The Francesca Hotel & Restaurant: Downtown New Haven. October 30th, 2026 6:01 PM

The Doctor was out. Don Salvatore sighed while looking upon the gaudy crucifix across the hall of his leisurely office. Breathing one last time, he took the oxygen tube out of his nose, got up, then hobbled towards it.

He looked past the windows and closed the blinds. It was already dusk, and the chimes from Harkness Tower of Yale University heralded the coming night. The ones his current wife replaced for a more “vibrant, modern refurnishing.” The Don saw no reason to discard them; his hand passed the frayed trim where a young Mikey tore it. The curtains always kept the outside world out in his home, and now in his office.

Don Salvatore approached the crucifix. As a present, he took his Nanny's crucifix from the old country and had it gilded. Nanny Francesca cried  when he presented it. "I can't see his face any more," She said. He pulled the crucifix from the wall it once presided over. Then retrieving the scotch from underneath, he closed the cabinet.

Don Salvatore waited for the knock at the door, despite the camera’s long announcement of the arrival of his Capo to the hall.

"We got two people here for ya, boss," said the Capo.

"She may come in. Wolf to wait outside, please?" The Don's eyes were transfixed on the watch hand behind his back. He saw the light from the hallway announce the shade of a young woman.

The low lights of the penthouse revealed what looked like a young woman in a Cashmere sweater and pleated skirt. Maureen O’Brien looked less like a college student and more like a model paid to do the brochures for one. The skirt was slightly too short, socks too even, and the sweater too form-fitting.

Just this once, a part of him hoped her attack dog would be stupid enough to try something. Make things easier in many ways.

She turned to her “wolf.” Now a collegiate youth. Blonde with baby fat, linebacker build, suspicious eyes.

Maureen’s Type.

"You can go home, love. This old man isn’t going to hurt me. Besides, he's already in enough trouble, aren't you?"

The Don offered a disarming smile to the night creature. Don Salvatore recognized the face from the papers. The “19-year-old Harvard Student” with sandy blonde hair returned the grin, smile baring his fangs through it.

His bodyguard closed the heavy oak door.

“You want a cigarette?” The Don walked forward with a black velvet case with high-end cigarettes. She accepted before looking out the dusky window.

All the vampires smoked, and Don had heard all of the theories why, but kept his own: for unchanging beings, it was their only connection to time passing.

Maureen broke the smoke-filled silence.

"It's difficult these days to control our youths, isn’t it?"

“No respect for their elders, always looking for what’s in it for them.”

“Seems I spend more time hunting my own kind to collect dues than prowling the night or fighting cultists.”

“Well, it ain’t all bad. You know what they say about kids keeping you young.”

‘Maybe for your kind. I never thought I would say it, but I envy my grandmother. Hobbling around with that brogue and shawl around her. Men would hold the door for her without imagining their evening together. I used to think she lost her youth; I feared that.

“Now?”

“Now I wonder. Youth is a debt. She paid her dues and didn’t have to play young men’s games anymore.”

“Speaking of games.” The Don found his opening. “That Masquerade Halloween Racket? Pretty clever little way to invite yourself into my territory.”

Maureen walked over to the chair and sat down.

“That wasn’t my idea, Gio.”

“Of course it wasn’t, but you did authorize it. The Yellow Kings squeezing you that bad?”

“We rented those stores from the owners you protect. It's only temporary, so we didn’t violate-”

“The Letter of the law?” The Don snorted while straightening himself in his chair. Maureen was motionless. “Maureen, you weren’t seriously thinking you could get away with that, did you?”

“I was thinking...hoping-foolishly - that I knew you well enough that we could figure out an arrangement without it spiraling out of control.”

Her hair glowing copper in the lampshade. The Don cradled the scotch glass as he thought. Once upon a time, women with Maureen’s name and face were dime a dozen in the brothels, streets, and shops of New Haven. But looking at her now: green eyes, upturned nose, heart-shaped face, and freckles; she was almost exotic.

“Has it spiraled out, Maureen?” He asked.

“Thanks to that idiot son of yours! Those “brains” my Lodge had are now splattered on a fifty-dollar sexy nurse costume, and I look like an idiot for trusting our treaty.”

“When you move fast, you break things, O’Brien. So let’s talk.”

“You kill my men, and expect me to make concessions?”

“You should; you're the one who cashed out the treaty for a costume shop. But I'm nothing if not amenable. Here.”

The Don procured a folder from his desk. Maureen scanned the contents. Normally, a vampire did not show human emotion unless they deliberately chose to. This time, however, she exposed herself, placing her cigarette on the ashtray to ensure she read it correctly.

“This is…generous.”

