My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 15

He steeled his gaze, sprinted down the hall, and went for the open door, sword in his right hand, pistol in his left. But the room was empty.

"What in God's name..." Sighing, he put his pistol away, and pressed in on his ear piece. "This is Damien. Eric's suite shows signs of melee combat, extreme damage, but there's no sign of him or Herrington."

"What about Clara?" Julias said.

"Negative."

Damien could almost hear Julias frown over the line. "Video feed saw her jump from her couch, and then run out of the apartment. I assume she ran to join Eric and Jessy."

"She probably did. And Carter?"

"Not in the building tonight."

"Roger that." Damien squatted down over the crater on the floor, and frowned. The floor was damaged as if someone had dropped a very large iron ball onto it from on high; but no iron ball was to be found. The hole in the wall could be accomplished by smashing someone into it, and the claw marks along the floor were long and filled with cracks and shred marks; the work of a Gangrel's protean transformations. The crater in the floor though, that would have required a great weight.

An Uratha could make a hole like that, if transformed into their war form, and if they drove the entirety of their weight into a single fist, after jumping to a great height. There had been two Uratha in the room, but no howling or roaring. That could have simply been the building's good sound insulation though.

He raised his head, and offered Jack and Natasha a nod as they walked in.

"They really just vanished?" Jack said.

Sighing, he nodded again, and walked over to the hole in the wall. Clear through, studs smashed, with bits of fabric against the wood between the drywall.

"A bad fight," he said.

"Think... m-maybe... a Kindred did this?" Natasha stood by the door, and looked back out. The police would not be coming, of course, and the residents would be informed there was no cause for concern.

"You know a Kindred that can make people vanish like this?" Jack shook his head, and squatted down by the dent in the floor, as Damien had done. "Cloak of night can do a lot of things, but the only Kindred I can think of that could use it, and incapacitate Jessy and Clara, and take them and Eric out of here all at once, would be—"

"Jacob or the sheriff." Damien shook his head, and motioned to the claw marks. "Jessy would have called that in immediately, if it were Jacob. No, she called in something more vague after hesitating, and based on these marks, she thought she could fight the intruders." Jessy wasn't stupid enough to try and fight those ancient undead, and if it was either of them, she would have called it in.

"Could always be an ancient elder we don't know about," Jack said, rolling his eyes with his own absurdity.

"The chances of that are... v-very... very low." The little Mekhet came in and joined them, taking pictures of the damage with her phone.

"Yea, but the other three options suck." Wincing, Jack sat down on the couch, and looked around with wandering eyes. "Either the hunters have a way of bypassing our stakeouts, getting passed all the Mekhet's auspex on top of that, or the Uratha or Begotten have taken Jessy and Eric. And Clara ran up here, so..."

Damien shook his head. "I doubt Clara helped the intruder. Your sire says she ran up here after the noises started, body language surprised. Though, that does not dissuade the possibility that an Uratha is responsible; I don't know what abilities they have, but I assume some would be strange and powerful, considering their ability to journey to the Shadow Realm."

"B-Begotten then?" Tash said. "It w-w... would make sense, with what Jessy's m-message said, about Eric's dream. We could ask them."

"We?" Damien said. "You came along to cover Jack. That—"

"That's still a thing!" Frowning, the tiny girl came up to him, and jammed in the chest with one of her fingers. "Trying to get rid of... m-me?"

"No." But he'd prefer to not involve her in the dark games he and Jack were drawn into. And that was a definite possibility, if the conversation turned in directions Damien wouldn't be able to predict. "Fine." There was no reason to suspect the oncoming 'threat' Jack warned him about was linked to Eric's kidnapping, but, it never hurt to be prepared. Mekhet motto, or Mekhet paranoia, either or.

Their ear pieces gave off a quick beep tone, announcing an incoming message. "Jessy's phone is off the grid, no GPS, no signal." Mire's voice. "Think it was destroyed?"

Damien did a double check on the damage. "No sir, at least not here. It may have been, if it was taken elsewhere."

"Tracker history shows it didn't leave that spot," the ear piece said. "So unless she was teleported somewhere deep underground or into a jamming zone... I suppose that's all very possible, if she vanished."

What a scary technology, being able to not only locate a person anywhere in the world if they had their phone with them, but to also have recorded where they'd been. Would Kindred keep maps, showing the life path of each Kindred and where they moved at all times? The Invictus would, surely.

