My Little Ventrue Pt. 03 Ch. 08

Like grabbing a titan by the toe. Jacob stopped, and turned his head to face him.

Jack froze. The beast in his gut froze. The world froze. Not a single kine breathed or moved an inch for that split moment. Jack stared up at the thing turning to look at him through the eye bandage, and his dead heart caught in his throat; he could see the darkness of his empty eye sockets. Get away. Get away.

"Don't do that." Jacob yanked his wrist free, and started walking again.

And again, Jack stood there, watching the man's back. What the fuck was that?

The leader of the Circle of the Crone in Dolareido. Rarely did Jack ever have to deal with them, and almost never Jacob directly, but there were tales of their behavior, of their sacrificial rituals, their collection of bones from victims, their primal ways. Witches. But, that wasn't what Jack felt when Jacob had looked him. Just a glance, just a turn of his head, and... it was like a thousand hands reached out from the black, grabbed him, pinned him, and pulled him into the obsidian nothingness below.

He gulped, and jogged back up to stand beside him as they walked. The nearby kine didn't notice the predator walking the streets, or his bandaged eyes; just the right amount of the cloak of night to hide it, probably. But he wasn't hiding anything from Jack, any of the old beast in the bastard's gut that made Jack want to run.

"Yes, I was working with Antoinette. Your grandsire had become a psychopath, concerned only with his own survival. And Tony? Always hated that fucker. Conniving, manipulative kid, but not in the amazing way I am." Jacob chuckled and licked his teeth. "He was a whiny brat who would have ruined Dolareido, just to hurt his ex. Fucking cunt."

Jack forced his eyes onto the sidewalk. The creature next to him was tearing into elder Kindred like they were pests. Viktor had gotten half his head blown off and had managed to recover in minutes, and Tony had slaughtered a thousand Kindred-summoned rats in a matter of seconds as well, with his bare hands as far as Jack could tell. They were gods, not pests to be laughed at.

"Your girl Annie and I came to Dolareido when it was barely more than a village surrounded by woods, Jack. Her and Daniel, her boy Tony—just a young ancillae at the time, me, and that asshole Viktor. We worked hard to make this city a great place for our kind to live. And we succeeded, compared to other cities."

Jack didn't ask for a lecture, didn't ask for his history or life story. But any information was better than none. So he pushed down the frown, and listened.

"So," Jacob continued, "I consider this my city as much as the Prince does. Leeches come here, sucking on our success. Which is fine to an extent, it's a fucking city after all. But when people come here and try and set the rules, dictate to us what we can or can't do? Fuck that, and fuck them. I'll burn this place to the ground before I let someone take it from me."

If I can't have her, no one will. What a classic, tragic motivation. Jack winced as he glanced between the elder and the sidewalk, and the nearby kine that barely seemed to notice them as Jacob kept them in the cloak of night.

"What does that have to do with the Uratha? I get that they're here trying to push us around while they do their own things, but I don't understand where the conflict is. Why do you hate them so much?"

"It... it..." Jacob sighed, and raised his hands to look at his fingers.

Oh my god the ancient beast was speechless.

"... what did Avery do to you?"

Jacob stopped. Jack dug his shoe into the sidewalk, ready to bolt. Stop poking the bear you stupid man. Could never learn to keep his mouth shut, lesson that refused to sink in, and it was going to get him killed eventually.

"I like you, Clarice."

"... what?"

"I like you." The snake flicked his tongue a few times, and licked his lips. "I can see what Annie likes about you so much. All the vamps in this city dance around on their toes, afraid to sink their weight into anything. You and that Damien fellow are the only ones that don't let ceremony and the future dictate your actions. Unpredictable, compared to Kindred. Even Garry, even Beatrice, much as they like to think of themselves as ballsy, brave fucks. That just makes them as predictable as angry bears." The elder leaned against a lamppost, eyes downcast but occasionally sneaking glances at Jack, complete with a few more smirks. "You really want to know why I hate that bitch?" The light of the lamp fell on him and cast him in a glow that reeked of film noir.

"... I do."

"How long you think your relationship with Annie is going to last, kid?"

"With Antoinette? I... I don't know. I'm way too young to know that, and I'm not stupid enough to think I know the future. But I know that I love her, and... and that I didn't know what the fuck that really meant until I met her." Love was a word, only a word, until you felt it in your bones.

