My Little Ventrue Pt. 03 Ch. 05

"Maybe a little? I thought about it after, and had to admit, there's something alluring about it. Didn't really understand though until I saw you."

"Aw. Then I owe the kid." She set her head back on his chest, and lightly stroked his arm as she got comfortable.

Just two lovers, lying on a couch. No drama, no issues. He was jinxing it, thinking such thoughts, but damn it was nice to be able to close his eyes and hold someone he loved.

"What's in the box?" he said.

"Ah, sexy fun times."

"Of course."

"Right? So, find me the fanciest room in the whole place, so we can defile it."

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~~Natasha~~

Find the spiders, find the spiders, find the spiders. Find a needle in a haystack, a poisonous, dangerous needle. Wonderful.

She walked the streets of Devil's Corner the moment dusk arrived, and began exploring. A dangerous, horrible place Devil's Corner come nightfall, especially for women, but she wasn't afraid of the kine. And, like all Kindred, a part of her hoped someone would try and mug her or such, so she'd have an excuse to break some bones. No vampire was immune to the temptation to indulge in a little power.

But, all was quiet in Devil's Corner. A man had been taken according to police reports, a Mr. Tenmer. One disappearance too many, and people were starting to hide in their homes more come dusk. A lot of blood and damage had been left behind. Weird damage, like in the other disappearances. Related? The Prince didn't know, and from what her source told her, the two incidents were only related by proximity, the spiders and the disappearances.

Which could have easily been a lie. The source also said the spiders were in the tunnels of Devil's Corner. Also could have been a lie, but it'd be a weird lie. The Prince assured Natasha her source was likely serious, likely genuine, and also likely hiding something. Typical Kindred scheming.

She'd poured through the records of the police, examined every detail of the disappearances, and the odd marks left behind. The Prince had access to all the police files, even the ones the Invictus thought they had under their thumb. Sneaky. And their files showed all the details, all the pictures, all the shots showing the carved up street and walls. So, being a thorough investigator, she was going to look into the disappearances too. Not like the few spiders she found at the Elysium tower were a good lead; it was a building, and they were normal spiders.

She still had one option though. She descended a subway stairway, and with a key given to her by Daniel, she opened the door into the city's underbelly. The covenants all had access to it, which meant she had to be on guard for running into other covenants. Maybe she'd run into Vivienne? A smile sneaked onto her face as she thought of her childe back in the Invictus fold. The girl was too much like her.

The tunnels, dark and comforting; or at least they used to be. She could see well in the dark compared to most Kindred, which meant she could see in almost complete black. Sith sight, according to Jessy. She chuckled and moved along through the old paths, but the chuckle sounded forced even to her. Not too easy to be comfortable in the tunnels when she still had images of ghosts grabbing her legs from the shadows. To top it all off, now she had images of spiders doing the same, or leaving giant webs for her to stumble into.

A particularly scary dream she'd had had her trapped in a coffin — so quaint — while being eaten alive by hundreds of spiders; not so quaint. Some Kindred she was. Really have become a big baby, haven't you?

She felt for the pistol underneath her suit jacket. It was there. She felt for the small sword beside it. There. If she had a flamethrower, she might feel a bit better, at least until she set herself on fire and turned into a puff of smoke and ash in half a second.

She shook out her shoulders, and stepped onto the subway platform she'd found. A few Nosferatu liked to hang out here, members of the Invictus but otherwise too weak and malformed to join them topside.

"Miss Halla," she said.

Liliana Halla pulled her tattered old blanket down from her head, and raised her eyes to look at Natasha. The woman sat in the corner of the big, empty place of abandoned booths and ticket gates. Half of her face was covered in eyes. Actual eyes, with eyelids and eyelashes and everything. Maybe twenty eyes fighting for space along her cheek, jaw, temple, and a few on her neck.

But Nosferatu were Nosferatu, and such disfigurements were just that, disfigurements. She'd long learned to look past them, enough for conversation anyway.

"Madam... I suppose I can call you whatever I want now, eh Natasha?" The woman, a petite thing like Natasha, rubbed some sleep out of one of her extra eyes, and smiled.

"Yeah, that is true isn't it? Liliana."

"How are things in the dragon order?"

"Little terrifying, really."

She laughed, and gestured to the Nosferatu beside her. "More than Bob?"

