"I caught sight of my reflection
I caught it in the window
I saw the darkness of my heart
I saw the signs of my undoing
They had been there from the start."--Blood of Eden, Peter Gabriel
... I don’t want to tell you about my life. Why do stories always have to start at the beginning? Why can’t they start in the middle? Or at the end? Okay, fine. I’ll start at the beginning.
I don’t want to tell you about my life because there’s really not all that much to tell. I used to be normal. I used to be boring. My family was wealthy; I had everything I wanted, and a bright and promising future of more normalness and boringness ahead of me.
Okay, okay. I was born in 1848, in Oxford, England. My father was a professor of philosophy and religion at the university, and my mother, as all women of her time, simply stayed at home to tend the house and raise the children. Or, as the case may be, the child. I was the only child in our house. As far as I know, my parents never even tried to have any children other than me. Mother would occasionally be confined to her room, but I doubt it was because she was pregnant. I think she just wanted to get away from her duties as a wife and mother. She read a lot, but, as I learned later, not of the type of books that women of her station were expected to read. No, my mother was a fan of popular fiction—penny dreadfuls, as they were often called. If only I had found her books while I was still alive...
Oh, where was I? Ah yes, my life. So I passed 17 years under the watchful eye of my father, learning things that a proper young English girl should. And I passed 17 years under the not-so watchful eye of my mother, but not learning much of anything from her attention, or lack thereof. Seventeen years of normal, boring, English life. Until HE came along...
I suppose, after the fact, that perhaps HE was after my father. Years of study had caused my father to develop some rather outlandish theories on religion and the afterlife. These were things that he spoke little of when he taught, but wrote on extensively, and occasionally muttered about around the house.
Then again, HE may have been after my mother. She was, as I’ve said, a bit of a recluse, but she had plenty of neuroses and quirks that would have made her quite a desirable target for HIS attentions.
But in the end, HE chose me. I’ve often told myself that it was precisely because I was so normal and boring that HE wanted to see what HE could do with me. Or maybe there was a part of me buried deep inside, just waiting to be fractured into a million pieces, like the shards of a mirror when you drop it...
HE was a Malkavian of the Sabbat, who went by the name of Reaver. And for whatever reason, HE chose to Embrace me, and put me through the Creation Rites. No, I didn’t get whacked over the head with a shovel, buried six feet under, and have to claw my way out. That’s what I did to my parents, you see. Well, sort of...
"Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one."--traditional
...I killed my mother first. I waited until she had retired for the evening, and then waited a little while longer, just to make sure she was sleeping soundly. Not because I wanted her to be asleep when I killed her, mind you. No, I wanted to scare the living shit out of her. So I crept into her bedroom, silently, slowly, climbed into her bed beside her, and then let out an unholy shriek as I pounced upon her. She didn’t last long beneath my fangs, and my fingernails, which had been filed into ten neat little points. Really, it was almost too easy.
Then on to my father’s room. It was a blessing, I suppose, that my parents never shared a room, and that he slept at the opposite end of the house from my mother. Her feeble struggles and screams had not come close to reaching his ears. So he, too, was surprised when I entered his room, intent upon killing him. But I couldn’t kill them both the same way, no, that would have been too easy. My father always let the fireplace in his room burn down to the embers before going to sleep. A poker in the coals, then a poker in his mouth, scalding his tongue and throat. Back into the coals, then each of his eyes. Into the coals a third time before piercing his chest and entering his heart. Or thereabouts, really. I never have been too good with human anatomy. (I can help with that...)
Then it was off to dispose of the bodies. Reaver had been kind enough to give me a shovel, assuming, I suppose, that I might use it to knock my parents unconscious before burying them alive. If the look on HIS face when I dragged their corpses into the backyard was any indication, I think HE approved of my methods all the same. Whether HE did or not, HE told me that I had passed the test, just as soon as both of the bodies were buried. The way I figure it, I predated Lizzie Borden by 37 years. But since I didn’t fuck up, and go and tell everyone that my parents were dead, no one thought much of what I did. Stupid Lizzie. Just goes to show why I don’t trust women. Except myself, of course.
So then I was a part of the Sabbat. To be perfectly honest, being a part of the Sabbat in England in the late nineteenth century was not all that entertaining. The Camarilla held sway over most of the country, particularly the big cities. And while they couldn’t always be certain whether or not a Cainite was Sabbat or Camarilla, Reaver and I were not exactly the best at disguising what we were. We were just a little bit too… well... extreme...
