My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 17

Athalia had hit a person.

"Fuck you!" Angela's voice. Jack couldn't see what she was doing, but that changed when she unleashed a wave of fire. The oppressive darkness might have put out the fires, but that didn't stop the hunters from making new ones, short lived as they were. Shrieking with blood curdling cries of rage, Angela fired the streak of red death into the air. "Fuck you! Die! Die you fucking bitch! I'll kill you!"

Jack gulped. He'd heard those screams before, from the psychopath. Part of him was happy knowing the anger and hatred she'd shown when the two of them were fighting wasn't unique to him, but a larger part wasn't. She was a menace. She had to be killed.

Another slash hit something Jack couldn't see, but the sound was unmistakable, and Angela turned her fire on it the moment she heard it. The red light cut through the black fog, spreading it, dissipating it for a few seconds, and lighting up everyone and everything around it. Something large slipped into the black, dark bones and massive limbs fading into the obsidian, breaking into flowing black ink. Another slash cut through the onyx, and Angela turned faster, unleashing a spray of flame straight at the door. Jack froze, only ten feet away from where the liquid stream of fire fell on the stone. Some of the red caught Athalia, and her enormous rib cage and dangling spinal cord lit up, red on the dark bone. For a brief moment, where the flame landed, the bone turned white, the black material on it burning away.

The following shriek froze everyone. A banshee's cry.

A couple of the hunters had glowing necklaces too, but the glow was subtle, only noticeable when Angela went nuts with the flamethrower. How much fuel did a flamethrower have? How long could you spray the fuel before you were out? He had no idea, but Angela didn't seem to be worried about it.

Another slash, and the sickening crunch of claws on flesh and bone. Someone screamed, a feminine cry that forced Jack to wince. But Angela didn't. The devil turned to the source of the sound, and unloaded a river of fire.

The banshee's cry returned times a thousand, as the death angel of bone erupted into flame. The colossal, flying creature raised her enormous hands to her skull face, and fanned her bone wings to take flight, high above the hunters. But she was on fire, and her screams were hot ice on his spine.

Jack stood up. Now or never. "Go! Now!"

The three vampires and three werewolves ran for the door. Damien handed Jack his gun, and kept his sword as he embraced himself in his cloak of night. He'd been shot many times, and a Mekhet wasn't going to be up for discipline theatrics soon after that. Natasha followed in after him, her phone raised as a light, other hand holding her pistol. Jack adopted the same stance, and frowned at how unwieldy it was. Mental note: next time, always bring a proper flashlight when dealing with monsters, or hunters, or anything.

The blanket of obsidian death that weighed on them all faded away, and the black fog sank into the floor. Their lights punctured the thinning mist, and the exposed group of hunters. The large group of hunters.

He was right, a few of them had some necklaces on that were glowing, gentle white light. The light lessened, and faded away as Athalia raised higher; necklace's glow must have had something to do with Begotten, or Athalia specifically. He looked up as the skeleton creature's shrieks continued, and winced all the more as several of the hunters raised their guns, and opened fire.

Shrieks turned into a staccato of interrupted howls and grunts from the monster. The black layers on her bones were on fire, and burning like dry paper, while bullets pelted her.

As another hunter raised their gun, the werewolves fell upon them. Three of them, each in the front row of the assault, each wounded and bleeding. But they pounced into the fray nonetheless, darkness embracing them as the flashlights of each hunter they jumped went down with them. Athalia's fog had put out all the gargoyle braziers, and that included the ones in the next, larger room; darkness to be exploited.

Angela didn't flinch. She turned the flamethrower to the wolves, and shot over them. She knew. The fucker knew. The three vampires jumped back, far back, putting a couple dozen feet between them and the fire as fast as they could. The werewolves threw themselves to the floor, under the flame. Much as fire was deadly to Kindred, it wasn't too picky about who it burned, either.

"Don't even think about it! Fuck all of you. You're dead! All of you!" Her screams were a crescendo, mixed in with the roar of fire.

