My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 13

All Jack felt, was fury. Blinding, white fury. It coursed up through him, made pain disappear, and sent vitae pouring through his limbs. Thick Kindred blood engulfed his wounds, filled them, rendered them moot, as his vampire body demanded he moved, as the Beast demanded he moved. He needed to be able to move to kill them all, and he was going to kill them all.

Julias had been smiling. His sire had spent his last moments trying to save Jack's life, and died doing so. He'd spent his last moments smiling at him, in that typical 'this is alright, don't worry about it' sort of way. His last god damn fucking moments, and he did his usual 'you got this' smile.

Jack's insides wrenched, vitae mixing and coursing, while his muscles wanted him to vomit again, and again, and again. It wouldn't happen. All he could feel was every muscle in his body flexing, the memory of his sire's eyes, his smile, his ashes, hitting every nerve in his frame like fire.

Don't be dead, please don't be dead. God, please, please don't... don't be...

The pile of ashes before him mocked him, a testament to yet another thing that was Jack's fault. Another thing he couldn't fix.

He squeezed his fists until his arms shook, and forced himself up, even as the world swayed before him. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them all.

"Stay down," Elen said, her stupid old granny voice weak and pathetic.

He ignored her. Get up. Get the fuck up. Get up, kill them all. Ignore the pain, ignore the spinning world, ignore the wounds. Let it flow, let the blood flow, theirs and yours.

Stand up, he did. He demanded it, forced it, didn't care if his body was willing to do it or not. Vitae surged through him, Kindred blood fueling his will. Stand up. Stand up, and kill them. Kill—

White. Complete, total, all consuming, all encompassing white.

He froze and looked around at the white that surrounded him. It was the same white that had flashed in his vision when he executed that hunter. Endless white, as if God had decided to hit the reset button on the universe, but forgotten to turn off the light. There was no feeling or weight to it; might as well have been walking on floating clouds with the color depth of white plastic.

Without the hunters around him, without the smell of blood, without the pain of his wounds, his fury diminished, and his mind started working again. Where were the hunters, the blood, pain, and wounds?

"Oh... kay..." What the fuck. He reached down and pressed on the floor, but his brain registered no feeling to it. Looking down did show that he was naked though. Naked, and without the wounds that Angela had dealt to him tonight.

Angela. He squeezed his knuckles as he remembered how many times she'd shot him tonight alone. A dozen? And those bullets really fucked him up, tore him apart. A bullet that went straight through was barely a wound to a Kindred, but a hollow-point round that tore up flesh and got lodged in the body, was a lot deadlier. Sándor smashing his head into a wall hard enough to crack the bone, had scrambled his circuits so bad, he hadn't been able to move. All those wounds had ceased to exist.

He sighed. Was he dead? He supposed it didn't matter, since Beatrice was going to kill him anyway. He was tempted to let her. She was going to blame him for Julias's death, in a moment of rage and grief, and she was going to cut into him. He'd let her. She'd say that he died trying to save a fucking kine, a human, someone Jack should have left behind long ago. He'd agree.

Maria and Michael? They'd punish him. Leaving his sweeper team early had no doubt earned some sort of punishment, but that spiraling into this, into his sire dying, was beyond horrible. They might execute him, as a warning tale to all other Kindred to always obey orders. Jessy and Damien would protest, but it's not like they could stop the two elders.

The white world he found himself in gave him a moment of peace, at least. The fury that bubbled through him, threatening to blister and boil his skin and insides, lessened, now that he was out of the scene. Without Angela's face to stare at, the heat in his guts lowered enough that he found himself fending off the rising need to cry.

Mary was dead, and now Julias was dead. Sighing, Jack clutched at his naked chest, and fell down, ass hitting the strange white surface, hard enough to elicit pain but finding none. He sat there, staring down between his knees at the white oblivion, and let the misery rise. His emotions were raw, and no matter how much he looked for his trusty logic switch, he couldn't find it. His earlier run-in with Mary had left his guts exposed, soul shredded, and nothing he could do now could hide its bleeding surface. Sadness, agony, regret, guilt, it all washed over him, digging at him with a knife in his guts.

Jack rolled up into a ball, and lay on his side. Julias was dead. Dead. His sire was dead. His friend was dead. Oh god. Oh fucking god.

