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The Trinket and the Light Show.

I stood back about a hundred yards from the house. Maybe house wasn’t an appropriate word - shack, shanty, flophouse, trailer, shithole were more appropriate for sure. I kicked a pebble across what I suppose one could call a field, though it was more just a dirt bed ten miles off of any major highway. I really didn’t think people lived out in the middle of nowhere like this, but that’s probably why they chose this spot. I had been here so many times before, but it looked different from this far away, especially while I settled into the soft silence of anticipation. I can remember clearly that I kept obsessing over how much time it was taking. Maybe I hadn’t misled them enough, maybe they had watched me do it enough times to have it down. I specifically told them they needed to wait while it cooked though and I hadn’t seen anyone leave. Just at the moment I was about to turn around and leave I heard the first bang, followed by the sounds of an explosion, shattered glass and screams. My eyes flicked up to the building, which wasn’t really a building so much anymore, but more a conflagration. They were all in there, I was sure of it now as I counted the cars parked around the building. I sat there in perfect silence for a moment until I realized I was clasping the bracelet in my hand so hard that I had started to bleed. I opened the palm of my hand and examined it in the dancing light of the flames. It was so simple, small, and probably made of fake gold, but it was entirely perfect. I popped the trinket back into my pocket and turned to head back to my car. It wouldn’t take long for the police to arrive when they heard another ice lab had exploded. Maybe one day I’ll visit that spot again to see if there’s anything left of them. I’m sure an event like that had to have left an impression.

The Safety Zone and Treasure Trove.

I had found a new hiding place. At first, I always thought the closet was the best place to go, down underneath the dirty heap of laundry, but he always found me there. I had discovered one day, when I didn't particularly have the need for it, that I could fit into the crawl space, which had an entrance in my room. Sure, there were old rusty nails sticking up, cobwebs and the remnants of probably a major rodent infestation. Most people wouldn't have found it to be a desirable hangout spot. But, I found use where other people couldn't and this was the perfect place to store my treasures. And more importantly it was too small for him to fit into and catch me. I put it to the test on a whiskey night. The nights he drank whiskey were always the worst by far. I could usually tell when I started to hear the loud noises, grunts and swears coming from downstairs. He was definitely slugging them back. I, maybe in hindsight, could have appreciated him drinking whiskey at least, but it wasn't even the good stuff. I think they sold it in a can mixed with gingerale. Jim Beam, anyone? In any event, I discovered the real merits of the place when he came looking for me and after ten minutes of tearing through my closet, he couldn't figure out where I was stashed away. It didn't take him long to poke an arm or his head into the entrance of the crawl space, but I had tucked myself in so deep there was no way he was going to get his hands on me - not tonight. I had my shoebox full of prizes and a good eight feet of freedom between me and the door. On those nights he usually got too drunk to remember my defiance so I was usually in the clear in the morning. I wonder what I left behind in that little place of solitude. I'll have to make a trip sometime and go on a treasure hunt.

The Tale of Unrealized Potential and Moldy Matthews.

"You know Mr. Matthews, I don't stand up here and talk for fun. You'd be surprised to know that I do, indeed, care whether you know the difference between The War of Independence and the War of 1812. The least you could do was try to appear invested, hmmm?"

The sound of my name snapped me back into focus. I think I was way more interested in staring out the window than listening to this nitwit blabber on. I had a hard time concentrating in class, I guess. I was a little too pre-occupied dodging the spitballs from the back of the room while they whispered "Moldy Matthews" behind my back. Sure, I was maybe twenty pounds lighter than the rest of them and still wearing the same pair of jeans I had two grades ago. But, hey, my response was I always wanted to be prepared in case of a flood. Maybe my shirt was a little tired and could have been washed, but who did they expect to do that? If I had to prioritize my only dollar between something to eat and doing laundry, well, I bet you can guess what I chose. Smelly people who are fed are just smelly people, but starving clean people are, well, dead. Sorry if I couldn't pay complete attention, Mr. Dickhead, while I fended off a never ending assault of pubescent taunts. Really, I'd have liked to see him try to do it.

The reality of the situation was, though, that I didn't really need to listen to him ramble on and speak with his hands about his superficial, text book analysis of history. I'm pretty sure I knew more than him about most of these subjects. Really, I felt this way about all of my classes. I didn't need to pay attention to him or the rest of them, because, quite frankly, I didn't want to risk becoming infected by their stupidity. However, I decided to indulge him that day. I proceeded to go into detail about all of the information he was glossing over while he hurriedly tried to make sure we were prepped for the state exams so he could get another notch on his belt. I listed everything he missed, all the places he could of gone with the material and then stated to him that he would be surprised to know that I cared about the historical accuracy and relevance of his lectures.

"Mr. Matthews, one day, you're going to wish that you put all that potential to good use while you were here. You have the mind to do anything if you'd only apply yourself." (Insert eye roll. I'd heard this one before).