"Lucky, to be able to feel that at your age, kid. Lot of people don't find that until they're way past their prime. Lot of people don't find that ever. Me? Must have been... nearly four hundred years old at the time, when I fell in love. Real love, the sort you don't understand until you have it. The sort that... gets into your bones," he said, face pointed to the sidewalk. Well damn.

"Did... did Avery..."

"Yes. Killed her. Minerva got in the way of their hunt—don't ask, I don't know why. But Minerva died trying to stop something. So, imagine my frustrations, Clarice, that I don't know why that happened." Jacob wrapped a hand around the lamppost pole, and leaned away from it so his body was tilted out on an angle, other arm dangling.

"... I am not FBI, and you are not a psychiatrist, Jacob."

The old snake hissed. "What is one as old as I, if not a student of human nature, Master Terry? You, a social shut-in starting to blossom and open to the world of Kindred. Weight in your steps, distant but heavy. Took on a burden when you were too young for it, when you were alive. Father dead, I imagine. Became quite the analytical fellow after your dad died, distant with people, distant with emotions, constantly intellectualizing when you realized it was easier to weigh things as evidence and matter, instead of emotions. That's when you realized people are stupid creatures, compelled by their emotions to the point of absurdities. And yet, where they could find happiness, these idiot insects following their chemical reactions, slaves to them, you could find none. You saw the veil of ineptitude that runs the world, and you decided to play it safe, to coast through the world on your intelligence, afraid to enter that world of stupidity. You thought you were above it, but now, as the power of centuries dance before you, you realize you were just afraid you didn't have the courage to expose yourself. So much easier to stay... distant. Only now, do you realize you were a fool and a coward to hold everything and everyone at arm's length. You test the waters cautiously, now that you see the weight of eternity ahead of you. Like a fucking baby bird peeking over the edge of the nest."

Jacob snorted, and stared at the ground. "If not for being embraced, you would have gone through life alone, probably as a lawyer, something that would fit your tendency for inquisitiveness, and your tenacity. And if not for a forceful personality like Annie, someone willing to punch through your barriers, your fear, it would have taken centuries for you to meet someone you could love."

Jack took a step back, and looked down the same way Jacob was. He might as well have been eyeless too.

"Thought you said I was unpredictable, and... that you liked me." Let's just conveniently ignore how accurate his analysis was, how much it resonated. Truth had a habit of doing that. Jack would have been a boring man, content to coast through life, if he'd never had his Requiem. If someone as amazing as Antoinette hadn't found his pathetic squirming and foot-in-mouth dialogue charming. Even before, if someone as wise as Julias hadn't noticed the potential in him.

The old man laughed. "You ask questions where others won't, and have this nasty habit of surviving where you shouldn't. And that makes you a very, very dangerous person, Clarice. Dying seems to have agreed with you, made you into someone I'd like to keep around."

Never did Jacob act his age, like the ancient beast he was, like Viktor or Maria or Michael, or Daniel or Tony or Lucas or even Antoinette. They all acted... old. They all acted like they were sick of people's shit, and were going through the motions for most things. Every time Jack caught a glimpse of Jacob, he didn't get that impression. The man called him unpredictable, then what the hell was Jacob compared to him?

"You want me to find out why Avery killed Minerva?"

"Yeap."

"... and if you don't like the answer?"

"What do you think?" Jacob said, face deadpan, smirk and grin gone, face pointed at the sidewalk.

A loud, high-pitched screech of metal and wire jolted Jack, made him jump a couple feet as his spine tried to leap out of his body. Jacob let go out of the lamppost, and started walking again, leaving behind the imprints of fingers — more like claws — on the pole deep into its body.

"Do you agree with Annie? That with some cooperation and some self-awareness, Kindred can grow past their animal urges? That we'll survival the future?" the old monster said. Not with a mocking tone either, like Jack expected, or with a sneer or grimace or anything. A dead, cold face that made ice drip down Jack's back.

"... I do. One of the reasons we get along and love each other, we have similar views of our kind, I guess."

"She is a happier woman, since you came into her life, kid."

Ok, enough was enough. Jacob was walking a line between tragic character and psychopath villain, and Jack couldn't get his bearings. He had to cut through the bullshit.

"Jacob, what do you want from me? Even if I do find out what... what..." The two of them stopped, and stared down the sidewalk, past the few kine walking this far near Rich Side, and onto the two women ahead of them.

