A Dozen Black Roses Read Online Free PDF

warlocks, growing in size and strength until they were powerful enough to assert their control as a clan in their own right.
    It was Magnus who told him that the Tremere no longer made their home in Transylvania, but had migrated to Vienna prior to the Renaissance. He also told Esher how to recognize them by their totem—a squared circle wed to a captive triangle.
    Esher lost little time in booking passage to Austria. While on his way to the city of the Hapsburgs, he wrote to his friend back in the States of his adventures and plans to infiltrate the blood cult. It was a foolish thing to do, he later realized—but at the time he wanted someone to know what had happened to him should he never be heard from again.
    He was in Vienna less than a week before he was contacted by the blood-wizard known as Caul; apparently his inquiries in Transylvania, while unanswered, went far from unnoticed. The Council of Seven, said to be the self-same adepts who founded the cult, had appointed Caul to investigate the inquisitive stranger and discover his intentions. Apparently he was impressed by Esher's strength of personality and ambition, for it was he who proposed to the Council of Seven that the American be apprenticed to the clan under his tutelage.
    And so Caul—he of the beautiful blond hair and milk-pale skin—became his mentor. The Tremere, unlike many other vampire clans, spent a great deal of time and care grooming their "recruits" before actually transforming them. It was important that any human chosen to become one of their number be first indoctrinated as a wizard, then subjected to the ritual that would make them one of the Kindred.
    Esher studied under Caul for several years, until such time as it was decided that he was ready to receive the Embrace. The Council of Seven called Esher before their august presence in 1838 and told him that he must return to his homeland one final time, to set his affairs in order and arrange for his estate to be inherited by a "distant relative"—actually himself, under an assumed name. Esher did as he was told and returned to America. His ship put to port in New York, and it was there he saw the poet for the second-to-last time.
    They met in a dark and dire pub in the city's notorious Bowery. Esher wasn't terribly sure why he'd arranged the meeting, except that part of him wanted to say goodbye. Over absinthe, Esher found himself rattling on about his drive to bend death to his will and his pursuit of "forbidden knowledge." After a few minutes he realized that his companion was regarding him with open ill-ease, if not outright fear. Only then did he recognize his mistake in confiding in his one-time companion. He quickly found a reason to leave, hoping that the poet would dismiss his story as the raving of an absinthe addict and nothing more.

    Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer ( http://www.novapdf.com ) Having put his mortal affairs in order, Esher quickly returned to the chantry in Vienna. Once there, Caul greeted him. He was dressed in the blood-red robes of an initiate and brought before the Council of Seven.
    Clan Tremere prided itself on its closely knit ties, so unlike the rest of the vampire community. Where the others were haphazard in the selection and conversion of their neonates, producing creatures ignorant of their dark heritage, the Tremere controlled the process assiduously.
    Since Caul had served as his tutor during his apprentice stage, he was given the honor of draining Esher's lifeblood. As he lay dying on the altar, one by one the Seven came forward. Each pricked their thumb with a sacred knife reserved for such rituals, and squeezed a single drop of their own tainted blood onto his parted lips. When he awoke three nights later, he was shown his death certificate and his obituary in the paper. And so did his mortal life end and his unlife begin.
    It wasn't until some years later that he discovered his final conversation with the poet