Chapter Text
The darkness - the soothing, comforting darkness - was stained with moans of pain. Clyde's blade twitched in response to the sharp whimpers and cut through tendons and spine, separating the head from the vampire's body. The Sabbat bared its teeth before his open ribcage became embers, and before he all became ashes.
"Ashes to dust, wine to blood..." whispered Clyde and licked his lips, looking around. "Blood, bloody-bloody blood."
Clyde was hungry indeed, but his voices often disagreed with the urgency of this primal need. One voice growled for the murder of more Sabbat, the other droned on about cleanly finishing the task and returning to Lacroix for spoils of victory... but other voices, the majority in fact, were whispering behind Clyde's back. They sounded like a crowd at a funeral - hushful, sad and a bit guilty.
The subjects of the discussion were the cattle. The blinded, broken and beaten human cattle.
Sitting on the hunches, Clyde could see one from here. The Sabbat were ingenious in their cruelty and disregard for human suffering. All vampires were sociopathic in one way or another, but these bastards have fucked the monsters inside them and the monsters eventually crawled away in fear. The Sabbat needed blood and had no time for club dates or awkward seductions, and they were definitely not standing in line at the hospital for blood packs.
The Sabbat took people from the streets, poked out their eyes, broke their little minds and left them standing in corners. Ready to be sucked whenever a vampire feels like it. Grown men like lost children, blood tears covering their cheeks.
Clyde's voices mourned for them. They couldn't leave them like this.
"Indeed," said the bureaucratic drone inside Clyde. "We can not leave them here. The Masquerade must be upheld at all times and these specimen might wander off into the streets - it was us who slaughtered their guardians, after all. We have to eliminate the cattle."
The crowd hissed and yelled in fury. No, sir, this is not how we do things!
"How do we do things?" asked Clyde.
"Remember the Doctor? With the asylum? Think we can make something similar, just a bit more humane? Little bits of mercy sprinkled on the ceilings instead of gore and blood?" suggested an overly energetic voice.
"You know, what they say about good intentions?" slurred a female voice. "Hell is only a stone's throw away from where we are standing."
"But still..." whispered someone.
But still, agreed the crowd. We shall round up all we can, transport them to one of our homes and try to save those, that still can get out of the nightmare labyrinth inside their little human brains.
Clyde nodded and stood up. There weren't many Sabbat left, not many at all. This was going to be as satisfying as killing ever gets.
But he did not head out immediately, lingering in the room full of darkness and pain. Clyde silently approached the docile cattle, examining him. Malnourished body, bruises on the neck and deep long scars on forehead and cheeks. There was no telling whether the man clawed at his face himself or was mistreated by his owners.
Clyde carefully wrapped his palms around the man's face, making hushing noises. No reaction and no way to know, whether the gesture felt comforting or intimidating. Clyde awkwardly caressed his jaw, feeling distressed and surprisingly sad. Poor, poor human. Was his future at Clyde's home going to be any better? Was the person even going to notice a difference?
While the crowd set on singing a soft lullaby, Clyde kept brushing the man's face with his fingertips. It was fascinating and chilling and sick. Suddenly, something snapped and Clyde's body jerked forward. His teeth plunged into the man's neck and the vampire started sucking desperately. Life felt hot and fast. You couldn't help loving it.
Clyde stopped just a few moments later, breathing heavily and making a step backward. God, no. Oh fucking God, this was hilarious. The savior of cattle, the connoisseur of blood and the fucker with "hypocrite" tattooed on his ass.
One voice giggled, another snorted and soon the laughter filled the room. One voice might have been sobbing, but nobody noticed.
***
The lights flashed past like curious glowing ghosts. Each of them illuminated just a small part of the road, but lined up they created a path of light that seemed to go on forever. All the while the darkness waited, waited to the left and to the right, waited for the lights to go out...
You realize that philosophizing about electrical street lights does not make you appear deep?
Ah, the voices always managed to ruin every serene moment of his life. Sometimes Clyde longed for simpler, quieter times when his life was untarnished by cynicism, pragmatism and blood-sucking. His life used to be easy, used to be good, didn't it?
