My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 07

That Gangrel had been found, and once it became clear they were lost to their beast, in a near constant state of frenzy, they were executed. If they found this Uratha in the same state, the result would be the same, no matter what Avery said. The Prince and the sheriff would deal with it, and as much as the Uratha were brutally strong, the dragons would be able to handle it. But if they did, Avery's backlash could be catastrophic.

This night was turning into a pain.

"Ma'am." Julias snapped his fingers in front of the woman's face. No response. He touched her shoulder, and her gaze snapped to him. Better. "Ma'am. Nothing happened here tonight. Nothing happened to the man down the hall, and nothing happened to your door. It was all a construction accident."

He stared into her eyes, her trembling gaze, and reached into her mind. A spark, a white spark, floating around inside her, something he could see as he reached out for her mind. Something mystical, something beyond definition, except that it was inside the shell of her mind, and a mind was something he could define, and rewrite.

His thoughts drifted to Jen, and her verbal jousting. Did he believe in a soul? Yes, he did. He believed he could crush it, too. But he had no need to crush it, he wasn't Viktor. A subtle touch, gentle fingers on the mind, to wipe aside the memories until they were nothing but blurred tracks in the sand, was more than enough.

"Sleep."

Down she went, head rolling back, body collapsing backward in her chair as she went limp.

"Fucking impressive," Jessy said.

"Yes, very." Vivi smiled up at him, nodding.

Nothing like compliments from a couple of beautiful ladies to stroke a man's ego. He winked at Vivi, and motioned for them to come back out to the hallway, then down the stairs to the front door of the apartment building.

Several cops stood around, with police tape blocking off the scene. Thralls, and one ghoul. The residents who came home from work stood outside, waiting to get in, arguing with the cops about how their oven might be on, or their cat needed to be fed.

And, thinking of, Julias looked behind him, and raised a brow as Jessy came down with Eric's cat in her arms.

"... what? She needs someone to look after her, until we find him."

He came back in, and stood with the two women on the stairway, small glances over his shoulder to make sure no one could hear. "You don't think the Uratha got him? Assuming it was an Uratha, and not something else." Always the possibility it was a Begotten, after all.

"I..." Frowning, she looked down at the cat in her arms. The cat was oblivious to what was happening, except that someone was holding him, and that that meant snuggles. Cute, but kind of pathetic too. Pathetic could be cute though, when it was on something like a cat. "I'm not sure he wasn't the Uratha who did this."

"... say what?"

Vivi turned around as well, both eyebrows raised. "Why do you say that?"

"He felt... different, you know? Didn't feel like other kine. And I tasted him. Fucker tasted damn good." She held Kat to her chest, and the cat had no issue rubbing herself into her neck. Perhaps she smelled Eric. "But, yeah, I didn't think he had this in him. So, I dunno, it might not be? I... oh fucking shit, Fiona."

Julias motioned for Jessy to follow him, and continued outside. "What about her?" The police had the alleyway blocked off as well, and the two of them went down the path. Invictus clean up crew included Vivi, and she nodded to Julias as he nodded to her, before she stayed behind.

"Fiona had an interest in him, kind of out of the blue. And... and didn't she go to him, asking if he'd seen Jack and whatnot, when he disappeared?"

"That's what the Prince told me, with what she was willing to share in her report. So Eric told her, anyway."

"I wonder why she was so interested in him, why she went to him specifically." Shrugging, she jogged to catch up to him, and walk beside him shoulder to shoulder. "She's a monster, right? Jack says she can see us, see other paranormals, see what we are with only a glance. So, if she saw something in Eric... knew he might be able to help finding Jack..."

"... that does make sense." He stopped at the manhole between buildings, and peered down into the black. Someone had yanked manhole cover off, and thrown it. A hundred-and-fifty-pound disc, embedded into a dumpster thirty feet further down. God damn.

"We going down there?" she said.

"I shouldn't, supposedly. I'm supposed to be working on the macro, and letting you do the micro."

"Yeah, but Jack and Damien aren't nearby, and neither is Isabella's crew, or—"

"Exactly." Sighing at himself for being such a moron, he started to climb down the ladder. "Bring the cat. If you're right and it's Eric, and he's going berserk, then maybe the sight — or smell — of his cat will make him hesitate."

"And if it's not Eric?"

