My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 18

"I saw her," Jessy said. The poor woman looked like someone had body slammed her from the Eiffel Tower. "Old woman. Should be dead yesterday."

Jacob raised a hand, as if correcting a classroom. "Hmm, maybe not die? A woman like that has knowledge." Everyone turned, and stared at the old monster, frowns galore, until he put his hands up. "Ok ok, maybe not."

"So we have time to take a breather then," Julias said. "That's something. No paranormal died, and we have a lot more knowledge now than we did before. This is progress. Painful, but progress."

"Painful?" Art said. "The fuck did you—"

Julias pulled out his stump and showed it to him, earning chuckles from the Nosferatu. Everyone winced.

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~~Antoinette~~

"That... that is good." Antoinette sighed relief, and the tension in her body melted away, as Julias explained the rescue efforts of Jacob. "I am impressed with your actions, Mire. To owe my old friend a favor is a dangerous thing, and he will ask it of you in ways you will not be able to predict."

"We'll see. I'm pretty good at predicting," the Ventrue said over the phone. "I regret ever letting the boy go. I let my emotions get the better of me, and thought rescuing Jessy and the others worth the risk."

She did not agree with his plan, but she had to admit, it was a very time sensitive situation. Extreme acts of ludicrous bravery were, sometimes, fruitful. Most often, they were not, and survivor bias was a deadly sin.

"I look forward to seeing my love," she said, implying the obvious with a deeper tone.

"First thing tomorrow night. But, he's in a bad way, Prince. They all are. Jacob and his... friend, really saved them from what I guess was a battle they were losing."

She was glad that it was the Ventrue that owed Jacob, and not her. And yet, she could not deny that she too owed Jacob in a way, for his efforts. Perhaps not in a capacity her old friend would hold her to, but nonetheless.

And Black Blood. That cursed creature was involved. She did not wish that, for that alien entity to seep its claws, its dark liquid, its insidiousness into her city, least of her all fellow Kindred, and lover.

"Thank you, Mire, for your... for everything."

She could almost hear the man smile.

"No problem, Prince. We both love that stupid kid."

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If she would not be seeing her love until tomorrow night, then she had time to follow up on the new development.

She left her office, and moved down into the depths of her labyrinth. Daniel followed behind her, and she nodded at him over her shoulder as he stepped in beside her.

"How fair your journeys into the realms?" she said.

"Still having trouble tracking down the source. At first I suspected Jacob was causing these weird disturbances, but now I don't know. It might be Jeremiah."

"Ah yes, Jeremiah. Twice now the hunters and their plans have been foiled. I fear they will do something desperate, in retaliation."

"Jeremiah seems like the sort of man who will respond harshly, but with some degree of intelligence." Daniel adjusted his glasses with a single finger, before he slipped his hands into his trench coat pockets. "Unfortunately, he's proving far too unpredictable."

"Agreed." With a begotten working for the man, his avenues of attack had increased tremendously, to the point she would not be able to predict his actions so easily. "It may be time we offer Azamel some freedom, in return for her help against the man."

"I'm starting to wonder if she knew Jeremiah had a Begotten under his thumb, and waited on the info since the beginning, to put us in this position."

"Perhaps." The old creature was patient enough. "But, I do believe she is also too prideful to readily admit that, in all this, she is the hunted, and we are her walls. It is a difficult position to be in."

"Are you excusing her behavior?"

"Non. The old monster will have to answer for her deceptions, but at the same time, we must ask for her help in dealing with Jeremiah, and his Begotten slave."

"I see." Daniel nodded, and followed her. She had not explained to him what she was doing yet, but he followed nonetheless. Loyal to a fault, her old friend. And he would be able to guess, soon enough.

There were many chambers in her labyrinth of floors and halls, of rooms and alcoves, that she did not allow others to explore. Off limits to her ghouls, to her love, and to her new student. Unsightly secrets, dark, dirty, in ways that did not become her, and the image she had crafted for herself.

