Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Bleed: Chapter 1

With my day job and freelance work keeping me busy, and with Dreamation just a week away, I'm taking a break from my writing. However, I want to keep plugging my work. I have a Patreon, I've mentioned that a few times here. I have a few projects going on at any given point, with the main one being Bleed. Bleed is the story of role-players and their characters and how their lives intersect with one another. It isn't based on any real people, but on several experiences. I wanted to share the first chapters with you all, free of charge. If you like what you see, please consider following and supporting my Patreon.




Curve woke to darkness. That alone was nothing new to him. The cold pain in his chest and the inability to open his eyes, while not common, was also not new to him. For a vampire as old as him, being staked is what one would call ‘an occupational hazard’


The stories and movies had gotten a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong in trying to describe the mechanics of the common Vampire. Homanus Noctphagia were essentially walking corpses made animate through the magic inherent in the blood of the living. With the lifesblood of another coursing through their veins, Vampires were smarter, faster, able to fuel the dark perversions of magic. They were also supernaturally tough. Curve had once seen a friend of his—Margarete, he remembered—survive having a building collapse on her. In Venice. She survived the crush without a single blemish to her body, though she had spent the better part of the next month smelling of canal water.


The legends say that a stake through the heart will kill a Vampire. They are half right. A stake through the heart—preferably wood—would block the flow of lifesblood. The blood lay still in his veins, barely keeping him conscious. He could not tap in to his blood to make himself stronger, he could not tap in to his blood to send his thoughts out to his allies. He could not do anything but stay there and watch, and as the lifesblood began to cool in his veins, he would not be able to do that either.


All together it sucked.


Vichy, Curve thought aloud. His mouth could not move, but his ability to send his thoughts out still availed him. 1942. I was helping the underground ferry families out of the reach of the Nazis. There was another vampire there, who’d gained the rank of Standartenführer. We’d fought. It was genial at first. We talked for a bit. But, he was a swastika-fucking meathead with no graces, so the conversations grew boring in short order. I staked him and beheaded him with little fuss. What little I didn’t know was that one of the other members of the Underground was a defector. I was staked before I knew it and left to rot in the tunnels. No one found me until 1944, when the Americans came. I hadn’t tasted American for almost thirty years, and I was famished.


Curve let out a mental sigh. It was a woman who betrayed me that night as well. Someone I also loved at the time. You can come out now.


The vampire felt a presence near him, cold and beautiful as the pre-dawn. He focused on that feeling of cold perfection, and an image formed in his mind. He could not see her with his eyes, but his mind was all he ever needed.


For as much good as it did him.


Hello, Lianne. He thought to his new companion.


“Hello, Curve.” The woman said back, aloud. She stood in his mind at barely 5 foot tall, hair a sheet of jet that went down to her shapely hips Diamonds and jewels scattered about her hair and equally black dress. Her skin was soft and pale, giving the only contrast to her midnight garb. Slightly long and pointed ears poked out of her hair. She was lovely.


“Thank you,” she said with a warm burr.


Damn telepathy. Lia, Curve thought. Why?


“I think you know why?” Curve became dimly aware of someone touching his chest. It was a dim point of information, a small weight to him like someone laying a coin idly on their skin. But he knew the spot. There, in raised lines, was a scar he bore ever since he came to this desert cesspool of a town. It was in the shape of a crown, five pointed. A queen’s crown, in pale raised lines.


Oh, Lia. Curve thought, not hiding any of the exhaustion, and the disappointment and pain for the both of them.


“I know,” she replied. In his mind he could see her raise her arms in capitulation, a petty little gesture she did whenever she was caught in a plot. It never changed anything though. She still went through with it if worth it. “I know, Curve, I know we both promised that we’d keep the game out of our lives. But I’m tired, as I know you’re tired of this. I’m tired of taking orders from the powers that be and stuck in this hell. I know you’re tired of it too, I remember that night.”


And so did he. It was the night Lianne, Sidhe Changeling had taken on the role of the Red Queen. He saw the tattoo, a raw and garish five pointed crown, carved in to her chest. He had known her for five years, had loved her for three, had given himself freely to her for more than one. In that time, he never once cried. Warm tears blood leeched out his eyes, ruining his shirt and the rug besides. He knew it would come to this, and he knew they could not escape. Being a part of the game was a lifetime commitment, and the Queen’s lives were shorter than most.


