My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 04

"Giving you Elen completes the favor I owe you?"

"It would."

"And if I say no?"

"You won't."

Julias snarled and folded his arms across his chest. "She's a dangerous person, Jacob. If we find her, we're going to kill her."

"You'd be much better off if you didn't. I'll have to ask a different favor from you, and you won't like my next request."

And of course, the bastard wouldn't tell him what it was. Julias had the option to not satisfy the psycho's requests, but that was a recipe for disaster. Making an enemy of a witch was not good for covenant relations, especially considering Jacob had saved so many of them, including some of Avery's group and Azamel's group. The elder bastard held all the cards, and Julias not paying back what he owed would backfire.

Risk assessment was where Invictus shined. Did giving this psychopath a woman who had displayed strange magical abilities come with risk? Yes, a lot. A large enough risk that it'd be better to piss Jacob off, and kill her? If that meant he'd ask another favor, an even worse one, and Julias denied that one as well, then there was a good chance Jacob would turn violent, in some form or another.

"... I'll... tell the teams to try and capture her alive."

"Wonderful! And don't worry about Garry, he owes me many favors, and will be trying to do this as well. But don't go telling everyone about this, would you? I'd prefer the Prince and her dog stay out of my affairs."

Trying to keep anything secret from a Mekhet as old as Daniel was borderline pointless, but then, the fuck did Julias know about the tools Jacob had available to him. Julias always had to assume Jacob and the Prince both had special options the Invictus would never have access to. Those tools had scared Natasha away from the Ordo Dracul and into the arms of the Invictus at one point, but now, perhaps those tools were her tools.

He had to talk to her again, professionally and personally. This world was starting to scare him.

"What're you up to, Jacob?"

"What makes you think I'm up to anything?"

"Don't fuck with me, Jacob. Everyone has their eyes on this hunter issue, but that doesn't change that the council, and the dragons, know you're up to something."

"Whatever do you mean?"

Julias grit his teeth until he felt the fangs fight to emerge. Squeezing a hand into a fist until it hurt, he leaned in and glared at the masked bastard. "Something is going on. You and that creature are doing something, pursuing something, and you refuse to tell anyone about it."

"Maybe I told Beatrice about it? How would you know?"

Careful, Julias. Walking on thin ice, over black water, with something lurking underneath.

"Triss and Jen have both expressed concern, over many things, including you. They don't know what you're up to, so they've said, and I believe them."

"Careful who you trust, Mire. You sound very concerned about what I'm up to, when you have vipers in your own midst."

"... you mean Maria."

"Of course. My fellow Nosferatu has quite the agenda of her own. Why don't you turn your eyes on her?"

"Because, unlike you, I have no evidence suggesting she's trying to..."

"To what? Hmm? What is it you think I'm up to? You have nothing to accuse me of, no idea what's going on, and are utterly helpless to stop any of it, if there is anything to stop. So how about you listen to your elders, and take a peek at your own council's actions before poking your nose in mine?"

"Fine. Point me in a direction, give me a hint, if Maria's actions concern you so much."

The asshole adopted a giant grin, and leaned in close. "They don't concern me. But, you make Beatrice happy, so I suppose I should throw you a bone." Finishing off his drink, Jacob slid out of the booth, and adjusted his suit jacket. "I'll let you know this. Avery knows more, and like all those fucking dogs, is refusing to share some pretty nasty details. In my friend's world, the rules are different, and gods stomp around, fighting over the city in their own, strange ways. But, if you can make friends with the things there, you can pursue... options."

"Options?"

"The universe is a scary place, Mire. There are walls between us and entities beyond our comprehension. I dip my toe in those waters, and so does Maria. Have fun." With a salute, Jacob walked out.

And Julias stayed where he was. Sighing, he leaned back in his seat, and took a sip of his red drink as he stared down into it.

He knew Maria was up to something. Everyone knew it. Did it involve Lucas? He didn't want to think that Maria was actually trying to do something absurd, like revive Lucas, or just talk to him across the... the... whatever it was that separated the living from the dead.

Heh. Guess that was as good as admitting he believed in an afterlife.

His phone vibrated. Sighing again, he took a peek at the message. From Jessy. Two kines had been assaulted during the day. Not thralls or ghouls though, so—

Oh no.

