The Blood Disco

### Give the City to the Dark Mother Erzulie does not take kindly to the mistreatment of the lowest Kindred castes. They are not soldiers, and none of them asked to be drafted into a sectarian war. Erzulie would not allow these Caitiff to be exploited. She created the House of Lilith, the first of the Kindred Drag Houses, in 1972. Erzulie claimed the goddess as her personal deity using the coded language and performance of ball culture to recruit and educate wayward Caitiff. She provided a lair when there was none. She began to minister to as many Caitiff as she could using the ball as a haven for wayward souls. She taught them how to feed, move among the humans, assimilate, blend in, and pass. Erzulie, in essence, became sire to these lost childer of the Kindred. With ball culture becoming the basis for the Blood Disco, Erzulie's events grew larger. It became difficult for her to operate without the Camarilla becoming aware of her actions. Rather than cease her activities, Erzulie decided to hide in plain sight, becoming a fixture of the new scene. The balls became not just about acceptance and freedom, but indulgence and fertility. Vitae and flesh were shared, the name of Lilith celebrated as the Mother who brought together all lost children. The first Blood Disco was held at Studio 54 on its opening night April 26, 1977. As Studio 54 grew in popularity, so did the Blood Disco. If there's one thing Toreador know how to do, it's throw a party. The bacchanal was a perfect cover for Erzulie's needs. It allowed for the continued organization of the Caitiff while the club's popularity kept her business safe from reprisals, as causing trouble at the iconic nightspot would threaten the entire Masquerade. The House of Lilith disbanded in 1980 with Erzulie telling her adopted childer to create houses of their own. They were to continue the mission of finding the abandoned and creating clans from the clanless. Erzulie's charge was to find a place where they could all gather once a year. She would contact them when she found such a place. Erzulie's search brought her to Chicago in 1982. It was at the Warehouse where she met Adze, the Nosferatu club owner, crime lord… And soul mate. The Blood Disco continued to grow as the phoenix of house music rose from the ashes of disco. Working with artists like Jamie Principle, Erzulie would use the 12" singles to send messages to her childer, now mothers of their own houses. She used the music as communication developing a secret language only her mother generals could decipher. The mothers would use the tools Erzulie gave them to organize and inform. The network spread with the music with Detroit, New York, and Los Angeles becoming hubs for this new information stream. Still, every year, the mothers would return to Chicago for the gathering of the tribe. It became a pilgrimage for many of the childer to catch a glimpse of the one who brought them together and gave them a sense of community, protection, and freedom. Erzulie, whom some now called the Mother-Above-All, has created an army threatening the Tradition of the Masquerade. Adze controls the flow of information between clanless and other outcasts — Ravnos, Camarilla Gangrel, and Anarch Ventrue among them — through his new venture, Red Noº 5. Together, they may well be the biggest threat the Camarilla face in Chicago. There may be some hope for the Camarilla assuming control of this operation. Some say Adze's heir apparent, Bennett Steadman, grows impatient with the chain of command and has designs to take the throne. Some say Erzulie and Adze are coming to a crossroads in their relationship, at odds with the direction of the Blood Disco. Others claim Francois Mamuwalde, Erzulie's favored Caitiff, might wish the Mother-Above-All title for herself. Then again, it is hard to say what is true and what is fiction. When it comes to the Blood Disco, all information is tainted. The Blood Disco was a three-night festival in Grant Park last year. Beginning at sundown, Kindred and humans mingled freely as five stages provided a canvas for the top DJs of house, techno, lo-fi and other music genres to paint sonic landscapes for which the audience can create their own stories. The high visibility of the event is a natural deterrent for violating the Masquerade. At the Grant Park event, blood flowed via seduction, bodies were shared to facilitate feeding, and celebration of the Dark Mother reached giddy heights. The only question tonight is where this year's venue might be. The Blood Disco is the city of Oz for the lost and the voiceless. Human or Kindred, gay or straight, Thin-Blood or Ventrue, everyone is the same at the Blood Disco. As Erzulie would say: "Gender, like blood, is fluid. We are all the children of Lilith."