My Little Ventrue Pt. 04 Ch. 08

Movement in the shadows, in the blur of silhouettes. He should have been able to see in the dark, at least a little, and he felt he should have been able to in this room as well, but his body was too busy healing the hole jammed through his ribs and the heart. Scalding pain, incinerating, like molten lead being poured into his chest. Felt like it was melting his intestines and boiling his lungs. He didn't need them anymore, vampire as he was, but they still felt pain, and the gargled groans of agony slipped out of him. A few moments later, they silenced as the pain faded to only a harsh ache. He was healed, at least enough to cover the hole and have his heart back to its correct, withered shape.

He looked to his left and right. Darkness, but no longer total darkness as his eyes adjusted. A tiny seam of light poked out at him from underneath some sort of door in front of him, taunting him with the subtle, glowing white. As his groans died off, the silence around him was broken only by the heartbeat and breathing of nearby humans, and as his eyes started to work, he could see their bodies against the walls of his dark enclosure. They had pistols in holsters at their hip, blurry in the black but enough he could see and recognize the shape. And, something in their hands glinted, caught the tiny bit of light from under the door. Large knives maybe, or small swords like many Kindred carried.

They weren't vampires. Vampires blushing life breathed and had heartbeats, body warmth, all the good stuff from their first lives, but it took more than that to suppress the aura a Kindred carried with them. An aura that, once you were close enough to feel it, any paranormal creature seemed to carry. Werewolves all felt like being near a Goliath with a lust for raw meat, and the Begotten felt like cold death crawling under the skin, like black venom swimming in shadows.

The strangers had none of that. He could smell the blood, the breath, the body odor of living things, but none of the extra stuff that came from the monsters that bumped in the night. They were human.

He sat up a little straighter. Metal chair. He tried to move his hands, and the rattling of metal on metal rung through the room. Concrete room then, based on the sound flutter. Room definitely needed some acoustic panels to help with—

"He's awake."

"I'll get Jeremiah then."

Jack winced as the darkness split, and a light cut across the dingy walls. Yeap, concrete.

A woman disappeared through the light and outside; enough time with the door open for him to see the door was metal, and outside the room he could see metal bars. A prison? There was a prison in Dolareido, and an old abandoned prison as well, in North Side. That's where he was then.

Shirtless, chained to a chair, in a prison, after getting stabbed in the heart. Yeap, kidnapped. Ugh, why him? Why always him?

God damn it Damien, you jinxed it.

The woman who'd walked out of the room wasn't wearing a trench coat or leather jack, and didn't look like one of the women in the memories the crows had shared with him. Neither did the man still standing in the room. They both looked strong, and were armed with shotguns, and like he thought, large knives and pistols, complete with tattoos, scars, and worn street clothes. If he didn't know better, Jack would think he was looking at Carthians.

Maybe the two crows would come to his rescue, like Lassie or something? Doubtful. Animalism forced them to obey simple commands, and communicate with him. They weren't loyal. But, that could be kind of cool, loyal crows? Maybe he should try training some.

Entertaining fantasies to ignore the reality of the current situation. Wonderful.

A man walked in, and this guy was wearing a trench coat, brown. Still, not one of the four Jack expected either. This man was old, with pale skin sporting a few too many scars across his face and short, gray beard. Short gray hair combed backward showed a scar or two cutting across his forehead as well. And, Jack could see a hint of tattoos starting on his neck before disappearing underneath his black shirt.

Silence. The man looked at him, watched him, took the time to check him up and down and analyze the vampire. Gave Jack time to look him up and down, try and figure him out, figure out his situation. Other than the lighting from beyond the door, which was dimming now that his eyes were adjusting, there was no light to be had. He still had his shoes and pants, but he couldn't feel the weight of his phone in his pocket anymore. He was alone.

Alone, with humans, who knew what he was. For a second, he worried for the Masquerade, and what these kine might do with a Kindred in their possession. But then they'd have to go public, and they hadn't done that yet, hopefully. Find out later. First, find a way out of here.

"Hello Jack," he said. Gravely voice, hoarse, a bit deep, like he'd been smoking his whole life and singing too hard.

