My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 17

The knife was in his side under one of his pectorals, and try as Eric might, the arm closer to the wound did not want to respond correctly. Something was cut, torn, preventing the closer shoulder from rotating on the angle he wanted. But the rest of the arm worked, and he sank his claws into the prey's shoulder, earning a satisfying roar of pain from his meal. His other hand reached for the man's head, but the prey pushed against the silver knife, sawing through muscle and bone, and Eric had to grab the assaulting wrist instead.

At a certain point, pain took on a new voice, and it shrieked in his head, a wall of ice to block his way. He backed off, jumping back from Jeremiah, and held the massive gash in his chest. The flesh within tried to heal, tried to snap back into place, tried to stop the blood, but it didn't. It was nothing like that time the short man had stabbed him with his metal claw, this time his body couldn't manage. The silver cut through more than his flesh, it cut through the fury, the beast, the thrill and rush, it cut through his being.

Eric fell to a knee, hand still on the gash in his chest, blood gushing up and over his fingers. With a few seconds to breath into his bloody lungs, the blood slowed down. Even if it was silver, it wasn't pure; how Eric knew that, he didn't know, but something in him knew the knife could have done more damage to him if it was more silver, though it would have been too soft. Instead, the bastard found a balance between hardness, and wolf's bane. Lucky for Eric, it was enough that he could feel his body heal the wound enough to keep him from bleeding to death in minutes. Unlucky for him, that it almost could.

Footsteps behind him. He tried to turn, but the cut muscle in his chest roared in agony, stopping him, and six arms grabbed onto him. It wasn't a lot of weight, not even six hundred pounds, but with the hole in his chest and cut on his arm, each from silver, it was more than his body wanted to handle. He tried to reach back and grab one of the hunters, but the hunter grabbed his arm instead, while the one behind him wrapped him in a headlock. The remaining hunter grabbed his other arm, and a new set of footsteps announced the returning fourth hunter, who came up behind him, and threw themselves onto his back as well. He roared, twisting and turning, but his energy was gone, leaking out onto the stone floor beneath him as blood.

With a groan of his own, the old man stood back up, and rubbed his shoulder. He too was bleeding, but Eric had had the opportunity to do a lot more than give him a minor shoulder wound. Had it, and lost it.

"We need you alive, Eric Tanverson. Elen still has a lot of information to pull out of you. Sándor!" Like barking orders to soldiers, Jeremiah turned with a snap toward his monster.

The giant beast was still struggling with Jessy, but in the chaos, the monster had trapped Clara underneath its giant foot. Massive as the creature was, its foot and enormous talons were large enough to pin Clara on her back, talons stabbing into her shoulders. Blood pooled around her waist, the silver bullets not healing, same as Eric's wounds. She snarled, twisted, barked and roared, but wounded as she was, the four-armed, four-winged demon was large and heavy enough to keep her down.

The monster fell forward, keeping its one foot on Clara, and earning a shriek of pain from her as he forced more of his weight on her. Four hands fell to the stone, catching the beast's weight as he came to a knee, and he used the momentum to launch Jessy forward from his back. Her claws were sunk deep into its body, and she kept one hand within the beast's flesh, but the weight and inertia was enough to spin her, and turn her upside down, legs on the beast's head. It was enough for Sándor to snap his hand up, and grab her.

For a moment, Eric expected Jessy's deformed body and array of spikes and horns to penetrate the beast's hand again. But the demon kept his grip loose, and threw Jessy down at the floor with all his might. The sickening crunch of bone filled the room as the vampire bounced against the stone, and bits of her bone spikes flew outward from her, shattering and breaking from the impact. More than just the bone spikes, but her bones as well. Arms twisted and crunched, legs snapped and bent, and joints dislocated, as the vampire bounced twice against the floor, before going still.

Her transformation began to fade. The extra muscle vanished. The spikes, what remained of them, pulled back into her limbs and under her skin, and the deformation of her form disappeared. A few seconds later, all that remained was Jessy, clothes tattered, body broken, arms and legs twisted around and bending in places they shouldn't have.

"Ok!" Jeremiah said, clapping his hands together one. "You gave Sándor quite the fight there, vampire. Impressive." Laughing, the old bastard put his metal claw away, and pulled out... metal rings. Eric struggled, dug through his mind, and found the word buried underneath rage and scents and blood and hunger. Handcuffs.

