The grand hotel on the canal is one of those favored by the tourists here for the carnival season. However, it's a rather exclusive grouping of tourists. Booked nearly the entire year in advance, last minute travelers would have to have some rather substantial connections to be able to arrange to have a room appointed for them. And so, this is the way that Victoria ended up with a suite on the upper floors to be shared with Michael Torrence. Despite the fact that she wasn't particularly inclined to invite him along to begin with. But, if you're going to use your sire's name to get the rooms you want at a hotel, you're going to have to accept that his 'assistant' is going to come along with you.
     She should've just gotten in with Ian's group.
     And now, she's returning from an evening out at the museums. Having been interrupted briefly by the ringing of a cell phone in the marble halls. She seems to be in a reasonable enough mood, however, as she slides her card through the door and opens it, coming in and putting down another shopping bag to add to the ones that she already has had sent over or brought up herself from other evenings out. Closing the door, she slips her coat off her shoulders, draping it on the arm of the nearby chair in the parlor, glancing around briefly to see if there's anything of importance to see to immediately.

     What, you mean besides the nearly naked, beautiful Italian prostitute, unconscious from blood loss? No. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all. These are not the breasts you're looking for. He can go about his business.
     Which, apparently, is -- in fact -- what Mick is doing. Going about his business. He's got a laptop computer out and is furiously typing away at some bit of writing or other, for some event or other. Possibly even the necessary meeting with the Venice police inspectors when this woman later ends up dead in a canal, last seen, this apartment.
     He looks up, when the door turns, murmuring a pleasant Italian, "Good evening." -- "Don't you just love this city?" "Are you hungry?"

     This is one of those times when knowing how to count comes in handy.
     Victoria does that for a moment. Closing her eyes and then opening them again with rather obvious displeasure. "Are you completely insane?"
     "Didn't Maximilian teach you not to bring your dinner home? Especially when you're out of town?" She goes over to the girl and checks her pulse with the efficiency of a medical doctor. Since, of course, she is one.
     She mutters as she watches her wrist to count, "There are days when I'm reminded why I left New York." This, it seems, for her at least, is one of them.

     "This is not home," Mick is quick to remind her. "This is but a hotel." He considers for a pregnant moment, "A rather poor one at that." -- "And you abandoned me for your oh-so-lovely friends. I rather didn't like them."

     "I didn't abandon you, your phone rang again." Remember? The phone? Buzzing embarrassingly in the middle of the floor in front of God and everyone? "I just wasn't sorry about it is all."
     She sighs, leaning in to lift the lids of the girl to check her pupils. "Have you absolutely no self control? If you'd at least left her a third of her blood intact I probably could have salvaged this and sent her back out on her way with some orange juice."
     "Shit." She curses in a low voice. Getting testy there. "And I'm not particularly concerned if you did or didn't like them. Were I you, I'd avoid telling them that though. They're frequently less friendly than I am."

     "She is truly exquisite. You should at least take a taste before she passes," Michael admires his handiwork in the selection process. It was something of a horrible task. Why do you think his phone was ringing so incessantly through that interminable meeting?
     Now You Know.
     "I'm fond of the blush on her cheeks, just now. It's like artwork."

     Victoria lets out a slightly disgusted sound, standing up again, "You and Neil. No wonder, really, I'm sure he's been the one giving you hunting pointers. And I don't drink hookers." Nose in the air, maybe? Or is it one of those doctor things about finding something catching?
     "All right." She lets out a breath and calms herself down, "Do you want me to teach you how to not have to cover up murder investigations once a week? Or would you rather just wait until Maximilian has to bail you out?"
     "You have to clean this up, by the way, I'm not doing it." She moves away from the woman and looks a little green for a moment before going to the credenza and pouring herself some coffee.

     "Enlighten me," Mick strokes the bare skin of the dying woman. The process of her death is like an aphrodisiac to him. He's drawn to it the same way a moth might be drawn to a flame.
     He'll listen to her. Perhaps even learn something new. For all his bumbling appearances, he is quite clever. And disarmingly charming, which goes a long way towards avoiding unfortunate questionings.
     "Please, I beg of you."

     "You know what?" That, it seems, is it. "This is pretty far beyond what I signed up for, Michael." She turns around, glaring. And it's not a happy glare. And while she may not be the oldest vampire on the block, the sense of power coming off of her isn't informidable at all.
     "I can help you if you want. It'll honestly make your life easier. I did teach a childe of my own to do it and he's managed not to get hunted down and killed or break the masquerade so far. So, as resumes go, that part's not bad." Implying, of course, that yours in her opinion is less than spotless.
     "But, if instead, you'd rather manage on your own and be sarcastic about it, I'm perfectly happy to have my things sent somewhere else and leave you to deal with your own problems." Thus, also, taking herself out of the view of your person and defeating the reason that Maximilian sent his little spy over to keep an eye on her. "You are a big boy, I'm sure you can handle it on your own."

