My Little Ventrue Pt. 03 Ch. 08

"A year?" Antoinette turned her chair to face the Scottish woman, and looked her up and down. "You have a large appetite for someone your age."

"Uh, sorry. I... I can try and eat less."

"See that you do," Maria said.

Antoinette frowned at Fiona, but after a few moments of silence, sighed and let the frown fade. "What Maria means is that we have spent decades building Dolareido as a place Kindred can live more comfortably than other cities. I crafted this city for that purpose from its infancy. And Begotten have a habit of drawing attention we do not want."

"Attention?" Fiona said.

McDonald groaned, loud enough to grab Fiona's attention. "Yes, attention. Vampires and werewolves, and monsters, are known quantities in the world. You can find mentions of us in texts old and new. For Kindred, we preserve the Masquerade, the secret of our existence. If you had been Kindred, we would have punished you for your gross negligence."

Jack winced. Fiona whistled, and squirmed.

"Sorry," she said. "I... I had nae idea."

"And," McDonald continued, "our reports suggest the disappearances have mostly occurred in the past four months. How long have you been in Dolareido?"

"About ten months... sir. But, uh, about four months ago, the um... the dream changed. Less oppressive. Less... cruel. So I got a little comfier when the changed happened, and I guess I let my appetite run away with me."

"The dream changed?"

Everyone turned to look at Jacob. The man had an intrigued expression, if Jack was reading his face right; never easy with the bandage tied around his head.

"Aye. When I first came 'ere, dark chains cut through much of the dream, and my lair was... uncomfortable. But something happened, nae idea what, and the chains went away. Been happy times since then, since—"

"Since Viktor and Tony died. It sickens me to know those two affected such things," Antoinette said, her turn for the intrigued expression. Everyone mirrored it soon after, throwing glances each other's way, and then settling on Fiona. "We have had little contact with your kind outside a few encounters, Begotten, and they have not been... good, for the city. I am sure you will come to discover on your own, when Azamel inevitably talks with you." Venom dripped from her voice.

"Who is Azamel?" Fiona said.

The Prince frowned and leaned back in her chair as she looked Fiona up and down a few more times, analyzing her body language no doubt. "There are several other Begotten in the city. I cannot prevent you from interacting with them. But know that Azamel has been a problem for us before, and I cannot guarantee your life if you befriend her."

"... my life?"

"What the Prince means," Julias said, "is that Dolareido is run by Kindred and the Kindred are protected by our laws. Begotten are not. If a Kindred decides to end you because they want to, for any reason at all, you can't protest using our laws. All you can do is hope a different Kindred claims sanctuary for you. Understood?"

Second class citizen. Jack winced again, and looked at Julias. His sire did a good job of avoiding eye contact, but when Jack looked to the Prince, she caught his glance. And twitched. Just a little, just on the lip, just enough to change her frown into something less, before she grit her teeth and looked down. She'd thrown Fiona a death threat, and Julias had backed it up. They were putting her in her place and she hadn't done anything besides eat a few abusive bastards. The fuck did they have against Begotten?

Fiona nodded, sighed, and squirmed a little in her shoes. But she still had a smile, and an edge of a grin growing on it too.

"I understand."

"Good." Antoinette motioned for the door with her hands before looking back to the Primogen. "Thirteen kills since your arrival is far too many for Dolareido, despite the city's population. Control your hunger, or we will control it for you. You two may go."

Jack put his hand on Fiona's shoulder for a passing moment, and the two of them walked out of the devil's den. He glanced over his shoulder, but neither Julias or Antoinette looked his way, their gazes locked on the table. The others didn't seem to mind looking at him though, Garry with a sneer, and the two Invictus with something close to a dismissing eye roll. Jacob though, he had a small smile on his face, and his eyeless gaze followed them out of the room.

Once the door was closed behind them, Fiona opened her mouth, but Jack shook his head.

"When we're outside," he whispered, barely audible.

Down the elevator, passed the lobby and Prince's servants, and back outside. The warm night air and the beautiful Elysium garden maze. The familiar sights of suits and sexy dresses walking the streets, jewelry on display.

So much better than being surrounded by that pack of angry, surly, barking animals.

"What the fuck was that?" he said.

"I dinnae ken. I... I felt they hated me."