At any rate, once I had learned the basics, Reaver headed out, leaving me on my own. HE had other things to do, other childer to attend to, and so on. I couldn’t bear to see HIM go. I threatened to run out into the sun if HE left me. HE laughed. I threatened to run and join the Camarilla. HE laughed again. In the end, HE staked me, and left me with the rest of HIS pack, telling them to let me go only after HE had been gone for several weeks.
HE left, and all I felt was emptiness...
"... I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha...."-—letter attributed to Jack the Ripper, September 27, 1888
... until I met Jack.
Jack was really just another young man, living in London, trying to get by, to make ends meet. HE had, however, a bit of a weakness for the ladies. But HE was just another face in the crowd to most of them. And HE seethed inside, every time they overlooked HIM for another, more handsome young man, or a more successful young man. But I noticed HIM, and I saw in HIM exactly what I was looking for.
I went to HIM while HE slept. I whispered into HIS ears while I stroked HIS soft, black hair. I told HIM that if HE would do things for me, I would give HIM everything HE had ever wanted. I would pay attention to HIM in the ways that the other women would not. I would make HIM immortal, to never be forgotten.
And HE did what I told HIM. HE butchered prostitutes, and brought some of their blood to me. Tasty, so long as HE hurried it home to me. HE also took other parts of their bodies, though HE never really told me why. HE always kept some of HIS secrets. I was willing enough to let HIM do so, just as long as HE always came back to me when HE was through. And after a time, when HE had proven HIMSELF to me, I tried to fulfill my end of the bargain. I tried to make HIM like me. And... I failed.
Reaver had told me how to make others like me. And I did everything that Reaver had told me to do. But it didn’t work. Something went wrong, and Jack, my Saucy Jacky, was dead. And once again, the emptiness consumed me...
"I go wild, 'cause you break me open, wild 'cause you left me here, I go wild 'cause your promises are broken..."-—Wild, Poe
... I must have wandered around London in a daze for weeks, maybe months. I really don’t remember. One morning, I stayed out wandering a bit longer than I should have. As the sun broke the horizon, I felt the most searing PAIN that I have ever felt. And the PAIN shook me out of my misery, made me whole again, made me want to go on with my unlife. The PAIN was real, more real than Reaver had ever been, and even more real than Jack had been. Or at least it seemed like that for a time.
I couldn’t bear the thought of remaining in London, so I scrounged up enough money to pay for my passage to America, and set out for New York City within the week. Oh, that boat ride was hell for the other passengers. A girl has to eat, after all...
"If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere..."--New York, New York, Frank Sinatra
... and where better to catch your dinner than the Big Apple. I’ve never really liked that phrase, but that may have something to do with my lack of interest in fruit. I suppose.
Anyway, here I was in the big city, with the entire world as my playground. And what did I do? Not a whole hell of a lot. Well, not what I would have usually been up to, at least. Here, I had other Sabbat to play with. What a wonderful, glorious, game we had!
I always had my diversions, of course. But none of them ever managed to achieve the notoriety of my love, my Jack. And even the most promising of them died, sooner or later. I never have learned the proper way of making them like me, you see. Though it doesn’t stop me from trying.
Besides which, now that there were other Sabbat to play with, I thought it high time that I do what I could to help the sect. You see, if you believe the propaganda that some members of our sect like to spew, the Malkavians of the Sabbat are nothing more than a bunch of slathering idiots, kept locked up until they’re needed for war. Bullshit. There are some, I’ll admit, that do have to be kept caged up, like beasts. But they’re hardly worthy of the name "Malkavian." No, I’m far more useful than that. Give me a problem, and I’m bound to solve it, sooner or later. Can’t get it out of my head until I do, you know?
So I passed a number of years, diversions here, helping the Sabbat there, and so on. Whenever I needed to be reminded of why I was still there, just a little PAIN helped me sort everything back out. And just when that was beginning to grow old...
"You I think I love because like me you’re not quite sane..."--Love is Not Love, Redd Kross
... I met Jack.
Of course, that wasn’t really HIS name. But he reminded me of my Saucy Jacky. Something about HIM, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, drew me to HIM. Made me sit up and take notice. HE was killing women. Except that HE was different. HE was one of us… except not. HE was perfect. HE was everything I had ever dreamed of.
Sorry, sorry, I’m gushing again. I tend to do that when I talk about my Jack. But... let him tell you his story.
