My Little Ventrue Pt. 03 Ch. 13

So he turned and kept moving. Occasional flashes of light from above exposed the dug tunnel ahead, bits of moonlight or streetlight maybe showing through some old drain pipes or cracks in old, abandoned tunnels that were still lit. Just enough light for him to see, if only for the split moment it occasionally streaked his surroundings. Nothing but rock, with the occasional bit of root or vine, the occasional worm, occasional insect.

A flicker of light let him see movement below him, and he stepped on it with a quick snap. A spider. For a moment, he expected to hear the animal shriek louder than it already was. Either it didn't care about a random spider, or its shriek volume was already maxed out.

More of the webbing greeted him, but in the dark he couldn't see shit, just shadows and dark colors. Enough to at least dodge a few of the webs, but others found his feet, his legs, and one cut across his chest, big webs, enough to give his body pause before his weight pushed through. The texture was all wrong, like nothing a spider would make, and touching it made him shiver worse than a spider crawling down his back. It was all wrong. What the fuck was this thing?

Shrieking yanked his head back, and he choked on a scream as the creature jammed its body into the dug tunnel. It fit, just barely, and from how it moved, it looked like it was familiar with the den tunnel, familiar with the pressing walls and the height of the ceiling. Guess it was the one that dug it then.

But the spider didn't get far. It cried out and turned its human half around as much as it could to slash out at the wolves biting and clawing at its body. One of them climbed over its spider back onto the human half, and did her best to grab its shoulders, pin it, shred and tear open its neck. She succeeded, and human flesh came off in chunks, only to heal. Not heal in seconds, but fast enough Jack could see the wounds close between each flash of light that managed to reach them.

"Go! Run!"

It was Clara. She barked at him, the words almost lost in the inhuman shape of her mouth.

"Where the fuck do I go!? I can't see anything!"

"Try—" Her voice came to a sudden halt as the monster's claw managed to reach up and over her, and come down, a giant trying to throw a pest off its back. It succeeded, and the titan wolf landed in front of Jack on her back, head closer to the creature than him.

She got up and turned to face it, backing up and snarling, barking, roaring at the spider as it came closer despite the host of wolves slashing and clawing at its body. But, at least now Jack had her between him and the animal coming to kill them all.

"Get back." Her arm came out, and she reached down with her hand — fucking god a giant hand of claws and blood — to push back against his chest. "You found. Nest."

"Wonderful! Fucking wonderful! I thought the nest was the tunnel we just came from!" He did as she asked, and kept backing up. The spider lunged at them, but the tunnel couldn't fit the motion. Big enough for the creature to crawl through, but it was smaller than the subway tunnel, small enough to keep the creature from leaping.

Clara ducked the sideways slash, and stepped beside the following vertical slash. Big bad wolf was doing a dance, but Jack could only see freeze frames of it as they backed away through the tiny lights that managed to reach them.

The light! Fuck, the light coming from above meant there had to be some way to get to it, break through the layer, get up and out of the spider's lair. It had to mean that. Fucking had to. He was due some good luck right about now.

"Climb!" He reached out for the wall beside him, and fell.

A strange sensation when you reach for something expecting to go up, but you go down. Vertigo. Whole world flips upside down and you feel every instinct for what's up or down just vanish. Dizzy to the bone. And if you're falling for longer than you think you should, it's like the world has just imploded in your brain.

And it exploded when his back and skull collided with the ground, after cutting through a couple inches of water.

He sat up, panic gripping him, wrenching his heart up through his throat as he prepared to sink. But the water was genuinely only a couple inches deep, and he forced himself to stand as he looked around.

"... mother fucking hell."

A waterway. A really, really, really big, old waterway. A vertical one that cut nearly a hundred feet up, like some sort of enormous drainage sewer, something that could handle flood levels of water if Dolareido ever got hit with that much rain. And as he stood, he turned around to look at their new area; like a fucking arena, round walls surrounding them, and a sky-high ceiling.

There were some tunnels that connected to the top of the vertical drain, way out of reach, with grating blocking them off no doubt. Course Clara would be able to open them, if they could climb up to reach them. The concrete bricks around them were smooth-ish, and not something he could climb, but werewolf claws could climb them probably, if she could sink her claws into the concrete.

