AHungerLikeFire-novel

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A new guy comes in and tries to mooch me off of Rick.

This new guy is huge—six-four at least, muscle-bound and

flat-topped, with gross arm veins that only a steroid dealer

could love.

He’s awful. He has on a purplish shirt that aches to be

retro but is really just retardo. Fat gold links. Weight-lifted

man-boobs that are probably bigger than mine. He’s Omega

Travolta, some inbred result of a million years of anony-

mous disco hookups.

Not only that, he speaks the line out of a hundred B-

movies, mid-season TV pilots and Charles Atlas print ads.

“Hey baby, why don’t you dance with a real man?”

I give him one out. “I’m here with Rick,” I say, pointing.

“You’re here with Prick?” he asks. “Sweetie, I got all the

prick you need right here.” And lord help me, he grabs my

hand and puts it on his crotch.

Okay Omega. You had your chance.

“You are inadequate,” I tell him, and I don’t bother to yell it.

I’m speaking directly to a specific part of Omega’s mind,

the part of every mind that craves discipline and punishment

and longs to willfully obey a strong leader. I seize that part,

the sniveling worm of the soul, through Omega’s eyes and

twist it beneath me. I can do this very, very well.

“Your penis is too small. Every woman you meet can tell.

Lots of men can too.” He can’t ignore this. He can’t doubt

it. This is his new truth.

His eyes are locked on mine and although he shouldn’t be

able to hear me over the thumping club beat, I know that ev-

ery word is getting hammered straight into his brain. “You

do not have what it takes to make a woman happy. You make

women laugh. Women laugh at you all the time.”

More than his hand goes limp, and I can see tears starting

to drip out of his eyes. Good.

“Go home and think about this,” I tell him, and he turns

to the door, moving like a man in a very sad dream.

This is, I think, my favorite part about being a vampire.

Cover art by Jason AlexanderCover art by Jason Alexander

Cover art by Jason Alexander. Book design and art direc-

tion by Pauline Benney. Copy edited by Ana Balka.

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

ISBN 1-58846-862-3

First Edition: December 2004

Printed in Canada

White Wolf Publishing

1554 Litton Drive

Stone Mountain, GA 30083

www.white-wolf.com/fiction

It is curious, if not unfitting, that the most common

name for unlife among vampires is a musical reference,

the Requiem. The word itself means a mass or musical

composition for the dead. In some cases, a requiem is a

dirge. In other cases it is a chant intended for the dead’s

repose. In still others, it is a gesture of respect.

No surprise, then, that the word has taken on its own

meaning among the vampires who call themselves

Kindred. The word has connotations of its own, suggest-

ing that the Kindred must have adopted it in a more

enlightened or sophisticated time. Tonight, however, all

but the most cloistered Kindred know that the word bears

its own specialized meaning. The Requiem is the

Kindred’s unlife, the grand, doomed waltz through which

every one of their kind dances every night, urged on by

metaphorical strains of music that represent the hidden

powers that guide, manipulate and inspire them.

Every night stands out as singularly as each separate note

in a composer’s opus. When we hear the composition,

though, we do not examine each and every note. Rather we

experience it in sum. This is the key to avoiding the

malaise of eternity. Let each night, each note, stand out in

the greater body of the Requiem your life has become.

—Charlotte Gaudibert,

Aequitas Fatalis

This book is lovingly dedicated to my child

Daniel, born May 27, 2004. Son, I apologize in

advance for any neglectful or shaky parenting.

6 a hunger like fire

greg stolze

Part One:

Summertime

“For strangers to the truth, bewilderment is to be

expected. For those who know the truth, the natural

reaction is suspicion.”

—Solomon Birch

7a hunger like fire

greg stolze

Chapter One:

Bruce

I open my eyes and I think,

What the hell?

I’m wrapped in plastic. Crinkly thick stuff, smells kind

of like paint.

Looking left and right, nothing hurts, so I try turning

my head. It’s all right. Stomach feels okay. So I must’ve

slept right through the hangover. Haven’t done that in a

while.

I move and my wrapping isn’t too tight—I can get it off

my face without a lot of trouble. It’s a drop cloth, and I get

my head and shoulders free.

I’m in a basement, I think. It’s dark, and it feels like

I’m in a small space. Everything’s dusty, and there’s a little

light coming in from under the door.

