BloodinBloodout-novel

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侵权投诉
Duce slipped the key into the metal door. The door
opened, revealing a corridor with hallways branching off
to the sides and a table with a lockbox and pile of white
packets. A gunman in the corridor, an ex-linebacker with
an Uzi, looked surprised, his mouth opening slowly to yell
a warning to someone in a room behind him. That was all
Duce needed to see.
He raced past the gunman—muscle fibers pulled steel-
wire taut and stitched against his skin—and clotheslined
the man under the chin. Bones snapped like brittle twigs.
He turned to see the man hitting the ground, the pain
only just registering on his face.
Duce raced to the open door in the corridor, where the
vacant glow of a television emanated. One man, nothing
Rastafarian about his Vietnamese features, was in the pro-
cess of standing up from a rocking chair, pulling an Ithaca
shotgun. Terror flowed like molasses across his face.
Between one heartbeat and the next Duce was at the
chair, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt. One push
sent him flying backwards into the bedroom wall. Before
the ganger could hit the floor, Duce grabbed him again
and rebounded him into the wall a second time for good
measure, leaving a deep dent in the sheet rock and a trail
of blood as the body slid to the floor.
“Uh-uh, bitch…”
Duce turned toward the voice—
“…this is my house.”
—and found himself looking at a well-built, shirtless man
with light black skin. Gang tats covered his arms, and a full
beard and natty dreads spilled out over a black headband.
The Skorpion submachine gun in man’s hands erupted in
a staccato roar, punching a line of bullet holes across Duce’s
chest and right shoulder.
©2004 White Wolf, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover art by Cover art by
Cover art by Cover art by
Cover art by
Jason AlexanderJason Alexander
Jason AlexanderJason Alexander
Jason Alexander
. Book design and art direc-
tion by Pauline Benney. Copy edited by Diane Piron-Gelman
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical—includ-
ing photocopy, recording, Internet posting and electronic
bulletin board—or any other information storage and retrieval
system, except for the purpose of reviews, without permis-
sion from the publisher.
White Wolf is committed to reducing waste in publishing.
For this reason, we do not permit our covers to be “stripped”
for returns, but instead, require that the whole book be re-
turned, 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 defunct is purely coinci-
dental. The mention of or reference 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 registered
trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. Vampire the Re-
quiem and A Hunger Like Fire are trademarks of White Wolf
Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISBN 1-58846-866-6
First Edition: February 2005
Printed in Canada
White Wolf Publishing
1554 Litton Drive
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
www.white-wolf.com/fiction
Prince Maxwell Clarke rules the Kindred of Chicago
with a stern but steady hand, balancing the interests of the
city’s diverse population against the dictates of Kindred
law and the ancient Traditions. Recent events in neigh-
boring Cicero (where a newly Embraced vampire endan-
gered the Kindred’s law of secrecy by attacking his family
and later a police officer) have increased tensions between
several of the vampiric
covenants
in the city, with the
aristocratic
Invictus
and their allies, the
Lancea Sanctum,
contending with unrest from the populist
Carthians
. The
Carthians, who ruled the city until a disastrous turn of
events in the late 1800s, have since chafed under the
authoritarian rule of the Invictus, and their Prefect, Duce
Carter, must walk a fine line between calls for revolution
within his own ranks and the need to preserve the peace in
the city. Things are equally difficult for the Prince, as his
only progeny, Persephone Moore, has displayed a
rebellious streak of her own. Her frequent flirtations with
the Carthians have been a source of embarrassment for
Maxwell and a constant irritant among the Invictus, who
view the Carthians as a mob of troublemakers that must be
dealt with by any means necessary. To make matters worse,
Solomon Birch, the Prince’s most senior advisor and the
head of the Lancea Sanctum, views Persephone as an
abomination against the laws of his covenant, and his feud
against her has already resulted in bloodshed between the
two. This has only served to drive Persephone further
from the Prince and into the orbit of the Carthians.
The Danse Macabre continues.
This is dedicated to my parents and my
sister, who supported me at my best and at
my worst with equal love. This is for Jean
Carrieres, who never stopped believing in
my abilities, and never let me doubt
myself. And this is for Richard Dansky,
who always supported my efforts with
encouraging words and a wise eye.
6
lucien soulban
blood in, blood out
Prologue
The dispute was heated, the participants arguing with their
hands as much as their voices. Duce Carter sat back in a leather
office chair and tried to appear supportive, hiding his impa-
tience behind a pair of Ecko shades and an impassive expres-
sion that smoothed the lines of his face. It was all for show,
though; he was quickly losing patience with this matter.
The man pacing around the abandoned restaurant’s of-
fice, and the source of Duce’s agitation, was Edgar Welby.
