My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 08

"Leave her alone." Matt came in closer, balls of his feet pressing to the stone, ready to fight. "She tried to apologize, and—"

"I do think you should shut your mouth, child." Jacob walked up to the huge man, stared up at him, and grinned. "And I think you should get out of my home away from home."

"Do you even know what you're causing?" Art said. "What sort of things those wraiths have been up to? Think they all serve Black Blood, or that they're so void of will that they'll line up for you? People are dying, you fucking moron, and this locus here you have under your control? You're going to bring a mountain of trouble down on your whole city." He came up beside Matt, reached out, and shoved Jacob back at the shoulder. Oh no.

Jennifer came up to Jacob; he'd let the shove push him back a few feet with a sort of drunken flow. She put a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off, bodyweight leaning from side to side, foot to foot, as the eyeless maniac grinned at the two wolves trying to stare him down. Bad bad, this was very bad.

Triss came up to Jacob too, and mirrored Jen, standing beside her boss and reaching out to his shoulder; he shrugged her off too.

"... no one's been hurt here. Not anyone who doesn't deserve it, anyway." The younger Nosferatu gestured to the bowl behind them, apparently filled with body parts, just like the wraiths Art and Matt were hunting would probably like. "This human deserved it."

Art shook his head. "And the fucker who died for the hunter's ritual?"

A flinch, from all three witches. From Jen and Triss, Tash expected it, but from Jacob, that was a surprise. It was subtle, a nudge of the eyebrow, mostly lost and hidden from behind the eye bandage, but there. Julias's lessons in tells were paying off.

"Ritual?" Triss said. "Hunter ritual?"

Matt stepped in closer, yet again. "Jacob isn't the only one communicating with spirits. The hunters trying to kill you vamps are, too. It's not like the spirits care who they use to spread their influences, just that they do. And you," he pointed at Jacob with a stern finger, "are making things worse."

Jacob didn't like that. The playful smile turned into something heavier, and he licked a fang as he chuckled. "Black Blood sends his condolences about Stephanie, by the way."

The roar that came out of Matt had the three women take a step back, and stare, wide eyed, as Matt uppercut the Nosferatu. Matt was a huge man, and Jacob was not. The punch sent him up and back, and he collided with both the ceiling of the cave, and the wall, before landing. But, as much as the ladies tried to watch Jacob, it was Matt that forced their gaze, as he began to transform.

His clothes faded into his body, as his skin erupted with fur. The size of him, his height, his muscles, all of it exploded with mass, with volume. Enormous and hunched, the beast towered over them, width growing, and growing, until there was no way the giant could fit back through the stairway they'd came from. His face erupted into hollering roars, again and again, as a snout burst from his face, the sickening sound of bending and breaking bones filling the silence of the deep cave as his body took liberties with itself, destroying and reforging itself into a beast.

Tash stepped back further, sword up to her chest, pistol pointed, at Matt.

She managed a peek at Art. Maybe he could stop this madness before it escalated. But, no. She winced, and stepped back all the more as he too, erupted into a beast. For a moment, she wondered why his clothes didn't erupt. Not practical? The next moment, she had her gun pointed at him instead, as a shattering roar slammed into the walls around them, echoing until it felt like the Earth was roaring at them too.

Both colossi jumped for Jacob.

Jen threw herself to the side, eyes wide and jaw dropped. Triss did too, but she wasn't as surprised; still surprised, but not as bewildered as her friend. She ducked around behind the two Uratha, ran up to Jen, grabbed her, and ran back to join Tash, a fair distance away from the unleashed carnage.

"They're... they're... huge," Jen said.

Huge, and dangerous. Tash could still remember that time in the tunnel, when Matt had trouble controlling his anger, caught under the rubble with her and Art. He'd nearly gotten them all killed in his mad attempt to tear everything down and apart. It was enough of a hint the Uratha were dangerous to more than their enemy, when in this form.

She scooted a little further away, and so did the two witches, as they stared on.

It was hard to see what was going on, with both of the giants crouching over Jacob, claws out, ripping and tearing. Bits of Jacob's robes started to fill the air as the wolf tore into him, and Tash chattered her teeth as she fought the desire to say something. Stop! He'll kill you! She knew she wouldn't be able to stop them, not when they were like this, not after what Jacob had said. There was a chance they'd turn and attack her, too. She couldn't imagine that happening, but now, seeing them scream and roar, bellow and cry out with rage in waves of magnitude she could not comprehend, she didn't know.