After a minute of paralyzing agony, movement forced his eyes open, and he sat up with a jolt. He stared, eyes analyzing the strange, floating shadow that stood before him, and he gulped down on nothing.

If there was one way he was going to die, it'd be to a shadow monster on the plains of oblivion.

The monster creature stood over him, a flowing wave of mist, shadow, darkness, and wings. Onyx poured over itself, and from within the churning waves of its black smoke, he could see other things, too: claws, feathers, some red eyes that belonged on a snake, a beak... with teeth, many things. It was like he was staring at an amalgamation of beasts, of the sort of creatures Kindred identified with. Crow, snake, fox, wolf, rat, pieces of those things were all there, inside this flowing mass of darkness that stood six feet tall.

It was a Beast. He knew it, somehow. Some part of him knew.

He was looking at his Beast.

The chains, though, he didn't understand those. Chains wrapped the shadowy creature, with enormous locks of rusted iron dangling from around its body. How could chains remain hooked around something that looked like it was made of smoke and shadow? Metaphor. It was a metaphor for being bound.

"... are you... my Beast?" Might as well ask.

The monstrosity said nothing. It probably wasn't capable of it. But, despite the communication barrier, several of the flowing heads blinked their red eyes at him before disappearing into the murk of its body. One of them nodded.

"Am I... dead?"

The monster shook its heads.

"Then, I don't understand. What's going on? Where am I? I—this is in my head, isn't it? This is one of those 'life flashes before your eyes' sort of things, right?"

The monster nodded.

"And... you summoned me, for this heart to heart? I suppose you'd want to have one, if I got us both killed." With a sigh and groan, Jack forced himself back up onto his feet. "I really hate you, you know that? First person I ever killed was an innocent woman, and that's on you."

A blurry, shadowy image of her face appeared in the air, covered in blood, like some sort of holographic projection his mind decided to torture him with. His mind, or the Beast. Not the face of her on the news, either, but the face Jack was most intimate with, the dead Mrs. Pavala, the one he'd found when he'd awoken from his frenzy, with puncture marks in her neck.

"Yeah, her. Fuck you, you fucking... monster." Insulting it for its bloodlust made as much sense as insulting any animal for chasing a meal.

The image changed, to Julias, his final moments as a juggernaut of unstoppable... protection. There was no rage on his face, just a cocky smile, and a concern for Jack written in his eyes, in a way only Jack would recognize.

Before Jack could say anything to this fucking abomination tormenting him, the image changed again. This time, he didn't recognize it, and he stared, curious, at the two people. Julias, and Viktor. The clothes suggested sometime around World War I, and based on the positions of the two men, it looked like Viktor was draining Julias of his blood; and not by Julias's choice.

The image was more than the two men. Somehow, the Beast extended the scene, filling it, showing Jack the environment, the lighting, the smell, the sounds, despite it being a frozen moment. The beast also took the courtesy of giving Jack back his clothes and shoes whilst setting the scene, how nice of it.

Julias's mansion, or rather, Viktor's mansion, at the time, now surrounded them.. There was more though. Within Viktor, on him, around him, the shadowy waves of a Beast floated, normally invisible. And as the elder vampire killed Julias, preparing him for the embrace, the darkness of Viktor's Beast moved into the corpse, infecting, duplicating.

When Viktor set his bloodied wrist to Julias's mouth in the next frozen moment, and forced a heavy drop of the thick, dark liquid into Julias's mouth, the shadowy creature inside Jack's sire awoke.

There were chains. Jack walked around the two figures, frozen in time, and listened to the classical music playing in the background, as he watched a Beast be born within Julias. The shadowy creature inside Viktor had chains, just like the Beast floating next to Jack. And the new one, awakening inside the corpse that was Julias, had them as well. Dark, rusty things, that circled around and around the black cloud, sealed with massive stained locks, and a few dangling giant balls of metal.

"The... the chains, they don't seem... right. Do other Kindred have chains around them?"

The Beast shook its heads, somehow. Images of Kindred Jack knew appeared, Damien and Jessy and Natasha, Antoinette and others. Their Beasts were blurry, and lacked detail. Made sense, Jack supposed. If this Beast was showing him his family tree, it might have more detail to draw on, like a genetic memory. It was the only way it could show him something he'd never seen, Julias being sired. However it was doing what it was doing, his Beast knew the utmost detail of what came before it, but didn't seem to be able to show him much about other people.