His new partner in this chaos fell into the water with him, but at least she managed to turn and land on her feet. Like a cat. If he was Triss, he'd make the joke.

Triss. Fuck, Triss, was she alive?

"Did you see if any of my friends were alive?" he said.

Clara, still in her werewolf form, walked over to him, water and blood dripping down from her fur. He could see again thank god, now that the very old, very large manhole above cast some light down the massive tunnel hole to them. In the dark for as long as he'd been, a little light went a long way. And from so close, he did a double take on Clara's body. Much as she was a tall, muscular werewolf, she had the curves of a woman too. Weird thought to have, but there it was.

"No." The she-Goliath stared up at the hole they'd fallen down from. The hole was ten feet up, something that'd been dug out of the wall, based on how weirdly the concrete was broken, and claw marks where the wall was opened up. "You. Escape?"

He pointed at the drainage holes around the base of the main drainage tunnel, near their feet. All of them were quite short. The grating covering them would be no problem for a werewolf to remove, but only a foot wide meant the small exits were just there to taunt them.

"Maybe the drains above us? They're much bigger, we can—"

Screams cut through their reprieve. The spider creature reached the tunnel exit, or entrance, and vaulted toward them. Or at least it tried to. Three of the wolf titans were at its side, and with claws wrapped around the beast's arms, they braced their feet against the walls to keep it from escaping the tunnel. Easier prey, Jack imagined, when the giant creature couldn't turn around very well.

Jack stared up at the menace trying to get them. Him. It was trying to get him. The fuck did he do? He did go into its nest, and he was the first one to do that, maybe that was why? The crazed monster's human eyes were staring death into him, and its mismatched arrangement of spiders eyes over its temples and forehead looked more like nebulae of obsidian death than eyes.

"Let's go." Clara reached out, picked him up, and threw him onto her back like throwing on a book bag, with about as much grace as well. But the impact of his small body against her fur was surprisingly nice, compared to all the concrete he'd been hitting lately. Soft.

"Wait, your friends. Shouldn't you help them? I can take care of myself."

"Idiot. Shut up," she barked. The words were harsh, guttural, a struggle for her chops to say. But good enough to get the point across. The giant wolf ran up to the wall of the vertical tunnel furthest from the spider, and slammed both hands into the concrete. Inertia hit Jack hard enough to flatten him against Clara's back, and bounce, before the wolf started to climb. She got up a foot, and slammed her claws into the concrete hard enough to sink them into it an inch.

It was like a scene from a cartoon. She made a grunting sound for each foot she climbed, and they grew louder as she her feet lifted off the floor, and she had to carry all her weight and his weight on one hand at a time between each new hold she made. He'd half expected her to just jump, or maybe throw him up there first. But neither would have been a sure thing. Climbing up there was a sure thing.

The spider landed onto the sewer drain floor, its thrashing weight sending dirty water splashing along the walls and high up to where Clara was scaling the concrete. Werewolves jumped in after it, three of them. Not seven or six, just three. And those three were covered in blood, leaking it, even as their wounds were closing with some insane healing only an elder Kindred could match. Staring down at them, with his hands hooked around the werewolf's shoulders, Jack could only wince as the three remaining wolves shrank as Clara took him higher and higher.

Kindred generally lost their fear of heights after a while. You'd need to fall a couple floors to hurt an ankle, and a couple more on top of that to even risk injury. But the higher he and Clara went up, the more he found himself terrified of falling as the spider started crawling after them.

Again, it didn't get far. As its spider legs started to dig into the concrete, and its scythe arms cut into it like soft dirt, the three wolves still chasing it sank their teeth into its spider limbs. Big as the creature was, it wasn't strong enough to climb after him with three werewolves biting and clawing at its legs.

But the three wolves lasted only moments. The spider swung its legs outward, hard, and now with more than enough room in the huge drain tunnel, it put its weight into the throws. Each wolf landed against concrete with a thud hard enough Jack could hear the bones break. And each wolf slumped down onto the water like broken toys. Still in werewolf form though, and guessing from what happened to the one that'd been split in half, if they died they turned back into a human.

Memory whip cracked his brain. One of them had died earlier, split in half, like a fucking tomato under a knife. Fuck, this was bad. So bad, bad for so many more reasons than just him coming down into the tunnels.

