A Dozen Black Roses (4 page)

Of the two, Esher was clearly the stronger personality from the very beginning. The sensitive young poet seemed both fascinated and appalled by his comrade's sang froid. Esher believed that the world and the wonders in it belonged to whoever was strong enough to take them. There was no room for the incompetent, the weak, and all those unwilling, or unable, to make the most of their situation.

Although the poet argued heatedly with Esher over these points time and again, he could never quite bring himself to break their friendship. It was as if the strength of Esher's charisma compelled the poet to seek his company. But there were other, more prosaic reasons behind their relationship: it was clear that the poet envied Esher his money, position, and charm; and as they grew older, the interests they shared in death and dying continued to bind them. But where the poet's obsession took the form of fanciful stories and poems, Esher trod the path of the occultist. As the years passed, they saw less and less of one another.

The poet drifted in and out of various editorial jobs up and down the Eastern Seaboard, publishing the occasional slim volume of gothic poetry. Esher, on the other hand, was expelled from the University of Virginia, and then from Harvard's medical schools. In each case he was accused of harvesting organs from

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) cadavers for occult purposes.

After his expulsion from Harvard, Esher decided to take the Grand Tour and "broaden his horizons." It was in an isolated portion of Romania known as Transylvania that he first learned of the blood-cult called the Tremere. Rumor had it they were a group of immortal wizards who practiced a very obscure, but exceptionally powerful brand of magic known as Thaumaturgy. This occult discipline was said to involve the drinking and manipulation of blood during its rituals.

Intrigued, Esher was compelled to find out more about these secretive "vampire wizards." At first his inquiries as to the Tremere's whereabouts were met with evasion, if not outright hostility. The peasants who tended the fields and the thick-witted boyars that ruled over them were clearly unwilling to help anyone asking questions about the Tremere. In some villages the mere mention of their name was enough to cause every door to be slammed in his face. Still, Esher was not the type to be dissuaded by superstitious villagers.

When he heard stories of an elderly Eastern Orthodox priest named Father Magnus who claimed to be an expert on Romania's darker secrets, he decided to search him out. Father Magnus was old and blind in one eye and given to drinking at a local inn, but Esher found the ancient cleric to be extremely knowledgeable about the dark arts. Despite his physical infirmities, he possessed a mind that was a virtual encyclopedia of the occult.

At first the old priest hedged concerning his knowledge of the Tremere, but after a few sherries he became increasingly voluble. Father Magnus claimed that the Tremere were not mere wizards, but true creatures of the night—vryoloda. Vampires. According to the legend, a thousand years ago a group of ambitious magi had sought immortality by any means possible. One experiment after another had failed them until, in desperation, the coven captured an ancient vampire from a clan that had long dominated the region. Concocting a potion from its blood, the magi had attained an undead state similar to that of their victim. They then returned to their monastery and transformed their fellow warlocks, growing in size and strength until they were powerful enough to assert their control as a clan in their own right.

It was Magnus who told him that the Tremere no longer made their home in Transylvania, but had migrated to Vienna prior to the Renaissance. He also told Esher how to recognize them by their totem—a squared circle wed to a captive triangle.

Esher lost little time in booking passage to Austria. While on his way to the city of the Hapsburgs, he wrote to his friend back in the States of his adventures and plans to infiltrate the blood cult. It was a foolish thing to do, he later realized—but at the time he wanted someone to know what had happened to him should he never be heard from again.

He was in Vienna less than a week before he was contacted by the blood-wizard known as Caul; apparently his inquiries in Transylvania, while unanswered, went far from unnoticed. The Council of Seven, said to be the self-same adepts who founded the cult, had appointed Caul to investigate the inquisitive stranger and discover his intentions. Apparently he was impressed by Esher's strength of personality and ambition, for it was he who proposed to the Council of Seven that the American be apprenticed to the clan under his tutelage.

