A few people are grumbling at me.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  Ezekiel and I called the people we decided mattered.  I don't think we missed many, and I don't think we brought in too many unnecessary people.  Joshua and Elizabeth (and Ginny!) for the Malkavian.  Genevieve and Stephen for the Toreador (Though her comment made me wish we had a Poseur worthy of the name).  Eve, Rachel and Tyler for the Ventrue.  Fred for the Nosferatu.  Severence for the Brujah (I have got to get a copy of one of her CDs).  The Tremere.  Me.  Melinda and Mimi representing factions that have to be acknowledged.  Ambrose being who knows what but Ginny's only suggestion for an addition to the list.  All we lacked was the Giovanni, and I didn't bother calling them because I didn't think they'd come.  I'd have tried working through Rafaella, but my hints of the other night seemed to have sailed right past her.  Besides, the whole point was to smack them upside the head with the realization that they had to pay attention to something outside their family.

But Eve Hawthorne smacked them first.  Just as well.  I wasn't looking forward to taking point on that operation.  It needs doing, and I expect I could have worked myself up to it.  Even thinking about it, I start heading into that mental space, forward full tilt because failure's not an acceptable option.

Of course, Ginny's news smacked us a little.  It doesn't change anything in terms of my intentions or actions.  There are primogen, at least of a sort.  I still consider there to be a distinction between those who are powerful enough to be primogen and those who actively exercise the office.  It's moot, butÖ  It's a job more than a title of respect, and those filling the job may well answer to individuals more powerful than they who could take the office if they wished.  Well, if they want to be called primogen, I don't plan to argue with them as long as they let somebody do the work.

I know I'm going to regret thinking about this later.  I'm just hoping that Ginny didn't quote them entirely accurately or that I'm misremembering the words.  If I'm right, they may not have been talking about just Las Vegas.  The room she described does not reassure me on that heading, not in conjunction with the potency of the curse.  Such speculation's not relevant to my current task, however, so I'll put it aside for the moment.  It's not something I can do anything about anyway.  Well, I can hand deliver an "eyes only" reportÖ  But there's nothing he can do either unless he wants to start a pre-emptive purge.

I didn't expect we'd get as much turn out for the meeting as we did.  I keep forgetting just how screwed up this city is.  I haven't been here quite a month but because I step up and say that something needs to be done people pay attention.  I almost expect the Giovanni will call me on it since it's a better mechanism for challenging this gathering than either laughing at us or shooting us.  If they do that, I may laugh at them.  The simple fact that I can stroll in and do this shows that it needs to be done.

Admittedly, I'm a little bit wilder than usual tonight.  I was quite prepared to head into that Setite nest.  I'd have died most likely, butÖ  I'd have enjoyed going out fighting.  I suppose I should be glad that Nick ordered Ezekiel to leave.  I couldn't turn away even though that was the wiser decision.  Not getting the others killed is a good thing.

But having activated to face death in one form, I'm prepared to court it in other ways.  I'm emotionally manic.  Part of me knows this could go horribly wrong and is terrified, but--  What a ride!  The other part of me would find it hysterically funny if Dante Giovanni tried to demonstrate his power by pulling my soul out to do stupid tricks with it and ended up not being able to find it because the curse takes precedence.

Poor Tomas and Mary, especially Mary.  Her primary sin so far as I can tell is in failing to have kept Tomas on a proper leash.  I hope Dante plans to punish those who left the poor kids to my dubious mercies.  The purpose of having an organization such as the Giovanni designed here is to keep such things from happening.  Tomas had so little support from his clan, from his family, that he turned to me to voice his anxieties.  Either he felt totally abandoned or no one had ever taught him to deal with the possibility of hidden motives.  The fact of the world is that the child is punished for what the parent fails to teach, butÖ  I rather think that it would be fairer to call to task the one who failed to offer the lesson properly.  (And Tomas does not strike me as an idiot.  He'd have learned if anyone had bothered to teach him.  That no one thought it necessary tells me that the Giovanni had become foolishly arrogant.)  But my pity will not buy my regret.  Even knowing the outcome, I'd still have encouraged him to spill and still have shared the information with the Tremere.