The other hunters took advantage. Three of them were on the ground, and blood pooled around their bodies, gash marks an inch or two deep in their flesh. It was hard to see anything, now that all the fires were out, but Angela was creating new ones, and the hunters all had flashlights. They were shining them around in a near panic, but there was enough of them to create enough light to move by. The three that were on the ground, the massive gashes exposed what looked like bullet proof vests.

These fuckers were far more prepared than he could have imagined.

The three werewolves all got up, and the hunters raised their weapons, each of them with barrels pointed at the closer, more obvious threat: giant wolves on two legs. The Uratha didn't wait to get shot this time, and jumped into the pack of humans. Athalia's earlier attack had brought the hunters together, herded them, and the beasts took advantage. Flashlights went up as hunters fell onto their backs, and the wolves sank their claws into them.

Or at least they tried to sink their claws into them, but there were more hunters than any of them expected. Several were beside the enormous pillar, half hidden in the darkness, and they came up to the werewolves. Melee range. With so many of the hunter lights not being aimed properly, it was a mess of flashing black as the lights snapped across in random directions. Wolf claws and wolf teeth bit and chomped, and hunters with silver knives swung at them.

The werewolves and vampires had better vision in the dark, Tash most of all, but in the chaos of swinging limbs, gunfire, knives, and claws, it was too hard to figure out what to do. Jack stood there, stunned, and looked around quick to find an option. But fire blocked their path, Angela firing the stream of flame at the vampires. Holding the flamethrower in her right hand, she pulled out a pistol in her left, and pointed it at the vampires as well.

The three of them dove to the floor and into the darkness of the hallway, as bullets flew past their heads, some slamming into the stone walls around them. They couldn't get closer. If the fuel so much as touched them, there was a good chance they'd die in seconds, or at least lose a limb.

The sight of Athalia on fire was a fucking nightmare on a nightmare. But she had disappeared again, and her death shrieks were gone. If she was dead, Jack was going to fucking hate himself. If she and Fiona died, they were all trapped, and fucked.

"You fuckers helping Athalia, you all deserve to die with her. Come on, Mom! Get down here so we can end this! Show yourself! Show yourself you fucking—"

Athalia's wail cut through the noise of the fight like nails on a chalkboard. The black fog reformed above, in a random spot maybe a hundred feet away. Athalia said she couldn't tell where things were like that; the dozens of random claw marks everywhere proved it. But the corpses on the ground looked like they'd been mauled by a fucking dinosaur. Athalia was swiping at things without know what the fuck they were, or who they were.

Christ, that was cold.

Athalia, drifting like a fly with a damaged wing, fell to the ground slowly. She landed on her hands, enormous claws resting on the stone as she twitched and shook. Her bones looked white, as if someone had bleached them pale. Almost like a sick person losing all color in their face. The fact she was still alive was amazing; she'd been set on fire. But the white dots of her eyes, little glowing dots in the center of her skull eyes, were flickering in and out like a dying light.

Whether or not she was dying, it wasn't enough to stop Athalia. The skeleton creature roared at the group of hunters, and came running forward. The sight and sound of the death angel, running on her two hands, spinal cord swaying like a tail, and mouth opening wide to unleash the inhuman scream, forced everyone to look her way. The werewolves tried to take advantage of the chaos, but the hunters opened fire on them, the men and women with knives ducking low so their companions could fire over their heads.

They'd practiced for this. They knew how to mix ranged and melee combat. The fuck kind of bullshit was this, a military squadron? The hunters had underestimated Jack when they kidnapped him, but now he was returning the favor. They all were.

The sickening sight of bullets slamming into fur and flesh forced Jack to take a step forward. He expected Angela to unleash more flame in his direction, but instead, Angela was looking at Athalia, and started shooting her pistol. Bullets slammed into the monster's bones, cracking them, and splinters of the white monster's body snapped off. Some bits shattered, raining down around Athalia, and others broke off in huge chunks, until Jack could see through holes in her titanic ribs. The monster ignored her wounds, screaming, shrieking, and ran at Angela. More bullets slammed into Athalia's face, and her jaw shattered, half of it breaking off and falling to the stone floor. Athalia didn't stop.