Ah, Bob. Bob did not look like a Bob. Bob looked like a classic vampire, the ugly ones with a dozen large fangs overlapping the bottom lip, pointed ears, bald, no eyebrows, and veiny pale skin. Pale eyes too. He had long fingernails that looked like they belonged on an old corpse, and he used them to fidget with the big, dark, dirty robe he wore.

He offered a small wave, before he looked back down and continued fidgeting with his robe some more. Bob was a quiet man, a nice man. She'd personally given him assignments involving information warfare, and it'd been a failure. But when she gave him some assignments involving violence, roughing up some ballsy Carthians, he'd performed well. He wasn't happy about it, but you couldn't argue with the results. At least, the Invictus wouldn't. Ends always justified the means in the First Estate.

"Yeah, more than B-Bob. Prince is Prince for a reason, and I'm reminded daily. Not that she reminds me, just that... yeah, the stuff we d-d-deal with is terrifying."

Lil nodded, and Bob did too. "What brings you to Vander Street?"

"Looking int-to something. I assume you know about the d-disappearances?"

They nodded. Course they did, they hung out beneath Devil's Corner. She didn't follow it by asking though; they wouldn't be able to answer her. Invictus, not Ordo Dracul, they weren't supposed to share information.

But maybe she could get a little something.

"How about spiders?"

They both blinked, looked at each other, then back to her.

"What about them?" Lil said.

"You tell me." Natasha put up her hands, and stepped up to the Nosferatu before sitting down on a nearby crate. "I'm calling in a ff-favor. Point me in a direction, anything that's unusual and spiders are involved."

She was showing her hand. Now they knew she wanted information about spiders, and that she probably didn't have any information of her own. But the Invictus weren't her enemies, and these people were her acquaintances, former partners. She could get away with exposing her neck a little. Hopefully.

"Spiders. Spiders. Bob?" Lil looked his way with a shrug.

"... spiders." A deep, rough voice on the gentle Bob. "... I avoid the tunnel beneath Ronder Street. The lights don't work there, and before they stopped working, I found a lot of spiderwebs. Large, and a lot of them."

Not exactly unusual, but not normal either. A cozy middle-ground of lukewarm that would probably lead to nothing, but was still a better lead than the nothing she had.

"Thanks a lot B-Bob. Lil. I owe you."

"A strange thing for one of the few Ordo Dracul to be looking into," Lil said.

"Strange is what we do."

"Wait," Bob said. "You asked about the disappearances? What's the connection?"

Lil elbowed him in the side. "Hey."

Natasha put up her hands. "K, I think it's ss-safe to say we're all a little in the d-dark here. Which is why I'm looking into it." Grinning a sly grin, a grin worthy of the Prince, she stood back up and waved. "But... sorry. Can't tell you anymore. And I wouldn't p-presume to call in anymore favors of you. Let's just pretend this whole conversation d-didn't happen."

Lil and Bob sighed, but nodded, and returned her wave. She had a few more favors she could call in if she wanted, and they knew it too. But, that was a bridge she didn't need to burn.

She couldn't tell them she had no idea if there was a connection. There was exposing your neck a little, and then there was exposing all of it. Way too in the dark to be exposing anything really. It was a gamble.

Ronder Street. It was on the edge of Devil's Corner, where the city came to a hard stop with only a few buildings before the dry forests and rocks beyond awaited. Most of the action in the city's dirty hole happened in the center, like the disappearances; she'd have never drifted to the edge if it hadn't been for Bob's tip. Still, could be a dead end. Only one way to find out.

A long walk through the tunnels to the Ronder Street subway. And, to her surprise, no more Nosferatu were found. Well, it was a big city, the chances of running into more Kindred randomly in the tunnels were small, but walk long enough and you were bound to run into another eventually. And she walked a long time. Passed Ferning and Main Libera streets, passed Jameson, and Henmark street, and deeper into the older abandoned subway tunnels. Older and deeper both, because Jacob had a thing for them back in the day, according to the Prince.

And the lights did start to go out. At first it was just one, and one that could have easily been missed by the kine the Invictus hired to keep the tunnels somewhat lit. Missed or not yet examined. But then there was another light gone, and another light gone. Soon the amount of lights that didn't work outnumbered the functioning ones. And eventually, she stared into the darkness of the old tunnels.

