Blood of The Rose

Chapter 20: Sisterly Love

Santa Monica

The Asylum

The pair of fledglings entered the familiar night club, the heavy sounds of Monster by Skillet assaulting their ears. Weiss accompanied the brunette for the first time, though it was obvious this wasn't her first time there. The platinum-haired Kindred gave her a murmured excuse before slipping off into the crowd to find sustenance.

Ruby looked around curiously, her silver eyes seeking out a familiar mane of dyed green hair, but was unable to locate Reese. With a sigh, she slipped through the crowds herself, moving up the stairs and through the balcony, but could not catch sight of a familiar face.

While she was feeling a little bit hungry, it wasn't enough to bother her yet; certainly not enough to want to try and find somebody new to feed off of.

Making her way back downstairs, Ruby approached the obese bartender who gave her a rather friendly nod.

"You here to see Therese again?" he asked over the noise from the music.

"Yep, she in?"

The bartender nodded once more. "Yeah, I think so, but it might be Jeanette up there. Anyways, Therese, she gave me the okay to let you up when you stop by. Remember the code?"

Ruby offered him a small smile. "Yep, sure do. Thanks!"

The brunette headed over towards the elevator. Halfway there she met back up with a rather flushed-looking Weiss who was wiping at the corner of her mouth delicately with a forefinger. Ruby just gave her a nod and punched in the code at the security panel. Together they rode the elevator up in silence.

After arriving at the top, Ruby stepped forward and knocked on the door there. Immediately, a sing-song voice answered. "Come innn!"

The brunette fledgling sighed quietly. "Shit, it's Jeanette, not Therese," she muttered under her breath.

Weiss shrugged, her visage placid. "Still, perhaps we can report our success to her at least, or find out where Therese is."

Resigned, Ruby nodded, opening the door and walking in. Her partner looked around the room curiously as she followed behind her.

Jeanette was standing by the bed, wearing her usual skimpy getup. She glanced coyly over at Ruby as she entered.

"Not even a knock?" The blonde Kindred offered Ruby a lecherous grin. "I could have been undressing, and who knows what I would've had to do to you…"

Ruby blinked her eyes, nonplussed. "Um… but I did knock…"

"Oh, don't be such a stick-in-the-mud, duckling," Jeanette giggled before her heterochromatic eyes opened wide with glee. "Ohhh, and you brought me a new plaything, how sweet! And what's your name, little snowflake?"

The white-clad fledgling was gaping slightly at this point, but her mouth finally closed with a click as she gathered her wits back around her to respond. "Weiss Schnee, at your service."

Jeanette giggled once more. "How lovely, a daughter of the Wizard, here in my bedroom! Oh, can we make some magic, little snowflake?"

Weiss looked incredulously over at Ruby, who shrugged helplessly. The brunette decided to take pity on her partner and quickly interceded. "Um, Jeanette, I know you're pretty busy and all, but…"

"Oh, I know, it's always work, work, work. You're here to see her royal majesty Queen Victoria, aren't you?" The other vampire let out a morose sigh.

"Um, yeah, Therese, I do need to see her…"

"Therese is out making a show of how well her lips fit on the pants seat of the Camarilla. Did you happen to find her chastity belt or something?"

Ruby mused to herself that she must be becoming used to the antics of the Kindred woman, though Weiss looked to be about ready to pop a blood vessel and lose all of her newly-acquired sustenance.

"Um, actually, I have something I need to give to her, can you just tell her-"

Jeanette interrupted the fledgling with a girly squeal. "Ooh, can I see it?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby could see Weiss with her eyes wide, frantically but only marginally shaking her head. Yeah, that's not such a hot idea… "Um, sorry, but I need to give it to Therese…"

Jeanette pouted and injected a bit of a whine into her voice. "I'm not just some silly doll, you know. All my life my sister's made me out to be a joke. She told you I was an embarrassment, didn't she?" Her voice was rising in anger now. "That I couldn't tie my own shoes, let alone hold onto something for her. Is that it?"

