Blood of The Rose

Chapter 23: Dance With The Beast

Santa Monica

The streets of Santa Monica were as still as they often were at that time of night, when most normal folks had headed to bed, resting up for the new day.

Leaving the night to those who are relegated to dwell in the darkness.

The muted sounds of distant traffic were broken as the doors to The Asylum nightclub were briefly opened, the heavy bass thrumming of Chiasm's Isolated cutting through like a chainsaw. Two young women stepped out, one in red and black while the other primarily in white, and the doors shut behind them, shrouding the pair in relative silence.

"Well," the platinum-haired one began softly. "Do we go see Bertram now?"

"Actually…" The other girl, obviously a bit unsure of herself, bashfully touched the tips of her forefingers together. "I was kinda hoping we could check the other thing out first? Y'know, about tracking down Carson?"

"Ruby…" The pale fledgling by her side sighed quietly and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do you not want to finish up your trial here and return to LA?"

"Oh, I do, Weiss, absolutely! It's just, well… I don't think there's enough time tonight to see Bertram and blow up the warehouse, sooo maybe we can do this really quick and then go see him?"

Weiss tilted her head to the side consideringly, her long side ponytail hanging down past her shoulder. "I suppose… Well, this is your quest we are on, so it truly is up to you to decide. If this is what you want, I shall accompany you, of course."

"Aww, see, I knew you cared!"

"Do not start up with that again, you dolt!"

Ruby grinned widely as she changed course to lead them behind the club and into the back alleys. "You betcha, partner!"

Sighing once more, though with undertones of amusement and affection more than anything, Weiss resolutely followed the brunette, her pale blue eyes roaming about for danger as always.

Devil's Brand Tattoo Parlor

"Well, this place is certainly… different."

Weiss looked around the room with her hands on her hips. The small shop was tucked away next to the medical clinic and, coincidentally, right across from the Haven they had been staying at. However, it was unremarkable enough that the platinum- blonde hadn't ever noticed it before. A rough sign above the doorway had proclaimed it to be "Devil's Brand Tattoo and Professional Body Piercing." At this late hour, it was closed, of course, but Ruby had a key.

The decrepit reception area was illuminated by a flickering fluorescent overhead light. Faded wallpaper that might have been red at one time was lined with posters of art samples. The ceiling tiles were mildewed and full of holes while half of the linoleum tiles were missing, exposing the stained concrete. One threadbare overstuffed chair sat depressingly in the waiting area, looking positively diseased, right next to a rickety coffee table. The reception counter seemed to be the sturdiest thing in the room.

"Hey, Weiss."

The fledgling looked up from her absentminded perusal of the art on the walls. The artistic talents of the parlor seemed to lean heavily towards dragons and naked women for some reason. "Yes, Ruby?"

The brunette poked her head out from the back room where the actual work was done. "Can vampires get tattoos? Or would they just heal it up right away?"

Weiss frowned slightly. "Well, it's not anything I've ever considered… But yes, I suppose a tattoo would not take hold on a Kindred, precisely for that reason."

"Huh." Ruby's head ducked back inside once more.

Chuckling lightly, Weiss walked towards the rear of the shop. "Have you found anything?"

"Nope, just some creepy stairs leading into the basement."

"Hmm. Well, I daresay after surviving the Ocean House, there isn't much that could faze me anymore."

Ruby snickered as she stepped from the back room and led her over towards the rearmost portion of the shop. She was humming the Ghostbusters theme once again.

Weiss glanced inside the room her friend had vacated. It was a small alcove containing more artwork and a chair that looked to have been rescued from a dentist who was renovating perhaps fifty years ago, stained and tattered, the vinyl patched with duct tape. Also, almost as an afterthought, a folding chair.

"Yeah, real professional setup," Ruby mentioned with a shake of her head when she noticed Weiss' attention.

The platinum-haired fledgling glanced at her curiously. "Do you have any tattoos?"

"Eh heheh," Ruby shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment. "No, I always thought about it, but I never had the money when I was old enough to."

The brunette sighed morosely, thinking back to her sister who'd promised to take her on her eighteenth birthday and treat her to her first tattoo. She'd always dreamed of them getting matching ones. With a resolute shake of her head, she walked through the threshold of the open doorway leading down into the basement.