Jack met the man's gaze. Whoever this old man was, his faded blue eyes were hard, the sort of hard Jack figured you'd get if you were exposed to horrible things on a regular basis, like those movies set in the Vietnam war showed. Maybe military then, someone who'd worked their way up from private, and seen all the horrible things the barrel of a gun could accomplish?

Or the man just had that sort of look to him, and exploited it.

"Hello."

"Suppose you wonder why a bunch of humans have kidnapped you."

He called himself human. Guess that meant he knew he was a vampire for sure then. Made sense, stake in the heart and all that; or whatever they'd stabbed him with.

"You could say that."

The old man stood straight, and started to pace, combat boots landing lightly on the concrete. He was a little tall, this old man, and he had some thickness to his shoulders men his age usually didn't. Far as the beast in Jack's gut could tell, he was just plain old human through and through, except, that something was off. Like that time he had some tacos when he was younger, and something was off about the taste but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Food poisoning sucked. Not as much as a stake through the heart though. Delightful comparison.

"You're taking this pretty well," Jeremiah said. "Young guy like you, figured you'd be at least a little nervous."

He was nervous. He was very nervous. But he was getting a lot better at his poker face. Besides, once he had a moment to get his bearings, he was going to brainwash these idiots and get the hell out of here.

"Not sure what to say to that."

Jeremiah shrugged, and grabbed another chair beside Jack to sit in it reversed, facing him. "Don't think we'll kill you?"

"I... guess you might. But you did kidnap me, so, I doubt you'll kill me."

"Yet."

"... yeah, yet. Until I tell you what you want to know."

"Exactly." Jeremiah kept his gaze, and kept the door open too. Wasn't trying to hide where they were then. "First, how much do you know about me?"

Jack remained silent. He knew nothing about this man, except that he was probably linked to those four humans he was on the lookout for. But he had to keep some control of the situation, and not letting the man know what he knew or didn't know about him was better than nothing.

"... ok, Ventrue, try it."

"W-What?"

"Try it." The old man leaned in closer, and after pausing for a moment, slid the chair closer so he was only a foot from Jack, and staring him in the eyes. The man's poker face was infinitely better than Jack's; or he was just that sure of himself. "Try dominating me."

Jack pulled his head back a few inches, but couldn't get very far with the chair behind him not moving. It wasn't moving? He looked down, and groaned. The feet of the chair were bolted to the ground. He turned his head again, and now with some light, he managed to look over his shoulder and get a glimpse of the handcuffs on his wrists. The cuffs holding him weren't regular looking handcuffs, and they had weird, white symbols etched into the black metal. Normal hand cuffs he might be able to break, but these laughed at his attempts to even bend them.

Not good. Very not good. And, when he looked back to Jeremiah, tried to meet the man's gaze again, he could feel the wall in the man's eyes. A steel wall. Jack tried, stared into them, reached down into his gut with vitae as best he could, but nothing happened. He dug harder, groaned, growled as he let the beast in his guts fight against the barrier. Nothing happened.

"Nice cuffs, right?" Jeremiah reached out, and took him by the chin. "Daeva or Nos might be able to break them with some raw strength. You though?" The old man squeezed on his chin hard enough to hurt, and shook his head around a little before letting him go. Hard fingers.

A small twitch of the man's eyebrow gave away that he was thinking about something else as he said it. More than just the cuffs then? What other tricks did these people have? He knew about the bloodclans, which meant he must have been doing this hunter gig for a long time, and was good at it.

"... how'd you sneak up on me?"

Jeremiah shook his head. "Secret."

"I'm your prisoner. And... and I'm guessing you're going to kill me once you know what you want to know, I—"

The man smirked, and shook his head again. "We're not here for you vamps, Jack."

"... you're not?"

Jeremiah shrugged, like the conversation was casual, breezy. "No, we're not."

"How do you know my name anyway?"

"We've been watching." He shrugged again, and reached into his pocket to pull out a smartphone. Not Jack's though, his own, and he brought it up to show Jack a picture of a burned building. Barry's.

"Barry, you—"

"Your fellow vamp stumbled onto my work. Couldn't let him see where I was setting up shop." Jeremiah nodded a few more times, each subtle, each weighed with some secret or hint Jack couldn't piece together, each painting a picture of history from his face, of killing vampires on the regular, like it was natural.

