up to their own claims, but you filled your niche 
as best you could.  Every predator does, he thought.
	The odd thing - the only thing that made Beth's club stand out - 
was Beth, and her dancing.  She didn't take off her clothes, she didn't 
half-heartedly shake a sagging rack to superfluous techno, she didn't beg 
for money.  She never, ever left the stage.  The sound system would pour 
out something lush and quiet - tonight she'd chosen Julee Cruise's "Twin 
Peaks" soundtrack because, she said, she was thinking of Withrow in 
far-away Washington state and the mysteries he'd gone there to uncover - 
and she'd move.  She wasn't just graceful, she was a waterfall in morning 
sun, she was as naturally and wholly beautiful as anything this crowd 
would ever see.  Truckers and fratboys and programmers would sit in awed 
and silenced wonder while Beth told them a story with her hands and her 
legs and her arching back and her pale, soft neck.  She told them a story 
of a beautiful place where they didn't live or work or get laid or even 
dream about getting laid.  They could never go there.  But she would tell 
them about it and that was enough for them.  
	Then, when the song ended, they would rush the stage to throw 
money, spare change, phone numbers, cigarettes, matchbooks, letters, keys, 
whatever they could find in their pockets, anything they thought might get 
them another story of the beautiful place in Beth's dance.  This would 
take seconds - raucous, applause-filled, shouting seconds - and then 
another dancer would appear and do a routine that seemed tasteless and, 
well, vulgar.  And all the men would turn and rush the bar to drink 
heavily and try to remember or perhaps forget that dance of Beth's.  The 
next day, around a water cooler or in a gas station they would turn to 
anyone who looked interested and say, with sad eyes, "You have to check 
out this club I went to last night.  They got this girl there you wouldn't 
believe…"
	That was Inspirations, Beth's strip club.  The universe needs 
editors who shoot people for coming up with names like that, Withrow had 
said, but he'd rolled his eyes and blessed Beth's ambition and petitioned 
old, greedy, tight-fisted and wonderfully dead Prince Bob as a friend of 
the claimant to have the club declared Beth's personal domain.
	They ought to call it "The Gingerbread House," Old Shoe had 
sneered at the time.  A bunch of boys head out of town to a sweet place 
where a beautiful witch feeds them a treat and the heat from their 
crotches finally bakes 'em into rock-hard men.  Then Old Shoe had spit on 
the floor of Bob's old Elysium at the Holiday Inn and Bob's ghoul spent 
two hours patching the floor.  Old Shoe always spit, Seth thought.  But 
Seth had seen him hiding in the shadows at Inspirations, too, licking his 
rotted lips and clearly wishing he could do more to get a fire in his own 
crotch than hold a lighter to it.
	Beth's dance ended.  She turned and walked offstage while the 
crowd still sat, then broke as one and raced the stage with hands full of 
offerings.  Seth nearly leapt out of his skin when his phone rang.  He 
checked the display, cupped one hand over his left ear to block the 
cacophony of adulation going on at the stage, and flipped the phone open.
	"Evening, boss."
	"How's tricks?"
	"All quiet on the home front.  Had a storm, power's out most 
places.  We're fine, though I expect shoe's got a busy night ahead 
downstairs, if you take my meaning.  Half the city's washing down the 
gutters."
	"Try to stay warm and dry."
	"Will do.  Yourself?"
	Withrow paused before answering, drawing and releasing one big 
breath before he spoke.  "Not sure.  Shit's weird here.  Watch out for 
anybody trying to make an offer you can't refuse.  Looks like my cousin's 
AWOL and in deep."
	"Will do.  Keep us updated and get home soon."
	"Wouldn't settle for anything less," Withrow said, and he hung up.
	"Was that Withrow?"  Beth materialized by Seth's left elbow, 
though he knew from experience that no one else would see her there.
	"Yeah.  Something's up in Seattle, but he didn't go into detail."
	"Well," Beth sighed, pulling her hair back to snap a rubber band 
around it and blowing a pink, strawberry-flavored bubble, then popping it 
noisily.  "I'm sure he'll be okay."
	"Me too," Seth said, and he answered her smile with a faint one of 
his own.

Seattle by Lava Lamp - Part II - Episode IV

  Roderick meets long-unconsidered family; friends and family consider 
              their options; Trevor hatches a clever plan.


The abandoned haven of Mr. Greene, deceased

	"End of the line, folks."  Trevor sighed.  All at once, the engine 
of his VW van had shuddered and died, the low fuel light had dinged on and 
the gas gauge had dropped from ¾ to E in no time at all, as though its 
arms had simply given out.  "Either we're there or we're walking there."
	"It's just some house," Withrow grumbled, but Bashir shook her 
head and looked to the demon-compass fizzing in her hands.
	"Look again."
	Withrow and Emily each blinked a few times and squinted, then made 
simultaneous small noises of realization.
	"Plus, demon taint is all over it."  Bashir nodded and went on.  
"We're here alright."
	The side door slid open and Withrow rolled out, Emily behind him.  
Doors slammed and Bashir and Trevor stood beside them.  "I see someone in 
there."  Withrow nodded towards the shattered plate glass.  "There's 
someone in the living room."  He cracked his knuckles rapidly.  "So do we 
go in guns out?"
	"I hope not," Roderick said as he stepped over the remains of the 
front door and into the yard.  "Nobody here but us kooks."  Everyone else 
tensed just slightly, but Withrow relaxed and cracked a small smile.
	"Hello, cousin."
	"Hello, cousin."  Roderick smiled back and walked forward 
open-handed.  "I haven't seen you in forever.  Looks like you, uh, aged 
well."
	Withrow shrugged.  No one else had relaxed yet.  Bashir looked as 
tight as a bowstring and Emily and Trevor had each taken a step back as 
Roderick approached.  Hands still open he finished crossing the yard and 
stepped through the gate.  Very slowly he came within a couple of feet of 
Withrow, then leaned in to hug the mammoth of a man around the shoulders.  
Sucking air through clenched teeth, he drew back his lips and closed his 
eyes.
	"I need help."

Seattle, Roderick's haven

	"So tell me when…"
	Withrow and Roderick sat on the back porch of the house.  It was 
originally a screened patio, but Roderick had the walls taken down and the 
roof removed.  He simply loved to sit and look at the stars, but most of 
all he adored the rain.
	"Tell you when I got the Big Flush?"  Roderick lay on a chaise 
lounge, turning his head to look at Withrow.  Withrow's eyes had not been 
on the heavens - they had stayed on Roderick ever since they'd returned 
from Mr. Greene's, and he'd made no secret of it.  He was waiting for a 
demon to step out of his cousin and…do whatever it is that demons do.  
"Take a guess - the last time you saw me was when, 1960?  Family reunion 
in Pennsylvania?"
	"You flew out with your father."  Withrow shifted his massive 
girth to set both feet on a low table, crossed at the ankles, while he 
spoke.  "Your mother was already gone then."  He smiled at Roderick then 
looked away across the yard.  "You were so excited.  It was your first 
time on a plane."
	Roderick smiled as well, facing the sky again.  "I was twelve 
years old."
	"So you look…twenty?  God, it's been thirty years and I never 
knew."
	"Twenty one."  Roderick grinned to himself and said, "It's been 
twenty eight years and I went to my first Camarilla meeting a year ago."
	Withrow was very still for a few moments and then nodded.  "Shitty 
sire?"  Roderick shrugged but didn't answer, so Withrow went on.  "Got one 
of those back home.  She'd got chomped by a Toreador who'd wandered 
through town.  That was the one word she said to me when I found her:  
Toreador.  She'd just killed some poor bastard behind a gas station."  
Withrow sighed heavily.  "Bashir tells me you were pretty tight with the 
last Prince."
	Roderick sniffed once and took a drag from his cigarette.  "He was 
a friend.  He needed someone who just knew him as Horus, laughed at his 
jokes because they were funny, not because he told them.  Horus was very 
sweet to me.  He made sure I was left alone.  He explained things to me, 
brought me things.  He was beautiful."
	"Sounds like he was sweet on you."
	Roderick smiled broadly and half closed his eyes.  "I wish.  But, 
you know."  He patted his hip.  "The plumbing is the first thing to go.  
Speaking of Bashir, she says you're the Prince of Raleigh."
	Withrow took his turn shrugging.  "It's a recent thing.  Long 
story."
	"So how long have you been one of us?"
	"1954."  Withrow drew a long breath.  "Roderick, if I had known, I 
would have helped you.  Damn, you're family and everything.  I'm sorry I 
wasn't around for you.  My sire told me that I had to cut all ties.  She 
was right - if you hadn't been bit then I wouldn't be here now.  It's 
just…I feel like I didn't live up to something I should have."
	"We don't have families."  Roderick looked sidelong at his cousin.  
"I killed Dad the night before my Embrace."
	Withrow was silent.  The moon had fallen behind a cloud, the wind 
was very still that night.  The only things a human eye would have picked 
out were the glowing tips of two cigarettes dancing slowly up and down, up 
and down, glow and fade.
	"My sire didn't make me," Roderick added.  "It was why he chose 
me, though.  So you see, Withrow, you don't need to feel guilty.  This 
life was meant for me."  He turned onto his side and put out his cigarette 
on the patio's surface, dragging the ember back and forth until it was 
extinguished.  "I'm a natural."

