My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 06

That first night he'd gone on a date with Triss, helped her get a meal in the Bloodlust club, and the kine had actively sought Triss's touch on her breasts, was a beautiful night. He'd never thought things would progress this way, that he'd be waking up each dusk with her in his arms.

And Jen being there too was an alluring, fascinating bonus. He'd slept with multiple women at the same time before, but this was a strange dynamic that deserved to be analyzed. He loved Triss, she loved him, and Jen was the friend that enjoyed tagging along for that ride, in all its aspects. It was all new to him, waking up to someone who was there for more than sex; not since the marriage had he enjoyed that. Hell, sometimes, there was no sex. Double hell, sometimes Jen was there, for the day to sleep, when there was no sex.

His romantic relationship had grown terribly strange, and wonderful. And considering the grin in their eyes, they didn't seem to mind the horribleness of his secret. Thank god. Like a soothing balm on his guilt, he watched the two women, and leaned back in his chair as well.

"I still have three secrets to share," Jen said, "and you, four." Her hand reached up, caressed along Triss's jaw and neck, before her hands fell to relax against the table completely, like his own. And through it all, Triss grinned at him while massaging the Ventrue's breasts. "But if we share more, we might spoil the night."

Once Jen began to blush life, her nipples hardening before his eyes, Triss ran one of her hands down to the woman's stomach, and under the waist of her skirt. A shiver and tremble from Jen made it obvious that Triss had begun caressing the woman's clitoris, or at least, the lips of her sex. No need to jump to such powerful stimulus so quickly.

And then his phone rang. Jack's ring.

"Um, hold on... in fact, don't stop what you're doing. It's Jack. I'll tell him to leave me alone or something." He pulled out the phone, and brought it up to his ear as he watched Triss and Jen both continue to grin at him. Succubuses. Neither of them were Daeva, and yet, they both took a strange delight in acting like them. Hell, Triss was really getting into it, riding Jen's love of showing off, and joining her at every opportunity these days.

He loved it.

"Yeah Jack?"

"Julias, there's, um... been a development," the kid said.

"Development?"

The girls remained silent, but didn't stop the show. Jen slid the shoulder of her jacket off so it fell back over the seat, and Triss took advantage, sliding the shirt apart further, and then undoing the zipper of the skirt. Black underwear of Jen exposed, Triss slipped a hand down underneath it again, and began to gently stroke the hidden flesh within, as the two women watched him on the phone.

"Yeah. If you give Tash a call, she can fill you in on more details. The sheriff found... what looks to be something straight out of the Circle's ritual book, if I had to guess. We think it was done by the hunters though, but it certainly feels the same. Sacrificed kine, bloody symbols drawn on the walls, etc."

"... that... does sound like something they might do." If Jack and the sheriff thought it was done by hunters, and looked like Circle work, that was worth looking into.

Looking into anything other than what he was looking at, was going to be difficult.

"Distracted?" the phone said.

"You could say that."

"Sorry, but this is important. It, it's uh... yeah, there was a picture of me, at the site. Hand drawn."

What? Fucking shit. Julias forced his eyes away from the display, from the two beautiful women trying to seduce him, and got up to begin pacing.

"That is not good. Must have had something to do with..." He looked the women's way. They caught on quick, Jen redressing fast as Triss let her go, and got up to walk toward him. "Hold on." Hand over the phone, he winced the biggest wince he could, like he was a college student losing his one opportunity to get laid. "Business, ladies. Apparently, hunter business."

Both sighed, and pat him on the shoulder as they started to walk out.

"Shame," Triss said. "She wasn't lying, you know, about showing you what it's like in the Circle. Dance naked in the moonlight? Child's play." She winked at him, and walked out the door as Jen waved at him.

"Jack, I hope you realize I'm watching two very attractive women walk out the door because of this phone call."

Both women laughed as they shut the door behind them.

"Sorry Julias, but, yeah, blood ritual thing, and my picture at the crime scene. Hand drawn, too. I'll have a more detailed report tomorrow. Right now I'm going to take a visit to Azamel's, see what's up there. And, who knows, they might know something about this fucking insanity."

"I'll send over the clean up crew immediately." He hung up the phone, looked at the table, and sighed. Time to head back to HQ.

He looked down at the cards, and smiled. One secret down, four to go, right? They were probably going to kill him.

