The-Marriage-Of-Virtue-And-Viciousnes

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Birch turned to his two guests and raised an eyebrow.

“Your problem must be serious indeed.”

“Oh it is.” Beatrice Cartwright looked him in the eye.

“My Bishop lies under a vinculum.”

There was a moment of silence.

It is important to understand how bold she was, and

how trusting, to meet the gaze of Solomon Birch. There

are many strains of the vampire curse, and his inclined

him toward provoking unreasoning passion, affection,

adulation — even love. This, along with a tendency

toward vast strength and speed, made his species the most

efficient of predators among the undead.

Yet Solomon had eschewed the easy path of forced

affection, choosing instead to pursue a different form

of power. With no weapons but a met glance and his

voice, he could impose his desires on those around him.

While it was a power most reliable on humans, his fellow

vampires — his ‘Kindred’ — were far from immune.

Her words and gaze were doubly bold because Birch

was known for a cruel and violent temper. Triply bold

because

was her Bishop.

Cover art by Jason Alexander. Book design and art

direction by Pauline Benney. Copy edited by Allison

Sturms. Layout by matt milberger.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmit-

ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechani-

cal—including photocopy, recording, Internet posting

and electronic bulletin board—or any other informa-

tion storage and retrieval system, except for the pur-

pose of reviews, without permission from the publisher.

White Wolf is committed to reducing waste in pub-

lishing. For this reason, we do not permit our covers to

be “stripped” for returns, but instead, require that the

whole book be returned, allowing us to resell it.

All persons, places and organizations in this book—

except those clearly in the public domain—are fictitious,

and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual

persons, places, or organizations living, dead, or de-

funct is purely coincidental. The mention of or refer-

ence to any companies or products in these pages is not

a challenge to the trademarks or copyrights concerned.

White Wolf, Vampire and World of Darkness are regis-

tered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. Vampire

the Requiem and The Marriage of Virtue and Viciousness

are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights

reserved.

ISBN 1-58846-872-0

First Edition: July 2005

Printed in Canada

White Wolf Publishing

1554 Litton Drive

Stone Mountain, GA 30083

www.white-wolf.com/fiction

greg stolze

the marriage of virtue and viciousness

Chapter One

Steve Quartermain stepped from cab to curb and

bee-lined toward the Jade Room.

Sexy

, he thought.

Very sexy. Be very sexy

. He focused his mind on it like

a Zen koan. Steve was wearing black pants and pointy-

toed shoes. He hoped no one would look at his shoes.

His shirt was green, but not just green, it was a medley

of greens, a shimmering, subtle weave of dark and

darker, and here and there just a brief glint of some-

thing pale.

He had spent far too much money on it, but it was a

hot shirt. He wore it half-tucked into his black pants

belted with a silver buckle and he looked as by-God

good as he knew how to.

He looked neither left nor right but went into the

club, like a man on a mission.

Backstage at the Jade Room, Velvet tuned her slap

bass and thought it was funny how things turned out.

She’d started out playing violin, classical violin, but

somewhere along the way she’d drifted into jazz. Her

group was called the Velvet Four, though Velvet was in

no way its leader. The first time they’d played, a music

reviewer from

City Pages

had interviewed them after

the show, and he’d been ditch-water drunk. The ar-

ticle the next day had been full of misquotes and half-

accuracies, and stuff he’d apparently just made up af-

ter looking, sober, at his drunken notes. One such

made-up fact was that the bass player was called ‘Vel-

5the marriage of virtue and viciousness

greg stolze

vet’ and that the band was named after her. Before that

article, she’d used her name, ‘Violet.’

She tuned carefully and thought about classical mu-

sic, which she really preferred, but jazz fed her. She

had perfect pitch and when her instrument matched

it, she wandered to the backstage door and looked out.

She saw a man in a green shirt with a shaved head

and a goatee enter the room and scan around, looking

like a lion on a high place over the savannah. She didn’t

know him, but she knew as much as she needed to. The

sweep of his gaze moved over her body, in the dim by

the door, and paused. She felt it. Something trem-

bling and familiar, but always new, every single time,

new. She didn’t know if it was weakness or strength she

felt, but she knew she would obey.

The man moved toward the bar and a woman came

into the club.

Aurora Graham wore a tight sundress printed with red

and orange hibiscus flowers, bigger than real ones. It had

a plunging neckline and, at the lowest dip of her cleavage,

a pair of mirrored sunglasses jumped and jiggled, the stem

stuck in her décolletage. The entire effect was like a pair

of silver balls hung too close to the tip of a Christmas tree

branch. She had open-toed shoes with medium platforms,

and she moved on them like she’d been wearing high heels

since before her first period.

Aurora was not tall and she was not obese by any rea-

sonable standard, but there was a fullness to her body

that would have embarrassed many other ladies. Her

hair was a rusty red that had been pushed past normal

limits by spray and coloring and teasing. Like her fig-

ure and her clothes, there was a lushness to it that bor-

dered on caricature.

She had strong features, full lips, brown eyes and a

cigarette. She took a drag, squinted around, and looked

greg stolze

the marriage of virtue and viciousness

for an ashtray as she exhaled. Seeing one on a small,

round table, she sat and ashed and caught the eye of a

cocktail waitress with ease.