Hard to see, but her Sith eyes could make out shapes enough for her to move. Just barely.

Her fingers started to shake. One hand had already pulled out her pistol before she'd told herself to draw it, and the other was holding her sword, digits tight around the grip. Very tight. Her fingers hurt, and her wrist locked hard, but she couldn't get the shaking to stop. Ice trickled down her spine into her toes. Her beast within bared its teeth and glared into the darkness, but for all its posturing, for all its growls and snarls, it too lowered itself to the ground and backed away.

But she pressed forward. Last time she'd done something like this, she had Jessy as backup. Now, she had only herself. And she was deep in the Earth, alone, on a mission to explore a threat involving spiders, warned to them by a strange source.

Kindred. You're a Kindred, Natasha, right hand of the Invictus retired. Member of the Ordo Dracul. Ancillae Mekhet. Grow a spine. And you can see in near total darkness, something no Kindred you'd ever known can do.

But she'd never explored the tunnels this deeply alone, especially not when the lights were out. Always with Jessy, or with Julias. Or with Vivienne.

Vivienne. She sighed, and pushed forward. Past behind her, future in front of her. Or some other ridiculous crap like that. Whatever, the ridiculous crap was convincing. Push on.

When the reflecting illumination of distant lights around several curving tunnels was no longer able to reach her, so only utter and total obsidian hell awaited her, she took out her phone and turned on the flashlight, weakest setting. Not in a hurry to give away her position, but she needed some light at least. Just enough for tiny flickers along the metal tracks to reflect onto the walls, enough for her to see the silhouettes of shadow in the unending black before her, and the tracks and concrete beneath her feet.

Dead silence. She didn't breathe, not even to enjoy the old reflex, lest she disturb the silence. Better the only noise was the gentle shifting of her soft-soul shoes against the dust and bits of powdered rock. So old, so damn old down here. If she shouted, she expected the tunnel to collapse on her. Bury her deep underground where no one would ever find her. She'd slip into torpor, and sleep, dreaming powerful dreams for millennia, until someone finally dug her up. Straight into sunlight.

The shivering got worse.

She stopped, and looked to the wall. It was sticky. She pulled her hand away, but the sticky remained on her fingers, and she rubbed her fingertips together trying to understand the unwanted texture. Stringy, soft, very soft. A little light from her phone pointed directly at it exposed some tiny white lines on her fingers.

Spiderwebs.

Ok, ok, no need to be alarmed. Just some spiderweb on your fingers, when you've been warned about a nasty, growing spider threat. Don't think about the scary jars filled with giant, dried spiders Antoinette has. Don't think about the ancient charms made with arachnid inscriptions on them. Don't think about the skulls she's shown you with spiders etched into their forehead. Don't think about real, gross, normal spiders, with their hairy little bodies, disgusting long, furry mandibles, and their eight legs and their fangs and their many eyes. The way their tiny legs itched on the skin when they crawled down your back or up your arm.

She wiped the spiderweb off on her pants, and kept going. But she turned up her light a bit, so her Sith sight could get a proper view of the whole of nearby walls and the ceiling and floor of the tunnel. Enough so another vampire would have seen her, and a white dot of light in her breast pocket. A human would have seen only a flicker of a light, like a firefly. More than enough to give away her position, more than enough to make her eyes dart around at the still shadows the light cast, expecting creepy legs to reach out from the black.

Only silence.

Did the Prince want her risking her life for this? Nothing Natasha had seen would suggest her life was in danger, but the warning was real, the Prince took it seriously, and that meant Natasha had to take it seriously. No idea what spiders meant though, as a threat. Creepy crawlies on her back, on her legs, tickling in her hair or on her face. Furry, spindly legs, those ugly long mandibles. The eyes! Fangs, biting. Fifty years as a vampire and the fangs of a spider were still creepy as fuck.

She could shoot an assassin in the face with a snap of resolve, but spiders stuck on her mind worse than their webs. Damn she missed Jessy.

She sighed, silently, and continued into the black. Dirty concrete above and below, and dusty, old platforms every so often greeted her. Stairways that led to nowhere, some sealed off with crumbled walls. Thick cables along the walls covered in grime, held to the old concrete with bent and failing hooks. The metal blocks of the tracks beneath here looked ready to fall apart; they wouldn't, but they had the look nonetheless. Every so often, an archway lined the ceiling and walls, decorated with faded colors and patterns weaved into the bricks. Doorways, empty save for hanging signs about danger: electrical equipment. Gaps in the walls like pillars.

