My Little Ventrue Pt. 03 Ch. 11

Art smirked, a knowing smirk, an evil smirk. Maybe he could smell the ghouls on her? She showered, but werewolves were an unknown quantity. Maybe they could smell all sorts of embarrassing things? But without the blush of life, she could be twenty sorts of embarrassed and not give it away with blushing. Her averting, fidgety gaze though, she couldn't help that.

Matt reached out from his seat and gave his friend a hard smack on the leg. "Dude, uncool."

"N-No, it's ok." She shrugged, swallowed her fear, and resumed walking around her apartment. It settled her. "We all have our vices. Uratha m-m-must have some?" Not that sex was the only Kindred vice, but it was definitely one the younger Kindred gravitated toward.

"Yeah." Matt pointed at Art, big smile on his face. "Some of us like to hang out at bars, just to cause trouble."

Art shrugged and slid off the stool. "Sometimes, it's just really satisfying to punch a bastard in the face."

"Or stab them," she said.

"Still looking to stab me?" Art came up to her, sly grin and evil eyes looking down at her from his great height. "Recreate a scene from Game of Thrones?"

She froze, and stared up at the big man as he came near. As Art got closer, his smile drifted between dark and sinister, to playful and fun, like he might start pulling on her non-existent pigtails. A nervous glance Matt's way showed he wasn't going to interfere. If anything, the gentle giant seemed intrigued, eyes watching her with as much intensity as Art; but at least Matt's intensity didn't also look like he might attack her.

"You... y-you... you're not as scary as you think." She put down the glass, and pushed at Art with her two hands. Of course, Arturo was a very tall, very athletic man, and likely weighed over twice as much as her very very short self did. Attempts to push him back were frustratingly futile; all she did was push herself away from him.

Which sent both wolves into howls of laughter, and Art leaned onto the counter with both elbows to catch his breath.

For a moment she wanted to be angry; they were laughing at her. But she caught Matt's eyes, and even Art's when he managed to recover from what was apparently a nigh deadly laughter. They weren't laughing at her, they were just laughing. She started to chuckle too, and pushed Art again in the arm, though not nearly as hard this time.

"You t-two would like Jessy," she said.

"That the Gangrel girl, works for the Invictus?" Matt said. "Clara didn't have anything good to say about her. Said she was a bitch."

"W-Well... yeah, she can be. But she's my best friend, and she... reminds m-me of you two."

Both men frowned and looked at each other.

"Should we be offended?" Matt said.

Art shrugged. "You can be a huge dick."

"Me? You're the asshole."

"How you figure?"

"You're the one that keeps hiding Stephanie's shit."

"She deserves it. And you? Pointing Mason at her."

"Not pointing you dumbass, just—"

"You're going to make things worse, dumb—"

"You're the one ma—"

"Boys!" She stomped her foot down. Light or not, it was enough to make a thud, and both men silenced as they turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. "I didn't mean you're d-d-dicks, cause Jessy isn't. B-But you can be... boyish. Like her. Very..." Now that she thought about it, how could she describe Jessy? What was it about her that made her and Natasha friends? What was it about these two that reminded her of her friend? "V-Very... fun."

"Fun?" they said together.

"Y-Yeah. Fun, as in outgoing, and... comfortable t-talking, and being upfront and fun about things." Everything she wasn't. She was trying to change, and succeeding according to Jessy, but it didn't change that Jessy, and apparently Matthew and Arturo, were boisterous, jovial, aggressive, and confident in ways she'd never be.

They blinked at each other, until Matt shrugged, and Art pulled himself up to sit on her counter.

"Tasha," Art said, "the only thing separating you from being as stupid and loud as Matt and me is alcohol."

"I... oh." She looked down at her glass again, and tried to picture it as wine. No good. A lifetime as a Kindred had long destroyed any taste she had for human food. If she blushed life she could reawaken her old taste buds, but she couldn't drink or eat human food; unless she wanted to vomit it all up later. "I've n-never been drunk."

"Yeah?"

"Mmhmm."

"Well," Matt said with a small slap of one hand to the other, "that's the problem. You don't know what it's like to turn off your brain. Which, I think, is perfectly fine."

"Nah." Art shook his head, reached out, and took her glass of blood again, only to set it down away from her, further along the counter top. "It's healthy to turn your brain off every once in a while. Even Uratha aren't in hunt mode twenty-four seven. We relax, get drunk, goof around."

"Dude." The gentle giant shook his head, and slid the glass back toward her. "You're a fucking Irraka."

