Supporting Cast

• Cindi
• Melissa
• Brimstone
• Father Joseph

"Bloody Sunday"

Rose Red

Later Friday night and the club is hopping. There's a long line at the bar and London's breaking up a fight.

[aside][b]Music:[/b]

Bloodhound Gang, "Kids in America"[/aside]

After things have settled down a bit, London goes over to the bar. He's looking for Frankie, but gets Cindi instead.

CINDI: "So, you have to tell me everything about you?"

LONDON (not sure whether to be cagey or baffled): "I do?"

Cindi smiles.

CINDI: "Yeah."

LONDON: "Why don't you tell me about you?"

CINDI: "Well, I went to State, then moved down here."

They keep up the smalltalk for a while, London refusing to drop any interesting tidbits.

LONDON: "Can you ask Frankie to come over here?"

Cindi looks a little disappointed, but gets Frankie. Frankie hands Brimstone's envelope back to London.

FRANKIE: "Do [i]you[/i] trust him?"

LONDON: "Not at all."

FRANKIE: "But he knows where we live."

LONDON: "Yeah."

FRANKIE: "So what do you want to do?"

LONDON: "I want to check out the meeting place."

The Streets

After work lets out, but before the sun rises, London and Frankie scout the spot where Brimstone wants to meet them the next night. It looks like a great spot for an ambush- a deserted corner where a road changes its name and not much else happens, except the occasional bit of paper blowing by.

[aside][b]Music[/b]

David Bowie, "Outside"[/aside]

There's a sharp hill off one direction, and a lot of run-down residential buildings everywhere else. There's also a bunch of alleys, blind and otherwise.

They walk home and slumber.

Saturday Night

Frankie spits out dust- again.

FRANKIE: "I never thought I'd miss my cot in the back of the diner."

LONDON: "How're you feeling?"

Frankie feels a pang of hunger.

FRANKIE: "Fine. I don't need anything."

LONDON: "I do."

FRANKIE: "It's easier for you than me."

LONDON: "What do you mean?"

FRANKIE: "You can feed on dogs. I have to...."

LONDON: "Frankie, this is who you [i]are[/i] now."

FRANKIE: "It's not what I want to be."

LONDON: "I need to make a phone call."

London finds the nearest pay phone and dials a number. Someone picks up on the other end.

LONDON (smiling): "Melissa!"

MELISSA: "Hi... London?"

LONDON: "Yeah. So, what are we doing tonight?"

MELISSA: "Not studying. What [i]are[/i] we doing?"

LONDON: "I asked first."

Melissa laughs.

MELISSA: "Dinner? Chinese?"

LONDON: "I [i]love[/i] Chinese."

He looks back at Frankie.

LONDON: "Can I bring my sister?"

MELISSA: "Oh... sure."

LONDON: "She's in town for a few days, I want to show her a good time. Bring a friend?"

MELISSA: "I'll see who I can ring up."

LONDON: "Great."

Chinese Restaurant

London and Frankie arrive at a trendy-looking Chinese place downtown, the sort of place with too much neon and decorations of dubious cultural origin.

Melissa arrives a few minutes later, dressed for a date. Alone.

MELISSA: "Hi! You must be...."

FRANKIE: "Frankie."

They sit down and leaf through menus.

MELISSA: "I recommend the Moo Goo Gai Pan, or the scallops."

FRANKIE: "I used to love Moo Goo Gai Pan."

LONDON (off Melissa's look): "Allergies."

MELISSA: "I used to room with a girl who was allergic to peanuts."

FRANKIE: "I'm not... intruding or anything, am I?"

MELISSA: "Oh, no. Not at all."

She's lying, of course. They eat awkwardly- London and Frankie because they don't actually like eating, and Melissa because she's not sure what to do with Frankie around. Or London, for that matter.

MELISSA: "Sorry I couldn't get anyone else to come along. Finals."

LONDON: "That time of year?"

MELISSA: "Oh, yeah. So, Frankie, what do you do?"

FRANKIE: "I'm a waitress. I work the same place as him."

MELISSA: "I thought you were only in town for a few days?"

