My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 01

Her new life agreed with her. A witch, and lover to the strongest ancilla in the city; along with her friend to share the bed. The typical Dolareido effect, dialing the sex factor of everything up to extreme.

"I... do have a date planned with her." For some reason, everyone had become interested in his dating life. It was annoying, but he couldn't deny he listened to advice when it came his way, about this particular topic. He had no experience of romance, even when he was human. Blurry memories, at best.

"She seems fun. I wish you lots of great sex." With a salute, Beatrice hopped off the railing, and started out of the church. "I—" She stopped, voice grinding to a halt, as the cathedral doors opened.

Maria.

She was wearing one of her typical white dresses, the sort worn a couple hundred years ago, with small buttons done up the front, connected to a multi-layered skirt. The dress was in good condition, and that always struck Damien as harsh contrast against her ruined skin.

Had these two ever met? Ever talked? He had no idea, and he stood up before walking over to Beatrice to stand behind and beside her.

"Madam Turio," he said. "I was trying to learn how to use the organ, when Beatrice came by to visit."

"Alone?" the elder said. "The pairing system applies to all Kindred in the city, Damor. Jacob will not be happy if a passerby saw through your Cloak of Night, and cut off your head."

Nodding, Beatrice tapped her nose a couple times. "Jen isn't far from here."

Nose tapping, as if taunting the elder. Brazen. The comparison some people made between Beatrice and Jessy was warranted, to a point.

"Then do not leave her side." Frowning, Maria walked up to, and past the two of them, a small snarl made for Beatrice before she continued on to the stairway in the back of the Cathedral.

Damien and Beatrice stood there, eyebrows raised, and listened to the sound of opening, and closing gates. After a few of the thuds, clanks, and squeaks of metal on metal, Damien set his butt against one of the pews' arms, and gestured to the Nosferatu, who did the same.

"I don't think she likes you," he said.

"I guess not. I mean, I was a Carthian, and I caused a lot of problems for the Invictus, back in the day."

"I... don't think that's what it is." It was far more likely that Maria was jealous. Beatrice, a Nosferatu who had once hid in the shadows to hide her disfigurements, now realized they weren't so bad, and engaged in frequent intercourse, while also finding someone to love. All things, denied to Maria Turio.

Beatrice sat the same way, butt on a pew arm, facing him, the two of them in the aisle. "Yeah, maybe not."

A downcast look from her said it all: she was strolling through her more painful memories. For a Nosferatu, her disfigurements weren't all that unappealing. She'd spent all her years lamenting her monstrous features, only to later realize other Kindred didn't mind them. Worse yet, other Nosferatu often had far worse mutations, and she'd had the audacity to wallow in depression for many years, as her kin did. At least, that was the impression Damien got from her face. Perhaps it was far more simple, like he imagined Jessy's thoughts to be.

No, Beatrice was a more complex creature than Jessy. Though, complexity did little except bury the mind in pain.

"When's your date?"

"In an hour."

"Ah. Looking forward to it?"

"I... am."

"She's a spunky little thing, isn't she?"

"That she is."

He wouldn't mind enjoying time with someone less complex, someone who smiled because they meant it, because they couldn't help themselves.

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~~Julias~~

He didn't feel comfortable not wearing a suit. He felt less comfortable, wearing a robe. He felt extremely uncomfortable, wearing a thick robe of dark, stained leather, and absolutely nothing underneath.

"Aaron and Othello couldn't join us tonight," Triss said, wearing a similar robe. "So I thought, this could be interesting. Sort of a bonding experience."

"You feel comfortable letting me witness a ritual?" he said.

Jen shook her head, and gestured to the metal bowl in the dirt. "If witnessing was all that was required, I'd be able to do them."

"You can't?"

"No." Jennifer shivered a bit, and spread the blanket out for her to sit down on, legs folded, knees apart. "There's something in Crúac, about it, that... it's too brutal, for me to... give into. Maybe when I'm older. But in either case, Jacob doesn't mind, because you can't learn to do a ritual by watching it performed."

