My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 14

Jack put his other hand on the bed, and he stared down at his mother harder, as if trying to penetrate her mind with his. If he did something violent, Antoinette was ready to pounce and stop him. But, he did not. He stood there, a trembling statue, hands locked to the bed while his torso leaned forward enough that he could stare down at his mother.

"Mom?" Jack said at last. "Mom, I... I... what..."

And then the boy turned around. For a moment, Antoinette thought he would march out of his mother's room, but he froze at the doorway, again like a shivering statue. His hands found the door frame, and squeezed. Bits of the metal frame bent under his trembling grip. Jack, even at his strongest and most desperate, could not have dented a metal door frame by squeezing it with his fingertips.

Back again, he turned and walked toward the bed. His face was pained, as if someone was dragging a hot poker through his insides.

"I... I..."

"Jack, my love, what is happening to you?" She hesitated to ask, fearing his response.

"I won't... let it... Mom, I won't... I won't let it..." He collapsed. As if someone had staked the boy with a proper wooden stake, he collapsed, and slipped into unconsciousness. The two birds upon his shoulders flapped their wings in panic, and flew toward the window.

"Jack!" She caught him before his head hit the floor. The smell of blood was on his lips. If he had fed on one of the hunters, then the boy did not need to enter torpor, especially as he apparently had no visible wounds; bullets holes in his clothes, but no wounds. And only moments before, he had looked healthy, energized, and ready for war. There was no reason for this collapse.

As her love went into torpor, the army crows cawed once, and left. Leaving was not so easy for thousands of birds trapped inside a hallway and several small rooms, and Antoinette stayed low as the birds rose. Their black wings became a whirlwind above her head, and she stared up, teeth clenched as the creatures, as if of one mind, flowed together out through the destroyed window. Damien ducked as well, hands covering his head, until it became clear the birds had no intention of doing anything, except leaving.

The caw noise filled the hall, blocking out the sound of anything else. A glance out the door showed the birds leaving, including the ones perched upon Sándor. With no more guidance from their unconscious master, the birds flowed out of the hospital in a matter of seconds, and what was nothing but endless black feathers, became a hospital hallway. Blood was everywhere. Four corpses decorated the floor, and one of them wore scrubs, or the remains of them. The crows, under her love's command, had eaten the bodies to the point of nigh skeletons.

"Jack's... different," Damien said, walking out of the room, and grabbing the Begotten once the crows had gone. He dragged him into the room with the three of them, and drew a pistol. Better to keep the prisoner at gun point, even if he was incapacitated.

"Clearly he is different. I—"

"I... sorry to interrupt, Prince, but... he's different. Auspex shows he's... he's uh..." The Mekhet squirmed, looking blatantly uneasy, as he looked back over his shoulder to her, and Jack. "He's dangerous." Was the pistol for Jack, and not the Begotten? No, Damien would not do such a thing.

She sighed, and looked down at the boy in her arms. He was different, that much was obvious, and to summon an army of crows in such a manner was a feat elders as old as Antoinette would struggle to accomplish, were Animalism one of her talents. He had not only done so, but it seemed easy for him, with no strain to him at all. That was, until he saw his mother's face.

A glance toward Samantha showed two crows remained, perched upon the windowsill. His pets, Scully and Mulder, no doubt. They stepped side to side a few times, and bobbed their heads a few times more, likely anxious to investigate their master's sudden fall.

Antoinette stood up, boy in her arms horizontal, and she leaned down to set a kiss upon his forehead. "Something has happened to him, something I... I do not know."

"Jack's been acting more and more strangely," Damien said, "since his first run in with Angela. And he's always been unusually skilled; I just assumed that was his bloodline showing through."

"Perhaps it was. Perhaps it is..." She set the boy down in one of the chairs, and slid a finger across his forehead. Who was this man who had summoned an army to his aid? This boy in the chair was not Jack. Or perhaps it was, and Jack was the one that, upon seeing the face of his mother, stopped whoever was controlling him. His words had suggested some form of inner struggle.

"What... what are we going to do?"

"You are going to help me, Mister Burksen." She got up, stepped over to Samantha, and looked down at the monster on the floor. "My tower has facilities that can contain the Begotten."