She opened one of the doors, thick and sealed with many bars of metal. The mechanical padlock was old fashioned, but complicated, sturdy, and required a specific code that only she knew. It could not be picked. Perhaps it was time to move onto the digital age of locks, as she had done in many other places, but there was something powerful in the simplicity of the old. Unless someone came in with a blowtorch, they were not getting through.

She took a moment to look through the window of one of the cells. There were a half dozen humans, kept alive for one purpose only: death as the occasional, emergency meal, or sacrifice. There had been the time Jack was a mess of ruin, and she had fed him three souls, to insure his daily sleep would revitalize him. She did not tell him the details, tell him of how she kept the truly wicked here as blood bags, to be killed at her whim. Murderers, that she murdered without pity. It was better that such knowledge not be shared needlessly, lest it change the view Natasha and Jack had of her.

Perhaps Jack should know, though? It would be a step in their relationship, but not one she felt comfortable making, not yet. For now, she would keep her darker activities between herself, and Daniel. And for now, she needed one sacrifice.

She did not make a show of it, did not indulge in the kill or dance in the blood. She did not enjoy this, but it had to be done. A simple use of majesty to turn one of the sacrifices into a doting slave, willing to do everything and anything for her. This one was a man who had killed his wife in a fit of rage. There was a certain justice to killing him, she supposed, but she tried to not frame it in such close-minded definitions. He was a sacrifice, and a kine who no longer deserved to live. She needed fuel. Nothing more.

The sacrifice followed them down, and down, and down into the deepest pits of her tower, far further than the undercity of Dolareido went. There was a secret route that connected the labyrinth to the Dolareido tunnels, but it was old, and she had long sealed it off. With recent events, she considered re-opening it, in case suicidal hunters showed up at her tower, and decided to nuke her home, literally.

Deep, and deeper, until the air was hard to breathe for the sacrifice. Down here she felt comfortable with the more grandiose experiments, the ones she shared with no one save her fellow dragon Daniel, the ones she was concerned could implode and destroy much if not deep underground. Down here, she could pursue her desire for knowledge, and not worry for the ramifications.

"I know what you're going to do," Daniel said, following behind her in the dark hallway of metal.

"I have to speak with it, Daniel."

"You really don't. Last time—"

"Last time was different. There need not be strife between us and the entity."

Sighing, Daniel shook his head, but followed. She did not like dismissing him so, especially when he made a good point, but it was a point she had already debated. This conversation needed to happen, and as the entity encroached on her city more and more, it would happen more often.

She opened the doors to her final chamber, and once the sacrifice had entered, Daniel closed it behind them.

Above her was the same chandelier as in her main experiments room. On the floor, the same symbols, drawings that represented natural balances and mysteries in the machine of the universe. The average person did not understand the power in the enigma of mathematics, how mathematics was the language of existence itself, and how reality as they knew it existed upon the foundation of numbers. Many of those, she captured in the symbols below. With the wavelength provided by the chandelier, and the vibration provided by her machines, she created resonance. And certain things were attracted to varying types of resonance.

Black Blood required more than resonance to summon. The entity required sacrifice. It required blood, and flesh. Disgusting creature.

Antoinette did not waste time, and did not let the moment build. It was an abhorrent ritual, and she would not relish the kill, like the witches would. A nod to Daniel was enough, and her sheriff stabbed the man in the back of the head with a knife.

No pain, no misery, no fake words or fanfare. The man fell onto the center of the symbols, beneath the chandelier. The walls of metal, covered in more of the symbols she had spent decades perfecting, were the murderer's last sight, before he slumped to the floor. Daniel, with knife held, squatted down over the kill, and split them open from chin to crotch in one, clean slice.

Vampires craved blood, not muscle, meat, organ, or bone. To see a kine have their insides become their outsides was not a pleasing sight, and she frowned at the mess it made, a mess she would have to clean; no thrall or ghoul would be allowed down here to clean it.

But the deed was done. She walked over to the machine, a large thing of pipes, metal compartments, and digital readouts. It was a far older version of the resonance machine she used in her main experiments chamber, with Daniel and Natasha, but still young enough to have digital components. She set the frequency to high, and set the chandelier's wavelength to the strange blue.