There were only the swirling masses of shadow in the other Kindred, claws and talons, wings and beaks, and tails. No chains or locks or rope. The Beast was showing him what was hidden, secret. Jack knew. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.

The Beasts in the others were contained within the Kindred, but they weren't chained, bound, limited. The prison that wrapped Jack's Beast, and Viktor's, and Julias's, wasn't normal.

Before Jack could inquire about how his inner monster was able to see other Beasts, the myriad of Kindred shown to him vanished, as did Julias, Viktor, and the mansion. The white world grew hazy for a moment, before shapes grew solid, and the familiar comfort of streets, walls, and windows surrounded him. He didn't recognize the place though, except that it was night, and it was outside. He was on a thin street, and a glance down showed the road was cobblestone, not asphalt or anything like that.

There weren't any people outside, and the street lamps weren't lit. Lit being the operative word. Wherever he was, it was a period of time before electric street lamps, but street lamps nonetheless.

Beside him, between two buildings of warped wood and bent stone, was Viktor. He didn't look anything like the Viktor Jack remembered. His long hair was disheveled, a mess around his torn and dirty clothes. Very old, very dirty clothes. This must have been over three hundred years ago. A tall woman was hugging him too tight for a normal hug, and Jack stared as the curvaceous woman sank her fangs into his grandsire's neck.

This was the moment Viktor was embraced.

Jack stepped in closer, and blinked as he realized the woman, a blonde with pale skin, and legs almost as long as Antoinette's, had her thighs spread. Viktor was having sex with her. Man, if people knew this was the circumstance Viktor was in when he was sired, poor and fucking a whore, it'd have damaged his image greatly. The woman was beautiful though, and Jack stared a little harder than he should have at how her white rags around her legs were spread, and chest pulled down, exposing one of her large breasts.

This woman was a vampire, though, and from the feel Jack was getting from her, she was no fledgling. She had some decades on her. Centuries. This elder, this woman, who seemed perfectly content to play the role of nothing more than a 1600s prostitute, was killing Viktor, mid sex, so she could embrace him.

"Who... is she?"

The Beast did not respond. Of course it didn't. It didn't seem to be able to use words, and everything it showed Jack was a combination of the five senses, scents and sounds, taste and touch, and things to see. Jack could feel the air of the night, wherever they were, and he could hear the clop clop of shoes and hooves against the cobblestone, despite how everything was a single frozen moment of time. He could hear Viktor's quiet moans, and her moans matching his, despite how tightly her lips were sealed on his neck. She was enjoying herself.

"Did they know each other before this? I find it hard to believe she'd sire him if she just ran into him, randomly, and offered a quick fuck in a dark alley."

Sure enough, the image changed. It cut to an earlier time, maybe a few years earlier; he could only tell because Viktor looked younger. Younger, and far better off. He wore a pretty fancy suit fitting the time period, and was sitting at a table with other people and fancy utensils. The woman was there again, but judging from where she was sitting and where her eyes were glancing, she was with another man. Not a vampire though. A ghoul, maybe? The only Beast at the table was her, and like the Beast taking Jack on this ridiculous journey through the past, the chains still wrapped her.

So Viktor had been well off in life, and the vampire woman, likely having some games with her nightlife, was involved somehow. At this point in history, it wasn't like she had to worry about technology. She could probably dress up as a prostitute whenever she wanted, or pretend to be a luxurious, rich woman whenever she wanted. Whatever this stranger was doing, she was drawing the eyes of multiple men, and one woman, at the table. She wasn't a Daeva, she was a Ventrue, and it was through sheer confidence and allure, that she'd captured everyone's attention.

The Beast inside her struggled, fighting against its chains, but the woman only smiled.

The image of the inside of the large establishment vanished, and so did the characters within. Wiped away like sand, the white oblivion that surrounded him appeared for a second, before it disappeared again as another image overlaid it.