"Then the cat's owner is dead."

She winced, and looked back to the alley they came from.

It was written all over the girl's face, and she didn't know it. A lot like Beatrice in so many ways. But he couldn't tell her, it'd only damage the outcome; what that outcome would be, he had no idea, but best to let it progress on its own. Maybe she'd figure it out, with how much she'd suddenly developed an attachment to the man's cat.

A cat. If Eric was a werewolf, it didn't make much sense that he owned a cat. Then again, Kat the cat seemed more than stupid enough to not care. Lucky for Eric, if Jessy's hunch was correct.

And she probably was. She was an Invictus right hand both because she had brawn, and she had a knack for good hunches. Worked well with Natasha's analytical side.

God damn, he missed Tash.

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~~Eric~~

Bite.

Kill.

Tear.

Shred.

Eat.

Hunt.

Hide.

Hiding was strange, and weird, and wrong, but a part of him, somewhere inside the pulsing waves of his mind, knew he had to hide. They'd be coming. He had to defend his territory, defend himself, but he couldn't do that if he was surrounded. He needed a better place, someway to defend himself, and then return to his territory. His territory. His. No one else's.

He looked at the walls of the tunnel. Hard wall. Man's wall. The shapes in repeating patterns made him growl in frustration. Flickering light ahead, from the walls above him. Dead silence ahead of him, unending, deep into the ground where it was safe. Safer.

Get back to the top, kill everyone and everything.

No! Safe, find safe place, let this pass, then go back, then make safe. Rip and tear and eat anymore who dare violate your home.

He licked his chops, mind swirling with the thrill of the kill, the taste of blood, of human flesh. Human, man, stupid prey, mostly bone. But that small human, the one he hated, hated with everything, was tasty. Fat was tasty.

Eric crunched down on his teeth, and let out a satisfied rumble as he felt the remains of human bone break apart between his back teeth. Yes, humans, in their stupid layers of color. The colors, blue and white and black, they did not taste good. But the meat inside, the flesh, the blood, was delicious.

There had been other humans, a couple, that had seen him as he ran for the tunnel entrance. They squeaked like rats as he tore the hard thing from the tunnel's mouth, and jumped into the blackness below, getting underneath the ground. He knew they would be no threat, and his hunger was satisfied.

The hunger was, the anger wasn't.

He knew which tunnel he picked, knew how to get to it, the tunnels beneath the tunnels where humans didn't go. There was a barrier between him and the tunnel, of that same hard thing that had cut his belly, but the word was long lost. Whatever it was, he tore it off the human wall, nothing more than a piece of grass in his path. Now, he was deeper, and deeper into the ground.

Alone, in the dark, he howled until it rang in his ears, until it echoed down the long darkness between the flickering light, man light, and he slashed the wall. The hardness gave way to his claws, like grass, like twigs, like skin. He slashed again, and again it split apart. Again, and again, he slashed, and slashed, until a roar was joining it. He didn't mean to roar, but it came out, came pouring out of him, echoing down the tunnel with more heat and impact than his howl could hope to match.

He wanted to kill.

He wanted to tear things apart.

He wanted to feel a living thing bleed in his mouth. Feel them die between his teeth. Feel them snap, break, crush. Nothing else mattered, nothing in the world. All that mattered was the hunt, the kill, the pulsing fire rushing through his veins, the saliva dripping from his chops, the hunger in his chest for violence.

Some inkling, some tiny spark of him knew what he was doing, knew he was stalking through the tunnels, knew he was bigger, and stronger. Knew he had survived getting stabbed.

Stabbed. Not clawed, not bitten, stabbed. Human word, stab, with metal. Metal was the word, to stab with metal. Metal knife, metal cover tunnel, metal door in the tunnel, and... concrete.

He shook his head left and right, and smashed his shoulder into the human wall, hard enough for some of it to crumble away and fall at his feet. His feet? His claws. Talons. His paws.

Thoughts bubbled beneath the rage, but he couldn't pull them up. Every time an image, a word, someone or something that made sense, that reminded him of... something... it was washed away in a torrent of red rapids. Fight. Kill. Bite and tear. Rip and shred. Hunt.