Art smirked over his shoulder at his friend, and shrugged. "Yeap, so she has no excuse. Come on, want to go out?" he said looking to her. "We could go to a club, city seems to be swimming in them. Dance or get drunk. Or in your case, full on fresh blood with a very high alcohol concentration."

"You sure you're Irraka?" Matt didn't look too convinced, and he got up to join them in the kitchen, butt to the counter as he leaned against it. "Aren't your types normally anti-social?"

"H-Haven't you two been friends for years?" Tasha said.

Art rolled his eyes. "Ignore Matt, he's just being a dumbass. In Tijuana we didn't exactly have the luxury of high living solitude. No offense."

High living solitude. An interesting way to phrase her life. She giggled as she thought of a monk, living a life void of Earthly desires, and having Wi-Fi.

"You t-t-two might think I'm all nerdy and boring, b-b—"

Art put up his hands, palms out in surrender. "Ha, sorry. Nerdy, yes, but boring? You were exploring that tunnel alone, and the way you managed to put up a fight, gave us all a big chase. Certainly not boring."

She beamed. That was true, she had done that all alone. "B-But I... I was terrified, exploring that darkness alone."

"You and me both." Art shuddered and gestured to Matt. "Only a dumbass like him wouldn't be afraid. Fucking Rahu."

"Hey." Matt looked down. The gentle giant looked genuinely hurt, but a moment later a smile blossomed, and he looked at Natasha. "Even Rahu get afraid. But we use the fear to fuel us. I—"

A buzz stopped them, and they all looked down at Natasha's pocket. She pulled out her phone and quickly checked the text.

From Jack: Avery hunting Damien and Fiona. Thinks Fiona is something called Azlu.

Oh god damn it.

"Looks serious," Matt said. "You went pale... well, you know, you would have if you weren't dead."

Natasha winced and put the phone away, grimacing."Apparently, Avery... she... she s-says you guys are... hunting Fiona."

Art got off the counter, and the two wolves looked at each other with a raised brow each.

"Fiona?" they said.

"A monster, a B-Begotten. Avery thinks she's... Azlu?"

"... a host," they said again, each bringing one hand up to their face to cradle it as they groaned in pain.

"But she's not! I've b-b-been with her, t-talked to her, she's a... she's... I've seen the monster inside her. That's Begotten." Shit shit, she shouldn't have said anything. Ugh she was starting to act like Jack, saying things when she shouldn't, giving away information. Used to be so good at information control, now she was acting like a child.

"It also describes Azlu pretty damn well. Come on." Art pat his friend on the arm, and turned around.

"Sorry," Matt said, "but if she's Azlu, then... she's not your friend. You'll thank us later." He nodded, and followed after Art toward the door.

"W-Wait! I... I can't believe that. I saw her w-with my own eyes, and she... she was a person. A n-n-normal person... normal for a B-Begotten anyway."

The two wolves looked at each other as they put their shoes back on. It was easy to see they didn't believe her, and were trying to find a delicate way to break the news to her that they'd likely be killing Fiona. Or at least it was easy to see on Matt's face; Art was better at hiding it.

"If Avery says we hunt them, we hunt them," the Irraka said, and he opened the door without a glance back. "Sorry."

She dashed past Matt, under Art's arm, and into the hallway outside her door. Little her before the mighty wolves; they looked shocked. Good. She reached out with both hands and pressed against Art's chest — which she had to aim up to even reach — to push him back into the apartment, before closing the door behind her.

"You t-two, you're going to make it happen again!"

"What?" they said.

"What happened last t-t-time! Avery killed Minerva, and that... p-probably could have been avoided! You have to—"

"Tasha, listen." Matt came up behind Art, but couldn't get around him with the tiny amount of space around her door. So the giant peeked over his friend's shoulder, and shook his head with a sigh. "We have to act fast, or this problem is going to escalate, in ways you don't realize. It could—"

"No!" She stomped her foot, and folded her arms across her chest. "You will n-not behave rashly, and make things worse. The P-Prince lost a friend because of Avery, and J-J-Jacob, he..." What to say about Jacob? She never interacted with him; she knew better. Stay away from the old man, from his games. But in her fifty years as Kindred, he'd never done anything to make her want him to suffer.

She could imagine the eyeless man, sitting in his cave, surrounded by bones and scary, creepy things, while he wallowed in misery after the death of his love. Antoinette had painted quite the picture, and let Natasha's imagination fill in the blanks. Her imagination did love to exaggerate, but even knowing that, she couldn't help but feel for him.