It wasn’t fair.


“No it isn’t,” Lianne said, his thoughts bleeding out. Her hand was still on him, and then transitioned to around his back. She was resting herself against his chest. “None of this, any of this, is fair. I’m tired of playing the game. But I know that there is only one way for this to end.”


No.


“Please,” she said, the heat of urgency entering her words. “Tell me. Who is the White King. Where are they? We must attain Checkmate. Please, Curve. For all of us. For us, Curve. Please.”


No.


And then she said the words that broke him. The words that three centuries of backstabbing, debauchery, and lies should have exorcised from relevancy. Eight words that hurt the hardest.


“If you love me, you would tell me.”


And he does love her. If there were any doubt in his mind before then, it is gone. He loves her, body and what little soul he has left. He loves her.


But, he cannot tell her.


“Why?” Lianne says.


I don’t know, Curve thinks. I never knew. The thought hits him. And you don’t know who the Red King is either.


He feels her bristle against him, like a frighten animal hearing a loud noise. This entire night, this entire gesture, was all for nothing. She has failed, and now she must pay in a way they will both regret.


Lianne, he says to her. No answer. He realizes then that she must be crying, and his body is too far gone to see her.


“I don’t know what to do,” she says. Her voice is hurried, heaving. She’s sobbing now. “I-I can’t let you—“


Lianne, he says to her again. I love you, I love you with all my heart. And you know what will happen because of this. You know that the moment you remove the stake, I will come for you and I will not stop until the insult is paid or I die in the process. You know that.


“I do,” she says between sobs. “It’s why I love you.”


His heart, that dried walnut that barely beats, heaves in his chest. I love you too, Lia.


“Where do we go from here?” she says.


He says nothing at first, the thoughts too distant and hazy for him to grasp. Then he makes his mind up. Lia, there’s something I’ve always wanted to do with you. This…is the only time I’d ever get to have it with you.


He feels her presence close, and for in that second he feels her. He feels her ambition, her fear, her exhaustion, and yes, her love. He feels it and he curses it, himself, and the game they are trapped in. It is not the first time, it is, however, the last time.


Watch the sunrise with me?


She says nothing, merely hold him tighter. He knows that, after tonight, many things will change. Someone will be crowned the White Queen in his place, soon, and the game will continue. Somewhere, a part of him wishes that he could wish that person the best of luck. But it doesn’t matter at this point, his part of the game is over.


And, quietly. He feels the warmth of dawn approach. He pushes himself in to her mind, seeing with her eyes. She feels him, and does not resist. He sees his body, a lean figure with disheveled brown hair, black tank top and black jeans. He realizes she staked him and tied him to the Dawnstone, the great promontory rock on the edge of Moonlight, where many of the others would still be caught in their plots and attempts to defend the town from the other monsters and each other.


He feels the dawn rise, and the first burst of light breach the horizon. It is the first time he has seen it in nearly three hundred years. The light hurts, the numbness leaves and all that is left is pain. The sun is for the living, and the dead will pain in the dawn of a new day. He can feel his body crack like burnt clay, crisping at the edges. Parts of him darken and flake away, until he is nothing but embers and ash.


And next to him, the entire time, is Lianne. The woman he loved, the woman who loved him, the woman who betrayed him.


As the last of him dissolves away, and his mind vanishes from this world. He decides that this is a good death.






CJ looked at his watch. “Okay, Callie needs me in the other room for the final fight. You two going to be okay?”


Tom opened his eyes, after having them closed for the last ten minutes, the bright lights of the dance studio burned in to the. He looked down, seeing Lisa curled up against him, a splash of blue and black against his solid black attire. “Yeah,” Tom said. “I think I’m done for the night.”


He found himself regretting saying anything. The moment he spoke, Lisa jerked up right and took a step away. She started fixing herself up a little, “I’ll be back in for the closing.”


“Cool,” CJ said. He went to grab a bottle of water from a side table and took a swig, then took a little water in the hand and splashed it against his face. “Here we go. Tom, it was a great scene. If you want to talk afterwards, I’ll be around.”


“Appreciate it,” he said. “I demand a big funeral.”