He continued along the tunnels, and raised his nose as he sniffed the air. Dead things were walking around, dangerous. They weren't prey, he couldn't eat a dead thing, but he could kill them if he had to. Most of them were not dangerous enough to stop him; some were, but not most. None of them were around either, not as far as he could tell. The still air hid the scents of others, but only to a point. He was alone.

Or, wasn't. He came to a stop, crouched down low until his colossal claws found the old, worn hard things beneath him, two of them running together along the ground behind and in front of him. He licked his chops, felt his saliva drip from his tongue, and moved forward into the awaiting blackness. The human's lights no longer worked, no longer shined upon the hard earth and tunnel around him. Darkness, around the turn, darkness ahead into the depths of the awaiting chasm. Darkness, to cover his guise for the two seconds he needed, before he could strike.

This one ahead of him, in the black, wasn't one of the dead walkers. This one was alive.

They weren't there a moment ago, though. Out of nothing, out of the ground or the sky, or the walls of human hand, this one came. This new prey wasn't human, but, was. He could smell it, smell the blood, the flesh, the breath. He could hear the beating heart, he could hear the swishing of human colors rubbing human skin with movement. And most of all, he could hear the tap of feet against the tunnel floor.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The beat of it—her, from the smell, the beat of her heart matched her footsteps almost exactly.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Closer, and closer, the human came closer, unsuspecting, unknowing. Easy prey, easy food, easy to taste more of that flesh. More of that sinful flesh.

Sinful flesh?

Meat! Meat, organs, bone, sinew. Rip and tear. Kill them, hunt and hunt and hunt and drown in the taste of flesh. He threw himself at the oncoming movement, his roar shattering the silence as his talons sundered the hard ground underneath him. He was heavy now, massive, and yet, light, his strength having no trouble moving him with the grace of a hare. One leap, two leap, the ground underneath flew by as he sailed over it, pounced over it, and threw the whole of his body at the woman.

She threw her hand out at him, and from the darkness, movement came. In the obsidian depths of the tunnel, where what little light existed was lost around the corners, he caught a glimpse of the massive, skeleton arm, that greeted him with its knuckles.

He bit, and clawed, and tore into the enormous hand, but he was biting, clawing, and tearing into bone, a giant bone arm. This woman had bone arms?

The darkness was close to absolute, in this section of the tunnel, almost as if the female had wanted the darkness, had come from, or had sought the darkness. And whoever, or whatever she was, she could see him well enough to punch him. He had trouble seeing her though, the black burying him.

If only there'd been a flicker of moonlight, this alien thing would be dead and eaten.

He lunged again, and she threw herself back, rolling onto her shoulder and back onto her feet. All blurs in the dark, a subtle silhouette all he had to go on, and his ears and sense of smell. It was enough. He pounced at her again, snarling, roaring, and landed on her with his claws.

But again, hard bone formed a well between him and the soft flesh, between him and the thing that smelled of sweat and skin, between him and meat. It had to be an arm, enormous, and strong enough to catch his weight, and launch him back. He had no idea how some sack of meat could be that strong, but he flew backward, and landed on his back, hard ground greeting him. Pain? A tiny thing, pain, background noise, lost in the raging, screaming tides of pumping blood in his skull.

Again he dove at her, this time going low. But, despite being on all fours, he was still as tall as the human-looking thing he was hunting. If only he could see her! See her, bite into her, rip her open, eat her muscles and taste the layers of fat under her skin.

For a moment, a fleeting second in the dark, he saw eyes. Two white, beady eyes in the dark, spread further apart than a human's eyes. This human thing had something with her, inside her, something defending her, fighting for her, with her. Something he could kill.

He rammed into her, shoulder first. She blocked with the arm again, and he knew she would. With the whole of his weight smashing into her, and his talons digging into the hard rock of the tunnel ground, he slammed her back. She flew, rolling against the floor, body almost bouncing. Opportunity! Throat, go for the throat, or the belly, tear open the soft flesh, bleed the prey. He dove at her again, claws first.

The giant bone hand came out from underneath him, up through the ground. No sound, no rumbling, and the ground did not break. Like a ghost reaching through the earth, the hand came into existence, materialized, and the enormous silhouette punched into his stomach and legs. The forward momentum caused the punching monster arm to crush his legs against the ceiling, and he thundered agony and rage as the angle caused his shin and ankle to bend, bend, and break.