Across town, Emily's haven

	Trevor lay on the bed, watching overnight news.  Fresh-looking 
network anchors were literally reading through morning papers and 
discussing the highlights to warm up for the daily news cycle.  They 
sipped coffee, told jokes, generally stayed up with whatever poor sap was 
up to watch them.  Then sun was still a couple of hours from coming up and 
Emily was hunched over her typewriter, banging away in fits and starts.
	"What are we going to do?"  he asked her, clicking off the 
television.  His hair was rumpled, his skin clammy with sweat.  He looked 
like hell, knew it, didn't care.  Emily typed a few more words and turned 
to face him.
	"About what?"
	He gave her a Look.
	"OK, what are you thinking about that made you ask?"  She reached 
for her mug and took a swig before standing to carry it to the nightstand.  
"Are you thinking about Roderick?  Or about the demonic residue he's 
carrying around?"
	 "All of the above.  Roderick's a good friend to me, you know."
	"We don't make friends," Emily corrected him.  "It's not in our 
nature."  She settled into bed and curled up next to him.  "We only make 
lovers and enemies."
	"Ah," Trevor replied.
	"I'm sorry, but it's true."  She adjusted the sheets a moment.  
"Be glad you're falling for a woman vampire.  If I were a man, lovers 
wouldn't even be an option."
	"Spoken like someone who has yet to study the varieties of options 
available to two men," he said, taking his chance to correct her.  He 
grinned wickedly as she managed a muffled "pervert," into her own arm.  
"But seriously," Trevor said, "I need to know what we're going to do.  I 
don't like Bashir's tone when she talks about him.  I don't like this idea 
that he's got a little demon brewing inside.  I don't like that one day it 
might take over and he'll have to be stopped."  He shook his head and 
disengaged to sit up, looking down at her.  "So what do we do?"
	Without a word, she stood up again and paced the side of the bed, 
mug in hand.  "I don't know.  Bashir knows the most and she claims she's 
ignorant of what to do.  She has said we could make sure by killing 
Roderick," and here Emily was pleased to see Trevor's expression harden in 
preparation to object, "But I told her if she did I'd be very displeased."
	"Does she care what you think?"
	"Not really, but I'm a lot older than she is.  I could make things 
hard for her in this city and I'd put up more resistance than she knows in 
a fight."  Emily shrugged.  "It's moot.  She's way too curious about 
Roderick's condition to kill him outright.  She wants to study him first."
	Trevor nodded and folded his arms over his chest.  "I still don't 
like it.  Roderick's real fucked up but…"
	"But there's a very sweet boy under the weirdness.  Yes, I know.  
And you want to help that boy.  The one who invites you to parties and 
hangs out and drives a cool car and includes you in his life of 
never-ending adventure."  Emily smiled as Trevor did himself, just a 
little.  "I don't know what you are, Trevor, but Roderick tried to pass 
you off as a vampire of dreams, and what little you've owned up to is 
fairly consistently similar.  If you really are one of these Eshu, this 
family of fair folk, then you're a kind of predator yourself."  She sat 
next to him on the bed.  "Did you know you talk in your sleep?  I don't 
understand the language, but it sounds like Arabic to me.  You don't look 
Arab, but if all that you've said is true then you are a predator, far 
from home, with all the pressures and dangers of a society of your own - 
and here's Roderick, who understands all those things and wants to be your 
friend and you can't or he won't let you turn him into a lover or even a 
close companion.  He's the eternal playmate, no more - and hopefully no 
less.  And believe me, Trevor, I know the appeal of that.  I know all 
about how attractive his dangerous secrets must be.  I know all about the 
idea of the demon lover.  I know all about wanting what's bad for you and 
what you can't have, and if you don't know all about it already then you 
will.  Just give it time and you will."
	Trevor had started to hug himself more tightly and now his smile 
seemed a little sad.  "And you're better for me?"
	"Just more honest."
	"It doesn't - this stuff about the eternal playmate - it doesn't 
mean I see you as a substitution for that.  I find you desirable for a 
whole different set of reasons.  Good reasons."
	Emily reached out to hold his chin and nod.  "I know."
	"It still doesn't answer the question, though.  What do we do?"
	Emily shrugged.  "Do you have any ideas?"
	"Yeah."  Trevor took her hand and drew it away from his face.  "We 
have to get rid of what's left of the demon inside him.  This isn't about 
saving the city or our respective secret clubs, it's about not ending up 
messed up ourselves, not letting our friend get fucked over.  We have to 
do something."
	"Well," Emily sighed, "There's never been a better time for ideas 
if you've got them."
	Trevor didn't answer, looking away into the gloom of a corner and 
then down at his hand.
	"You do have an idea," Emily stated, then sat back to chug the 
last of her mug.  
	"Do you believe what Bashir said about demons being influenced by 
belief?  Fantasy?"
	Emily lifted one shoulder and shook her head.  "Like I said, she 
knows the most."
	Trevor nodded.  "Then I have an idea."

Seattle by Lava Lamp - Part II - Episode V

Bashir throws a small tantrum; Trevor seeks to help his friend; Withrow 
leads Emily to a revelation.


Roderick's haven, the next night

	"I absolutely insist that we be allowed to observe Trevor's 
attempt."  Bashir stood beside her seat, across the coffee table from 
where Emily sat.  Withrow hovered over the bookcases to one side, thumbing 
spines and hmphing with impressments or possibly disdain.  He was trying 
very hard not to end up involved.
	"Trevor said that this requires absolute privacy.  We will not do 
anyone any favors by standing around watching."  Emily's voice was very 
calm.
	"Roderick could endanger himself or Trevor.  We have no idea what 
the risks are and we are abandoning them to those dangers without a 
thought?"  Bashir's grip on the chair's shoulder tightened.  She still had 
not sat, had stood the moment she'd been told that Trevor would use "the 
means at his disposal" to separate Roderick from his demonic taint.
	"You sound awfully concerned for someone so ready to off-handedly 
suggest the safest route was killing Roderick ourselves the first time we 
had a chance."  Emily folded her hands in her lap, pupils the size of 
quarters.  She was watching Bashir's aura like a hawk and making a very 
public display of it.
	"Pah!"  Bashir managed a cackle and nearly spat on the floor.  
"And now you're ready to throw your lover to the wolves even more 
casually!  I said that in the absence of information about a problem one 
should always remember the possibility of simply removing said problem if 
the danger it presents is too great to await study.  I did not advocate 
locking up my boyfriend with a demon and a sharp stick and telling him to 
have a poke and let us know how it works out!"  Bashir threw her hands 
into the air.  "You are all such god damned fools!  You bitch and whine 
about souls and beauty and 'the space where the two intersect,' like it's 
a science, like it's rational in any way, like it can be measured and 
codified so that you can wrap your tiny, damnable, ego-driven brains 
around it and you fuck your mortal whores without a thought for the 
Masquerade and you pretend it's all so fucking sensible?  And then you say 
the Tremere are the ones wasting their existence?"  She turned on a dime 
swept through the doors.  They slammed shut behind her without any 
apparent physical influence.
	Withrow tried to bury himself face-first in a corner.  Emily 
continued to sit very still.  After a long, long half-minute she spoke.  
"I take it word has gotten around about my sexual endeavors?"
	Withrow drew a breath - looked like Caine wasn't going to show up, 
end the world and save him from this after all - and turned to face Emily.  
He thought about reading her aura but just looked sheepish instead.
	Emily shrugged it off.  "Oh well.  It's valuable enough to know 
that Bashir is not just nosy but willing to throw one's dirty laundry in 
one's face in public."
	Withrow mumbled an apology and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
	"Her curiosity will kill her on day," Emily sighed.  "I hope I'm 
there for it."