So I suppose I can understand Dante's impulse to clean house before looking to anything outside.  The house needs cleaning.  But he's making assumptions.  The fact that no one has previously challenged the Giovanni is truly an effect of the fact that the Giovanni were governing competently (in spite of my arguments otherwise, they had done quite well).  The dirty interior's pretty irrelevant to the house's survival if the foundation's being washed away.

And this evening's discoveries may well mean that Hathor has to move a little faster.  I doubt that she can move that temple readily, but I don't see how she can not know that we found it.  Besides, we're going to have to have council of war tonight, and there's no way that we won't have a leak.  It's a given.  I suppose I should simply be grateful that we have a geographical target now and give a mental bow to Krysta.

It's been an evening of discoveries for all of us.  First Nick meets Ginny and understands why we haven't brought her forward previously.  Then Krysta sees that which is obfuscated, and we discover that she's even less human than the rest of us.  I don't know what the hell the deal was with the door, but Nick's words made it clear to me that she's something other, not necessarily evil but not necessarily trustworthy either.  It's only funny to watch her talking to someone else.  I don't think I'd be happy about having my own secrets drawn out.

I hope that I can run this meeting properly.  Cleverness and determination may not be enough, and my agenda's more or less gone out the window.  I plan to present myself as a somewhat neutral party.  Neither I nor my clan have much material interest in any particular outcome here (apart from killing Hathor and maintaining the Masquerade).  I don't represent any political faction and have no pressing need to stay in the city once the troubles I came to investigate have been dealt with.  I don't have to care if people here don't ever want to come to my parties again (well, except for Tressa, but I don't think I'll offend her if I stick to my goals.  We're at least momentarily marching together).  I'll put forth the situation as I perceive it and then moderate the discussion as we seek a solution.  In a way, having sent Sumana and Ehlissa out of town makes my position in this respect stronger.

There's something vaguely ridiculous in picturing myself in this role.  If I had time, I'd be tempted to go out and smear some dirt artistically on my face and get it under my nails just to present the picture of a grubby schoolboy playing at telling adults what to do.  As it is, I shall be Gene here rather than Jean.  She's the social hostess, the one to construct illusions; he's the speaker of harsh truths, the one to point out that the emperor has no clothes.  There's a certain irony in the fact that in physical terms at least he's more of a myth than she.  In other termsÖ  I've chosen to be neither man nor woman.

That has been an easier choice than attempting to reclaim myself as a woman or subsume what's left of Jean into Gene.  I suppose I should thank George and Sumana for that latter.  If he hadn't needed me to remain his sister and she needed a female mentor, I might never have let Jean re-emerge at all.  The advantages of being an adult have never outweighed the disadvantages of being female, and Arthur didn't require Jean (he wanted her, but that's another issue entirely.  He was happier in service to a woman than to a boy).

It's funny.  Well, not really.  I've seen violence much worse than that Mr. Hodgson inflicted upon me but none that's had such a profound impact on me, not if I'm honest.  I didn't see my family die.  I suspect that I pursue Setites as much because they encourage small evils like Mr. Hodgson's as because they destroyed my family.  That which destroys casually must be destroyed in turn (Is that why I contemplate my own death with such calmness?  Because I know I will become that which I despise?  I take no reassurance from knowing that I do not do such things casually).

He took even the wish to be Jean from me, and I cannot quite want to take it back.  He's one of the villains I'll never face and defeat, but he's also every person like him that I kill or redeem.  I rewrite the ending of the story every day.  Part of me wishes I had killed him, had gone back when I had power to face the man who took my body from me.  ButÖ  During the first years, I feared I'd hang for it.  I buried the memories with my femininity and turned away.  After Eleanor, I had the power.  Perhaps I should have done it.  I was certainly even better equipped for it and even had allies who'd have helped, but using those allies would have meant revealing the truth to men.  Eamon, Arthur, David, George.  None of them know even now why I was on the streets.

Do I need Jean as more than a mask that my nameless self puts on?  I'm not really sure who she is.  Las Vegas may create as many changes in me as I do in it.  That's a scarier thought than dying.  Much, much scarier.  For what else does the city serve as chrysalis?

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