Back to Work (open)

She shook her head again as she looked at Victor.

"Neither. He'll be back. Meet Angelo - the worst mistake I ever made."

Victor reached behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of scotch and poured a drink for each of them.

"Mud in your eye." She might notice that he wore what suspiciously looked like an engagement ring on his finger now, but he was still looking at the paper while putting the bottle away.

"We all make mistakes. Care to share the story on this one?"

She still hadn't bothered to pull the knife out of her shoulder. It would hurt coming out and she wasn't ready to deal with that - at all. She tossed her phone on the bar and reached not for the glass he poured, but the bottle.

"Not a whole lot to tell. I had a brief affair with Angelo because I needed someone who could get to Joseph during the day to stake him. He was losing his mind and it was becoming really, really noticeable. My bright idea was to have him quietly staked, quietly shipped to his mentor, get his head fixed and none of the other Tremere would be the wiser, so he would retain his respect and position and all that. So yeah, I probably deserved that backhand because yeah, I used him. It wasn't my finest half-hour, I'll give you that. The trouble was that I actually fell for him, too - Angelo, I mean. So I almost backed out a dozen times, but Joseph was getting worse and worse and worse - and I couldn't back out. Gave him a story of half-truths to get him in the headspace he needed to be in to stake a guy he had never met. Joseph was abusive. Angelo thought he would be killing Joseph. At any rate, Joseph found out, had him write me an 'I can't do this' sort of note and Angelo disappeared. His face? That was Joseph's handiwork. I thought he was dead. Ten years ago or so, I found out he was still alive. Found out how much Angelo hated me, too. Because Joseph tortured him and turned him into that monster -- because of me."

Victor let out a slow whistle as she spoke, and took a sip of his drink.

"Let me get that for you" he said gently while pointing at the knife. "Easier when someone else does it, I know."

"So now Angelo is mentally broken, physically damaged and out for hate and possibly revenge. I suspect you can fix his face, but his mind... are you sure killing him wouldn't be a mercy?"

She shook his head at the offer to pull out the knife.

"Not yet. I need to think first, how to handle this whole situation." She took a drink from the bottle of scotch. "Not exactly. This paperwork means Joseph is dead. It means that he's a valuable asset to the Tremere. Killing him would end poorly for all involved. He's not here out of hate or revenge, he's here because Joseph and the Tremere say he has to be. He's my problem now. Sure, I can fix his face - he's not going to let me get close enough to do so. Joseph has turned me into an obsession for him and that's not good, either. So, yay, damaged ghoul that I have to deal with because Joseph does love his petty torments - even from the grave."

Victor nodded. "Congratulations on Joseph being dead? Valuable asset to the Tremere, liability to you at the moment, which by extension is a liability to the entire domain. Still, damage can be fixed. Let me speak with him when he's come down from losing Joseph. It's actually the sort of thing I'm good at."

She ran her good hand through her hair.

"You can talk to him, but you're not going to get anywhere. This is my bed, I'm clearly going to have to lie in it. To be fair, yeah, he's tore up about Joseph - but he would have done this to me either way, if he'd been given free reign to do so. Joseph wouldn't let him come after me because I'm a Tremere - but now he doesn't have that guidance and in fact, is supposed to be with me. He hates me because he doesn't."

Victor shrugged and took another sip from his drink.

"The blood bond will make it even more entertaining. Tremere have interesting problems. Out of curiosity, you are kindred, he is a ghoul. As painful as it would be, have you considered letting him off his leash long enough to vent his frustrations, or would that only stop at your demise and trigger any number of unpleasant things for you?" Victor didn't have the torture experiences Griselda had, to him physical pain was another thing to work through, not to associate with horrible trauma

Her lips pursed.

"Yeah, I've thought about it. I'm just not sure that he could stop before he killed me. It's not about what it might trigger. Have you ever truly been tortured? It's not really about physical pain, Victor."