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest rainforest

	Roderick and Trevor stepped into a clearing and the moon was 
almost directly overhead in all her gibbous glory.  The sky was clear, the 
stars unspeakably bright.  The birds, however, were either silent or gone 
altogether.  There were no sounds other than the sound of two people 
walking.  Roderick turned to look behind him, his shadow cast in sharp 
relief by the light of the moon.  "I always think it's neat when that 
happens," he whispered.
	Trevor smiled and took a deep breath.  "We're here.  Are you 
ready?"
	Roderick laughed and looked all around again.  "What are you going 
to do?"
	As Trevor sat on the ground, he motioned for Roderick to follow 
him.  "It's something we can do to people.  It's what we can do to, um, 
feed."  He blushed hard and added, "If you want to call it that.  We 
gather up all this extra…stuff that people produce.  We call it Glamour."  
Trevor paused, giving Roderick time to stop or slow him down, then went 
on.  "Glamour is all over the place, it's everywhere.  Sometimes it's 
strong in a given location, sometimes it's in a thing, an object."  He 
scooted closer on the grass and took Roderick's hand.  "But mostly it's in 
people, anything with a soul.  Glamour comes from dreams and fantasies.  
It is dreams and fantasies."  He waved his other hand in an odd pattern 
through the air, whispering something Roderick couldn't understand, and 
the air lit up around him with billowing motes of light.  "Glamour is 
beautiful."
	Roderick gasped and tightened his grip on Trevor's hand.  
Everything around him was giving off a vertical stream of tiny lights.  It 
was like watching snow fall upwards.  Each one shone like a tiny star, and 
as they wafted towards the heavens they lit the area too brightly for the 
twisting, conflicting shadows they surely cast to be visible, each one 
drowning out the darkness left behind by another.
	"What do you call this thing you're about to do?"
	Trevor smiled a wicked little twist and said, "Reverie."

Roderick's library

	"Note that I haven't objected the way Bashir did," Withrow said.  
He eased forward and sat in the chair Bashir had snubbed.  "But there are 
two things we should consider."
	Emily held his gaze and nodded to acknowledge him.  She hadn't 
moved in fifteen minutes.
	"First," Withrow said, clearing his throat, "The theory that 
Roderick can be saved contains an assumption that he needs to be saved, 
that the demon residue can and/or will feed on something inside him and 
grow.  That in itself contains a further assumption that he has a soul, 
and while that's no great earth-shaker for me, it's going to be for 
Roderick.  Roderick thinks he's damned forever, I can tell from having 
been with him for one night.  What I don't think he's realized is that he 
isn't, that the very fact of his problem is all the evidence he needs to 
make the leap of realization."
	Emily's brow creased for a moment as though this were a new 
thought.  Withrow nodded to her.  "And it's an earth-shaker for others.  I 
see."  He cleared his throat again.  "The other thing I think I should 
mention is that if Trevor's plan fails then we need backups.  If this is 
about saving a soul then we have to do whatever is necessary."
	Emily's eyes welled suddenly and she nodded her agreement.
	Withrow sat back in hi chair and lit a cigarette.  "I thought 
souls might get your attention," he said.  Emily burst into tears.

The woods

	The air around them was practically crackling with magic, and the 
light was brighter than ever.  Roderick lay flat on his back and Trevor 
sat beside him, looking down on his subject.
	"In this place, at this time," he said, "You are seeing the 
Glamour of you, of me, of the world, of life.  Isn't it beautiful?"
	Roderick produced a strangled giggle and gasped, "Yes!  It's 
life!"
	Trevor leaned closer.  "Stick out your tongue and catch one like a 
snowflake, Roderick.  Take some for yourself and all of what's inside you 
will want to join it.  It'll nearly leap out of you to join with 
everything."
	Roderick was almost panting at this point as the charged air ran 
up and down his arms and across his face every time he moved, but croaked, 
"What then?"
	"Then," and Trevor moved to straddle Roderick's waist, "You can 
have whatever you want.  You'll be so full of life and of dreams that you 
can become anything you wish.  You can become your fantasy."
	"Anything?"  Roderick's voice was higher than normal, almost 
squeaky, almost breaking.  His eyes were as big as saucers and his hands 
fell into place automatically at the tops of Trevor's thighs.  
	"Yes," Trevor whispered, leaning close.  "You'll be full of life, 
radiating life.  You'll be alive."  Trevor's fingers brushed against 
Roderick's neck for a few moments - nothing yet - and he leaned closer.  
His breath came right against Roderick's ear.  "You'll be as purely and 
totally alive as any time in your whole life.  All that will be left will 
be you, exactly as you dream of it..."
	Trevor sat up again for a moment and Roderick languidly poked his 
tongue between his lips and leaned forward to catch a single mote of light 
on the very tip.  Then as Trevor leaned in and kissed Roderick, he smelled 
it - it was like rust and rain, wet metal on the air.  The kiss was sweet, 
and Trevor felt a sudden rush of heat as Roderick's body shuddered.  A 
heartbeat roared out of the silence of Roderick's chest and Trevor felt a 
pulse thud into insistent existence underneath himself.  With a smile he 
sat up, still wrapped around Roderick, and looked down to watch the 
transformation.  Roderick's grip on Trevor's thighs tightened, encouraged 
by Trevor's own movement to hug Roderick's body more tightly.  Now all 
that had to happen was the kick-start of Roderick's own dreams.  And here 
I am, ready for him, Trevor thought.
	But even as Roderick's face twisted in ecstasy, the motes around 
them began to dim.  The motes were falling - turning red and falling 
heavily to the ground where they met more red, first a growing slick in 
the grass and then a puddle of pungent, fresh-bled blood.
	"It's beautiful, Trevor," Roderick cried, "I see it all and it's 
beautiful.  It's life, and I want it.  I want life..."
	Trevor's smile faded and he realized it hadn't been a heartbeat, 
not the pulse of an engine he had felt, but a gulp.  The fantasy was of 
blood, and the dreams of the world were feeding it to Roderick.
	Trevor's smile flattened and he pressed both of his hands to the 
sides of Roderick's face.  "That's how it is, eh?"
	Roderick blinked suddenly and his eyes rolled.  "What's happening?  
What are you doing?"
	A cloud rolled over the clearing out of nowhere, and the moon was 
gone.  "Reverie isn't working, friend, so I'm trying something else."  
Every mote of Glamour hung in the air for a moment as though caught in a 
photograph or at a loss for where to go, and then they turned as with one 
will and started floating towards Trevor.  His face hard, he growled, "We 
call this part Ravaging."

Roderick's foyer, three hours later

	"So what happened?"  Withrow was staring at Trevor like a 
suspicious cat.  Cedric had just lifted Roderick like a new bride and 
carried him off to his bed for rest on Trevor's assurance that Roderick 
would be fine tomorrow despite his eyes having rolled back into his 
lolling head, aura weak.
	"It didn't work."  Trevor turned to walk out the door but 
Withrow's hand shot out of nowhere and clasped his arm like a vice.  "I 
can tell.  Details."
	Looking down at the hand, Trevor didn't turn or meet Withrow's 
gaze.  "It's complicated.  I tried to invest him with dreams to draw out 
his own.  I thought if I filled him with goodness - hope, fantasy, you 
know - I thought if I gave him a little to start him off then a short 
while of beauty and love would drive out the demon.  It didn't work, so I 
tried the reverse."
	"I don't get it."
	"I thought that if a demon were a fantastical being - whatever - 
that I could suck it out of him if I tried to drain him of fantasy.  Like 
I said, it's complicated."
	"Uh-huh."
	Withrow looked at him a few moments longer and let go of his arm.  
"Sorry it didn't work."
	"So am I."  Trevor sounded tired, but he was also jumpy, fidgety.  
He looked like he was just starting the crash after a coke binge, Withrow 
thought.  "It sounds like it might have been a good idea.  I'm glad you 
tried."
	"It was a good idea."  Trevor turned and walked out the door, but 
Withrow stopped him on the front porch.
	"I got one more question," he said, and Trevor turned to face him, 
arms crossed.  Withrow glanced around for a moment and lowered his voice.  
"I want to know where this priest was you got a bunch of holy water from a 
while back."  Trevor arched his eyebrows and Withrow smiled a very little.  
"Tomorrow, it's my turn to try and fix Roderick."

Seattle by Lava Lamp - Part II - Episode VI

  Trevor makes assurances Emily already assumes; Withrow and Roderick go 
             on a drive; Cedric receives an unexpected caller.


Emily's haven, Seattle

	"So tell me why you tried it," Emily said.  She and Trevor sat on 
her bed again, each cross-legged.  Her ever-present mug was cradled in her 
hands; he held a sweaty beer.
	Trevor lifted a hand to scratch the middle of his chest, eyes 
locked on the beer label he was methodically peeling from the glass.  His 
fingers returned to said work and he drew a breath.  "In people - in 
mortal humans - it's how we awaken someone to their full potential.  You 
know, an undiscovered musician, an artist who doesn't know his own talent 
yet, like that.  We just - we turn them on, open the faucet, and it comes 
pouring out of them.  They become creative, bold, fresh.  They produce the 
stuff that we…" his voice caught and he said, "We need."
	Emily turned from studying Trevor's face and looked down into her 
own mug.  "Is it their soul?"
	Trevor looked up and wrinkled his brow at her.  "What do you 
mean?"
	Emily's eyes lifted and she shrugged.  "What is it that produces 
this Glamour?  What makes them creative, bold?  Where's the faucet?"
	Trevor looked back down at his beer and then lifted it to take a 
long pull.  "I don't know," he said finally.  "Are you worried that I'm 
some soul-stealing monster?  I know that's what Bashir's been telling 
people."
	Emily arched one eyebrow but stayed quiet.
	"At least, " Trevor went on, "That's what she told Roderick."  He 
blushed hard and drained the last of his beer.  "She said that dreams were 
a pat of the soul and that I was stealing souls if that's what I took from 
people.  But that's not how it works, Emily, I swear to you.  That's not 
what I do to people.  Please," he said softly, "Believe that I would never 
do that to you."
	Emily emptied the dregs of her mug and set it aside to reach out 
and put both hands on one of Trevor's knees.  She smiled a little and 
said, "I know, Trevor, I know.  And I can do the math.  Roderick showed up 
at home looking like he'd been hit by a train."  Trevor opened his mouth 
but she shut it gently.  "What you're trying to say is that you can drain 
someone like that but you don't.  It makes sense, Trevor.  You tried to 
awaken his soul but something didn't work, went wrong, whatever, and when 
it failed you tried the opposite and it didn't work either.  But don't 
worry.  I know."  She smiled a little more.  "I know you're no 
soul-stealing monster, and I know you don't do that normally.  What 
matters to me is what you wake up.  Is it a person's soul?"
	Trevor sighed quietly and shook his head.  "I don't know, Emily, I 
just don't.  I told you, I'm never going to do that to you, I promise."
	Emily reached up and fidgeted with a curl of his hair.  "And I 
just told you, I know you never will.  Now get some rest."

