My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 13

He was getting sick of shadows.

"That isn't fair! I didn't do this? This isn't my fault? This thing is... is..." He fell back on his ass, and sat there, staring down at the white below him. Naked as he was, he felt exposed. Well, considering this was all happening in his head, it was tough to get more exposed than that. He was sick of the metaphors, too.

Another image appeared, and the Beast floated aside to make room for it. It was his ancestor again, his great great grandsire, the psychopath, and she was out in the woods. Her Beast was bound in chains, size shrunk to that of a normal Kindred; this was happening after that bishop had done his ritual on her. She was wearing old rags, and definitely looked worse off than she did than when she was sitting on a mountain of bodies. Hell, she looked like she was mid frenzy, a crazed look in her eyes.

Suspicions confirmed. The next freeze frame, his ancestor fell out of a tree on an unsuspecting woman walking by, and she drank her to death. Good god, what happened in the decades between these moments Jack got to see? How could this woman go from the horrible crimes of Diablerie, to the almost royal position of sitting atop the carnage of the Black Death, to this? By the looks of her, he had to assume this happened before she sired the blonde woman, if this was some sort of ancestral memory his Beast was taking him through.

Images overlapped, and Jack squinted as he tried to understand what he was seeing. It was her, on top of her, transposed, as if he was seeing her inner self. This new image was of her naked, and she had a big hammer in her hand. With the hammer, she smashed the locks and chains of her Beast. Slam. Crack. Slam. None of them broke.

The images started coming faster, and faster. Jack stood up, and braced himself against the onslaught of information. Her again, his ancestor, when she sired the blonde woman. Again, her, naked like he was now, and smashing a hammer against the chains containing her Beast. Then again, this time a new image, showing the blonde woman, his great grandsire, summoning a pack of wolves. Jack forced down the urge to vomit, as the next image showed the wolves flooding over a small village, killing the denizens within. All of them. And with her as well, he could see her inner self, hammering against the chains that bound her Beast. The next image, was of her siring Viktor. Again, he could see her hammering against her chains, to no avail.

The next image was of Viktor, engaging in some sort of torture of someone bound to a chair. The man was wearing a nice Victorian suit, and there was a candle nearby, giving Jack some idea of the time period, as he watched his grandsire murder a kine. Again, Jack could see the man's inner self, hammering against the chains of his Beast, getting nowhere. The image changed again, to when Viktor sired Julias, and the hammering of his chains continued.

The next image froze Jack to the guts. Julias, punching a woman. Based on the suit and her dress, it had to be sometime around World War I, so Julias was a fresh vampire. This was his wife, then. This was when he'd hit her, and spent the next century feeling guilty about it. And it showed in the man's inner self, a naked Julias, who took a single swing at his chains with a hammer, before he looked at the hammer, and threw it away.

The next, Jack saw coming. He didn't want to see this, but there was no way he couldn't look. Knowledge was bitter sweet, and no matter what it was, he was drawn to it, had to have it, even if it meant being sick. The sight of himself, dying in Julias's arms on a rooftop, bleeding out from stab wounds and the Kiss, was more than enough to accomplish that.

Jack took a step back, and held his guts, as he watched himself die. He watched the chained Beast inside Julias deposit a piece of itself into Jack, and sure enough, the alien creature grew inside him as well. Julias's inner self took a swing at the chains of his Beast too, trying to free it from the chains that bound it, but at least he swung with less enthusiasm than his ancestors. He was more than happy to keep the infernal creature inside him bound and limited.

Wait. Julias had said siring another robbed a Kindred of a piece of their humanity. That was the clue, the key. That was what was happening in each of the scenes, these memories that had been stored from Beast to Beast to Beast. Each time, it was when a Kindred was doing something that cost them a piece of themselves, struggling against their Beastly urges.

He knew what was going to come next, then. He wished he didn't.

