Seattle by Noir! Issue 3 2/05/16

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A senseless loss of life. You see that phrase writ in the papers a lot. Bandied about on the evening news by somber anchors. The same ones who will put a smile on their face fifteen seconds later when they lead into a story about a puppy saved from a well.

Sometimes it is senseless. Perfectly good blood shouldn't be spilled without a reason. Detective Harlan Fontenot's reasons this night are many. No, a perfectly good corpse should never go to waste, he thinks to himself on Friday night. Now that he and the krewe have saved the Gypsy, it's time for her to punch out before she talks about what she's seen with those eyes that can see too much. He'll call Madame Katerina later. For now, he has to make funeral arrangements, and Harlan is more the pragmatist than the sentimental type.

He rings up Raul Escobar to get the skinny on some of the movers and shakers in the Chupacabras. The gang has chosen to bring themselves to Harlan's attention, and he wants them to learn the hard way that such acts come with consequences. Harlan lays out some critera to Raul, and with his intimate knowledge of the gangs of Seattle and the players within, he readily comes up with a name. Tito Ramirez. Very clean, very careful. His rap sheet might as well be coated with Scotchgard, because nothing seems to stick. Tito has a place in Belltown with a garage. Escobar even says they suspect he's kind of like a Winston Wolfe-type for the Chupacabras. A cleaner. Perfect. If all goes as planned, Harlan wants to catch this puke with his hands dirty, even if he has to sling the mud for him.

So far, the cards are coming up aces. With the info he wants gathered, Harlan drives outside of town for a bit, looking for a secluded spot to carry out some business. He doesn't need to trek into the boonies, though; privacy enough for a couple of young lovers to engage in some back-seat action will suffice. He finds a disused gravel road and a little patch of clearing nearby. He stashes some gear: a tarp, rope and a bodybag, then heads back into town. Now, for the dirty work.

The Gypsy's thick, slavic accent is like nails on a chalkboard in Harlan's ears. He focuses on every negative scrap he can; it makes the decision to kill her more palatable, and less the act of the monster that he has become. "Madame Katerina, this is Detective Fontenot. Are you...still interested?" He expects her to both berate him and leap at the Embrace; he was supposed to meet with her several days ago and do this, but he kept putting her off. Now he has an even better reason to want her gone, and doesn't want to waste any more time.

"Not with you," she says, throwing Harlan for a loop. "I feel that you do not have my best interests in mind."

Well, fuck. He did not expect this possibility. With this act of vaccilation, his reluctance to kill her fades to eagerness. The further she dances out of his clutches, the more he wants to choke the life out of her. Trying to convince her to embrace her original desire--no pun intended--seems like an act of weakness and desperation, though, and he refuses that notion as a matter of prinicple. Also, considering Harlan had previously offered her several opportunities to back down or follow an alternate path, if he tries too hard to talk her into this it would probably seem even more queer to the mystic who is already wary of his motives. Harlan apoligizes if his offer seems insincere, explaining that there would naturally be some give and take if they followed through with the arrangement. He reiterates that he is indebted to her, however, and that if she changes her mind, she knows how to contact him. He hangs up, and heads for The Garage. He needs to touch base with the krewe, and a bit of hunting might clear his head some--it'll give him a chance to fantasize about how he'll do the witch in when he gets his hands on her.

Jakob is a late arrival to the krewe's regular meet. For several days now, he has been hungry. The Rack has not been kind to him, and his efforts to hunt have been barely sufficient to meet the needs of his busy schedule. He has lately been courting a coterie of Nosferatu whose herd has vanished; perhaps he is subconsciously trying to walk a mile in the shoes of those haunts that call Arkwright Cemetery home. If so, he is trying to put that mile behind him; it's a terrible way to live, and possibly die again. If he doesn't score some blood soon, hunger frenzy might be right around the corner.