"What do we do now?" Jack said, finger to his ear piece. "She's completely gone. The intruder, Clara, Eric, they're all gone like they stepped into the twilight zone or something."

The beep dialed in once again. "Unfortunately our options are limited. Is Natasha willing to help?"

Damien nodded. "She is."

"Ask her to visit the Uratha, and see if they have any ideas."

"Sure you don't want me to do that?" Jack said.

"You need to visit Azamel. Jessy's description of Eric's nightmare intruder, and his sudden incapacitation, are too specific to ignore."

Damien winced, and looked to his companion. The expression on the boy's face was obvious. Shit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Damien sighed. Jack sighed. The two of them crept into one of the old, abandoned subway tunnels, and through a locked door, into the depths of Dolareido.

Damien was not looking forward to this meeting; and yet, a smile kept sneaking onto his lips. A small thing, teasing him, sparking memories of Fiona, her giggling, her accent, her curves. A part of him told him he should be more concerned with immediate circumstances, about Jessy's disappearance, and the two werewolves. There was a very real chance that the three of them were in the hands of the hunters, and Jessy could be killed as collateral damage to their real target, Eric.

Perhaps they should have asked the Circle of the Crone for help. Their blood magics were capable of extraordinary feats, and he wouldn't have been surprised if divination or mystical viewing and tracking were among them.

His mind warped back to Fiona, and he slapped himself hard enough to pull a gasp through clenched teeth. Jack stopped, and raised a brow.

"Sorry," Damien said. "Thinking about... things."

"Fiona?"

"... how did you know?"

"The only times I've ever slapped myself, and was thinking about things, was when it was about a girl."

"Jessy and Clara are girls."

"Ha, yeah, but you know that's not the same thing." Jack had a smile on, small but there. Perhaps he wasn't worried, or had learned from Julias the value in not showing fear.

"... she is on my mind occasionally, yes."

A strange look washed over the boy's face. Relief, perhaps?

"She's been flirting with you, so that's understandable."

"She has?" Damien looked at his companion, and raised a brow. "Isn't she trying to seduce Eric?"

"She's attracted to Eric, sure, but a lot of that seems to be about making you jealous."

Madness. Damien shook his head, and started walking again. It was a mile to Azamel's hideout, and they couldn't dally.

"... are you sure?"

With a chuckle, Jack followed after him. "Julias — and Antoinette — have been teaching me a lot about social queues. Fiona's young, fun, trying to discover herself, all that typical young adult stuff I'm still going through."

"I spent those years hiding in sewer and subway tunnels, I'm afraid."

"Which is why I'm telling you. I wouldn't have said a thing, honestly, if you didn't just say you were thinking about her. She likes you, but she's all over the place, not sure what to do with herself, what she wants, or how to figure it out." He put his hands up in mock surrender. "I could be wrong, but the signals aren't subtle."

"Then how come I haven't seen them?"

"Because they're not subtle by female standards. Flicking hair over the shoulder, frequent glances with smiles, sneaking peeks at you while drinking, turning to face your general direction. Women think these things are giant signs, big neon letters that say 'I like you let's chat'." He shrugged, and took a moment to check his vest within his suit. Good to always check that your weapons were on hand. "But we're guys, socially awkward guys at that. It'll take a lot more than that for us to notice."

He found this all hard to believe. It was a stereotype he was familiar with; he spent fifty years hiding in a city, not in a cottage in the woods. But he'd assumed it was exaggeration. Who'd be silly enough to play these games?

Fiona would be silly enough, and her silliness kept pulling smiles out of him, whether he wanted it to or not. She was his total opposite, bright and cheerful and forever giggling. But, how was he supposed to respond to flirting? He hadn't a clue. His goal in unlife was to serve Lucas, and women were not a part of that plan. The plan was dead, along with his sire, but the wake of his inadequacies and ignorance remained.

"Damien," Jack said, "has Maria been up to anything strange?"

"Are more things pointing to her?"

"Nothing related to this vanishing act, but, yeah, a few more people have mentioned they think she's up to something."

This again. "I told you, I don't know what people are finding out about Maria that could suggest this. Everything she tells me, she tells the Invictus council, and all the Right Hands. The only things I know that you do not, are matters of the Lancea et Sanctum; and trust me, those topics are innocent." Trying to establish the rules for the rebirth of the Second Estate in Dolareido was proving problematic. People were not interested, and trying to bridge the gap between old and new, with an elder as his partner, was like trying to mesh water and oil. Stir them, and it seemed like they got along, but once things settled, the differences became apparent.