"Yeah, I got that impression too, like a brick to the face. I expected my night to suck, Fiona, but not because of you. Figured the wolves would be the main source of tension, and they were, but... but with you, it was... they really didn't like you. I... I have to apologize for them, cause that was... I can't..."

"It's alright. I'm sure they have their reasons, aye? This Azamel might be a real bastard."

"Yeah, maybe. But it doesn't justify their behavior. They treated you like a..." Like a fucking bug infestation. He grit his teeth, and started walking.

Didn't get far before he looked back up at the tower. On the tallest floor, he could see movement. Someone standing in front of the glass then, and that someone had to be Antoinette; no one else would get up in her meeting room.

He frowned up at her, and kept walking. Maybe he was overreacting. They were just protecting the city after all, and being cautious. And assholes. He'd expected Garry and Maria and Michael to be dicks, and they were, and he expected Antoinette to be cold, and she was. But Julias too? And Jacob was the only one who didn't seem displeased about the situation.

"Hey," Fiona said, "they said there'd been thirteen disappearances in Devil's Corner?"

"Yeah."

"Weird. Only killed twelve."

He raised a brow. "That is weird."

"Could be a mistake right? Coincidence?"

"Yeah... maybe." Maybe not.

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

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

~~Julias~~

"... she isn't Azamel," Julias said. "We didn't have to threaten her like that."

"Yes we did." MacDonald threw him a growl. "You didn't have to deal with her, Mister Mire. Honors did. You want to clean up the mess of a hungry monster?"

"I've dealt with draugr before, Mister MacDonald."

"It is not the same." Antoinette got up and walked over to the window, a loud sigh escaping her once she looked down. Probably watching Jack leave. Whole conversation couldn't have been easy for her. "A Kindred surrendered to the beast is a dangerous creature, yes. A Begotten that is hungry is..."

"You're familiar with the damage Azamel caused before she upped and left?" Garry said.

Julias nodded. "Truncter tower and a couple nearby buildings were destroyed in the confrontation."

Jacob laughed, a hard snort of a chuckle that earned frowns from everyone. "The buildings weren't destroyed in the conflict, they started the conflict, Mister Mire. Azamel got too hungry for her own good, and lost control."

"... she destroyed four buildings?"

"In a single attack." Antoinette paced back and forth in front of the glass, hands behind her back, eyes still on the window and below. "As I am sure Viktor Honors explained to you, Azamel Venastroth hungers for power. And I do not mean in the classic sense. She once used the word tyrant to describe the hunger, the need to be a tyrant." Snarling, the Prince dragged her nails across the glass, until the Primogen all winced as her nails began to cut into it.

The Prince got angry all the time, but she never showed it. Always steel, always cold and calculating; at least, during Primogen meetings. But she was visibly angry, shoulders raised and hands gripping into fists as if choking someone. Not cold steel this time, all fire, like Beatrice. With Triss, he could hug her and force her to calm down; Antoinette would rip him into literal shreds in a second if he tried to console her with even a single word.

"She did that alone? That quickly?" Julias leaned back in his chair and brought a finger to his chin. "I underestimated the threat."

"Alder Honors did not want the true threat Azamel posed to be known, Mister Mire," Maria said. "She was not our enemy. Just a... volatile presence."

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. Just when he thought he knew the details of things, just when he thought he was getting a feel for what sorts of secrets Viktor had been keeping from him.

"What about this Fiona?" he said. "Not nearly as old as Azamel."

Jacob clicked his teeth and leaned in. "Yes, but... you all felt it. We've dealt with Begotten before, young ones like Athalia. This Fiona creature was not like Athalia."

No. No she was not.

"But," Antoinette said, "it is not the monsters that trouble me. They are but pests in my city. It is the wolves howling at the door that concern me. Us."

Jacob nodded, and his fingers tapped on the table a few times with some weight. "Your boy toy is gone. Sure you want to talk about the wolves without him here?"

Antoinette turned, walked to the table, and set her hands down on the glass as she glared at the old Nosferatu. "Did it look like I treated him with bias or favoritism, Jacob?"

The eyeless man smirked, until Garry spoke up.

"No, it didn't. Thank you for that."

"I don't think Jacob was intentionally insulting you," Michael said. "Just... being Jacob."

It was true. Jacob could talk like Garry sometimes, and the reversal was a sight to behold.

