My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 15

"Yeah." Clara went up, mirrored Jessy, before putting her ear to the door. "I don't hear anything. No breathing. And..."—a few seconds of silence went by—"no heartbeats, except ours."

Jessy smirked. No heartbeat for her of course.

"How far you trust that?" Jessy said.

"Hearing a heartbeat? Ten feet maybe."

"That's not very far."

"It's a fucking heartbeat. I can hear breathing a lot further, usually."

"Usually?"

"Smart people keep their breathing silent."

"How about smell?"

"I can't smell if anyone's behind the door, when the door is air tight. I can smell a lot of scents, a lot of weird, old fashioned scents that make me think we're in some old farm or something. But unless there's a fucking breeze cutting through the door, I can't fucking god damn well smell through it." Clara was doing a good job of whispering, despite the blatant malice in her voice. If they weren't trying to be stealthy, she'd be yelling. "If we had an Irraka with us—"

"Irraka?"

"Type of Uratha. Stealthy. Good at recon."

"Sounds like a Mekhet."

"And you're a Gangrel."

"Yeap."

"So you're useless."

Jessy snarled at Clara, a little louder than she probably should have. "So are you."

Eric walked up between the two girls again, and pressed his hands to the door. They both stared at him and what he was doing, but neither stopped him; yeah, no point in waiting around for whatever to whatever, they had to press on, and that meant opening the door into whatever dangers lay ahead. The girls backed up, put their weight onto the balls of their feet, and crouched slightly, ready to pounce at whatever exposed itself as the two massive slabs of wood slid apart.

The classic sound of an old wooden door times a thousand resonated through the hall behind them, and into the grand chamber ahead of them. If their location was unknown before, everyone in the building knew about it now. The two women winced almost as much as Eric, as he lowered his hand. He only pushed one door open, and only a couple feet, but that was enough to make far too much noise. So dead, they were so fucking dead.

Jessy poked her head out first. Eric braced to hear a bang, a gunshot, an explosion, a sword slice, something to end Jessy's life; nothing came. After a few moments, she reached behind her, and motioned for them to follow with a few finger waves. Gulping, Eric followed, and stepped into the chamber.

The hallway had been huge, but the chamber was titanic. The roof was high, very high, so high he had trouble seeing it. Darkness along all sides in the colossal room, the small flames unable to light its size. The gargoyle braziers that lined the hallway behind them, instead lined the enormous pillars of stone before them, pillars five feet wide, pillars that went up at least a hundred feet. Each pillar was topped by a gargoyle statue, each statue with arms raised, holding another pillar that continued the pillar up and up, until it vanished into the darkness.

The gargoyles had four arms, and four wings.

"Fucking god." He pointed up at the towering creatures. Far away as they were, a hundred feet up on the pillars, it was hard to make out details. But it was enough. "That's... that's the thing from my dream."

"Ever seen this place before?" Jessy said.

"Fuck no."

"Then... I guess we're in this thing's personal nightmare? Cause, yeah, if these statues look like it, then... yeah, must be its own nightmare? Right?" Shrugging, Jessy touched one of the pillars, starring up at the titanic structure. "Badass."

He facepalmed. Badass was not the word he would use.

The three of them drifted around a bit, but ultimately grouped back up, and stood in what they had to guess was the center of the room. The pillars were very far apart, and there were many of them, but at least they seemed to be in pairs; the giant room was actually a giant hallway. Standing between two pillars, in the center of the hall, the tiny fires on the pillars were barely enough to make the walls visible, and each end of the hall was nothing but a wall of darkness.

He looked up again, and again, and again. The gargoyle creatures were on a knee, all four arms up to hold the pillar above, like Atlas holding the world. Their four wings were spread, catching the tiny flickers of fire light that came from below. Their long tails wrapped around the pillar halfway, and their large, human-like faces stared down at them, horns visible. They really were like the monster from his dream.

"I guess... that means the guy that showed up at the apartment was a Begotten," he said, "and... and he got into my dream somehow."

Clara nodded. "Likely, yeah. You're Cahalith, so your dreams are pretty powerful."

"You know about the dreams?"

"All Cahalith have powerful, meaningful dreams, that reach beyond what dreams normally do. I... I didn't think it'd be anything the Begotten would be able to take advantage of, though."