With his imposing stature and a taciturn air, Jakob's modus operandi when it comes to feeding is no cunning feat of venerable Native huntsmanship. He simply threatens, intimidates and bullies his victims. He looks for the frightened or weak, seperates them from the rest of the herd and feeds. Just like any other predator. Tonight, he prowls Broadway on Capitol Hill, eyeing the crowd. He spots a couple of hipsters strolling together, their ironic beards and plaid shirts merging into a blur of trendy uniqueness. No real meat can possibly hide under those skinny jeans. As distasteful as his prey may be, Jakob is reminded of one of Harlan's off-color jokes. What's the Indian word for bad hunter? Vegetarian. Probably just like those two. When you're hungry, though, you can't be too picky, but even still, Jakob knows that grazers taste a bit off.

He closes in, but his inner hunger throws off his game. He comes off to them as woozy and desperate. Instead of seeing Jakob as an imposing bruiser who can force-feed them a moutful of their own teeth, they see him as the first stereotype that comes to their minds: Just another drunken Indian. Rather than cower in fear and succumb to the bite, they push away his attempts as nothing more than aggressive pan-handling.

Across the street, a group of five punks sees the hipsters dancing around with the Redskin in the hoodie. With strength in numbers and an overdeveloped sense of homophobia, they see nothing more than three queers polluting their strip. Who's gonna care if they hassle those three? Some other fags? Bring it on. They cross against traffic, serenaded by a litany of horns, and start their own kind of dance.

Hungry or not, Jakob is not about to be bested by the likes of these. His backlash throws the Punks off balance, enough so that even the hipsters are emboldened and fight back, even if they don't fight well. Jakob carries the fight until the punks are whipped and scatter into the night, the impenetrable glare of headlights and traffic serving as their briars and bramble. Later, at the Garage, Lucas, Harlan and Kevin overhear several versions of this story being told to a growing audience in exchange for rounds of PBR by a couple of excited thin men wearing suede chukkas. They think little of the braggarts until Jakob arrives later and they hear a whisper of what has been keeping him, then Harlan puts two and two together. He sympathetically holds out his wrist and asks, his words dripping with sweet condescension, "you feeling a little hungry, pal?" Jakob scowls at the cop even harder, and is anxious to change the subject.

Lucas, who has family on his mind tonight, is enjoying the night out with Kevin. Kevin, in turn, has music on his mind tonight, and is desperate to find a groove. He touted the act at the Garage as some big thing, but to his chagrin it falls flat. For this crowd, electric fiddle is a bit too prissy and avante garde for them; like the kid in class that tries so hard to be different and only gets pegged as a weirdo. Not one to ride a horse off a cliff, he suggests they change venues. For those hunting the beat, they must be equally dynamic in their search and ruthless in their tastes. The High Dive is supposed to have a new hip group tonight. The krewe agrees that anything must be better than this.

It is Friday night, and there is a line and a cover charge at the High Dive. When the group makes its way to the bouncer at the door, Lucas looks back at the others. "Don't worry. I got this," he says confidently. Getting into clubs is practically his stock in trade. He steps up to the bouncer, and before he can even work his magic, the slab of meat blocking the door cuts him short.

"Hey, I remember you," he says, recognition flashing across his eyes. Lucas shrugs with a grin and an air of satisfaction. "You're the guitarist for that shitty band, Seven!" All the kid's forward momentum is sapped in a heartbeat as the air of satisfaction spills out of his sails. He winces like someone just slapped him. Strike one.

"Wha...?" he is barely able to mutter in response to this insult.

"Yeah, you guys played here like, a year ago, and after your set your fucking drummer started a fight and trashed the place. I oughta bounce you off the curb outta general principle!" Strike two. Harlan's hackles rise at this insult to his young friend, which is an odd feeling, but not entirely unpleasant. He can't remember getting so worked up over something bad happening to another person in a long time. Lucas is young, and may be still too good-natured to take much offense, but the older Kindred is not so high-minded. No one disrespects his Swat Team like that and gets off scot-free.

Lucas stammers at this unexpected assault. "But...that wasn't even my fault! And it was a year ago, man!"

"Fine. Whatever. I'll let you in tonight. Five-dollar cover. And don't go starting anything. I got my eye on you." Lucas bitterly digs in the pocket of his stylishly shredded blue jeans for a fiver and hands it over, skulking inside. Harlan steps up next and meets the eye of the bouncer when he asks for the cover charge.

"I already paid you," Harlan's Beast whispers with avarice. He points at the bill still in the bouncer's hand that Lucas gave him.