And she didn't want Fiona to die.

Art, wincing, reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "Well Avery hasn't contacted us yet, but we have to get back to the base by sunrise. And no doubt, she'll want us hunting after we get some sleep."

Damn it damn it. They could move in the sunlight, she couldn't. She had to do something now while the sun was down and she had time to interfere.

"D-Damien... could get hurt too."

"Damien?"

"A Kindred. He was the one t-to d-d-discover Fiona was a Begotten. He... he's probably with her now... and..." And she didn't want him to die either.

"Our hands are tied," Matt said.

"... no. N-No, we're going to go find this thing now!" Again, she stomped her foot.

"Find the Azlu? Now?" The gentle giant looked down at Art as his friend looked over his shoulder at him.

"Well, if we can find the host and prove it's not this Fiona girl, I'm sure Avery will listen to us." Art elbowed his big friend in the gut, and smirked. "Think you can stop being a momma's boy for five or six hours and come scouting with the two sneaky beasts?" Beasts? She was sneaky, all Mekhet were, and so were Irraka if the werewolves were telling her the truth. Calling her a sneaky beast was a strange but welcomed compliment. "Got your weapons with you Tash?"

"Y-Yeah, uh... give me a second." Finally, some progress. She slipped past the two titans crammed into her door's little hallway, and went into her bedroom to get her spare gear.

"Not sure this is a good idea," Matt said, loud enough for her to hear. "But, if you two idiots are going, I'll come too. Keep your dumbasses alive."

She came back with a sword and pistol, vest holster, and the appropriate suit jacket to hide them. "I can t-take care of myself."

"You can at that," the big guy said, grinning at her, and winking too.

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

The tunnels once again. Still a little ways to go before before they reached the area under Ronder Street, but the lights were already starting to become sparse, fewer and fewer of them functioning and lit. And the old chill of its dark, awaiting lengths crawled up her spine again.

But this time she had back up, two big bad wolves, she shouldn't be afraid. Then again, if it was an entire pack's job to hunt down this thing, and they were normally thirteen, would two be enough?

"I thought about asking if you had a flamethrower," Art said, hands in his pockets. "We could really use one for this prey."

"... a flamethrower. Um, n-n-no, I have nothing like that. Kindred, we d-don't like fire." She wasn't even sure if they had such weaponry in the Invictus storage. Maybe her new boss did, but she doubted it. Sort of a rule of war for Dolareido, don't use fire. "W-Why would Uratha use a flamethrower?"

"We're going after Azlu." Matt came up on other side to walk beside her, eyes set on the darkness ahead. "Hosts, from before the Sundering. Abominations, half-spirit half-flesh nasty things. The Azlu are spiders. They crawl into people's skulls and eat their brains, take over their body, grow and mutate into monstrous... monsters."

Natasha tried to not smirk at the man's poor vocabulary, especially as the image he was painting was not a pretty one.

"Uratha are half-spirit half-flesh too." Art shrugged and tilted his head to the side, until Natasha had to wince with the loud snap sound of his neck crack.

"Spirit..." She thought about the feelings the spirit Safe had bathed her in, the strange way it talked, the insanity that such a creature existed.

Matt poked her in the shoulder. "Interested in spirits?"

"I, uh... you were r-right, about the Prince, experimenting with s-s-stuff. And... some of the stuff I've seen d-d-does look... interesting, and... wonderful."

Art didn't look too happy about it. "The Hisil is just as fucked up and brutal as this side of the Gauntlet, Tash. Not sure what you and white hair have been up to, but don't start trying to do... well, what Minerva did, according to Avery."

"C-Can you tell me what Avery was... d-d-doing that—"

Art brought up a hand and shook his head. "No. Sorry."

She sighed but nodded. "So, the Hisil, that's... I d-don't really understand."

"Better that you don't," the Irraka said.

"I disagree." Matt reached down and pat her on the shoulder. "Some healthy curiosity in you. Avery doesn't like it, but I think we can convince her to let us show you some things sometime."

"Show m-me things?" She'd replace Jack as the intermediary at this rate.

"Art said it," Matt continued, "we're half-spirit. Maybe we could show you the Hisil sometime."

"You're a dumbass. Avery will never agree to that, and you're going to get her killed."

"She can handle herself, and she'll be with us. You're just as bad as her, thinking it's the same as before, or like in Tijuana. Things are different here."