CJ smiled at that, but it was a weak one. Exhaustion setting in around his eyes. “That’s the next game. You want somber or ‘Nawlins?”


“Surprise me,” Tom said with a shrug.


“Famous last words,” CJ said. “Later.”


Their storyteller closed the door, and Tom became aware of being alone in the room with Lisa. She shifted a little when he saw her, clearly realizing the same thing. Five years of playing games together and they still didn’t know how to talk to each other out of game.


“I guess I owe you a beer,” Lisa said, finally breaking the tension.


“Yeah, that’ll be a soda. Thanks.”


Lisa quirked an eyebrow at that. Lisa was five-five, and built for the roller derby. Bits of blue poked through her hair underneath the black wig. The damn thing always made Tom itch uncomfortably when he saw it. It must have been hot and heavy for her with that long rag on, more so since she added the fake jewels to it. Her mascara, Tom noticed, was smudged. She had been crying.


“You cool?” He asked her.


“What? Oh yeah,” she waved to her make-up. “I think this hit me a little hard. I’m going to miss Curve.”


“Yeah,” Tom said. “He was fun, but if it was going to end, this made the most sense.”


Lisa nodded, bejeweled wig bobbing up and down with her. She adjusted it. “Still, you going to be okay?”


“Probably. It’ll take some time. But I think I’m going to go down and get some air.”


She blinked at that. “Oh, oh okay. I’ll see you at Afters, right?”


“Well, someone owes me a soda. So yes.”


They both smiled. Tom felt that there was more to be said in the room. Tom felt like it would have ruined the moment. He nodded to her and stepped out of the studio.


The studio in which they played had two rooms, one larger than the other. The smaller room was used for private scenes, or for meetings for smaller groups than the entire cacophony of players around. Tom could hear raised voices from the larger room, snarling and shouting and panicked cries.


Now is that in or out of character? He asked himself. The question, he felt, wasn’t his to explore. He was dead, afterall, and that deserved some sort of break.


Manhattan in the summer is a merciless swamp of humidity. That’s the price of living on an island in a temperate zone. Tom walked around the corner to the convenience store, the blaring noise and teeming life of midtown all around him. The noise, humidity, and movement gave the City a sense of life, of being.


It also made it unbearably warm. He grabbed a bottle of water and a can of coke, one for health and the other for flavor. He sat at the stores counter to drink his water and coke in peace, and wish he had brought his headphones down, drown out some of the noise.


“Hey, Tommy!”


Tom turned to see Mara and Sam. His housemates were like those Siamese cats from Lady and the Tramp, though their creepiness was more whimsical than sinister. Mara was decked in black, a bracelet of small bones at left wrist and right ankle. The rook’s skull rested right on the spot where the collarbone met the breast plate.


Sam stood next to her, the Gomez to her Morticia. They managed to make purple tweed work. Their disheveled mop of black hair giving the impression of some out of time academic or low-status noble trying to make good.


Tom cheered them with the hand. “Combat end already?”


Mara snorted, “Simon.”


“Ah.” It was all the answer he needed. “What now?”


“Tried to pull something out of the Markets. CJ wasn’t sure when or where the hell he got it and asked for clarification. Simon said he agreed to it in a phone call.”


“Siege doesn’t do phone calls,” Tom intoned as Mara hopped up in the seat next to him. Sam in the seat next to her.


“Right,” Sam said. So they got in to it, and CJ asked for a ten minute break while they unfuck the situation. I think most people are just ready to pack it in and call it a night.


“They’re getting worse.” Sam said. It was a declaration, not a conjecture. Sam didn’t really say anything they weren’t willing to believe in. “I think CJ’s going to quit.”


No one said anything after that. “Hell of an end,” Tom said as he took a sip of his soda.


“Why are you down here?” Mara asked.


Tom reached for in to his vest pocket, an older Asian lady stopping to gawk at the androgynous goth couple and their soft-goth housemate. Tom smiled at her. Her stint as a voyeur found out, the lady sped in to the busy streets. He pulled out his character sheet. It was the third sheet of his, after the previous two had crumbled from five years of folding and being stuck in pockets and held in sweaty hands. This one was showing its wear, and was ready to be put to retirement as well.