"She’s barely gained consciousness and when she sees me, standing over her, naked, I can imagine that my virtual absence of humanity fills her with mind-bending horror."--Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
Growing up in New York City can take its toll on about anyone. A childhood surrounded by pavement and skyscrapers can really twist the perceptions of a budding mind. You look at the world differently. Things take shape in a completely different way. When the only trees you see are the ones that are contained in a pot and have been set in front of you on the sidewalk, you’re forced to find beauty in something other than nature. But beauty can be found in anything. I found it in things like the dark corners of alleys, steaming storm drains, or dirty little secrets about things done in dark rooms on sweat-soaked sheets. I saw it in the danger that hung in the air over Central Park at two in the morning. You see, it’s all around you. I see it all, and it’s so beautiful. Maybe you’re just afraid to look where I look because you feel that you just might learn the truth about what is beautiful. Yes, yes... the flowers, the starlit sky, the birds singing. Fuck that. Give me a redhead in a tenement basement lying on a sweat-soaked (and now, very blood-stained) sheet. I want her heart. I want her to be mine forever, so I take it with me. I know, I’m a hopeless romantic; but I always was a sucker for a redhead...
Oh. Where was I? Right. Me.
Don’t ask how this all stuck with me, as I’m not even sure. So many of our kind...
I grew up a city kid, you know? No, that doesn’t mean I played stickball and all that shit. I never was a great athlete. I could run like Hell, however. You get used to it when you’re an outsider at school. It comes with the territory. If the fat kid would occasionally try running instead of crying when the kids came to kick the shit out of him, maybe he’d work his way out of the hole. So, yeah, I was a kid who grew up quick. The city does that do you. You have to learn to take care of yourself, or the place will swallow you up. Especially if your parents smoke as much hash as mine did. I read a lot. That’s how I kept myself out of too much trouble. I started to write. I had a knack for it, so I was told. It was poetry mostly. That’s what I liked to write. It let me say what I wanted without wearing out my hand. I mean, I wasn’t exactly your normal kid. No shocker there, I know. I was always too deep and contemplative for most of the other kids. I wasn’t disliked. I was misunderstood. In high school, it was the same thing. Like I said, I had to grow up fast. I was still misunderstood. Granted, by the time I graduated, I was gorgeously good looking... and misunderstood.
I went to NYU on a partial scholarship. College was, well... college. If you’ve never been, try it sometime. I was a year away from finishing my English and Literary studies degree when I was given the blood to become a Cainite.
"Take my hand and don’t look back... into my coffin Cadillac."--Trance, Tiger Army
You see, she knew me from the local scene. I guess you could say it was a "goth" scene. After all, it was the ‘90’s and the word had taken on its full meaning. New York City in the 1990’s was goth heaven. Bush was pissing away all the money he could, but you see, we were too drugged to care about it. And I was too busy being the brooding poet that I’m depicted and described as. There’s just something that drew women to me. Perhaps it was curiosity about why "I was so sad," or the simple fact that I was a beautiful, talented person. They were drawn to me, like needle nose pliers to a nipple. Of course, I didn’t ever stop them from pursuing. I had to find my muse-of-the-week, after all. Where was I? (Dead girl) Oh yes, her.
Like I said, she knew me. I didn’t know her, but that’s how things worked for me a lot of the time. Her name was Chloe and she was a redhead. I always was a sucker for a redhead...
She did it the same way it happens to a lot of us. The ol’ fuck and suck. She did it because, well, I was too beautiful and talented to let die. When we’re created anew, it has effects on us all. You see, I became more beautiful, more swallowed by the darkness, and my mind became fractured. I wanted to know Death carnally. I wanted to find Death and fuck her little brain out. Death is a woman. A man could never be so beautiful.
Chloe stayed with me a while. She explained a lot about what I had become. She explained the politics of everything. How it all worked, and how we weren’t going to allow ourselves to be involved in all of the politics. I was Embraced as a Toreador. She made a clever choice, I think. I deserved it, after all. I learned plenty to survive from her. However, our relationship was short lived. She decided that she wanted to leave me. I scared her, she said. I wasn’t who I was before. I mean, I was... but just with a few of my internal knobs turned up. She didn’t like the way I fed... and killed. She didn’t like the way I cut them open. She couldn’t bear the thought of staying, and lacked the heart to destroy me. So there I was. Alone, in a dangerous city swarming with Cainites like myself. I walked a dangerous line that I never knew existed. I continued my ways, quite in turn with my "creature of the night" side, and in full acceptance, (if not joy) that I was made to be a killer. It was natural order. It was the food chain. I was the predator. I was population control. Wow. I sound like a sociopath.