Roderick's haven, Seattle

	"Here, let me drive."  Withrow took the keys from Roderick's hand.  
"You still look a little woozy."
	Roderick was standing, a marked improvement over the night before, 
but he was leaning against the banister in the front hall with his hair 
over his eyes.  He had dressed in shabby parachute pants and a powder blue 
t-shirt with TOOTH FAIRY in white block letters across his chest.  Withrow 
had chosen his usual:  black jeans, a gray button-up, black jump boots.  A 
cigarette dangled from his lips and he shrugged on his overcoat after 
hefting the keys in his hand.
	"I'm fine," Roderick said, but he yawned as he craned his neck 
back and pulled his hair out of his face and into a ponytail.  "Never been 
better."
	"Uh-huh."  Withrow opened the door and gestured out into the yard.  
"Youth before beauty."
	"Oh, Jesus," Roderick sighed.  He moseyed from his place against 
the stairs.  "Where are we going?"
	"It's a surprise," Withrow smiled.  "Just be patient."

Roderick's kitchen, minutes later

	"Evening, Cedric."  Trevor appeared in the doorway to the back 
patio, dressed in shorts and a plain white golf shirt.  "What's shaking?"
	Cedric turned from his mopping of the kitchen floor and looked at 
Trevor for a moment before averting his eyes and turning back to his task 
with renewed vigor.  "I'm afraid Master Roderick has just left with his 
cousin.  I'll be glad to attend to you in his absence, or deliver a 
message to him, sir.  Just give me another moment with the floor."
	Trevor crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.  "Goddamn, Cedric, 
I'm not the massah's guest come by to check on your enthusiasm.  I'm not 
here to see Roderick, I'm here to see you."
	Cedric turned back to face Trevor again, looking mildly bewildered 
for a moment, then gathered himself again.  "I am at your disposal, as 
with any of the master's guests."
	"Then grab a drink and join me on the patio."  Trevor hefted a 
six-pack in his hands.  "Let's kick back and talk."

A back road outside Seattle

	Roderick rode slouched down in the passenger seat, head lolled 
against the cushion.  The car Withrow had rented was something sleek and 
modern - he had no idea what it was - a family sedan designed in mid-life 
crisis.  It was comfortable and looked expensive, a car that yearned for a 
ragtop but had been denied such frivolity for the sake of practicality, 
reliability, soccer practice.
	"Is this such a good idea?  It's been a rough week."
	Withrow chuckled and answered with his thickest drawl.  "I thought 
you said you were fine.  You getting carsick or something?"
	A very childish face was Roderick's response, tongue sticking out 
and eyebrows knit, but it was half-hearted.  "No, I'm just wishing you'd 
tell me where we're going."
	"We're going to talk to someone about helping you.  Don't worry, 
you already know him.  It's no big deal."  Roderick turned his head 
towards Withrow as his cousin spoke, but Withrow waggled a finger at him 
and went on.  "Don't even think about it, cousin.  You try to read my mind 
and I'm on the next plane out of here.  Huh-uh, no sir."
	Petulant, Roderick flipped his gaze around out the car window and 
muttered something.
	"Yes, you do need help," Withrow replied with another chuckle.  
"Roderick, face facts, you said it yourself."
	"I was scared."  Roderick turned back to look at the road again.  
"Maybe now I think I can handle it.  So what if there's a little demon in 
me?  I can do it, I can make it work for me.  I could don a cape and a 
mask and become the demonic boy wonder, fighting crime and using the evil 
inside me to right wrongs.  I could mope around when I'm off-shift, 
lamenting my eternal damnation if it makes anyone more comfortable."
	Withrow sighed.  "There's already one shitty comic book about 
that."
	Roderick nodded begrudgingly.  "OK.  What if I adopt the 
philosophy that since the demon was around it had to end up somewhere, and 
if it's me then, you know, it's at least under lock and key in easy reach.  
I could bear the burden of having to be its cage, see to it that if it's 
anywhere, at least I'm its warden.  Its power would be used by someone, 
anyone who ended up with it, so at least I can be in charge of how it's 
used."
	"Thanks, Spider Robinson."
	Roderick looked oddly at Withrow, who glanced back sidelong.  
"Sorry, Mindkiller.  Good book, same deal.  Sorry, I read a lot.  I've 
heard that line before."
	"Egghead."
	"Look, Roderick, there's something dangerous inside you and you 
need someone…someone responsible to help you deal with it."
	"Oh," Roderick laughed, "Oh, that's rich.  And you're my guardian 
angel?  Do you suck only the blood of willing flowers and fart rainbows 
when you're taken by the Beast?"  His laughter filled the car while 
Withrow's face hardened.  "Come on, get real, cousin.  We all have 
something foreign inside, we all have a little demon of our own.  Mine 
just has a name and a track record."
	"Roderick, you're mad.  It's in your blood, you can't be trusted 
with this kind of thing all by yourself."
	"Do not," and here Roderick thrust his finger at Withrow while 
simultaneously sinking lower in his seat, "Do not sit there and condescend 
to me, you arrogant prick.  Do not sit there and pretend you've been 
around for thirty years and have some right to tell me what to do.  So 
what if I'm a kook?  You people sit around our galleries and your fancy 
havens and your Elysium and you say, Oh, the poor Malkavians, they're all 
like children lost in the woods, like little blood-drenched lambs on the 
edge of the fold, and it's up to us with our crystal-clear sanity to pull 
them back from the edge and can you pass the blond mortal, he's simply 
delish this evening!  And you act like it's so sensible!  Jesus H. Christ 
on a bungee cord, where do you get off?"
	"Well, I see why you and Bashir get on so well," Withrow sighed as 
he signaled and turned onto a gravel drive that disappeared into woods.  
Roderick sat bolt upright in his seat and his eyes widened.
	"Oh fuck, you are not taking me here.  We are not going there."
	Withrow turned and smiled.

Roderick's patio

	Trevor took another swig of his beer and then said, "OK, so a life 
of servitude is your choice because you find fulfillment in aiding others 
reach their potential."
	"I fulfill my own potential by doing so, Sir - " but Cedric 
stopped as Trevor lifted a hand and he started over.  "Trevor, rather.  
When I see that Roderick is well dressed, well kept, that his home is as 
he wishes it, his dog well fed, I ensure that Roderick sees what I have 
done for him.  I live in servitude because I am better at these things 
than the one I serve.  My talents are those expressed in the keeping of 
the home, the presentation of himself in his society, one rife with high 
standards.  My efforts are continually displayed and appreciated."
	"So you're the artist and he the canvas."  Trevor played with his 
bottle cap.  "I get it, I guess, but it's not my situation."
	Cedric smiled faintly and continued to sit very rigidly.  "You 
feel that your lover only views you as a bauble, a diversion, and one with 
potential expertise in a matter extraneous to the relationship but of 
importance to her.  You fear that you are kept only for your passing 
interest and your potential knowledge.  Trevor, you are not in my 
position.  If she believes you have information of use to her then it is 
not the same as having a talent she does not possess."
	"Isn't it?"  Trevor shrugged and drank.  "Either can be beaten, 
starved or cajoled out of someone:  information or work.  If she only 
wants me because I may or may not know about souls is it different from 
only wanting me to do her laundry?"
	"Ah, but she did not come to you for that information alone."  
Cedric shook his head as he spoke.  "Roderick took me as his servant for 
the explicit purpose of using my skills.  Miss Emily is not using you, 
though you may turn out to be useful.  It is a different thing."
	"Yes," Trevor agreed.  "It makes me wonder if I turned out not to 
be interesting enough on my own."