He blinks hard a few times and shakes his head. "Don't try and pull any shit on me. This ain't my first day on the job." Harlan is incensed that the mortal can resist his domination, especially over something so petty. Strike three.

"Oh, my mistake," Harlan says, pulling the money from his billfold. He pays, then walks inside, his mind awash with plots of vengeance. Some kind of plot seems even more fitting when Harlan meets Lucas inside to find that both Jakob and Velma had snuck in past the bouncer while the guy was focused on the two Ventrue.

"Man, I haven't had to pay a cover in forever," Lucas gripes to Harlan.

"Don't look to me for help, Tiger," Harlan. "After the night I've had so far, this is about fitting."

"What's wrong with your night?" he asks. It's not even that late yet. How wrong could things go this early?

"Having Gypsy problems," Harlan admits. He squints judiciously as they move toward Jakob and Velma's table. "I think she suspects I want to kill her."

This catches Lucas off guard because admitting to wanting someone dead is a pretty bold statement to make, but it also sounds just like Harlan to let some skeevy thoughts like that slip. Probably makes the old man think he sounds hard-boiled. "I'm telling you, man. You should turn her into a ghoul. She'll never know the difference."

Again, Harlan suspects that she would know. He demurs for now. It might be a solution, but he is almost uncomfortable to find the answer to a complex problem that has had him stumped for so long in the sage advice of a child.

The group nestles into a spot in the club, and spend some time idly chatting and listening to the music. Each of the Kindred pretend to sip drinks while wondering whose cell phone will go off and drive their night of aimless leisure off the road. The main gig is an interactive number where members of the audience participate by painting some kind of spinning mobile while the band plays. Kevin makes an impressive mark and comes back to the group satisfied, but restless. He talks about his music studies at U-dub, and how he'd like to work on the piano, but complains that he'd be starting off practically at square one. Also, tutors would help, but they're really expensive.

Harlan wonders how that can be and inquires about it. Kevin lays out the numbers, the base cost per hour, the hours per week. It comes out to about $250-$350 a week. Clearly, to someone who scrapes by on ramen, "expensive" is a relative term. Harlan eyes Lucas for a moment, and makes an offer. "Tell you what, Kevin. You're a good kid. You're getting your life straightened out." Unless one counts his present company. "I owe Lucas some favors, so how about I foot the bill for a tutor for a trial period. Say, a month. You can find out if its worth it to you, and we can go from there? Sound like a deal?"

Kevin looks at Harlan as though he's a stranger holding out his favorite candy. He glances over to Lucas for cues. "Are you sure that's okay? That's a lot of money."

"I want to see you able to do good things, Kevin. I don't want cash flow to hold you back."

Kevin looks back to Lucas. "Are you okay with this?" The loyalty of the vinculum forces the young ghoul to defer to his master. Harlan can almost see this bond playing between them, and wonders if the kid might be onto something when it comes to the relationship between a vampire and his ghouls.

Lucas doesn't even have to look at Harlan to feel this one out. For how the crooked cop likes to think of himself, likes to pass himself off as a shady, backwoods gumshoe--Lucas has seen remarkably little of that from him. Harlan has had plenty of opportunity and hasn't really screwed him over in almost a year. He is confident that Harlan doesn't have any designs on Kevin. Lucas wonders if Harlan is trying to make up for being an asshole the other night when he pissed on the notion of clan ties, which honestly felt like he was pissing on one of the few things he had in common with Harlan. Whatever the case, Lucas nods his agreement. "Yeah, it's fine with me." If it is guilt, maybe the cost will be a healthy reminder for him, Lucas thinks as Harlan hands over some cash to his thrall.

Jakob excuses himself from the group for a moment. They can all see the hunger in his eyes. Being here is like visiting a buffet and he just can't find a clean plate. He wanders to the back, looking for prey. Lucas asks Velma about her girlfriend and suggests inviting her to hang out, to aid the neonate's cover and ease any suspicions the mortal might have. Harlan readily agrees, and his eagerness is mistaken by all as twisted lust. He tries to shake off these accusations, but sees that the group just wants to get their digs in on him, so he wanders off to the bar to let the kids enjoy themselves without him for a while. Besides, an inspiration has suddenly come to him as he has been watching the crowd for a bit.