"Fuck... you, you fuckin—aaaaarg!" Jessy's voice broke into screams as Jeremiah rolled her onto her stomach, and yanked on her arms as he drove the heel of his boot into her spine. He snapped each wrist into the cuffs, and let go of her hands. They fell onto her ass, trapped behind her. One of her arms was snapped at the elbow, the other at the forearm, shoulder dislocated as well, and until she healed, she wouldn't be able to use the arms anyway.

"You... you fucker," she said. "You put these on—"

"On Jack, yes. Tenacious boy, though. I didn't expect the grandchilde of Viktor to be as resistant as he was. A mistake on my part. If I had known, well, I would have brought him back into Sándor's nightmare instead." Laughing again, he squatted down in front of Jessy's face, and grinned at her as she raised her head to glare at him. "Now, really, stop struggling. I want Azamel's head, not yours."

"You'll fucking kill us once you know what you want to know."

"Probably, but not necessarily. Dolareido's a nice place compared to many; not many paranormals killing people. If you vamps play ball, some of you will get to live."

"Some." Snarling at him, she twisted and squirmed, earning more screams from herself. It was turning Eric's stomach, watching her limbs bend and twist in ways they shouldn't have been able to.

"Angela warned me the vamps here were stubborn. I should have listened to her." Sighing, the man walked over to Clara, and squatted down over her. She was pinned on her back, still transformed and massive compared to Jeremiah, but small compared to the gargantuan demon towering over her. Helpless. "And you, you're going to tell me more about your pack. Werewolves weren't on my radar when I first came here, and when I learned you were here, I was content to ignore you. But now you've made yourself a problem."

"Fuck you," Clara said, gnashing her teeth together.

"I've killed several werewolves in my time, woman." Jeremiah drew his knife, and set the silver blade to the pinned woman's furry neck. "But I've never had the opportunity to torture one. Your healing ability is immense, and—"

A howling shriek cut through the room, the chamber, and echoed against the enormous walls that surrounded them. Like a ghost choir, the inhuman screaming continued, long, until everyone was looking for the source of the deathly sound.

Jeremiah stood up, and turned to face the distance where Angela had taken her crew. "Athalia."

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

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

~~Damien~~

Well, this was going far worse than he had anticipated, and he had anticipated it going poorly. Hindsight was twenty twenty, and a bastard. Jack had said it was likely a trap, but they were arrogant in their abilities. They were all accomplished, powerful paranormals, and more than capable of killing multiple hunters at once; or they should have been. One mistake put them all on the defensive, and as Damien looked down at his body, he sighed. Holes. Many holes. But he was still conscious, a step up from his encounter with the Azlu creature.

He looked around the room. Empty, and dark, save for the light cutting across the floor from the open door, gentle, flickering fire light. With his back to the table leg behind him, he looked down at his hands. Sword and pistol, good. His legs were spread, and the holes in his gut and chest struggled to close themselves. He was no Ventrue or Gangrel. Healing wounds like this would take time. Better than the guaranteed death a kine would suffer, but if he couldn't defend himself, it was the same thing.

He looked at the spider monster beside him. Fiona. Despite the danger, despite the haphazard plan, he'd managed to save her. Wounds covered her limbs, terrible wounds that bled dark red, but she was breathing.

He reached out for her, and gently pulled her onto her side, facing him; didn't want her choking on her own blood. Pain ran through his body, reminding him that some metal was now lodged in his withered organs and bones. He'd survive. Would Fiona? Her eyes were—she had no eyes; made it hard to read her emotions. But from the shallow panting and small shivers, he could tell she was in a lot of pain.

"D... Damien?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"You... you've been shot."

How could she see him without eyes? But then, how did Jacob? Not the time to think about that.

"So did you."

She laughed, and a splatter of blood rained onto her lips. There was only one bullet wound on her stomach, but it must have hit something important. "I... I... could use... a moment... to heal."

"Can you heal from this?" He forced himself to lean in toward her, and set one hand on her crown of horns. They were hard like metal, but the skin of her shoulder, despite its black, metal-like tint, was soft.

"Are you... worried about me?"