Outside Seattle

	Withrow walked around and opened Roderick's door.
	"What the fuck are we doing here?" Roderick demanded, almost 
hysterical.  "I am not going in there!  No way!  What do you want with 
me?"
	"Just some good ol' country-style laying on of hands," Withrow 
said, and he nearly pulled Roderick's arm from its socket as he yanked him 
from the car and onto the ground.  The churchyard was exactly as Roderick 
remembered it from when he and Trevor had been here for the holy water 
they used against the Sabbat:  lush and green, marred only by the 
occasional tire track where the small gravel lot overflowed on Sunday 
mornings, white clapboard parish with surprisingly contemporary stained 
glass in each window.  The Beast in Roderick yelped once in abject terror 
and Roderick himself produced a sudden, high-pitched whine of fear.  The 
demon inside, however, failed to manifest flames or wings or any other 
means of escape.
	"It's not coming out to play, cousin," Roderick growled.
	"Come on, you piece of shit," Withrow roared, "Where is it?  I 
want that demon out here where I can lay hands on it!"  Withrow's eyes 
were wild and he landed a savage kick to Roderick's ribs that lifted him 
from the ground and punted the Malkavian limply through the air and into 
the church doors, landing him in a heap.  The doors fell open and Withrow 
stepped up to grab Roderick by the ponytail.  "Where a preacher in the 
house?"  His voice bellowed and in Roderick's reeling brain the thought 
surfaced that it would really suck to break a Tradition in a city where 
Withrow were Prince.  
"I said I need a preacher!"  Withrow walked forward and Roderick slid 
behind him, arms flailing for some form of anchor to grab but missing each 
pew as they passed.
	A priest - the priest - stumbled from one side of the confessional 
with wide eyes and a look of dumb horror.  Withrow turned to face him and 
then in one lighting-quick motion slung Roderick into the air, up over his 
shoulder and down onto his face with a smash that splintered bone.  Blood 
sprayed for a second and Withrow looked away from Roderick and back to the 
priest.  
	"Don't sweat it, padre.  I'm on God's side in this one."  He 
lifted his boot and gave Roderick another kick so that Roderick spun down 
the rest of the church aisle and landed with a squelch against a prayer 
cushion.  "He's got a demon inside and I want it out."  Withrow's 
towering mass lurched forward as the priest continued to stand mute, 
until Withrow reached Roderick and hoisted him onto his knees with one 
hand.
	"Family spat, father," Roderick managed, spitting teeth.  "I 
killed his uncle thirty years ago and he just found out."
	"That's not all," Withrow roared, shaking Roderick back and forth.  
"He killed his father but that's not the fucking point!  He's got a demon 
in him and I said I want it out!  Now!"
	The priest clutched something under his shirt and started 
whispering - the Lord's Prayer, they realized - and a circle of light 
appeared out of nowhere around him.
	"That's the stuff, padre!"  Withrow grinned wickedly, his eyes 
practically glowing with the Beast, and thrust Roderick out to arm's 
length.  "Now get a little closer, just close enough to get this shit head 
in it!"
	"Not too close, eh, cousin?"  Roderick's voice was squeaky and his 
eyes rolled as he tried to look back at Withrow but failed.  "Afraid you 
might be found lacking, yourself?"
	The priest stood stock still, the light around him almost a 
tangible field, now grown so that its outer edge was inches from Roderick.  
Roderick smiled in the light and blood ran from his mouth.  He met the 
priest's eyes and said, "My cousin's right, there's a demon in me.  At 
least, I think there is.  But see, I'm crazy, so how can I be trusted?  He 
said it himself on the way here, that I couldn't be trusted with this 
whole demon thing.  But you and I have met before.  How many demons show 
up and order a twenty gallon drum of holy water?"
	"It's been since then, that he got the demon."  Withrow shrugged 
at the priest.  "Just FYI."
	The priest looked back at smiling, bleeding Roderick, who spoke 
again.  "He wants you to wash me clean of all sin, father, but here's the 
thing:  you can't.  It's a paradox.  I'm inherently sinful already by 
being born to man and woman, right?  Plus tack on the whole vampire gig 
and I'm hopeless.  What he wants is for me to be like him:  not a 
murderer, not crazy, not demonic.  He's real good at forgetting I'm 
already like him.  Look around and ask yourself who the crazy one is."  
Roderick laughed again and Withrow shook with anger.
	"God!  Damn!  It!  I just want you back!  I want you to just be my 
cousin again!"  He spun Roderick around and held him up by the shoulders.
	"Thirty five years is a long time between family, Withrow."  
Roderick's eyes were glazing, he was barely conscious.  "I know it is.  
Three decades alone is enough for anybody, but you can't have back your 
little cousin so full of potential.  All you've got is this one, the rest 
of your family is still dead, whatever finding me again makes you wish 
for."  Roderick's eyes closed and he whispered, "I'm sorry about dad.  I 
really am.  The demon's not coming out, though, it's hiding inside.  It'll 
let me take the punishment rather than fight you or this priest or anybody 
else."
	Withrow's hands shook and his eyes simply turned pink, as though 
every vessel had burst at once.  He shifted Roderick from one hand to 
another and his face wound into a knot.  Blood sweat ran down his temples.  
A taste of it crossed his lips and a link in the Beast's psychological 
chain snapped.  "You can't be the only one left.  You can't be all I have 
after all this time."  In a blink of an eye he'd hoisted Roderick again 
and cocked back a balled fist, but the priest's hand on Withrow's arm was 
like fire.
	"Get out of my church."
	Withrow staggered, and then caught Roderick even as he nearly 
dropped him.  The strength he'd felt left him and Withrow was forced to 
shoulder Roderick like a sack.  He met the priest's eyes and said, "Are we 
all this crazy?  Did I think this was sanity?"

The same church, 10 minutes later

	The priest stood in the sanctuary, counting money.  There were 
hundreds of dollars in his hands, and he figured that yes, as the very 
angry fat man had promised, it would cover cleanup and repairs to the 
doors.  He just wasn't sure whether he should take the money.
	The door to the other side of the confessional opened and the 
woman stepped out.  "Is it safe now?"
	"Yes, child," the priest sighed.  "It is."
	"Thank you, father."  She smoothed her hair and dabbed at her eyes 
with a stained tissue.  "And please, call me Emily."

Seattle by Lava Lamp - Part II - Episode VII

Emily makes an apology; Roderick receives a surprise; Withrow seeks wisdom 
in experience; gifts are given, promises are made.


Roderick's haven, the next night

	"Roderick, I'd like you to take a drive with me."
	"Emily," Roderick sighed, "I'm not up for another round of 
pin-the-bruise-on-the-Malkavian right now."  He sat low in his chair in 
the house's sitting room, his feet up on an ottoman, his hair in his eyes 
again.
	Emily had the good grace to glance down at her shoes for a moment 
and nod.  "I imagine not.  I'm not here for that."  Roderick produced a 
single laugh.  "I just want to talk.  I promise I will only talk to you."
	Roderick lifted both eyebrows and exhaled abruptly so that his 
stringy hair fluttered in front of his face.  "OK.  Why not?  Bashir's 
locked in her lab and Withrow and Trevor are too embarrassed to be in the 
same room with me."  He stood slowly and stretched.  "You bring any of 
that cold shit you drink?"
	Emily nodded and held out a steel thermos.  "I thought you'd be 
hungry."
	Roderick reached out, took the mug and unscrewed the cap.  He 
gulped grotesquely, holding it in both hands, Emily looking away politely.  
When the chugging noises stopped she glanced back and Roderick was 
screwing the lid back on.  "Alright," he said, "You've paid the cover 
charge."

Roderick's haven, 10 minutes later

	Withrow descended the stairs and answered the door.  It was 
Trevor, standing there on the porch in knee-less jeans and a wife-beater 
tank top.
	"Thanks for coming," Withrow mumbled as he stood aside and 
gestured into the house.  "Come on in."
	"Cedric got the night off?"
	"I reckon," Withrow shrugged.  "Haven't seen him around.  Bashir 
neither.  It's just us."
	Trevor nodded and tucked his hands in his pockets as he strolled 
into the foyer.  "I brought beer, but I guess you don't touch the stuff 
these days, huh?"
	"Actually, I love it."  Withrow grinned as he walked with Trevor 
through the sitting room and up the hall to the kitchen.  "I learned to 
eat and drink real food."  He sounded like a blush.  "My sire made me, 
said it was a good trick to pick up.  She was right."  He laughed suddenly 
as they reached the kitchen and Trevor stuck four bottles in the 
refrigerator.  "She usually is," Withrow finished, taking his beer from 
Trevor's hand.
	They each took a quiet sip, and then another.  The world outside 
hummed just outside of hearing, but they were both silent.  Finally Trevor 
said, "So what do you want?"
	Withrow set his drink down on the counter and took out a 
cigarette.  "I want you to do to me what you tried to do to Roderick.  
Whatever it was, I want you to try it on me.  I want to know some of what 
he's gone through."
	Trevor shrugged and looked disinterested.  "Then suck down a demon 
and let us know how it works out."
	Withrow sighed very quietly.  "Please, Trevor."
	Trevor finished his beer in silence and then nodded.