Julias nodded, and adjusted his own blanket as he sat down. As much as it felt strange wearing such a heavy robe that looked like it belonged on a necromancer from Jack's video games, it was roomy, and he had no trouble sitting like Jen, knees apart and ankles crossed. Besides, when in Rome.

The moon sat high in the sky, crescent moon, with clouds peeking across every so often. For the most part, the moonlight came through, and lit the ritual the two witches were performing. The stars were brighter, out in the rocky landscape outside his mansion, about half a mile out into the empty wilderness. A few dry trees, large rocks, dirt and sand, and the quiet stirring of night animals. Snakes. Rats. He was sure an owl or two were nesting in one of the nearby, larger trees that survived in the dryer climate.

"To learn Crúac rituals is a merciless affair," Triss said. "I'd never invite you, cause you'd try and stop it."

"How brutal?" he said. Dumb question.

"To learn my first ritual, I would have died several times over if I were human. This ritual wasn't nearly so dangerous, but... barbed wire was involved." Shivering, Triss sat down in front of the large, metal bowl, and held a bag in front of her legs. A leather bag, black, the sort one would hold the head of their kill in, a few hundred years ago. It was squirming, and every so often, it made a very chicken-like squawk.

She reached inside, and yanked out a chicken. This was getting almost cliché.

"Barbed wire and a chicken? Were you put into a chicken coop or something? Animal cruelty to still use barbed wire."

Triss laughed, but Jen didn't. His fellow Ventrue groaned and shook her head, hugging herself and clutching her shoulders.

"You cut off your hand with a knife. Try doing it with barbed wire," Jen said.

"Oh... that is brutal." Yeah, if he'd seen Triss getting a hand cut off by sawing, with barbed wire, he doubted he'd be able to stop himself from interfering, even if it was her doing it to herself. He was afraid to ask if it was.

Nodding, Triss opened up her robe, exposing the crow skull necklace, her breasts, nipple piercings, the tattoos, and down to her stomach, more tattoos, and navel piercing. Without the Blush of Life, her skin was thinner, pale, and hugged her lean body tight. Still attractive, but considering she was holding a squawking, struggling, angry chicken in her other hand, the last thing on his mind was sex.

She twisted, and ripped the chicken's head off.

Julias blinked, head jerking away. Blood squirted everywhere, and the dying chicken struggled in Triss's grip. After a little while, and a little while longer than Julias expected a headless chicken to struggle, the corpse went still. Nodding, Triss chucked the chicken's head into the old, rusted bowl, while she raised the corpse to her body.

Ok, no wonder they told him to wear one of their robes, and not his suit. Not only was Triss's robe — and his — splattered with bits of chicken blood, but she drew a line of the blood with the chicken's neck across her chest under her collarbone, and then down from her neck, between her breasts, to her stomach.

She handed the chicken corpse to Jennifer, who did the same thing; though Jen made sure to blow Julias a kiss before revealing her body. Maybe he could think about sex, despite the horrific act he was seeing? They had warned him that they, especially Triss, were embracing the whole 'dark, scary witchcraft' scene, full tilt. And, there was something enticing about how twisted, and occult, the act was. It was a dead animal, a sacrifice, and they were drawing symbols on their naked chests with its body and blood; their particularly amazing, naked chests, no less.

Jen handed him the chicken, and he grimaced as he held it by the neck. He'd held dead animals before, plenty of times; you live long enough and it was bound to happen. But this was the first time he'd ever held a headless chicken by the neck. He forced one eye closed, as if by keeping only one eye aware of what he was doing, he'd lessen the impact.

Nothing would lessen the strangeness of him spreading his robe at the chest, turning the chicken on its side, and pressing its headless neck against his sternum. Weird, weird weird, so very weird. But, he had to admit, the thrill was there. This was some dark, scary witchcraft stuff, as promised. Warm blood trickled down over the large girth of his chest, and then down his sternum and flat stomach as he drew the line.