Jack gulped, and stared at the sight of three naked women, writhing on a bed. A man sat in a chair beside them, but whoever he was, he looked thoroughly drained. He was dead, naked, body completely still on a very hard looking wooden chair. The signs of a Kiss victim were blatant, along with what looked like the liquid remains of a very, very good time on his crotch.

There was a man behind him, too, standing behind the chair, blending into the shadows. A Mekhet or Nosferatu using Cloak of Night, maybe? Whoever he was, he had a Beast, though no chains bound its form. He wore black robes that hid him from head to toe, and Jack could only just barely make out an expression on his face from within the hood: disappointment. His eyes were cast upon the bed, on the three women writhing on it.

Jack looked back to the women on the ancient-looking bed. He guessed it was a feather mattress, and some fur blankets, all on a bed frame that looked like it was made of the same sort of carved, curvy wood the chair was made of. He looked up and around, and frowned as he analyzed the walls of logs, and a nearby stove made of stones. Was that safe? Didn't stones crack and break when hot enough?

Knowledge of antiquated technology aside, he could only guess he was maybe a couple centuries before the moment Viktor had been sired. Not long after the Medieval Ages then, if he was guessing right. That alone made what he was looking at pretty unique. Three women, naked, rubbing each other all over.

The woman in the middle was human, and she was being Kissed, the long deep Kiss that'd eventually kill her. It was the woman who had sired Viktor. Her legs were spread, and Jack could see the sexual juices between her thighs, a mix of a man's, and her own, as the two women fingered her. Both women were draining her, and it was obvious the woman in the center, his great grandsire, was having the time of her life as she was brought closer and closer to death.

Then, one of the women beside her, a pale, short woman with long black hair, set her wrist to the woman's mouth. A Beast awoke inside the woman between the vampires, like someone tossing fire onto a dry parchment. The black, twisting abomination awoke within her, and grew within moments. Only the chains that surrounded it kept it from overwhelming her.

Jack stood beside the bed, and stared down at the naked women responsible for the siring. While her friend was a tall, curvy woman, red hair with freckles, it was the brunette that was Jack's great, great grandsire. She looked young, too young to be in a threesome. Looks were deceiving though, and upon inspection, he had to admit she looked older than Natasha; which wasn't a fair comparison he supposed, since Natasha looked far younger than she was. And of course, Jack looked younger than his age, too.

Age aside, he took a moment to analyze her. A bit over five feet, with some curve to her for a small woman, more muscle and health than he expected anyone from this time period to have. She'd been groomed for her embrace, then, as the dead and soon-to-be undead woman between her and her vampire friend must have been.

And the brunette's Beast struggled against its chains as well. Whatever these chains were that other Kindred didn't seem to have, they went back a long, long way into Jack's family history.

"I don't understand. Why are you showing me all of this? ... and how? Last I checked, I'm currently about to get captured by Angela and a bunch of hunters. I don't have time for this soap opera! None of this helps me." Or did he have time? Speed of the mind. Speed of thought. Speed of the subconscious. It was the only possible explanation.

The image changed again, and suddenly they were in the streets of what he could only guess was some old city in Europe. Jack's history sucked, and his geography sucked too, but considering how old it all looked, and how horrible it smelled, it had to be the medieval ages now. The darkness hid many details, and damn it was quiet. This was an age when people actually slept during the night, when they hid in their homes from wolves and crusaders alike.

"Holy fuck. How far back can you remember?" he said to the hovering, smoky mass beside him. "How far back can... I remember? Fuck, will I even remember any of this, when I snap back to reality?" No, he imagined he wouldn't. Maybe a haze, like a dream. Whatever was happening to him wasn't normal, and it wasn't something any other Kindred had ever spoken of. Torpor dreams could be strange and vivid, but this was something else.

The Beast said nothing, but it showed him everything. It looked up with some of its heads, and Jack followed its gaze up to see the moon, half hidden in clouds. There weren't any street lamps anymore, nothing lit. There were a couple people moving around with lanterns held in hand, always in pairs, and they had rags held up to their face. Yeah, it smelled horrible, nasty horrible, and the rats were everywhere.

Jack froze, and slowly turned around in a circle. Rats. The rats were everywhere. Crows sat upon the sloped roofs of the old buildings, stone and wood, and they cawed into the night air, as the rats scurried along the walls. It wasn't them that smelled, it was the shit, and the bodies.