I noticed, though, that when he said it he was staring at the three day old bruises on my neck. He never said anything about it. They never did.

The Bat, Brain Matter and the City of Trailers.

I still have the bat, I think. Yes, I definitely tucked that one away. Sometimes I'm reminded of the sound it made when it hit his back. It was a hot day, even for Arizona's standards, and I remember that as he lay there a pool of sweat started to form on the floor around him. His eyes will always stick with me as he was sprawled out there on the floor like some tiny insect. He had a moment where he realized what it felt like to be in the closet, under the bed and tucked away in the crawl space. The bat was in my hands, he was down on the floor and there wasn't much he could do to change the situation. I could have ended it right there (I definitely wanted to). All it would take was a few good blows to his head and we'd be seeing some brain matter flying. I'm not sure what stopped me. I leaned down and snatched the bracelet out of his grubby hands while I held the bat firmly in my left hand. I took a moment to look down on him and spit in his face.

"Never fucking again."

It didn't take long for me to pack up everything I had. I always had a habit of keeping things ready-to-go in case this day ever came. I was gone in less than fifteen minutes.

I drove for what felt like days, but was more than likely less than three hours before I ran out of gas. It was only a two-mile walk to the nearest town, but by the time I arrived there I was covered in a film of dust and sweat. There wasn't much "life" there to speak of and anyone I passed just shot me dirty looks or turned the other way as they scuttled back to their trailer shanty town. It took me a little while, but I finally located a run-down country store / motel / post office that had a single gas pump out in front of it. I addressed the surly, obese man clad in a stained wife-beater behind the counter: "I'm looking for work."

It took awhile for me to be accepted into the community. They guarded their tin domiciles fiercely and only after a few months did anyone begin to speak to me with any regularity. It was like they were all holding in some secret and unwilling to share it with any outsiders. A lot of them look scared, terrified even, that whatever it is was might burst out from their lips at any moment. There were a lot of bruises, here, too.

When they finally took me down that long, winding road and through the field of dirt, I had a sneaking suspicion of what I would find in the shack. They showed me what they were cooking; patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Some of them were so strung out they hadn't slept in days. I was put in the awkward position, again, of telling a group of older men that they were doing everything wrong. I proceeded, then, to show them how to cook meth the right way. I stayed there until I killed them. I always hoped that I set free the inhabitants of the trailer city. Maybe they all came scuttling back out of their houses and shouted with tears of joy in the security of knowing that there would never be anymore bruises to go unnoticed. Maybe, but doubtful.

The Thin Veneer, Death and Personal Space.

I examined the bracelet closely. I could see the imperfections even more clearly now. How the veneer of faux-gold was slightly raised in certain areas, exposing the cheap metal underneath. I could feel the spots as I ran my fingers over the surface - like little pebbles of gravel stuck on my skin. With my senses sharpened I could examine all the ways in which it was flawed, but I still knew how I felt when it was in my grasp and what it was like when I didn’t have it near me.

I had only been in San Francisco for a year when I was taken. Sometimes I wish I had some grand story about my embrace and why I was chosen. But, if there is one, I’m not aware of it even today. There’s so much we all don’t know. One piece at a time, I suppose. I was wandering around the city, really, floating between different groups and collecting stories and impressions of their lives. It was easy to submerse myself in the “safe” counter-culture here. No one really went too deep; it was all so superficial that it worked until the moment you started to pry too deep.

I woke abruptly when they entered my room. I was staying in a cheap motel in Oakland and at first I thought I was getting robbed. Maybe my day of reckoning was coming. Maybe he was coming back for me. There wasn’t a crawlspace here, but it didn’t matter. I was dead within minutes.

I knew a few things within my first few months of unlife: The Prince hated me from the moment he set eyes on me in Elysium and I wanted nothing to do with all the insane pocket protectors that were littering the city. Take, for example, my "sibling," Warren Richards, who one day decided to approach me an ask me to help him kidnap people. Kidnap people. And for what purpose? Well, they're all so secretive that it was like pulling teeth to get any semblance of logic out of them. Yeah, it didn't take me long to come to believe the "Dragons" were: A) Crazy B) Bat-shit Crazy or C) Into some seriously dark shit. I could see why my sire kept a safe but semi-close distance. I wanted one that wasn’t so close, so as soon as I was released I declared myself a member of the Carthian Movement and got the hell out of dodge.

Cowboy Hats, The Covenant of Progress and The First Lesson.

I wasn’t sure how anyone could take someone seriously in a debate when they were wearing a cowboy hat. I really wasn’t sure why no one was saying anything about the blatant fallacies in her arguments. I took the time to weigh in and point out some areas of weakness in her logic in the spirit of freedom and evolution of thought. I guess she didn’t take too kindly to that, but when Vivianne Hartford told me I didn’t know what I was talking about? Well...