And the man had a powerful face, the sort of face you might expect to find behind a cigar's tiny flame in the dark, with a knife in one gloved hand and a severed beast's head hanging by the hair in the other.

"I've seen your shop though, so you'll—"

"This old prison? No, this ain't where I work. But it made for a decent site in an emergency like this."

"... what about Barry?"

"That vamp? Shotgun to the head." He shrugged, like he'd squashed a bug. "He resisted, and you don't trust a vamp. You act fast, before they slip away into the dark, like the cockroaches you are."

Jack pulled his head back, and stared. The man said cockroaches as matter-of-factly as someone describing literal cockroaches. Jack expected to see some hate there too, but if there was, it was the hate people had for ants. This man, this human, would kill Jack not because he hated him, but because he didn't give a shit about him. This man considered his life as valuable as an insect.

The shivers started, trembling in his feet. Cold, like ice, started to work up his naked spine, and he felt the old urge to breathe in pants come back. He didn't pant, didn't show that he was starting to panic, didn't show the stabbing ache that was starting to creep up through his muscles, the urge to flee tensing them. But the rattling of the cuffs was more than enough for the man to know what was happening to him.

"You burned down the apartment building."

"I stirred the nest killing a vamp, so I watched who would come check it out. You can learn a lot by watching the fallout."

This guy came watching? But he wasn't one of the four. Or were they his lackeys? The man and woman he saw in his cell weren't the four either though.

"... what do you want?"

"You kid, are going to tell me about Azamel and Athalia."

Oh fuck.

"I... don—"

"Let's skip this part of the interrogation, and jump right to the good stuff, ok? I already know you've talked with Athalia and Azamel. I already know they're monsters." The old man leaned in closer, and stared him down. "Angela, get in here."

The door creaked, and another person walked in, a woman, a bit tall, a bit thin, dark skin and short black hair, very short, almost buzzed like his. She too was covered in scars, including one across the eye. It cut deep, and Jack inched his head back as he realized the eye with the scar was a glass eye. The softness of her face didn't match the steel, hard gaze.

She had a blowtorch in her hands.

"Angela here doesn't really care for vamps." Jeremiah shrugged, got up, and started pacing, body crossing the line of light that cut across the floor and onto Jack's helpless body. "Bad history."

Yeah, he was hearing that a lot lately.

"I don't know anything about Azamel." He sighed, shook his head, and struggled a little more. But as he struggled, Angela came in closer, and smirked at him as she took Jeremiah's seat for herself. And just like Jeremiah, her eyes shut him down, locked him into his mind, put a dead halt on any attempt to break her with a domination discipline. It had to be the cuffs, right? Then why did it feel like it was Jeremiah and Angela blocking him instead, the same way an elder Kindred might if Jack was trying to dominate them.

Who the fuck were these people?

The woman smiled at him, took out a lighter, and flicked on it a few times, each creating a spark, each dancing along the blowtorch she held it near.

"You were seen talking with Athalia." Jeremiah came up behind him, and set his hands on Jack's shoulders. "And we know that, at some point, you took a visit to see the old monster yourself, down in the tunnels."

"How..." How did they know that? How long had they been in Dolareido? What the fuck was going on?

"Nevermind the how." Jeremiah walked around some more, slowly circling the captured vampire and the crazy woman with the blowtorch. Easy to tell she was crazy, or at the very least eager to do things to him with that blow torch; it was in her eyes. "Tell me everything you know about Azamel and Athalia. Mark too, while you're at it."

Mark. Azamel's other companion that Jack had never seen. No mention of Fiona though. Good.

"You can't seriously think she told me anything important."

"Why not? Seems you're pretty important. Had the Prince's attention."

How the fuck did these hunters see into the Invictus ballroom? How did they get so close to him with Damien near?

Or, did Damien betray him? That was a possibility, and one he wasn't eager to dwell on. If Damien had betrayed him, decided to get revenge for Lucas, handing him over to some hunters after Azamel was an easy way to make that happen. Or worse, he'd told Maria what he did to Lucas, and the two of them had betrayed him.

No proof though. Don't jump to conclusions like a Gangrel.

"The Prince and I are a couple. But I have no pull with her or Azamel or Avery."

"Avery?" Angela said. First time she'd opened her mouth, and Jack flinched back when she said it.