"Come on, Mom! Bring it! Fucking bring it!"

Oh good god what sort of family drama was he witnessing? And Angela, she had zero sense of reality. Her words sounded like a shitty soap opera, and her actions were the sort of temper tantrum he'd expect from a literal child. But the psychopath was fearless, and she fired again, and again, until the click click of no ammo sounded several times.

Angela reached down with her pistol hand, and tried to draw a new magazine, but the skeleton creature, full of holes, shrieking in pain and what Jack could only guess was morose fury, threw herself onto Angela. The woman went down, flamethrower falling away before sliding across the stone floor as the necklace on her neck began to glow brighter. The skeleton creature grabbed the woman with one hand, picked her up, weight balanced on her other enormous hand, and threw her daughter at the other hunters, the ones firing at the werewolves.

Jack had lost track in the madness. The hunters shooting were trying to hit the wolves, and the wolves were running around in the darkness, leaving trails of blood everywhere they went. But with all the gargoyle braziers extinguished, and only the lights on their rifles or handheld lights to provide illumination, the advantage started to become theirs.

But the vampires were blocked. Angela had doused the doorway in flame, and it hadn't settled yet. What light the fire gave off, the werewolves were on the other side of the nearest pillar, keeping the shadow on their side. It also meant the vampires couldn't see them anymore, except for split moments where they ran from one pillar to the next. They could see Athalia though, see the ruined monster of bone and carnage whip her own daughter through the air toward the hunters around the pillar.

Fuck this.

With a deep breath — the habit would never die — and step forward, he got ready, preemptively winced, and jumped.

"Jack!" Tash and Damien said. He ignored them. A Mekhet was likely to die if they got too much fire on them, and both of them were more injured than he was. And he'd done this before.

The fire wasn't too high, maybe three feet. The flickering heat was great, but not as great as the last time he'd felt its bite. It took advantage of the hole in his stomach where the giant splinter had stuck him, and it took advantage of the hole in his pants where a couple of bullets had sliced him. Those patches of skin, and the fat and muscle underneath, were gone in seconds, turned to ash. And he felt every fucking wave of agony it caused. Burns were pain beyond pain. Burns, true, deep burns, were deadly, to the point a person could die from how stressful the pain was on the system. He wouldn't die to that pain, but that didn't change that fire hit him with it, blinded him until he saw white, and wiped the world away until their was only the incinerating misery of his bane.

And then he was on the other side of the fire. He focused his vitae toward the burn marks, but there was something about burns that he knew he couldn't heal, not until he slept come the dawn. The werewolves weren't healing the silver wounds either. Did monsters have similar? Whether they did or not, being set on fire and then shot a dozen times would put almost anyone into the ground, but Athalia was still alive.

Except, barely. The titan fell to the floor, twenty feet from where Angela had slammed into some of the other hunters. Jack wasted no time, and ran over to the psychopath.

Angela dragged herself off of the bed of other hunters, and started to get up. "I'll kill you, I'll—"

Jack kicked the gun out of her hand, smile on his lips as he felt his boot slam into her wrist. He didn't break her bone, but he got close, and the yelp of pain she made was a siren's call to his soul. He kicked her in the stomach, and sighed bliss as he felt her guts ripple from the impact. He kicked her in the side as she rolled over, and groaned delight as he felt his boot crack ribs. He kicked her in the back, and grinned his biggest grin ever as he felt another rib crack, in the lower back by her kidneys. Another kick, in her chin, snapping her head back, and silencing her rage as her teeth slammed together. Another, and another, bruising muscle and damaging her guts, until at last she stopped trying to get up.

It'd only been three seconds. Three seconds of bliss.