The yard of Mr. Greene's former haven

	"Why are we here?"
	Roderick and Emily stood on the grass, trampling knee-high stalks 
as they shifted their weight.  Emily had spent a couple of minutes just 
looking at the crumbling house when they arrived, and Roderick had smoked 
a cigarette thinking that he wasn't even going to get the talk Emily had 
promised.
	"Roderick," she said at last, "I want to apologize for everything 
that's happened to you."  Roderick started to wave away her sentiments but 
she interrupted the interruption.  "I don't just mean the last couple of 
nights.  I mean with Mr. White, with Mr. Greene, with the fact we let you 
end up in this circumstance, for your isolation from vampire society, for 
the loss of Horus, for everything."
	Roderick too another drag from his cigarette and then looked her 
up and down.  "How did you know that I knew Horus?"
	Emily smiled and crossed her arms, but it wasn't a defensive 
stance.  It was one of patient authority.  "We all knew he had a confidant 
somewhere.  Everyone knew the Prince needed somewhere he wasn't Prince, 
and when he died then you moved into his haven and suddenly appeared on 
the scene.  It was easy to work out who was the Prince's confidant after 
all."  Emily lifted her shoulders.  "That's not the point.  The thing I 
want you to know is that I wish it had been easier for you."  Roderick 
arched an eyebrow at her and she took his silence as permission to go on.
	"I know a small measure of what you've experienced."  She turned 
to look back at the house.  "When I was young there was an overpowering 
force I knew."  She reached up to touch her forehead and spread her hand 
across it as though it ached.  "I knew loneliness, longing, terrible 
things.  I had a cruel sire.  He…"  She swallowed.  "He wanted to live a 
story."  She smiled sadly then, and moved her hand back down to her side.  
Roderick still said nothing.  "But I broke free.  In time I was my own 
person again, free to move and live as I wished.  Well, within the 
Traditions, of course.  And, much later - later than necessary, very 
recently - I rediscovered hope.  I know now that the bad things I've 
experienced or done haven't killed the good parts of me, that they are 
still here, still valuable."  She stopped and fumbled for a cigarette of 
her own, lighting it quickly and taking a drag.  Roderick's gaze was fixed 
on her still, her every tiny movement or flinch, her lips as she spoke 
haltingly.
	"Roderick, I know that there are beautiful parts of me no matter 
what, that immortality offers me the chance to tend that part of me that's 
best.  I believe that's true for any of us - you as much as anyone.  I 
admit that I have a decent chance of being right if I guess you've done 
some fairly awful things.  I don't know the exact nature of your 
relationship to the Malkavian who lived here, the demon's last victim, but 
I realize also that it doesn't matter, whatever it was."  She turned back 
to Roderick and reached out with her free hand to take his.  He yielded 
but didn't seem overly enthusiastic.  Looking into his eyes, Emily asked 
him, "Do you believe things could be better for you?  That all the things 
you've done could be wiped away and that you could nurture something 
beautiful inside?"
	Roderick stubbed out his cigarette and looked away and up, at the 
stars.  "Are you asking if I'm sorry for the things I've done?"
	Emily murmured a yes, she guessed so.
	Roderick lowered his face and looked back at her.  "Yes.  I'm 
sorry for what I've done - and I have done terrible things.  But I could 
not undo them.  They'll stay done whatever I say about them, so I don't 
wish them gone."
	"That's true," Emily said with a nod.  "They stay done, but they 
can cease to matter."
	Roderick smiled and it was actually very sweet.  Emily was taken 
aback by the youth of his face, the odd glow of his eyes, the seeming 
presence that suggested sanity.  "I wouldn't want that," he said.  "I am 
who I am, Emily.  All of those things I've done, my isolation, my 
friendship with Horus, my fight with the demon, the demon being inside me, 
my sitting at the feet of Mr. Greene to be told how to channel what's 
inside me, all of it has to matter.  I've how I've experienced the world, 
it's how I've spent thirty years.  It's who I am.  It's what the blood in 
my veins gives me."
	Emily looked disappointed, her face pinched, her eyebrows low, the 
corners of her mouth tugged down.  The last statement had taken her by 
surprise and she said, "What?"
	Roderick smiled again.  "We're crazy, yea, and I could make that 
into some big philosophy but the inescapable fact is that I've gotten by 
for thirty years and I'm getting by now.  It's you people fucking with me 
- don't look wounded, it's true - that's made this week so bad.  I 
appreciate your kindness to me and your concern and your confidence in me.  
But I haven't beaten up, bedazzled or preached to anybody all week long.  
As far as I can tell, so far so good.  That's all a Malkavian can do 
sometimes, but it's our specialty:  looking around sometimes and being 
able to say, so far so good."
	Emily closed her eyes and fidgeted with the chain around her neck.  
"Roderick, you don't understand how important this is.  Please, listen to 
me, I may be your last chance."  She drew out the gold necklace and the 
crucifix that hung from it.  "Please let me help you," she said, and as 
her eyes opened Roderick saw the Heavens in them.
	"Holy shit," he whispered.  "You're like that priest, you've got 
the power…"  Roderick took a step backwards as Emily's sad face took one 
step forward.  "Stay the hell away from me!"
	Emily stopped and looked at him with freshly hardened resolve.  
"Roderick Surrett, do you refuse the aid of the Almighty God?"  Her voice 
was soft, but Roderick's hair was practically on end; whatever was going 
on, she meant it.  Finally he managed to choke out an answer.
	"Yes!  I do refuse it!"
	Roderick looked ready to frenzy, his eyes locked on the crucifix, 
but any reaction was cut short by the sound of a rib shattering and a wet 
snap as a stake was driven through his back and popped slickly out the 
front of his chest.  Roderick dropped like a sack of potatoes and Bashir 
stood behind him.  The light of Emily's faith faded and she looked down on 
the stricken Malkavian.
	"I told you we would end up doing this my way," Bashir muttered, 
theatrically dusting off her hands.
	"Everything is ready?"  Emily still looked down at Roderick, who 
was in turn afforded a close-up, face-down view of the ground.
	"Yes.  I am prepared to finish it."
	"Thank you for giving my way a chance," Emily said, clearing her 
throat and stepping back.  Bashir did not respond to the gratitude, but 
reached for Roderick's midsection.
	"And now we'll see what a Tremere can do."

Roderick's house, back patio

	Withrow was on the deck chair, spread out, eyes fixed on the 
stars.  Trevor sat on the patio beside him, his eyes on Withrow's face.  
The Toreador's expression was full of wonder and he was peacefully 
reposed.  Motes of Glamour danced directly over him.  It was the polar 
opposite of his experience with Roderick, absent of all the lust and the 
utter failure.  Withrow had spun open like a clock unwinding all at once 
the moment Trevor injected a little magic into the air.
	It was not, Trevor reflected (and not for the first time) entirely 
unlike being the sober person when a friend was tripping.
	"What do you see?"
	"I see..."  Withrow's voice was faint.  "I see everything I want.  
I see Raleigh safe.  I see the vampires there free but well-behaved."  He 
laughed suddenly.  "I see Beth - she's a Toreador there, poor girl - I see 
her safe.  I see Seth protecting her."  Withrow smiled.  "They love me.  
I'm their Prince and their friend but they leave me alone when I want it.  
I'm..."  Withrow's beatific face faltered slightly.  "I'm like the 
patriarch of one big, happy family, and Roderick is there too, the wacky 
uncle everyone loves to visit."
	Glamour poured off Withrow like smoke from a fire and Trevor 
reached out to stroke his face.  "Are you ready to come back?"
	Withrow didn't respond, and Trevor passed his hand over Withrow's 
eyes as the motes of Glamour faded one by one.  Trevor himself partook of 
the sensation and sat taller, posture tighter, smiling.
	"Whoa," Withrow sighed.
	"Yeah."
	Withrow turned his face to Trevor and rubbed his eyes.  "That's 
what you did to Roderick?"
	The Eshu shook his head.  "I tried but it didn't work."  He 
shrugged.  "I did the opposite, remember?"
	Withrow nodded.  "The demon kept it from working?"
	"Sure.  Maybe."
	"And maybe my cousin's just that fucked up, huh?"
	Trevor shrugged again.  "Have you always wanted a family?"
	Withrow turned his eyes away again and breathed in to speak.  
"That's ludicrous.  I don't want a family."
	"That's what it seems like you want."
	Withrow shook his head.  "It's different for us.  Similar, but not 
the same.  We want to be wanted for as many reasons as possible."
	"You mean, you want that."  Trevor smiled kindly.  "I won't tell 
anyone."
	"What'd you think would happen to Roderick?"
	Trevor started to speak, stopped himself and then said something 
so honest they both laughed out loud.
	"I think I just wanted in his pants."