And so Caul—he of the beautiful blond hair and milk-pale skin—became his mentor. The Tremere, unlike many other vampire clans, spent a great deal of time and care grooming their "recruits" before actually transforming them. It was important that any human chosen to become one of their number be first indoctrinated as a wizard, then subjected to the ritual that would make them one of the Kindred.

Esher studied under Caul for several years, until such time as it was decided that he was ready to receive the Embrace. The Council of Seven called Esher before their august presence in 1838 and told him that he must return to his homeland one final time, to set his affairs in order and arrange for his estate to be inherited by a "distant relative"—actually himself, under an assumed name. Esher did as he was told and returned to America. His ship put to port in New York, and it was there he saw the poet for the second-to-last time.

They met in a dark and dire pub in the city's notorious Bowery. Esher wasn't terribly sure why he'd arranged the meeting, except that part of him wanted to say goodbye. Over absinthe, Esher found himself rattling on about his drive to bend death to his will and his pursuit of "forbidden knowledge." After a few minutes he realized that his companion was regarding him with open ill-ease, if not outright fear. Only then did he recognize his mistake in confiding in his one-time companion. He quickly found a reason to leave, hoping that the poet would dismiss his story as the raving of an absinthe addict and nothing more.

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) Having put his mortal affairs in order, Esher quickly returned to the chantry in Vienna. Once there, Caul greeted him. He was dressed in the blood-red robes of an initiate and brought before the Council of Seven.

Clan Tremere prided itself on its closely knit ties, so unlike the rest of the vampire community. Where the others were haphazard in the selection and conversion of their neonates, producing creatures ignorant of their dark heritage, the Tremere controlled the process assiduously.

Since Caul had served as his tutor during his apprentice stage, he was given the honor of draining Esher's lifeblood. As he lay dying on the altar, one by one the Seven came forward. Each pricked their thumb with a sacred knife reserved for such rituals, and squeezed a single drop of their own tainted blood onto his parted lips. When he awoke three nights later, he was shown his death certificate and his obituary in the paper. And so did his mortal life end and his unlife begin.

It wasn't until some years later that he discovered his final conversation with the poet had born fruit, in its own way. Deeply disturbed and agitated by what he'd been told, the poet had written two stories whose title characters bore more than a passing resemblance to Esher. The Council of Seven was displeased by what it saw as an indiscretion on Esher's part that might someday endanger the clan, but Esher convinced them that their worries would come to nothing. After all, the humans who read the poet's stories dismissed them as mere fantasy, nothing more. And the poet's own problems with drink prevented those who might glimpse the truth hinted at in the stories from taking them seriously. Besides, in a decade or more, who would remember the jottings of a delirious drunkard?

A decade passed, during which time Esher honed the occult skills he'd learned while still alive, becoming adept in the practice of Thaumaturgy. He curried favor with the Seven and was chosen to supplement the clan's strength in America.

In 1848 he returned to his native land once more, but this time greatly changed. He claimed his

"inheritance" and drifted from city to city along the eastern coast, spying on the competing clans and gathering information for later use. It was during one of these forays that he came across the poet one last time.

He spotted the poet lurching out of a grog shop on the low end of town. He was exceptionally drunk and looked to be in very bad health. Esher decided to follow his former companion as he continued on his bender. He stayed in the shadows, never betraying his existence to his prey or casual passersby. Most of the people on the street gave the poet plenty of room, as he was babbling to himself, calling out the name of his wife and quoting fragmented lines of his own poetry in a heavily slurred voice.

He followed his prey into an alley and watched from his hiding place as the poet leaned against a wall and vomited noisily. It was then that he finally stepped forward and tapped his old school chum on the shoulder.

"I say, old fellow, are you all right?"

The poet wiped at his mustache and turned unsteadily, doing his best to keep from collapsing. He peered at Esher for a long moment. "I know that voice—or at least I used to."

"I'm insulted, old man! Don't you recognize me?"

The poet's brows knotted even tighter, then suddenly went slack, his eyes widening. "My God! They said you died of typhus while in Vienna!"