Creaky wooden steps, poorly illuminated, led them down and into a mostly barren space with concrete flooring and cinder block walls. A cot was set up down there with some supply boxes surrounding it. Lining the walls were taped-up pictures of what looked to be people's limbs, oddly enough. There were several of hands, one of feet, and another of an elbow. The subjects all appeared to be male.

Wordlessly the pair of Kindred stood at the pictures, puzzling their meaning, when they jumped in surprise at a sudden ringing sound. The source of their disconcertion was a landline phone, an old beige office model, that was resting on the floor under the bed.

"Well?" Weiss prompted.

The brunette glanced towards her. "Well, what?"

"Are you going to pick that up?"

"Who, me?"

"Yes, you."

"Why don't you?"

"This is your quest, Ruby, so pick up the phone."

"Fiiine," the red-clad fledgling groused, trudging over to the phone that had not yet stopped ringing. She crouched down and pulled it out from under the bed, lifting the receiver to her face.

"Hello?"

She immediately held the phone away from her ear as she was blasted by an incongruously cheerful voice that belted out from the other end with an odd lilting accent she couldn't immediately place.

"Oh, hello! I'm so glad someone finally answered! Might I speak with Mr. McGee?"

Ruby shrugged, deciding to respond with comparable politeness. "Um, sorry, he doesn't seem to be here at the moment. Can I help you?"

"Well, I'm not sure… I had an appointment with him a few days ago, but he never seemed to show up. Do you know when he'll return?"

"I don't actually. What sort of appointment was this?"

The voice on the other end of the line hummed consideringly. "Well, Mr. McGee was going to be doing some modeling for me. Medical reference for the work I do here in the studio. It's a shame, really… the proposition would have been quite lucrative for him."

Ruby raised her eyebrows at Weiss who frowned in response. The entire conversation was audible to the both of them, and likely would have been even if they didn't have the enhanced hearing of Kindred.

Seem suspicious? Ruby mouthed. The other vampire simply rolled her eyes as if to answer, "Well, no duh."

"No kidding?" the brunette continued, deciding the play along. "Well, maybe I could come down and model for you."

"Why yes, that sounds delightful! Perhaps you could come down to my studio and we can sort out the details?"

Ruby shot her partner a tight grin. "Okay if I bring a friend?"

The voice chuckled. "The more the merrier, I assure you!"

"Cool, so then, where are you located?"

"I'm at the end of Main Street, a small basement studio. The sign says Gimble's Prosthetics. Just ring the buzzer and I'll let you in."

Hmm, so his name is Gimble, what an odd name. "Sounds good, see you soon!"

She hung up the phone before turning to Weiss who was wearing a matching smirk to her own.

"Trap?" Ruby asked rhetorically.

Weiss nodded firmly all the same. "Trap. Who on earth would he be calling down here for this McGee person, who is missing alongside that Carson fellow?"

The brunette fledgling giggled as they headed up the stairs. "Oh, no, and us poor defenseless little girls might just fall for such a nefarious ploy!"

"You are having entirely too much fun with this," Weiss snorted humorously. "Let's get this over with and find your bounty hunter."

Ruby twirled her bat eagerly while Weiss loosened her rapier in its soft case as they strode across the upstairs parlor and out into the street.

Santa Monica

Main Street

Standing in the middle of a parking lot, Ruby eyed a painted sign that pointed down a set of concrete steps at the end of it, shadowed by the corner of the building and the dim streetlight around them. She snorted softly. "No, this isn't ominous at all…"

"It does seem a tad… sketchy," Weiss mused.

"No doubt." Ruby headed down the steep stairs, bordered by a cobblestone graffitied wall, until they arrived at an intercom set into the side of the wall right next to a steel door and below street level. With a resigned shrug, she pressed the button.

Gimble's voice came across, tinny but still eerily cheerful. "Yes? May I help you?"

"Yeah, hi, we spoke on the phone? About modeling?"

"Oh, right, right! I'll buzz you right in!"

The steel door buzzed as it swung inward. The pair of fledglings walked through and into what seemed to be the waiting room of a doctor's office while the door swung shut behind them.

They were faced with a rather uptight-looking brunet man with an odd smile plastered on his face, dressed in slacks, a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and a blue tie. A prosthetic arm poked out past his left sleeve.

The man positively radiated earnest cheer as he greeted them. "Hello! Welcome to Gimble's Prosthetics and Medical Supplies. You're here for the modeling job? Good, good. You both seem to have rather well-developed limbs, if you don't mind me saying so." He chuckled at that, rather creepily in Ruby's opinion.