Ruby took a hesitant step back. "No, really Jeanette, she didn't say anything like that… Um, please calm down?" She couldn't help but wince as her voice squeaked nervously at the end.

"She's always belittling me." Jeanette's voice started to drip with sarcasm and irritation. "She's the smart one, she's the favorite, she's the successful one. Well, it's not fair! I'm not a fool! This club's success is just as much my doing as it is hers!"

The brunette nodded slowly, keeping her hands loose and unthreatening at her sides. "Yeah, I get that, really I do, Jeanette. And I don't think that way of you at all."

"Really?" Jeanette looked up at her hopefully. "You don't?"

Ruby nodded once more, quickly this time. "I really don't. But… I'm really, really sorry, Jeanette, but I just can't give it to you, Therese was very specific that I only give it directly to her." Okay, so that last bit is a bit of a fib… Well, yeah, most of it is…

Jeanette sighed despondently and stared over the two shorter fledgling's heads at the giant portrait behind them. "Do you understand what it's like to have your own flesh and blood ripping you apart on a daily basis for two lifetimes? Can you?"

This time Ruby shook her head warily. "No, I don't, I just… I can't imagine, really. I lost my sister two years ago when she ran away, but I never stopped loving her, so, no, I can't really understand. I'm sorry, though. And… And I'm really sorry that I can't give it to you, also."

Sighing again, this time in resignation, Jeanette's demeanor quickly changed once more. She was back again to the fun, flirtatious persona from when they entered the room, her earlier forlorn and angry mood gone as if never there. "Fine, you hold on to it. Hmm… Since you were so willing to brave that big, spooky place for my darling sister, how about doing a teensy, tiny favor for little, troubled me?"

Troubled? That's the understatement of the century… "Um, I guess? What kind of thing do you need done?"

The grin that spread widely across the blonde's face was akin to a cat who just got into the cream. "Do you know Galley Noir, down the street? I happen to know there's a charity event being organized there. Lots of influential Santa Monicans slithering in for token appearances." Her voice dropped down into a playful, conspiratorial level. "But there's one thing they don't know…"

Ruby raised her eyebrows in curiosity. "And that would be…?"

"The whole event's been set up by a Kindred trying to establish their own power clique in our city. And we can't let that happen, can we?" Jeanette giggled briefly. "So I need some brilliant young upstart to spoil the milk."

Ruby shared a glance with Weiss, who nodded slowly. "Okay, um, so what should we do?"

Jeanette reached behind her and pulled out a sheathed combat knife. The brunette's eyes bulged out slightly as she was unable to fathom where in her skimpy outfit the pigtailed blonde had it concealed.

"I promise this won't take long. Take this knife. Give the paintings in the gallery a good slashing. Don't get caught and don't turn it into a massacre. And steal the charity box, would you? Buy yourself something velvet."

Ruby accepted the knife, pulling it out slightly to admire the black blade, nice and sharpened. "Okay, we'll go take care of it and be back shortly, then."

Weiss spoke up abruptly before the brunette could turn to leave. "And then this feud with Bertram will be called off, correct?"

The elder vampire nodded amicably, not put off at all by Weiss' brusque manners. "I'm sure Therese will be thrilled to honor your agreement when you get back. But in the meantime, get to the museum and ruin those paintings, then pay me a visit. I want to hear all about it… Hurry up, now, I can only… amuse… myself for so long."

The brunette fledgling turned finally, making sure to roll her eyes only when Jeanette couldn't see her. She paused, though, as she heard the other vampire murmuring as if to herself. "Oh, and there was something about the paintings… Hmm, what was it…?"

She glanced back, Weiss still at her side, only to see Jeanette shrug carelessly. "I can't remember. Oh well, have fun, duckling and snowflake!"

The pair entered the elevator, staring at the wall steadfastly as the doors behind them closed.