The Beast beside him snarled, and drew forth the image of Mrs. Pavala. Him, killing her, draining her when he was in a frenzy. And there Jack was, hammering away at his chain, oblivious, not realizing what he was doing. Then there was when Viktor had cut him in half, down the face to the crotch, getting his blade an inch deep through his whole body. Holy fuck, Jack may as well have been a zombie after a wound like that, and the only reason he wasn't dead, was because he ignored the pain, pushed it down, and found a way to make himself move.

Slam. Within the frozen image, memory-Jack slammed the hammer down on the locks and chains of his Beast. Tapping into that animal will, was a part of how he'd dragged his ruined body across that floor, to kill Viktor and Tony.

Another image came. When Jack had reached out, grabbed Damien's mind, the mind of a far more powerful — if troubled — Kindred, and Dominated it. Slam.

It was when Angela made her appearance, that the images came at him rapid fire. When she stabbed him, cut into him, and when Jeremiah had as well. Slam. Slam. Slam. When Jack had broken through the spell of the handcuffs, Dominated those hunters, and had them cut off his hands so he could escape. Slam. Slam. Slam. But the locks refused to break.

It was when the image showed him summoning the rats at the prison, that Jack took a step back, and almost screamed. Memory-Jack wasn't using a big hammer anymore, it was using a fucking sledgehammer, a massive one, meant to be used by two hundred-plus pound men, breaking rocks. And memory-Jack smashed it against the locks of his Beast with as much strength as a Kindred could provide. Boom. Boom.

Then, when Jack fought Angela inside the nightmare, tried to kill her, failed to kill her. Boom. Boom. More strikes. Heavier. Faster. When Jack found out his mother was in the hospital, dying, and his sister was dead. Boom. Then, when Jack fought Angela in the hospital. Boom. Boom.

Then, when he watched his sire die. The sledgehammer grew bigger, darker, to the point it was the size of Jack's body. And somehow, seeing Julias die, had been enough to make memory-Jack lift that fucking thing, and bring it down. Kaboom. Kaboom.

And now, the enormous sledgehammer was in Jack's hands. He looked down at it, at its sudden appearance, and he gasped. So heavy he could barely move it, left alone lift it.

The images disappeared, morphing into nothing but black sand that faded away. Dust in the wind. But the Beast wasn't done with him yet. As the sand flowed off into eternity, a few scattering remnants swirled together, and formed Julias at his last moments. A man, on his knees, half skeleton at this point, and a warm smile on his face as he looked at his incapacitated childe.

The small smile meant a million things.I'm proud of you, Jack. You'll get through this. These hunters won't stop you. You kidding me, Jack? After the shit you've done, you'll take care of these punks.

Tell her for me, Jack. Tell her I love her, and she should move on; after an appropriate amount of grieving time, of course. Don't push her, Jack. She'll close in to herself, hide in her catacomb again, hate the world, and you should let her do that, for a little while. Give her some time to mourn, and then, give her a push, would you?

Tears filled Jack's eyes. His inner self was content to hit him with all the agony and misery that came with watching Julias die. He clutched his gut with one free hand, and leaned forward, letting the weight of the sledgehammer in the other prevent him from falling on his face. Tears fell onto the white endlessness, and they were red.

"Oh fuck you. Crying blood tears? Give me a break." He raised a hand to wipe them away, and laughed at the streak of red across his arm. Funny, they weren't actually blurring his vision red, but red they were. The Kindred metaphor was nauseating. "Is there even any time for... for anything? We've been in here for a while."

A window appeared before him, two, in the shape of eyes. Yeap, that made sense, if this was all happening in his head. And, predictably, through the windows and their onyx borders, he could see the hallway of the hospital. Blood was everywhere, Angela's, Sándor's, Jez's flowing from around the corner, and now ashes coated a large portion of the hallway floor. It was dark, hallway lights off, and only the flashlights of some hunters, some light from the patient rooms, and the light from the primary room where the hall connected, provided any illumination. Considering the hospital was in low light mode, the flashlights were the primary source of light, and that wasn't exactly a lot.