Clara, and Avery. The two weren't talking, weren't looking at each other or anything else, except for the two Kindred. Still in typical street clothes, and a little out of place among the suits and dresses of the several kine that walked past them. Avery had been smiling, but her smile faded away as the two came closer, close enough until Jack could see the subtle frown on Avery's lips.

"... getting old, Avery," Jacob said.

She'd been around in the fifties, but she didn't look old enough for it. Werewolves must have aged slower than humans then, like the Begotten. In just a week Jack's world had gone from vampires, to vampires and werewolves and monsters, each with their own desires and hungers, each with their own motivations and physical capabilities. He was never going to get used to it.

"Jacob," she said.

"So this is Jacob." Clara came forward, flicked some of her box-braid hair back over her shoulder to get it behind her, and stood only five feet from the old Kindred. "Avery wasn't lying about the eyes."

Jack winced and looked around. The humans kept walking by, Jacob's cloak of night insuring their eyes slid over the two Kindred like shadows on black, but the two werewolves seemed unaffected. Close as they were, Jack could feel the Nosferatu growing the aura to encapsulate the two wolves as well. Preserve the Masquerade above all else; even now Jacob obeyed that law.

"Clara," Jack said. "Nice to see you again."

"Ha, is it? You're hanging out with eyeless here, can't imagine the conversation was to our benefit."

Jack shook his head. "It wasn't like that."

"I bet it wasn't." Avery came up to join Clara, and the two stood side by side as they both watched Jacob. Neither of them looked Jack's way, not for long at least, eyes always coming back to catch the Nosferatu. "Any luck talking to the Primogen, kid?" Eyes still on Jacob.

Jack waited, and looked at Jacob. The man wasn't moving, and his hands were in loose fists that dangled at his sides. If he was angry, if he was fuming or livid or ready to strike, Jack couldn't tell, his beast couldn't tell. Like a perfectly calm animal, silent and waiting. Like a snake waiting for the right moment to strike.

Jacob didn't like to do that, far as Jack knew. The elder liked to dance, to play coy, to joke and poke. He never did the silent act.

"Spoke with them several hours ago," Jack said. Maybe if he kept talking, things could go smooth. "You hunted me down to ask that? No way we just stumbled onto you by accident."

"Perceptive," Clara said, grinning at him. "We got your scent, yeah, and Avery knows the city well enough to guess where you'd be near."

Scent. They're wolves, Jack, don't forget they're wolves.

"Jacob out walking with you, I'm guessing he wanted to talk about us," Avery said. Unlike her companion, Avery didn't chuckle or smirk or grin when she met his eyes. Her face was just as cold as Jacob's, and she let her arms dangle at her sides as she came close to stand in front of the Nosferatu. "What'd you tell them?"

"I uh, told them the tunnels under Devil's Corner are off limits, and that I'm to be the intermediary between our two kind," Jack said.

Avery nodded. Seemed to satisfy her, if he was reading her right.

"And their response?"

"... frustration, really. But they seemed to agree with the middleman idea, and to stay out of Devil's Corner, if only barely."

Clara chuckled, and came a bit closer to Jack again. "Telling Kindred what they can or can't do must have really gotten under their skin, especially when they know it's the right call. Damn I would have loved to have been there, to see them snarl and groan about us blocking off sections of their own city. Like taking away kids' toys and telling them to go to bed."

Yeah, Clara had them figured out there.

Quiet fell on them as Jack struggled to find the next thing to say. Jacob and Avery were only a few feet apart, and each moment Jack could feel the old vampire's insides twitch. If he was telling the truth, the man lost the love of his life to the woman standing in front of him. And Jacob likely was telling the truth, given what Jack knew about him. Manipulative, sure, but not the lying type, when the truth was the far more visceral, brutal tool.

"... Jacob," Avery said, "I wanted to talk to you."

"Use the middleman."

"No, this is personal. I wanted to talk to you about Minerva."

Jacob visibly twitched. "Is that a joke, tiny wolf? You refused to explain what happened, last I recall."

"And I still do." Avery got in closer. She had to look up to meet Jacob's eyeless gaze, short as she was, but her thick, muscled frame betrayed no weakness. And from so close, Jack could feel the woman's breath, feel her heat and her life. Feel her beast. It wasn't the same as a Kindred's; vampires' beasts felt like shadowy things of hunger and deceit, eyes in the dark, and fangs. Her beast was colossal, and primeval. From so close, he could feel its animal ferocity and size pressing on him, barki—roaring at him. Not with real aggression, but to display dominance, like animals often did.