Matt's roar turned into a shrieking yelp, as he went flying across the room. The titan of muscle, ten feet tall and more than capable of ripping a train apart, spun through the air on his side, over the strange ritual bowl, and crashed into the other wall. Crunch. The girls winced, each with eyes locked on Matt, as the brute slumped to the stone floor. His right arm was bent backward ninety degrees at the elbow.

He got up, pushing off the ground with his free arm, as the other arm snapped back into place, on its own, as if some invisible ghost had come up to him and bent it back the other way with all the empathy of a torturer. Matt let out a rumble of pain with the audible crack of bone.

Another yelp. Tash forced herself to look, and grimaced until her sight was blurry. Jacob had Art over his head, holding one of the wolf's enormous wrists in one hand, ankle in the other, turning Art into a pretzel. Art still had an arm and leg free, but couldn't reach or kick underneath him, not with Jacob holding him, almost folded in half.

The elder switched his grip on from wolf's wrist for his other ankle, and holding the titan by both feet, spun around and slammed him into the wall, repeatedly. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meat and strength, helpless, as the eyeless Nosferatu turned him into a slab of flesh being beaten against stone. Again, and again. Tash forced herself to watch, but didn't know what to do, didn't know what to say to stop him. All she could do was watch as Art's blood started to smear over the wall. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Each slam drove the poor man's face into the wall, and by the third slam, bloody wolf teeth were sliding across the ground.

Jacob used the werewolf's greater weight like a weapon, a heavy weapon, letting it cause his own body to swing with it against the friction of his shoes on the stone. In comparison, Jacob looked like a child, wielding a sword huge enough to leave him constantly teetering left and right to manage the momentum. He did it with ease, as if... as if he'd done this before.

Matt sprinted forward. The ground beneath his talons ripped away, shredded open by the weight of his body and the force of his movement. His roar split the air, a ripple cutting through the emptiness like a shock wave, knocking the witnesses on their asses.

Tash squeaked as her pistol and sword went flying, smacking into the ceiling, then the floor. The bowl of body parts shook and rumbled, but remained where it was, while the contents inside splashed over the edge. Triss and Jen scampered to get out of the way as Matthew ran past them, each slam of his paws, monstrous mutations, filling the cave with more vibrations. It was like Jurassic Park, complete with the outcries and roaring.

Jacob was too busy with Arturo to dodge, and Matt's shoulder collided with Jacob, slamming him into the wall hard enough to crack the stone. The ceiling of the cavern began to rumble, and Tash whipped out her light to try and get a better look. The lantern the witches had provided some light, but with hers she scanned hurriedly, and managed a quick sigh of relief. No cave in, no cracks in the roof, not yet, but she was getting flashbacks of last time she was trapped underground with the—she wasn't trapped this time. She could leave, run, or do something! Get Avery's help!

She looked to Triss, and the two of them stared at each other. Fear, in her snake eyes. Jen's eyes were stuck on the madness, at the claws tearing and shredding, at Matt slamming his entire weight into Jacob, and sinking his claws into the vampire's stomach. Art, chest down, on the floor, was trying, but failing, to push himself to his hands and feet. His arms and legs weren't broken, but his face was bashed in, snout shattered, nose destroyed, teeth gone, tongue bitten off. Blood poured from his face, and he coughed up a river of saliva and crimson with it, pieces of his teeth, bones, and tongue, splattering over the cursed stone.

He got up, and looked at Natasha. Blood covered everything, his eyes, ruined face, and fur. It poured down the muscles, the indentations of mass visible through the fur, down to his claws, until it was dripping down around his feet. He looked at her, and growled, as his snout started to reform, new teeth erupting outward from destroyed gums to replace broken ones, length of his snout snapping back into place with a sickening crunch, the nose reshaping itself before her eyes.

How the fuck do you kill a werewolf? She didn't want that thought going through her head right now, but it was there. She forced herself to look Art in the eyes as she reached into her jacket for the hidden chest holster, and put her hand on her extra sword, the silver sword.

Art snorted, another splatter of blood splashing over the stone, before he turned and ran to Jacob. Oh, thank god.

Matt, for all his trouble, got a fist to the face from Jacob. One punch, and Tash looked away as he spun halfway through the air. Not as far this time, but enough for him to do a half rotation before landing. Everyone heard the shoulder crack against the cave floor. Everyone heard the bones snap back into place.