The Prince sighed, but nodded with time, and sat back down to join them. "We do not need Terry here to speak of the Uratha, only if we wish to communicate with the Uratha. As we all know, the wolves will tear through whatever they perceive as a barrier, and that includes us."

Michael shook his head. "We could take them in a fight."

"Perhaps," Julias said, "if we knew when and where they were coming, if we armed ourselves with silver weaponry, if we brought five Kindred for each Uratha." And even then, they'd lose those Kindred in the fight. "But, if Avery is trying to communicate this time, at least somewhat, perhaps we can avoid violence entirely."

The room looked at him like he'd grown an extra head.

"Hey," Garry said, hands raised like he was surrendering, "of everyone in this room, I hate the werewolves the least. But I know a storm coming when I see one."

Storm coming. Only storm coming was everyone looking for one and making things worse than they had to.

"With no provocation of any kind, they nearly killed Miss Vola," the Prince said. "Simply because she was in the area of their hunt, she was ripped open and torn into. They chased her down like hungry wolves."

Julias winced. He had a hard time imagining Natasha being eviscerated. Girl had spirit, and a major brain in that very tiny body, but being ripped open by Uratha claws was not something he'd be able to deal with well, let alone her. Maria knew it too, and the ghost woman plucked at one of her fingernails with each mention of her previous subordinate.

"... that said," Antoinette continued, "they also let her feed to heal herself, once they captured her. And, once they had found their desired intermediary, they let her go."

"Power move," Michael said.

But Julias shook his head. "Maybe if they had known it was Natasha when they chased her down. Did they?"

"No. Natasha tells me they suspected she was the thing they hunted."

"And what is it they're hunting?" Jacob tapped his finger, making a ding of fingernail to glass, and threw his masked gaze at Antoinette.

"Again, Jacob?" She snarled at him, a real snarl that Julias felt in his throat. "You know all that I know. They hunt things from outside our realm. If I had more to share, I would."

Would she? She said it with a touch of inflection, the sort she would normally abuse to imply something specifically. This time she said the words like a younger Kindred might when lying. Julias looked at her for a moment, watched her; her gaze was solid and her body language unwavering.

Something was going on.

"Right, right, like last time." Jacob, sighing, got up and headed for the door.

"Jacob," she said, "do not do anything reckless. Avery has survived all this time, and for her kind, you know she will be strong."

Jacob offered another snarl, and left.

Antoinette leaned back in her chair, and set the fingers of one hand against her forehead. No doubt analyzing the possibility Jacob might do something rash and irrational.

"I feel for the guy," Garry said. "You telling me you wouldn't want to kill Avery if you were in his shoes?"

The three Invictus nodded in unison, but Antoinette shook her head instead.

"If I were Jacob, and I had loved a creature such as Minerva for that long, only to lose her? I would not kill Avery, Mister Tones, I would destroy her. I would burn her world and force her to watch. And that is what scares me, that Jacob may be willing to destroy much of what we hold dear to pursue that vengeance." She leaned in again, and looked at each Primogen with hard-set eyes. "Watch him closely, Primogen. I do not expect you to betray his trust, or to favor mine, but..."

The Invictus nodded in unison, again, along with Garry as well. Much as Jacob was a pain in their ass, they didn't want him dead.

Funny how a force to unify against could bring out the best in people.

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"That could have gone better," Jack said.

"Maybe." Julias shrugged and leaned back on his couch. Jack had called him after the meeting, and had come over to his mansion to talk with him about it. Kid didn't seem very happy.

"Maybe? The werewolves thing, yeah that went about as well as I could have hoped. No one's happy about Avery or the Uratha, I get that. But Fiona? The fuck did she do? Worse she's done is killed a few too many people. Abusive people, I might add. Seems to be the quirk of how she feeds."

Julias was sitting, but Jack was pacing, hands up in the air and waving

"How long you known this girl?"

"A couple days."

"You trust her that quickly?"

"Damien trusts her."

Julias raised a brow. The hell was it about Damien that managed to affect everyone so much? Even Julias had been affected. Not that he brought up the Lancea et Sanctum thing at the last meeting; he didn't have a death wish.

"Even assuming Damien and Fiona can both be trusted, she's not the first Begotten to sneak—"

"She didn't sneak, she came here in genuine ignorance."