Aurora had come to the Jade Room for a reason,

and it was not to hear bluesy be-bop.

The Jade Room was quiet and smoky and close be-

fore the music started, even without many people

present. Steve knew he’d gotten there early, that he was

being eager, that eagerness wasn’t cool and that uncool

wasn’t sexy, but sitting at home listening to “Sketches

of Spain” again just made him jittery. He needed to

get out. He needed to

. He needed. He knew that

need wasn’t cool, either, but he hoped that he’d get to

the bar, relax, pay far too much for a variant martini

and maybe bore himself enough that when the time

was

right, when the crowd

was

there, he’d be able to

work it right, play it proper, isolate one doe-eyed tar-

get from the herd and close in for the kill.

He sat behind his drink and tapped his fingers and

thought about how finger-tapping wasn’t cool.

More people drifted in, women and men, mostly in

pairs and a few groups — work cliques, gangs of friends,

aging hipsters, married couples or daters. Steve sat

turned sideways with his eyes going nowhere in par-

ticular. Many clubs had a big mirror over the back of

the bar, but not the Jade Room. It had a mural of jazz

greats dead and gone, drawn by Alfonse Nazzario back

in 1987 and then — sacrilege! — colored by some ya-

hoo, some house-painter pal of the owners who’d

needed work in the winter months. Students from the

Art Institute sometimes came by even now to sniff at

it, even though Nazzario had stopped being cool some-

time in the 1990s and even though the artist himself

had said he thought it looked fine with colors, shit, it

was just some sketches he did for fun, he knew they’d

7the marriage of virtue and viciousness

greg stolze

get smoke-stained anyhow, and Christ, why did people

have to make such a big deal out of everything? Then

in 1998, he OD’ed and the mourners had come to the

Jade Room after his funeral. The owners had done

good business that night.

Steve hadn’t been in the Jade Room for Nazzario’s

funeral, but he knew all this stuff. Steve picked up facts,

back-stories and trivia the way a white car collects mud.

He had all this at his fingertips, along with a witty com-

ment about how some of those Art Institute people were

still coming to the club to hear

music

now. He had

charming commentary prepared. Steve Quartermain

was all loaded up and ready to fire at the right target,

the right person.

Any minute now.

As he turned the stem of his martini glass, his eye wan-

dered again to the woman in orange. She was, he real-

ized, the only person in the club who was not wearing a

single item of black clothing. At least, nothing visible.

Steve quirked an eyebrow and imagined doing a full check.

A man walked in. Most of the people present didn’t

notice or didn’t care, but the way this particular fellow

carried himself, the subtle clues of his dress (leather

blazer, aggressive belt, well-worn sneakers that had cost

more than Steve’s entire outfit) shouted to anyone pay-

ing attention that this here was a

man

, a man’s man, a

ladies’ man, and that ‘ladies’ was in the plural posses-

sive because it’s more than one lady but if they get pos-

sessive he’s outta there, he can’t be tied down because,

ladies, he’s a

man

The only people paying attention were Steve and Au-

rora. Velvet was backstage, muttering a few last minute

things, musical minutiae, to the rest of the Four.

Steve thought,

Oh no.

Aurora thought,

Oh shit.

greg stolze

the marriage of virtue and viciousness

Neither had met the stranger, but each felt they knew

him by type. Aurora’s dismay was not that of prey for

predator, but more that of a hunter who spies an ani-

mal that isn’t worth a bullet. Steve, on the other hand,

very much perceived him as a challenge, and never more

so than when he went directly for the table of the only

obviously unaccompanied woman.

“Hey,” he said to Aurora. She didn’t reply. Nor did

she make eye contact, choosing instead to pull a com-

pact from her big brown purse and powder her nose.

“Oh, you don’t have to gussy up for me,” he said.

She turned a flat look on him that, if it conveyed

anything, sent the message,

What kind of man under

the age of 60 says ‘gussy up’?

“Is this seat taken?” he asked.

“That one isn’t,” she said, pointing her chin at an

empty table.

“But the view there isn’t as nice.” He pulled up be-

side her. “What are you drinking?”

“What am I

drinking

?”

“That’s what I asked,” he said, signaling the waitress.

“You really want to know what I’m drinking?” Au-

rora asked again.

“I am

dying

to know what you’re drinking,” he said.

“I’m drinking alone,” she said, and turned her back

on him.

Steve didn’t hear the conversation, but the body language

was enough. The guy looked around as if to broadcast,

What’s

with this crazy bitch? Am I right, fellas?

But, like Steve, ev-

eryone studiously ignored him. He seemed shrunken, shriv-

eled, a teenager dressed in his hip older brother’s cast-off

clothes. The victim of a professional-grade blow-off, he ex-

ited gracelessly to try his luck elsewhere.

Then the curtain opened, and without a word of in-

troduction the Velvet Four began their set.

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摘要：

Birchturnedtohistwoguestsandraisedaneyebrow.“Yourproblemmustbeseriousindeed.”“Ohitis.”BeatriceCartwrightlookedhimintheeye.“MyBishopliesunderavinculum.”Therewasamomentofsilence.Itisimportanttounderstandhowboldshewas,andhowtrusting,tomeetthegazeofSolomonBirch.Therearemanystrainsofthevampirecurse,andhi...

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