Harlan sidles up to a beefy customer at the bar. He is currently unoccupied, as his female company just left to use the restroom or powder her nose or whatever makes a dame ditch her squeeze for a bit. Harlan doesn't care. What is key is her absence. She won't be able to talk sense into her man, and a person's protective nature can sometimes be enhanced when the one they want to protect can't defend themself. "Seems like a happening joint," Harlan says to the man. "You come here often?"

The guy eyes Harlan, sizes him up. Tries to figure out if this stranger is trying to make a pass at him. Something in Harlan's bearing must indicate that he's just another patron bellied up to the bar to get a drink, but this stranger's glass is still full. He's just making small talk. "Yeah, been here a few times."

"The young lady..." he tilts his head back to the restrooms. "She with you?"

"Yeah..." Where's this guy going with this? Has he been stalking us or something?

Harlan nods respectfully. "She looks like a class act, sport. I was pretty shocked to hear that bouncer talking shit about her right in front of us when he took our cover. I mean, I don't want to start anything, but that was out of line, and you deserve to know. I mean, looking at you, I understand why he waited until you were out of earshot. Probably doesn't have the balls to talk like that to your face." Harlan has gotten the ire of the patron primed. Now, it's time for the Beast to slip things into overdrive.

Harlan has the man's undivided attention; he wants to know what kind of trash that meathead at the door has been saying. Harlan locks eyes with him, and the Beast's work is almost already finished. "You could hold your own in a fight," the monster within assures. "If I were you...I would beat the shit out of him." The command slips in under the man's awareness. The desire to fight seems natural. He sets his drink down on the bar and looks over to the bouncer. Harlan holds his empty breath as he waits for it...does the mortal's resolve crumble? Does he give in to his animal desires and the siren's call of the Beast's corruption?

He turns away from Harlan, almost as if in a trance. He steps up to the bouncer and throws a punch. A scuffle ensues, and the security staff pull the patron back and get him to calm down. "I heard what you said about my woman, asshole!"

Great, another drunk defending his bitch's honor. "Look pal, I didn't say shit about your woman, who--by the way--is such an ugly hole, I wouldn't even fuck her with your dick-"

Sometimes the licks just play right into Harlan's hands. He sets back at the bar, enjoying the spectacle of his petty vengeance. The patron rips free from the hands holding his arms and lunges at the bouncer. A swing goes wild and someone else gets hit. A drink gets spilled and all people see is security knocking people around like a bunch of thugs. The touch of several nearby Kindred tarnishes the air and brings the stain of corrupted darkness a bit nearer the surface of everyone nearby. People start to react badly, unknowingly mimicking the damnation lurking and laughing in their midst. Before long, a full-fledged brawl is raging near the front door, and the wail of sirens can be heard now that the music has cut out.

One of the bartenders pulls a shotgun out from under the counter and racks a round, the sound of which is one of the most effective attention-getters in the industrialized world. The entire brawl seems to stop and play nice for a moment. "All of you," the bartender waves the scattergun indiscriminately at the crowd of fighters and some bystanders who hadn't gotten away fast enough. "Get the fuck out. Now!" Their compliance is almost magical. People mutter and curse, sure, but they obey. The bouncer stands in the midst of their exodus like a boulder in a river. The bartender, who might also be the manager or owner, points the gun at his doorman. "You too, asshole. You're fired. I hired you to stop fights, not start 'em. Hit the road, jack."

Lucas sees an opportunity to mend fences, to be the bigger man. Maybe even convince that asshole that members of Seven aren't all bad. He swoops in with his hands up to try and save the bouncer's job. He doesn't make it very far. He has yet to learn that when the Beast tries to go too hard against a person's grain, or hold someone back when their will has a running start, the words of the Beast sometimes just get lost in the noise. At Lucas' appeal to reasonableness, the bartender simply says, "You know what? You can get the fuck out, too." Lucas hangs his head, defeated again this night, and makes for the door. Kevin, Harlan and Velma file out with him in solidarity. Kevin suggests they go to another club to meet Velma's girl, and the group agrees. Harlan doesn't know what people are so bummed about; he's having a great time, now that he's had his revenge.