Something banged against the metal wall of his van and moaned. Clyde tensed and looked back. His grip around the drive wheel tightened. The cattle used to be much quieter at the Sabbats, but now they kept making ruckus after ruckus. At this pace, his small unassuming van was going to attract unwanted attention. At least, the specimen showed no sign of aggression or self-initiative, but in a confused and befuddled way, they kept walking in circles, tripping and even making loud noises, wailing one name or another.
Herding them into the van would have been impossible if Clyde did not tie a rope around each one's waist, and then bind every person to another. For some reason, it calmed them down. Perhaps the rope whispered to them "You are not alone. You are not lost."
Maybe the bindings even said the truth: "Don't struggle. You are not free, not yet, not ever."
Clyde sighed and turned on the radio. Gloomy thoughts were of no use. Life hands you lemons, you go tell the lemons they are oranges and then you plant a hugeass tree and add a swing to it. This is California, after all. Don't be a tightass, baby.
The radio played Arctic Monkeys and it was a hit among the cattle, or perhaps they were just fans of Clyde's singing voice. Either way, the song calmed them down and Clyde relaxed in turn. Wasn't much further from the hideout anymore. Hold on, little cattle, we are almost home!
Once a blue light flashed into appearance, Clyde's voices moaned in disbelief and annoyance. Cops?! Why the hell did it have to be cops? After being motioned by a hairy arm stuck out the window, he reluctantly parked the van at the roadside. While the cops were slowly getting out of the car, Clyde took a moment to hiss into the radio.
"Monkeys, did you just rat me out?!"
After a loud peep, a grumbling voice distorted by static came from the radio.
"You ain't got nothing on me, man. No evidence, no shit. Now try acting normal and sane for a couple minutes, will you? You'll be fine."
"I won't forget this! I'll pirate the hell out of your songs, you shitty cock-monkeys!" growled Clyde quietly and swiftly turned his smiling face to the window of the van. "Good night, officer. What can I do for you?"
"Well, first thing - could you be so kind to turn off the radio? I hate Muse," said the policeman casually, illuminating shortly with a flashlight the insides of the van. "Second thing, your driver's license, please."
Clyde obliged both requests and started humming a tune under his breath, poking at the silence of the night. The policeman glanced at the papers and gave them back shortly after.
"Now if you don't mind, we'd like to check the back of your car," said gruffly his partner. The hairy arm from before belonged to him and Clyde dubbed him the bear-man.
"Of course," said Clyde slowly and opened the door. Once outside, he stopped in his tracks and leaned to both policemen. "Could you... could you try being quiet around them? I'm transporting the horses at night time because I don't want to stress them out. I'd prefer not to wake them up if they're still asleep."
The gentle policeman furrowed a brow, the bear-man shrugged non-committing. Clyde tried an apologetic smile and led them both to the back, opening the doors. Warmth and the scent of sweat escaped from the confined animals, sleek limbs and glistening dark eyes.
"Alright," said the bear-guy in a voice that was a bit too loud. Clyde twitched and gave him a reproachful glance, locking the doors behind the cattle. The policemen obviously were trying to think of another thing to check, but in the end gave some general advice - to stay out of trouble, eat veggies and etc. - and departed.
Clyde sat behind the wheel, fastened the seat belt and sighed. He closed his eyes, listening to the heartbeats of the humans, and started counting. It was five. When he loaded them into the van, there were eight.
The three bodies on the floor were not slumbering. It was just a short drive. Why did they not make it?
"The poor souls couldn't wait," sadly smiled a voice. "They did not wish to be, therefore they embarked on the long journey home. Home. Do you not envy them?"
Clyde snarled, punched the seat next to him and repeatedly hit his head on the wheel. Then, muttering to himself, he started the engine and turned on the radio. His stomach growled.
Inducing hallucinations was an extra piece of work and always made him hungry. Clyde fumbled in the compartment, pulled out a blood pack and tore off the edge of the plastic. He sucked like a sullen child, one that lost all of its candy on Halloween.