At first the Carthian Movement was a matter of convenience for me. I wasn’t nearly tough enough to be Unaligned -- I’ve heard about the shit that goes on in Tijuana. I needed the protection of something bigger so I could do what really interested me. I felt the same way about the hicks in the city of trailers. Yeah...I just compared the Movement to a bunch of cracked out meth dealers. Get over it. But, as time passed in Phoenix I began to see the merits in their ways of thinking. They were the only covenant directly addressing the rapidly changing world around us and where we fit into it.

It didn't take long for people to figure out that I actually knew what I was talking about and maybe I'd have a thing or two to teach them. Some of them were downright stupid and beyond my help, but I managed to make a decent penny for myself by teaching a few newbie vampires about what goes bump-bump in the night or the aspiring intellectual a thing or two about chemistry. Margo came to me for a little help from time to time and always paid pretty promptly. I know I was a better teacher than any of the fools I ever had.

I spent a lot of my “free” time wandering around the city. The lights weren't as harsh outdoors and I liked how my bracelet looked under moonlight. It almost looked like it did when it was bathed in the light of the explosion, but I supposed this was as close as I would get to ever reenacting that. It reminded me of so many things, so many people and places I had collected and tucked away in a safe spot in my mind. I found myself frequenting a lot of the same places when I roamed. Most of the places I understood why I kept frequenting them, but there was a particular spot that I always circled back to with no particular reason for doing so. From the outside it wasn’t anything in spectacular - a run down factory that had closed decades ago. Most of the windows had been shattered by kids throwing rocks through them and the walls had been tagged by lofts of graffiti. Sometimes I thought I heard a faint humming noise as I walked by or caught something strange but indistinct out of the corner of my eye. There were other times I was certain I heard a whisper. Other times there was nothing extraordinary about the place, but yet I found myself back in the same spot pacing back and forth. One night I finally got up the nerve to venture towards the entrance of the building. He appeared directly in front of me before I reached the half-fallen down door. He smelled like the grave and walked with a hunch. I had seen him before a hand full of times in the city. His name was Albert Thompson and he was a pocket protector by all accounts. I was still reeling with agitation and frustration over his apparently superior level of concealment when he spoke.

“Tell me what you see.”

Caucus and The First Failure.

I was fairly certain they couldn't see my absolute terror. I had recited my research so many times that I was sure I had it down completely. I even tried visualizing all of them staring at me as I explained the intricacies of Astrological Position, Environmental Factors and Body Modification on Coil development. I had spent the last four years back in San Francisco filling any knowledge gaps I may have previously had. The practical application of many of these principles I excelled in as I tended to have much more "real life" experience - I knew my time in a meth lab would pay off. I spent hours in Elysium recording any minute changes in the room and had begun the process of chasing the dragon's tail shortly after that. I had earned ire and attention when I successfully achieved my first coil in a much shorter time than some of my peers. I had all the ingredients for success, really, but I hadn't felt this insecure in years. I think that's what ultimately drew me into the Ordo Dracul. I could have certainly stayed a part of the Carthian Movement, but I had never felt so challenged and consumed by a desire to succeed in my entire existence. I knew what passion felt like then - probably for the first time. Maybe I was finally taking Mr. Dickhead's recommendations seriously. Part of me longed to go back to that forgotten house still and see if I could slide back into my crawl space, but I knew that I had to push forward.

Everyone was surprised when my application to present at the Caucus was accepted. I was confident in myself, but I really knew that I was only putting myself out there so that I could be considered for future years. Yet here I was beginning my lecture on what I had learned thus far and how I had achieved Chrysallis. I was presenting my peers and superiors with the very foundations of my process in the Great Work. I reached into my pocket several times as I spoke to make sure the bracelet was still there, pressing against my skin through the fabric of my pants. When I finished I let my eyes settle on everyone in the room for a moment while they all sat still in the silence. And then the questions began. They weren't really questions, honestly, but more well-calculated attacks on my argument (and subsequently my person). If there were any holes to be poked, any stones left unturned or any points left unclear I was made aware of them in rapid succession. My first presentation at Caucus was considered a near-catastrophic failure on all counts. I had my first dose of humility that night.

After the questions finished I began to work my way back to my seat, but was stopped and offered congratulations by Esteban Veracruz for a job well done. Everything became crystal clear and I was tempted to congratulate him on a job well done. Mr. Veracruz and I had had some disagreements in the past during which I may have implied that he was the most ignorant person I had ever met. Well, as it turns out, Esteban was under the "tutelage" of our esteemed Covener Aiden Mauer. His plan was so simple it was brilliant. I don't think I'll be calling him an idiot any longer.

It really didn't come as any surprise when I received the letter "encouraging" me to secure the Academy's place in the newly conquered city of Las Vegas.