Jakob returns from the back rooms to find the staff cleaning up after a big fight and none of his friends to be found. "What the hell...?" he asks himself. "Can't I leave you white people alone for ten minutes without you making a mess of everything?" He has no doubts that they were the source of the trouble. He wanders outside to see if he can find the group before resorting to the crutch of the palefaces' cell phones. As he wanders, trying to follow the scent of Harlan's cheap cologne through the crowd, a scraggly bum on a decrepit bike meanders toward him and blocks his path. "You Jakob Tallhorse?"

Jakob steels himself for a fight in the middle of the sidewalk. "Yeah," he rumbles. The bum whips out a piece of paper and hands it off. When it passes to Jakob's hands, the glassy-eyed messenger mounts his bike and pedals away with no further explanation. Jakob stands down and turns over the scrap. Written hastily is just a handful of words. We need you--Coop. The haunts from Arkwright. This is the first time they've reached out to him. He doesn't want to let them down right off the bat. He redoubles his efforts and finds the others, who are in the process of having a grand time trying to impress Velma's girlfriend.

After suffering through some mindless chit-chat for the benefit of the kine in their midst, Jakob tells them about the message, and they are on board with helping him. After all, if Jakob can start drawing his own following, so much the better for their own krewe. Lucas convinces Velma to let Kevin keep her girlfriend company for the rest of the evening while they finally start taking care of business instead of gadding about like a bunch of shiftless pinks. They pile into Jakob's Impala and head to Issaquah.

When the group makes contact with Coop, he and his fellows are even more listless, disoriented and hungry than usual. On top of it all, one of them--Coop's close friend Grant--has gone missing. Harlan doesn't think much of Jakob's vegetarians (because they are bad hunters), and wonders if in Grant's aimless wanderings he just moseyed onto 405 and got turned into axle dressing. A bell rings in the back of Harlan's mind, though. Something Endy had mentioned to Lucas in passing earlier. "How long has Grant been gone?" the detective asks.

"About four days." Coop is edging slowly toward them, toward Jakob and his car.

A moment later, Harlan turns to Lucas and Jakob. He would share with Velma, as well, but she has wandered off to the Masters' family mausoleum. The Nosferatu creep her out and she wants as little to do with them as possible, as this particular group ranges from "quite repulsive" to "get away or I'll poke you with a stick."

"Grant's been gone four days," Harlan says to them. "Endy said that Penn Bourbon is AWOL, too. And he's been gone about the same amount of time." Harlan waves his cell phone with a reply from Endy confirming his suspicion. "Coincidence?" The group hopes so, but they all know that hope got tossed a long time ago when the Beast entered their veins.

"Let's check out the homeless camp," Jakob says. "It's where they used to hunt before the people drifted off, and Coop said Grant used to hang out there." They check out what remains in the wake of dozens of homeless roughing it for God knows how long. Weatherbeaten tarps hint at what used to be tents, and human waste and debris fights with the weeds that try to grow through it, pin it like moths to corkboard and swallow it back into the earth. Harlan would call it a camp, but it's not camping if you don't have a home to go back to. This looks like it was a fight for survival, and judging by the decay all around, it increasingly looks like a fight that has been lost.

As they step carefully through the refuse, something new (or at least clean) catches Harlan's attention. A bit of glass on the ground catches the moonlight and throws a brief glitter up to his eye. He picks it up. A crack pipe. Lovely. "Hey, that belongs to Grant," Coop says as Harlan slips the evidence into a small bag. "That's his lucky pipe." Coop trails off into a reverie about his friend, how he got the pipe and what it meant to him. After a while, his speech begins to sound like a eulogy, and even the Nosferatu doesn't want to hear it anymore. Doesn't want to face the fact his friend might be gone. Doesn't even want them to look for him anymore. After all, if he's missing, he might still be alive. If they find he's dead, then that's it, and hope dies with him. "I don't want to be here anymore. Can we get out of here?" he asks. Jakob nods, and they head back to the Impala.