Jessy put a hand up. "Maybe the ritual told them more about Eric than just his face and location."

Certainly possible for the ritual to tell the hunters he was Uratha, and Cahalith. The fuck did he know about occult rituals and shit? Fuck all.

"Do... do you have the same dreams I do?" he said.

Shaking her head, she squinted as she stared in one direction of the new, gargantuan hallway. Trying to see the other end, probably, but it was useless. They may as well have been trying to see past the horizon.

"It's different for all Cahalith. You'd know that, if you stopped being such a jackass and let Avery guide you."

He snorted, clenched his fingers into fists, and looked around a few more times. Pick a direction, pick a direction. Couldn't see the ends of the hallway, and couldn't smell anything in the still air to give a direction; the air was thick with the smell of what he guessed was horse shit, hay, and old metal and stone, but it sat in the air, everywhere, without any inclination of source. But, he could hear something.

He and Clara both started walking in a direction, the same direction. Jessy raised a brow, but shrugged and followed after them. The sides of the hallway were much darker, so the three of them fell back into the blackness against the wall, and crept forward.

"Stay close," Jessy said. The two wolves raised a brow as they looked back at her, but when a strange, almost cold sensation enveloped them, subtle but there, the vampire grinned. "I really suck at the cloak of night, but it should be enough to keep us hidden from any basic kine."

He doubted they'd run into any normal humans in this nightmare, but, if they did, a normal human was perfectly capable of calling for help, or shooting a gun. The memory of Mister Pitt, and the way Eric had slaughtered him and his crew, bubbled up in his mind. A gun wouldn't do shit to him when he was transformed, but hunters were hunters, and no doubt they'd have some way of making sure werewolves were—

He stopped, and stared at Clara, as the woman fell onto all fours, and began to shrink. Fur popped out of her skin, replacing it, as her clothes disappeared into her. Why go into that form now? No, wait, she was shrinking, not growing. Her hands and feet turned into paws, not giant hands of claws and talons. Her mouth grew into a snout, but not a huge one with giant teeth. No, she turned into a perfectly normal looking wolf.

Because wolves could move silently.

Clara sat there, in the dark, her fur blending into the shadows, and waited. Ok, yeah, just transform, on the fly, he could do that. Right? Right, no problem, right.

Ok, breathe. You can do this, you can do this; without roaring or making noise or giving away their position any worse than they already had, hopefully.

"First time?" Jessy whispered. "Except for, you know, that other time."

"... yeah."

"The cloak of night will keep the sound suppressed... a little... just don't scream or anything."

Easy for her to say. For all he knew, this was going to be painful.

Breathe. He took a deep breath, and another, and another, and looked for that part of himself. As much as he expected it to be a distant, strange, weird thought he'd have to pull out of a hazy memory, he could feel the transformations inside him. The issue wasn't finding the strange, new muscle to flex inside his soul, it was navigating forming the new muscle memory. Like playing the guitar, fingering a complicated riff used muscles you already had, but it took practice to perform the maneuver correctly, to establish the muscle memory.

So he did it slowly. With long, deep breaths, he tapped deep into his being, and flexed the muscle to be wolf, to be on four paws, to be low to the ground, to be a creature of fangs and speed and howls. Fur overcame his dark skin, and jeans vanished into his body. His spine warped, elongating, sprouting a tail. Fingers shrank, fingernails grew, and his palms raised before shrinking as well, the whole of his hands becoming paws.

A wolf. He was a wolf. He sat on his haunches, like a canine would, and looked around, tilting his ears in different directions as he listened. He could hear more, and his initial choice on direction was the correct one. There was noise coming from the darkness, far, subtle, like breathing, and maybe sliding of something soft on stone.

He was a fucking wolf. That was so hard to wrap his mind around! Like switching a gear, flexing a muscle, like breathing, he was now a different thing. He turned around a few times, and almost jumped at the sight of his tail, before he looked up at Jessy. Her jaw had dropped, and she stared at him with wide eyes as she brought her fingers up to her lips.

"You. Are. So. Cute!" Still whispering, thank god, she fell to her knees, and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his chest as he sat down on his butt. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god." Squeezing him, she rubbed her neck into his, her cheek to his ear, and pet his fur.

