[DFM]

Breadcrumbs to Wonderland



Heather's waiting for me when I get back to the apartment, standing behind the kitchen counter and watching the door like some kind of receptionist. Actually, that's not a half bad idea. LaCroix gets Chunk, I should be able to have a nerdy secretary. She could take memos. Or shoot people. She probably plays Doom or something.



"Helen! You're back! I've been waiting for you here, just like you asked!"

"Well, I don't remember saying anything about dropping in while I wasn't here and sitting in my chair and using my stuff, but-"

"Oh no! No, I didn't touch anything, honest!"

"You mean you've just been standing there? For four hours?"

"Um... three and a half."

"Okay, that's... that's worse, I'm going to be honest."

"I'm sorry! I didn't know what else to do, you said to wait for you-"

"I didn't think you'd drop everything and come running, though." I lean against the counter and rest a hand on one of the books she brought over. "I didn't even have time to figure out-" I think better of saying 'what's wrong with you' and search for something different. "-that thing I was going to figure out."

Okay, so I'm not always a great liar, sue me.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to see you again." She actually sounds really sorry, and I decide not to ask why she really wanted to see me again. I'm not really in the mood to destroy some poor, neglected college nerd's lesbian fantasies. I'm going to have to eventually, but I should keep her around until I figure out what's happened to her and how to fix it.

Not going to let my pride and joy good deed come to a bad end, after all.

"It's alright, Heather, don't worry about it. I need to run an errand for the boss, but we can talk later, probably an hour or so."



"Oh! I can do it for you! Tell me what it is and I can take care of it! Give you some free time to... relax or you know do whatever..."

"Hah! No, I'm pretty sure this is way out of your league, kid." She looks like she's about to cry. Shit. Change subjects.

"Are you hungry?" I pull out a money clip from my pocket and slide a couple of twenties from between the sides before handing them to her. "Here, you can stop by McDonald's and get a big mac and some fries or whatever else this'll get you."

She takes it and stares at me like I've got diamond antenna sprouting out of my ears.

"Um... thanks. I... am pretty hungry, actually. I stopped at Big Kahuna Burger on the way into town, I do it all the time, but... as soon as I was about to eat it, I just... I don't know, I got really nauseous, I almost threw up. I didn't even bite down, I... don't know, it was weird."

"Hmm. Well, if you're looking for a decent place to eat, there was a place I ate at the last time I was here, Spago? Sparago? It wasn't bad." I pull a few hundred from the money clip. "There you go. Try the Beluga, I don't remember if I ordered it or stole some off of Kislyak's plate, but it was good." She doesn't say anything, just stares at me. I practically have to stuff the money into her half open hand before I slip the clip back into my pocket. "I hope I stole it, it's not like that fat bastard needed any more caviar."



"If you want something to drink before you go, I've probably got soda or something in the fridge, you kids like soda, right?"



"Nevermind. I guess you'll have to grab something along the way or wait until you're at Spiggo's."



I wave behind me as I walk away, I still haven't heard her make a sound.

"Bye, Heather!"



Alright, let's see... tell Pisha about Milligan, hope she doesn't eat me, then head to the Hollywood Hills to find the dead Alistair Grout. I know he's dead because he's missing and 'missing' anymore means 'dead'. I know he's dead but that's not what I was talking about.



I should ask LaCroix if I could borrow Chunk for these assignments, I could use a big, strong man in uniform to protect me from the dark.



It's a decent ways walk back to the abandoned hospital, and it isn't any cheerier than I remember.

About a million times better than the one in Santa Monica, though.

I head through the double doors and make my way down the crumbling, blood stained corridors, rats scurrying away from the clicks and crunches coming from my shoes. It's a bit of a maze, certain sections cut off by long fallen debris, others opened by the same thing, but eventually I follow the crushing despair that hangs throughout the building to its source.





"I made a request of you. Why have you not sent the man down?"

"I didn't think we needed to be quite so drastic, so... I deviated a little. He's still alive, but I wiped his mind. He's never coming to Los Angeles or looking for ghosts again."