"What? Of course I'm worried about you."

"Just... you've been... ignoring me lately, and—" Another cough covered her small lips in blood, and Damien winced as he watched the dark red leak down over her cheek.

If he was a stereotype, so was she, he supposed. He was too blind to notice signals, and she was finding some where there were none.

Jack waved at him from his side of the large hall, and motioned for him to stay put. Not much chance of that changing at the moment. Sighing at his own stupidity, Damien reached down across his chest, and touched the bullet holes. Several of them had punctured clear through his body; a good thing if you were a human, to get the metal out of the body, but not so good when a vampire, and the metal was never the issue. Three holes along his stomach, and from the shape, he knew he'd actually been shot in the back. Each attempt to twist his body caused his muscles to tear, only for his vitae to work to repair them.

He was an idiot. If he'd stayed in the room he'd managed to drag himself into after the explosion, maybe a better situation would have presented itself. But no, he got emotional, lost his head, and did something impulsive.

Sighing again, he looked at the beautiful monster in front of him. He didn't want her hurt, and that led to a really, really stupid, impulsive decision. He wasn't used to that feeling. Didn't know it, didn't recognize it, didn't know what to do with it. Now he felt like a fool, like the time Jack had come out of hiding to save Antoinette from his sword. But, like then, the fool boy had managed to save the girl. Hopefully Damien's stupidity had managed to save the girl, too.

"I wasn't ignoring you," he managed to say at last. He forced his eyes up from her shivering body, to the hallway and door, to Jack, Arturo, and Matthew. The three of them were talking with each other, whispering, voice lost to the sound of flames and occasional gunfire. Noah and Natasha were safe for the moment, but where was Athalia? He didn't know. Whatever was happening, the hunters had the opportunity to storm in and finish the job. They wouldn't be safe much longer.

She lifted her head, a struggle for her, and pointed face toward him. "Yes you were, you... you didn't—"

"You want to go on a date?"

"... w... what?"

"You want to go on a date, when this is over?" Ok, yeah, this was good. This was progress, character development, a step toward developing some sort of social life and not getting in his own way. A step toward abandoning Lucas's brainwashing.

Unless she said no.

She started to laugh, but pain put an end to that quickly. With a small whine and whimper, she set her crown of horns against the floor again, and smiled at him. "Yes."

He managed a smile back. A date after all this was over sounded good, because it meant this would end, and they'd survive. She believed it. He, on the other hand, was far too pessimistic to assume they were going to get out of here alive. Better if she did, though.

He forced his vitae to do its work, to close the bullet wounds enough so he wouldn't leak everywhere. It took time, time they didn't have, and Damien kept looking to Jack and the doorway as he did his best to speed up his healing. But he was no Ventrue, no Gangrel, healing would take time. Time, and blood.

He looked down at his waist. Three more bullets had caught him on one of his rebounds against the hallway wall, and got him in the side, by the hip. He could feel bullets lodged into the large bone of his pelvis, and the only reason the bones hadn't shattered was his vitae forcing it to stay together. Even now, he could feel the almost self-aware, dark, crimson liquid in his body, thick, strong, forcing the bone shards together hard enough to function. With enough time, his body would force out the bullets, but he didn't know how long it'd take. As much as he'd suffered many scrapes in his time hiding in Dolareido, never anything like this, Azlu spider monster aside. And the time Tash shot him. What fond memories.

He gritted his teeth, and forced his body into action. Every moment drained him, emptied him of vitae, of energy, as his body rebuilt itself. No time. If he couldn't get his body working, they were dead, and he couldn't have that. But he didn't have time.

Fiona pressed her claws onto the floor, and pushed herself up enough to have both palms against the stones beneath them.

"You should hold still until—"

"We have to... have to do something. Or we're dead." Groaning, shaking, she lifted some of her spider legs from her back, and hung them over her head in front of her. Each spider leg shined a gentle black, like metal, and each came to a sharp point, like a rapier. But with them so close now, he could see that on the tip, at an angle along the sharp point, were tiny holes. As she pressed the four tips together, white liquid oozed from the holes, as thin as thread, becoming solid the moment they struck the air.

She was weaving web.