Clara reached the edge of the alcove above them, and pulled them both up with a quick hop before setting him down. Sure enough there were metal grates blocking their path, but without so much as a skipped beat, Clara ripped them out of the tunnel walls and tossed the metal bars aside. Too hard maybe, as the bars broke apart and shattered over the small tunnel floor.

"Go!"

He started toward the tunnel. Typical sewer tunnel, which meant the city was above, which meant manholes and some ladders up ahead.

"What about you?"

"Must stay. Kill. Azlu must die."

"It's going to kill all of you!"

The titan stood over him, glared down at him with animal eyes, and set her blood-soaked hands on his shoulders. So fucking huge, she seemed more like a standing grizzly bear from so close.

"Our hunt. Go."

"What about my friends? They might be dead! I have to go back and get them." Because stupidity levels were sky high and any semblance of intelligent decision making was thrown out the window.

"Maybe. But if Azlu lives..." She sighed and shook her head before leaning down toward him. The breath of a werewolf; smelled like spider and blood. "Stay out of way."

Another roar pulled both their attention back to the tunnel, and they looked down as another werewolf jumped from the hole the spider monster had carved. Avery. Her claws were glowing amber again, her eyes too, and she had a subtle flicker of red on the tip of her fur. And she threw herself up toward the spider already halfway up the wall.

Apparently being tossed hard and far enough to break every bone in the body wasn't enough to bring her down. She roared at the prey before landing on it, and her glowing claws sank through the shell of the creature's spider body like someone cutting metal with a blow torch. He almost expected to see flames as Avery's claws dug in, and started to drag down through the creature's body from her own weight, before at last stopping after a few feet of evisceration. The monster screamed the whole way, but did not stop crawling upward, toward little Jack and his new bodyguard.

"Um... her claws look like they're on fire."

Clara snorted, put her hand against his chest, and started pushing him down the tunnel again. "Go!"

"I can't just go! This thing is in the fucking tunnels, what the fuck happens if it escapes?"

Clara snarled and shook her head. "No time! Go! Tell Prince!"

The Prince could help, right? She'd march a hundred humans down here under her spell with torches, and they'd purge the whole damn place. Yeah, good plan, go get the Prince. And hope to god in the mean time his friends didn't die? It'd take the Prince a day at least to get that set up, and two of his three friends would be sleeping helpless during the day. He doubted the Azlu gave a shit about night cycles.

Clara shook her head and shoved him again. "Stop thinking. Can't save friends. Go!"

"And what about you? There's two of you left!"

She leaned in, put her werewolf face two inches from his, and licked him. Fucking. Licked him.

For an infinitesimally small amount of time, he wanted to laugh. A dog was licking him. Humor shattered as the snarling and roaring and screaming howls filled the background while the giant werewolf in front of him stood upright again, and pat him on the shoulder.

"Get Prince. Kill Azlu."

And then she turned around, and jumped down. Her screams mixed with Avery's a second later, but Jack was some ten feet down the exit, away from the tunnel's opening where it connected with the drainage sewer the monster was in. Couldn't see, could only imagine Clara getting ripped to shreds.

Leave. Do what Clara said. Everyone had gone haywire when a second monster showed up. Not one of the wolves looked even slightly prepared for dealing with a second one of these monsters. And it'd cost one of them their lives. Their hunt was ruined, and Jack's attempt to find Natasha ruined along with them. Fiona being proved innocent was of little comfort at this point.

More screams yanked his eyes away from his exit, and back toward the main drainage shaft. Painful screams, from wolves, more than just two as well. Maybe some of the others had joined in from the subway? Or the Uratha the spider had thrown into the walls of the sewer were back on their feet? Judging from the sounds, they weren't helping very much.

He crawled over to the tunnel edge that looked over the sewer. Literally crawled, on hands and knees, dirty water joining the mess of dirt and dust on his clothes. The suit was ruined anyway. He poked his head out over the edge, and bit down on his teeth. Fuck, his teeth! Pain racked his brain, and he squeezed his eyes shut until he forced it down. The teeth would regrow far better once he slept come the morning, if he lived until morning.

Four werewolves circled the spider. The three it had thrown into the walls were still down, but breathing, moving, struggling to get up. One of them managed, but his leg gave out from under him, shin bending almost ninety degrees in a spot very much not a joint. He tried again, and with an audible crunch, the leg snapped into place.