His tail started wagging. He didn't tell it to, but damn if it didn't start wagging behind him. He could feel the mental connection, something in his mind as automatic as smiling; tail wagging. Being pet felt really good too, and all the nerve endings fired off little explosions of joy where her fingers ran.

Part of him wanted to lick her, too. But, too weird.

"Ok," she said. "I can keep the cloak of night going while we're all transformed."

Wait, what?

He stepped back from Jessy, and blinked, a lot, as the woman started to go through the same transformation. She winked at him as she began to shrink, as fur overcame her clothes, as paws emerged, and her mouth and nose morphed into a snout.

"Gangrel, mother fucker. I'm awesome," she managed to say before her lips disappeared. With her ears up and her tail wagging slowly, she became a wolf as well, fur darker than Eric's or Clara's, but still gray.

What in the fuck. Vampires could turn into wolves? He thought that maybe, just maybe, they could turn into bats, but wolves was not on the list of things he expected to see out of Jessy. Panting a couple times, she walked over to him, paws quieter than her bare human feet could be, and nudged her nose into his side. Twice.

He had the sudden urge to pounce her, and play fight. Eric you dumbass, you're in a fucking nightmare and you've turned into a wolf because it's easier to sneak around this way. It's very dark, especially along the wall, and your gray bodies blend into the shadow. Your paws make less noise than shoes, or bare feet in your case and Jessy's, and both your hearing and sense of smell are greater than they were before. Stealth mode, not dog wrestling mode.

Maybe he could wrestle later.

He wanted to laugh, but laughter wasn't a canine reflex. His tail wagging spoke for him, and he pressed his body into Jessy's, both to play a little, and push her toward the wall so they could continue their stealthy journey into inevitable death. She made a couple whining sounds, not happy about his focusing on keeping them alive, apparently, but fell into a prowling stance as she started forward, behind Clara. He fell in behind her, and kept looking around, forcing himself back to awareness.

Looking up was proving surprisingly difficult. Could dogs look up?

Think about that later. He craned his neck to look behind him, and then to the right, where the enormous hallway lay, pillars lining its depths. A tail in front of him was wagging, only a little, but wagging, and Eric found himself looking at Jessy's wolf butt. It was a nice wolf butt; he had no idea how he knew what a nice wolf butt looked like, but it was. Oh god, this was a dangerous road to take the mind down. Abort, abort!

Again he found himself wanting to laugh. What was it about Jessy that made him laugh so easily?

They continued along, shoulders and heads low, each step calculating and silent. It may have been a pointless attempt at stealth, considering they made plenty of noise earlier, but maybe not. What he was more concerned about was whether heading toward the noise was the right call. They could simply go hide somewhere where there was no noise, and wait for rescue. Waiting for rescue was the problem though. He didn't say it, and the girls didn't say it, but they all knew the possibility of rescue from their current circumstance was slim. They'd been transported into a literal nightmare, not into some corner of Dolareido. Could Azamel's people reach them here? Would they even try? Maybe, maybe not. But sitting around waiting for something to happen was a dangerous choice, so, he went with being proactive.

What'd he hear, once? Action is not inherently superior to inaction. This was a ballsy, risky move, and it could get them killed.

Christ, what he would do to be back in his new, fancy apartment, sitting in his hot tub, and sharing a glass of wine with Jessy. Except, she'd have a glass of blo—actually, she'd be sucking on his neck, and riding his dick as she did. After, after that, they could sit down in the tub, relax, and Eric could try and enjoy the new wonders of his life. If they lived through this, if spirits left him alone, if Avery left him alone, if the vamps didn't drag him into some war, if Azamel didn't demand he become her guard dog.

He glared at Clara, over Jessy's back. Her prowling was amazing, and Eric became very conscious of the sound of his own paws against the stone, barely audible to him, let alone anyone else outside Jessy's stealth aura. She was right, and he should have let Avery take him on a hunt or two, teach him a few things about being Uratha. But, he just wanted to be left alone.

That mindless attachment to this ideal of solitude and peace, was going to be his undoing. Old habits died hard though. He knew it, and he saw it in his dad every day. Christ, he was more like his old man than he wanted to consider right now.