Ick, ick, ick, why do I think you'd be right at home in a white van trying to sell candy to little kids?

"Um, yeah…" she replied, trying to suppress her shudders. "And who are you?"

"Oh, yes, forgive me. My name is Gimble, Stanley Gimble. But, oh… dear, let us dispense with formalities. You can call me Stan!"

"Uh-huh, gotcha. I'm Ruby, and my friend here is Weiss. Um… so tell me about yourself… Stan. Before we get started and everything, I mean, kinda be helpful to know who we're working with, yeah?"

Weiss remained silent at her side, listening to and watching everything closely with her pale blue eyes.

"Me? Oh, I'm just trying to make things a little easier for those who find themselves, erm, disadvantaged. Giving a helping hand, you might say… A leg up. Heh… bloody clever, that one. Er, your friend doesn't say much, does she?"

The platinum blonde just looked at him dispassionately. "No," she replied shortly.

Ruby gave an awkward chuckle. "So, you seem, uh, 'disadvantaged' yourself, there."

"Hmmm? Oh, ah, you mean the arm?" Gimble grinned widely once again. "Yes, oh ho, that's an interesting story, if you've got the time for one."

Ruby and Weiss glanced at each other and shared a shrug. "Sure, why not," the brunette replied.

The brunet man's creepy grin rapidly intensified. "Well, you might say I have a certain love affair with the human anatomy - an obsession, really. Prosthetics seemed a natural occupation in which to, ah, focus my enthusiasm, as it were."

Gimble ran his other hand over the replacement arm almost lovingly before resuming his tale. "And so I came to realize that I would never truly reach mastery in prosthetics without knowing what it was like to have to use one."

Ruby stared back in shock. He'd said it so nonchalantly, but there was no possible way he meant what she was thinking, was there? She glanced over at Weiss who had the same horror lurking behind her pale blue eyes.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Wait… You mean… You didn't…?"

But Gimble simply barreled on as if she hadn't spoken. "And so I decided, quite out of the blue, actually, to cut off my own arm. My work, as you can well imagine, has quite improved since then."

By this point, Ruby was screaming internally. You are a fucking nutcase!

Externally, she gave an awkward chuckle and rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah… so… How about those pictures then, huh?"

"A-ha! An eager participant!" Gimble's laugh was oddly high-pitched. "Very good. Just give me a few moments to get my… equipment… ready, and then the both of you come on in and we'll get started."

With a cheerful nod, he turned and exited through the only other door, closing it firmly behind him.

Numbly, Ruby debated sitting on the blue vinyl couch, but eventually thought better of it.

"Weiss," she moaned softly.

"Uh-huh," Weiss replied in what was possibly the least composed she had ever seen her partner.

"I don't wanna go with the creepy molesting man."

"He might have the answers you're looking for…"

Ruby stared at her, incredulous. "He cut off his own fucking arm, Weiss!"

"Well, yes, but-"

"His! Own! Arm!"

"You think I don't understand that? Do you want to complete this task or not?"

The brunette sighed and grumbled under her breath. "Just once, could I get something simple... A nice, boring quest like in the computer games, 'here, take these four loaves of bread to my neighbor who I can't find the energy to walk over and see'."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Nothing, nothing… Frigging World of Warcrack was a lie, I tell ya…"

"Ruby…"

"No, I'm going, I'm going…"

Figuring they'd given him enough of a head start, the pair of vampires headed through the door and into what looked to be a storage room for mannequins and prosthetic limbs, propped up against the walls and hanging from the ceilings. There was a price list on one wall for parts and whole mannequins, prosthetics priced as varying by customer. Ruby humorously noted that he was selling crash test dummies as well. Scrawled under the chalkboard was a warning in what looked to be red paint, and she desperately hoped it was only paint, saying 'Amputees must wait up front'.

Crates, workbenches, and shelves lined the large room and projected out into the middle. The corner of the room was closed off with a chain-link fence and gate. It looked to be a small office area with an inactive security camera monitor but no computer. Ruby shrugged and skipped it, following Weiss as she tried to emulate her partner's stealth.

Of course, being who she was and retaining the sort of luck possessed by only the worst vampire in existence, she managed to accidentally knock over a mannequin while creeping across the room. The brunette made a valiant attempt to catch it but the head promptly fell off and bounced noisily across the floor and into a display rack, causing the whole set of precariously-mounted artificial limbs to crash noisily to the floor.

