The old warehouse wouldn't have won any awards for its looks. The tiny soundstage in the back corner, two "walls" of sheet metal propped up to form a cold, antiseptic backdrop, even less so: between the harsh overhead lights, the trays of surgical tools and the clock over the fake security door, its face printed in dark Cyrillic, it looked like something out of a Gulag nightmare. To say nothing of the hideous objects d'art resting on guerneys in the center of the operating theatre.

Harvey Pallas sat in his director's chair on the edge of the lights, the old reliable one with his name scrolled in big block letters across the back, and it felt good. Behind him, a skeleton crew was scurrying between portable soundbanks and a maze of wires and cables, ferrying equipment from the two unmarked vans parked just inside the warehouse's big bay doors. The requirements of this particular production were that it be tight, fast, and done right the first time: fortunately, that was how Harvey always ran his business. The added requirement of absolute secrecy wasn't much of a problem: quite to the contrary, it was the added spice that got his crew interested. Not five minutes went by that he didn't hear one of them humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.

They were his best people, veterans of a dozen Pallas Entertainment productions, and not a single one of them couldn't get a much better-paying job at a higher-profile studio. They stayed because they liked the work, and because they knew they had more creative freedom there than they'd have at a hundred Paramounts or Universals. He'd almost say that they were a family, but that was the sort of sentiment that could get beer cans hurled in your general direction.

And given that last night Sandra had essentially told him just how much he could trust her or anyone else in Manchester -- which was to say, not at all -- Harvey was going to get his little family safely onto the highway back home as soon as shooting was done. He had considered not doing it at all, but a few good reasons stayed his hand. Firstly, that he had agreed to do it not only for her but for Dmitri, and Dmitri had never really wronged him. Secondly, with the threat of some sort of expose' looming over his head, destroying Wyatt Chaser's credibility had become a matter of survival. And thirdly, the one that really mattered, was that this little escapade was going to count as a major Prank on Lydia's behalf: he had promised her that, and wasn't going to let her down.

/The rest can go hang,/ he thought, chuckling to himself, /I love this place. She's supposed to be the insane one. Meanwhile, the SANE ones are of the unanimous opinion that giving a man a weapon loaded with blanks and sending him to fight four assault-rifle-toting ghouls is perfectly normal behavior and damn funny at that. And that it was my own fault, because I trusted the Prince's right-hand man to not deliberately try and get the people on his own side killed. I haven't seen logic this warped since high school./

The assault on Ace's lair had been humiliating, the aftermath doubly so. Not so much that as it was disheartening: the highlight was the look in Fursa's eyes when he challenged her to state that, had the situation been reversed and he had put the Sheriff in danger, she would have been just as callous and not cared at all. Because he knew and she knew that was so much bovine excrement: she would have ripped Harvey apart for it, "law" or no "law". In the end, she dodged the question until Sandra stepped in on her behalf.

Which was... It was just sad. He didn't have the energy to get upset anymore, and it was starting to dawn on him that it really didn't matter. No matter what he did, he couldn't make sense of the system much less improve it, so the only thing left to do was... Just be himself. He had his studio, he had Lydia, and that was more happiness than most people ever received: it was a crime to ignore it while railing against something that would never change.

/How's that prayer go? Grant me the courage to change what I can, the wisdom to know what I cannot, and the skill to hide the bodies of the Kindred I had to stake because they pissed me off?/

Things were so much better here, in his chair, coordinating ten things at once and watching the team come together as one. It was like overseeing a purring machine, and that machine created the wonders and mysteries that thrilled him when he was a kid, sitting in the Saturday Matinee and watching Sinbad battle hordes of stop-motion animated skeletons and save the beautiful princess from a gigantic sea monster. He sometimes wondered if, somewhere, some pudgy ten-year-old was watching Harvey's movies and that same, beautiful creative spark was starting to glow behind his own eyes.

/That's REAL art. Of course, the kids aren't going to be watching THIS one, being as it is for a special private audience. I hope they at least run clips on the show: hate the idea of all this work going to waste./

He was in his element, for the first time in months. The only thing missing was Lydia; he'd have to see if she wanted to come down to the set for the wrap-up tomorrow night. He thought about her as he watched the f/x guys work on the soundstage, his unblinking gaze settling upon the mess of animatronics and tubes and latex gore, and he could feel her blood in his veins, pure, purer than anything he'd ever known, singing up into his mind and embracing it with warmth and clarity...

He giggled, not sure whether it was out loud or in his head. Harvey had to admit, in retrospect, that what Jason did really WAS funny. He would have loved to have seen the expression on his own face when he realized that his gun was useless, and that he was headed for certain disaster. Harvey really shouldn't have gotten as mad as he did, and he felt a little bad about having blown up at him that way. After all, no harm done, right?

The problem was in the follow-through. Everyone refusing to admit culpability, shifting the blame around like a bad stage magician trying to palm a quarter. Jason had refused to say anything, and Fursa and Sandra, for all Harvey had built them up to be in his mind, came off like a couple of politicians caught in a lie. The Prince's Law, and the local society it was built on, and the Camarilla that was built on THAT by extension... Nothing but a house of cards. If only they'd had the courage to face up to it...

That's when it hit him like a bullet, the revelation singing in his soul: that was the POINT! Jason, that wonderful, lovable man, a Brujah, had Pranked him! Without even knowing it!

The aftermath of the raid on Ace's had stripped Harvey of his righteous passion for reform, and replaced it with something so much better: one instant, one clear, brilliant moment, of perfect clarity. Perfect perception of the values held so dear by this undead society: caste, rigidity, style over substance and self-destruction festering at its core. And he had been so obsessed by this? Something so petty? So simple? He didn't need to destroy it, OR win its acceptance. He just had to co-exist with it, and the rest could take care of itself. Time for more important things.

"It certainly," Harvey said through a half-choked laugh, "Sorted out my priorities."

Scott, his sound man, walked up from the electronics bank behind his chair. "Hey, Harv, you wanna check out the acoustics on -- crap! You okay?"

Jolted by the alarm in his voice, Harvey reached up and felt wetness on his own face. Fingers came away, glistening bright crimson. He'd been mentally drifting -- how long? And crying? Forget it. No time. Quick save.

"Oh, yeah, nothing -- I was playing with one of Tom's blood bags, and it blew up in my face."

"You look like Alice Cooper after a hamburger binge."

"Yeah, love you too," Harvey said, sliding off his chair and quickly heading for the makeup and dressing area. He washed off his face with a bottle of tepid water, dried blood sluicing into a bowl, and blinked his eyes until the stinging went away.

Harvey thought for a while about Pranks, and how much he admired the idea. Meanwhile, behind his shoulder, in the background, magic was being made. Time to get back to work.

Sometime before dawn, he would close down the set and depart with a wave, maybe try to find a twenty-four hour florist before going home. And there, lose himself in the glories of his lover's blood, which whispered secrets he could only begin to understand.