My Little Ventrue Pt. 03 Ch. 02

God fucking damn it. Viktor. The parallel was nauseating.

"... I'll talk to the Prince," Julias said, "about the Lancea et Sanctum." The two men looked up at him, as surprised as him, but he shrugged and offered his Ventrue smile. "You're not Lucas. Your covenant deserves a chance if they have a new bishop, someone who doesn't think killing other Kindred with differing beliefs is proper recourse." He squatted down in front of the smaller man, and glared down at him. "And you don't think that, right?"

"... no, I don't. But you have only my word."

"Natasha vouches for you. Jack vouches for you. It's enough reason for me to bring it up to the Primogen." Especially considering Jack had been in the man's mind. He'd controlled him, turned him into a puppet, butchered his congregation and killed his sire using the man's body. Jack was too trusting, but after all that, Julias had no choice but to take his childe's recommendation seriously. Julias wouldn't have trusted him, and he could tell it was the Danse Macabre making him paranoid already.

Paranoid, or just smart, Julias? Trusting this man could mean your death, and Jack's thereafter.

"I... I don't know if... lead the Lancea et Sanctum? The Second Estate? I'm barely a bishop, just a—"

It was Julias's turn to raise his hand, and shut the man up.

"A devout man of god, a believer of the message of Longinus, and the childe of the previous Archbishop. I can think of no one better to write the wrongs of your sire. Can you?" He stared the man down, glared at him with the weight and gravitas etched onto his face. His best Ventrue face, the face he took when crushing the will of others, molding them to his. At least Viktor had taught him something useful.

Damien stared at him, eyebrows furrowed but eyes open and considering. "I... I would have no congregation."

"Baby steps. Let me talk to the Primogen first and see if the Prince allows any of this," Julias said.

Jack raised a hand. "Should I mention it to her?"

"No." Probably a bad idea to bring political affairs into Jack's bedroom. "Let me handle it."

"... the Lancea et Sanctum... allowed to practice once again in Dolareido." The man smiled, and let his spine relax against the wall behind him. "The irony."

"You don't want to?" Jack said.

"I would love to. I would... love to speak of Longinus to those who would listen once more. But I fear the wrath of the Prince. I did much to offend her."

The little Ventrue stood up and tried to wipe off his pants, to no avail. "Lucas offended her. She blames him, not you. But she does have a hate-on for the Lancea et Sanctum. You've got your work cut out for you Damien if you want to try and change that image." Jack turned to Julias and smirked up at him. "You too, if you're going to convince her of this at all."

"Maria will be glad for the return, at least," Julias said as he stood up. "Speaking of, has she spoken to you at all, Damien?"

"No. I... I do not know what she would say, nor would I."

"She'll... she'll be around eventually, but it may be best if you just let her say her piece."

Damien stood as well, looked down at his tome, wiped off some of the floor water, and looked up at him with a strange, subtle smile.

"I've survived a long time in this city, Mister Mire. I can handle myself, in many ways."

"Good. I'm putting the Invictus out on a ledge here, bringing this up to Primogen. The First Estate seeking to support the Second Estate? It's a song they've heard before, and I'll have to work to convince them it's benign." If it was benign.

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Maria's home, if it could be called that.

The Grand Cathedral of Dolareido. Gothic was not strong enough a word for the towering monolith of old windows, spiked towers, and enormous archways showing statues of angels. Not sweet little cherubs, but real angels, with swords and shields, with six wings, with eyes that cut into your heart. The church Lucas had commissioned long ago when Julias was still kine. Commissioned wasn't the right word, more like, coerced the populace into making a proper cathedral for the faith.

He'd manipulated the kine for his purpose, without talking to the Prince about it first. That'd been the start of the trouble.

Julias closed the car door behind him and waved off his driver, before he started the walk up the stairs toward the beast of a building. No denying it, it was a majestic and imposing edifice. Every inch he came closer, he could feel the eyes of the gargoyles on the high ledges staring down at him, the glare of the angels baring his soul, and the angry demons that held up the pedestals the angels stood upon glared with just as much malice. The crucifix upon the archway, the doves carved into the stone of the pillars, every step he made up the stairs made him feel like he shouldn't be here. Like a vampire shouldn't be here.

He opened the giant doors, massive and heavy, and stepped into the nave of the church.

