Eleven Months Ago

"Joseph, of all the damned times not to answer your phone!! It's Elle. Christian's dead. Cid is badly hurt. We're flying some of your Family in tonight. I'll see you in a few hours."

When his Sire died, Joseph had secured the City, organizing the withdraw to the horse ranch that had been "inherited" from the Ventrue Acolyte that had unsuccessfully crossed the House - specifically Christian. Now the Sire was gone, and the foundations of the House were shaken, maybe crumbled away entirely. It was Joseph that arranged for transportation, that met the survivors at the airport, that knew the way to the ranch no one else had seen. Once the family and allied Dragons had been safely roomed, Joseph had changed into a t-shirt and old jeans. He was standing by the back door when Elle Deveraux found him.

"Where are you going? We need you here, Joseph. Someone has to carry on your pater's work. Asira and Sunda are dangerous. We don't even know who they're working for."

He sighed, looking down at the delicate hand on his arm, his muscle flexing involuntarily. Let me go, Doctor. You were his lover. I was his CHILDE. Let me go! He tugged at the gloves, focusing on them, flexing his fingers inside the leather as though his feelings, unspoken, were too large for his skin.

"I'm going out back. To think." His voice was deceptively mild, even pleasant, but as he glanced up at Elle, there was an unquestionable darkness in his sapphire gaze. Elle, all the fiercer for the full foot of height difference between herself and the Daeva, stepped in front of him, barring the door.

"Joseph, don't. Your House needs you. The Republic is going to need you. Don't be rash."

His hand dropped to her wrist, just next to where her palm was braced against the door frame. He circled his fingers around it and squeezed lightly, lifting her hand out of the way and then dropping her wrist again. My Sire died thinking I had failed him. OUT OF MY WAY.

"Doctor, I'm going outside. I won't be leaving the grounds. If Lydia asks..." Lydia. Shit. Father's been ash on the wind for less than twenty-four hours and she's probably thinking about how to take the Patrician's seat already, the ambitious little whore. "...tell her I went out." And, pushing past the small Mekhet, he shouldered open the door and started away from the house.

The grounds of the estate had come with several stables and two barns, plus an unfinished third at the edge of the property. It was to that last one that Joseph walked, his mind, usually constantly active with plots and schemes, was numb, totally empty as he walked through the doorway of the barn, absently noting the un-hung doors off to one side. The space was cavernous, the roof and second floor mostly bare timber, like a skeleton with all the skin peeled away.

Christian's dead.

Joseph didn't even feel the first punch, his fist slamming through part of the wall next to the door, supernatural strength punching a neat hole in the planks. He lifted his hand, staring at the splinters wedged in it, blinking without comprehension - and then the pain of what he had done reached through the cloud in his brain.

CHRISTIAN'S DEAD!

His eyes flashed with a red sheen, and his lips curled away from his fangs as he threw himself into the building, slamming his shoulder into the support columns, attacking the walls with his bare hands, laying waste to whatever he touched. The same thought went through his mind, like the screech of a skipping phonograph needle:

CHRISTIAN'S DEAD CHRISTIAN'S DEAD CHRISTIAN'S DEAD CHRISTIAN'S DEAD

When he'd exhausted himself, the barn was a teetering shamble, held up by little more than luck. Joseph himself was in the center of the floor, staring at his aching, ruined hands, blood sweat standing out on his chest and forehead, his t-shirt long since destroyed by the mindless bout of fury.

Christian's dead. The thought echoed dully in his mind.

Time to build the world anew. And he slowly got to his feet, picking the shards of wood from his hands as he walked back towards the house. There's something to be made here. I just have to find it, lest I go insane.