"What are—"

"I... am going... to patch us up." Despite her shivering, her spider legs worked quick, her more human-ish hands still on the stone floor while her long blades did their magic. "I'm not going... to just wait... to die... After this, I'm going... to go on a date... maybe somewhere nice. And then we're... going to go hunting, for food, for both of us. And... and then, we're... we're going... to date more."

He coughed, caught between a laugh and the scorching pain of muscles clenching with the involuntary action. "We are?"

"Yes, b-because... because I... I am... I deserve to live, and... and I refuse... to not..." Her words trailed off as she focused, the web she weaved tight and thick, becoming a large bandage.

It was strange to see, and hear such a deadly monster waver with her words. Either from blood loss or from nervousness, the beautiful creature's voice lost its usual conviction, to the point Damien almost felt bad for her. Fiona always had conviction, reaching almost juvenile absurdity. And Vrall was Fiona, sort of. Considering her proactive, social nature, he had no choice but to assume it was blood loss. It was Vrall's voice, not the Scot's, and to hear the mighty creature speak like that, scared him.

As the bandage took form, she raised an arm, and the spider legs brought the bandage to her bicep. It was like watching a real spider wrap a fly in its web, except it was a quartet of silk strands spooling out and around her arm. The white material immediately turned dark red, soaking in her blood, but she wrapped and wrapped, and tightened the weave as she built upon it. It was a very thick, durable bandage. She moved onto her legs, the human-ish ones, and begin wrapping the holes that had punched through her. One had not gone clear through, but better to leave the metal in there and wrap it for now, he supposed.

"I'll... get you after," she said.

He motioned to his body, and the holes that were mostly sealed. "I'm at no risk of bleeding to death. My insides are shredded, though."

"Vampires are durable." The creature smiled at him as she moved on to her calf, wrapping it faster than the other parts, her speed picking up as she got used to the motion. "Can you move?"

He tried to sit forward, but the motion sent scalding agony into his stomach. If he was alive, he'd have vomited with pain. Wincing, he leaned back, and forced one eye to stay open so he could watch the door. "I can, but I need a few minutes to make it... not tear my insides... apart."

Nodding, the spider woman worked quickly, wrapping her various wounds tight, including the hole in her stomach. That was a problem. For a vampire, the organs were pointless, and the muscles and bones only served as a frame for the vitae to enact its power. He needed his body intact, but it wasn't going to die on him. At worst, he'd run out of vitae, and go into torpor until someone fed him. Unlikely to happen in the current circumstance; they'd just cut off his head while he slept.

Fiona, on the other hand, was different. He didn't know how though. Were her organs necessary, did she need her blood, how much of her horror was like a biological creature?

He was running questions through his mind to avoid dealing with present circumstance. She was in worse condition than he was, and unlike him, she was going to get worse.

"You... like to think a lot, don't you?"

He blinked, and shook his head. His gaze was still on the doorway, but he hadn't noticed Fiona had started dragging herself over to sit beside him. Her long spider legs pressed to the stones, and forced her along the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

"It keeps me alive." Heal faster. Heal faster. He needed to get his body working, now. Every time he looked at Fiona, he winced at the sight of her wounds and blood-soaked bandages. She was a monster, and a powerful one; he couldn't imagine a few bullet holes and a bullet in her gut would kill her. He hoped not. He really hoped not.

"Stuck in your head a lot?" Her voice was becoming less and less like Vrall. Not Fiona, but, not the same rigid and formal Vrall, the scary monster creature he'd once ran into in a jungle beneath the city. It was nice.

He didn't answer her question. Eventually she sat beside him, leaning against his shoulder. It was a struggle for her, moving a total of two feet, and he almost told her to go hide in the shadow instead. They weren't directly in the beam of light from the door anymore, but next to it, and not exactly hidden.

"... think you can open a door and get us out of here?" he said. "Back to your lair?"

"No... not like this."

"Then anything we can do to get me back on my feet faster, the better. Think you can patch me up?"

"I think so."

Nodding, he pushed himself away from the table, and got onto his knees in front of her, butt against his heels behind him, weight on his toes. The enormous blades came for him, and he closed his eyes for a moment, reflex warning him they might stab him. They had before, once, when he first met her. Just think of them as sewing needles, only sewing needles, not ancient living swords that have killed likely hundreds of people in previous lives.