God, he also had to bury the corpses. Give them a proper funeral. Anyway, as proper as one can be in these circumstances.
One voice started stuttering an apology, and another was half-heartedly begging for forgiveness, but Clyde knew - they were full of bullshit.
***
Clyde preferred living in a flat rather than a house. Most apartment complexes were soulless slabs of beton, indistinguishable from each other and therefore blissfully anonymous. But living in a house all for yourself? You see, houses got voices. They got creaking floorboards, gushing water pipes and soft sighs of fading memories.
Each house has a history, or at least is supposed to have one. The newly built construction was particularly insufferable for that very reason. Their vacuum of history longed to be filled, their hunger a constant reminder, reaching out to you from empty walls and empty rooms and empty corners.
Clyde had enough company as it was and was not looking forward to adding another voice to the cacophony of his mind. But one more, one less - did it truly matter? A house's hunger could hardly match his own.
It was dark in the living room, faint moonlight barely illuminated the outlines of the furniture. The refrigerator was humming too loud for Clyde's taste. Red and green dots glowed in the dark, peeping lights belonging to various electrical devices, their eyes shining like small animals hiding in the undergrowth. The wall to the side was all glass, showing the garden. It was beyond Clyde why anyone would want to leave themselves exposed like this. He'd have to buy thick curtains tomorrow.
Drinking blood from wine glasses was the vampire equivalent of the obscenely rich putting toilets made of gold in your bathroom. Tacky, inefficient and bad taste. Clyde was doing it anyway. Tonight's drinking was not owed to actual hunger, but because it was a luxury he wanted to allow himself. As for the electrical lights observing him in the dark - Clyde was gonna pull the plug on them tomorrow. They were allowed to enjoy this show as long as they could.
Taking a sip, Clyde stopped near the telephone and pushed a button to play recordings.
"Wrong button," sighed a female voice. "Nobody said we had to deal with technology tonight. Good thing we brought a drink with us."
"Try the red button with the arrow" suggested someone.
"NOBODY pushes the red button or the whole house is gonna BLOW!" shouted one voice at top of its lungs. "Are you fuckers kidding me?! You never use the red button, never! Did you never play a video game in your life?!"
Clyde sat down on the hunches, squinting at the dial and muttering: "Guys, this would go a lot faster if you all shut up. I'm good at this shit."
Ignoring the naysayers and sarcastic whispers, Clyde pushed buttons at random and was at last rewarded with success. The date displayed was from yesterday.
"Darlings, I have forgotten when exactly you depart... Not today, yes?! Not today, I'm sure of it!" said a grandmotherly voice, sounding as if she was constantly surprised at everything she said. "Well, anyhow, I would like you to call me back as soon as you can. I have read many things about Africa today and - oh my Goodness! - you need to hear about it."
The sound of yapping dogs and absent-minded muttering disrupted the monologue for several seconds.
"Although, if you do not manage to call me back - do remember to take the SUN CREAM AND GRANDFATHER'S AXE."
Clyde twitched. The shouting caught him off guard.
"All you ever need" stated the grandmother in a friendly and confidential manner. "All you will ever need."
A loud peep announced the end of the message.
"Creepy gal," commented a voice.
"Yeah," agreed Clyde, "I like her already."
He pushed the button to hear the next recorded message. Once more it was lady Grandma dispensing advice, care and love through the hot wires of the telephone. In fact, all of the messages belonged to her - many of them made at rather inconvenient times. With each recording, the situation was drained of its comedy until you could see the hints of a tragedy. Does nobody answer her calls? Does nobody want to listen to the nutty grandma, is the recording machine her only audience?
Maybe there is a whole other explanation. Perhaps she only recently figured out how to leave recordings and performing this technological feat fills her with accomplishment and pride. Perhaps it's a tradition and not a sign of an estranged family at all. Most likely, the family love visiting her at Christmas and listening to a senile loving grandma spinning unlikely and frightening tales. Either way, there was no way to find out the truth, since the family was racing to face tigers and leopards, and the grandma was hardly going to talk with the sweet old vampire Clyde.