All of it was covered in spider web, in varying degrees. Sometimes she could go fifty feet without seeing a web, and she was sure the previous was just a coincidence. Then she came upon a batch of it, thick, circling the whole of the tunnel walls, and stepping on it made it cling to her and drag along. Not strong enough to stop her, or even register as clinging to her shoes, until she looked behind her and found a few feet of it trailing her with dirt and pebbles in its sticky net.

Until she took a step, and fell. Kneecap hit the railing hard enough to make her petrify with the impact of metal against the joint, but she bit her teeth down to keep any noise contained as she brought up her other foot to try and stand. But the first foot took effort, and she had to try and lift it against whatever was pulling it down. Something springy.

Spiderweb. Big, thick, hard spiderweb.

She gulped, and twisted. A little effort to get her foot to fight the sticky material, but it wasn't strong enough to stop her once she was paying attention, and she leaned down over it. So close, the little light she had was enough for her to examine it.

Initial assumption correct. Spiderweb, but enormous. Spiderweb was a very strong material, but normally came so thin and light that it was a paltry amount. This stuff was a few millimeters thick, and it had enough mass to it that, when she reached down to pluck at it with her free hand, it had weight. A spider would have to be damn big to make webbing this thick. Really. Damn. Big.

She stood up, forced her foot free of the webbing, and stared ahead into the tunnel before her. Nothing, but now the shadows looked like giant spiders. Her hand on her phone refused to hold still, and her eyes darted back and forth between it and the path back. She hooked the phone back into her breast pocket, and squeezed her pistol. Go back for the love of god go back. But all she'd found was darkness, silence, and some big spiderwebs.

She sighed breathlessly and pushed on. Just like with the Invictus, going on dangerous missions, except now she was doing them alone. The Prince trusted her though, and so did Daniel; a far cry from the half-trust half-distrust attitude of the Invictus, of Maria and Michael and Viktor. But at least she'd have a partner. She wasn't sure which was worse.

She turned the brightness up on her phone a touch more, so the tunnel curves beyond the way had shape, and she pressed on. Leaning forward so the light pointed down at the tracks, her eyes widened as patches of the webbing grew larger, and she had to take big steps to avoid them. A few slivers of the sticky string caught on her pants, her face, her hair, and she pulled it off as best as she could until it clumped on her sword hand.

When the webbing started to scale the tunnel itself, from ceiling to floor, in intricate patterns, she stopped. This wasn't natural. No large spiders were creating these webs. With a slow hand, she reached out for one in front of her, strand almost half a centimeter thick, and nudged it with her fingertip. It stuck to her as predicted, and when she pulled away, the web fought her. It fought hard, and she pulled harder with a flailing arm as the beast in her gut panicked.

But she got free, and pointed the light up at the vibrating web. Where were the spiders? No spiders, anywhere, just webbing, lots of it. Where—

Footsteps. She ducked into one of the wall alcoves, fidgeted with the phone, trembling fingers struggling to find the dial on the brightness, before she hooked her back to the corner with sword and pistol drawn. No one had any reason to be down here. Kine wouldn't come down, they had no access. The other covenants wouldn't come down this deep unless they were tailing her, or Azamel had told others. Someone else was in the tunnel.

The footsteps were light, quiet, soft things that made less noise than any kine would. But there were a lot of them. And without her light, all she could see of the tunnel and its curves and walls were blurry silhouettes of black against blacker and blackest.

The corner she crouched in was covered in webbing, and she grimaced as the sticky material caught into her hair, along her face and ears, and over her back. Covered. She could still move, but now she had to sit there, frozen, and wait in a spiderweb as the footsteps came closer.

But once they grew near, maybe twenty feet away, they stopped. Didn't turn around, didn't leave, just stopped. Natasha froze, didn't move a muscle, didn't blink. She strained her ear until she could hear a distant cockroach crawl along the wall.

There was breathing. Not a single set of lungs though, or whatever he, she, they, it had. Deep, slow breaths, doing their best to blend into the silence of the tunnel like she was.