He placed the sheet on the counter, took another sip, and placed it on top of the folded character sheet. All that curve was, and signs that he had been, now a coaster.


“Oh fuck,” Mara breathed. Sam said nothing, but Tom could feel them thinking. Mara continued. “You okay?”


It took Tom a moment to find the words. “I think I’m still processing,” he said. “Curve’s been in my head for a while. It’s going to be tough to let go.”


“Who did it?” Mara asked.


Sam raised their hand, “I’d like to find out in game.”


Tom and Mara nodded, that was only fair and proper. They’d commiserate later at afters and at home.


The next minute was spent in silence. It was the kind of silence only people who have lived with each other a while understand. It was comfortable, things weren’t left unsaid, because things didn’t always need saying.


“Oh,” Tom said. “Just remembered. Jake should be stopping by next weekend to look at the place. That okay?”


“Sure,” Mara said. Sam nodded. “I’m looking forward to meeting him. You don’t normally talk about college.”


“It wasn’t fun,” Tom said. “Jake made it bearable. I think we both made it bearable. He got me in to tabletop, and once he moves in I’ll start getting him in to larping. He’s been wanting to do it for a while, but Albany’s larp scene is kinda dead.”


“Sounds like fun, maybe you can tie your new character to his? Tag team.”


Tom made a noise, “between you two and the Hewleys, I think this game has enough power pairs. Last thing the world needs is the supernatural bash brothers.”


“Besides, It’d form the trifecta. The Hewleys do the fighting, we’re the social creatures, you’re an amazing intel character.”


“Yeah,” Tom said, conceding the point. “But Jake and I…we could give the Hewleys a run for their money.


“Hey,” Mara said. “Maybe the Hewleys could use a run for their money. Grandpa Chopper is getting complacent in being alpha badass.”


Tom shrugged. “You guys should go back up, time’s almost up.”


They agreed, and made their way up stairs. Tom was less in a rush, but he tried not to slow down his friends. The night security man of the office building their studio was located in let the three of them back in, keeping a wary eye on the gothicly clad group. He was new. Most of the Saturday night crew learned quickly about the monthly goings on of their group. People dressed in weird costumes going back and forth. Carts of props that many street cops would consider suspect. Random discussions of various topics, from illicit trysts to the werewolf attacks in Central Park or Hunts Point. Many of the guards, Tom suspected, believed that many of the people who came to the studio every third Saturday of the month was on some form of watchlist as some sort of cult.


But this was New York City, so long as you were a mostly harmless cult, you got left alone.


Tom could hear the others as the elevator made its stop on the twelfth floor. Those voices were not happy. They exited the elevator, where the voices grew only louder and more angry.


“You said I could—


“I said when!? When, Simon. Show me the email, show me the note. Where the hell is it? When did we do the scene in the markets for you to get the Wispveil? If I didn’t, who said you could have it?”


“I told you I wanted any of the low level approval items from the market.”


“And I said ‘Okay, let’s do the scene’. We didn’t do the scene, so I don’t approve, so you don’t have jack shit, Simon.”


“I can get it by making a pull on my sheet.”


“And by roleplaying. This is Live Action Role Play. If you want to talk stats, Simon, Peter is doing a sign up for Fantasy Football.”


The three stopped to find the two voices. Simon was dressed in a crushed velvet jacket and looked like something out of a magazine. His features were sharp enough to cut paper and his blonde hair was disheveled to just be this shade of stylish. His green eyes had an acid edge as he glared at CJ in rage.


CJ was built like a cement wall. Thick dark hair with streaks of grey that looked like the inside of a silver mine. His eyes were a marshy hazel, and were rheumy with exhaustion. His normal pallor was tinged with scarlet. Tom had seen Siege lose his temper before. It didn’t happen often, but only when someone decided to find a nerve and press on it. Simon, if he was as smart as he claimed, should have been able to see the level of danger he was in at that moment.


“We’ve missed nothing,” Mara muttered, just loud enough for her voice to carry down the hall.


The two arguing players turned to the approaching group. Simon’s tanned cheeks darkened and he walked away. CJ deflated, the color seeping out of him. He closed his eyes.


“Thank you,” he said weakly.


Sam pulled a spare bottle of water out of their leather messenger bag. “You okay?”