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~~Natasha~~

"I... I'm surprised, you d-didn't let him take the photo," Tash said.

"The ritual must have left scars on it. The only Kindred who could learn more are the Circle, and us." Daniel walked around the room, with more attention paid to the symbols than before. Last time, the picture of Jack, and the skeleton it was dangling from, had been the stars of the show. But there were hundreds of symbols, and they had to be inspected.

"I know, b-but... it must be terrifying."

"I know it is." Daniel leaned over a table, and snapped a picture with his phone. "Everything always is. Now come on and help me look for anything I might have missed."

"R-Right, ok. What did you get?"

"A decent scan of all primary images, but I haven't touched anything." The sheriff found the stack of papers, and started taking pictures of each one individually, before setting them on the table. "Each of these will need to be cataloged."

"Right." She'd get into detail mode then, and look for the little things. With her own phone, she started snapping pictures of each, and every tiny little symbol. So many. So very many.

"Jack's no doubt reported this. Let's do a sweep, and take the pictures back to the Elysium tower. We can leave the clean up to the Invictus."

She nodded, and hmm'd her agreement as she zoomed in on some of the symbols on the ritual circle. So many symbols, and lettering of some kind. She didn't recognize it though, and that was strange. What language had letters she didn't recognize? She was sure she'd recognize nearly any language written, even if she couldn't read it. Strange that it wasn't Latin, because she expected anything like this to be using Latin.

The symbols of skulls were more easy to recognize. Bird, various hoofed animals, but no human skulls though. Suppose that was the point of the human sacrifice, to complete the arrangement of skulls. Worthy point of note then, maybe something to do with the different animals in the total?

"... how are things?" Daniel said.

"Um, ok? These, um, skulls are—"

"Not with this. I mean, in your personal life."

He did say that, right? It wasn't just her imagination. Her sire was asking about her personal life?

"Um, it's... it's uh... good, actually. Surprisingly g-good."

"Still seeing those two Uratha?"

"... I am."

"Is it a fulfilling relationship?"

Ok, wow. This was way too weird a topic to have with her cold and dead sire. But he was asking, and that deserved reward, some effort on her part to return the effort he was putting into it.

"It is. They, um, they're smart-t-ter than I thought."

"Oh, you thought they'd be stupid?"

"What? N-No! No, I... I thought maybe, they'd be... like what the stories, about Simon p-painted them as. Aggressive, and... yeah, st-stupid, I guess." Thinking about it in that term, maybe she owed them an apology, when she saw them again.

"Uratha are stupid." Her sire managed the tiniest chuckle, and she followed suit. Yeah, they kind of were. Were there any academics in the Uratha business? Instead of digesting mountains of books, she imagined their smartest sat around totems, and spoke to otherworldly creatures. Not exactly book smart.

Maybe it was better to think of them in terms of wisdom. A smart person knew a tomato was a fruit, a wise man knew to use it in a vegetable salad.

"B-But they do know a lot, and they show... p... p-patience, in a strange way. And, they're... sweet."

"... I appreciate that you're in a unique relationship, Natasha. Understand that Antoinette is my friend, and has been for centuries; I am all too familiar with unique relationships." A less-than-subtle hint about the Prince's rather sexually diverse past. It made Tash smile.

"Th-that is true, b-but, a girl doesn't t-t-talk to her dad, or sire, about the boys she brings home."

"True," he said. Tash glanced over her shoulder at him, and managed a peek at her sire's quiet smile. Typical, that he had to be surrounded by the remains of a deadly sacrifice ritual, and investigating it, to be able to let a bit of himself out.

She was just like him. Antoinette's guide to finding love was still on her mind, cultivating the garden of the self, letting others see it, and all the silly, romantic comparisons that came with it. Opening the gates for others was something she'd find easier doing while working, and, that's what her sire was doing. It was cute in a way, and she mirrored his tiny smile as she watched him work.

With a heavy sigh, the sheriff took another picture, and flipped the paper to the next one. "I do not understand why this artist bothered to draw scenes from this ritual. The result is Terry's face, but these other drawings seem pointless." He turned, and showed a picture of a knee being cut open. "At least, whoever this kine was, they didn't suffer."

"D-Didn't suffer?"

"Not likely. No signs of struggle, all the bones are undamaged, and these drawings are... detailed. They show signs of dissection, of detailed inspection of tendons and muscle fiber." He showed her another picture, of the skin of a finger being peeled off. "... it's almost as if... whoever was drawing these wanted to show someone something."