Man. I must have really tied one on last night. Nina’s

gonna be pissed.

What time is it? My watch has a light on it; I pinch the

little button and it’s

Saturday

! Saturday, and eight o’clock

at night! Damn, I must have slept through the whole day,

and I was going to fix that toilet handle in the half-bath.

Shit.

I stand up and find the light cord.

The room is small, maybe ten by ten, with a bare bulb

and wood shelves stacked with junk. There’s a humidifier,

some old tools, a dusty aquarium with magazines in it, a

red Coleman cooler with maybe a folded-up tent on top

of it… just crap. I bet I’m in somebody’s storage room,

like in the basement of an apartment building.

What the hell happened to me? How did I get here?

8 a hunger like fire

greg stolze

Okay, last thing I remember. It was Friday night. Check.

Got out of work and went to Pitchers & Pool with Tony

and Spence and that new guy from Lawn. Check. Had some

pitchers, played some pool. Okay, all normal.

How’d I get here from there?

I guess the first thing is to figure out where here is. And

get some food. Damn, I’m starving.

The door on the storage locker is busted, looks like

someone kicked it in. Did I do that? It’s not a big deal, a

cheap padlock and hasp, Aisle Eleven, probably fifteen

bucks. There’s a cruddy linoleum floor with corners turn-

ing up over dirty concrete, water damage on the cement

walls, I smell something musty… and fabric softener? I

hear clunking from down the hall, there’s more light that

way. Off I go.

The well-lit part is the laundry room. Yeah, I must be

in an apartment building. Someone’s got her clothes in

the dryer and I step out into the light. Young woman, small,

real dark hair, wearing a blue tank top. She’s sitting in

one of those plastic and metal stacking chairs. I come in

and she turns her head. She’s frowning a little, but just

for a second. When she sees me, she gives a little yelp.

“Hey, I…”

Her eyes are kind of wide and she’s inching away. Okay,

whatever. I head for the door. Outside, I see streetlights.

I get out of the apartment building and look around.

It’s a hot, humid night. Anyone with any sense is inside

with a cold beer and the fan on, but there’s a few young

kids running around, a few

vatos

hanging out on porch

sofas or stoops, one young couple walking down the street

holding hands. I get out and in the good light I take a mo-

ment to look down at myself.

I’ve got dust and mess all over me. I’m filthy. My arms

look like they’re really encrusted with… something. My

9a hunger like fire

greg stolze

jeans are the same ones I wore to work on Friday. Same

Home Depot polo shirt, only there’s some dried crud on

it and… the hell? Where’d that hole come from?

Clearly I got a lot to answer for. I wish I could remem-

ber what happened, but I’m drawing a blank. It’s been a

long time since

that

happened too. I usually don’t black

out from just beer. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever blacked

out from just beer. Did we start drinking hard stuff on

Friday? Why?

I was at Pitchers & Pool and I played eight ball with the

new guy… what was his name? I can’t even remember who

won. Did I start to go home? I think I did, but then it all

gets fuzzy.

Fire?

Yeah, fire… I remember a… an accident? Something.

And some guy, some short guy, just hideous, like some-

thing from a freak show…

I hear someone hiss.

It’s not a cat hiss, like when an ump makes a bad call.

It’s one of those sharp breath hisses, like when you come

around a corner and there’s a dead dog all spread out in

the street. I look up and the young lovers are looking at

me, and I’m the dead dog.

They edge around me. The chick looks kind of nervous.

The guy, just disgusted.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” I ask, but I don’t really want

to know, I just want them to move along.

They move along.

Screw this. I’m starving. I think I know where I am, and

there’s a taco joint not far.

My name is Bruce Miner. I’m thirty-eight years old. I

graduated from Morton East High School when I was

nineteen, married Nina that summer, had our only

daughter Brooke a couple years after. I worked at Merid-

ian Rail for a while, until the accident, and now I work at

Home Depot.

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摘要：

A new guy comes in and tries to mooch me off of Rick.This new guy is huge—six-four at least, muscle-bound andflat-topped, with gross arm veins that only a steroid dealercould love.He’s awful. He has on a purplish shirt that aches to beretro but is really just retardo. Fat gold links. Weight-liftedma...

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