My Little Ventrue Pt. 02 Ch. 11

They were his shield for God?

Again the voice whispered through the hallway. "You act as if Lucas is innocent. Your sire is a monster."

"Lies!" This time it was his fellows who called out to the dark hallway.

Damien didn't say anything. Natasha, now Antoinette, they both said the same thing. All Damien could remember from so long ago was a caring family of priests and Bishops, the great Lucas and his mighty word.

Not now, later. He could rebuild the shattered pieces of that serene painting later.

Another door. The muscle at his side tore this one open as well, with Nosferatu strength and claws and mutations working through metal and marble. A host of his bodyguards stayed out in the hallway with guns at the ready, but those that followed him into the room came to a stunned stop just as quickly as Damien did.

The room was massive, circular, like a stadium built into the earth. The floor was covered in white lines in what could only be described as a complex weave of mathematical patterns. Circles upon circles upon circles drawn in joined spirals at perfect angles, with every trigonometric math pattern he recognized, and many he did not, connecting into a tapestry of language. The walls of the room were painted with the same white dragons that were found in much of the Prince's inner domain, and the ceiling held a hanging chandelier of twinkling crystal dangling below blue flames.

"What... is this?" one of the Kindred asked. The Nosferatu approached the blue-lit room, got to a knee, and put his claws against the floor within the circle.

Everyone jumped back when the floor rippled, like water.

"What insanity is—"

"A Wyrm's Nest." Damien put his hand onto the Kindred's shoulder and pulled them back. "I am sure the serpent studies this, and attempts to circumvent God's curse. Let us begone."

"What's a—"

"Do not ask." He ushered the few Kindred who followed him back out into the hallway. What power the Prince harnessed there, he would let Lucas handle it. The Ordo Dracul held more secrets than any covenant, and their twisted, hidden ways were beyond him.

"You built your tower upon a Wyrm's Nest, snake? How arrogant do you presume to be?" he said to the walls.

The voice mixed a whisper with a chuckle. "Tony did the same."

They all stopped. "W-what?"

No answer. Tony's nest was built on a Wyrm's Nest?

"Bishop Damien, what does she mean?" A woman, Gangrel, came up to him and stared at him with scared eyes.

Damien shook his head. "Focus. She deceives, like the snake in the garden. Focus." He pointed ahead, and they all started to march again.

Deep and deeper still the hall went into the earth, much as any of Tony's tunnels did. Despite the loud march of his army's boots, no words or actions from the Prince came. Eerie silence was all that awaited them. But after a time, the hallway came to a stop, and a single door remained at its end.

Damien motioned with his fingers, and again his mindless muscle tore the metal apart. Or rather, tried. The deformed Kindred wrap his claws around the handle of the rather flat and unceremonious door, but it did not budge.

Considering a Nosferatu or Daeva, even young ones, had the strength to throw a person like a baseball, this did indeed surprise Damien. "Zed, Karla, Casey, Mark."

Two Daevas, another Nosferatu, and a Gangrel stepped up and joined their brother. Hands, claws, and animal ferocity join in. The Gangrel Zed, in particular, managed to morph his hands into monstrous claws that that were just as strong as the dark metal they were trying to tear apart. With five sets of Kindred muscle, devoted and faithful, prying at the door, it finally began to bend. Metal and marble screeched in pain, specs and sparks tore at its structure, and the dark hallway of black was opened up to a cast light from the room that waited them.

It was like watching a group of monsters peel open a particularly stubborn can of sardines.

But with time, the door opened. Damien held his sword at the ready with one hand, gun in the other, and watched with careful eyes. She was in there, in this room. He could feel her. He could smell her. The light that crept around the corners of the peeled and bent door beckoned him like a beacon. She was right in there.

And once the door was open, it was the others who rushed past him to secure the room. His shields, Lucas had said. His brainwashed, sad, pathetic, idiot shields. His new friends. More of them were going to die, in the very room they were rushing into. Don't think about it, don't worry about it. Focus.

