ICC In Moments
To: Adrienne, Daniel, Elena
Oct 4, 2007 6:58 AM
subject: Alleged Defection + My Doubting Face = Sure Bet
All,
Javhod Masoudi has approached me to "warn" me that an Invictus in Seattle will soon be defecting to the Carthians.
I have a hard time believing this, both because I see absolutely no warning signs among any of the local Vics and because it's from Javhod, and he's a gullible lunatic. (Elena, you'll remember Javhod as the short, loud-mouthed jack-ass who fought the duel in Vancouver, BC.)
I'm expecting that someone is just messing with Javhod, or alternately that one of our local Vics is trying to set himself up as an infiltrator.
I'll throw $50 on it if anyone wants to take what I think is a sucker's bet.
--Tanner
************************
He arrived in Memphis in time for Gangrel drama. New as he was to it all--he'd only known his "sire" for a matter of months--he was already tired of it.
Someone should put together a Gangrel drama training course, he thought. Like Ranger school, only with tips on how to keep your mascara from running.
"What I'm about to tell you shouldn't be advertised," he told Aspasia, pulling her away from the contentious family "reunion." "I'm getting good with blood work... pretty good. Supernatural stuff aside, our blood does carry chemical... tags, I guess you could call 'em. You give me a sample of your blood, a little of his--or someone he acknowledges of his line--I might be able to establish a verifiable link... if you trust me with it. I mean I know blood can be used--"
Aspasia cut him off by holding out one bloody palm.
They weren't his family. They were a mob of individual victims who could trace their infections to one another. If they were anything more than that, it was their call--but "family" could only be established by interaction. There was the family you were born into, and the sort of family you chose. Family didn't get established through parasitic infection.
They weren't his family.
That was in the back of Tanner's mind as his contacts told him they couldn't get him into a lab in time to do any blood work. The sample would go bad by the time he could do any good. He hung up the phone, sighed, and turned back to tell Aspasia that his suggestion was a no-go.
For falling through on a good deed for someone he'd met all of twice now--who herself apparently embraced all the lies and inhuman trappings of this sick society of "predators"--he felt very, very bad about letting Aspasia down...
*******************************
The Carthian "meet & greet" had been underway for five minutes. Perhaps ten. And then Javhod walked in with Edward Cornell. Tanner did not hesitate to get his skeptical and aggravated face right in the middle of it. The room was full of vampires all too ready to accept a longtime antagonist as one of their own, and only a few with the sense to doubt.
Eventually, Tanner turned to Adrienne, who rolled her eyes.
"Aw, man," she said, "now I owe you money!"
*************************
"Tanner... I notice that you aren't looking into my eyes," Cornell said in the middle of his diatribe.
"Nope."
"Don't you trust me?"
"Nope."
"Then what do you want to know?"
"At the moment, all I want to know is if you're going to be able to fend for yourself back in Seattle or if you intend to ask the Carthians for shelter."
"Ah. That. Well, you see, I clearly cannot go back to any of my holdings, as the Invictus of the area know them all too well, so yes, I will need shelter. Take me in. Please."
"My place is really small. You wouldn't like it."
"Small is fine. We could be... bunk mates?"
At that, Tanner looked Edward Cornell in the eye, but all he could see was himself dragging the tall elder out into the midday sun, with the theme to "The Odd Couple" stuck in his head for all eternity.
***************************
In the corner, flanked by men he didn't know--Gangrel, for sure--Brooke held out the Carthian pin in her hand to show Tanner. She looked better. Much better. He hoped his influence helped, but the results were in the end more important than who took credit for the assist in her personal triumphs.
"I'm leaving the Movement."
He nodded. "How you gonna do this?"
"Just walking in and walking out. There are a few people I owe an explanation to. The rest, I don't."
He didn't tell her she owed him no such debt. He didn't have to. It was plain on both their faces. And it meant the world to him.
A discarded pin and a screaming Javhod later, Tanner was out in the hall, his back between Brooke and the Carthians.