"I'm sure Miyu would be happy to stand watch alongside me to stop him before he went too far..."

"As far as tortured? No, not really. The last time somebody tried, they caught a sudden case of ash fever after taking my eye as a prelude to actual torture."

She frowned.

"You were lucky. I saw what he wants to do to me. I doubt even you could stomach it."

"No context to base it off of, cant' say." Victor finished his shot and took another bottle to refill his drink.

"So two questions. What can I do for you, and who gets to tell your father?"

She took a deep breath.

"One, get the purple bottle from behind the bar and hand it to me. Then pull this knife out of my shoulder. I can't heal the face - not one single person that was in here will believe that he didn't hurt me in some way. So the face will need to stay visible. And no one is telling my father about this. But you can get Rachel to drive me home after I get raging drunk."

Victor nodded, and handed Griselda the purple bottle and then gestured at the knife.

"Say when. You can't hide this from him forever you know. Even with the negative views within the family over Alexander, everyone knows he's almost unnaturally clever. Perhaps even unnaturally clever. "

She sighed, popping the bottle open and taking a very long drink from the alcohol-laced blood. She sighed softly and turned her body, gripping the edge of the bar to hold herself steady.

"Go ahead," she said, referring to her shoulder. "And I can only handle explaining this situation to one concerned, overly-protective man in my life, thank you. Not eight of them."

As soon as Victor's hand touched the handle, he swiftly grasped it and pulled it out as fast as he could, and as straight as he could to minimize further pain. "Oh everything I learned about knives in bodies came from Miyu or Mengle, sorry if this hurts." Bad humor was a distraction nearly as good as alcohol sometimes. "Although in all fairness the good doctor was a decent surgeon."

He dropped the knife on the counter and nodded.

"One would think those men would at least learn to prioritize, or choose a delegate to act on their behalf."

She growled - then screamed as the metal left her flesh. It wasn't even that it hurt all that badly. That scream had been building from the moment Angelo had grabbed her by the throat. She had just refused to give Angelo the satisfaction of hearing her scream. And as the metal was pulled free, her shoulder started to heal.

"Mengele would have given me valium or something first," she mumbled.

Victor let her scream, it would be healthy.

With a perfectly straight face Victor handed Griselda a small package of chocolates that he'd planned to give her anyway. "No, he would have given you these, and then cut out your kidney or something."

"So what do we do when he comes back? Or if he looks for your father to try and get control over you or hurt you? Or Audrina? Those two are close, and there will be a dead Angelo if that happens."

She shook her head.

"Mengele was fond of me. D cups will do that." She ran a hand through her hair. "He isn't going to go after my dad or Audrina. He will go after me and he maybe will go after my husband, but his beef is with me. He is logical that way."

Rachel had long walked out of the conversation going to control room, to see if she could see how he entered, and possibly where he went.

"We have to stop having the same twisted acquaintances. It gets awkward when we compare notes. You should have heard me and Victor Morton... "

Victor sipped his drink again and nodded. "That is a plus. Get some blood into him, that might calm him down. Or a lobotomy. Do they still do those? Very useful surgery that."

Her brow rose and she fully drained the bottle in her hand.

"Don't. Don't tell me how to deal with him. You don't know him at all."

"Sorry. I know, I have no clue."

He rummaged around under the bar and came back up with another bottle of something that looked intoxicating and passed it over.

She didn't need the second bottle. Fact was, she was nice and drunk from the first bottle - that kid had nearly been in the hospital for alcohol poisoning, so she was good there. She started to move and stand up from the stool - wobbled - caught herself - grinned. Then stood up again, actually staying upright.

"Whee. I got this. Time to go home. Hubby is pissy," she whispered, but it wasn't very quiet.

Victor texted Rachel to come down and get her now intoxicated domitor and gave Griselda a steadying arm.

"I'm sure Erik won't be pissed. So how much you raise for the Children's Hospital so far?"