     "That's not what has you upset, dear Victoria. That's not it at all. What has you upset is that that decision is so far out of your hands, you can't even imagine what it would take to make it come about." Mick watches her evenly.
     "And the thought that'll keep you up at night, is not what monstrous act I will perform tomorrow at the Opera, or the night after that at the Ball, but that you need me." -- "It may not be today, and it may not be tomorrow. But you need me."

     "It's not my job to make decisions about your life." Victoria says evenly. "I can offer to help you, or not. I can actually do it, or not. But I am not responsible for what you do to other people." Blah blah blah. Psychobabble anyone? And at the end there, there's a chance she's not entirely convinced.
     "And what could I possibly need you for? Running back to my sire and telling him who I talked to today? Or what I was doing? Or what I wore to the opera? His need to monitor my life is something that I have to deal with on my own anyway. So far, you haven't helped much there. I just haven't had to talk to him myself for a few days."

     See. That is it, entirely. She knows Mick is right, but for the life of her, cannot come to any understanding as to why it must be right. Max sent him here for a reason. Perhaps several reasons, and Max-- being Max-- knew damn well what sort of torment that would throw her into. What's your game, Mr. Torrance?
     He only smiles, and drinks his last from the delicate girl.

     A look of disgust slides over her face again when there isn't any answer and she turns to go back over towards her chair, picking up her coat and bag and moving towards her door off the parlor. Very deliberately not watching as he finishes off the last essence of life from the girl in the room behind her. The air around her would turn into heat waves from the anger that she doesn't bother to hide at all in her walk, and there's no return comment to the room as she moves out of it. The sound of things moving around in the other room comes through the door, either being put away or taken out isn't clear.

     It's almost sexual the way he dotes on the body. Almost. Like someone had gotten the signals between eros and thanatos mixed up and rewired them in Michael's brain. He's pleased at the reaction he's had in Victoria. He provoked her to stomp away steaming mad, and he takes some pride in that, for whatever reason exists behind his mask of self-immolation.
     What he said about taking care of the body, however, was true. He's well on his way towards disposing of it, with a careful plan, patsy, driver and contingencies. Not every feeding is a kill, certainly, but occasionally, when on holiday, such a dessert should be indulged, don't you think?

     She stays in the room for a moment, bustling around with things behind the wall noisily, before she comes back through the door again, "You know, earlier, I started to feel bad about how you're being treated. By me, by Maximilian. It's not your fault your actual sire got himself killed so soon after you were embraced. You certainly didn't know any better about what was going on. And the fact that my sire is using you to get his rocks off across a continent and take advantage of your lack of independent thought, isn't necessarily yours either. He can be very persuasive." Who else would know but her from experience.
     "But I've just come to realize something. I think you actually like the fact that he's using you for his little mind games. It lets you forget that you're responsible for what you're doing and pass it off on someone else like a Sad. Pathetic. Victim."

     Mick seems to listen to this advice, to really listen, and take it to heart. There is some truth in what she says. That cannot be denied. Likely more than either of them realize.
     Mick pauses in his preparations, as that realization hits him. How he would love to snap back at her wittily. Ask about her degrees in psychology, and how her life as undead has affected her. But his heart is not in it. His heart is full of an escort's delicate blood. It has a melancholy effect on the young kindred.
     "Yes. I suppose you are right," he plays his part to a T.

     She half throws up her hands at that, looking to the ceiling briefly before putting them on her hips and turning her gaze back to him again, "So? Why continue to do it?"
     "He's not going to get better. Or make it easier on you. Or like you more." She says with the voice of someone who's had the personal experience, "I was still writing his god damn thank you notes until I moved out to the West Coast. I still have to go drop off his calling cards with people whenever I go somewhere 'important' for him because he can't be bothered to worry about keeping up with anyone not immediately important as long as he's got me to do it for him."
     "And I'm not going to say that there aren't advantages sometimes." Hotel room, for example. "But, letting him rule your life does not get you back what you put into it. Or, at least it didn't for me." There. She's said it.

     "You have been at this much longer than I have," Michael observes. The sarcasm is missing as well. In fact much of the baggage from the earlier conversations has been either swept away, drunk away, buried, hidden or maybe he's just stupid enough to have forgotten it, and move on to another pleasure.