They didn't know Avery? Oh shit, shit. Think think think think.

"One of the Invictus, from another city, I... I can't tell you anymore." Poker face, do your best god damn poker face before these fucks cut off your fingers for lying.

The old man snarled, but shrugged, and rubbed a thumb across his beard. "Probably someone on Forner's radar. Not my business, and I don't want to step on his toes." He came closer again, and put his hand on the back of the chair Angela was sitting in. Pupil, maybe? "Describe to me exactly what you saw when you visited Azamel."

He could tell them, but then Azamel would find out. From what the others told him, if he pissed her off, that meant dead Kindred, that meant a monster they were trying to hold at bay with explosives flipping the fuck out and going on a rampage.

"I... can't do that." Christ he wanted to. He knew pain, he knew what unbearable agony felt like when Viktor had split his face and chest apart. He didn't want more of that, he just wanted to get back to Antoinette and curl up in her arms. "You don't know what she's capable of. If she finds out I've betrayed her, she'll—"

"Don't know?" The old man laughed again, hoarse, gritty. And as he laughed, he pulled out his knife, a large knife, and slammed it down against Jack's leg. The resounding ding of the metal blade hitting the metal chair, after having passed through his femur, resonated against the concrete walls.

It took a few seconds for his mind to realize what just happened, and then, bury him in the waves of torrid pain. A second later, for a scream to break through.

"Kid, you don't know shit about Azamel."

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~~Eric~~

The woods.

He shouldn't have been in the woods. He should have been in his apartment, feeding his dumb cat Kat, and getting ready for his job. New job, right. Bouncer, or something akin to.

But he wasn't doing that. He wasn't in his suit. He wasn't smiling at his bank account numbers. He wasn't worried about any of it either. The only thing on his mind, was his territory, and the pursuit of prey.

He looked down. Paws. Fur. He looked around. Rocks, earth, grass, and the moonlit sky. And he sat upon a rock, a large one that overlooked some of where the forest met the mountain, where he could get a feel for his territory before he resumed looking for food.

He was an animal, a beast, and with his pack, they'd bring down mighty prey.

Except, there was no pack. Just him. Just him, sitting on the rock, and caring for himself, alone. Something wrong with that. Something comforting about that too.

He looked at the moon, and let its grand light encompass him, bury him until his breath came to a halt. Tonight, the moon changed shape constantly, quickly, blinking her gaze over him as it revolved through its different phases. Tonight, the moon spoke to him, angelic, overwhelming, burying, and crushing.

Demanding.

"Breathe!"

And all at once, the moon stopped upon the Gibbous phase, and slammed him into the ground with blinding light.

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He sat up in his bed, fast, almost whiplashing his neck, and sending his cat darting across the room. Sweat soaked his sheets, more of the same, cold sweat. Nightmares. Or not? He didn't mind the dream. If anything, he wanted to go back to it. Then why was he having this cold sweat again?

He looked at his hands in the dark. Since he'd started working night jobs, he'd started using blackout curtains to block out the light. But it wasn't enough, and he'd set up Velcro tape on the curtains to make sure they were snug to the wall, to block out all the light, every shred of it. So dark he normally couldn't see much beyond silhouettes once his eyes adjusted.

Now, he could see far more than silhouettes. He could see the grooves of his knuckles, and he could see where his heartbeat was pounding against his wrist, the radial pulse, like it was trying to jump out of his body.

Breathe, just breathe.

Groaning, he turned and set his feet to the tile floor. Cold, but not cold, like someone was running ice up and down his back, while his feet and hands and head were boiling. His body didn't like it, and neither did he. He groaned some more, and turned on the light.

"Fuck!" He threw his hands up to his eyes to block out the scorching flash. Searing pain dug into his eyes until they were filled with tears. He leaned forward, rested both hands against the wall, and forced his eyes open to stare at the floor as he opened the door. The pain slowly faded, but not before he felt his pulse in his eyes as well. At least it was slowing.

"Kat, you ok?"

She sat by the open door, and meowed.

"Right. Food."

His body was heavy, and he had to brace himself along the tiny hallway wall as he walked toward the kitchen. God awful little apartment, and he couldn't wait to get a better one, once he started getting paid, once he got Montel and his maggot Pitt their money.