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

"Jessy, you fucking idiot. You should have mentioned this earlier!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't know what to do. I thought I should wait until after the meeting to tell Michael. And I bet some other Kindred in that meeting saw it on the news, too!"

Julias paced left and right in his mansion, occasionally glaring at the stupid woman sitting on his couch. Eric sat next to her, both of them in suits. Eric was probably supposed to be working at the club, and his eyes and ears were valuable there, but this was important.

"I saw it on TV, and—"

"Shut up Eric." Groaning, Julias folded his arms across his chest as he paced. "Jack's mother is in the hospital, and his sister is dead."

"We sure it's the mother?" Jessy said.

"Yes, Samantha Terry. And Mary Terry is his sister."

"How long has it been since he's seen them?"

"Kid sneaks out to watch his family all the time."

She raised a brow at that. "Really? Figured you'd have nipped that habit in the butt."

"Jack's handled his embrace a lot better than most Kindred, and at the same time, has had a lot of shit thrown at him. The occasional peek back at his old life is fine, and something many Kindred his age do."

Eric said nothing. Good. Last thing Julias needed was to deal with this outsider's interruptions and ignorance.

"I'm surprised you weren't contacted, Julias," Jessy said. "Don't we got thralls monitoring the news, and hospital reports, and shit?"

"They don't know who Jack's old family was, and I wouldn't want them to. We don't talk about a Kindred's old family for many reasons, and this sort of shit is one of those fucking reasons." Fuck. Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck. The worst possible timing. "It's not their responsibility, or anyone's responsibility, to keep tabs on the kines of our first lives. It shouldn't matter. But... but Jack is what, a year and half embraced? He is way too young to have to deal with this."

"Poor kid." Sighing, she leaned back and against Eric's shoulder. "News said they were stabbed, in fucking daylight. Been years since I've heard about something like that happening in Dolareido."

"... yeah, it has been years. Assault happens in Devil's Corner frequently, and murder occasionally. But the rest of South Side? Rare. A stabbing? Rarer. In daylight? Extremely rare."

"Thinking what I'm thinking?"

Nodding, he sat down across from Jessy and Eric, and leaned forward. Viktor had created many of his living rooms, family rooms, conversation rooms, and other rooms like this, with privacy in mind. No one was going to hear them. Not that it mattered, but the topic was sad enough he felt privacy was warranted.

"Hunters killed his sister." Groaning louder, Julias leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. The dangling chandelier was beautiful. This was the wrong room to have this conversation in. And it was wrong to have this conversation without Jack.

"I have a hard time believing that," Jessy said. "I saw those hunters. So did Eric. They were high on adrenaline, and fear, but it was that Jeremiah fucker and his pet Angela that were the psychopaths. And besides, hunters are fighting for kine, not against them."

"You think one of those two did this on their own?"

"I do. Tell em, Eric."

The man scratched his bald head, and managed a small shrug. "I looked into Jeremiah's eyes. It... Jessy's right. That man would kill innocents to reach his goal." Shrugging, he pat Jessy on the knee. "Not that I know shit about that sort of stuff, but... but maybe I do. Got a new instinct now, and it's telling me loud and clear that Jeremiah and Angela could cross that line. They probably did, with the sacrifices for their rituals."

Julias nodded as he leaned forward again, elbows to his knees. He couldn't hold still. "Jack's description of Angela matches. Those two are the problem. If it wasn't for them, these other hunters would probably leave or lie low." Hunters had little to no reason to bother with Dolareido, especially now with their three most problematic elders gone.

"So, uh... what do we do?" Jessy said.

"Jack's going to see Avery right now. I need to contact him, talk to him about this, but interrupting him is problematic. These sweeper teams are important."

"More important than his family?"

"They're not his family!" Julias stood up, and glared down at the Gangrel. Might as well have squashed her under a car, with how she sank into the couch. "I'm his family! Kindred are his family! And if this was anyone else, it'd be years before he had to come to terms with that reality. But no, the kid can't help but get involved in every possible incident, and attract the ire of the most dangerous beings on the fucking planet!"

Jessy shrank. So did Eric. Julias was yelling at them, and he did not yell often, let alone after only a few words; reasonable words, at that.

