Kindred: James Toulor: Part 8

December 3rd, 1933, Upstate New York

It has been four years since the audacious romp of the 1920's came to a vicious and abrupt halt.  For Americans, it was the worst years of their country's existence but for Europeans, we had the best time of our lives because we based our lives on foreign wealth. 

For the kindred, however, it was a brutal, remorseless, slaughterfest.  Rules exist in kindred society and those rules were enforced by a foreign council, however, anarchy existed for everybody in this apocalyptic revamp of America (pun intended).  All over, you saw American millionaires who now stood selling things like apples on street corners.  Even agriculture collapsed and the poor and destitute ran the streets with very little to keep track of their whereabouts.  A meal was easy to catch but entire crowds of people could go missing in this era or die from unknown causes and they might cite the flu or exposure as the C.O.D.  The brutality didn't stop there.  Kindred got lazy.  Many of them ended up in jail due to the criminal acts that they were caught for and this would have been avoided in today's competent and conservative culture.

I once heard of a Macellarian being caught with several carcases in a room and blood all over her body and walls.  The police labeled her as insane and sent her to an institution.  The institution knew what she was.

For some kind, the era was still a time of glory.  In 1929, one human  by the name of Al Capone made such a din in their world that to the end of the century and beyond, it would be remembered as the St. Valentines day Massacre.  How macabre these creatures were.  It's been centuries since I was one so I completely forgot how delightful they could be.  What rapture it was to be alive or something like it in an era where such brutality existed.  Sometimes, the only thrill we get as kindred is from things that are perceived as a danger and to immortals, that category is slim.

Despite the intensity, amongst the chaos there is clarity.  The crazies run around so quickly that those of us who have drive and motivation (not to mention an intense paranoia that allows for one to be more perceptive) see the ripples in reality that threaten us.  Somewhere in this reality I noticed a presence I had not felt since assisting in Augusto Vidal's rise to power.  The princess of ashes, the destitute aristocrat was close and she watched me with contempt. 

I felt it as clearly as I felt my own skin.  My heart no longer beat but I had drank her blood; she had drank mine and we were bonded to each other so it was not uncommon that I would notice her presence were she near by.  However, I never saw her, nor had any reason to suspect she would come back to find me.  I had no debts to her and she had no interest in me or my world.  She was a blood reader and what would a blood reader have in me and Cyrilla who could not be read?