Roderick's haven, front drive

	Emily's car pulled up fast and crunched the gravel as it slid on 
for a foot or two.  Bashir shot out of the back seat with Roderick under 
her arm.  "Go inside and see if Withrow or Trevor are here, we'll need 
them both," she snapped as Emily jogged beside her.  
	Cedric parked right behind them, arriving in the tiny wagon he 
used for errands.  Pausing as the engine died he fumbled clumsily with 
something in the passenger's seat.
	"Wait here," Bashir barked at him.  "We're seeing to Roderick, you 
must attend to your duties."
	Cedric sat in mild shock as his master was lugged inside.

Back patio

	Emily sped through the kitchen and slung open the sliding glass 
door as Trevor and Withrow went from heartfelt laughter to silent 
surprise.
	"We need you inside," she said.  "Bashir's taking Roderick down to 
the lab.  We're solving this problem right now."
	"Wha-?" was all they could manage before Emily slammed the literal 
door on any questions.
	"I figure we'd better do as the lady says," Withrow grunted, 
rolling from the deck chair to stand.
	"Roderick's going to be okay," Trevor said, rising to stand behind 
Withrow.  
	"He'd better be.  If he isn't I'll kill anything I can get my 
hands on."
	They bolted through the kitchen and down the hall, rounding the 
corner into the sitting room to find the hidden door into the basement 
already open and Cedric appearing to guard the library.  He simply pointed 
down the stairs, saying, "The master requires your assistance," but 
Withrow and Trevor were already bounding down the aged wooden steps.
	They hit the basement floor running and wheeled into the open door 
to Bashir's laboratory, only to stop short on seeing Roderick:  stacked, 
spread out on a low metal table carved with what looked like B-movie 
arcane symbols, Bashir standing over him scattering salt in all directions 
and chanting in Latin.
	"What the fuck?" Trevor squeaked out from behind Withrow's 
shoulder.  Bashir waved them into the room.
	"My research has turned up a ritual which may work.  Move, 
Withrow, I need Trevor first for this."
	Withrow moved dumbly to the side and Trevor stepped up to Emily, 
across the table from Bashir.  The Tremere dug in the pockets of her robe 
for a moment before producing a scalpel.  Thrusting it across to them she 
nodded at the wall.  "There is a bowl on the counter.  Each of you must 
bleed into it.  Trevor, you will find gauze and antiseptic in the cabinet 
overhead.  Move quickly, I must purify the subject."  Her tone was so 
commanding that they both instantly obeyed like children in the presence 
of an irritated headmistress.  The scent of blood flared every nostril in 
the room as Emily and Trevor took turns with the blade.  Bashir, 
meanwhile, gave a couple of quick stirs to a boiling pot of water, threw 
in a handful of ingredients that smelled strongly of sweet spice and rose 
petals and then turned to face the rest of them with the pot in one hand.  
"Now, Withrow, your turn."
	"I will not bind my cousin without his permission," he grumbled, 
the Beast clearly prowling its cage.
	"You won't.  Your blood will lose that potency almost 
immediately," Bashir snapped as she waved her free hand over the water 
held in the other.  "I need your kinship to him as an anchor."
	With that she emptied the bubbling pot onto Roderick and a cloud 
of steam boiled off him everywhere the liquid splashed.  Withrow 
grudgingly opened his own wrist with his fangs and the bowl was filled by 
the final contribution.
	"Fairy blood may be very bad for vampires - " Trevor blurted, and 
Emily stammered, "Why mine?"
	Bashir paused in her whirlwind of movement just long enough to 
look very cross.  "Your blood carries faith, Emily, and bizarrely enough 
what one might call purity.  Trevor's is otherworldly.  Yes, it is 
dangerous, and that's the point:  that a fae's blood might serve as a sort 
of spiritual expectorant.  Now, Withrow, force-feed him the contents of 
the bowl, I need this done within a minute of the bath!"
	Withrow waited the length of one heartbeat - the only one in the 
room - and emptied the mixture of blood into Roderick's mouth.
	They all stood silent and waited.

The library, directly overhead

	Cedric checked the time on the grandfather clock, stepped to the X 
marked in masking tape that Bashir had placed on the floor, and held out 
his burden over the Y Bashir had placed an arm's length away.
	"God forgive me," he said, "I do this for my master's sake."

Lab

	Seconds ticked by.  Bashir, Emily, Trevor and Withrow all froze, 
watching Roderick, who stared straight at the ceiling.
	A sound like cannon shot knocked each of them off their feet and a 
jagged gout of what might have been fire in photographic negative leapt 
out of the middle of Roderick's chest, into the ceiling overhead and was 
gone.

Library

	A bolt of something fired out of the floor where Bashir had marked 
the Y.  Cedric slammed his eyes shut but nothing happened.  After long 
seconds he opened first one lid and then the other.
	The infant in his arms looked back with bright red eyes.
	Cedric hesitated, then turned to carry the child - still held at 
arm's length - out to the foyer.  There he stood, his study of the 
infant's face studying his accompanied by the sound of yet another car 
approaching and light feet on the stairs up from the basement.  Bashir 
appeared after a moment and stepped over.
	"This is a terrible thing you have bade me do," he said without 
looking at her.  "I have stolen a child and damned it because you told 
me it would help my master..."
	"The clan will be here any moment.  Cedric, look into my eyes."
	He turned his face to her and nodded.
	"Forget," Bashir whispered, and then a knock sounded.  With swift 
hands she took the child and opened the front door.
	"It's done?"  A silhouette spoke from the front porch, backlit by 
headlights.
	"Yes.  Payment in full for the ritual provided, as agreed.  Do you 
accept it?"
	The shadow drew the child from Bashir's hands and into its own 
outline.  Red eyes were its only distinguishable feature as it was turned 
this way and that, like merchandise under examination.
	"Yes.  The clan thanks you, Dr. Choseldei."
	Bashir lowered her head and the shadow was gone.  A car door 
slammed, the headlights withdrew and Bashir closed the door to turn for 
the basement once again.

Laboratory

	Withrow was first on his feet.  He glanced around and noted 
Bashir's absence from the room.  Adjusting his shirt he grunted, checked 
his limbs, his face, sniffed the air and found no sign of trouble.  The 
hair on the back of his neck resolutely refused to stand on end, so he 
moved to Emily and shook her awake.  Murmuring that she needed to check 
Trevor - breathing evenly but unaware at her side - he turned to fix his 
gaze now on Roderick.  A squint later Roderick's aura resolved but showed 
no signs of anything amiss.  Rather, Withrow realized, his cousin appeared 
to be enjoying peaceful slumber.
	"Do not awaken him yet," Bashir spoke quietly as she came into the 
room.  "We should withdraw the stake neatly and cleanly, and have blood on 
hand.  I've asked Cedric to retrieve some from the kitchen."
	"Bleah," Withrow mouthed.  "Cold?"
	Bashir shrugged and gave Emily and Trevor cursory glances.  "The 
least of his worries tonight, I should think.  The operation was a 
success, I think.  The demon is gone, safely banished."

Later

	Emily, Trevor and Withrow sat in the library, smoking cigarettes.  
They'd talked quietly for a few moments after Bashir shooed them upstairs, 
but it was the usual talk of those in hospital waiting rooms:  they hoped 
it had worked, they were sure it worked, what if it hadn't worked?
	Finally their conversation was broken by the sound of running on 
the stairs.  A whoop preceded a quiet, strangled yell - then the clatter 
of something heavy spilling as it was knocked to the floor by a collision.  
A moment later, Roderick leapt through the door, it the polished wooden 
floor on his knees, slid to a halt against the coffee table and spread his 
arms wide.
	"Tah-dah!" he cried with a maniacal grin.  "It's the denouement!"

Seattle by Lava Lamp - Part II - Episode VIII

  Conclusions abound; Withrow undertakes his travels; thanks are offered 
                                all around.