Now, all that remained was to wait, as the humming sound vibrated along the walls, against the floor, and into the chandelier.

They did not have to wait long. The blue light faded away, hidden in the encroaching darkness, as black liquid began to drip from the metal ceiling. As if the ceiling had cracks in it, veins of black began to form over their heads, and soon began to bleed its ooze onto the floor. It was coming, and she folded her arms across her chest and suit jacket as she waited for the inevitable.

The alien creature took its time, ooze dripping both up and down from within the circle of summoning. It could not leave, or at least, if it did leave the circle it would have no essence to sustain itself. She doubted the creature needed to concern itself with such things, old and powerful as it was, and it remained within the summoning circle she had created purely for its own comfort.

The ooze filled the space, creating a pool of black two feet deep upon the summoning circle, as if pressed to glass around its edges. It also formed the same circle above, against the ceiling, over the chandelier, and the bleeding black dripped up and down continuously. The corpse disappeared underneath the slow waves, unable to float in the strange obsidian. At least, that was how it seemed at first, but one of its hands rose from the black. And then the other. And then, the corpse sat up.

"Well, butter my biscuits!" The corpse had adopted a new voice, and as black oozed from his eyes and nostrils, he looked at her as he stood up.

Antoinette raised her eyebrows, looked at Daniel, who only shrugged, before looking to the corpse. "... quoi?"

"Don't worry yourself over it. Now, what can I do you for, high and mighty Prince of Slut City?" The strange corpse tilted his head to the sides, as if stretching his neck, and dusted off his shoulders. With body split open, throat to pelvis, much of what was supposed to be inside the body, fell out of the body. What things were not well attached, landed in the ooze, disappearing, while the man's intestines fell but remained attached to the body. Why the gory state was required, Antoinette did not know, but without it, the creature would not be summoned.

"I wanted to speak of your actions tonight."

"Ah, yes, I figured as much. Love to have your fingers in everything, don't you." The corpse shrugged, and began to pace, hands in the small of his back.

"What is with the absurd accent? The last time we spoke—"

"Oh I dunno, just trying it out. This poor fool you brought me has nothing new. But Jacob, this one time, brought me a fellar from the South, and I—"

"Enough." Antoinette shook her head, and glared at the body. "Show yourself. I have no intention of speaking with a corpse. Not this time."

The corpse stopped moving, stared at her, and considered. For a moment she thought the entity might leave; it was her asking for its favor, in visiting after all, and yet she was demanding it abandoned the charade. But the entity, like Jacob, loved to talk, to toy with others, to be a thorn in their side. She had earned the right to see the creature itself.

"Fine." The corpse fell back down into the pool. And once it was gone, underneath the waves of black, the room filled with darkness.

Antoinette took a step back, and looked around as the liquid fog filled the whole of the large chamber in mere moments. Daniel reached for his sword, and she did not stop him; she had expected the creature to at least stay where she provided it essence. It did not want to. The strange liquid crashed into the walls, but was weightless, not affecting her or Daniel despite it washing over them. It took only seconds for the two of them to be buried in its obsidian depths. The blue light of the chandelier was almost gone, and Antoinette squinted to make out shapes in the dark.

There was a face, in the black. Except the face was at least twenty feet tall, and it floated over the corpse, looking at the two vampires. The eyes and lips, the nose and chin, all were vague blurs in the ink they swam in. But it was there, the creature, its actual body, encompassing them all in its presence.

It was terrifying.

She steeled herself, and frowned at the giant visage in the murky depths. This was the creature that haunted the shadows of her city, affected it in ways she could not understand, and undermined her efforts to control it. Determining how, exactly, the alien entity was undermining her was difficult, but in her studies, and Daniel's previous investigation, they had found many places where people behaved strangely, did strange things to each other. If she had not known better, she would have assumed them servants of the Circle of the Crone, these random kine who explored the functions of their own bodies with knives and needles.

This thing, this creature, was a menace, but she needed to know.

"Thank you," she said.