He was starting to miss the Danse Macabre. At least it was subtle. These wolves had all the subtlety of a nuke.

"Get out of my face, Avery. If you won't tell me what happened, we have nothing to say to each other." Jacob said.

"You don't have to say shit, old man. Just listen." Avery sighed and shook her head, before she reached out, and shoved Jacob. The man took a step back, and the loose fists at his sides tightened. "I am sorry that I killed Minerva. It was an accident."

Holy shit. Jack stepped back with Jacob, and tried to swallow down the words. Jacob coughed them back up.

"I'm sorry, you're what?"

"I said I'm sorry I killed her. I didn't want that to happen. She insisted on getting in the way, and in the fight, she was killed."

"She's telling the truth, Jacob," Clara said.

The old bastard sneered. "What would you know? You weren't there, kid. I don't know you, I know her. And I know how much of a fucking animal she is. Ever seen Old Yeller?"

Pot calling kettle. Jack wanted to say it, but he wasn't that stupid. And besides, as he watched the argument, he had to admit, Jacob didn't seem to have the bloodlust in him Jack had expected. Tony, Viktor, Lucas, they all had a snap to them, something that drove their eyes to wild abandon. Something that sank them into almost mindless obsession with the moment, with violence and death, almost like a starved Kindred about to frenzy. He didn't see that in Jacob. He saw a lot of other horrible, twisted shit, but not that.

Avery came up to Jacob, and shoved him again. Again, Jacob took a step back, fists tightening until they were shaking at his side. The hell was Avery doing? Why wasn't she afraid? The man was half a millennium old, and she had to know that, she had to feel that. She had a beast in her gut too; different than a Kindred, but she had it too. No ignorance or arrogance was going to mask the fucking elder and the sickening power that dripped from every action he made.

But Avery came closer, and got ready to shove him a third time.

Until Jack stepped between them.

"The fuck are you doing?" Jack said. Maybe when he was human and alive, he wouldn't have said a thing. He would have coasted, like Jacob said. But now, he couldn't. Cause he was a Ventrue, for better or worse.

Avery frowned at him. In the dark, her silver blue eyes caught the light a little more than they should, reflecting street light into his gaze.

"Jacob needs to let out some aggression, Jack. I killed his woman and you know what he fucking did? Fucking nothing. Fucking. Nothing."

Jack peeked over his shoulder at Jacob. Without eyes, reading him was so damn fucking hard, but the creature was staring at Avery as far as Jack could tell, staring and frozen.

Clara reached out, took Jack's shoulder, and pulled him aside to stand beside her.

"Let em talk kid," she said. "Jacob will keep it all hidden in that cloak of night crap right? Just let em talk." Her fingers offered him a small squeeze of the shoulder, and she smiled down at him as she did.

But she didn't get it. He shook his head, and tried to walk back to Jacob, but she tightened her grip a little and pulled him back.

"... he's going to kill her," Jack said.

"Heh, him and what army? Besides, she's a Cahalith. She'd welcome the fight just for the story."

"This isn't about that!" Avery said with a snarl and a glare for her subordinate. "Not looking for a story here. Looking to take care of this problem here and now."

"Why get a middleman then?" Jacob said between clenched teeth.

"For everyone else. But you? I felt like I should do this in person." And again, Avery reached up, and pushed the eyeless monster back a foot. "Much as you might like to paint me as the bad guy, I do—we do what we do because the world needs us. Sometimes people get stuck in the middle. Minerva? She put herself in the middle. So I'm sorry that I killed her, and I mean it when I say I didn't want to. Take a swing."

Jack stared at Avery and Jacob, back and forth, eyes snapping and fingers rubbing together. She didn't know what she was asking for.

Jacob snarled, quiet, deep and rumbling in his throat, and wiped his thumb across his lips. "You think I'll be satisfied with a fist fight? You worthless, fuc—"

"No, but I'm trying, Jacob. Don't want us to be enemies, I have nothing against you. Hell, I don't have anything against Antoinette either, and she's the one poking the veil, Jacob."

"... the Prince forced nothing on Minerva. You, however, did." The old Nosferatu took a step forward, and got into Avery's face. "You think some violence will solve this? Are you this mindless?"