As she stopped on her back, panting, wheezing, she looked at him, glass eye lifeless, while her real eye burned a hole into his skull. One glance from her was all it took, to light the fire in his gut, to send a scorching inferno up into his chest and out into his limbs. The agony of his burns vanished, buried in the pulsing hunger in his brain.

And then he had a half dozen guns pointed at him, including a shotgun. Shit.

But before the hunter with the shotgun could put a spray of death into his face, a howl erupted over the hunters. Arturo burst from the darkness, as if ripping himself out of a literal wall of shadow. The titan of muscle grabbed the shotgun, and roared into the woman's face before he slashed across her shoulder. Claws sliced through muscle, earning a scream from the woman hunter as she fell, and the ire of the other gun wielders. But Noah and Matthew collapsed on them at running speed, on all fours, only getting onto their hind legs at the last moment, and bulldozing the hunters.

Jack could smell the blood on them, their own blood, and he could hear the panting in their breaths. They were exhausted, and wrecked. They had to end this soon. Tash and Damien would be joining them in moments when the flames faded, but in the mean time, Jack had to deal with Angela.

He brought up his pistol, and pointed it at her face, phone light held up in his other hand and shining it down on her.

He expected the psychopath to flinch, to raise her hands, maybe cover her face, maybe crawl away. He expected her to swear, curse, scream at him. He expected her to beg for her life, plead for him to not shoot her. He expected a dozen things from her, any of them, all of them, anything to add to his growing hatred for the fucking bitch.

He didn't expect her to close her eyes, and wait for it. A gentle smile graced her lips too, as she stopped moving, stopped struggling, stopped doing anything, and waited for him.

It was disgusting. He froze, pistol shaking in his hand, as his light shined on the woman's face, lighting it up so he could see every detail. She really did look like Athalia, her human form. And he stared at it, the face with scars, the fucked up eye with the cut across it, the panting, exhausted woman. The world froze. The backdrop of the werewolves, fighting off almost a dozen hunters around him, preventing them from shooting Jack, vanished. The flashes of light from flashlights in the darkness around them were like slow moving spotlights. The rumble of the burning fire blocking Tash and Damien from joining was a gentle whisper.

The skeleton monster with the destroyed face looked at him. Half of her bottom jaw was gone, exposing the giant vertebrae behind it connected to her skull. Holes and chunks of bone were gone, exposing a strange, black inside. Her arms were crumbled and borderline ruined, but working enough that she pushed her claws against the floor, and dragged herself toward him. Slowly, but surely, the colossal skeleton monster, inched his way, ribs scratching against the bloodied stone floor.

"D... Don't...," the monster said.

He stared at the skeleton creature. The death angel, the monstrosity, burned and broken, clawing her way toward him and her daughter, dragging her ribs and dangling spinal cord on the floor.

"Athalia, she has to die. She's going to kill us. She—"

"Please... she's my daughter."

He knew this was going to happen. He knew, if the opportunity presented itself to kill Angela, and Athalia was there, she'd do something. Maybe stop him, maybe attack him, maybe anything. But beg? He didn't, couldn't have foreseen begging, not from her.

"... I... I'm sorry." He forced his eyes off of the monster, and onto the awaiting Angela. The apology was for the mother, but there was a sickening ache in his stomach when he looked down at the daughter. The psychopath looked over at her mother for a moment, and back to him. He couldn't tell if she was daring him, or asking him, to kill her. Either one made him not want to.

No, he couldn't afford mercy. He readied the pistol, and—

The world spun. White, then black. Colors. Spinning, flashing strobes of streaking chaos. He landed on the ground, on the stones, palms out, pistol gone, phone gone. The world was a mess, pain mixing with flickering colors, and an unbalanced sound. Something was missing, something was gone.

His left eye. His left eye was gone, and his left ear. He lifted his hand, and pressed it to the side of his head. Flesh. Bone. Ash.

"Almost missed him." Laughter came from a distance, and so too the thud of loud, heavy, colossal footsteps. "You ok, Angela?"