"Ok, fine, an honest mistake on her part. But Begotten like her have, both in ignorance and on purpose, caused problems. We preserve the Masquerade Jack, and we destroy things that threaten it. With the werewolves, it seems people who witness them have a tendency to go a bit crazy, so at least with the wolves the chances of a witness report is minimal."

"... they go crazy? What?"

"Never heard of it? Moonstruck? Some people just go a bit nuts if they've been out and saw things in the woods? Uratha have that effect on people if they're transformed and people see them."

"Whoa. And—"

"Doesn't affect Kindred, or Begotten I imagine. Lucky for the Begotten; they have enough trouble as it is."

Jack, calming down and pacing less, sighed and hopped onto the couch next to him.

"I don't get it, what's the problem?"

"Ever heard the fable the Scorpion and the Frog?"

"What about it?"

Julias shook his head. Kid just wasn't getting it. But then, Julias was doing a piss poor job explaining the problem.

"Ask a Kindred to stop drinking blood, and they'll say no. But they'll at least try and find a different way to get it. Long as we get it from a fresh living human, all the other details are meaningless. Not so with the Begotten. Some of them feed in... in strange ways, Jack. You say Fiona feeds on abusive people?"

"Yeah, she punishes them. Says she needs to make them know they're being punished for being abusive. Which is pretty damn strange."

"Just one of many ways these monsters feed, Jack. Some of them feed by collecting people's valuables, be it secrets or treasures. Some of them feed on fear. Some of them feed on human hearts. Some of them feed on destroying a person's power."

"Destr—"

"Azamel. I want you to avoid her at all costs Jack. Viktor told me the same. She feeds on crushing people's lives, taking away their control. We don't want her in this city."

"Damn... why's she here then? Why isn't Antoinette giving her the boot?"

"She's never attacked a Kindred, and never broken the Masquerade even with her occasional destructive tendencies. Getting rid of her is doable, just difficult, dangerous, and possibly not worth the risk."

"Difficult for Antoinette and the sheriff? I mean, I saw them both in action Julias, I—"

"Yeah, Jack, even for the two of them."

There, that put an image in the kid's head. Jack opened his mouth to say something, but looked down. He tried again, eyes rising, hand raising, but he stopped again.

"... damn."

"Can you understand my concern about Fiona?"

"But she's barely older than me, in monster years." Jack raised his hands to quote the word monster, like it were some sort of title that didn't fit, like it didn't describe the Begotten to a tee.

"There's something about her, Jack. I remember meeting Athalia when she was a new Begotten, I got an impression for what they felt like. Fiona was different. Can't put my finger on it, don't know what or why, just know it was different. I'm not going to tell you to avoid her too, she seems nice enough, just be careful, ok?"

"Yeah, ok." Sighing, Jack leaned back into the couch as Julias did. "So, the werewolves."

"Mmm?"

"I know Jacob has an issue with them. But everyone seems to dance around the subject."

"... you should ask him."

"You really telling me to go talk to Jacob?"

Heh, good point. "Better than me telling you myself. You—"

The door knocked. That stupid, massive knocker that shook the whole damn building. With a groan, Julias got up and headed down the stairways to the main entrance of his mansion, Jack behind him. Beatrice wasn't supposed to be visiting today, but maybe she was trying to surprise him? Smiling his best I-love-you smile, he opened the door.

"... Jacob?"

"That happy to see me?" Laughing, Jacob poked him the chest. "From the tone of your voice Mister Mire, someone's dancing on my grave." The old bastard smirked, and stepped in. Least he was wearing some normal looking clothes; some black pants and a loose brown jacket was better than the robes he liked. "Ah, Master Terry, how was your first meeting with the Primogen? We can be right sullen dicks, can't we?"

Julias winced and looked back to his childe. Jack had walked down to join him, but was probably regretting it now, standing before Jacob and Jacob having no issues walking up to the boy and getting into his personal space.

"Julias."

A woman's voice. Julias looked outside again, and tilted his head.

"... Jennifer."

"Sorry about Jacob being a jackass. He wanted to talk about the dogs." Jennifer, winking at him with all the subtlety of a catcall, stepped into his mansion. Dressed in a power suit and a skirt, she drifted around the mansion's main lobby, and whistled as she looked up at the high ceilings and grand drapes.

Where the hell did she get a suit? He'd doubted a witch knew how to put one on, let alone where to steal a good one. But, it was a damn good suit, and she wore it with practiced ease.