"I believe you. I'm just throwing shit at a wall, seeing what sticks."

"... what?"

"Shit at a wall? Nevermind. We're flying blind about this mysterious threat, and the only person who could probably answer our questions, is Jacob, the sheriff, and the Prince. I can't ask the Prince, and we can't ask the sheriff, or Jacob for obvious reasons."

"Why can't you ask the Prince?"

"Azamel said to not involve people, and I'm sure that goes double for the elders."

Damien raised a brow at his partner again. "You love her though, and trust her." It was a cold, logical decision to keep his lover out of such dangerous information trails. He hadn't expected Jack to have that level of resolve. Perhaps he should have expected it.

"Yeah... yeah I do. But I don't tell her everything, just like she doesn't tell me everything. Her Princely machinations, and Ordo Dracul things, I don't know any of it."

"Not the same thing. This thing threatens us all, and—"

"And she knows. I know she knows. She knows I know, and she knows I know she knows, I guess." Jack frowned at the metal rails beneath them. "The problem is, this shadow game is deadly, and one slip up means someone dies. You knowing is a problem, but I took a gamble and trusted you."

"Though really, it was Fiona's slip up that forced the situation."

"I could have not explained what she meant," Jack said. "And I was going to tell you eventually anyway, cause I need a friend in this."

"Thank you, I suppose."

Smiling, Jack shrugged at him. "You earned it."

Damien returned the small smile. He appreciated Jack's reserved expressions, and how he didn't explode into theatrics for interaction, like Jessy often did. The boy understand the power, and value, of stating things simply.

Funny, Damien enjoyed seeing Fiona explode with her dramatic exaggerations. He didn't enjoy it when others did.

"You said you have not told her everything? The Prince? It sounded like you meant more than this vague threat we hunt."

"Yeah, I... haven't told her about Angela."

Damien raised a brow, and turned to look ahead as they talked. The matter sounded personal. In the past, Damien would have shied away from such interactions, but he'd been working with the Right Hands and the Invictus long enough to have developed a sliver of empathy for them; Jack, far more so.

"What do you mean?"

"Just been having... rage issues, I guess, about Angela."

"That's understandable. I'm not sure I see the reason for concern."

"Yeah, yeah, I agree. Not... yeah, it's not a big deal."

Damien again raised a brow, but did not turn to look at the man. There was more it than that, based on the tone in his voice; not that Damien's social skills were reliable. Was Fiona really flirting with him? He'd assumed the girl was flirtatious with everyone, and hadn't sent him any unique or specific signals. Maybe he was blind.

Or maybe, as Maria told him, he had an aversion to happiness. A common failing amongst the Sanctified, she confirmed, and assured him it would be something he struggled with for centuries; as she still did. Fiona was a walking, talking bundle of happiness. Why? She was a monster, a beast of nightmares that stalked, hunted, and fed upon the scum of the Earth. Why was she joyful?

Youth, no doubt, was a large factor. While the monster she'd taken into her as a part of her was old, with a name and history, Fiona herself was a young woman. Perhaps it was also her simple mind. She didn't over analyze everything, as Mekhet did.

Maybe he should listen to Jessy, and try the same.

A little while later, he and his Ventrue companion arrived at Azamel's 'hole in the ground', as Julias put it. He half expected to find it empty, but Azamel sat upon her chair, smoking, while Athalia sat reading a book. Mark and Fiona were nowhere to be seen.

"The boy returns, with... the other boy." Azamel shrugged, blew some smoke their way, and coughed. A lot. "I assume this is about the appearance of the Begotten?"

"So it was a Begotten?" Jack said.

"Yes. We don't know who it is, or what they're up to, but there's a Begotten in the dream, nearby. They've shut their lair off to us."

How forward this woman was with information, suddenly. He didn't trust her. He was sure no one trusted her, except for maybe Jack, and the boy's naivete was a danger to everyone. But then, a little trust could lead to positive outcomes; case in point, himself. It was hard to abandon fifty years of scurrying in the dark, though, trusting no one.

He had no reason to be, as Jessy would put it, a ridiculous, brooding stereotype anymore.

"The ritual has been performed again," Jack said. "This time, it showed Eric's face."