"I don't—"

"Ever read a medical textbook, perhaps on muscle tissue?"

"N-No. Glanced, once, maybe?"

"They're filled with diagrams of muscles and bones. They look similar to these, except without this rather... macabre approach." Another picture showed skin being pilled off the shin. Another showed muscle being pulled aside, and then cut apart, to show what looked like the bones of the forearm. "Someone was doing a demonstration."

"... horrible." She shivered, and resumed looking at the symbols. At this point, she was glad she was looking at the strange occult markings, and not vivid images of a body being dissected. The sort of nefarious purpose would lead to a dissection of a sacrifice, she couldn't guess. "How m-much of this... w-w-will we leave behind for the Invictus?"

"We'll be taking the skeleton and the images. Invictus will handle disposal of the locker's contents."

"... skeleton?" she said. Daniel nodded, and gestured to a duffel bag by the closed door. "... ugh."

"... do you trust those two boys?"

"Um, Art, and Matt?"

"Correct."

"... I... I am starting t-to, yes. I wasn't sure at first, b-because of what I'd heard about Simon, and... and um, how I m-met the... boys."

Daniel nodded, eyes on the papers. Diligent, giving no pause except to examine his evidence more thoroughly.

"A painful introduction. I would tell you to be careful with them, Natasha, as they are wolves and aggressive by nature, but... I won't tell you that, because I trust you."

She chuckled, and peeked at him again. Like a hardboiled detective, he continued his work without looking her way, but she knew he was probably smirking with his joke. At least, as much as his face was capable of smirking.

"I asked them, Art and M-Matt, to... investigate the old p-prison with me."

"Putting your boyfriends in an awkward position. Help their girlfriend, and upset their boss. Obey their boss, and upset their girlfriend," Daniel said.

"... yeah, I g-guess."

"No, you made the right call. We need information about these hunters, and if we can get the Uratha to help, then by all means."

Heh. She took pictures of each individual letter in the circle, tilting her head around and around to see if she could figure out what they meant, or where they were from. Nothing, no memories triggered, no awareness raised. Utterly clueless. Sighing, she moved on to take detailed pictures of some of the symbols on the walls, zooming in to inspect individual ones. On close inspection, she saw a lot of the symbols were repeated, placed in varying sizes, but usually oriented upward.

"Should... sh-should I ask them to come here?"

"... that may be prudent, before the Invictus arrive and contaminate the scene."

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"Sheriff," the two wolves said, at the same time.

Daniel raised a brow, and looked down at Natasha beside him. Yeah, talking at the same time was something they did, a lot. She thought it was delightful, but her sire, probably not so much.

He stepped back, and gestured them into the locker room. Both boys stepped in at the same time, and each whistled as they looked the walls up and down.

"... I smell humans," Art said. "A few humans were in here."

Matt took a long sniff as he went down into a squat beside the skeleton. "Smells like this poor bastard's blood on the walls. Couple months old? Ugh, reeks."

Dogs had a sense of smell so much stronger than any Kindred's, let alone kine's. Tash did not want to be them, in a room reeking of old blood.

"Never seen symbols like these." Art leaned over one of the tables, and ran a fingertip along the blood. And then tasted it. Ugh, ugh! Tash gagged at the sight, and the wolves chuckled. "Yeah, human."

"I thought that was considered a... sin, of a sort?" Daniel said, gesturing to what Art just did.

"Eat not the flesh of man." Shrugging, Art ran a finger along one of the carved symbols, while Matt came to join him. "It's old, rotten blood. Not exactly a problem."

"It's a good thing you called us, Tash." Matt took some time beside the skeleton as well, and sniffed the air several times, loudly, drawing in each breath with slow, calculating depth. Twice now she was seeing them play detective. It was a good look, she liked it, put them in a more respectable light than just her silly boyfriends. They were professionals, and dedicated.

"Why d-d-do you say that?"

"Spirits were here. Summoned."

Daniel stepped in, and held out a picture. "Anything to do with this?"

"Shit, Jack?" Art took the picture, and compared it against the others on the table. "... fuck, this is some... horrible shit. What happened here?"

"You don't know?" the sheriff said.