Las Vegas

It didn’t take long for me to get everything in order for the move. We were getting so many rumors that the new territory was absolutely wild that I was mentally preparing myself for anything. Warren and I had maintained semi-regular contact since Caucus. I hadn’t seen him in the crowd initially, but when I did I was thankful that he wasn’t one of my detractors. I wrote to him to inform him of my “transfer” and was surprised that I received a phone call shortly afterwards from him expressing his desire to join me. It was at that moment that I wished in my youth I had perhaps shown him a little more understanding. We arranged it so we would travel to the city together from San Francisco.

I looked down at the address written in sharpie on the back of a napkin and then back up at the building before me. I considered that this place probably was a fraternity house once judging by the faded outline of Greek letters above the door. It made, sense, I suppose for the only Dragon in the city to be living this close to UNLV, even if it was a bit cliche. This napkin scrawl constituted all of the information I had been given about Las Vegas before arriving here: an address and the possibility of a living Dragon. The Academy in San Francisco didn't have much knowledge about the newly conquered city, as its secrets were closely guarded by the Castellan of The Free-States of the Oregon Territory. The spirit of mutual intellectual exploration only goes so far, apparently. I had arrived in Vegas only the prior night and hadn't made myself known to any Kindred in the city yet. The ability to hide your nature does come in handy every now and then. First, I was to acquire and secure any specific Academy knowledge and then assess the current Kindred landscape. I crumpled the paper and stuck into my messenger bag. It didn't take long to determine that no one had used this as a haven for quite some time. I could smell a slick of dried vitae on one of the walls and when I opened my mind to the impressions it left behind I saw what I expected - the resident of this place had died some time ago and had taken any secrets he had with him to Final Death. I heard one of his attackers mention the Artisan Hotel before they decapitated him. I dropped the crumpled up napkin on the floor and decided it was time to make myself known to whatever residents remained in this city. As I traveled to The Strip I began to feel the enormity of the monumental task I had been given - mapping, exploring and settling a completely foreign and uncharted city. I suppose I had really had been sent here to flounder and die.

When I first entered what I supposed used to be the Elysium of the city there was only one other person in the room. She was standing with her back turned to me, but I was certain her profile, even from this view, was familiar. "Vivianne?" We exchanged pleasantries for awhile and I did my best to ignore her snide comments about my new covenant affiliations. We settled into a comfortable rhythm together that we shared in Phoenix - giving compliments and insults to one another seamlessly. It was comforting to have something recognizable in a totally unfamiliar terrain. When the time came where Vivianne expressed interest in Sheriff I was more than willing to assist her in the matter for a small price. She would keep me informed of any investigations going on in the city that might peak my interest, which, to be perfectly honest, I would have ensured happened anyway. Sometimes, though, it is easier to be upfront with one's intentions and given our history together a formalized agreement was probably the most appropriate route to take.

I went into Elysium that night with the express purpose of picking a fight with someone. It didn't much matter who it was with, but I was determined that by the end of the night I would be giving someone a tongue lashing. I had backed myself into a corner - there was no doubt about it. When we first arrived in the city there was so much to be done that I had begun to create a reputation for myself with the other "citizens" of the city I wasn't too fond of. You see, it is sometimes easy for others outside of the Academy to dismiss us because they believe most of us have as much social skills as a child with Aspergers. So, when Mycah Thaine and I started to go back and forth, many people started to take notice, especially when they realized I could hold my own just fine. By the end of the evening I had accomplished my goal for the demonstration: I had established that the Ordo Dracul in this city could and would be actively engaged in the social sphere of Las Vegas.

She was what I might call extremely erratic and outspoken. I don't think I had many positive interactions with her when we first arrived. I think she may have been lost in the delusion that just because I was a man I couldn't possibly know more than her, which was humorous, to say the least. However, when Cassandra approached me about spreading her influence in the religious and occult spheres, I was able to come up with an acceptable agreement that met both of our needs. Rationality always wins out over chaos. I'd assist her and she wouldn't intentionally try to stick her fingers in places she didn't belong. It's so much easier when the wild pagans focus more on dancing naked under the moonlight than interfering with any actual substantive work.

Sometimes, it's important to be direct and express exactly what you need when you need it. This was the method I opted to take when I declared in Elysium that I was in need of some assistance in locating a ghoul. I had begun to feel spread a little too thin and pulled in every direction. I could have certainly benefited from the extra set of hands. So it came to pass that Troy Evans agreed to help me out and I would throw some weight his way when he tried to become Regulator. It didn't matter too much to me who got the job but it would certainly be beneficial to have a good working relationship with whoever got the job. Maybe they would even let me get my hands on any unannounced Kindred who wandered through the city unnoticed if I asked nicely.

Body Modifications

• Left Ear: Industrial Piercing - 01/02/12