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From: Damienne, Brujah Primogen
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em
The cry echoed over the rippling black water of the lake like the voice of God. It was quickly picked up by the angels of death. "Beat 'em and eat 'em!" Damienne knew what it meant. The sentence stabbed her heart as if it were her own, though she forced her face into an iron mask that let nothing show. Alic faced it stoicly, as he had every challenge and threat of the council. As the circle of his peers closed around him, Dee stepped back to its outer fringes. She saw Alic take a fighting stance just before the circle closed her view. He would go down fighting-a true Brujah. The circle became an animal of feet, teeth and many arms rising and falling in waves of violence. The fight was fierce but short with only one end possible. When the creature that had once been her lover could be seen again, even Dee could hardly recognize the pile of splintered bones and torn flesh as Alic. When the heap struggled to move, broken flesh quivering with the will to survive, she had no doubts, however. As if that small motion was a signal, the horde returned, teeth bared, to carry out the rest of the sentence. The Beast fed in a ritual of justice that Dee remembered from a past rave, a memory that still gave her cause to pause when the Beast goaded her to break the laws of the jungle by which the undead survived. She could not join them, even though the Beast howled inside her at the scent of blood and promise of action. She remembered too well the taste of Alic's blood. She would not take another step into bondage, regret, or passion. Like a statue she stood until the horde relented, sated and secure in its own power. Silently she waited as they left, one by one, and in pairs or trios, the same as they had arrived. If any spoke to her, only her nod showed she heard as she let her body stand alone while her mind retreated into numbness. When all were gone except her and her failure, she went to him. He was beyond her tears, sustenance though they might be, but they fell on his ruined face anyway as she picked him up with the tenderness of a mother and carried him off to the shadows. Alone with the darkness she dug a grave and laid him to rest. Maybe he'd awaken one day and maybe he'd know why.
-Sonja Torres 1999