"You shouldn't believe all you read—or what you write, old friend!" Esher chuckled, clapping him on the back. "Come—let's have an absinthe! My treat! We have so much to catch up on!"

It wasn't hard for him to cloud the minds of the patrons of the absinthe house, since their minds were befogged to begin with. Still, Esher did not want anyone to notice that the poet's last hours were spent in the company of anyone but the green fairy. As the poet drank, he told Esher of his life—or what was left of it. Although he had experienced some success with his writings, there had been a scandal involving a poetess and a libel suit, which robbed him of what little money he'd accumulated. Not long after this, his wife had died of tuberculosis. He'd come back to where he'd grown up in hopes of overcoming the temptation of drink, and had been largely successful at it. But then a friend invited him to a birthday party in the city. He made the mistake of toasting the hostess with a sherry—he did not remember much after that.

As Esher watched the poet weep and babble over his drink, he contemplated, for the briefest second, Embracing him, but quickly rejected the notion. In order for the poet to be made one of the Tremere he would have to be taken to Vienna, and he was certain to die before their ship could arrive. Secondly, he had not undergone the rigorous preparation necessary to join the ranks of the blood-wizards. And, most

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) importantly, the poet was simply too romantic and weak-willed for such a transformation. Besides, bestowing the gift of immortality on artists was more in keeping with clans such as those degenerates, the Toreador.

So when the poet suffered a seizure and collapsed in the gutter, Esher simply left him there to die of exposure. He had more important things to attend to.

That was one hundred and fifty years ago.

In the years since his return to America he'd established himself as a Pontifex among the Tremere in North America. His power had grown with each passing generation, making him one of America's most feared and respected Kindred. But it wasn't until five years ago, upon his return to his old stomping grounds, that he'd dared to make his boldest moves.

Deadtown had been the domain of the vampire Sinjon for close to two centuries. Sinjon was a prince of the Ventrue—a clan that prided itself on its aristocratic background. It was Esher's intention to move in and shatter the old fool's power base and set himself up as prince. Since Tremere law forbade the indiscriminate creation of whelps, his plan for deposing his foe involved recruiting as many unaffiliated Kindred as possible and binding them to him through the taking of blood oaths. Luckily, he had no shortage of raw material.

In the years since the First World War the number of carelessly spawned neonates had quintupled. There were more untutored fledglings wandering the world now than ever before, thanks to the rise of modern technology and the downfall of superstition. Most were by-blows of thoughtless seductions, brought into a new existence wherein they knew nothing of their heritage. They wandered the earth, eternal and alone, searching for some meaning to their existence. And Esher was more than happy to give it to them.

Deadtown was different from other American cities in that it had been damned for a very long time. Here he could operate openly, without fear of discovery from the human authorities. Throwing caution to the wind, he set out on a blatant campaign against the resident prince. He opened the Dance Macabre, which drew both unaffiliated Caitiff and rebel anarchs alike; those who were new to unlife were the easiest to snare. They were so pathetically desperate for someone to tell them what to do and explain the intricacies of Kindred society to them that they gladly agreed to the blood oath. By drinking of his blood three times, they became bound to him, trapped in a kinship far stronger than that between themselves and their original sires. From then on they were his—mind, heart and soul—if they possessed one.

Esher considered himself dedicated to his clan. All he had done since the night of his Becoming was to the betterment and advancement of the Tremere. Yet, even the most dedicated of sons may sin against his father. And so it was that Esher had broken one of the most important laws of his clan; he had created whelps outside the rituals of the Tremere.

Like all Kindred, he had created them out of a combination of love and loneliness. He'd been forced to destroy the first one. He'd forbidden her to create her own brood, just as the Seven had forbidden him, but then had caught her in the act of Embracing a human. Although it grieved him to do so, he'd had no choice but to consume her, taking back the gift of immortality he had bestowed upon her. He never spoke her name after that and his servants had been instructed never to mention her again on pain of death.