German’s Final Nights: “Caged Animals”

Notes by Michael

You don’t deserve any of this . . . drinking my memories like the dirty leech you are! Damn you, servant of the Antediluvians! I will fight you! I will kick your ass, I will . . . AAAhhh . . .

The pain! The pain! Aaaaaaahhhh!

Fine. Fine, just stop. Just fucking stop. Let me exist.

What must you know that you haven’t yet seen in my blood? My blood which now swims with your Beast? You saw my childhood, you saw growing up in West Baltimore. My dad was shit, my mom was a junkie. They used me more like an ashtray and delivery service than as a son. But boo fucking hoo, right? I didn’t shed a tear when my mom O.D.ed or when my dad ran off. I was in juvie before I could read. I never had much use for school.

AAAAHHHH! Stop it! Stop it! Fine, I’ll get to the juicy parts.

So, my pack was having a lovely time playing a game of Home Alone. You know the one? So, we take over this house, right . . . all home-invasion style. Scare up the juicebag family right proper before we drain ‘em dry. Then we split up into teams . . . I was on the “Wet Bandit” team who has to take the place from “Team Kevin.” The Kevins set up all these traps and shit while we Bandits clear the rooms and we have the Ductus and Priest serve as judges. They watch this shit and give us extra points for creativity and laughs.

You know. Wholesome shit, right?

But just as Vandal and I are untying the gnarly family chihuahua (augmented by Barbie’s sick fleshmoulding) from a rather obvious trap, the night goes to shit. Fuckin’ Montbatton comes crashing in to ruin our good time. It can never be good when the Bishop’s butt boy comes knocking. How he knew where our pack was is anyone’s guess. He’s a tricksy Malk, no doubt. So, he whispers to the judges some shit and they call the whole thing off! I was super pissed, because we were only one room away from winning.

Anyway, loser usually has to clean up the place and stage a crime, but our fearless leaders Amanda and Spooky Joe have to go to some big-ass meeting and so they make the whole rest of the pack dust the place up. Probably just easier to make it into an arson, Francine figures. That hot tart ain’t, like, the boss or nothin’, but she has good ideas most of the time when the Ductus and Priest are gone. So, that’s what we do. We put everything back as it was. Tuck the little kiddies into bed, lick their wounds and torch the place.

We saunter back to the clubhouse all feeling great. It was a fun night, despite the rude interruption. We got this place on Seton Hill where we all chill. Safer in a pack, you know. Hell, I can see it in your head too . . . y’all do the same-ass thing! Huh! I thought you Cammies weren’t up to that. Well, so it’s not a mansion like you got, more like an abandoned flop-house. But we have the windows all boarded up and we got our own security. Caine save the fool who rolls up on us unawares!

In our haven, we got eight of us all together. Thick as thieves. After Amanda waxed Ambrose a few years back, we all get along great. She took over as Our Lady of the Shadows, but we are all equal in the eyes of Caine. She just comes up with the games and shit and makes sure we do things up right. I hope she killed all those Cammie motherfuckers tryna escape from the zoo.

AAAAH. STOP! Yeah, okay, okay . . . you fucking won, you happy? You iced me. Now I’m just blood spittle. So back to it. 

Anyway, we got Spooky Joe leading all the rites and shit. He’s like the guru, we call those types “priests.” He’s a big ol’ dude, but super gentle . . . unless you get on his bad side. He can stretch your head in two and make sure you are still alive to live like that. He’s a tiger in the sack though. Yeah, I fucked Amanda too. Actually, we’ve all fucked. Helps with “unit cohesion,” ya know. Blood orgies are the fucking bomb. Even Nugget likes to watch.

So, we got Vandal, my good buddy. He’s a Gangrel like me. He’s the one your crazy-ass friend stabbed a zillion times.

We got Trace. She’s a Brujah and a rough one, but has some really sick moves.

We got Barbi. She’s one fucked up Tzimisce (hence the chihuahua I mentioned earlier that she molded into a mouth terror) and an apprentice to Spooky Joe. She’s probably his childe and all . . . but we aren’t supposed to question that kind of thing as we are all One in Caine.

We got Francine. She’s a bonafide hottie and great at getting the juicebags’ attention for sure. She’s a Torrie, though, so she likes painting with their entrails when she brings her food home.

And finally, we got Nugget. Nug don’t say much . . . I’m not sure if they can. They are some kind of hunched Nosferatu blobby dwarf-demon, best I can describe. They are kinda our mascot.

So all one big happy fucking family, yeah? And we were just settling down, getting ready for daytime-sleepytime when the boss lady pops in with Spooky Joe at her side. She has on this stern look and I know things are about to go to shit: I just don’t know how.

“Dread Kennedys,” she addresses us all serious-like (that’s the name of our Pack, see). “Rest up. Tomorrow, we prepare for war!”

Fuck.

———

So, the next night we start off with Holy Communion. That’s how I know shit is serious. Praise Caine, as I feel my comrades next to me. We stand in a circle as Spooky Joe slices our wrists for blood. We lick our wounds as Joe shakes the mix, giving thanks to the Dark Father. He swirls the vitae with a golden knife and uses his spooky Tzimisce magic on the shit. I don’t know how it’s done exactly, ‘cause I ain’t no priest. Anyway, we Invoke the Name and call unto His dark blessing for our Holy Work. The chalice is passed to me and the nectar slides down my throat and touches my soul. I feel all my Pack with me. We are as one. One in the Body of Caine. Through the Blood of Our Savior, we are One Flesh. The Dark Word is manifest upon this tainted Earth through the wisdom of the Priests, the strength of the Black Hand the will of the bishops, archbishops, cardinals and regent. And we, the Holy Body of our Father, Caine. We walk the Earth that we might delight in His will and walk in His ways, to the glory of His name, this night and forever more.