Both Jen and Triss licked a fang as they watched him. Clearly, they were perfectly happy thinking sexual thoughts, comfortable with the act, despite the grossness of what he was doing.

Like a moth to flame, the sight of the two women smiling at him as he painted chicken's blood onto his chest, put a vivid image in his head of what sort of stuff the Circle might have done, in a different time. Orgies around a sacrifice? Someone painting symbols onto bodies, using the blood of their sacrifice, human or animal, while people fucked in a connected circle of carnal acts? He doubted the sexuality was needed, but the excitement and adventure of doing something this dark was undeniable.

Kind of like when the Invictus pushed through a particularly powerful and one-sided business contract; except, less evil.

"Now," Triss said, picking up a large knife from beside the bowl, "each of us puts a drop of blood onto the sacrifice."

"More blood?" Julias said.

Nodding, Triss was the first, and she cut a small mark into her wrist. With some concentration, she forced out a single, heavy drop of her blood, and it landed against the chicken corpse with the weight of mercury. Heavy, thick, and powerful.

"The rituals pretty much always require vitae," she said. "It's the connection. It's the special element that makes Kindred what we are. It lets us communicate with... whatever it is that's inside us, and whatever it is out there that's... undefinable." Smiling at him, a twinkle in her snake eyes, she handed him the knife.

A small spike of pain, and then gone, as he cut open his own wrist enough to force out a large drop of his blood. Jennifer did the same, and set the knife down. All of them kept their robes open, exposing the blood trails they'd painted there. Part of him suspected keeping the robes open, after the fact, was really just to give him the visual feast of their bodies, but he wouldn't be surprised if it mattered to the ritual, too. It was hard to tell. If the ritual could not be learned through observation, then maybe intent mattered as much as detail.

"Touch the bowl," Triss said. He put his fingertips on its edge, as did Jennifer. "Close your eyes." He did. "Now, listen." Listen, he did.

The world disappeared. The background noise of the desert, the wind, the tiny chirps, the occasional owl hoot, the shifting sand underneath rat tails, all vanished. Everything went deathly quiet, and Julias squeezed his eyes shut to fight against the urge to open them. This was very much not natural, and it felt that way, too. It was like someone had wrapped a thick bag around his head. The unnerving image of him, tied to a chair, with a leather bag over his head, the bag that had previously contained an angry chicken, did not sit well with him.

But he could see something. He raised a brow, but kept his eyes shut as he turned his head around. He could see something, blurry, and red, like a smudgy blob of blood on a glass. A large blob. One was where Triss sat, and another was where Jennifer sat. He leaned left and right, to make sure it was indeed them, and not colors brought on by his shut eyelids.

"I can see you," he said. Seemed like the thing to say, despite how ridiculous it sounded, said so plainly. "Sort of."

"Good, it's working." Laughing, Triss the red blob nodded; he thought. It was hard to tell what was a movement or just the blob doing blob things.

"You didn't know if it'd work?" Jen said.

"Nope."

"What was the worse case scenario if this didn't work?" He said.

The blob shrugged. "No idea. Maybe your eyes would have exploded?"

"Um, ow?"

"Nah don't worry. Jacob said rituals either succeed or they don't. He's mentioned nothing about a failed ritual backfiring and tearing a face off or anything. That said, some of the rituals he's described could backfire? I dunno, but they're not rituals I'd be capable of for decades."

"We keep our fingers on the bowl?" he said.

"Yeap."

"And we can see each other with our eyes closed?"

"You can see any paranormal, with your eyes closed. And the range is fucking massive, far as your eyes work normally. Keep your eyes closed, and look around."

He almost blinked, but shut his eyes tight again, and turned to look toward where he knew the city was. A sea of red blobs. He gasped, despite himself, and stared at the tiny dots, shifting and moving. There were a few hundred of them, but many were so small as to be no more than specs of red dust in his vision, only noticeable against the black and mixed colors of closed eyes. Sea was the wrong descriptor; more like, a black sky of red, gentle stars, gathered around.