"Thank you?" Black Blood said, its unfitting Southern accent remaining, except now filled with overwhelming bass and inhuman depth that shook her body to the core. "You have nerve, little lady. I've offered you a truce, to let you be, while you leave me to mine, and you continue to poke your nose where it don't belong."

"My experiments do not affect you."

"Don't they?" The enormous face grinned at her as it chuckled, heavy voice causing the depths of the Earth to tremble. "You've summoned denizens of my city. You acquired a seeing eye, at one point, didn't you?"

Seeing eye? The squid-like creature, she supposed, that had spoke of Maria's involvement. She could ask Black Blood about Maria directly, now that she had taken the time to summon the monstrosity, but that would expose that she did not know what Maria's intentions were. It would also expose that she believed the creature she and Natasha had summoned. Giving this alien entity any more information was not something she wished to do.

"I want to speak of your move against the hunters, tonight."

"Of course you do." The bleeding silhouette of black drifted around in her chamber; though, its size prevented much movement. Large as the room was, Black Blood's visage was enormous, and it had little room to move through the murky shadows. "Or, was it you want to know about monsters?"

"... both."

"And why should I tell you these things?"

"I believe it will benefit us both. You wish for things to continue as they do, do you not?"

"Heh. Well, Malachi might not appreciate me sharing the details. You want more info? Go ask my friend."

This new voice and attitude the spirit wielded was insufferable. She expected a colossal entity of unknowable intent, with voice as alien as the stars, to be difficult to understand. Instead, this creature dare impersonate a normal man, with a normal voice, and talk 'buddy buddy' about Jacob, as if Black Blood could understand friendship or comradery. It was a spirit, and understood only how to further its agenda, nothing more.

"But," the spirit continued, "that boy you got under your thumb, the Terry boy. My oh my, I see potential in that little man. Jacob called it right."

"W... Why do you speak of my love?"

"Jack Terry? That kid is going places, Prince. And don't worry about him, I'll keep an eye out for him."

The alien's words only worsened her worry, a thousand fold.

"I... I wanted," she said, "to propose a deal."

"A deal? With a spirit? Thems dangerous waters, vampire. I'll hold you to any deal you make."

"I am sure you will." Sighing, she began to pace, and did her best to ignore the black water that permeated everything. It was not real, or at least, it was not the physical body of Black Blood, only some effect of it. That did not make her feel better. "Chaos has come to my doorstep as a raging tide in a single year."

"That it has."

"And I fear these hunters will bring far more damage than we could have estimated."

"Probably."

"And—"

"And you want me to do something." The inhuman voice chuckled, bassy rumbles vibrating her walls, and causing the black liquid to churn. "Me, who you have shunned and refused to speak with. Me, who you only discuss in dark corners, and ignore. Me, who rules the other side of your town. Our town."

"... yes."

"Well now, ain't that something." The voice chuckled yet again, breaking into more of a laugh, a very Jacob laugh. "Jacob and I have an agreement, little missy. You got a request for me? Ask him. And besides, I saved your boy, and the others. Way I see it, you owe me; but don't you worry your pretty head none, Jacob will take care of it. In the mean time, how about you worry about yours, and I'll worry about mine?"

"Black Blood!" She glared at the shadowy creature, its enormous face in the murky black, and clenched her hands into fists at her side. "Do not dismiss me so easily."

"You had your chance. I'm done with you."

And like someone had set off an explosive, the black liquid shot outward from the center of the room. The corpse upon the floor exposed, but unmoving, the dark ooze vanished into the nether as raging wind twisted and turned the onyx into the air, before it faded. In a single moment, like someone popping a balloon, Black Blood returned to its realm, leaving her and Daniel standing in the blue light of the chandelier, the hum of the resonance machine their background noise, and a corpse at their feet.

"Merde." With a sigh, she turned around, and headed for the door.

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~~Author's Note~~

Sorry to those who were hoping for some big resolutions in this fight. I'm building up to bigger things. :)

And, wow, 6 chapters without any sex, over 85,000 words. That's a little longer than I want to go without erotic content, in this erotica story. I'll start fixing that asap.