B-Side

The night after the concert.

Batman

A dark alley. A woman cornered by a menacing-looking boy in a leather jacket. Suddenly, London's there, between them.

LONDON (to boy): "Get out of here."

He backs the command up with the blood, but then he decks the guy anyway, sending him flying across the alley. The mugger crumples against the wall, dazed and concussed.

WOMAN: "Uh..."

LONDON: "Get out of here."

She runs. London takes a few dollars and a few pints off the mugger.

Frankie steps out of the shadows.

FRANKIE: "Feeling better?"

LONDON: "I was hungry."

FRANKIE: "I meant now that you rescued the damsel."

LONDON: "I don't want to go there."

He wipes his mouth.

FRANKIE: "You say I'm violent."

LONDON: "Yeah."

FRANKIE: "We gonna do this?"

Church

London and Frankie have a chat with Father Joseph. Insincere apologies are exchanged on both sides.

JOSEPH: "You missed Court this month."

FRANKIE: "They have it every month?"

LONDON: "We'll go next time."

FRANKIE: "That's what we're gonna say every month."

They ask Joseph about Cassius; Joseph says that Cassius came from the Old Country around the same time as the Prince and the Monk. In passing, he expresses his doubts that the Monk was actually murdered, suggesting that the old vampire might simply have chosen to drop out of sight.

FRANKIE: "Weren't there witnesses? To the body or whatever?"

JOSEPH: "Only the Ratcatchers."

LONDON: "So if he's probably not dead... er... how do we get off the suspect list?"

Joseph suggests that they make themselves a valuable part of the community, and notes that, as a servant of the Church, he's provided for. He even shows them his stock of refrigerated blood. It smells terrible, chemical.

Karl

London and Frankie's next stop is to talk to Leon, but they run into Karl Grimm on the way out.

FRANKIE: "What are you doing here?"

LONDON: "And don't you still owe me ten bucks?"

KARL: "Confession."

LONDON: "Didn't think you'd be the type to go."

KARL: "No sin is too heavy in the service of the people, but some are heavy anyway."

LONDON: "The people want their money."

KARL: "Of course. But that's because the system's rigged. The Prince hunts on his preserve, while the rest of us skulk around begging for scraps."

LONDON: "His preserve. The islands."

KARL: "A bunch of rich bastards. Probably don't even put up a fight. I bet they even get off on it."

The glimpse at Karl's thinking makes Frankie shift uncomfortably. That was her, if only for a few minutes.

KARL: "I mean, fucking horses must get boring after a while."

LONDON: "I don't think they do that anymore."

KARL: "Why not? How would you fuck an SUV?"

LONDON: "Up the tailpipe."

Frankie gives him a long stare.

FRANKIE: "You've thought about this."

LONDON: "He's the one that started with the horses."

KARL: "The Prince's buffet started with the horses. I'm just against the decadence, oppression and extortion of his reign."

LONDON: "And you could do better?"

KARL: "Not me, us. We could throw open the doors of government, give to each according to his need. We could collectivize the food supply..."

LONDON: "Ew."

KARL: "Shouldn't the people control the means of production?"

LONDON: "That sounds an awful lot like putting people in cages."

KARL: "No, that's the point. Our city could be for the Kindred. Open to new ideas -- even weird ones."

Frankie gives him a look.

KARL: "Like not keeping people in cages."

LONDON: "We've got someplace to be."

Karl looks at him, then grabs his hand and presses something into it. It's a card with an address, and a twenty dollar bill. London hands the bill back.

KARL: "I was making a point."

LONDON: "So am I."

FRANKIE: "See you around."

Blitz

Though the promoters are the same as Rose Red, neither Frankie nor London has actually been to Blitz before. The walk there is lonely, through the glass ghost town of a business district. Around the right corner, though, and they find themselves along a road full of thriving bars. There are crowds of people milling around, but there's a distinct line in front of a gutted bank. The singed flags of England and Vichy France fly on either side of the weathered National Bank logo.

Frankie and London walk around the line. The bouncer is one of the guys who backed London up last night. He smiles and waves them in. Inside, the place is three floors of concrete, sandbags, and war memorabilia. Red and orange lights pulse in time to some Finish Him! song, illuminating a huge UK flag pinned to the back wall. There are holes burnt and shot through it. The crowd are very well dressed meat marketeers, but there's a distinctly rough air to them. London recognizes a few people he's thrown out of Rose Red, despite their nicer shoes.

A combination mosh pit/fight is taking place on the dance floor. London's bouncer-sense tingles, but none of his colleagues are even looking that way. He frowns, and then sees Leon in the middle of the fight, clearly the worse for wear in a couple of ways. Frankie waves.

Leon catches her eye, then glances at the guys he's fighting with. The crowd around him immediately calms, and Leon saunters out, the bruises on his face vanishing as he angles to meet Frankie and London at the bar.

Leon shakes London's hand and smiles at a few parts of Frankie.

LEON: "Feeling better tonight?"

LONDON: "Can we just skip ahead to where you explain what you mean?"

LEON: "Last night. Had a feeling there was something going on between you and the slut."

London's fist tightens at his side.

LONDON: "Who?"

LEON: "Miss I-Sleep-in-a-Y-Shaped-Coffin. What's her name. Jacqueline Hyde."

LONDON: "Jacqueline Hyde's the band's name. And I'm going to pretend I didn't hear the rest of that."

LEON: "My hearing's just great."

FRANKIE: "Get a room."

They both look at her.

LEON: "So you have something for me."

LONDON: "Brimstone's address."

He holds up a scrap of paper, just out of Leon's reach.

LONDON: "We want in."

FRANKIE: "We want to know the plan."

LEON: "Same as ever. I round up a posse, we block off the area, then we kill the hell out of whatever's inside."

LONDON: "Good plan."

London hands him the scrap.

His glance at Frankie says the opposite.

FRANKIE: "What about the --"

She makes claw gestures with her hands.

LEON: "We kill him more." (Off London's look:) "I thought it'd be your kind of night."

Frankie giggles, in spite of herself.

FRANKIE: "We need to talk about your addiction to violence."

LEON: "Yeah. I wanted to offer you a job. You'd do well with the Ratcatchers." (Pause.) "Just you, London. Sorry, Frankie, no babes allowed."

LONDON: "I'll think about it."

LEON: "Do that."

Leon starts to stand up. And then there's gunfire.