Edgar was obviously trying to vent his frustration, and while
Edgar was slight in every physical sense—with a small-boned,
almost birdlike frame and a balding scalp swept by long fragile
strands of gray hair—Duce knew better than to underesti-
mate Edgar or the other man present, Adrian Fulsome. All
three men were vampires, born of the same predatory in-
stinct, the same thirst for blood. It drew them together and
yet made them distrust one another. The hunger for blood
was like a living thing coiled in their unliving bodies, a Beast
that most vampires fought a nightly battle to control. Duce
watched the little man pace, and he wondered how close
Edgar was to letting his own Beast slip free.
If Adrian Fulsome was feeling nervous, Duce couldn’t
see it. Fulsome sat on the edge of the office desk, as calm
as ever. The rumor among the vampires of Chicago was
that Fulsome never lost his cool, never succumbed to the
madness of his inner hunger, even when provoked. Duce
didn’t believe it for an instant. No vampire was safe from
his own urges, not ever. Fulsome probably just made sure
no one ever got the chance to see it.
7blood in, blood out
lucien soulban
Adrian was in his late 20s, with well-groomed blond
hair, hazel eyes and perfect teeth. He looked well-behaved
and reserved, but his wry smile and calm stare suggested
unfaltering confidence. Fulsome regarded Duce with just
such a look and smiled. “You’re wrong, Duce. You’re
making a serious mistake here.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Edgar said.
Duce shrugged. The decision was his alone, as leader of
the city’s Carthians.
It was bad enough vampire society was
divided into different factions, different loyalties, but that
he also suffered rebellion in his own house was unaccept-
able. The Carthians advocated change, bucking against cen-
turies of stagnation that bound vampires in a web of out-
dated ideas and an oppressive society.
That doesn’t mean I
have to put up with this kind of bullshit,
Duce thought.
“What you’re proposing is dangerous and flawed,” Duce
said. “It’s a stupid idea.”
“Stupid? It’ll work!” Edgar said, growing more frustrated.
“I agree,” Fulsome said. “At least give it a shot.”
“Give it a shot?” Duce said, straightening in his chair.
He brought the shades down far enough to stare at the two
from over the rim. “You want me to risk everything we’ve
gained on a gamble.”
“Gained?” Edgar said. “You haven’t gained anything.
The Invictus are stringing you along, Duce. No way they’ll
ever share power with us.”
“They’re the top dogs,” Duce replied, “I’ll admit that,
but stepping on their feet like this isn’t the way to do it.”
“And what
is
the way to do it?” Edgar shot back, “Acting
like their bitches? Bending over a table and taking—”
“Pinch it off right there,” Duce snarled, his impatience
finding expression. “I expect some respect as your Pre-
fect. I’ve never asked the Carthians to grab their ankles,
and I won’t take that from you, the Invictus, the Sancti-
fied, the Prince or any other vampire.”
“Duce,” Fulsome said, “you have to admit that we haven’t
accomplished much these last few years. So we won the right
to free assembly and freedom of speech from Prince Max-
8
lucien soulban
blood in, blood out
well—the social disparities that brought us together still
exist. We still haven’t brought equal power or equal repre-
sentation to the Kindred in this city. The Invictus and the
Lancea Sanctum still manipulate us under the guise of the
Masquerade. The Masquerade is nothing more than a tac-
tic to control us, to keep us a feudal society.”
“First off,” Duce said, “the Masquerade is necessary. It
teaches us to keep hidden from a public that would de-
stroy us if they knew we existed, and it prohibits the indis-
criminate creation of other vampires. There’s nothing
wrong with that. And secondly, feudal societies required
decades—fuck,
centuries
—just to make the changeover to a
democracy. Yet here you are, trying to push progress by
kick-starting it in the nuts.”
“We got to start somewhere,” Edgar said.
“We already started!” Duce said. “I’m negotiating more
rights through Prince Maxwell. And what he says goes for
the Invictus and the Sanctified. I won’t screw that up
through blackmail.”
“This is more than just blackmail,” Fulsome said. “We
have a member of the Invictus who created a vampire out of
turn and then tried to hide her, in direct contravention of
the Second Tradition:
Embrace others at your peril
. Steinitz
will do anything to keep that secret. It’s worth the risk.”
“No, it isn’t!” Duce said, tired of the argument. “I would
destroy anyone who tried to use my own progeny to black-
mail me, and so would you.”
“Kill one of us? Fine! But there’s no way Steinitz can
stand up to the Carthians as a united front.”
“We don’t have shit on Steinitz,” Duce said. “So he Em-
braced progeny without permission. So the fuck what? He’ll
go to Prince Maxwell to recognize his offspring, and ask for
forgiveness. Then he’ll fuck over whatever progress we’ve made.”
“No way. He’s got too much to lose. Steinitz will cave,”
Fulsome said.
“And you’re underestimating him. He’s a proud man,
and I guarantee you that his first reaction will be,
if I’m
going down, you’re going down too
.”
摘要：

Duceslppedthekeyntothemetaldoor.Thedooropened,revealngacorrdorwthhallwaysbranchngofftothesdesandatablewthalockboxandpleofwhtepackets.Agunmannthecorrdor,anex-lnebackerwthanUz,lookedsurprsed,hsmouthopenngslowlytoyellawarnngtosomeonenaroombehndhm.ThatwasallDu...

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