“What's more. My soldiers are ready to fight tonight. Say the word, and we’ll clear Edgehill of the Yellow Kings.”

“I…I can't accept.” She threw the folder on the desk as though it would bite her, reaching for another cigarette, avoiding eye contact.

“You're haggling?”

“I'm not... I - can't accept it. It's out of my control.”

“You’re The Vampire Queen of Connecticut. Shake, and it's done.”

“I have the title, I have the seniority, but…I’m bound to refuse. My underlings see me as ‘in the way,’ and The Supreme one is looking to absorb my lodge. You’re a Don, I'm a glorified capo.”

She blew out a ring of smoke; only her wrist and mouth moved as she did so.

“I think you're full of it. No one's stupid enough to try to rule New Haven from Williamsburg. Let alone immortals.”

“Don’t speak about what you don't know. It's all still Northern Virginia to Prince Rupert. There is one thing I can offer, but - Gio - remember I’m the messenger here.”

The Don sat silently. Maureen continued; her eyes looked not at The Don, but at the wall behind him.

“It’s called The Rite of Hierogamy, if your son-”

“No.”

"You don't have to worry, I wouldn't allow one of yours to become a ghoul. The rite ensures he will be fully one of us. He just has to-."

"No."

“Is it really so unacceptable for our houses to unite?”

“Yes."

“I’ll look after him; he will want for nothing.”

“You're asking me for the one thing I can't give you."

"I know it is the way of the Children of Seth to seek substitutions for human sacrifice.

"Oh, Christ's sake, don't give me that.”

“But for those under the old rule, we Lamechites must—." Maureen paused, not because the Don spoke, but because she could smell the blood rising to his forehead.

“Can we just cut it with antediluvian, Catholic school bullshit? We both were classmates at St. Francis! No.”

The vampire's statue-like composure wavered for a moment; a tremble ran up the right arm even like a ripple through stone. The ripple reached the neck and disappeared. The statue was still for a moment. She lit a cigarette and assumed a new pose: left hand holding the cigarette aloft, the right hand gripping the wooden armrest.

"The laws of my order are... very clear. Blood demands blood. Sixty-six-fold."

"There has to be a way around it; it's your organization."

"You, of all people, know that's not how it works."

"So we blow each other kisses and let the Cartels and the cultists take everything we've built?"

"This is the offer I am allowed to make, and I ask that you at least consider it. You mention losing everything we've built. But we both know what your son will do once he inherits the family. Perhaps this is a—"

"If my business is to be destroyed, then it is his to do. If I sacrifice the family for the empire, we deserve neither."

"That's a noble sentiment; it would look very good painted over your chain of pizza parlors.” Her voice was flat. The Don put the glass down and moved his hands to the armrests of his chair. Maureen remained frozen, a statue of seated judgement. Hair stationary even as the breeze moved from the window. “But may I ask, Don Salvatore, where was that conviction in Silver Spring twenty years ago?”

The hot ashes from the burning cigarette gathered unnoticed, burning holes in the leggings. She turned her head away and held a hand up in pleading.

“How do you know that?" He asked, hiding rage.

Maureen changed posture again, pulling her legs in and her body forward. "You can relax, Don Salvatore. There are no rats in your house. The lodge has ways of making the dead speak."

"Mikey was …a long time ago…"

“Michael was your son, no? Firstborn even, but when he was captured, you traded him to the Salvadorans to save-."

"I'm telling you that was different." Hidden from behind the desk, the Don’s Knuckles were ghost white.

"How? How long have we worked together? In what way am I worse than those Salvadorans?"

"Because the Salvadorans…could only kill him."

Beads of sweat pooled around the Don's large grey eyebrows. He grabbed the sweating glass from the table with a sharp jerk, and took a large drink. The form of Maureen was perfectly still until a wide smile cracked and splintered across her face, and her mannequin-like pose broke.

Maureen laughed.

She drew the cigarette to her mouth, then laughed again.

"So, it all comes back to St. Francis' School bullshit after all. To think, Don "Joey" Salvatore worried about the four last things.”

“It's only my place to hope." The Don said to the wall beyond the two chairs. Ignoring the youth's mockery across from him.

"And for what it's worth, old friend, it's for that I envy you."

Maureen extinguished the cigarette and rose from the chair. She walked to the window as a soft evening breeze moved in; Maureen spread her hands in slow motion. A raven flew out of the window. The only proof of their meeting was the ashtray of smoldering cigarettes and a lingering scent of sulfur.

"Hey Boss, the wolf, he's gone." Came a voice from the door.

The Don put his head in his hands. "Call my wife, book her a flight to Miami. She leaves tonight."