"Nope. Never seen anything like this. All I know is, someone cut a hole through the wall. It's gone now, but someone cut a hole, a tiny sliver, and was... probably talking, or showing..." Arturo held up the picture of Jack, and a picture of a human heart, free of its ribcage, drawn in the same style, same hand. "I assume Jack's still alive and kicking, as much as a vampire can be alive. And being Kindred, not like you can just remove the heart and draw a picture of it. Then again, how did someone get this angle on him, on his face? Quite the mystery. And I always did love a good mystery."

"Thought you just loved shadows, hiding like a pussy?"

Art threw Matt a punch in the arm, and Matt returned it. And then another round, punch for punch. Daniel looked at Tash, and managed a subtle eye roll. Tash did her best to keep the laughter between sealed lips, but it didn't work too well. Leave it to these two goofballs to go from professionally analyzing a blood ritual, to making jokes, in the middle of what looked like hell.

"Wraiths?" Art said.

"Wraiths," Matt said.

Tash glanced Daniel's way, but the man said nothing. She expected a 'Wraiths?' from him, to roll with the flow of the conversation, but that was her naivete showing through. If he knew or didn't know anything about what they were talking about, it was advantageous for him to not let the Uratha know what he knew. Like her earlier, when they mentioned wraiths at the prison. She knew, and Daniel knew, wraiths were connected to Black Blood, and, maybe Maria. But that was all, and that wasn't enough.

Art turned to face them, wincing as he looked down at the portrait of Jack in his hands. "I'm getting some familiar scents, but nothing I can pinpoint. I can't track it down, but... hunters talking with wraiths gives us something to look into. We'll get back to you, or Jack, if something comes up."

If something comes up. That meant something. Matt made a quick peek over his shoulder, and when she caught his eye, he offered a small wink.

They were going to show her something.

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~~Beatrice~~

Back in the Three Kings Cemetery, Triss looked up at the sky. Too close to South Side to see any stars.

Jacob probably hated that. A member of the Circle, long as he was, as old as he was? Man was probably born under the stars, and danced naked in the moonlight on regular occasion, back in the day before electricity, and phones, and cameras. Did he sacrifice humans callously? It wasn't hard to imagine, a Nosferatu getting hardcore about his delving into the dark arts, sinking deep into a pit of cruelty, malice, and madness to join it.

Hopefully, the mental image wasn't entirely accurate. Jacob seemed to have a soft spot, enough to at least do as Antoinette asked, and keep kills to kine who deserved it. But, she doubted the man, back in the day, realized he'd lose the stars by helping create a city. Probably didn't realize how much stuff he'd lose, going down that route.

Sympathy for the devil. And the devil, was whistling what she was sure was a Saturday morning cartoon theme from the eighties.

"Your sacrifice doing ok?" Jacob said.

"Um... she's a sacrifice. Do we care?" Triss adjusted the body on her shoulder. Unconscious. A heavy woman, some muscle and fat to go with. Supposedly a killer, drug dealer, and a lot of things in between, according to Jacob. But considering the hellhole they picked her up from, a dark, dirty crack in the ground in Devil's Corner, she bet he was right.

The joys of cities, for Kindred at least, was that the population drifted into group categories, whether they wanted to or not. Certain categories were easier prey, easier to make vanish. Certain categories were asking for it. Certain categories bred unjust, unfair environments, that naturally lent toward self destructive behavior. Sad as that was, deadbeats wanted by the police and liable to get thrown in jail for a few lifetimes, were perfect prey for Kindred who wanted to remain on the down low. Not all Kindred were concerned with the validity of the charges though, and she had to trust Jacob put in due diligence. Not the easiest thing to trust in him for.

No chance of them being seen, in Jacob's cloak of night. She and Jen were free to walk, skip, jump, or do whatever. Jacob took full advantage, while the rest of them were a lot more comfortable feeling the vibe of the cemetery: dead. They walked slow, somber, while Jacob hopped around, climbing up some tombstones, and offering a kiss to one of the larger angels.

"We care a little," Jacob said. "Don't damage the goods."

"She's a person." Jen sighed, rubbed her arms, and looked around. Didn't take her for the type to be afraid of cemeteries, but after what happened below, maybe that had changed.

"A wanted criminal, and justly so. As far as we're concerned, she's just a sacrifice." Jacob, in his dark robes, slid down the angel's side and approached Jennifer. "You wanted to go deeper down this rabbit hole, Jen. You'll have to get used to killing kine."