Yet, Clyde's voices probed the telephone and the foreign voice within, they swooped through corridors and rooms and came back with a handful of facts, a handful of candies and glass shards.
She has slept three days next to the corpse of her husband, hoping he would wake up.
Nobody eats the baked goods she makes. But they don't throw them out before they're either rotten or hard as stone. Guilt takes many forms.
The small guy adores her. He's the only one.
They do answer her calls. They do. Sometimes.
Clyde sighed. He hated houses for this very reason. A hint of curiosity and you'll be buried under the garbage the house has accumulated.
He drank the rest of the blood in one long gulp and grimaced at the clots of rolled-up blood ("That's exactly why nobody drinks blood like this. Wine glasses are designed to expand the surface of the liquid and allow the reaction with oxygen and..." "Look, we don't care, a'right?! Science freak."). Then, he put the glass on the counter and walked towards the glass wall, and by extension, the glass door which he pushed open.
The night was wet with sounds as well wet in the traditional sense. It had rained.
Clyde breathed in deeply and allowed the air to linger in his chest. He was a city boy, but the smell of damp forest evoked a sense of remembering. No actual memories came to mind, but they might as well have. The dark shapes of the trees beyond the fence were wistful and staring. Clyde waved at them. No answer came.
A stroll at night, taking in the sounds and smells it encompasses, was an enticing thought, but it was not the reason why he left the house. Check the perimeter, to put it in military terms. ("What is the godfucking difference? You are still walking around the fucking house." "Listen, dipshit. Walking the perimeter requires discipline and an attentive mind - both of which Malkavians lack. It's a normal stroll, but harder , okay?!")
Clyde followed the gravel path, past the small pond and sickly rose bushes whose leaves were covered in white residue. The garden was made with precision and little thought to children, the trampled flower beds and occasional toys hiding in the grass being the testament to that. Clyde pushed the low branches of a peach tree to the side and left the civilized way of the Gravel Road, now stepping on the Grass Savannah for the uncultured and uncaring.
As streamlined and blandly modern the house looked from far away, its innards were surprisingly complex and full of nooks and crannies. Even with a relatively accurate mental map, Clyde had trouble assigning the windows to the rooms and felt that many of those shouldn't exist at all. Granted, he was always a cretin at geography and terrible at navigating foreign places.
Finding a room for each of the cattle wasn't very hard, although some of them had to suffice for first with attics and makeshift sleeping places. The trouble is, few of them very using them. Clyde has goaded some into lying down to find them later standing still facing the wall. The analogy to horses seemed more fitting with each moment and a part of him wondered, whether they actually could sleep in a vertical position. Probably not. Sabbat were hardly capable of drastically changing human physiology, therefore the cattle were going to pass out exhausted on the floor sooner or later.
Their sleep was in fact the least of Clyde's worries. Not all of the rooms had functioning locks or keys that fit, therefore some flimsy toilet stall locks had to be attached to the door frames in order to keep the humans from wandering out. Those things would not hold under a full assault of human rage or a fit of panic. The windows were a security threat as well, but even though he could not prevent them from charging the windows and falling out, closing the blinds was at least going to protect the cattle from sight and discovery.
That was just one problem. Feeding them was an uttermost priority (especially after finding three of their compatriots dead) and Clyde was immensely relieved that the cattle correctly reacted to having bread put in the palms. Their movements were mechanical, but they were eating on their own. Spoon-feeding his patients was not something that Clyde would have been looking forward to, especially considering how short the night was. Watering the cattle was almost as easy, but Clyde had sometimes to assist them in preventing water from spilling on their clothes.
Clothes. God, that was the third fucking problem. The conditions the people were kept under were hardly hygienic and they desperately needed a bath, for health reasons as well as Clyde's personal well-being. Still, that had to be delayed until the next night. Clyde feared that the sensory overload might leave them over excited and besides, sunrise was coming soon. The drugged slow movements of the humans were inevitably going to drag out each cleaning procedure and this was clearly not going to happen tonight.