Frankie pauses.

FRANKIE: "It's a chain."

MELISSA: "Oh."

As soon as the check comes, Frankie excuses herself. She follows London at a distance as he walks Melissa home.

MELISSA: "Uh, London, I have something I need to ask you."

LONDON: "Yeah?"

MELISSA: "Did we, uh, sleep together?"

LONDON: "Only in the loosest sense."

MELISSA: "Oh, good! I mean, I don't mean it like that."

They get to the front of her building. London touches her cheek.

LONDON: "It's okay."

He looks into her eyes. They cloud over, and he kisses her. And then he drains her again.

Frankie watches, leaning against a fence across the street. She shifts uncomfortably.

London shuts Melissa's wounds. She's a little wobbly.

MELISSA: "I'm tired."

LONDON: "Go upstairs. Get some rest. Call me."

MELISSA: ".... Do I have your number?"

LONDON: "I left it on the note. Don't you remember?"

MELISSA: "Oh... right."

Shakily, she goes in and heads for the elevator. London rejoins Frankie.

FRANKIE: "I... need something."

London finds a homeless man sheltering under an overhang in a drainage ditch.

LONDON: "You okay down there, buddy?"

MAN: "Yeah. Find your own spot."

LONDON: "It's not like that. Here."

The man looks at London. The vampire is holding out a twenty.

MAN: "What do you want?"

LONDON: "Just hate to see somebody in tough circumstances."

The man reaches up for the money. London mesmerizes him and yanks him up. Frankie wrinkles her nose when she realizes the man's been drinking, but forgets it quickly in the thrill of the bite.

His blood is warm, wonderful. She feels on top of the world, ready to kick anybody's ass. She realizes she's a little bit buzzed.

London sets the guy back down, then puts the twenty in his hand. A little further down the road, they stop to throw up the Chinese food. Even this fails to take the edge off Frankie's mood.

FRANKIE: "Come on. Let's go take Tombstone."

She collapses in giggles at her joke. London rolls his eyes and hauls her on to the waiting bus.

The Streets

Frankie, it seems, can't hold her liquor. She's still joking and giggling as they walk towards the meeting point. Eventually, London locks eyes with her and mesmerizes her into quiet.

Brimstone is waiting for them, smoking a cigarette silently under a street light. London glares at him.

LONDON: "So, what do you want?"

BRIMSTONE: "Oh, I think you're going to like this. You get to do a good deed."

He pauses for a reaction, then continues.

BRIMSTONE: "A few weeks ago, one of my boys was sentenced to drug rehabilitation. Now, I don't mind juvie or rehab- they teach a boy about rules, borders, to mind his elders- but he wasn't sent to that kind of a place. They sent him to Hill Hospital."

Brimstone looks surprised, but maybe pleased, that they haven't heard of it.

BRIMSTONE: "Hill isn't really a hospital. It's an asylum. Kind of place where they throw somebody to rot. You go there, you don't come out."

LONDON: "Tell me about it."

BRIMSTONE: "Not too much to tell. Started out as a hospital for Union soldiers, back in the war. Later on, they threw consumption victims out there, and after that, the mad and the elderly." He grimaces, then puffs on his cigarette. "Hell of a place."

LONDON: "Who's the kid?"

BRIMSTONE: "Antoine. Antoine Kennedy, though the kids call him 'Little Tony.' That ain't no kind of name for a boy, though. He does work for me, and his mother's a friend. She got me these."

He hands London a folder with a number of carbons and photocopies in it. Sentencing records, commitment forms, and so on.

BRIMSTONE: "There's a key in there, too. One of those card things."

FRANKIE: "Why are you asking us to do this? Why not Trip9?"

Brimstone looks at her.

BRIMSTONE: "Why, miss, because you're expendable. You ain't any of mine."

LONDON: "Then why should we trust you?"

BRIMSTONE: "I deal square. Ask anybody. And I've got this."

He dangles a key from his finger, a match for the one he sent with the note.

LONDON: "And how do we know you don't have more?"

BRIMSTONE: "'Cause I say so. And if you don't do this for me, you know I have this one."