Roderick's haven, two nights later

	"What I hope you'll tell me," Emily said with her hands in her 
pockets, standing almost but not quite relaxed in the door of Bashir's 
lab, "Is why the ritual worked."
	Bashir was busy cleaning her lab - a job from which Cedric was 
forbidden - and she smiled silently as she finished drying a set of small, 
clay dishes.  "Would I sound too like Roderick if I quipped something 
about trade secrets and laughed?"  She set the bowls into a neat stack and 
leaned against the counter to face Emily.
	"No," Emily sighed, "And I'm sure you'd be telling the truth.  
It's just that I thought…" she gestured at the lab, whose implements and 
required skills she knew she would never grasp, "It's that I thought what 
you said originally about demons stuck in my mind."
	Bashir nodded.  "And that was?"
	"That they're creatures of belief, influenced by how the world 
thinks of them.  I thought if Roderick wanted it gone, wanted purity, that 
it would just leave."
	Bashir smiled again and reached up to adjust her bun.  "Precisely 
your error, Emily.  You viewed his situation through the lens of yourself, 
your own patterns and ideas.  The same is true of both Trevor's and 
Withrow's attempts."
	"How so?"
	Bashir went from fixing her hair to adjusting the folds of her 
robes, unusually fidgety.  "Trevor appealed to Roderick's sense of 
fantasy, even his lust.  But these are what would have appealed to Trevor, 
not Roderick.  Withrow in turn appealed to Roderick's sense of guilt, his 
need to be punished for wrongdoing.  This is not a characteristic of 
Roderick, but it's a major part of Withrow's personality.  He has a highly 
defined sense of order and code of what makes for just, honorable conduct.  
Otherwise he would not be a Prince, would not have rushed to Seattle on 
the news that his cousin was here and Kindred, would not have stayed to 
aid him in his time of need.  You appealed to his sense of hope and desire 
for change and a better future."
	"But you used magic on him." Emily was clearly exasperated.  "You 
imposed your own way of dealing with the world on his circumstance."
	"I applied a millennium of collected experimentation and 
research," Bashir said matter-of-factly.  "My clan are not witch-doctors 
with quaint notions of ancestor worship and base animism.  We are 
scientists.  My solution did not require that he believe in it or agree 
with it.  It simply worked."
	"Ah."  Emily took her hands from her pockets.  "You seem to have 
thought of everything.  Thank you."
	"Emily," Bashir sighed, "Never be angry about the truth.  I do not 
think less of you for failing, and you should not care if I do.  The 
mistake you made runs throughout the Camarilla.  We look at Malkavians and 
forget that they are not a part of our reality.  They are here and we are 
here but we are rarely in the same place.  They are a different sort of 
creature entirely, and as a result we often place expectations on them 
which they cannot or will not fulfill.  Then we become angry or 
disappointed when the error is our own the entire time.  One cannot make 
an ally of a Malkavian by cajoling them or by pretending that they can be 
wooed or intimidated like any other vampire, and that is a lesson the 
whole Camarilla should learn.  I am not saying they are more or less 
valuable than any other clan, but in order to make them valuable, to reach 
them where they are, one has to go where they are and see the world they 
see, not their place in our own world."
	Emily studied Bashir closely as the Tremere moved to return to 
cleaning and straightening.  "Why are you telling me this?"
	"For the same reason I advise you to maintain your friendship with 
Withrow.  One day you will be Prince of this city, Emily, and it will be 
good for someone to have told you these things.  It will also be good for 
you to have backers who are already established in their power.  And you 
could do well to have as allies the one-day Malkavian primogen and a 
future Regent of a chantry."
	Emily stared at Bashir, who in turn picked up a metal tray and 
began to wipe it down with a cloth.
	"Good night, Emily."
	"Good night, Bashir," Emily mumbled, and she turned and went up 
the stairs.

Library, Roderick's haven

	Emily topped the steps and walked out into the foyer.  Withrow and 
Trevor stood their talking, laughing quietly before Withrow clapped Trevor 
on the shoulder - perhaps too hard as he nearly lost his balance and they 
laughed again.  Emily held back politely until the two were done and 
Trevor shook Withrow's massive, pudgy hand.
	"Have a safe flight," he said, then jangled Emily's keys in his 
hand.  "I'll get the car started."
	Emily nodded and came forward to meet Withrow as Trevor walked out 
the door.
	"Prince Surrett," she said with a nod.
	Withrow waved off the formality and grinned.  "Withrow will do 
fine.  Emily, I'm very glad to have met you."
	"I'm sorry I couldn't introduce you to the city in better 
fashion."
	"Nonsense.  If all this bullshit hadn't been happening you still 
would have been plenty of a tourist attraction all on your own."
	Emily's eyebrows went up and she laughed.  "Withrow, I didn't 
think you swung that way."  Withrow took his turn looking surprised.  "Oh, 
don't look so shocked," she went on, "I'm familiar with your work.  You 
were nosing around queer theory issues before Stonewall.  I've got a copy 
of one of your books at home; the name hit me eventually."
	"Pah," he rumbled.  "That was years ago, utter crap compared to 
what they've got on the shelves today.  Besides, I've had to stop writing 
under my own name."
	Emily shrugged, "It's still yours."
	"And you'd know all about that wouldn't you?"  Withrow smiled.  
"But your car is waiting and so is my plane, Miss Bronte.  It's been a 
pleasure, I'm a very big fan."
	Emily looked shocked for the second time in twice as many minutes.  
She started to stammer, then shut her mouth and turned for the door.
	"What a week," she said to no one.

An airstrip outside Seattle

	"A chartered jet for one person is a little excessive, don't you 
think?"
	Roderick shrugged as he stopped the car and let it idle on the 
tarmac.  "Safety first," he said.  "Besides, it's only a small jet, and 
what good will salted peanuts do you?"
	"I like the salted peanuts," Withrow whined, but Roderick cut him 
short with a punch to the shoulder.  They both looked at the plane for a 
moment and then Roderick sighed.
	"I really am sorry for what happened to our family.  I'm sorry 
about the fact you lost us, and lost the fantasy we would all be okay, 
that you'd get to watch our progress through the years and, I don't know, 
have an anchor or whatever it was you were looking for."
	Withrow shook his head and lifted his hands.  "Nothing I can do 
for it.  It may not be what I asked for, but it's what I have.  It's still 
mine."
	"You'll come back and visit?"
	"Not soon," Withrow said.  "But you'll come see Raleigh.  Bring 
the rest of them if you want.  Just remember to call first.  The Prince 
can be a real bastard."

Emily's haven

	Trevor was busy in the bedroom, while Emily sat and watched the 
late night news.  There was an uninteresting story about some minor 
trouble in Vienna:  a hotel catching fire and a concierge crying in broken 
English about a baby that flew and spat flames from its eyes.  Emily 
flipped over to A&E for a piece on Romantic poets.
	"Emily, I, uh…"  Trevor stepped quietly into the living room and 
set his bag at his feet.
	"You have to go," she said.
	"Yeah."
	Emily stood and turned to face him.  "I know."
	Trevor didn't ask how, very pointedly.  "It's a fairy thing.  
I…have to wander.  I have to hit the road sometimes and figure out what's 
happening.  I'll put together the story and then…"
	"Then maybe you'll come back.  It's okay.  I have to do some 
thinking about this, and the future.  My future."
	Trevor nodded, and Emily cleared her throat.  "You know, I had a 
brother who was very like you," she blurted.  Trevor blushed and looked 
down at his feet and Emily went on.  "He wandered.  He was beautiful.  We 
loved him very much, and he helped us tell some very lovely stories."  She 
wrung her hands and finally he looked back up.
	"Later," he said.
	"Not too much later, I hope."

Raleigh, RDU airport, two hours before dawn

	Withrow walked off the plane and into a private terminal.  The 
fluorescents were garishly bright, leaving Seth and Beth even more washed 
out than normal.  Withrow actually squinted to adjust to the light and 
then exhaled in a gust of sigh and groan.
	"Home at last."
	"Welcome back," Seth answered.
	"How've things been?"
	"Quiet," Seth said.  Beth remained silent and then broke from her 
contemplation of the middle distance to step forward, reach out and cradle 
Withrow's face in her hands.
	"The monster is universal.  He is no disappointment.  Madness is 
the release valve, the elastic waistband in the sweat pants of his 
existence.  Rigid with rational thought, you would have been ridden by the 
awful loss of control, so now be rid of the notion that you should have 
faced it instead or that you failed when you tried.  He already moves in a 
fractured, fluid world.  One more straw did not break the camel's back and 
bought the psychiatrist time to find the right prescription."
	Withrow stared down at Beth in surprise, lifted his eyes to Seth's 
even expression and almost imperceptible cock of his head - as if to say, 
fuck if I know? - and then said, "Okay…"
	"I'll go get the car," Beth smiled, turned on a heel and walked 
away.
	Seth watched Withrow watch Beth as she left, then nodded at empty 
air.
	"Has it ever occurred to you that Beth may not be a Toreador," 
Withrow whispered.
	"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that."
	"Right.  Tomorrow."  Withrow shouldered his bags again and started 
for the door.  "Fuckin' A, Seth.  Just fuckin' A."

Roderick's haven

	Roderick rapped on the closed door to Bashir's lab and the locks 
all slid back or twisted open simultaneously.  "Come in," Bashir said over 
the creak of hinges.
	"I, uh…"  Roderick patted his stomach and scratched his neck.  "I 
wanted to thank you for fixing me."
	Bashir turned and looked at him through her bangs.  "You are 
welcome."
	"Do I owe you anything?"
	"No."
	They stood in silence for a few more seconds and then Roderick 
spoke.  "So, I was going to play fetch with Bob out in the back yard.  You 
want to join me?"
	Bashir smiled very faintly.
	"No."
	"Okay," Roderick said, and he kicked the heel of one boot with the 
toe of another.
	"But I do have some notes to record.  I will come to the patio 
while you…play."
	Roderick grinned, and bounded away up the stairs.