Clyde jumped over small tidy bushes to land in the driveway. He stopped for a moment to look at the winding road that disappeared behind trees and eventually connected to the main road. Isolated and no nearby neighbors, but not too far away from the city. It was almost perfect. Clyde connected his pointing fingers and thumbs to make a rectangular shape and made zooming noises moving his hands back and forth. When he finally was satisfied with the view, he made a clicking sound ("That's not what the camera sounds like at all...") and memorized the spot. This is where the steel gate is going to go.
"Can I say something?" barged in a female voice, sounding immensely annoyed. "Does anybody else... does anybody think that building on somebody else's property might attract... you know, unwanted attention?!"
"Relax. I'll think of something," muttered Clyde. "Yes, and the fence will run along here..."
"Really? Are you - pardon my language - shitting me?" the voice was straining not to slip into shouting. "The owners are going to come back eventually! Their whole belongings are here, for God's sake! The relatives know where they live! Their friends do! How are they going to react when they find an entrenched castle with madmen inhabiting it?!"
"The friends - they don't have any. Not close ones, anyway. Relatives don't care. Grandma is stuck where she is. And I will deal with the family once they come back." Clyde's voice was hard and sharp. "Your council is welcome - actually it is not, but you voices keep chattering anyway -, but the decisions are mine. MINE, you understand?"
"Chill," yawned another voice. "She's scared, that's all. Got a point too. We could have just bought a house, couldn't we?"
"Either takes too long or costs too much. Besides, you know what?" Clyde swaggered to the postbox, leaned on it and whispered to the dreaming letters. "It's fucking boring."
"Boring, boring, boring!" cheered the crowd.
"And we don't like boring, do we?" proclaimed Clyde.
"Hell no!" grinned the voices.
"Therefore we will improvise the shit out of the situation and come out to the top in the end. Capito?"
The woods sighed and swayed. The road was a black lifeline of civilization, starting at Clyde's feet and stretching out to the shining lights of the city. The shining lights, lights that can do only so much to keep the darkness at bay and that soon will give way to the glaring sun.
"That's the plan, anyway," said Clyde to no one in particular and turned around, heading to the main door. The door handle was polished wood and felt nice. The house, it smelt good too. He noticed it from the very beginning.
Standing in the hallway, he became aware of the fact that his shoes were wet and dirty and considered taking them off. Instead, he headed for the cellar which was only one turn right, and one turn left. Like all vampires, Clyde could see in the dark, but walking down the stairs he fingered the light switch anyway.
The cellar was big, had a proper floor and only needed a bit more furniture to become truly comfortable. The unassembled IKEA bed that Clyde bought was still sitting in the corner and he walked past it to drop into the armchair. It was a wonderful chair. It was love at first sight, and he knew it would be comfortable as hell before his ass even came anywhere close to the red upholstery. Dragging the chair down into the cellar was almost the first thing he did in terms of rearrangements.
Clyde slinked a bit further in the chair and sighed with satisfaction. Yes, he'll sleep right here. No need to torture himself with the hellish puzzles of Swedish furniture designers.
Torture was a buzzword that reminded him of the cattle. Oh right, one last thing. With closed eyes, Clyde fumbled in his pockets for his mobile phone and typed a number. Nobody was answering. Good, he didn't feel like chatting anyway. Leaving messages was way easier.
"Heyo, ghoulie-boy. I hope you remember what I called you earlier this night about? You need to keep them fed, brush their hair and yada yada. Actually, just keep them alive through the day and make sure they don't wander off. Which I doubt they will. So, remember: Easy work, good pay. If you don't do this, I will eat your dog and burn everything you love. Cheers."
Clyde ended the message and dropped the phone on the floor. His body may not be exhausted, but his mind was. Little voices were jumping over the fence like white cuddly sheep and Clyde counted them until all fell into the abyss and the sleep's fire engulfed them all.