vampire prince 02 Prince of the City by Keith Herber

Author:Keith Herber [Herber, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781565048201
Google: A6DsAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 1565048202
Publisher: White Wolf Publishing
Published: 1994-12-31T07:00:00+00:00

1916: A New Beginning

"Here. Sign these too."

A tail, strongly built man with a shaved bald head handed a sheaf of contracts and other papers to Vannevar. Vannevar, seated at a small, round table covered with a heavy black velvet tablecloth, smiled ruefully as he took the papers from the man's hands and placed them on the table next to the stack already signed.

"What are these for, Nickolai?" he asked the well-dressed Russian seated across from him.

"Just more of the same," Nickolai told him. "Contracts, insurance, the usual."

This tall, aristocratic Russian had come to San Francisco only a few months before, but Vannevar already trusted him implicitly. Driven out his home country by the brewing Bolshevik Revolution, he'd fled to San Francisco in search of refuge. Vannevar had quickly taken him in. Without contacts or friends in this country, Nickolai depended on Vannevar for everything and therefore, Vannevar reasoned, would be loyal to the man who befriended him in his hour of need. Nickolai was a Ventrue, a former advisor to Tsar Nicholas II, and had already proved his usefulness to Vannevar in many ways. He now sat on the primogen council as the Ventrue elder.

It had been more than ten years since the great earthquake and fire, and while many had predicted that San Francisco would never recover, Vannevar had proved them wrong. Some had estimated that clearing the rubble alone would take years, but Vannevar had seen it completed in little more than three months. He had even ordered the wreckage used as landfill along the edges of the bay, thereby creating new and valuable real estate for Vannevar and the city. With most of the city's real estate already developed, this new, fresh acreage along the waterfront would command premium rents.

The city had celebrated its recovery and rebirth in 1915 with the Pan-Pacific Exposition, the city's second world's fair, staged in honor of the opening of the Panama Canal. The fa it had been Vannevar's triumph, showing the world that the city of San Francisco had recovered from the devastation of the quake and demonstrating to the Camarilla elders that Vannevar was a competent and capable ruler. The fair had stood on the north shore of the city, at the edge of the bay, built atop earthquake rubble used to fill these former marshlands. The 432-foot Tower of Jewels, Iwo's latest creation, had been the fair's central attraction and landmark. It had been encrusted with thousands upon thousands of pieces of colored glass; bright searchlights played over it at night, creating a daziling effect.

After a successful run of several months, the fair had closed, the tower and most of the exhibition halls had been torn down and the real estate sold off, bringing Vannevar a pretty penny. Homes had since been built in the area, now known as the Marina District.

Vannevar signed his way through the papers and handed them back to Nickolai.

"Thank you," Nickolai said, shuffling through the stack to make sure Vannevar had not missed any.

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