"The Invictus—"

"Are not equipped to secure foes of a paranormal nature. You do not have..." Sighing, she shook her head, glanced over her shoulder back to Jack, and then back to his mother. "Be silent, Damien, and do what I tell you. You will guard the Begotten, and you will guard me, as I do what must be done." Desperate times called for desperate measures, if she was forced to ask this Sanctified to be her guard.

"... very well." He did not look happy, and no doubt the Prince's orders would pose a dilemma for the boy, since he was to report to the Invictus, not help her. Maria could burn, for all Antoinette cared at the moment. "What must be done?"

"If I had known that the hunters would be this aggressive, that Angela would be so petty, as to launch such a grandiose assault on the hospital, I would have done this earlier. But I... had to deliberate."

"Siring Jack's mother?"

"... oui. It is not a decision to be made lightly."

Damien nodded, eyes drifting between the three unconscious people in the room. "I'll guard you. I haven't seen any staff, so I imagine they're all hiding. And police aren't going to arrive for some time at that. You're clear."

The Mekhet was a touch wordier than Daniel, but he cut to the point in a similar manner. She appreciated the candor. Unlike Daniel, she did not feel comfortable dropping her guard and exposing herself to his sword. But if she tried to remove the ventilator from Samantha to transport her, she could die before Antoinette could get her back to the Elysium tower for a safer embrace.

"You..." Sighing as well, Damien shook his head, eyes lowering. "You don't need to worry. Things are different now, Prince. You can trust me. I'll cover Jack and Sándor, and you."

She stood up straight, and looked at the man. He did the same, meeting her gaze, and unlike her, he lowered his guard. Not the guard of his body, weapon still at hand, but the guard of his gaze. No frown, no smile, no grimace or smirk, no grin or sneer, nothing but an exposed face, that let her peer into his soul. She had peered into countless souls in her long life, and had grown skilled at reading the intentions of any who let their guard down.

The gaze of the Mekhet was a powerful one, and said much. Damien was a troubled young man, torn asunder by his past, by the ghost of Lucas, and by his new life. He was worried for his friend Jack. He was also deathly afraid of her. And, like many Kindred, the man's life was now defined by regret. She was too harsh, to judge him as she did.

Nodding, she leaned down over Samantha, and stared at her face.

Two days in a coma had not been kind to her; though, she probably looked better than she did the night of the stabbing. She had pale, sunken skin, just like a vampire. Her short hair was cut to the ear, and was supposed curl with waves, but the trauma, the pillow, everything had ruined it.

But she was in good shape, preparing herself for potential mates, perhaps. Bouncing back from the horrible luck that had befallen her, she was a single mother striking back at life.

How would this woman respond to her new awakening, and her new life? No doubt there would be misery, due to the death of her daughter. There would be elation, that her son was alive. There would be shock, that she was now a vampire. To survive the mental damage such mayhem would cause, would be a trial greater than the trial she had only just begun to recover from.

But she deserved a chance.

Antoinette leaned in, moved the tube coming out of the woman's mouth aside slightly, and set her fangs to Samantha's neck.

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~~Natasha~~

Power came back to the city, twenty minutes before sunrise.

"Oh thank g-god," she said.

"Yes. This was futile." Daniel nodded, and the two of them stepped out of a local hydro building before climbing up onto the rooftops. "Quickly, back to the tower."

Their search for the source of the power outage had proved fruitless. The local power facility had emergency staff, but they had been royally confused. Spying on them was the plan, to let them locate the source of the power failure, and Daniel and Natasha would race to the designated location and quickly handle it. But the technicians were dumbfounded, saying the power failure had no source. More dumbfounded, when the power came back on, on its own.

"Um... w-what is that?" She pointed to the sky. The light from the city lit a blurry, black movement, something vast and flowing across the sky.

Daniel frowned. "A murder."

"Murder? Oh, c-crows. That... that is a lot of crows."

"Yes, yes it is." Daniel frowning was an unusual sight, but his frown continued as he watched the flock of black birds fly away. Some remained, perching upon roofs and power lines, but that was normal for Dolareido. Rats, crows, cockroaches, and kine. All four were everywhere in the city, but a giant flock like that flying away was not normal.

"I felt something," she said. "Earlier, I m-mean. I d-d-don't know what it was, but..."

"Now we know. Someone summoned them." The sheriff adjusted his glasses, and leapt, before she could ask how on Earth someone could summon an army of crows that big. Even Viktor would have struggled with that, and that man had been a master of Animalism.