LONDON: "We'll need a way to contact you."

Brimstone nods, and hands him a card with a number on it. London tears it up and swallows it.

BRIMSTONE: "I [i]hope[/i] you can remember that."

LONDON: "I will."

BRIMSTONE: "If somebody picks up and its quiet, don't worry- that's just Trip. You just tell him what you need to tell me."

Brimstone tucks the key back into his pocket and wanders off down the road.

LONDON: "Who the hell is that guy? Something doesn't add up."

FRANKIE: "You want to check the place out?"

LONDON: "Yeah. Go out there now, get Kennedy out tomorrow night."

Hill Hospital

The bus out of town is almost empty, except for a guy sleeping on the long back seat. The driver lets them off at the end of a long driveway stretching out through the trees.

There's a low, broken wall nearby. Jutting from it is a graven stone sign that identifies the place and looks like it was last cleaned around 1950.

They walk about a half mile up along the edge of the driveway before the hospital complex comes into view. By and large, the buildings are the sort of concrete gothic you associate with Nazi movies.

Frankie gets a bad feeling. After a few minutes, London does, too.

Most of the buildings are inside a spikey iron fence of the kind they put up before barbed wire got popular. There's barbed wire, too, but most of it has fallen down and is hanging on the ground.

Thunder rumbles in the distance.

They find the lone guard slumped, asleep against the front of the gatehouse.

FRANKIE: "We can't just take him home on the bus."

LONDON: "We get a car, then."

FRANKIE: "So, go back tonight, steal a car, come get him tomorrow?"

LONDON: "We don't know if it would be there tomorrow. That's the beauty of stolen cars."

They look around back, finding a parking lot with a few hospital vans and two private cars.

FRANKIE: "I can wire one of these. We want to do this tonight, or tomorrow?"

LONDON: "We'll have more time tomorrow."

FRANKIE: "The guard might not be asleep."

LONDON: "Go drain him. Check him for keys."

Frankie goes around front, takes enough to make the guy feel [i]really[/i] woozy, then throws him in a shed. She takes a set of institution keys off him, as well as his own car keys and a baton. The keys turn out to belong to the Hyundai out back.

FRANKIE: "Jackpot."

They grab a blanket out of the car, then throw a shovel from the shed in the back seat.

[aside][b]Music:[/b]

Israfel, "Deep Velvet Scherzo"[/aside]

They decide to take the direct route, using the keycard to open the front door and striding in. There's a receptionist asleep at the desk. London checks her for anything useful, then pushes her out of the way and turns on the computer.

After a few minutes of hitting keys and staring at the amber screen, he realizes it's not there for much besides WordPerfect 5. He grabs a map of the hospital from under the laminate on the desk and follows Frankie into the helpfully labelled "Filing Room."

The room is a poorly lit mess of cobwebs and big, grey cabinets. They don't find Kennedy under "K", but his file [i]is[/i] sitting on top of a cabinet in a pile of other unfiled "K"s.

LONDON: "Room 513. Let's go."

Thinking better of taking the ancient-looking elevator, they walk up the stairs. They hear somebody banging and rattling chains around the second floor.

When they get to the fifth floor, Frankie's nostrils are assailed by the sharp smell of blood- and cleaning chemicals. She can't tell exactly where from, though.

A little wandering of the long, dim hallways and they find Kennedy's room. He's asleep, straitjacketed, huddled on his thin matress. London climbs on top of him and restrains him, while Frankie gags him with a strip of blanket. He wakes up, choking a little.

LONDON: "Antoine?"

The boy nods, frightened.

FRANKIE: "Don't worry. Brimstone sent us."

He nods again, looking a little less scared.

LONDON: "Just stay quiet, and come with us."

London notices he's shackled to the wall. Finding no unlocking mechanism on the shackle, he summons up Melissa's blood and snaps the rusting chain.

They drag Antoine down the hall, the chain dragging and rattling behind them. Frankie eventually picks it up to keep it quiet. They head for the fire escape marked on the map.

Except it isn't there. There's a door, yes, but it's just an empty patient room.

LONDON: "Fuck. Stairs, then."