Clenching his hands into fists, he started pacing again. The noise of his shoes hitting the hard floor was far closer to stomping. He was angry for a host of reasons, but he didn't think jealousy was one of them, jealous of Jack's family and the connection between them. A sire's jealousy. Stupid, stupid Julias.

If only the kid was older, and had moved on from his previous life. If only the kid didn't do Jack things, and become the center of attention. If only, if only.

"... I'll call him and tell him now," he said. "The longer we wait, the worse this will get."

Jessy winced, and nuzzled into Eric a bit harder. "Good luck."

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

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

~~Jack~~

He, Isabella Leauvion, and Gloria Jenning decided to walk. Going way outside of the safe zone near Xnomina meant he had to bring a buddy, and he might as well bring these two so they could start getting along. Walking was a little dangerous, but he was confident that, with Mulder and Scully watching from above, they'd be fine. Besides, any hunter sneaking around with a sniper rifle who decided to take a shot at him would be sacrificing themselves, considering the strength of Isabella, and Gloria's speed. That was true for any hunter who decided to try and take out a vampire at long distance, who had a buddy with them. Hopefully.

He missed not having to have a buddy with him on his walks. He missed doing his own solo hunts; not that he did them often, but the Prince and Julias had pushed for it, and he'd gotten good at it. Approaching someone in a dark alley? Easy. Flirting with a stranger at a bar? Eh, still really damn hard. He doubted he'd ever be comfortable doing that. He preferred making eye contact with them at a distance in an alley, using Dominate, and pulling them into his mental embrace.

But since the buddy system had been put in place, he'd only been feeding on Ashley and Julee. That was great, and fun, since it almost always included sex. Both girls had been delighting him with sexual romps with Antoinette to join them, or to supervise like it was a wrestling match. But, he kind of missed hunting. There was a thrill to overpowering prey, and he had to assume it was an instinctual desire of Kindred. An animal wasn't happy if it didn't get to satisfy its instinctual desires, and while that may have been a complicated question for humans, for vampires it seemed moderately straightforward: collect, herd, and hunt humans for their blood.

He really wanted to sink his fangs into something. It didn't used to be like that. Before, he wanted blood, sure, and he knew what it felt like to be starving hungry, so there was a desire to get blood to avoid that. There hadn't been an innate urge to hunt though, like, something bubbling up in his veins that stirred, demanding he settle this desire; until recently, that is. Julias had warned him about this, the Beast building up inside him, threatening to overwhelm and take control.

At the moment, it was just a quiet, slightly annoyed house cat. Hopefully it'd stay like that.

Julias had shared him with him stories about Kindred who had succumbed to the Beast, becoming mindless savages that had to be put down. Apparently it was a consequence of siring too often, or creating too many ghouls, though Julias told him the most frequent cause was by giving into the Beast's violent desires with reckless abandon.

Reckless abandon. The Beast was something you should unleash, let it run rampant, let it do its thing and overflow your body with its power and desires. It was a scary thought, especially because he knew it happened to him twice. That first night he was Kindred, and he'd killed Mrs. Pavala. The second time, it was against the hunters, and he'd been in far more control; and yet, not. Would he have been able to stop himself? The rush of it, the thrill, the power, it—

"Jack!"

"W-What? What?"

"You ok?" Gloria said. She'd snapped her fingers in front of his face, apparently, from how she was lowering her hand. He hadn't heard it.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Jack was standing between the two of them, walking down the sidewalk. Must have drifted off in his thoughts.

"I asked if you were going to be doing all the talking in this meeting," she said.

"Um, yeah. I mean, if you want to say something, go ahead. It's not like an Invictus meeting. Ever talk to the Carthians?"

"On occasion," Isabella said, frowning. Yeah, predictable that she'd hate the way Carthians behaved.

"Very similar." Nodding, Jack glanced up to see if Mulder and Sculley were visible. Nope. Good. Better if no one could see them. "Just, don't take it personally if they insult you. They're either testing you to see how you react, or they're kidding."

Her frown faded away, replaced by what he could only guess was stone cold disdain masked with the harsh ruthlessness of a lawyer. Not exactly what he was looking for.

He rotated his shoulders, straightened himself up, shoulders back, and opened the door to the crummy apartment building. Introducing two new Kindred wouldn't be too hard, he hoped. Discussing the list of sweeper teams, and trying to negotiate who should go where, would not be so easy, especially since Avery had priority. She could — and would — overrule him at whim, and the best he could do was suggest what Kindred would get along with which Uratha. And it wasn't like he was an expert at that, either.