"Lenny you moron. Shit will—"

She punched them, both of them, Art first then Matt. "We can t-talk about that stuff later. For now, w-we should be quiet, and f-f-find this thing."

They chuckled, and nodded. "Yes Mom." Again, in unison.

Art shook out his shoulders, and started to fall onto his hands. Matt stopped, and Natasha mimicked. What was going on, why stop, why fall? Why—

She jumped away as the man's clothes began to vanish, only to be replaced by fur. Vitae jolted through her limbs and demanded she run away as the man began to change; she still remembered what it felt like to have those claws in her limbs and guts. But those beasts stood upright. Art was on all fours, and turning into a wolf. A really, really, really big wolf.

His hands became paws, but large, monstrous, with huge claws. His muscles showed through the fur as thick, hulking masses. He was four feet tall at the shoulder, and seven feet long, maybe eight. Ridiculously massive teeth jutted from his chops, head attached to a thick, powerful neck. More like a lion with wolf features. Her jaw dropped as the man came to end his transformation, and she gulped on nothing as she looked the unnatural creature from nose to tail.

"That uh... w-wouldn't pass... for a wolf."

Matt laughed and pat her on the back again, huge hand dwarfing her spine. "That's Urshul form. We can go Urhan, Wolf form, but it's not strong enough to deal with much."

A form between the war titans she'd seen, and a normal wolf.

"W-Wait, this is... when I first saw you in the tunnel, in the dark before you chased me. You were in this... f-f-form."

Art nodded his large wolf head, and stepped in toward her. She froze as the gargantuan mutant canine pressed his head against her arm, and then her shoulder.

Don't pet the gigantic wolf monster, don't pet the gigantic wolf monster, don't pet the gigantic wolf monster.

She pet the gigantic wolf monster.

Art crooned, a deep rumbling sound in his immense throat, and rubbed his head against her hand.

"Arturo Ibarra, you disgrace wolves everywhere." Matt reached out and shoved the big beast's head away from her.

"Hey! D-Don't push him. He's... he's so warm and... fluffy." Course he looked far more menacing than fluffy, with especially primal wolf eyes to match his massive, muscular wolf body. But that didn't change that he was, indeed, fluffy. The fur of his neck was particularly thick, almost like a mane, and she stepped in again to rub her fingers through the softness. Must touch the fluffy.

After what was probably far too long rubbing his ears and combing his fur, they started walking again, this time with Art out ahead of them. He was their scout evidently; probably why he transformed. And as she watched his shoulders shift with each paw's step, she realized she'd just spent five minutes rubbing Arturo's face and shoulders and back. He probably planned it, just so she'd feel awkward later. Evil bastard.

But, watching him prowl forward, she still wanted to pet him some more. She had to shake her head a few times to remind herself he was Art. Not a dog, not a wolf. But, maybe he could go full normal wolf mode, and sit on her couch, and let her pet his head? And Matt too? It'd been a long time since she'd owned dogs.

Werewolves, Natasha, they're werewolves, not wolves. Focus.

"Can you t-two see in the dark?" she said.

"Better than a human yeah, but nothing crazy. We were pretty surprised a vamp was exploring the dark; we had to go by our noses."

"I can s-see b-b-better than most Kindred in the dark. But, m-maybe we should use a flashlight this time?" She brought one out, small enough to hold easily in one hand, and she held it reverse grip, pointed out toward the darkness. A quick snap of the other hand and she had her pistol out, held on top of the wrist of the other hand.

"Doesn't look like the pistol model you used when you ran into us," he said. They'd started walking, and sure enough the lack of lights would have left most Kindred totally blind in the absolute black, and the Uratha too.

"It's n-not. We know these d-d-don't do much, against werewolves. So now most Kindred who use p-pistols... will use machine pistols. If we can't bring a werewolf down with a few b-bullets... a few hundred might d-d-do better."

Matt winced, but laughed. "Yeah, they do. Tijuana taught us that."

Course, machine pistols were the weaker choice over shotguns or sub machine guns. Or in the case of the Carthians, assault rifles. But it was easy to fit under the jacket, and unwieldy as a machine pistol was, Kindred strength made up for it.

They fell into silence as they continued along. Or at least, what Natasha thought would be silence, but something kept interrupting it every few seconds, a strange, straining noise of air.

Breathing. She was hearing the two werewolves breathe. Last time she was down here, the only sound was the rubbing of fabric from her movement, and her steps. Now she could hear the wolves breathe, and as their ears adjusted, she could hear their heartbeats. Big, powerful heartbeats.