"I tried to be nice," Jacob said. His robes were ruined, slashed open, a giant hole in the gut exposing some of his skin, and the bits of insides Matt had exposed of his withered intestines. "Do my own thing, let Avery do her own thing. But twice now I've had you fuckers try and talk to me. Didn't Clara tell you what happened?"

Art roared in his face, unleashing a hail of spit and blood over Jacob's visage. Jacob smirked at him, licking a bit of the blood off the corner of his mouth, as he held Art at bay, hand to hand with the titanic beast, palm to palm. Jacob's hands weren't big enough to wrap around Art's by much, but just enough to get his fingertips and thumbs around the edges. It was enough for him to squeeze.

Tash forced herself back to her feet, and held out a hand. She wanted to say stop. She wanted to do something. But, her stomach turned upside down, and her gaze faltered, as Art fell to his knees, Jacob squeezing his hands until they broke like twigs. The elder put one boot to Art's neck, under the jaw of the snapping, biting, wild animal, and glared down at him with his eyeless gaze.

"I should rip off your arms. Think you can regrow arms? I'm not sure if Uratha can, and you know me, I'm a curious guy."

Art's voice cracked, jumping octaves as Jacob began to pull the werewolf's arms, and push his boot against the animal's neck harder, and harder.

Matt was up again, and roaring thunder as he ran at Jacob again. Until Jacob looked his way, and Matt froze. As if his titan body had run into a swamp up to his waist, he came to a stop, and fell to his knees, sinking underneath the black surface of the invisible muck.

"You'd think Avery's story about Viktor would have scared you idiots straight. But, no, too stupid to stay out of trouble. You'd bite your leg off if you were caught in a trap, and it'd be the wrong leg. You fucking stupid, worthless dog."

As Art's roars turned into yelps of agony, Matt sat there, colossal arms limp at his sides, knuckles to the floor, eyes looking up. Tears joined the blood on his face, and his mouth started to hang open. His breathing was fast, getting faster, and tiny yelps mixed into the heavy panting.

"... d-don't... don't... please get up..." The words were strange and guttural, wolf mouth struggling to articulate. But the tears and trembling limbs conveyed what was happening all too well. Matthew was in a nightmare.

"Jacob!" Triss marched over to him, now that the chaos had settled into a sea of still misery, and put a hand on his arm. "You've made your point. Come on, stop."

"Made my point? These fucking dogs waltz into my city, my fucking city, and dictate policy to us, to me. They act like the other world and its denizens are theirs to command. They come into my home, and break my fancy new vase. They spit in my face!" The Nosferatu spit onto Art's face, lowered his foot, yanked Art forward, and slammed his head toward him. The sound of Jacob's forehead smashing down onto Art's only recently reformed snout was like a scene from a movie, where all the sound effects are exaggerated. And when Art hit the floor, he bounced, head turning enough so the side of his face and snout smashed into the ground. Blood splashed outward, as if someone threw a water balloon filled with ketchup at the ground.

He didn't get up this time.

Triss pulled on the man's arm. "Jacob, come on. Avery will—"

"Fuck Avery! She killed Minerva! You have any idea, any fucking idea, what that—for fuck's sake Triss, keep Julias in your life for another twenty years, then lose him. You might have some, some fucking inkling of what it's like to suffer what I've suffered." He drew his foot back, and kicked Art in the shoulder. More sickening crunches, and from the angle, Tash knew Jacob had shattered his collar bone.

"Yeah, but—"

Jacob turned, and looked at her. Through the bandage, from the corner of his eyeless gaze, Tash was sure she saw a glimmer of something, a tiny shimmer of color behind the gray fabric, where his eyes should have been.

Triss let go of his arm, and backed away.

The elder reached down for Art's fur on the back of his head, and held him up enough for Jacob to look him in the eye. It was strange, seeing the normal-sized, perhaps small man, lean body now exposed through his tattered robes, lifting a gargantuan creature so easily. The juxtaposition of difference in size and strength was unreal, and Tash stared on, as Jacob swatted away Art's swiping arm, hard enough to snap the forearm like a twig, earning a howl.

"I should kill you. Arturo, right? I should fucking kill you. I should fucking rip your god damn guts out and let Black Blood take a peek. But I suppose they'd return to normal before he could. Shame. You know how much he'd love to get a look at that? Oh, the blood would flow so sweetly."