On the rooftops, the two Mekhet ran back for the tower. They'd arrive at the tower with maybe fifteen minutes to spare; Mekhet were fast, and sprinting across rooftops wasn't hard. Still, fifteen minutes before imminent death was enough to get her anxious, and then some.

"Are we going to call the P-Prince?"

"No. The ring or vibration could give her away, if she's being stealthy, assuming she has not disabled notifications."

"R-Right, makes sense." Better to meet back at the tower. Maybe there she'd get some answers about the crows.

She chewed on her lip. A blackout that had knocked out power for several blocks, and blocked out all communication, wired and wireless, in that area? She'd assumed magical from the get go, but hadn't said anything when the Prince told her to investigate. Maybe she should have.

The two of them walked in through the front doors literal seconds after the Prince.

"P-Prince?" Natasha said.

"Miss Vola, Daniel, I am glad to see you are safe." The tall woman turned to face them, and Tash froze as she realized another woman was draped across her arms. She froze twice over, when she realized that not only did Damien stand next to her, but Jack was hooked over one shoulder, and Sándor, beaten to a pulp and bleeding profusely, was hooked over the other. Both were soaked in blood, and with Jack, she knew it was not his.

"I... I um..."

Daniel stepped forward. "Is she embraced?"

"She is. She will likely not awaken until tomorrow night. Daniel, take Sándor, and lock him within Cell 5. Use extreme measures."

"Extreme... yes, my Prince." With a nod, Daniel walked over to Damien, scooped up the bleeding Begotten, and walked toward the back of the lobby where the stairs led down.

"Natasha, join Damien, and help him... help him..." After grinding her teeth together for a moment, she looked away. "Set Jack within Cell 4... and stake him."

Natasha froze thrice. "W-What? I—"

"Do it! Do not question it." The bite in the Prince's words could have broken steel. "And see to it that Damien has a place to sleep. Mister Burksen should not risk his life racing the sun returning home."

"Y-Yes m-m-ma'am!" Nodding, she stepped up beside Damien, and gestured toward the path Daniel already walked. "Do... d-do you not need help with... your... childe?" Childe. Oh god the Prince had a childe now. So exciting! Super exciting! But Antoinette wasn't smiling. If anything, she looked angry.

"No, Miss Vola. For today, she will rest next to me, and I will make sure to greet her come sunset. Now, tend to her s—" Antoinette bit down, as if the word was difficult to articulate. "Tend to her son. Quickly."

Nodding five times faster than she should have, she took Damien's free wrist, and pulled him toward the back.

Antoinette followed, but slower. They had ten minutes before sunset, and the Prince probably wanted a few minutes to process what had happened to her, how her life was going to change, and how everything was going to change. Ten minutes was also enough time for her to ask Damien some questions.

Once they were down the stairs, several floors, and had taken a right in the halls of black marble, she felt comfortable enough to open her mouth. Hopefully her sire and boss couldn't hear her this far away.

"W-What happened?"

"Not sure. We showed up to see the aftermath."

"Can you... t-tell me what you think happened?"

"... Julias is dead."

She froze again. This was too many freezings in a single ten minute window. "W-W-What?"

"He died helping Jack defend his mother, most likely." Damien nodded toward the kid lying across his shoulder. "When we showed up, Jack had... had somehow summoned at least a few thousand crows. He blocked out the sky. Every rooftop was covered, and they poured into the hospital, breaking in through the windows. He killed three hunters with their help, and captured the Begotten."

Processing. Processing. Ok, her brain wasn't willing to make sense of everything Damien just told her. Needed more. "Jack... Jack did... what?" At least he'd decided to capture Sándor instead of killing him. Lucky. He didn't know Sándor was being controlled by Elen. If Jack was killing hunters, he had no reason to not kill the Begotten as well, except maybe to torture him for information.

"It wasn't Jack."

"I—"

"Jack wasn't Jack." Damien sighed, following her, steps brisk. "Whoever this kid was, it wasn't Jack. He was... he was... cruel."

Flashbacks hit Natasha. The alley, when Jack had told her he was struggling with rage issues that defied normal explanation. Oh no.

"M... multiple p-personalities?"