The church had stopped seeing use since Lucas's disappearance fifty years ago, and police kept loiterers from breaking into the church come nightfall, at Maria's request; no one wants their bed covered in graffiti. Not that people liked to hang out at the Dolareido Cathedral in the dark, as close to the Three Kings Cemetery as it was.

The sound of the organ greeted him, a powerful sound that almost shook the walls. Thick walls kept the sound from escaping beyond the vast empty gardens that surrounded the cathedral. A perfect place for someone who liked being alone, for someone who believed in god, for someone who loved Lucas.

He walked up the aisle toward the dais, the podium, the lectern that sat upon it, and the bible upon that. The apse back end of the giant, tall nave held the organ, and a magnificent one at that, with pipes big enough to crush the pews behind him if they fell. And someone was playing them.

There was only a little light, just a few lit candles on the railings and such near the ghost woman, just enough for her to see as she danced her fingers up and down the complicated instrument. Some old Gothic piece to go with the Gothic church that made him feel like he was living in a time from hundreds of years ago.

"Mister Mire," she said.

"Madam Turio." He walked up to join her, stood beside her and looked down as her fingers worked along the various levels of the pipe organ's keys. Her feet too had keys to play, deep notes that Julias could feel in his bones when the sound filled the enormous room.

Beside the little woman, a glass of red was set upon a small wooden table, something for her to drink while she played no doubt. The instrument was glorious, a shine of ivory keys with silver-looking pipes. The pipes themselves bore statues of angels and demons, again with angels standing upon their prostrated bodies, many with swords drawn.

The music was very complex, but he didn't recognize it.

"A piece by Louis Verne, Mister Mire." She glanced over her shoulder at him, but continued to play, with each note driving home a harmonic sea of pain and sadness. But her voice was deadpan. "Why have you come?"

The corpse woman, with her small body, her long black hair, her white dress, the scarred and crinkled skin, the cold, almost invisible mist that fell from body, it all gave him chills. It was probably random sightings of Maria that stirred the rumors Three Kings Cemetery was haunted. But he'd gotten used to her, dealing with her for so long. Mostly. The raspy, dead-girl voice sent a shiver down his spine every time.

"I wanted to talk about Damien, and Natasha."

She stopped playing.

"... why?"

"Because you owe it to me."

The ghost woman turned her head to stare up at him, and he had to fight the urge to grimace. A corpse, someone who'd died from thirst, had their skin cut on, maybe drowned. Chills.

"... you grow more like Viktor every day." Sighing, she turned back to the organ, the dozens of white keys, and the large wood-colored console that held them. "Speak quickly."

Like Viktor? He could feel the bad mood crawling up his leg.

"You let Lucas take Natasha hostage."

"Lucas assured me she would be safe. Lo and behold, she lives."

Not good enough. He leaned in and set a hand on the organ console.

"She could have died, easily, and you know it. It was a kamikaze attack on the Prince's tower, and you let it happen."

With her black hair hanging over her cheeks and down over her chest, he couldn't see her face with her head turned to the organ, but he could see her twitch.

"It wasn't supposed to be a kamikaze attack. The Prince was to die, the sheriff too, and Madam Vola was to live. Lucas wasn't... he wasn't... supposed to die." Her shoulder started to shake, just a little, a subtle thing that he wasn't used to seeing on her. No stone face, no cold ice gaze, the typical council act.

Damn it.

"You really loved him, didn't you?"

"... yes." For a moment, there was silence, and stillness. But the organ erupted into noise as she slammed both her hands down on the keys. "And I was ecstatic he'd returned from his slumber. I thought he had somehow left the city. I didn't realize he was in hiding until his childe..." Another sigh, and her shoulders slumped as she leaned forward so her hair fell over the keys. "Madam Vola is better off with the Ordo Dracul."

He blinked, and stared. Where was the ice, the cold glare, the bone-chilling death that normally radiated from her? Just a few minutes of conversation and his vision of her shattered.

She was sad.

"If I had known about Daniel and Natasha—"

"You didn't know Daniel was her sire?"

"I had my suspicions, but the Prince avoided a direct response when I asked her, long ago when Natasha fell into the Invictus embrace." With a deep sigh, she started playing Moonlight Sonata, gentle on the keys. So cliche, and yet so perfect for the ghost woman. And Julias did love a good cliche. "If I had known, I would never have taken her under my wing."