CJ took the bottle, opened it, and took a hard swig. “No,” he said finally. “I’m tired.” He looked at the three of them: Mara, Sam and Tom. His eyes brightened a little and a tired smile crept on his face. Tom knew the smile was forced, but not disingenuous. The four of them had known each other a long time. “Let’s finish this, shall we?”


Mara and Sam nodded, Tom spoke up. “Mind if I watch? Do you need a hand with pulls?”


“Nah, you can watch,” CJ said. “I’d love the help but with Simon’s tantrum of the night over, we can get on with this monster mash smoothly.”


CJ lead Mara and Sam in, and Tom followed them idly. The studio had its own kitchenette and lounge. Tom fixed himself a glass of water, letting the handful of players around a poker table to talk amongst themselves. He found a chair, and propped himself near the door. Lisa walked by, looking a little wiped out herself. Her pack of cigarettes and a lighter palmed in her hand as she made her own way outside.


Tom pulled himself from any trains of thought there as a loud roar rolled through the next room. He looked in to see a group of a dozen people, each of them in smaller groups of four, surrounded a man sweeping across the floor in a black sheet that could easily be measured in yards. At the head of the sheet was what looked like as an antlered skull. The blocky build of CJ underneath thrash back and forth like a fish out of water.


“The monster is trapped by the spell!” CJ narrates under the cloak.


“Lore Four,” Sam said. “What class is it?”


“Assisting,” Mara said.

“Assisting!” two more said. Tom itched to say it. Normally Curve would be right there. Sam’s character, Ryder Penbroke, was an academic. Curve was a monster hunter. They both loved exploring the lore of the things that go bump in the night, but always differed as to counting the monster’s teeth during or after the hunt.


CJ pulled a deck of cards out, shuffled and pulled, a ‘-3’ on the card in blue marker. “Lore 5!” He answered back. “The monster is like a Wisp but clearly on a different level as previously seen. It’s covered in bones and the area is colder than most shades provide.”


Tom imagined Penbroke, a dark prince in threadbare garb, flipping his notes while keeping cover as a ghoulish phantom of shadow and bones loomed about, trapped by a magic circle.


“Well,” a grizzled man from one of the other groups cried. He was dressed in jeans and a western shirt and it looked like it wasn’t a costume. “Looks like we gotta get are arms in to this one and find out more. Hunters!”


His entire group made a hoot and entered positions. The older man called. “Fight 5, with three assist.”


CJ shuffled his deck and pulled again, moving still in his thrashing motion. He showed a ‘+4’ on the deck. “Several of the rib-like bones shatter. You each feel a wave of cold. Take a stress.”


Tom saw Peter as Chopper Hewley, cowboy warewolf, lead his troupe of hunters hack at the monster with bats, swords, claws and guns.


“It’s got a rough aura,” the short red-head woman in his group said. Tom saw her as another wolf, stocky and with tawny wire fur. “Watch yourselves. Healers ready.”


“Magic team attacking,” said one woman’s voice beind CJ. “Summer fire. Magic 5 with assist. I’m also invoking my Summer Court magic.”


Shuffle and pull, CJ answered. “Your summer magic cuts through the aura like a hot knife. You all get the smell of frozen marsh water thawing.”


“It’s a Wisp?” One voice said.


“Class 4 Wisp,” Sam said. “First recorded.”


“The monster’s turn now. Wounded, you see the dark cloak draw in to its bones and.” He pulled out a card. “Magic 12 against Physique to cold.”


Several of the players dropped to the floor, clutching themselves in pain. Mara was one of them.


Peter cried out. “Bind and Burn!”


The academics, lead by Sam/Penbroke, moved over to the surviving fighters or knelt to the wounded players.


The magic team went first. They called for more summer fire, not as bright as before but enough to cut the aura. All that was left was the skull on the ground. Peter approached the skull and made the call.

“Fight 5,” CJ pulled and then nodded. “Killing blow!”


CJ shook off the cloak, he was sweating profusely under the thick fabric and bones. “The skull breaks, sending out a wave of dark and cold. It’s too diffuse to be painful, but you all feel it. You feel the malice in it, and you can feel it’s aware.”