She appears quizzical, placing a finger to her mouth and musing for a moment before with drawing it and giving me a look of slight disapproval.

"That may be sufficient, but the only way to be sure would have been to kill him. You should not waste time debating the morality. If a man walks into a tiger's domain, it may result in his being devoured. It is not good or evil, it is cause and effect."

"I'll... keep that in mind." She has a point, but I don't think killing him would have been that much more beneficial. "You said something about artifacts before I left, last time?"



Her eyes almost flash. "I've walked the world since before this country existed. In that time, I have collected information and objects that even some of the eldest of our kind would doubt existed. If I were to offer you the chance to obtain such a rarity, would you accept?"

"That sounds like it comes with quite the price tag."

"The value is relative. I will trade you such artifacts in exchange for artifacts of similar worth and value- ones that I do not yet possess."

"What makes you think I'm going to blunder into the Holy Grail while I'm poking around downtown LA?"

"I am searching for two items which I have tracked to this area. One, I believe to be in one of the local museums. I have not yet searched them all. The other, it seems, has come into the Giovanni's possession, although that is something I cannot confirm. For these items, I will exchange others of similar worth."

"Alright, sounds lucrative. What're the artifacts?"



"The first is a fetish described in a nineteenth century chronical of a British platoon's encounter with a native tribe. Soldiers would go missing in the night and be replaced with these fetishes. If they are indeed supernatural, they could prove valuable to my studies."

"What about the other one? The one held by the... Giovanni." The Giovanni I knew were a merchant family, lots of money, lots of dealing above and below the deck. I did business with them on occasion, mostly small arms, but they usually managed everything internally. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to hear they've got some kind of paranormal connections, there always were a lot of... rumors about that entire line.

"It is used to communicate with certain entities otherworldly. It is a tome called the 'Voce del Morte'. Should you find yourself within the walls of the Giovanni, seize the opportunity and take it-" Her voice lowers until it sounds almost threatening. "-for they will make sure you never have another."

I almost rest a hand against her blood stained table, but then think better of it.

"Voce del Morte? Don't you think you're pushing this... death thing a little far?"

She smiles, like a professor who finally gets to talk about the subject of his dissertation.



"Death is the ultimate dilemma and integral to the beliefs and behavior of every culture in existence. Life is bore on the corpses of the dead. Without death, there would be no motivation to accomplish anything. The only emotion would be existing. Life would be pestilent and agonizing."

"So... that's why it's fine for you to eat people?"

She shakes her head slowly, bemused by my ignorance.

"If it satisfies you, I make an effort to only prey on the weak and worthless, and I consume them not out of spite, but out of self-preservation. I wither and rot without them. They are my survival."

I glance around the house of horrors the mortuary's been transformed into.

"Alright, well... I'd better go, I've got an errand for the prince. I'll keep an eye out for your artifacts."



Probably a good thing I didn't get into specifics with Milligan.

I leave the hospital and make a quick detour to a certain white truck with an inconspicuous parking spot.



"Baby girl, welcome back!"

"Hi, Larry. I need some shotgun shells, as much as you can fit into a purse. A nice one, though, not a green monster. I also need a cab, have it pick me up at the Skyline building. And make sure the driver's not going to get excited by a passenger carrying around some ordinance."

He slaps me on the shoulder, laughing.

"God damn, baby girl! Some poor mother fucker 'bout to get thei shit wrecked ain't they? Don't worry, I hook you up. I'll have the shells in the cab, that'll be fifty up front to cover the purse, too."

I hand him the money and wave.

"Later, Larry."



Heather's gone when I get back to the apartment, definitely for the best. I flip open the securely fastened trunk by the door.







"To the Hollywood Hills?"

"Ah... yeah." Wasn't expecting Larry to send the vampire cabbie.

He doesn't say much for the rest of the trip, eventually pulling up to an old Carroll-esque nightmare rising up out of the dirt and above the suburban mansions around it. As soon as I get out, grabbing the shotgun and my tiny purse of ammo, he pulls away, tires screeching against the pavement. Almost did that a little too quickly. I look up at the house again in time to see someone walking out the front door.