"She wasn't involved in the purge, Maria." Forget the titles. "Far as I know, at that time she was just a fledgling, and Daniel's little secret. You have no reason to hate her."

"And yet I gave her to Lucas, knowing full well whether my love... whether the Archbishop succeeded or failed, Natasha would leave. And I would do it again." Her fingers continued to play, despite her head slumping and her hair shifting over the keys.

He gave his own sigh, and shook his head. "Lucas was a dangerous man, Maria. And violent."

"He was. I had asked him once, to stop pushing against the Prince so hard, but... but it only spurned him on." She peeked up at him from behind her black hair. How quick her corpse features reminded him she wasn't a gentle little girl, despite her words. "Over the years, I saw him deteriorate, as Viktor did."

"And yet when he came back, you let him have Natasha?"

"I wanted him back!" Her voice punched through the melancholy melody of the song, but she didn't stop playing, or break the mournful rhythm. "I wanted... the Prince and the sheriff dead. The Lancea et Sanctum did not deserve the purge."

"Maybe they didn't. A lot of bishops, a lot of Kindred died. But Lucas was the most violent of them all, Maria." Careful Julias.

"... he was." Her eyes fell back to the keys. Silence but for the song, for several minutes.

"... and Damien?" he said.

"What about him?"

"He's Lucas's childe."

"I've never spoken with him. He is a stranger to me."

Well, no love there. No pulling on that heartstring.

"I have. He's an intelligent man, and a strong believer in the Testament of Longinus, as you are," he said. She stopped playing, and let the vibrations of the sound dissipate along the cathedral walls. But said nothing. At least she was listening. "And unlike Lucas, he's willing to cooperate with the Prince."

"... what are you getting at, Julias?"

"I talked to him, and he's willing to bring back the Second Estate."

She raised her head and looked at him, back straightening. "Public practice of the faith of Longinus? The Prince would never allow it."

"Maybe. Maybe not. The Prince had issues with Lucas, and for good reason." Every time he insulted Lucas, the little corpse woman flinched. He was playing with fire, but he had to drive home that Lucas was a violent, horrible man. She already knew it, but she wasn't internalizing it.

"What do you plan to do?"

"I'm going to bring it up at the next Primogen meeting."

She snarled and looked back to the keys of the grand organ, before she started playing something with a little more darkness to it. Bach.

"It will be as it was before, the First Estate attempting to justify the Second Estate. The Prince alone will fight to prevent it, let alone Jacob and Garry."

"Things are different this time. Viktor isn't trying to shove an agenda down their throat, and it won't be Lucas leading the Lancea et Sanctum, it'll be Damien."

"You said the boy is but fifty years embraced? Hardly an appropriate age for an Archbishop."

"I think Bishop will be enough of a title for now. Give it a hundred years and when he's old enough to be a true member of the Primogen, he can have that power, assuming the nearby city bishops recognize him." Giving her a smirk and a nod, he reached out to start tapping keys on the organ. "Besides, not all of us are as old as our station demands."

She slapped his hand, hard, and returned his smirk.

"Perhaps, but Viktor fostered your growth for that time, Julias. Who is Damien? What do we know of him? The others were as surprised by the developments as us, that this boy had been hiding under our noses for half a century. Skilled, but unknown."

"The Prince let him live. He must have made an impression." Steel face, don't let her know what you know. "I went to talk to him not long ago, and was surprised, Maria. He's devout, a good man, just a... a broken man, right now. "

"The Dark Prophet would laugh at your description." And she did too, her raspy voice coming out in tiny chuckles that sounded more like quiet, dying gasps. "Perhaps... perhaps it is time for a change. I would like to see this boy before I agree to this proposal though."

A risk that Maria would find out Jack killed Lucas, not the Prince, but that risk was unavoidable either way. Trust Damien. Hard to do, even after having that conversation with him. If anyone misspoke, it'd be Jack's head on a plate. Or worse, Maria would lock him up in the depths of the Cathedral, and torture him with her Nosferatu disciplines.

Steel face.

"I will visit him soon and tell him you wish to speak to him," he said.

"Please do. I will interrogate Lucas's childe, and I will see if he's worthy to bear the title of his sire."

Julias did not envy the man.

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~~Natasha~~

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.