He looked around and around, but other than the two blobs of red by him, he could see no other red blobs nearby. All the other red blurs were in the city, except a few seemed to be off to the side. Jacob, and maybe Othello and Aaron. It was far too inaccurate for him to track down actual places though, since all he could see was blobs of red, no buildings or roads or anything.

"This... would be damn useful, if you were trying to see if any paranormals were nearby," he said. "Might even be able to find the Begotten working with the hunters this way."

"Yeah."

Of course, there was one problem. "Gotta sacrifice a chicken every time?"

"A small animal, yeah. Many rituals don't require a sacrifice, though, as you know."

Ah yeah, the crow necklace. He didn't know if she needed it, but when she painted her blood on the door frame of his underground bunker room, there'd been no sacrifice, just her fidgeting with the necklace. Supposedly, the blood would alert her if someone crossed through it, even awaken her from her daily torpor. A powerful tool, but if she had to lose body parts with barbed wire to learn these rituals, he was happy to never learn them.

"K, open your eyes." Triss removed her hand from the bowl, and the blobs vanished. Queue for the rest of them to, as well.

Opening his eyes, Julias looked at the bowl with the bird corpse, then up at the moonlight, smirking.

"I still have two secrets to tell," he said. Witchy witch stuff by moonlight? Perfect time to talk about heavy things.

His fellow Ventrue nodded. "One for me."

"Got any a bit less painful to share?" Triss said, crawling over to him and snuggling up against his arm. "Hit your wife, hate some of our new friends, and killed a child. How about something less... life-scarring horrible, and something a little more sleepover friendly?"

"Sleepover friendly?"

"Yeah." Jen crawled over to him as well, though she made sure to take a little time to lean forward, so her breasts swayed and moved underneath her, until she also snuggled against his side. "I'm sure you've got some nasty, dark secrets that would make a politician sweat, but maybe something we can laugh about? Got any secrets you don't want to share, but because they'd be embarrassing?"

He sighed relief, and smirked at the two women beside him. Yeah, he could do that.

"... alright. When I was young, maybe fives years embraced, and was getting more comfortable with being Kindred, I was in a sexual relationship with another Kindred."

"Surprising," Triss said. "You told me it'd been forever since you let a Kindred in your bed."

"Yeah, she was from a long time ago. One of the reasons I fell into that relationship was... I was bad with women, and she was showing me the ropes." So much for cultivating an air of always being a lady's man.

Both girls gasped, big and dramatic. He rolled his eyes and shoved both them both away, but they laughed it off and crawled back in.

"Playboy Mire used to be bad with the ladies?" Jen said. "I don't believe it."

"Hey, I told you I had a wife, and that ended pretty badly. I didn't have much of a dating life before her, or after."

Triss crawled into his lap, literally, and lay on his legs, on her back, head against his sternum and looking up. "Who was this Daeva?"

"It... it was so long ago, it's a blur. I think her name was Virginia? Barbara?" Sighing, he shook his head and shrugged. What good was immortality if a Kindred's mind blurred the edges on memories? "I do remember her showing me how to talk to women, be confident, be funny. She also taught me a lot about sex, and the different places to touch a woman."

"Then I owe her a lot," Triss said, smiling up at him from below.

"A woman's body and mind are a mystery," Jen said, in a very dramatic, matter-of-fact deep voice. Everyone chuckled.

Nodding, he tapped Triss on the nose once, and again on her lips, before he slipped an arm around Jen's shoulders. "So, I hope that satisfies secret number four."

"It does." Jen snuggled into his side, leaned in, and planted a kiss on his neck. As she did, she set a hand on Triss's chest, and traced the snake tattoo biting one of her nipples. When her finger crossed the drying blood trail, she smiled at Julias, brought the reddened fingertip to her lips, and licked the blood away. "We should—ugh! Oh god that tastes horrible!"