Elen sat in the back, a hunter holding her wheelchair's push handles. She had a grin on her face, and her fingers were netted together, indexes tapping each other. If she'd started mumbling 'excellent', it would have been fitting.

Angela sat against one wall, and Sándor lay on the floor, thoroughly beaten and destroyed. If Angela had been a normal human, she'd have gone fetal, too. But somehow, the fucking demon woman had mustered up enough strength and will to get her hands under her, and start pushing herself up.

Angela. Her words had sealed Julias's fate. Things could have gone differently, maybe, but she'd decided to order his death, instead of capturing him. Stupid. She did it to hurt Jack. Reasons piled on reasons, to do whatever he could, to get revenge.

"I guess we're just frozen in this moment, so I can sit on the precipice of this god awful decision, until the end of time." Sighing, he looked to the bound Beast beside him. "I don't want to die. And I'm not going to give some courageous speech about needing to save the people I love. Honestly? I really don't want to die. I want to keep living, spend a century or two or three in Antoinette's arms. I want to save my mom, too, and give her another chance at life.

"And I want revenge. I want to kill that bitch, Angela. I want to kill that bastard Jeremiah. I want to kill that fucking traitor Begotten. I want to kill the old woman Elen. I want to kill the hunters, at least the ones that knew what their bosses were up to." He tried to lift the hammer. Holy fuck it was heavy. "But, I won't become a Draugr to do it. I won't just become a mindless host for a stupid Beast with nothing but an impulse to feed."

The Beast pulsated for a few seconds, before it brought up the image of the mountain of corpses again. His great, great grandsire sat upon it, on her stool, and she looked happy. Psychopath happy, but happy. She also looked immensely powerful, and not at all mindless. Draugr were supposed to be nothing more than animals, and this woman looked like a queen, bathing in her power.

What would that mean for him? The fuck did any of it mean? He didn't know what the symbols meant, when his ancestor had performed Diablerie; hell he barely knew a thing about Diablerie, secret and taboo as it was. He didn't know anything about the black, dead tree. He didn't know a thing about the dark, shadowy owls on its branches either. Trying to wrap his mind around the hundreds of years of history, of the Danse Macabre, of political machinations, deceptions, and apparently, the curses and magic that led to his present circumstance, was impossible.

All he knew was, the only chance he had at surviving the present circumstance, was with the help of this fucker, wrapped in chains.

"We save Mom, right? Much as I want to kill Angela and the others, the priority here is saving Mom."

The Beast nodded, as much as it could, a few heads — rat, wolf, crow, owl — emerging from its billowing mass to oblige him.

Sighing, Jack looked down at the sledgehammer. It took two hands to lift it, and more than that. It took will. It took effort. It took hate. He summoned up his rage, his fury, grimaced as he glared at the dark, wooden handle, and took a deep breath as he forced his determination into his grip.

He wouldn't die here. He refused to die here. Come what may, he'd survive this, and he'd make sure the hunters wouldn't. He'd make his own mountain of bodies, and summon the crows and rats to feast on their corpses. He'd drink their blood, and dance in a river of flowing crimson.

He'd kill them all.

With a heavy grunt, he lifted the sledgehammer, glared at the Beast, its chains, and slammed the enormous weight down against the rusty metal. Kaboom, the endless white oblivion around him trembled, rippling under the impact. One of the locks, already withered and damaged by memory-Jack's previous attempts, shattered. The next lock did the same. Kaboom. With each lock, the Beast before him grew, and grew, and grew, as the white wasteland shuddered in an earthquake. A swirling wind of black fog fell upon them both, circling them, enveloping them in a tornado Jack could not see past.

It felt hungry. It felt angry. It felt frustrated that its territory had been violated. It felt disturbed that the kine before it weren't bowing, begging for their lives. The swirling black closed in on him tighter, and the Beast before him grew larger, and larger, until its mass overshadowed Jack completely.

In the future, there would be a struggle between him and this creature, a fight over his body and mind. It happened before, and to all Kindred, and it'd be a hundred times harder for him now.