It took a while to get to the source of the subtle noises, but with time, a wall in the distance appeared. Tall, almost unending, disappearing into the darkness above. Stone, and more stone. But it was the thing against the wall between the two final pillars, that had the three wolves staring. A chair of stone, big, heavy and thick, huge slabs of stone carved and combined. It was a throne, with two of the familiar gargoyle braziers in front of its arms, casting flickering amber light over the seat. Upon the huge chair's back, was another gargoyle statue, like the ones that held up the centers of the hundreds of pillars. A colossal carving of darkness, four arms, each reaching down to grip onto the equally massive chair's back, along with its two legs. Its four wings were raised high, and Eric stared at them, squinting, looking for any signs of movement. No, they held perfectly still, as did the rest of the creature; a statue like the others.

The man in the chair didn't hold still. He breathed, he sighed with apparent boredom, and he twirled a knife along his knuckles as he waited.

Jeremiah. He wore the same trench coat last time, brown, and with many subtle pockets, likely filled with knives, ammo, and god knows what. Short gray hair combed back, and a short gray beard sliced with several scars. Tattoos started on his neck, before vanishing underneath a black shirt, and he wore a necklace with a coiling circular shape dangling against his chest.

Eric froze, and stared at the necklace. Last time he'd seen one of those, it was on the hunters that had jumped him and Fiona, and it'd been glowing white. This time it wasn't. Maybe it only reacted to nearby Begotten then.

Eric slid up further, enough for Jessy and Clara to see him, and he nodded his head toward the man on the rock throne, while baring his teeth. Both of them had no doubt read a description of Jeremiah, but Eric wanted to confirm. This fucker was dangerous, and out to kill things like them.

That was more than enough for Jessy, who lowered herself to the floor until her belly was almost touching it, and began to work her way into the corner of where the hallway wall met the end. A pillar stood between them at the throne, and little light reached past it. It was enough for a possible sneak attack, but it was also a really stupid idea to try and sneak attack a man who looked like he killed bears with his bare hands.

Clara didn't agree. She crouched low, and came up beside Jessy, blurring into the shadows behind the pillar, and sneaking up along the wall the throne sat against. They wouldn't be able to get behind the throne, its back many feet deep and connecting to the wall; a perch for the enormous gargoyle statue. But the throne's actual seat sat far ahead enough they could stick to the wall, get in close, and go in for the kill.

The monster had to be around somewhere, though. How he had managed to disappear after pulling them into the nightmare, Eric didn't know. Could have been a trick or something, but when he entered the nightmare with Fiona, she transformed beside him.

No, focus. This was an amazing opportunity to deal a blow to the fuckers threatening everyone and everything his new life had brought him. It could be a trap, or it could be an opening. Jeremiah was alone; maybe the Begotten apparently working for him got separated? If the Begotten didn't appear with the three of them in the room they arrived in, maybe he got separated, or was still back in the real world.

No more time to think. Clara and Jessy were both sneaking up alongside the long slab of stone that served as the chair's legs, and he followed up behind them. A few more glances up showed the enormous gargoyle statue, still as a stone, body dark and flickering with only hints of fire light. God it was creepy, being so close to it, where he could feel the heat of its body radiating.

Heat?

Something massive swung out, and slammed into his back. Tail! The fucking tail. Oh fucking shit. It crashed against his spine, and flattened him, hard leathery skin of the monster combined with momentum and weight more than enough to crush him into the stone below. Pain scorched through him, the cracking of ribs like twigs, and the puncturing of organs. Like before, just like before, this monster was going to kill him.

He looked ahead, and barked fury as the beast reached down, and scooped up Jessy. Clara leapt away, but the beast swung out a wing, exploding air and sound and heavy mass in all directions. The tip of the enormous wing clipped her, and sent her spinning through the air, barrel rolling until she landed on her side twenty feet away, in front of the throne.

"Well well, I was wondering when you'd get here." The old man chuckled on his throne, but Eric couldn't see him. At least he couldn't, until one of the massive hands reached down and scooped him up. Being in the monster's grip, with his ribs shattered and poking holes into his innards, sent lava scorching through his body. The beast turned his head to them, most of his features hidden in the dark, but the eyes began to glow red all the same. Only now did an odor of leather and alien life emit from the entity.