Canticles of the Prophet Zachariah:
The Family Gambit
Notes by Anthony
“Interior. Dining Room. Night. I am standing in my parents’ house in Baltimore. My parents moved here after my sister married. I think they knew they weren’t getting grandkids from me. Ben and I had been here for Thanksgiving. Has it only been a month, listeners? Was I really human less than thirty days ago?
“The doorbell rang. Mom walked out of the kitchen and to the front door. Fear and hope at war on her face. I tried to reach for her. It felt like moving through molasses. She opened the door. The silhouette outside was tall and dark with short-cropped hair. The porchlight didn’t quite illuminate his face. A soft, British voice carried through the door. “I’m afraid we have bad news about your son.” I couldn’t move. Blood rose in my nose and throat. I choked on it. I was trapped. George was here. He was going to eat my family like that Tzimisce. And I couldn’t stop him.
“White and red fabric clung to my face and arms. My legs were tangled in it. I screamed for help. Dark hands pulled the sheet away from my eyes. Asa. I was in the farmhouse. He helped me out of the bed as I shook. I pulled the blankets off the bed. There was Ben. Staked through the heart with his hands tied. I had left streaks of blood on his shirt where I held him.
“I wanted to pull out the stake, but Asa stopped me. He said we should talk to the others first. I nodded and washed my face and arms in the bathroom sink. Gwen and Rose were downstairs when I got there. Asa shared his dream first. He had spoken with the three-eyed man. The same one I had seen in Austria and on the space station. This “Uncle Sal” wanted Asa to build an ark. I told them what I dreamt. They were skeptical. Baltimore was deep in Sabbat territory. It was unlikely a Tremere could waltz right in. But they listened anyway, and Gwen sent one of her spirits to look into it.
“She said it would take about thirty minutes, listeners, so I returned to the bedroom to tell you what happened the past two nights. From the Sisterhood Gathering to Ben’s Embrace to the Werewolf fight and back to the Temple. I’m sitting next to Ben now. Hoping that my parents aren’t dead or lost in some Tremere dungeon. Hoping that when we pull out this stake Ben will wake up and see me and forgive me. Hoping that things will get less crazy from here on out. They have to.”
“A few minutes after I cursed us all with that entirely too optimistic statement, Gwen returned. Her ghost found my mom sitting on the couch watching Matlock. I was relieved, of course. But also upset. Didn’t she care that her son had been missing for a month? A man with a well-documented history of mental illness and hallucinations? But it was better that she wasn’t in Alexandria looking for me. George would definitely find her there.
“The group agreed to unstake Ben. Asa pulled out the stake while Rose held him down. Ben blinked and tried to get free. Rose let him go and he stumbled outside towards the street. We followed. There were even more Giovanni ghouls outside. Rose grabbed Ben and used some power to make him listen to her. Not Dominate. Maybe Presence? Ben finally seemed to notice them. He kept saying “I have to go. He’s calling me. It has to happen.”
“I could think of only one way to reach him. I held his hand and looked into his eyes. I told him “Help me understand. You followed me to Hell and back. I will go with you wherever you need to go.” I closed my eyes and tried to find him in the Cobweb. I hadn’t felt the expansion of the Cobweb when I Embraced him, but I could feel him there now. It is hard to describe what it is like in the Cobweb, listeners. Usually, we construct a room for ourselves, someplace familiar and comforting and safe. But there was nothing sane here. I could see flashes of places and people I recognized. Some things that couldn’t possibly have happened yet. I held Ben’s hand in mine.
“A voice called out to us. A beacon in the chaos. Soft and smug and British. “Yes, Benjamin. You must come here. Zachariah is waiting for you. Come to me.” My blood ran cold for a second time that night. George had come for my family after all. I could feel where George was pulling from. Somewhere southeast. Old Town Manassas, as we later confirmed after checking maps of the area. Regretfully, I pulled myself free of the tangled web of Ben’s mind. I wished I could’ve stayed with him all night. But I had no idea how to help him.
“When we explained the situation to Cedric, he put his arm around Ben’s shoulders and led him upstairs, telling him “it’s alright, my boy, it’s alright.” Cedric seemed confident he could purge George from Ben’s mind. I guess Ben wasn’t the first Malkavian to be driven further insane by outside influences. I followed them. Cedric lay Ben on the bed and pulled a chair next to him. Cedric asked Comet to watch over them while they went into the Cobweb. Comet looked bored, so I gave him my Walkman and the few CDs we had shoved into Ben’s backpack. Comet scoffed at the selection, but he’d put on the headphones before I even closed the door.
“Meanwhile, Gwen had spoken with the head of this new Giovanni force. Another Rosselini. Griselda. Listeners, I knew that whatever experiments the Giovanni had done to make Revenants had their costs. Even though Gwen is as strong as any Kindred now, she is still too skinny and small. Like, she’d been anemic or starved since childhood. Griselda got the even shorter end of the Giovanni stick. Even as a kindred she was in a wheelchair. Hardly able to move without assistance. But even though Griselda’s presence was less than imposing, she had spooked Gwen.
“Gwen gathered the coterie and told us she needed to go to D.C. to speak with her family. Then she looked at me and told me to come with her. Asa looked ready to protest, but I nodded. If Gwen needed me to reassert her control over the Temple, I would do whatever I could. Gwen told the others not to investigate the Temple without us and to keep an eye on Griselda. They agreed, and Gwen and I piled into a jeep with another two ghouls. The drive would have been a lot shorter if Gwen had listened to my directions, but we made it to the Congressional Cemetery eventually.
“The ghouls tried to block our way, but Gwen bullied her way in. We were interrupting a meeting with Carlo and four other Giovanni. Carlotta, “Aunt” Lucretia, “Uncle” Giorgio, and “Uncle” Rocco. Carlo and Carlotta left before Gwen spoke. I’m afraid I cannot relay many details of the conversation, as much of it was in Italian, or a mix of Italian and English. Essentially, Gwen said she had found the Temple and was investigating its origins. Gwen and others, meaning Asa and Rose and myself, had been called to it. The four of us were Gateways. We had each experienced dreams and visions of the Temple. Gwen was indispensable, both because of her connection to the Temple, and because of the control she had over us. Lucretia moved to slap Gwen, but Rocco raised a hand. Lucretia froze, and Rocco instructed everyone else to leave.
“Rocco was not pleased that Gwen had come back to D.C. It was dangerous to move in and out of the city with the Tremere and Sabbat watching. They would find the Temple if we were not careful. That was when Gwen introduced me. The Malkavian Prophet Zachariah. I had been the first to experience visions, and the Tremere had been after me since I was Embraced. I nodded and tried to bow. I promised that I had no love for the Tremere. They had lied to me and taken people from me. I wanted to find out what was in the Temple, and Gwen had offered me the resources to do so. I was loyal to her. I stressed that final pronoun to imply that I would not be so cooperative with any other Giovanni.
“Rocco said that there had been Prophets before. Malkavians hear a lot. Too much. Most of those Prophets had been killed, but sometimes their knowledge was useful. I tried not to shiver. He did seem to buy Gwen’s pitch, though. At least for the moment. We left without incident and started our drive to Adams Morgan. Gwen was still in control of the Temple. We were safe from the Sabbat and the other Giovanni. For now, at least.”