Weiss stopped in her tracks, slowly turning towards Ruby with an incredulous look on her face. In response, the other fledgling just shrugged in embarrassment and chuckled ruefully while standing the mannequin back upright. It promptly collapsed into another noisy pile as the legs gave way.

The platinum blonde's eye twitched furiously. She pinched the bridge of her nose, seemingly counting to ten in her head, before quietly ordering Ruby to stay behind while she scouted ahead.

"You may follow me after a half of a minute has passed, and try not to trip over anything else!" Weiss hissed before turning on her heel and gliding noiselessly out of the room.

Left by herself, Ruby stuck her hands in her pockets and resisted the urge to kick at the pile of mannequin limbs. "Not my fault I got the lame-ass uncoordinated genes," she grumbled quietly. "Maybe you guys should work on siring vampires better, ever think of that, huh?"

She glanced around idly while waiting, spotting a powered-off video camera that was set up on a flimsy tripod. She stepped over to inspect it and gave it a gentle poke, careful not to tip it over. The camera seemed to be an older, non-digital model, without a tape inside either. Finally, the brunette came to the determination that her half of a minute was up and continued in Weiss' footsteps, creeping ahead and determined not to screw up any more than she already had.

Ruby passed by a small fridge standing right before the doorway the other fledgling had passed through. Giving in to her curiosity she opened it up a crack, eyes alighting upon several packs of blood. "Oh, I've got an even worse feeling about this now…" she whispered to herself.

Down the cramped stairway and at the first landing there was a hallway leading off. Though the stairs continued down, Ruby decided to check out the first door on the hallway. It reminded her more of a cell with an inset window lined with rusted bars in the door. Inside the small, mostly barren chamber were some more pictures of anatomical parts on the walls, similar to those found in the basement of the tattoo parlor, a dentist's chair, and a stained mattress on the floor.

Ruby eyed the dark stains on the chair, the mattress, and the floor. "Nope, fuck this, I don't like this at all." Anxious to find her partner now, but unwilling to call out for Weiss in case it compromised her position, she decided to continue on sneaking down the rest of the way.

Halfway down the stairway the brunette paused and peered into another similar room, this one with an operating table and coated with liberal amounts of obviously dried blood. The fledgling swallowed convulsively and realized that it'd been awhile since she fed. Should I go back up and grab a bag of blood? she wondered. No, no time for that, I gotta find Weiss before Gimble does!

At the end of the staircase was a set of closed double doors. Ruby cautiously opened one side and peered inside. "Weiss…?" she whispered, panic lacing the edges of her voice.

The brunette girl was faced with a large open room. Two pallets of boxes lined one end with an operating table in the middle. As she continued to creep in, she pulled up short at an odd collection of pictures taped to the wall. Along with the usual anatomical drawings and pictures was one of a clown, labeled 'Dad', while another was of an x-ray cross-section of a head. An arrow was drawn on the latter, pointing to the brain with the words 'under there'.

Yup, nuttier than a fucking fruitcake, Ruby moaned to herself anxiously. There was no sign of Weiss that she could see, but she could spy three doors leading from the room, one on the far end and two on the wall nearest to her. The latter two looked to be more like cell doors, similar to the ones upstairs.

Unbeating heart in her throat, Ruby crept forward to sneak a peek inside the pair of doors. She spotted what looked to be a corpse inside each one, both males, which made her sigh softly in relief. The first was missing both arms and legs, and a gaping mouth displayed the gruesome fact that all of his teeth had been pulled, while the other seemed to be just missing his hands and one leg up to the knee, though equally as dead.

Just as she finished breathing out a sigh of relief that it was not Weiss in either cell, the other door flew open to reveal a charging Gimble who was laughing maniacally. Flopping around in his grasp was what looked to be a severed arm, the deranged man's hand coated in blood where he was gripping the arm by the exposed radius and ulna.

Oh, ew, please don't hit me with the severed body parts, that's so gross!

The fledgling scampered backwards from the giggling brunet man, fumbling with her grip on her bat while activating her Fortitude. Before she could ready either one, he darted in with surprising agility and hammered her across the head with the unconventional weapon.

Ruby saw stars as she stumbled to the side, almost losing her grip on her bat. Fuck, he's strong! She made an attempt to swing out in a wide arc to keep him at bay and felt it make contact on his prosthetic appendage, but Gimble was resilient enough to shrug it off and continued to lay into her, mumbling incoherently in between manic giggles.