They hear a scream in the distance as they go back towards the stairs. Which aren't there, either.

LONDON: "There were stairs here."

And there should be- London's memory is perfect, as always. It's hot, too. Seems like somebody's got the furnace going full blast.

There's another scream. From a different place, down an endless-looking hallway.

Kennedy's gone back to sleep. London rips the gag off his face and slaps him awake.

LONDON: "Is there another way out?"

ANTOINE: "Huh?"

LONDON: "Other than the stairs. Or the fire escape."

ANTOINE: "I don't know. I didn't see much when they brought me in this evening."

FRANKIE: "This evening? When did Brimstone say he was put in here?"

LONDON: "Weeks ago."

Antoine has gone back to sleep. London wakes him again.

ANTOINE: "We've got to tell Brimstone. We were set up."

LONDON: "What?"

ANTOINE: "Picking up the tar. There were cops there. There are [i]never[/i] cops down at the dock. Somebody set us up."

FRANKIE: "Tar?"

London gives her a look.

LONDON: "Heroin. Antoine, you've got to focus. When were you brought in here."

ANTOINE: "This evening? No, yesterday night. I remember the sunlight this morning."

London shakes his head. That's all wrong.

LONDON: "Sunlight. There was a window in his cell."

They run back to 513. The window's too high for them to reach. London boosts Frankie up. She looks, then says nothing. She climbs back down.

FRANKIE: "I... don't know how to put this... it's just another hallway."

LONDON: "Fuck."

Amidst more distant screams, they run down the hall to the elevator, carrying a once-again sleeping Kennedy.

They pull the lever to summon the elevator. It groans and creaks its way upwards, floor by floor. As it reaches the fifth floor, the lights in the hall go out.

Light spills through the doors as they inch open.

It's empty, thank God.

As the trio get in and the doors inch shut, Frankie has a thought.

FRANKIE: "This would make a good feeding ground for... somebody."

LONDON: "Somebody like us."

The elevator creaks downwards, but reaches the bottom floor, and opens within sight of the front door. London and Frankie run for the door, Kennedy over London's shoulder.

The door doesn't budge. The cardkey reader next to it buzzes. London tries the key. The reader just buzzes back at him.

He pumps Melissa's blood through his veins and [i]shoves[/i] his weight at the door. It feels like someone's pushing back. Someone very strong.

He drops Antoine, and motions for Frankie to join him. Together, they manage to splinter off a large section of the door.

The safety of a gun flips off. Frankie feels the barrel against the back of her head. In a rage, London spins around, smacking the receptionist backwards.

Her neck breaks. The gun flies out of her hand. She hits the ground in a clump. London picks up the gun. He beats her to a bloody pulp with the butt. The blood doesn't smell very good.

That's when the screams start again.

LONDON: "Let's get out of here."

They turn back towards the door, but there isn't one.

LONDON: "This isn't real. It can't be. There's a door here."

He starts banging on the painted-cinderblock wall with all of his strength. Meanwhile, Frankie notices a hunched shadow coming around the corner. She feels the Beast rise in her gut. The urge to flee is almost overwhelming. But only almost.

There's something bigger than her coming down that hallway, though. Something old and ugly and hostile.

FRANKIE: "London."

London turns, and then he feels it, too. But he can't fight down the fear. He goes running in the opposite direction before he can even think.

All of a sudden there's someone standing next to Frankie. Another vampire. He's dressed in an orderly's coat, and his eyes bulge menacingly above his sallow cheeks. He'd be about her height, if he weren't hunched over. He speaks in a thin, hissing voice.

VAMPIRE: "The first law... is territory. You are trespassing."

FRANKIE: "Uh, we didn't realize you were here."

Down the hall, London is trying to claw his way through another blank wall, muttering "this is a door," the whole time.

VAMPIRE: "That makes no difference. You are tresspassing. You are taking my food."

He taps his fingers against each other. They're too long, clawed, and make a horrible noise when the joints crack. He reaches for Frankie--

--London pulls himself together. He shouts at the vampire, and calls on his perfect memory.

LONDON: "The Prince's third tradition! What is it?"

