You find other work to do, maintaining your car, running minor errands. But soon Riga gets more and more upset and starts screaming at you like a crow. You know that if you delay any longer, Carlos or even Dove might show up. Rather than alienate the local Camarilla completely, you grudgingly get in your car and drive as slowly as you can to the Viper.
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You get valet parking this time, which is nice, but the swole guy in the Ed Hardy shirt you've seen before looks haunted. You don't think he's a blood doll, so it's not like he's anemic, but his face looks gray and tired, like he's been up for nights.
You wonder if you're even allowed through the glass-lined VIP entrance, but the bouncer just waves you in. You could get used to this.
The crowd on the dance floor is oddly subdued, as if some malaise pouring down from above has infected the mortals. But the music is still pounding, and the crowd toward the middle of the dance floor is a blur of limbs and sweat.
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Image Description: Nadia Goh, Julian Sim's Ghoul
You spot a familiar face in the crowd: someone you've seen before, but you can't place where. Still, what are the odds of a Malaysian woman here in Tucson circling among the undead with such easy confidence? She has to be Julian's contact. Is there another name on one of the cards Julian gave you? Here it is: Nadia.
The upstairs Elysium is crowded with vampires and retainers whispering to each other in worried tones. You don't see the Eagle Prince. Riga circles overhead, then perches on one of the cacti that cover the hidden roof of the Viper.
"I see you actually bothered to show up."
Dove, Prince Lettow's Nosferatu second-in-command, is studying the stars through the cacti, as the city lights up here are dim through whatever sorcery has touched this place. She's wearing rough, old leather over her powerful physique, like what a motorcycle courier would have worn just after they invented motorcycles. Dove's skull-like face is always ugly, but you can see the marks of recent and incomplete regeneration: she was burned by fire or sunlight and hasn't finished repairing herself.
"We call ourselves Kindred because we're all in this together," Dove says. "That's normally a lie, boy, but not anymore."
Then the Nosferatu's eyes follow a maroon Toyota AE86 as it wheezes into the parking lot. Carlos hops out and runs around to the passenger door. He and the guy in the Ed Hardy shirt try to help a third man out, but he's obviously dead. You recognize the third man: he's one of Tucson's ghoul couriers. He drives—or drove—a yellow Chevy Nova SS. He rather rudely cut you off. And now he's dead.
Carlos joins you and Dove on the roof a minute later. He's wearing a cheap suit smeared with blood.
Looking at the suit, Dove asks her ghoul, "How was internal affairs?"
The Ivory Tower has its fingers in every police precinct in the world, it seems.
The ghoul shakes his head. "I'm suspended with pay. They're everywhere, Dove. And my contacts in Seattle are gone. Do you know what that means for the blood trade? It means…oh shit, is this guy still walking around? Why aren't you dead yet, Krarr? Everyone else is."
"Carlos, go find Prince Lettow," Dove says.
The ghoul blanches but does as he's told.
"And you," Dove says, rounding on you. "Would you like to know who here at the Viper works for the Second Inquisition?"
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Because I'd sure like to fucking know," Dove says. " Someone deleted all the records in our monitoring station." She slouches against the railing, then glares at you when you catch her slouching.
"The SI has spies everywhere, Krarr," she says. "We wasted a lot of time because we thought it was you, but you're mostly just incompetent. I respect Prince Lettow, but he's too open. He holds to the old ways that the Camarilla used to have before the Beckoning called most of our elders away and everything went to shit. He tolerates Anarchs. He works with people like you, who have no loyalty to our organization. How can he let people pass in and out in a time of war?"