"Ahh. Then what a pair we could make..."—Louis to Armand, Interview with the Vampire
It wasn’t long before I met the person who would change my unlife, and save it, in a way. She was kind of a redhead. I always was a sucker for a redhead. She was a tiny little thing that liked to play with fire and call herself Jubilee. Jubilation... it’s the opposite of depression. But, she was as beautiful as that wet smacking sound a skull makes when it hits concrete...
Oh, he’s going into another one of his strange metaphor thingies. That’s okay, I can explain this part. You see, when I first found Jack, I was actually on assignment. The Archbishop of New York City, at least at the time, was Francisco Domingo de Polonia. Yeah, I know he’s a Cardinal now. I’ll get to that part later. Anyway, Archbishop Polonia knew I was talented. So, when he got wind of some information that the cops were looking for a serial killer that seemed a little bit like a Cainite, but he didn’t think it was one of ours, he set me on the trail of this guy. After all, I had a bit of a reputation for going after the serial killer types.
As an aside, don’t even ask me about Son of Sam. He wasn’t mine. He was a worthless fuck up who couldn’t even figure out how to kill people with a fucking gun, at close range. Fuck up. ‘Nuff said.
So I looked over Polonia’s information, thought about it for a little while, and then headed out looking for this guy. I should have known something interesting was going to come of it, from the tingly feeling I got when I was tracking HIM.
The drill was, of course, that I was to find HIM, stake HIM, and drag HIS happy ass back to Polonia. That was the way it worked. But when I saw Jack, when I saw him at work, I knew that I couldn’t take HIM back to the Archbishop. At least not yet... so I decided to get to know HIM. And what better way to get to know your friendly neighborhood serial killer than to set yourself up as HIM next victim? It wasn’t too hard to do. Like HE said, HE has a thing for redheads.
But I wasn’t HIS typical victim, because I fought back. And HE was fast... I mean, super fast... but I’m pretty clever. And making someone go a little crazy is always helpful if you want to slow them down. And then we had a nice long talk, about life, or our lack thereof.
My perception of HIM being perfect didn’t change. I decided right then and there that HE had to work for our side, at any cost. I could explain it to Polonia later, if I had to. So I asked him to do one little task, and then HE would be one of us.
All HE had to do was kill HIS Sire...
"Don’t cry for me, oh baby
Now your life drains on the floor
Don’t cry for me, oh baby
A dead end boy for a dead end girl..."--Die, Die My Darling, The Misfits
All I had to do was kill Chloe. Is that all I did? She was fucking Autarkis, Jubilee... A Cainite doesn’t survive on their own for long unless they’ve got the shit to back it up. She was a fucking elder, you know. She was living in a Sabbat city and you guys hadn’t even noticed her there. (I always thought there was something funny about a single rose growing in a thorn bush...) So, I went back to her, but not for long. It didn’t take me very long to find her again. I did the typical "look, I’ve changed" speech and she was fucking Toreador enough to buy it. That whole "looking for love in all the wrong places" thing they sometimes get going on. Boy, did I ever prove the wrong place to look.
So, I told her I would meet her at her place, and I had to go pick up a present. She left, excited that her wayward childe had come back to the fold. So I went out on the prowl and found a handsome young female specimen with a nice big, red pumping heart... Oh. Anyways, I found her and got her to take a large amount of laudanum. I took her with me to Chloe’s flat and brought her upstairs as a meal. Some guys bring wine... we bring people. After we got a little hot and heavy, I brought the drugged chick out. I offered her to Chloe and she gladly partook of her vital fluids.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried blood laced with laudanum, but it has a tendency to slow you down and make you see beautiful things. So, with Chloe reeling from the drugs, I produced a stake and that was that. I plunged the sliver into her black, shriveled heart. The look in her eyes was priceless. The sheer disbelief, swirling with traces of the colorful visions she was seeing, danced together in a ballet to rival the world’s most beautiful creations. I took her soul into me and a portion of her strength has been mine ever since. And with that, I looked at her pile of ashes, disappointed that I couldn’t take her heart with me... I went out to find Jubilee, or to let her find me.
Yeah, so that’s about it. Now Jack was one of us, and I could take HIM back to meet Polonia, and the other Sabbat of the city. Didn’t really have to explain HIM to the others, either. Maybe they thought HE was my childe. Or maybe Polonia realized that HE could be just as useful as I was. At any rate, HE certainly made a good impression in New York. Remember that time at Festivo?