Tom quirked an eye at that. Wisps weren’t usually aware. He shook the thought away. That was information that wasn’t for him. Curve was dead and his next character, whatever that might be, may or may not know that. Some people liked to know the meta about the world. Tom did too, but he didn’t want to spoil all the surprises.


He pulled himself away back to the lounge for a few minutes. By now they would be headed back to heal the wounded. The academics would be trying to piece together clues from other sources and from what they’ve seen. The fighters would be patting each other on the back. The social players, who had filed back in to the room, would report on the deals that had been making with one another (minus the gossip about other players and their characters, Tom noted).


Lisa walked back in around there. Her cellphone in her hand. “CJ just texted me, wants to come in for the closing scene. I think I should go in dramatic. Got any ideas?” Tom looked around the lounge. The lounge had a small ash tray in it. Lisa saw his eyes and made a pleased noise. “Oh,” she said. “That’s harsh.”


“We should share the pain.” Tom said.


A quick dab of ashes on the hands and Lisa was ready. CJ popped his head out. The smile on his face this time was just as tired, but less forced. He saw Tom and Lisa, and then Lisa’s hands. “You two are evil.”


“He did it!” Lisa said, pointing to Tom.


Tom shook his head. “Clearly, the grief has caused this woman denial.”


CJ laughed. “Cool. I’m going to make the last narration. Wait for the fireworks, and come in on the high note.”


Lisa nodded.


CJ ran in. Lisa prepared herself, idly smudging ashes on her dark blue dress. She looked down, realizing it, and then shrugged. She then dabbed some on her right cheek.


“Cute.” Tom said.


“Yeah, I’m not nice.”


Tom hugged the wall as CJ began his narration. “All those of the White. Pawns, Rooks, Knights and Bishops. You all feel your brands burn in intense pain.”


Several anguished cries rang through the room. Tom suppressed a smile, Lisa was less contained in her amusement, but stamped it back down.


Peter/Chopper’s voice cried out. “Check! What’s happened?” A pause, realization. “Curve? Curve!?”


That was Lisa’s cue. Tom realized that her mascara was still runny. Tears on command, always impressive. She walked in with her hands outstretched, Lady MacBeth wondering if the perfumes of Arabia will wash those hands clean.


She walked in, fear and sorrow in her eyes. Tom wondered if it was Lisa acting Lianne’s grief, or if this was Lisa acting as Lianne who was acting in grief.


There was a hushed silence. Someone saw her, someone saw the ashes. “I’m sorry,” Lisa/Lianne’s voice wavered. “He’s gone.”


CJ’s voice called a beat later. “That’s game, folks!”


A chorus of voices called out, questions clamoring. Some applause. Tom poked his head in. Peter, Mara, and Sam both saw him. Dinah’ the red-head from before, also saw him. “You!” She cried. “What happened to you!?”


She grabbed Tom and, playful rough, dragged him in to the room. Another cheer of calls came from the few dozen players. Questions to him, about Curve and his fate. Voices. A lot of voices.

“Everybody please!” CJ called. “Tom has been through enough tonight.”


Several people looked to him for confirmation. Tom nodded.


“Tonight,” CJ continued, “We lost one of the first characters made for the game. I wrote Curve as one of the first Vampires in game, and then Tommy Flint came in and made him alive.”


“So to speak,” Mara said, to the laugh of a few others.


CJ was one of them. But then his face grew serious again. “To continue on this—“ he stammered, and Tom could see him struggling with the words.


Oh no, he thought. He’s going to do it.


“To continue on this theme of endings. I’d like to make a few announcements. This year we have been asked to put on In Pale Moonlight at ImperialCon. Most of us have played before, and it is where Moonlight originally began. That game will mark the end of this chronicle.”


Everyone stood stunned, with a few brief murmurs. Tom was one of them. The end of the five year story. But that wasn’t what made CJ stumble with his words. The storyteller’s hands tumbled with the air, and Tom always felt like there should have been a pen or a coin flipping between the knuckles as he did it.


“I’m also here to announce that…” He stopped himself again, and the tears in his eyes formed. His voice became stronger, and threatened to break. “After ImperialCon, I am stepping down as Storyteller.”


And that was it. Dinah, Peter, and a fair few others all cried out in shock. Tom, Mara, Sam and even Lisa nodded. They had known CJ long enough to know this was coming.

The game was ending.

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