He fell, body limp, pain causing the muscles in his body to clench, only making the pain worse. And then, the pain renewed, as he felt the muscles and tendons within the mangled and ruined limb force the bones back into position, force the cartilage back into form, and seal, as if by fire. Crack. Crunch. His body was not gentle with the process. It did not care for his pain, for the misery coursing through his veins, it snapped back the flesh and sealed the wounds with all the grace of an earthquake.

But he was healed, and he could continue the hunt. All that mattered now was to get up, and pounce at her again. He was bigger than her, stronger than her, and—

In the darkness, the blur of onyx unleashed both fists, each fist almost as big as his body, and each fist made of hard bone. Each fist slammed into his body. The shock of impact was like falling into a frozen river. He slammed into the tunnel wall, and his skull crashed into the concrete hard enough to dent it, to earn crumbling bits of it onto his fur.

He recognized that arm.

"At... thalia?" His tongue didn't move the way he wanted it to. His lips didn't exist. But he wanted to talk, had to talk.

And the voice, what did the great voice tell him? Breathe. He had to breathe.

"... you must be Eric." The woman walked over to him, and stared down at him, from what he could tell from the silhouette. Down. He was lying down, on his ass, enormous legs out in front of him. Fur. Claws. "I suppose you know who I am because you saw me in the nightmare, after I showed up with Beatrice."

"I..." I. Eric. Wake up. Wake up you fucking idiot, wake up and fucking breathe!

He looked back at the dent in the wall. A big fucking dent, made by his body. His steel body. He got back to his feet, easily at that, the wounds, the concussion, all fading away in moments. Some nicely, some not so nicely, screaming their vengeance at him in a flurry of pain as the wounds within him healed.

He stood tall, and breathed deep, each breath bombarding him with a thousand scents. With this woman so close, most of them came from her. He could smell old bone. He could smell the stones of a cemetery. He could smell cigarette smoke, a complicated aroma. And he could smell rotting flesh. Most of those he could guess, but the rotting flesh?

He looked at her, then the ground, the wall, the ceiling, all details lost in darkness. But, a smash into the wall jolted his body just like an ice bath did, and he forced that little spark of thinking up through the lava coursing through his veins.

"I'm... Eric."

"Having trouble talking there, big guy? Christ, get out of that form before you give me a heart attack."

Form. Form? He was in a form. He was so fucking tall! He put out his hands in front of him, and blinked at the titanic size of his claws, his palms.

He was a fucking werewolf.

"I... I don't... I..."

"Sounds like you're going through your first change? Well fuck me, if I hadn't seen you coming, I'd be dead." She gestured to the darkness around them, arm a blur in the black. "Perk of who I am, darkness is no issue. Now, let's just step back out into the light, and you can take a breather and calm down."

"C... Calm down..." Hard to talk, but the words had to come. But, as he talked, so did the memories. "I... trying to remember... trying to—"

BREATHE!

The thunder of the moon's voice shattered his mind, and he fell to a knee as his claws grabbed his skull.

BREATHE!

He gasped, lungs fighting against him, muscles clamping down, air resisting until he forced it in. One hand fell to the ground, and he grumbled and groaned as agony shook him, paper cuts on his insides where he couldn't see or touch. Biting, gnawing, eating at him from the inside out. Something, he was supposed to do something.

He was supposed to calm the fuck down. Let it out. Let it go. Breathe. Just breathe.

Don't breathe! Not next to this monster, this alien, this deadly thing from the black.

Breathe. She is not your enemy. Those hunters are. This Athalia women is not. Fiona is not.

He forced in the breaths again, each deep into his diaphragm, each causing a low rumbling sound, quiet but there, almost a purr. The monster next to him chuckled, and smirked at him, as the two of them walked a little further until they were under some weak light a ways down the tunnel.

Breathe, and relax.

He groaned again, pain working through his bones and muscles as they began to shrink, as the weight began to fade. The ceiling above him grew more distant. The claws beneath him grew closer, and smaller. The length of his arms decreased, pulling into him, as well as his claws.

Clothes began to reform. Human fabrics. His fur faded, along with his tough skin, and human fabric colors emerged, the black pants and the tight gray t-shirt, the nice shoes, all clothes he couldn't afford before he got his new job.

Job. He had a job.

Jessy. Jessy had said she'd dealt with his debt.

Pitt, Montel, and Long disagreed.