Sighing, he knocked on the door of the apartment. Hopefully they wouldn't mind him bringing friends.

"Come in," Clara said. Figures she'd be there, Avery's second in charge and all that.

"Hey Clara," he said, opening the door. "This is Isabella, and this is Gloria. How... how... what's going on?"

Raising a brow, he looked around at the crowd of Uratha; looked like six of the pack were there. All of them were watching the news.

"You watch the news, Jack?" Avery said from the couch. The news was up, muted, talking about some accident or something.

"Not since... not since an incident with a woman named Pavala, no. Anything pertinent gets filtered into the Invictus network, though, usually before it ends up on the actual news." Pertinent usually meant something in Dolareido that affected territory, and since Invictus owned most things in the city, police included, they were on top of things that meant anything to the Kindred.

Clara sighed, and winced as she looked down. It was like something with claws had latched onto her face, and was cutting down through her eyes and cheeks, nose and lips, as gravity dragged it down.

His phone buzzed; someone had sent him a message. He didn't check it. "What's going on?"

Everyone except Clara and Avery backed away, putting distance between themselves, the TV, and Jack; what distance was available in a crummy apartment, anyway.

But, with the cold weight falling on everyone, it might as well have been across the Grand Canyon.

Clara stepped forward. "You... um, I—"

He stepped back. He recognized those faces. Ripped out of the black matter of his brain, out of dead, buried memories, those faces came up and taunted him. He knew those faces from nightmares that had faded into blurry memories, and only now were resurrected.

"What's going on?" He looked back to Isabella and Gloria, but both of them looked confused, too. They didn't have those faces.

"Something's happened," Clara said, that same face cutting through to his fucking insides. Stop. Stop it. "We were watching the news, and—"

His phone started buzzing. Someone was calling him. He always set the stupid thing to buzz-only while out on a mission. Zzzt. Zzzt. Zzzt.

He didn't answer it. "What's going on?" Fuck the phone. Fuck those faces. Fuck those eyes, the pity, the weight in their gaze. It was crushing. It was suffocating. Stop it.

He was a kid again, a stupid young boy, standing in his kitchen beside his crying sister as his mom explained to him his dad was dead. It was the same fucking eyes filled with pity that cut into him like someone cutting through his fucking ribs with a chainsaw, trying to get his heart out the hard way.

"Jack," Clara said, unable to look at him. Just like then, just like fucking then. Stop it. "Is... is your mom's name Samantha?"

Please no, not again.

"Y... Yes..."

She winced again. If his heart still beat, it'd have stopped. He wanted to puke, but there was nothing to puke.

"—cent stabbing on Richmond street has left the district in shock." The news cut through the thick silence, and Avery sighed as she leaned forward, arms dangling off her knees. "No one knows how this happened, but the police believe it was a mugging gone wrong. Samantha Terry is currently in critical condition, while her daughter Mary, lies dead. Commissioner Landerson has this to say." Silence again, as Avery re-muted it, emphasizing beautifully the immutable fact of what he'd just heard.

He stared at the TV as someone wearing a police uniform handled a bunch of mics in their face. Dolareido was a big city, and murder happened. But stabbings? In the day? It looked like it was in some alley between buildings, something Dolareido was filled with, but no one got stabbed in the middle of the fucking day.

Wow. He couldn't imagine how horrible it'd be for any family member who had to hear this. Horrible.

He looked around again. Everyone was trying to not stare at him, each making small glances his way before looking at the floor. The only person who was looking at him directly was Clara. She looked sad. Why was she sad?

Oh, right. That was his sister, Mary, and his mother, Samantha, on the news. Stabbed.

It was a distant noise, like someone trying to yell something to him through a blizzard, across a canyon. The wind wouldn't let him hear it. Something inside was trying to talk him, reach out and speak to him, inform him his sister was dead, and his mother was dying. All noise, lost in the snowfall and howling wind in his mind.

He was going numb. He couldn't be angry. Couldn't be angry, or upset, or anything. Numb. Cold. He blinked at Clara, and looked down at his fingers, before he looked back at the TV again. They were still talking, and shots of the crime scene were spliced into the interview.