She couldn't concentrate, couldn't force what little blood reserves she had left to toughen her skin. The brunette girl felt blood leaking down her face from several cuts, as well as from the improvised weapon. The skin on the wielded arm had split in several places, and the exposed bones were now cutting into her, causing her to lose more of the precious blood.

"Dammit, will you stop hitting me!" she shouted angrily, swinging her bat around blindly. Her opponent simply skipped to the side, lashing out once more, this time catching her in the stomach and causing her to bend over in pain.

His return swing caught her chin, making her teeth click together painfully as her head was flung backwards…

And then she snapped.

The fledgling's vision darkened before turning into a hazy red as a low growl built up in her chest. Surprised, the would-be harvester paused in his attacks before quailing at the feral look in her silver eyes.

Gimble was suddenly confronted by the simple fact that he was nowhere near as close to the top of the food chain as he had considered himself to be. At that moment he gazed into the visage of a true monster, both awed and jealous of the purity of the creature he was now faced with.

Without remorse or consideration, Ruby cut loose, dropping her bat and lunging forward, mouth agape and fangs prominently displayed. The last of the blood inside her was reflexively pushed into her Presence, successfully activating it for the first time and riveting her attacker in place. All rational thought fled from her mind as she jumped atop the man, pinning his arms to the side and ignoring his frightened whimper.

Oh, this is nice, Ruby purred to herself as she tore into her hapless victim's throat. She didn't use any finesse at all, just worried at it like a dog with a bone, causing as wide a gash as she could. All the blood, the lovely, lovely blood, gushing forth for her to lap up and drink deep, quenching the never-ending thirst if only for a brief time…

When she was sated, the brunette suddenly came back to her senses. She looked down in horror at the mutilated corpse at her feet, his eyes forever frozen wide in fear and staring sightlessly from the head barely attached to what was left of his neck.

She stumbled back, hands held up in front of her. The blood coated her everywhere, her clothes and her hair and on the floor… Her hands looked as if she wore crimson gloves, and she could tell that her face was just as stained.

Her silver eyes darted around the room frantically, looking for some salvation from the insanity she'd just experienced. Finally, her gaze rested on a pale, white-clad form standing demurely just outside the splash radius of her messy feeding.

"Weiss…" she croaked. "What did… What happened? I- I- I killed him, no, I slaughtered him…"

The other Kindred nodded her head slightly, face carefully devoid of any feeling, judgemental or otherwise. "Congratulations," she intoned softly. "You've had your first encounter with the Beast."

Weiss turned, her heels clacking against the concrete. "There's a sink over there, clean yourself up." She paused, glancing back over her shoulder, and her ice-blue eyes softened infinitesimally with pity as she whispered one last piece of advice. "Learn from this so that it never happens again."

Ruby looked back down at her trembling hands once more, unable to shake the dread gnawing at her insides.

I'm… I'm a fucking monster…

After washing up, including her hair and clothes as best she could, she numbly trudged up the stairs. Her platinum-haired partner was waiting for her, cleaned baseball bat at her side and holding a bag of blood retrieved from the fridge.

"Drink some more," she advised quietly. While Ruby complied, the other fledgling rubbed her hand along her spine reassuringly. "We'll keep some bags on hand," Weiss continued. "Just… to help. Are you... "

Ruby set aside the empty bag, having used the time to push down her chaotic thoughts, locking them behind a door that was metaphorically bulging from the amount of suppressed emotions behind it. "I'll be fine, Weiss," she stated with a weak smile. "Thanks for looking out for me."

"Of course, Ruby."

Pale blue eyes watched her with concern as the pair left the office and stepped back out into the night.

A/N: Cheers to zerosabers, hope the frenzy was to your liking! Poor little vamp!Ruby just needs some serious cuddling… So, that ties up almost all of the side quest loose ends, we'll swing by one more small one next chapter while setting up for the warehouse assault.

Mad props to my talented Beta and collaborator, Live to anger the World, and much love to all you wonderful readers and reviewers! Nicodemus Cain, AntonSlavik020, FourNails1341, RealTerminal, Sharkdude5, Mossblomma, noone297, kinigget, Blacsparrow, Lyall777, TacoKing23, SixPerfections, Lavits Dragoon, Crescent Sunrise, Haley Earthstone, I always love hearing from you folk, thanks for taking the time to let me know what you think!

Stay shiny!