These fucking werewolves were practically immortal, healing in seconds and refusing to get beaten down. Barring getting split in half, how the fuck did you kill one of these things? Fucking silver?

Jack reached for his knife, and considered—where the fuck was his knife? He fumbled around for it, pulled back and crawled around on his knees through the dark, hands swiping left and right in the inch-deep water. Knife knife where the fuck was the knife.

Gritting his teeth—fuck his teeth! Not gritting his teeth, but grimacing hard enough to hurt his cheeks, he poked his head out over the edge of his escape route into the death pit below. Something was glimmering, shiny in the water, catching the rays of light that came in from above. His god damn fucking knife.

Avery waited until the spider turned to face one of her pack mates, and then she threw herself at the bleeding creature. But it was ready for her this time and her burning claws, and spun around to face her, back of its claw arm hitting her head. Or at least it looked like that, but the spider found itself unable to turn as easily as a werewolf dangled from his arm. The woman had taken the ridiculous blow in the mouth, the same blow that had sent her flying earlier, and bit down.

And Jack thought his mouth hurt. Hard to see from such a height, eighty feet up at least, but he was sure bits of her teeth shattered and went flying. But she bit down and didn't let go, even as the monster threw his arm around left and right hard enough to swing her like a cat latched onto a sleeve. She managed to get her hands around the weird bone weapon of the creature, but that was it, all she could manage as it rampaged around the base of the sewer.

The other wolves jumped in, going for its seven remaining spider legs. Maybe too shocked by the fact one of the wolves had latched onto its arm, the monster could only stomp around, and did little to stop the other wolves from latching onto its many limbs. They pulled at them with claw and tooth, and with enough legs yanked out from under it, the creature fell onto its belly.

The others continued to pull and bite, doing their best to try and rip more of its legs off; no good, whatever this monster was made of, it refused to break. But it was down, unable to stand, unable to spin and attack nearly as easily. Queue for Clara to jump the spider's side, and start digging into its hairy exoskeleton once again.

Avery couldn't let go of the arm though. Her claws and eyes glowed with that strange red that seemed to make her claws cut with fire, but she couldn't use them. Every attempt to slash and swipe at the monster's human half was futile as the spider creature kept her at arm's length. It was up to Clara to kill it, and she wasn't having the same effect Jack had seen Avery cause when she'd mounted the last one.

At least the creature had forgotten about Jack. Hard to enjoy as he watched the monster start to rip itself free of the werewolves, spider limbs tossing aside the wolves that clung to it, one beast at a time. Clara was on its back, trying to reach its human half, trying to get to its head to start clawing, but the creature bucked so much she had to latch onto its spider body with all four sets of claws. And the spider, perhaps getting smarter as the fight went on, slammed its captured bone arm against the sewer floor.

Water and blood splashed as Avery's body collided with the floor. When the water settled, she was still holding on, and her claws started to tear at the monster's bone arm. No good, even her glowing claws couldn't do much to whatever this creature's weapons were made of. And again, it slammed its arm down so Avery's body swung through the air before crashing into the concrete beneath her. And again, and again, and again.

The glow in her eyes vanished, and the glow of her claws soon after. When the spider lifted its arm again, the werewolf leader was no longer attached to it, and the arachnid screeched its triumph as it started to swing its human half around with full speed, full freedom.

First it went for the Uratha pulling on its legs. They were faster to dodge this time, now that one of their friends had died earlier to them. But faster wasn't fast enough to completely avoid this thing's ridiculous speed, and the first wolf took the slash down the side, almost halfway through the torso. The wolf fell away, half curled up in a ball in the sewer water, half dragging itself to a spot away from the rampage. Another wolf tried to replace Avery as anchor, and leaped for the bone scythe, but the spider spun its torso to catch the wolf in the back with the flat side of its other arm. The crack was audible, nauseating, and the wolf fell over like a bag of sand. And the other wolf still on its spider leg did her best to keep the creature from turning around completely. But the monster was too big, too heavy, too strong, and once back to standing on its seven other legs, had no trouble flicking her away and sending her into the concrete once again, again hard enough Jack could hear things break and see the concrete crack.