"You... you're... you're making... these... dangerous... spirits."

"You have no idea what I'm doing, worthless mongrel. If shit was as bad as you thought, the streets of Dolareido would be swimming in blood, black and red, and bodies would be flowing up to our doors like the fucking river Styx."

"Jacob!" Tash walked up to Jacob. Each step shivering, each step trembling, she forced herself forward, shoes pressing down against the increasing ocean of red blood the two Uratha were pouring. She forced herself to peek to the right and look at Matt, the biggest of the werewolves, a hulking titan, and trembled as she saw more tears pour down his furry face. Locked in a nightmare. Art was no better off than Matt, his broken arm not regenerating with the quickness of his injuries before, blood unending flowing down his face.

The eyeless man looked at her, and she froze. Blood coated him, werewolf blood, head to toe, mixing into his salt and pepper hair. It soaked through the gray bandage on his eyes, and a black glint shined against the red wetness. Something was behind the bandage, in his eye sockets. Jacob's lips curled into a snarl, and he glared at her as he back handed Art, sending the man spinning over the floor, limbs in a tangled mess, other arm now dislocated.

These beasts had torn through concrete, a metal train, and had managed to run her down, her, a Mekhet, when she was running from them in the tunnels. They'd taken on a giant spider monster thing, an enormous mutation with scythes for arms. To the psycho elder glaring at tiny her, they were children, biting off more than they could chew.

"... let them go, p-please."

"Let them go? Natasha Natasha, you're not your sire Daniel. You have no sway here."

Jennifer looked at her, eyebrow raised. Well, no use in worrying about that secret anymore. It didn't really matter anyway, now that she was back in the Ordo Dracul. But the fact Jacob knew it was another reminder that the man knew everything, and that if Antoinette owned the city, so too did Jacob, in a strange way.

"They're d... d-d-defeated."

"Are they? You see that fuck?" He pointed to Art. "Another five minutes and he'll be up again. I should rip off his legs. And him?" He pointed to Matt. "Gentle giant over there is swimming in some horrible nightmare, half of his own making. But these fuckers have the mental depth of plates. He'll get over it, and come running back for another swing at me."

"But they're... they c-can't... can't—"

"Can't what, hurt me? They're werewolves, stupid girl. Mindless, idiotic beasts, capable of nothing more than pursuing their instincts. If I let my guard down, I could find their teeth at my back. And, in case you haven't noticed, they like to use them." A gesture, with a flippant twist of the hand, toward the lacerations of his robes. The giant gashes he must have received were already healed.

"I... I w-won't let... them attack you." Not that it'd matter. Jacob had proven his superiority; he knew he had it from the start. The comment about Stephanie was bait, an excuse for Jacob to let off steam, and maybe get Art and Matt killed in self defense. "P-Please..."

Jacob glared into her, and she forced herself to stare at the bandages she was sure were covering some sort of eyes. This wasn't the same as the time he caught her peeping. This time, she found him peeping, or doing something naughty at least. Similar situation, sort of, but reversed, except she was again on the receiving end of the man's random violence and random... everything.

She managed a smile up at him, a tiny thing, meek and pathetic, but at this point, shooting him with a pistol wasn't going to work like last time. He'd tear her in half. And, this time, it was a good idea to back off on the violence, get everyone to settle down, maybe see past the insanity of this and let people recover and walk away.

She was fooling herself. This wasn't going to end well. Jacob was a psycho, a killer, a murderer, a witch, and a—

He let them go.

Art rolled away, coughing and mixing snarls with gargling on blood. Matt collapsed forward, rumbling breaths vibrating the room with its bass. And, with time, both titans brought themselves back up to their feet. Unkillable, without a silver blade to put them down, or an Elder to rip them in half. And aggressive described them perfectly, unrelenting, growling, leaning forward and ready to pounce at the Nosferatu as their limbs and minds reassembled themselves.

She stepped in the way, and held out her arms to the sides. "Stop!" Itty bitty little Mekhet in front of two Uratha, goliaths of muscle and strength.

The Uratha stepped forward, looking over her head

She stepped forward, and slammed down her foot. The sound was quieter than the breathing of the two beasts, but the motion was enough to snap their enraged, twitching gazes down at her. She was lost in their shadow.