VAMPIRE: "Do not commit... [i]diablerie[/i]."

Off the trespasser's blank looks, he rolls his bulging eyes.

VAMPIRE: "It means don't drink from another kindred. But I'm not [i]going[/i] to eat you."

All of a sudden, he's beside London.

VAMPIRE: "I'm just going to [i]kill[/i] you."

He lunges at London, raking him with his nails. London throws up his arm, and the other monster slices him viciously.

Running down the hall, Frankie breaks the guard's baton in half, throwing a piece to London. London stabs the older vampire through it's ribs, coming in just below the heart. Frankie tries the same maneuver from behind, but also misses her mark. As the elder grapples its way free, London reaches for his lighter. He flicks it on the tails of the vampire's orderly coat, which promptly begins to smolder.

The creature disengages, running down a hallway which is getting shorter and shorter as his flesh begins to burn. In his panic, he runs right by a fire extinguisher and descends on Kennedy, as if drinking his fill will stop the burning.

London shoves him off the bleeding teenager. The other monster runs down the hall, burning and then collapsing. His bones crackle, burn, and crumble in the heat.

The asylum begins to clatter with noise as the lights brighten and inmates start to wake up.

There's a door out, again. They open it, running across the grounds in the now-pouring rain. They shove Kennedy in the back seat, then take off as fast as the Hyundai will go.

The Highway

The car races down the driveway and onto the open road. Frankie realizes Kennedy's pulse is slowing down. Way down. She binds the wound on his neck as well as she can without choking him.

[aside][b]Music:[/b]

Blondie, "Nothing is Real but the Girl"[/aside]

That's when London realizes they're being followed. He can only make out the headlights, but whoever it is is definitely keeping pace. And it's not a slow pace.

London gives the bloodied gun to Frankie. She rolls down the window, and does her best to take aim in all the darkness and rain. She fires three times; the second shot shatters one of the headlights. She can't tell about the others.

The chasing car starts weaving wildly. Frankie must've hit a tire or something the driver cared about. It's still following, though. She grabs the shovel and chucks it into the roadway.

Their pursuer hits the shovel and spins off the slick road. they race towards the city lights.

Kennedy speaks up.

ANTOINE: "Listen. You have to tell Brimstone about the setup. And to take care of my momma. And I stashed the stuff. It's in a locker at the Y."

He recites a string of numbers, then faints again.

As soon as they see a payphone, London pulls over and calls 911. He and Frankie watch from a rain-concealed distance as the paramedics come and take Kennedy away.

LONDON: "You're stronger than I thought, Frankie."

FRANKIE: "Me, too."

They run for home, stopping at another phone. London calls Brimstone, and leaves a message with Trip9's silence.

They bar the haven door with everything they can find, then huddle together for sleep.

The Meetup

Brimstone is standing under an umbrella, smoking as always.

BRIMSTONE: "You did a good job."

He looks at London's arm.

BRIMSTONE: "Take it you met the Monk."

LONDON: "That's the kind of thing it would help to tell your operatives."

BRIMSTONE: "I told you, you ain't any of mine. And you might not have done it. As is, turns out to be a waste. Antoine died this afternoon."

He lets that sink in.

BRIMSTONE: "I know you didn't do it. Didn't smell like you. So... here's your key. My end of the bargain."

London takes it from him.

BRIMSTONE: "By the way, Antoine didn't happen to say anything about where my gear was, did he?"

LONDON: "He... babbled. A lot, near the end. But it's all kind of a blur. I'll tell you if I remember anything that might be useful."

London's memory is perfect. He remembers what Antoine said. Numbers. A locker combination. A locker number. A unit of measure. Two kilos.

BRIMSTONE: "You let me know, then."

He strides off into the rain with his umbrella, meeting Trip9 a short distance down.

LONDON: "Something doesn't add up about him."

FRANKIE: "We killed another... one of us."

LONDON: "Yeah."

They debate whether or not to retrieve the drugs, then go to work. London dances and cracks a few heads, while Frankie lures a trucker off to a booth. Afterwards, she comes back behind the bar to talk to a smiling Cindi.

