"Now's my time
Bet you didn't know your life was on my line
You can't win
The deck is stacked
Now where shall I begin?"
(Widowmaker)
She turned him over, scanning the left side of his neck for the carotid artery... "Ah, here we are... this is the side that tastes better..." As she drank the oxygen-enriched lifeforce, the voices subsided... one by one... and as the cacophony died down, the last remaining command was discovered...
'...Who is it that has control in this City? I wish to know the name, and where this person may be easily found... '
"WHAT??"
Arlene's stopped her feeding abruptly... Was that really the gypsy's voice in her mind?
'...I wish to know, royalty or church?...'
"Why the little tramp...", Arlene thought with a smile, as she caressed the crystal around her neck. It was Raven... the last drop that had made the whole cup spill... releasing her from three or four Bonds in the process...
The realization sank in about just how much of a puppet she had been all this time. She had been a toy... to Sergio, to Juan Daniel, to Vlad... even to Frederic... and, briefly, to the Raven... who had unknowingly freed her from three centuries of mental slavery...
She also noticed that the last traces of the man's blood were all over the place by now...
Opening the closet, she found some of her own outfits neatly cleaned and pressed... "Hmm... I've got to give Sammy a raise..." These must have been here since her... what did they use to call it? Training? "More like indoctrination..." she said to herself.
'...royalty or church? Both or neither? Prince or Bishop?...' At those last words, a throbbing pain made her double over and fall to her knees. Her head felt like it was cracked open... she thought she would faint...
'... Prince or Bishop?...'
"AARGH! GET OUT OF MY MIND!"
With all the strength she could muster, Arlene focused on the answer, as she remembered it... the two co-rulers of the city, Sabbat and Camarilla, allies and traitors at the same time...
...and as suddenly as it began, the pain was gone... the jumble of voices were gone, replaced by only one. A voice she didn't recognize, but for some reason, she felt she knew...
She smiled contentedly, blissfully, as she got dressed and headed towards the door. "Look out, San Juan... it's MY turn to play..."
For the first time in almost three hundred years, Arlene De La Rosa had found HER own inner voice...