"He summoned an army of crows, Natasha. More crows than any vampire should be able to summon, not without preparation. And he used them like soldiers, slaughtered three hunters, and when we finally got to them, we found the birds ripping muscle off the bones. He walked over Julias's ashes, let the birds walk over them, and he... he..." Damien sighed, shook his head, and nodded toward the hall. "Let's hurry."

"O-Ok." Hurry, hurry. Yeap, do that. Get down to Cell 4, and stake the young man so he'd be stuck in torpor until it was removed. "We saw the crows, but I... I d-didn't know what to think."

The hallway had a few cells, each large and filled with many tools for securing kine. Some of them had people in them, horrible people, violent criminals and the like, people Antoinette considered harmful to her city. Such kine could be kept unconscious using drugs, or not, if she was feeling particularly... wrathful, toward a rather heinous criminal, left to rot in a cell. They were emergency food. The quality was poor, but come dire situations, even poor quality was ambrosia.

As they entered the hallway, there was a solid metal cabinet on the wall. She dialed in the number on its digital door lock, and opened it. There were a few wooden stakes — if it wasn't wood, it was unreliable at best — along with some other weaponry that would work well against paranormals. A mini flamethrower, a shotgun, some knives and swords, and silver knives too. She grabbed a stake.

The cells with doors along the hall were numbered 1, 2, and 3. The cell at the end of the hall, numbered 4, was different. The door looked thicker, and the number itself was larger. Natasha had never seen its interior, and it did not have a sliding view window to let her do such, unlike the other cells. A digital lock, and a manual lock, were ready and open on cell 4, made of metal she was sure no one was getting through, including Uratha.

She dialed in the code, unhooked the enormous padlock, and pulled open the gigantic metal door. Or rather, tried. Frowning, she set a foot against the wall, and pulled with all her might. It slid open with all the grace of pushing a parked car with the emergency brake on. But, with a little Kindred strength put into it, she managed to get the thing open, and she gawked at the thickness of the door. Godzilla wasn't getting through this thing.

The room was empty. That made sense, she supposed, if it was meant to be some sort of multipurpose room they could store particularly dangerous people in. If there'd been a chair, a monster would have little trouble turning it into a weapon.

Cell 5 was on the next floor, beneath her. It was Antoinette's cell for securing the most dangerous and magical entities; and she'd never used it before, according to the Prince. Sándor deserved it. How could she keep a Begotten under control? Antoinette probably had more tricks up her sleeve than Natasha knew about, if she was willing to share the resonance circle with her so early into her new life as a young dragon. There may have been rooms deep in the tower, filled with dark secrets that Natasha was happier not knowing about.

But for now, a big, empty room of metal to hold a big baddie would do fine. Hopefully. She lay Jack on the ground with Damien's help, and stared at the young man for movement as she did. None. For whatever reason, he was out cold, but better to paralyze him than risk his awakening. Damien held out a hand, and she gave him the stake.

Stab. Damien didn't bother to open the man's suit; it was a blood-soaked, hole-ridden mess anyway. Jack's body flopped once, limps flailing out a little from the impact, as Damien sank the wooden object into his heart. Puncturing the organ wasn't as easy as it sounded, considering you had to get through the ribs and muscle protecting it. She was glad Damien did it.

"Julias... is dead? And A-Angela—"

"Escaped. Again."

Natasha, sighing loudly, got up, and motioned for Damien to follow. Once he was outside in the hall with her, the two of them closed the enormous door, and she locked it, both locks. No one was getting in or out. It'd be terrifying to wake up in a room like that, but Jack was staked, and no vampire, even an elder, was going to wake up from that situation.

"She k-k-keeps getting away!"

"Some sort of circle had been painted on the wall. Maybe—"

"Oh... oh no. I ran into that w-with the witches, tonight. It... the hunters, they use some sort of..." She threw up her hands. "Long story! I'll t-t-tell you at dusk."

Mirroring her sigh, Damien nodded, and looked around with wary eyes. "I really wish I could get back to my place before sunrise."

"And I w-wish I could see my b-b-boyfriends before sunrise too, but I can't. So we have to deal." She guided the surly Mekhet down the hall, and into the main room where the stairway connected and descended, massive walls of marble showing dragon statues, and where hallways showed peeks of far more enjoyable rooms. Not everything in the tower was a cell; she hoped Damien realized that.