"It did?" Athalia said, hopping down from Azamel's stage to join them. While the two Kindred were in suits, she was dressed in blue jeans and a black sweater. "Strange."

Jack, naturally, decided to tell them far too much for Damien's taste, and recounted the tale of the discovery of the ritual, and their attempts to capture whomever was sent to kidnap Eric. "We had Kindred doing a stakeout while Jessy was in there with Eric. Clara was below, in her own apartment. But, whatever happened, drew her attention. By the time the rest of us came in, Eric, Clara, Jessy, and the intruders had vanished."

Athalia sighed, looked to Azamel, and sighed again when Azamel blew some smoke, and shrugged. Giving her permission to do whatever she wanted, Damien supposed.

"Many things could make a group of people vanish," Athalia said.

Shaking her head, Azamel managed to speak."Nonsense." Another coughing fit, lungs tearing them apart, forcing Damien to wince.

"Azamel's probably correct," Damien said. "More incriminating is a dream Eric shared with Jessy, which she relayed to us. Eric insists a monster, a gargoyle creature with four arms and four wings attacked him in a dream. Since then, he's been exhausted."

"Shit, yeah, that's probably the Begotten we sense." Nodding, Athalia began pacing side to side in front of them. "Wait, the ritual is performed by a friend of Jeremiah's. The fuck does a Begotten have to do with this?"

The little Ventrue raised a hand. "Jessy's text said Eric's dream monster said he was fetching Eric for Jeremiah."

That was enough to earn a snarl from Athalia. "No Begotten is working for that psychopath, not willingly anyway."

Damien shrugged. "Perhaps it is unwillingly."

Athalia's face turned from ice, to fire, as she considered the implications. "Jeremiah, or Angela, controlling a Begotten?" Fists at her side, she marched as she paced, feet growing louder, as if that would expel her anger. It wouldn't. "We—"

"You didn't tell us," Damien said.

"I'm sorry?"

"You didn't tell us, about a new Begotten in the city?"

"Why would I tell you anything?"

"When did this new Begotten arrive in the city?"

"A few weeks ago."

A few weeks ago? This woman was infuriating. Did she not see the harm in not sharing such crucial information?

Jack sighed, and waved his arms. "Not the time, guys. We have to get Jessy and Clara back, and Eric. Tonight."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Azamel said Mark was busy and would not be joining them, but Fiona was at a bar in Devil's Corner. He knew the girl did her hunting there, at different bars, different alleys, different places where she was liable to run into someone who deserved to be put down. But she didn't put them down anymore, supposedly; Invictus police reports suggested few people had died, since her change in feeding approach, so it must have been true.

The Invictus car pulled up by the bar, and waited. Jack had his phone out, and was texting.

"Vola?" Damien said.

"Yeah. She'll meet us at the apartment. Arturo and Matthew will be coming, at Avery's behest. They want help getting Clara back, but, understandably, don't want to send the whole pack into a nightmare realm. Not familiar territory for them."

"Is it for us?"

Jack sighed, shrugged, and looked at him with a small grimace. It was their duty to learn all they could about the Begotten and the nightmares where they lived, but progress on that front was going slow. Maybe Damien should be more upfront about his curiosity with Fiona, and simply ask her? It'd be an excuse to talk to her, too.

Damien, you are a child.

Of course, Athalia was in the car, and she sighed and rolled her eyes. "If it were familiar territory, I'd wonder who's been letting you into our lair. Fiona is far too chummy with you."

"Fiona," Damien said, "understands the value in friends." Hopefully Athalia would notice his hypocrisy in that statement.

"She's a child. She doesn't understand anything, the value in anything."

Damien almost snapped at her, but Jack spoke up first.

"You're protective of her," he said, smiling.

"What?"

"My mom, she used to say the same thing about Mary, my sister, when she was being a bit too rambunctious."

"Ram... bunctious." Athalia sighed, folded her arms across her chest, and stared ahead. Damien struggled to not grin at the sight. It was true then, that Athalia was being protective of the girl. And why wouldn't she be? She was a mother who'd seen how badly things could go, and with her new family, was perhaps trying to prevent that.

Fiona came out of the bar, a grin on her face and bounce in her step. Wearing blue jeans that hugged her curves, she netted her fingers behind her, and skipped the last few steps of the way to the car. It was a large car, basically a limousine, and had no trouble fitting them all. But, with them all in the back seat, it made it difficult to not admire the green sweater she wore, and how it exposed the entirety of her shoulders.