Before them was a large room with all the amenities any kine could hope for. Again it was black marble, but the color of the bed, the furniture in the corners, the desks and dressers and the fancy sink, all of it had the tone of life. Now that he was in the room, he could smell it too, the smell of flesh and blood.

The Prince's ghouls were in here. He couldn't see them, but he could smell them, and he could almost hear the sound of heartbeats. This was their room.

"Her two ghouls are here. Find them. Kill one, and hold the other hostage," Damien said. That would bring her out of hiding, and enrage her. A foe blinded by anger was an easy kill. He knew that all too well, and was doing all he could to keep his own rage from boiling over.

"You got it, Bish—"

A fist collided with Zed's face so fast, the Kindred was left a headless corpse one moment, then a pile of ash and burning robe the next.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Antoinette~~

Jack and the girls were in the bathroom of the ghouls' room. To think that all that stood between the death of those closest to her was just a flimsy bit of metal without even a lock, made her whole body vibrate with rage. She would not have this, could not have this.

The door to Ashley and Julee's bedroom was strong, but it was not the vault door of her room. She could have tried to run past the mob and hid in her room when they had first attacked, but to do so would have doomed her ghouls and potentially her sheriff. This whole ordeal made it painfully obvious that she should have listened to her childe Tony, and used connected tunnels with more modern defenses, something that could be used to counter-attack. A giant vault door was useless for protecting those you cared about.

She was not in the bathroom. She was above the entrance to the bedroom, back to the wall and nails sunk into the marble, just beneath the high ceiling. The cost to repair all this damage was just icing on the cake for her hatred.

The sound of a group of Kindred peeling open the huge door was a screeching announcement of the inevitable.

They poured into the room, arrogant and bloated with defiance. Robes upon robes, guns of varying sizes, and every blood clan of the Kindred flowed into the bedroom of her ghouls like locusts. Once they were all inside, contained and within arm's reach, she would slaughter them. Patience. She did everything in her power to suppress her presence the way Daniel taught her, but she was no Mehket or Nosferatu; they would find her above the doorway sooner or later. All they had to do was look up.

Then Damien walked in last, her target. The other robes were pressed too close together, too many knives and swords at the ready, for her to jump into the middle of the swarm without losing her head. Just step away from the crowd, little Mehket, and I will clean up the mistake Daniel made fifty years ago sparing your worthless second life.

"Her two ghouls are here. Find them. Kill one, and hold the other hostage."

A flash of red drenched her eyes. Rage so thick it blinded her, coated everything blood red, and had her body tremble with anticipation. Kill them. She was going to kill every last one of them. She would not let them kill her precious ones, not again, not this time.

One of them was turning around. He was going to see her.

"You got it Bish—"

Her fist found this one's face. One moment she was on the wall, and the next she was on the floor, on her feet and hands. She landed with enough force that her claws dug into the floor, and she skidded along it from the inertia. Her fingernails left trails of ruined marble where they scratched through the floor. She had already turned around when realization dawned on everyone's faces.

To her, it was slow motion, a dance of ages. The Kindred she had killed was crumbling beside her, his head was rolling on the floor already, and in the moment he burst into the smallest spark of flames in second death, she pounced. Thirty robes entered the room, twenty-nine remained.

"Kill her!"

The bishop. Damien. His face seemed determined, yet morose, and split with bitter anger, but it was no matter. He was going to die along with the rest of them.

The nearest Kindred had a knife, long and shining; it even had a cross carved into its blade. There was just a flicker of awareness in this enemy Daeva's mind that they were not going to survive, just a blink of sadness, but Antoinette did not care. What sympathy she may have had was buried in centuries of shell and concrete, well beyond the reach of this poor fool, even as her hand snapped out with a whip crack and her fingers sank into his skull. She did not bother to hold eye contact as she drove her other hand into their chest, and ripped their head off.

Bullets. A swarm of shards of metal fell upon her, each with their own crack of lightning and resounding thunder. She was fast though, and she did not stop moving just to kill one Kindred; that was done in a flowing motion of momentum.