That didn't matter. Saving his mom, and revenge, saving his own life, they were all that mattered. Jack frowned up at his other half, and brought the hammer down. Kaboom.

Sorry, Antoinette.

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~~Damien~~

He shouldn't have been doing this, and Maria knew it. The sun would be up in less than an hour, and Damien was injured. The only reason he'd agreed to Maria's request was because Fiona's blood had managed to heal him considerably, and her spider webbing cast on his leg functioned surprisingly well. And, of course, he agreed because it was Maria, and he couldn't say no to her. If he did, he'd risk the Lancea et Sanctum, or his life.

It was a beautiful night, though. Without a cloud in the sky, the blackout allowed the stars and moon to shine through over the district. It didn't fit the dread he felt in his guts, but there was no denying the beauty of the night sky when the city's lights were off. He'd lived in Dolareido for over seventy years, fifty of them as a vampire, and had watched the city embrace almost every vise. With each one, the amount of lights the city kept on during the night grew, until the stars were practically a faded memory.

He jumped up onto a roof overlooking the hospital, and walked up to the thrall standing there.

"Report," he said, and the thrall jumped, almost squeaking with surprise.

"Um, sir Burksen, sir! All communications are down, and—"

"What's going on in the hospital."

"Sir." The man, dressed in a black trench coat not unlike Damien's, pulled out some very large binoculars, night vision equipped most likely, and resumed scanning the hospital. "Mister Terry entered the hospital some time ago, and Mister Mire entered not long after. Not long after the black out, six people wearing coats entered the hospital together. They got out of their car after the blackout, making a report impossible. And even if we could have, six people exiting a car is common at a hospital. Lot of families visiting."

"Then how do you know these were the hunters?"

"Timing, and the way they walked. Most people walk toward a hospital slowly, like they're afraid of it. These six walked toward it with a purpose."

Sighing, Damien walked up to the roof edge, and held out his hand. The thrall gave him the binoculars without question.

"See anyone else suspicious out here?" Damien scanned the hospital. The night-vision annoyed his eyes, and he flicked it off. Kindred vision was almost as good anyway.

"No sir. We suspect snipers, but there's just no way to be sure."

It'd have taken a large team, and weeks of planning, to make a surrounded location like a hospital in the center of a key district in a large city, even remotely safe against snipers. But, sniping was difficult, very difficult, and that was their only saving grace in this communication darkness.

"Hear anything?"

"There's been some gunfire in the hospital, a lot of it, but it's died down."

Frowning, Damien looked down at the thrall's equipment. A sniper rifle for the trained marksmen, and some other standard provisions: food, communications equipment, and such. He didn't have any sort of directional microphone that would let him hear specifics, if one of those things even existed. Perhaps Damien should inquire with the Invictus?

"Gunfire. See any muzzle flashes in the windows?"

"No sir. But I only have the West and Front wall covered from here. And most of the windows are patients' rooms."

"I—" Damien froze as the familiar sound of gunfire sounded off from the hospital. "East Wing." Kindred hearing to the rescue. "Stay here. If you see those six hunters, any of them, come out of the hospital, and they're not being held captive by a Kindred, shoot them."

"Yes sir."

Ah, the joys of a thrall. Nigh mindless obedience. No need to argue with the person, or try and assert dominance like with a Kindred.

Nodding, Damien stepped up onto the edge of the roof, and looked below. From his perch, he was facing the front of the hospital, and scanned one more time with the binoculars for anything out of the ordinary.

A quiet hum started, a white noise that rose above the unnoticeable threshold, and grabbed his attention. He handed the man back his binoculars, and raised a brow as he looked at him. Was the thrall humming? No.

He looked up, and felt his body turn to stone, as the stars started to flicker out of existence. First one, then another, then back into existence, then gone again. Then dozens, then hundreds. And as the stars hid away into the black, the growing noise grew louder, and sharper.

The flap of wings, and the telltale caw of crows, became a choir. A flock so vast it blocked out the sky, and so loud, it would have shook the heavens.

Death had come on wings.