"Take the skin and peel it back Now doesn’t that make you feel better?"--March of the Pigs, NIN
Yeah. I do. Here’s the story. I don’t know how they like to do it in other places, but back in New York, the Festivo dello Estinto is full of competitions. Not the least of which is the torture, dismemberment, and blood retention contest. You see, each Sabbat contestant gets a mortal to work with. The idea of the contest is that whoever can inflict the most pain on their victim, dismember them into the most pieces, and spill the least blood, wins. I felt that this would be a good place to showcase my skill and craft. So I took my mortal, a butcher knife, and an iron and I went to work.
I started off by cutting off the outermost pieces of the body: the toes, the fingers at the knuckles, etc. After every piece I cut off, I would take the iron and quickly cauterize the wound to prevent any blood spillage. I would take the tiny pieces and nail them to a wall across from my victim, so that they could feel the inner anguish of seeing their body rebuilt right across from them. So I continued this, this cutting of small pieces, and used smelling salts to wake the victim up whenever he copped out and couldn’t stay awake for our show. Eventually, he was in little pieces, all which held nice little amounts of blood in them. Needless to say, I won. I think I might have even impressed some of the Tzimisce. I was the guest of honor that night and got first pick at that night’s Blood Feast. It did wonders for my reputation.
... and I was in love. But, anyways, it wasn’t as though we needed to do much for our reputations. Polonia knew we were good. After this, everyone really knew how good Jack was. And Polonia always liked it when his favorite Cainites made a good showing of themselves.
Of course, it wasn’t only Jack and I. Our pack, the Twisted Little Fuckers, had a few more members, back then. Our ductus, Sasha, was Lasombra, and had spent far too much of her time at Andy Warhol’s parties before the Sabbat got her. Our priest, Saint, was a Toreador antitribu, and a closet case of the worst kind, but when you’re dead, that sort of thing doesn’t always matter. The Doctor, a Tzimisce... well, let’s just say he sometimes creeped me out, and that’s not very easy to do. And then there was Silent, a City Gangrel, who was either our Abbot or our mascot, depending on who you ask. Jack and I didn’t hold positions back then, mostly because we were usually helping Polonia. He never made us his Templars, cuz he had fleets of Templars. But we were up there among his trusted Cainites.
So time went on, and eventually it was time for the Sabbat to act. The war council, the plans, all of that I’m sure you’ve heard a million times before. We were there. We even talked to the Vykos... (well...) okay, okay. She... I mean... it? looked at us. It almost might have acknowledged our existence!
Yeah, we took part in the siege, when all was said and done. We were in Atlanta. That was a riot. Straight through the gates of heaven and hell, pouring into the Camarilla’s precious Elysium, and then death death death everywhere! The rest of our pack... they didn’t make it out. One by one, they fell like the weaklings that they were. Jack and I got pretty messed up, but we made it through.
After that, Polonia said we deserved a vacation. And I guess we did. So off we went to Mexico City...
"Once upon a time, there was a little place on this planet where the dead walked and talked and played their little games. Welcome to our fairy tale."--from the Players Guide to the Sabbat
Mexico City is the Mecca of the Sabbat. At least once in every Cainite’s unlife he or she absolutely must visit it. Mexico City is Shangri-La. There is no restraint in our great capital. We indulged our every desire. We washed our hands in the blood of chaos. I saw a pack called the LosVatosLocos break down a little tenement shack, murder the family inside and play street soccer with the severed heads in a ring of flames while three other packs placed bets and cheered them on. Mexico City was to us what the Playboy Mansion would be to forty-year-old IBM cubicle worker.
We got a little distracted in Mexico City, but that’s never a bad thing. This was the place that we were meant to be. Fire Dances every night, usually over the rubble of something you had just destroyed, or the bodies of whoever you had just killed. Everything they teach you when you’re alive, about manners and etiquette and all of that shit just goes straight out the window... along with anything else you feel like throwing.
So we stayed in Mexico City for... gosh, almost two years. Polonia had been promoted, and I knew he wouldn’t need us right away, if ever. We sorta lost touch with him, though I suppose in a bind, he might be inclined to help us out.
And here we are now, heading for New Orleans. Seems kinda strange, but apparently the Cainites from Gulf Shores got driven out of their home last spring. So they’re regrouping in New Orleans. Well, I’ve always wanted a voodoo doll... (me too, honey... me too...)
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© 2002 anneke@scarywhitegirl.net