Weiss cleared her throat uncomfortably. "So."

"Yeah."

"She's completely nuts."

"Welcome to my world," Ruby sighed.

Weiss shook her head slowly. "I had no idea what clan they belonged to, but it seems obvious that at least Jeanette is Malkavian."

"I think Therese is a Ventrue, from the way she acts." The brunette frowned as a thought struck her. "That's gotta suck… Maybe it's why they fight so much, being from different clans?"

The platinum blonde shrugged. "Could be."

They exited the club and resolutely made their way down the street, ready to put an end to their time in Santa Monica. Their destination was actually at the end of the next block, a small structure with a porch that would almost look like a country house were it not for the obvious signage labeling it an art gallery. As the fledglings walked past on the opposite side of the street, they spied a rather portly specimen of a security guard outside the small building. They paused, observing the scene as discreetly as possible. It wasn't long before Ruby noted the narrow alley against the side in between the Galley and the parking garage, and turned to Weiss with a sudden grin. "C'mon, I got an idea."

The pair crossed the street once again, heading into the garage. The brunette lead the way, skirting along the parked cars towards the wall where bars stretched across to prevent entry through the open spaces.

"What are you looking for?" Weiss asked curiously.

Ruby shot her a smirk. "This is a beach. Ocean air is salty, and when you mix that with metal…"

The platinum-haired fledgling's eyes widened in understanding. "Rust."

"Yup," she nodded happily. "Now, I just need to find one sufficiently weakened… Aha!"

A bar towards the rear looked to be rather fragile and half eaten away. Some of the others were newer-looking, suggesting that the city of Santa Monica replaced them fairly frequently, but fortunately, this one hadn't been touched yet. Ruby carefully worked at it until it came free with a sharp snap. Both of them froze and looked around cautiously, but it was apparent nobody had noticed.

Ruby eased the rusty bar to the ground and grinned once more at her partner. "Right, come on and keep a lookout for me."

The other fledgling watched Ruby climb over with far more agility than she normally displayed when trying to be sneaky. "While you do what, precisely?"

"Pick the lock," she replied with a cheeky wink.

Weiss managed to get over without too much trouble and pressed herself against the wall behind the brunette. Ruby, in turn, pulled out her lockpick set and got to work. Within a matter of seconds she crowed out a quiet little exclamation of victory, the lock popping open and the door swinging noiselessly inside.

With a quick gesture from the brunette, Weiss preceded her in, and she then closed the door silently behind them. Before them was a one-room galley with four large paintings arrayed around the room on floor-to-ceiling pedestals so that patrons could actually walk behind them. A few decorative vases and the like were scattered about, but it was obvious everything had been cleared for these four paintings.

The two girls stood in the middle of the room and slowly turned in a circle to examine their surroundings.

Weiss' face suddenly lit up with understanding. "Oh… I see."

"You see what?"

The other vampire nodded firmly. "The paintings. It's rather clever, only Kindred would see their true meaning. These four paintings commemorate the origin of our kind." She pointed to one painting, labeled Caine Slays Abel, depicting a figure crouched over another fallen one, the latter covered in blood, the bright red flowing nicely with the oranges and yellows of the background. "Here is where Caine falls." The next, directly across, showed a man kneeling before a brightly glowing tree, all done in purples and blues. It bore the label, Caine Cursed by God. "And here is where he is banished."

The next, to the right of the last one, exhibited a naked man and woman with their arms around each other, facing away from the viewer and watching red leaves fall from the trees in the distance. It read, Caine Meets Lilith. "And here," Weiss continued, "he finds a chance for redemption."

The last one, across the way, had a bright green background, incongruous with the scenery of barren trees, as well as the foreground, a seemingly pregnant woman lying on her side and bleeding from a wound in her side. A man was visible walking away in the distance. "Caine Scorns Lilith," Ruby read out loud.