Chanting a mantra wasn't helping much, and the closer she got to the front door of the Elysium Tower, the more she felt herself shaking. The more she felt like people were staring at her, when she knew they weren't. The more she felt like eyes were on her, dark hidden eyes, when she knew they weren't. The more she felt like something was crawling up her leg, even though she was damn sure something wasn't.

She was wearing a gray suit, open jacket with a black shirt and shoes. Business casual, sort of. Jessy had assured her she looked cute as a button, but also ready for her first day as a member of the Ordo Dracul.

Jessy. She hadn't told her best friend what Maria had done, afraid it might put Jessy in a bad position. But, she was bound to find out sooner or later, and the longer Natasha put it off, the worse it was going to be. The harder it was going to make being her friend. Just telling her she'd joined the Ordo Dracul had been tough enough.

Mind racing, eyes unfocused, hands fidgeting, all the classic signs of anxiety. Just another day in her life, just another day for Natasha Vola, just another day being turned upside down.

She stepped into the garden of the Elysium Tower, and looked around through the curving walls of stone that were the garden maze. The benches were stone too, and stone vines curled and connected them with the walkway and walls. Bushes and trees dotted the garden, and within its walls many young Kindred grew familiar with their new lives as vampires. New being relative; some of the Kindred were several years old, and still struggled with the reality that they were now immortal, and blood leeches. In the Elysium district, where no Kindred feeding or violence was allowed, the young vampires—

Focus, Natasha! It's just your sire. Your sire. You knew him before he sired you, a quiet man who knew a lot about books. You talked to him in the university library, remember? He had a soft voice, and he gave the littlest smiles when you asked him questions about Twain and Hemingway.

And Antoinette? The Prince? So tall, so utterly tall compared to her. The French seductress was well over six feet tall, while Natasha was a four eleven on a good day; just being around her made Natasha feel like an ant.

Voivode. An Ordo Dracul title, and it alone was enough to make her shiver on top of her quivering. But the Prince had never been anything but nice to her, and Daniel had been nice... if insistent, in his passive aggressive stops-talking-the-moment-you-argue sort of way.

She could handle the two of them, at least enough for conversation. It was the secrets deep in the tower she was afraid of.

She stood before the glass building, and started up the steps. The lobby awaited her, and she grimaced as she looked around at the glass walls of her new place of work; one mistake and she'd be fried in the sunlight. But the Prince assured her that was basically impossible, so she shook off her shivers, and came up to the receptionist. A heavy, balding fellow named Chunk. How drôle.

Oh god she better not make a French joke around the Prince by accident.

"Hello," she said.

"Oh hello there Miss Vola. You can take the stairway in the back down. You could take the VIP elevator in the back there too, but that'll take you down to the bottom floor, past the Prince's research floors."

Research floors. Gentle way to put it.

"Thank you." With a nod and a fake smile, she started down the lobby, past the normal elevators, and toward the stairway in the back.

She didn't get far before she ran into Daniel.

"Sire," she said, looking up at him, doing her best to not break eye contact.

The man raised a gloved finger to his glasses, pressed on the nose ridge, and offered her a small smile.

"Childe."

"... Illuminus of the Void, K-Kr—"

He raised a hand and shook his head. "Just call me Daniel, Natasha, when we're alone. Sire when we're with the Prince is fine."

First name basis it was then, when alone. Common titles when together. Had the Prince softened in the past half a century?

"What should I c-call the Prince?"

"Master. Or Prince." A nod and a small dismissing wave of his fingers. "Or Voivode, if you prefer."

Voivode made her think dark thoughts. Prince was better.

Daniel turned and started to walk down the stairs into the dark tower, but after taking a couple feet, he peeked over his shoulder at her, and waited. A change from the past, where he would have kept walking and expected her to follow. Had he softened too? Or was he going easy on her because of the nastiness with the Lancea et Sanctum and Lucas a couple weeks ago?

She could use a little softness for her first steps back into the Coils of the Dragon.

The two of them made their way down the stairs, and she looked around at the deep hallway she was moving down. Jack had spoken to her before of the black marble, and how much the Prince enjoyed it. It'd been a vague memory for her from so long ago, but it all came back to her as she smiled at the cracks of white veins, like lightning across the obsidian surfaces. She enjoyed the decor, much as it frightened her.