Wolves and Men

Ansuya was drinking tea with a young British Officer, a Machine Gun unit lieutenant of the 17th Indian Infantry Division. He had traveled a long way to be in the city and she had agreed to have afternoon tea with the gentleman.

It was strange but as she sat listening to him speak about his job, the combat he had already seen, and what was to come, she had a strange feeling that she had seen this man before. He wasn’t handsome, but he had a quiet way about him that was attractive, as men goes. His light brown hair accented his light eyes well. They had a level gaze and his conversation was engaging. This wasn’t odd, but he seemed only interested in talking with her, which was fine. His approach was far better than the vulgar and insulting overtures some other British men took with her.

Ansuya was only seventeen at this time and already she had built a reputation for herself. She had begun to use her status to engage tutors and other scholars to better herself. Her mother chose this life for her and she was well suited for it, but her mind and ambitions were uneasy as she looked toward the heavens and to the sciences to become more than what she was war being pushed into. When she walked the streets in the early morning, she saw how her people lived, suffered, and died. She would end some of their suffering. She would make a difference and when she married, if she married, it would be for love, not out of necessity for safety or security.

“How long have you been living this way?” The gentleman asked kindly.

Ansuya smiled coyly as she raised her tea cup to her lips. She took a slow sip as she gazed at him through her long eyelashes. She lowered the cup delicately and replied, “How do you mean, good Sir?”

“Simply put, you live fairly well for one so beautiful as yourself, even though it is by the sale of your body and time.” The gentleman held her eyes with a steady gaze, neither kind nor judgmental.

Ansuya felt a flush of anger rise up to her cheeks. “I do not sell my body or my time, Sir.”

“Call it what you will,” the man said with a wave of his hand. “But you surely must know that even one so beautiful and skilled as you at your trade, your profession is a fleeting one and one day, sooner or later, your wealth and loving public won’t be there anymore and you will be left with nothing.”

“Your words are harsh and cruel, Sir,” Ansuya said haughtily. “I wish for you to leave.”

The gentleman stood up and took a step backwards still facing her. “There will come a time, and you won’t believe a word I am about to say to you, but a time will come a few years from now, when your entire world will be ripped from you. You will undergo a massive change. When that time comes, one of three things will happen, either you will die, you will live but give into base, animalistic emotions and become a monster, or you will accept my help and learn to control what the Gods have blessed you with.”

“I wish not, nor will I ever wish, for help from you, good day!” Ansuya said standing up quickly and gracefully. She pointedly turned her back on her guest.

“When the time comes, you will have to decide, unfortunately none of your Gods, Ganesh or Shiva or even Brahma will be able to help you.” With that Ansuya heard her front door open and close quietly behind her.

That had been so long ago and she wondered why it was that her mind had bent itself to that particular memory. It had seemed so alien to her, so surreal that a man had the gall to not only call her cheap to her face, but then to offer such vague help and advice when he knew that he had done nothing short of insulting her in her own apartment.

She found herself smiling at her own youthful arrogance. By that time, she was well beyond her naiveté and she knew exactly what her dancing and singing gained her and what others lost in the exchange. It was the straightforwardness of the gentleman that had shocked and insulted her. She was so worldly then, but she had come to learn a few years later that she was still a child in a world of wonders and mysteries that she hadn’t even begun to discover.

She forced her body to give just a little more. The biochemicals that she was making and forcing away from herself was so subtle she would have used up more energy than usual in the best of circumstances, but now her body was taxed to the point of passing out.

She allowed herself to cease her work as her eyes swam in black flecks and the air that filled her lungs did little to give her any real respite from the exertion.

She closed her eyes and let herself drift back to those warm afternoons and that first encounter with that British officer. She had been so confident and sure of her skills that it was only a matter of time before she was allowed to play to a country wide audience in Bollywood. It was the culmination of her hard work and through that she could finally start to affect real change in her country and for her fellow countrymen.

But that was so long ago. She had affected change in her own way. It had been a lot less grand than her youthful self would have liked to dream. But she wouldn’t be able to affect any change at all if she was forever captured and the prisoner of Kenneth.

She took a deep breath and continued her work, straining her body and focusing her tired, strained mind to her very delicate and deliberate task.

* * * * *

He had lived over three hundred years. He had been there in the first Great War. Blood had been so plentiful back then, in the blasted wastelands of France. He had traveled here shortly thereafter with his moderate sized House. They had to travel hidden in cargo holds and back rooms. They easily out maneuvered the humans manning their ship but it allowed for very little feeding. When they arrived, it was with nothing. The port city, and the new world country was a wide expanse of hostile terrain.

Now, House Dukart was the city. There wasn’t a thing that happened in Los Angeles without Alessandro and House Dukart’s knowledge. That was one of the things that troubled the House Head so deeply. Why in this great city, under his great House were there suddenly moving, unseen hands that sought to undermine his dominion and control? Especially when it was he, that kept this place running and allowed, both humans and vampires, to act as they wished.