We hop in our Scooby van and skip on down the road. Normally, we wouldn’t foray this far south, but we have a whole caravan and the assurance that the Cammies won’t be looking the way we are coming in. Apparently, we’ve got shit-tons of intel and a turncoat or two on the inside to boot. Packs on packs are coming down. Mostly, we don’t get along, but now we’ve got a common enemy to fight: the blood-fat heretics, demon-worshippers and elder-whores of the Potomac.

We all meet up at the Omni Shoreham hotel. We all gotta act all business-like going in . . . or go in the loading zone. We’ve rented the place out for a wax sales convention. Apparently, no business people will be checking the place out too harshly on account of all of the hippie protesters in the city. The city is lousy with them — mad about capitalism or some shit: not realizing that their real bosses are greedy for their blood. Anyway, hundreds of thousands of protesters have descended upon the nation’s capital and that is just the sort of cover (and fall guys) we need.

Archbishop gives some rousing speech about glory and putting to the sword the foes of Caine, and some such. I even stand up in applause . . . which isn’t like me most of the time. I mean, I didn’t vote for this joker, but he seems to have a good head on his shoulders and he’s got the power to back it up.

We all toast to the Glory of Caine and drink the heart’s blood of some fat Ventrue all strung up from the ceiling of the ballroom. He’s delicious. They keep feeding him the (now former) hotel workers’ blood so he’d stay alive to keep feeding us. They have his head all bound up so he can’t do his tricks on us. The dude does try some shit, but he is smacked down pretty hard by the Priscus. She fucks up his head and that was the end of that Presence shit. The place erupts in merriment as there is one blood toast after another. The biggest toast goes out to the Red Talon Pack. They took a couple losses, but took down this fat fuck in the first place. The old Ventrue had a palace with guards and shit: everything you’d expect for a whore of the Antediluvians. Now he is dangling from a chain and providing us all with a night of sustenance and entertainment.

This Bottleneck guy, a new convert with deep intel on the city, gives a little overview of what we face. I’m not the only one who wonders if this ugly motherfucker can be trusted. But the higher-ups seem to have him all buddy-buddy-like, so I guess they’ve assessed him. Still, once a traitor, always a traitor. So I decide to keep my eyes open around him. There’s another turncoat, apparently, but they just say that “he has important work to do” to play his part and so we aren’t told who it is, other than them referring to him as “he.” I get the sense that they plan on eliminating him after that part is played. I suspect the same of this vaunted Bottleneck . . . even though he’s taken to the religious fervor of the newly-converted.

We are split into battle groups and are given a mission brief. Vandal is with me, but the rest of my Pack is placed in other groups. Another Gangrel from the Frankford Boys Pack is put along with the two of us. Our task is to infiltrate the National Zoo by running up some ravine, crossing over a wall and wait in the bushes for any stragglers that come our way after 9:00 p.m. The Frankford Boy Angelo brought a whole fucking pack of wild-ass wolves with him from the boonies in Woodstock and has them in kennels in a van. He’s going to release them into Rock Creek Park when the night begins and order them to keep a lookout and attack anything that isn’t us.

I’m worried that we have to watch out for these phosphorus guns pioneered by the Cammies that we’ve all been hearing about. We haven’t yet been able to reverse-engineer them, but I’m sure that’s coming soon. We’re told that most won’t be using them right now though. Their “Zetherdar” troops won’t be guarding the target party too well for some reason. The Cammies have little cocktail parties all the time where they play like juicebags and flaunt around, dripping with pearls and shit. Like fucking idiots, they are “encouraged” not to bring a fuck-ton of weapons with them to their dumbass parties, apparently. This party, however, is going to be a doozie.

My battle group’s job is simple: set the wolves free, climb the ravine, scale the wall, wait in the bushes behind the pandas, and when the time comes, kill anything fleeing the crazy shit going down in the center and back of the party. We’re just a little stop-gap group in case someone goes our way to try to get out of the two-pronged trap. They probably won’t though, we’re told.

Explosions are rigged across the city to go off around 9 p.m. The media will be blaming the poor hippies for it forever. I was told the higher-ups in the Sword of Caine even influenced a few commie revolutionaries to do the deed, so that our hands are clean of the whole thing. That will be just about the time that there is some sort of infighting going on among the Cammies. That’s when the trap is sprung.

I spend the day sleeping on a nice bed in the Omni Shoreham. The place has excellent black-out windows.

The next night, everything goes to plan. Us three Gangrel take our black van (more like a bus, really) filled with Wolves in cages, get to a back road along Rock Creek Park. We get out the furry guys. They are hungry and mad, but we calm ‘em down with the Power of the Blood. We climb the ravine all sneaky-like and scale the wall. And then, we wait.

I wait, looking out, my senses heightened, my Eyes of the Beast activated, and ready to rumble. That’s when I see some girl making out with one of my kin (I can see this lick’s eyes and know they’re a Gangrel). Boils my hide, someone of our blood working for the Enemy. And, next to the Pandas! That’s when I hear the commotion down the main path to the Cammie party. I know I’m supposed to wait for fleeing stragglers, but it’s time to pounce!