One bullet managed to clip her shoulder. She could feel the metal tear through her pale flesh and into withered, dry insides, but her vitae was quick to repair and close the hole. It did not matter, she could barely feel it with all her focus on the kill, and she kept pushing forward into the crowd of confused and panicking vampires. Another clipped her leg; again she ignored it. Once she was close to the sea of robes, the bullets stopped, and they had no choice but to engage her in melee.

A Nosferatu with a classically deformed face came at her, and she reached out to grab their jaw. But with all the impatience and lack-of-skill of a brawler, the Nosferatu did not try to engage in combat so much as throw himself at her. The weight of their large body was enough to hinder her forward movement, and then it only got worse when a large Gangrel jumped in beside Antoinette and reached out with her protean claws.

She would have none of it. It took both hands to keep the Nosferatu from pushing her over, and she dug both sets of her fingers into their hair and scalp before driving their face downward and into her rising knee. The pressure was enough to crush his nose and force her knee into their skull, like crushing a pumpkin with a mallet. The Gangrel got his claws onto Antoinette, but they were not strong enough to stop her from demolishing their friend's skull.

But now she had animal claws, huge and powerful, wrapped around her arms while two more Kindred stepped into the chaos and slashed at her with short swords.

She slammed her foot down onto the one holding her, straight into the middle of their own foot with her bare heel. There was a satisfying crunch sound from how the bones in the foot arch snapped, and the scream that followed signaled the Gangrel's grip loosening. She slammed her elbow back, hard enough to split the Kindred's chest open and break the bones of the sternum; not enough to kill a vampire but enough that they were out of the equation.

The two Kindred taking swings at her with their weapons found her arms were free, and she stepped into their swings to get her fingers around their hands, with the grips of the weapons trapped in their palms. Then she squeezed. Fingers snapped, wrists twisted, and twisted even more when she yanked her hands back with enough force to send both Kindred flying backward. The force was enough to rip their hands from their wrists, and their mangled digits fell apart into ash within her grasp.

There was a third one with a sword. She hadn't noticed; so many robes, they all blended together like a cloud of fabrics. This woman got her sword straight into Antoinette's side, deep into her waist and intestines. The sensation of smooth metal passing through insides was cold fire. Idiot girl was young and didn't understand how to kill a Kindred. Antoinette backhanded her with a closed fist, which sent the unlucky assailant spinning down onto the floor, only to have the Prince step onto her skull and slam her foot down to pop her head with explosive force.

"Get her, get her!"

Antoinette turned to face the crowd, and she smiled at the sight of fear in their eyes as she plucked the foot of metal from her side like an annoying splinter.

But then two of them pulled out shotguns. A stab wound was nothing. A bullet wound was only slightly more inconvenient. A shotgun turning your torso into splatter art was another thing entirely. She put all her energy into a side leap, but the sea of robes had already started to circle her. Her body collided with several Kindred, and then everything became chaos.

Limbs piled over limbs. With robes in the way, everything became a mess of cloth, but it was alright as long as she felt flesh where her hands and feet were. She sank her claws into something, someone, and ripped whatever it was off of the body that held it. No time to know who or what, just tear and rip until she heard the screams of pain.

During all this chaos, Damien was watching. She managed glimpses of him between the Kindred as they swarmed her, but if he did not want to join the madness, that was fine. She would kill him last if she had to.

A few seconds of killing later, her hand found someone's face, and she sank her elder claws into their eyes before slamming their head into the marble floor with more than enough force to crack bone. She used the momentum to push herself into a stand, half-covered in robes and ashes, but rising from the mess of limbs only earned the remaining Kindred a free shot at her with their weapons.

She tried to jump up and out of the way, but one of the injured at her feet grabbed her ankle. There was only enough time for her to curse. "Salaud!"

Bullets tore into her like paper. She was no elder Gangrel or Ventrue, she had no way to prevent the bullets from cutting into her and rending flesh from bone. The several Kindred that were near her were firing pistols as fast as their fingers let them, and another who had somehow acquired a fully automatic rifle was holding down the trigger. Even Kindred strength could not keep their panicked shots from firing wide, but from so close, all that meant was many of the bullets aimed for her chest hit her arms, her legs, and her face.

