20

Julian grimaced as he wrestled with the water. "I want to do more than survive, Cvjo," he said. "That's all our elders do. They endure. They persist. What kind of existence is that? Now, I'm not an idiot—I have better things to do than run off into the desert and get destroyed. But can you really do this for another fifty years? Mortals uploading their brains into computers and colonizing the poles of Venus and we're dragging water through the desert in a Geo Tracker?"

A hot desert wind whipped Julian's black hair around his head as he counted the gallons of water. The Camarilla gave you a job they considered necessary, even vital. Desperate migrants stumbled through this part of the desert, fleeing violence in Mexico and Central America for the promise of a better life in the States. Without water, many died. Aid groups dropped water and supplies for the migrants.

The year before, the Camarilla had infiltrated and supplanted one of those aid groups, replacing their members with…you and Julian. Your job: position the water above the scattered lairs of the Nosferatu elder, the one known only as Reremouse. The victims he claimed would give him enough blood to prevent his full awakening. The irony of your sitation was not lost to you: Reremouse had been one of Ypotryll's rivals, one of the other "landowners" that Brian Lomeyo had warned you about. Alive, you had served one secret master; now one of the undead, you fed another.

"This sucks," Julian said as you checked the GPS coordinates on your Garmin. "I mean, I know what we are. I know what we do to survive. But this is just so…so stupid! It's inefficient and wasteful. This was how the world ran two or three centuries ago, Cvjo, before anyone invented flowcharts or assembly lines."