Weiss nodded solemnly. "And so Caine was cursed, and his curse passed down the Generations to us."

Ruby sighed heavily. "Shit. Pretty deep."

"Indeed. Will you do what needs to be done?"

The brunette nodded resolutely, heading towards the first painting. "Does it matter the order?"

"I imagine not," Weiss shrugged.

"Well, I'm kinda OCD about this kinda stuff, now that I know the order, I'll just do it like that, then…" She pulled her new black combat knife out of its sheath at the small of her back, swinging it back and forth against the first painting, marring the surface twice. Feels wrong doing this to art, but if it will get me out of this city and finished with everything I need to do here…

She repeated the process in order until finally the last one was slashed. Ruby turned towards Weiss. "Whelp, now that's… done… um…"

The brunette fledgling blinked her eyes uncertainly. The four paintings seemed to be… bleeding…

"That doesn't look right," she whispered.

"No," Weiss agreed, pulling her rapier out of its bag. "No, it does not. I fear we might have awakened a guardian."

"What sort of guardian?" Ruby squeaked, sheathing her knife and unslinging her baseball bat.

"Well, considering it was most likely a Tremere who put this into place… I'd say some sort of blood guardian."

The blood was now pooling in the center of the room, creating a large puddle that seemed to pulse with energy. And from it arose a figure in the shape of a man, though its face remained featureless.

"Ohhh, fucking shit on a bun," Ruby moaned as it turned its sightless gaze towards her.

Without further warning, the figure lunged towards her with surprising speed and dexterity. Ruby yelped and skipped to the side, swinging her bat wildly, but the guardian seemed to ignore the glancing blow to its shoulder. It took a swipe at the brunette, connecting with her left arm and sending her spinning to the ground.

"Oof!" The fledgling tried to concentrate and harden her skin, but it was all happening too quickly, she didn't have the time to pull up her defenses. A bloody foot connected with her midsection, sending her crashing against the wall.

Before the creature could follow-up, though, Weiss was there, her pale skin glowing with a dreadful inner light. Her face contorted into a snarl, the platinum-blonde vampire expertly dodged and twisted about the blood guardian, slicing and piercing with abandon.

Ruby managed to stagger back to her feet just as Weiss sailed in one last time with a fierce slash that beheaded the creature. With its defeat, it collapsed noiselessly back into a puddle of blood once more.

"Thanks… Weiss…" she panted out, barely supporting herself up on the wall.

Her friend sighed as she flung her weapon to the side to clean it of the magical blood before sheathing it on her back once more. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I will be. Um, let's grab that cash box and split, okay?"

"That sounds like an excellent plan."

As it turned out, there were about two hundred and fifty dollars in the cash box, which Ruby happily tucked away into her pocket. Maybe I'll find somewhere to upgrade my weapons… Hmm, wonder if there's a place that sells aluminum bats? That'd be fun… She felt a twinge of guilt, considering that Jeanette had called it a charity box, but for now, cash was cash, and she was told to do it.

The pair escaped through the same means as they entered, strolling out the garage and down the street without a care. They entered the bustling chaos of The Asylum once more to meet up with either Jeanette or Therese. Perhaps both, but Ruby wasn't sure if she'd want to be caught in the crossfire of the two bickering sisters.

A/N: Oh, naive little vamp!Ruby, your troubles with the Voerman sisters are just beginning… I know some were looking forward to this little arc as much as the Ocean House itself. As it stands now, it will play out over another three-chapter period, and then we'll finally be a little bit closer to blowing up a certain warehouse and getting the hell outta Santa Monica. Better watch that hunger, though, Rubes...

Mad props to my lovely Beta and collaborator, Live to anger the World, and to all you wonderful readers and reviewers, thanks for the support! Sharkdude5, Blacsparrow, SixPerfections, AntonSlavik020, zerosabers, Nicodemus Cain, kinigget, Lavits Dragoon, kaiju62, and a guest, cheers!

Stay shiny!