     "Not so very much in terms of the people around us." She says with a sigh, moving to sit on the arm of the chair still on the other side of the room from both the other Ventrue and the body. "Just long enough to know that that particular avenue didn't suit me."
     "Michael, you don't have to be his errand boy. You're not a ghoul, you're kindred. And while I'm going to shatter my image of egalitarian leader, that does make a very large difference." She shrugs, "It's just a fact of life. You have abilities that mortals don't, and time to do things that mortals don't. And despite my intense dislike of you at the moment, you aren't half bad at writing speeches. Maximilian doesn't need you to do that for him, or at least not often enough that you should put up with this kind of thing."

     "We do not live," Mick reminds her quietly. We serve. That is our purpose. We serve needs, and wants and desires. If we are very lucky, some few of those might even be our own. But make no mistake about it. We are servants. Forever damned to be, by those who got there first.

     Victoria takes in another breath and lets it out. As she does on her own so frequently along with her heartbeat that somehow remained even after her embrace. Some people have theorized that it is related to a high instance of interaction with normal humans that continues such things. She doesn't do that kind of scientific study herself. "Well, I do."
     She shrugs, "Someone saw something in you, Michael. Something worth preserving for an eternity. I don't know if it was a speech you wrote, or a series of speeches or a campaign that you managed. I never talked to your sire about it." There wasn't really the opportunity or reason in her position at the time. "But it was enough that you were raised up above a servant class to exist with your own will. You get to decide what to do with it. At least some of the time."

     "You needn't flatter me," because the Lord knows Mick will not flatter her. "I am a commodity, bought and paid for-- quite literally in blood." You are, too, dear sweet, vibrant Victoria.
     "I am the lord's dog who has, because he was feeling benevolent, been let inside out of the rain to mate with his prized bitch." -- "Nothing more."

     She shrugs slightly, "Only as much as you want to be." She points a finger at her face, "This is one of the things that caused me to be embraced." She then moves it to tap at the side of her skull, in universal pantomime, "And this. And you have probably guessed, as well as I know, that that's exactly what the idea was. Only, in point of fact, I was Neil's prized bitch. In some effort at least to keep him behaving when he'd rather not." Like drinking dry high priced call girls in an expensive Venetian hotel.
     "And that is how Maximilian will ever think of me. Always." She shrugs, "I couldn't stay in his house and be his social secretary. I tried being independent there, and it worked less successfully than I'd hoped. So I left. He can cause you a lot of pain when you go, believe me, but you can still go."

     "Is this your way of offering to help me?" Mick gets back around to the business at hand. The tablescraps must be disposed of.

     "That depends on what I'm helping you with. But, probably." Victoria says, looking over to the girl on the other side of the parlor, "I'm not helping you with that, in particular. But I've got enough clout of my own, and through association, that I can introduce you around here." Europe in general being the here. "I know some new young princes that might not mind having a speech writer. I haven't gotten that closely acquainted yet, but there's potential there, certainly."
     She shrugs, "And you can still report back on me to my sire as much as you like. So, if my version of the night life doesn't appeal you haven't thrown everything away."

     "I was talking about the girl," Mick quips dryly. He hadn't expected her to change her mind, but at this point there was nothing to lose in asking the question. Or at least that's what he seems to think.

     Victoria ahhs slightly and stands up, shaking her head, "No, that one's yours." You made that mess all on your own, and she doesn't want anything to do with it. "Unless you're not going to do it again?"
     Which she somehow seems to doubt. Leopards and spots. Or something like that.

     "Would you have me trade his collar for yours, Victoria?" Honestly, and you sounded so convincing earlier. Like you actually gave a Rat's Ass about a poor little lamb from New York who has lost his way, abroad.

     She shrugs, "I like my rules better. They're pretty limited. I'm certainly not going to go make you try and mentally abuse people so I can get them to do what I want."
     "Don't screw me over on purpose. Don't kill people where I'm staying. Don't kill people when I'm around. And if you're going to say you want my help, at least make an attempt to take it."
     "But, that's your decision. As I said before."

     "I'll go take out the garbage," and think about what you've said. Don't wait up. Although she knows he will be in by sunrise, who knows what trouble he will get into between now and then.

     "I'll probably be gone when you get up tomorrow, I've got an appointment." She says easily. Reporting in for the first time since... well. Ever to Michael. "After though, I'll give you a call." Another first. The implication being that he can give her an idea of his decision then, since she's not going to make an effort to see him again about it tonight.

     As an afterthought, Victoria stands up and goes to the coat closet, taking out a dry cleaning bag from the hotel and tossing it over towards the chair. It's big enough to fit heavy long coats in, it might help cover something up at least a little. And stop blood from dripping on the floor.

Posted by rowan at February 29, 2004 07:42 PM