She reached down, plucked up the injured Kindred who had grabbed her leg, and held their body in front of her. Just a second, just a moment to force her vitae into her wounds to close them.

She had to keep going, kill them all, slaughter them, anything to stop them from taking what she held dear. Hers! They were hers, she coveted them, held them to her and took care of them, Jack and Ashley and Julee and even Daniel. Hers. She had to save them.

The Kindred shield in her arms fell apart into ash and sizzling robes. Their comrades had destroyed their body with such ceaseless gunfire, that the young Kindred simply died. She pushed through the ash and pounced at the one of the assault rifle, even taking yet another array of bullets into her stomach as she did. Her suit was nothing but tatters, and much of her bone and insides were exposed.

It did not matter, she could not stop.

She swung her hand out toward the Kindred's neck in a slicing motion, but she came up shallow. Her strength was more than enough to make her fingers and fingernails cut through flesh, but only the first half of the vampire's neck was cut open. They fell to the floor and held their ripped open neck in their hands where vitae started to drip out. They were young, and would not last.

Some Kindred were trying to help each other, to cover up wounds that were so massive that dark Kindred blood was pooling out onto the increasing pile of robes of ash and cinder. She would kill them later, but more Kindred circled her, and what few bullets they managed to land on her moving form were no longer healing quickly.

When the bullets stopped, another vampire came at her, this one with a fire axe. The approaching Ventrue looked both determined and terrified at once, but Antoinette could only feel the violent need of the beast within her chest. She stepped in toward the axe swing, caught the idiot Ventrue by the throat, and sidestepped the axe before shifting around behind the Ventrue to keep a wall of flesh between her and any more potential bullets. Her grip was enough to crush the girl's throat.

The chaos only got worse. One of the Kindred with the gun ran at her -- panicked reasoning no doubt - and another with a sword came toward the side she kept her new flesh shield. She snapped out with her right leg, cracked the one in front of her in the temple with her bare foot, and sent the Kindred spinning sideways through the air with a broken neck. Antoinette went with the momentum of her leg, spun around, threw the one she was clutching by the neck behind her -- her finger nails tore the assailant's neck to shreds -- and brought the foot down into a sweeping kick. The Mehket running at her fell, only for Antoinette to run over his body and use it as a step. She made sure to crush the fool child's skull into a splattering mess of bone and ash, and used the force to vault herself into the crowd that stood between her and Damien.

They were all just young Kindred. None of them were even over thirty-years embraced, not even ancillae, let alone elders. None of them were a threat, not really, not with this meager assault of nothing but guns and claws and knives. They had no speed, no strength, none of them had even attempted a true discipline against her. The bullet holes, the stab wounds, they would heal, and she could heal faster once these puerile infidels were exterminated. These cockroaches, these 'judges' needed to die.

She bolted for Damien; if she could kill him then maybe the others would crumble under the loss of their Bishop. But the circling robes caught onto her plan like a hive-mind of ants, and overwhelmed her from the front.

The first one got her fingers in his eye sockets. The second she grabbed by the throat, but a shotgun shell clipped her wrist and tore it open before she could squeeze. With the bone of her arm exposed, the muscle simply wasn't there to constrict, and the Kindred she had caught managed to pull away.

But she landed a kick hard enough into their side that they bent into a pretzel.

She ripped her fingers out of the other's skull, with flesh and ash clinging to her fingernails, and punched outward into the one with the shotgun when she triple-stepped toward them. Her whole body was a blur of force and velocity, and the punch crushed the vampire's jaw inward into an explosion of bone shards and teeth.

Movement. A blur, like her. She twisted, turned, did everything she could to pull back from her hasty movement, but it was too slow. The shade of dark was just enough to flicker, like a crack of black lightning between the robes that flowed around her, and just a glint of metal.

It past her and came to a hard stop, landed with a grace not dissimilar to Daniel, and turned around to face her with sword in hand. Damien.

Antoinette looked in front of her, down, and blinked at the sight of her arm falling onto the floor. She did not feel it, she barely even noticed it, but from the center of her bicep down, her arm was gone. Thick, dark vampire blood came out of the smoothly cut flesh in slow drops.