CINDI: "You are so [i]bad[/i]."

FRANKIE: "I am?"

CINDI: "Seriously, do you hook up every night?"

FRANKIE: "A lot. I don't think you want me to teach you."

Cindi sighs.

CINDI: "Probably not. What's the deal with your brother?"

FRANKIE: "What do you mean?"

CINDI: "The whole mysterious, brood-in-a-corner thing. I mean, we get that a lot in here, but he's a lot more... consistent about it."

FRANKIE: "He works hard. It's his hobby."

Church

After work, they decide to go see Father Joseph, in case their exploit made any waves in vampire circles.

The contact address he gave them turns out to be a small church, of the variety that can only be Catholic or Anglican. They find Joseph in his changing room. When he sees them coming, he brushes back his hair.

JOSEPH: "Welcome to the house of God."

London makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough.

LONDON: "Sorry, padre, that takes some getting used to."

Joseph nods.

JOSEPH: "I have some... good news. The regents and the Prince will accept your debut at the next Elysium."

FRANKIE: "At what?"

JOSEPH: "Court. The Prince, the Regents, and everybody else play dressup and make deals with each other. Personally, I'm not much for ceremony, other than the Lord's."

London nods.

JOSEPH: "Just think of it as your coming out. I will be standing in for your sires. Behave yourselves, and you'll be released on my recognizance."

LONDON: "For how long?"

JOSEPH: "A few decades. Less, maybe."

FRANKIE: "[i]Decades[/i]?"

Joseph sighs.

JOSEPH: "You have to understand that elders like the Prince, some of the Regents, or even the Monk have been around a long time. They make their plans and partnerships with that in mind."

LONDON: "The Monk?"

JOSEPH: "Huh? Oh, no, not 'monk' like 'priest.' Just an elder who lives outside of the city. People have been calling him that since he first arrived from the old country."

FRANKIE: "And they'll just welcome us with open arms?"

JOSEPH: "No, but it's in everyone's best interests for you to be part of our community."

The last word strikes a chord.

FRANKIE: "What about Brimstone?"

JOSEPH: "Just be careful of him. He's honored the truce scrupulously so far, but I don't know what ideas he might get about a couple of orphans."

He thinks a moment.

JOSEPH: "I'm doing my best here, but understand, I don't relish this. It's simply my responsibility."

LONDON: "We understand."

Joseph notices London's arm, then looks him in the eye.

JOSEPH: "You've been getting into fights."

LONDON: "I'm a bouncer."

JOSEPH: "Listen, London... God gives us each temptations, but no more than we can bear. You have to--"

LONDON: "Got a less sermon-y version?"

JOSEPH: "Yes. There's a Beast inside you. You have to fight it, or some night there won't be anything else."

They take their leave. Joseph reminds them that "you're always welcome in God's house."

On the way back, London smashes in the door of a pawn shop and steals a guitar.

The Next Night

London and Frankie sit on the stage in their theatre. London strums an old Allison Krauss song on his new guitar.

FRANKIE: "We need to find somewhere else to stay."

LONDON: "Yeah. Now we've got the key, we leave Brimstone thinking we're here."

FRANKIE: "Unless he comes in during the day to check on us. What about the drugs?"

LONDON: "He could be watching us. We need to find a way to be sure he isn't if we go looking for them."

He sighs.

LONDON: "There's a song in all this somewhere."

He plays some more. His fingers are cold and dead, but they're more nimble than they used to be. The song sounds remarkably like Christian Kane's "LA Song."

[i]Pretty girl on every corner

Sunshine turns the sky to gold

Warm, warm it's always warm here

And I can't take the cold

Street littered with diamonds

Everyones glistening

This whole world shines so brightly

And I can't see a thing

She's pretty as a picture

She is like a golden ring

Settles me with love and laughter

And I can't feel a thing

The skies gonna open

People gonna pray and crawl

It's gonna rain down fire

It's gonna burn us all

The skies gonna open

People gonna pray and sing

I can't feel a thing. [/i]

<< Another White Dash | Tracklist | Date with the Night >>