"Hey, kid. Prince send you out?"

"Nines? What are you doing here, are you looking for Grout?"

"Don't worry about what I'm doing. I wouldn't go in there if I were you, though. Little messy."

"Shit, we're to- Woah wait, what are you saying? You killed him?"

"I did what I had to do, let's just leave it at that. I'd love to stick around and shoot the shit but I got some more business to deal with. See you around, kid." He walks away while I'm still trying to think, tossing the massive, wrought iron gate open with one hand and glancing over his shoulder. "If you're smart, anyway."



It slams shut behind him and he fades into the night, distinctive blue shirt disappearing as he hops over a safety rail and down a rolling slope.

Well. I don't know quite what to make of that. LaCroix's probably going to have to hear about this, but... I suppose I can't just go on Nine's innuendo, I'll have to actually go inside the Malkavian mansion and confirm Grout's demise.



Gee Golly Jeepers do I love David. I love him so much.



I love him so much I wish he were alive so I could peel his skin off and eat his insides while he watched.



Then when he grew them back I could do it again.

I push one of the unlocked double doors open, aiming the shotgun forward with one hand. When I clear the doorway and step inside, I wrap my left hand around the barrel again.



There's a woman in the corner, sobbing, holding her head in her hands. At least, I think she's crying. She... might be laughing. I walk slowly across the floor towards her, shoes clicking against the tile.



"Ma'am? Excuse me, ah... miss..."

She stops crying or... laughing or whatever noises she was making and starts to turn around. Very... very slowly at first. When she turns her head I can see her entire face clasped in some kind of iron mask straight out of Dumas.



When I see the knife, she stops moving slowly.



She spins faster than I can react, knife slashing across my stomach. The wound isn't deep, barely a scratch but god damn it I just got this fucking shirt.



The shotgun sounds like an artillery cannon in the confined space of the building and for a moment I wonder if my ears are going to stop ringing. From the hole in her back, it looks like the slug passed straight into her chest and through her spine, ending up lodged in the wall behind her. Fucking lunatic, serves her right.



It's not going to bring my shirt back, though.

There's a banging sound from the other room, and the massive interior doors buckle slightly. The noise must have gotten something's attention.



There's another bang, then another. The doors are holding fast, but whatever's on the other side isn't giving up. I count the intervals between hits so I can gauge the best time to completely fuck his shit up. As soon as the next hit is about to come, I throw open the latch and watch a man in a gimp suit sail through the unbarred door.



He hits the ground and scrambles against the tile floor to his feet remarkably fast, a ravenous howling coming from behind his iron mask.



Another roar of man-made thunder and I have a million and one puns I want to make about ravenous hunger. The sound lures two more of the iron clad women, both of them giggling like school girls.



Laugh now.



Aw, come on, you can do it!



I slam more rounds into the shotgun. I wonder if I could conceal this thing in a trench coat.


I wonder if I can pull off a pale bitch in a trench coat without looking like an attention starved teenager.



These are the questions that plague my mind.

I grab one of the knives one of the nameless wackos had been carrying and stuff it into the ankle of my shoe. If I'm ever down to that, I'm probably fucked anyway, but you never know.



Long hallway, can go straight or to the right.



Straight comes to what I'm sure is a very flattering self-portrait of Mr. Grout.



And a short passageway to another set of double doors.



Which are locked.



To the right, then.



I'm going to give Grout the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a modern art sculpture and not a barricade because it's got to be the worst barricade ever.



Two more doors.



The first is locked. I wonder what I'm going to do if they're all locked? Maybe I can go back to LaCroix and say, really, Grout's almost certainly dead and I just missed the body because he turned to ash and blew away. He left his windows open, he was kind of absent minded.



He'll probably buy that.

I open up the door on the end of the hall and see a circular, two story library with one of the leather clad men pulling a mounted light over and over while cackling to himself every time.





I come up behind him stab him twice in the neck, making sure to keep the blood-gushing wounds pointed away from me.




Honestly, he's better off.