Jakob and Harlan walk side-by-side on the way back. Back in New Orleans, the two met while helping Sundown after an arsonist had targeted his club. The cop and the young indian had never caught the perp, but it had given them common ground. Tonight they walk away, and the sting is there again. Harlan wants to solve the riddle, like any investigator worth his salt. Jakob feels he owes it to Coop, who placed some trust in him to ask for help. Side by side they walk, the inquisitor and redeemer, and they feel that sting again. Harlan pulls the evidence bag from his pocket and sniffs at the pipe within, then sniffs at the air. He hands the pipe over to Jakob, knowing he doesn't want to let this rest any more than he does. It's a shot in the dark, but they can't just give up.

The midnight breeze shifts, and carries on it a whiff of something Jakob had just drawn in from the bag. His eyes widen and nostrils flare. He turns around slowly in the night until he can follow the trace scent like an ethereal ribbon curling through the eddies of the breeze. His track takes them to the woods, and eventually to a small clearing. In the middle of the clearing is a chalice and no explanation. Jakob moves toward it. The last time they encountered a chalice like this, their world was consumed with mystery, treachery and diablerie. At least this time, Jakob understands the possibilities behind this portent, and the upheaval that may follow.

Harlan sees the ripples and tears in the grass and dirt, the broken twigs here and there. Instinctively, he knows a fight happened here. This was an ambush. He calls out to Jakob as he grabs the chalice. "Jakob, No! This was a trap-"

Harlan is too late, or Jakob's focus is too narrow. He takes the chalice in his hand. No trap is sprung. Not immediately. Jakob can clearly smell two sources of blood here, and the chalice had blood in it. He wipes the bottom of the ritual cup with a fingertip and then tastes it, because the first rule of good policework is always to take evidence and stick it in your face-hole to learn its secrets.

Jakob's eyes go wide and a crazed look twists his features. He spends the next several seconds trying to stuff his broad, flat face into the bottom of the cup, his sudden obsession overcoming his sense of spatial awareness. For all the others know, this incongruity might be all that saves Jakob before Lucas tries to wrest the chalice from him.

"Stop!" Jacob screeches. "It's my chalice!" He recoils away from Lucas and back into Harlan, who tries to pin his arms to give Lucas another chance to save him.

Lucas summons the will of the Beast. "Chill out, dude," Lucas commands, hoping that Jakob will come to his senses...and not be resentful at being manipulated like this when everything is said and done. Jakob stops for a moment, but Harlan can feel his arms twitching and shaking like a convict riding the lightning. Jakob bursts free from Harlan's grip. He hauls off and pastes the kid one in the chops. Lucas reels back from the punch, then Jakob drops the chalice and plants face-down in the grass.

Echoing throughout the damp, dark woods, an insidious laugh rolls over and envelops them like cloying thunder. It comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The sheer malevolence of it chills to the bone. Harlan needs no further convincing that he doesn't belong here right now, but he's twice-damned if he'll leave Jakob behind, even if he probably summoned the laughing madness that might be coming for them right this second. He hooks his arms under Jakob's pits, and snaps at Lucas to grab his feet. "We gotta get the hell outta here, kid! Reform and regroup!"

Lucas isn't sure what Harlan means or what he wants to do, but he sounds like he's got a plan, which is better than spinning around in terror wondering wich direction the horror will hit from first. Together they make it to Jakob's car, where Velma is stepping out. "What the hell was that noise?" she asks.

"Get back in the car!" Lucas shouts. "We are leaving!!!"

"But, this is Jakob's car-oh my God, what happened to him?" Velma is clearly a neophyte when it comes to borrowing through necessity and plans coming unhinged at the seams. Lucas digs out Jakob's keys and drives the group the hell away from there. When they are just beyond Mercer Island, back over Lake Washington on the I-90 Express, Jakob snaps to, and Lucas and Harlan flinch, wondering if the fight is back on while Lucas is driving above the water at seventy miles an hour.

Jakob snorts at the odd scent in his nose and the intoxicating flavor on his tongue. He doesn't recall the last few moments. Harlan and Lucas take turns filling him in, but when the story unfolds, all Jakob can see is that delicious cup laying abandoned in the woods.

"We have to go back for the chalice!" Jakob says, but his audience isn't sure if what they're hearing is an explanation, a demand, an addiction or just...madness given a voice.