My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 17

~~Jack~~

Once Jack got back, his mom seemed to have gotten past what was probably a couple solid hours of crying. She'd be miserable, for months, but time healed all wounds and all that crap, so he knew to be patient. Antoinette would know, too.

His mom threw her arms around him when he walked back in, and he had to calm her down. A few pats on her back and some encouraging words did the trick. When he got her back into her seat, he and Antoinette sat down, and spent the rest of the night calmly explaining to her what life would be like as a vampire. They explained the five common blood clans, the five covenants, and the current state of the covenants in Dolareido. They explained some rules, like how Elysium was a no-feeding, no-violence zone, and how the Carthians and Invictus split South Side evenly for feeding.

They explained the Masquerade, and did their best to explain the Danse Macabre, but Jack could see his mom struggled with the idea that vampires were all paranoid, deceitful, manipulative bastards, looking to gain as much power as they could in their immortal lives. He knew Antoinette had already explained some of the physiology basics, but Jack knew they should again. He explained feeding, blood, vitae, avoiding fire and sunlight, torpor and the daily sleep, and the Blush of Life.

And they'd have to explain it again, no doubt. And that was fine. She had all the time in the world now, now that she was safe. In the Elysium Tower, she could learn in safety, and she could grieve in privacy.

Antoinette and Jack ended their lesson with an hour to spare, took her to one of the big, fancy bedrooms Antoinette kept free — for no reason Jack could understand — and helped her settle down.

"You'll... be here when I wake up?" she said.

"Well I'll be on the floor below you, but yeah, in the building." He smiled down at her, sat on the bed with her, and pat her on the leg. "There's hundreds of feet of marble, earth, and metal between us and anyone who wants to get into the tower. You..." He looked over his shoulder to Antoinette.

"C'est vrai. Rest, Samantha, and take all the time you need. As your son has said, he has been given time away from his duties, and I am sure he will spend them aiding you with your new life." The tall Daeva nodded at her childe from over his head, smiling, and Jack mirrored it as he looked back at his mom.

"Oh... ok... ok..." She gulped, coughed, and looked around. "All this for me?" A big bed, white silk sheets, big open space, a desk with a mirror and an assortment of makeup kits and whatnot, and a wardrobe filled with robes that would never fit his mom.

Antoinette laughed, before letting the somber weight the night held settle her voice. "All this and far more, Samantha. Now please, rest, and mourn if you feel the need. Tomorrow night, you will have time to spend with your son, and time to grieve. Perhaps, given a few days time, we can go shopping for you?"

"Shopping?"

"For clothes, my dear."

"Oh... b-but, I have clothes, at home, and—" She stopped, frowned down at the blankets underneath her, and sighed. "Right, new clothes, new me. That... that sounds doable, maybe."

"Alright," Jack said, "we're off."

"You two... sleep in the same bed?"

Jack winced, but nodded. "Yeah. We love each other, Mom. A lot."

Nodding, she sighed as she looked down again, and twisted the blankets with her hands. "Can... can you tell me about that, too? Your relationship? N-Not now, but later? I... I can't believe you found a woman, you know? And—"

Jack put up his hands, surrendering. "I'll tell you everything."

"G... Good." She nodded, but once Jack got up, she snapped her hand out and grabbed his wrist. No words, but she looked at him with the saddest doe eyes he had ever seen on her.

He sat back down, wrapped his arms around her, and stayed there for a minute. "I'm right here, ok? I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."

She squeezed him tight, tighter than she probably realized she was doing. Vampire strength was a thing, and it came naturally to Daeva; any harder and she was going to hurt him. But he pat her back, stroked it, and squeezed her in return until she started to settle. Years, so many years, since he'd hugged her like this. When his dad died, it'd never occurred to him that she was looking for someone to lean on, that she needed some support. He was a kid, and she was the parent. Parents were supposed to be self-sufficient, bastions of stability.

Holy fuck, how stupid he'd been.

"Promise?" she said.

"Promise." He leaned back from her, found her pinky finger, and hooked it with his own. Like old times.

She nodded, let him go, and slowly scooted further back on the bed. She was still in the robe and hospital gown, and Jack doubted she even realized. That'd change, as the insanity of her new life resolved, and she began to process.

"You will sleep all day," Antoinette said. "Torpor will keep you deep in slumber. Once dusk arrives and you awaken, Jack and I will come for you." With a bow, the Prince turned and left, and Jack followed after her, offering his mom a small wave as he did. She returned it, smiling at him, and watching him go until he stepped outside her room, and closed her door.

And then he opened it again and stuck his head through. "Oh, this locks. See this big metal bar here? It'd take a freight train collision to break it. Lock it once we're gone."

"W-Why?"

"Because shit happens. Kindred lesson 101, be paranoid. This way, you'll be secure, and you can sleep knowing no one's going to interfere with your daily rest."

"Oh. Ok." Nodding, she got up and came to the door. Before he closed it, he gave her the small wave again, and she returned it, just like he used to when going to bed when he was a kid.

He fell in beside Antoinette, and followed her back to their room. The enormous vault door, and walls easily ten feet thick, meant it was the most difficult room to break into; by conventional means anyway. Could someone like Sándor bust in here? He doubted it, based on what Fiona told him, but the monsters were difficult to predict, or understand. Maybe Sándor would pull a movie monster move, and break out of the cell with some bullshit ability? The sheriff was confident he was trapped, but still.

He closed the vault door behind him, and watched Antoinette as she slipped out of her suit. No sexual display, no flirting or flaunting, no tossing of her hair, no exaggerated swaying of the hips, nothing. She set her clothes aside by the wardrobe at her desk against the wall, reached in, and plucked out a robe. Wrapped in white, she sat down on the bed, upon its foot edge, and watched him.

Sighing, he stripped down to his boxers, and sat beside her. "... hey."

"My love." She slipped her arm around him, and he reciprocated, sliding in closer until their legs touched, and he could hook his arm around her waist.

They had a bit of time before sunrise, time to sit there, and talk about things. Except he didn't want to talk about things. He didn't want to talk about Julias, or the curse. He wanted to bottle it all up, sit on it, and brood. So, by this point, he knew he should talk about them. You can only make the same mistake so many times before you have to learn from it.

"Julias is dead," he said. "I... Beatrice and I, we both sort of... it got pretty heavy for a bit there. We both cried."

"That... is saddening, my love, but healthy."

"Let it out, mourn, grieve, all that?"

"As cliché as it must sound, it is quite true, mon amour." She rubbed his back a little, and leaned down to put a kiss on his head.

He sighed, nodded, and leaned into her, putting his cheek against the nook of her shoulder and chest. "After that conversation with Triss, I... I feel so drained, tired. Wrecked." He looked up at his lover, before hiding his eyes against her robe. "Julias is dead, and I... I... just want to forget."

"You cannot forget."

"I know, I know. But, fuck, I looked into his eyes when he died, Antoinette. I saw them, and... and..."

"I have... had known Julias Mire for far longer than you, my love. If I knew him as well as I believe, then I can only imagine he felt joy, that he could not only spend his last moments with you, but saving your second life."

"Yeap. That's exactly what happened. He had that cocky, happy smile on, and... and... he died with it on." Slow, Jack, take it slow. Work through it. "He had a few last words, encouragement for me, and... things he wanted said to Triss, things I managed to say before she left, earlier tonight. The whole scene at the hospital was... it was... fuck, if it'd been anyone else, they'd have either raged or cried at the end. Not Julias. He accepted it, and... and I knew he was thinking about Triss, right till the end, and..."

Fuck it. He held her tighter, and let some sobs come up. He didn't want to cry anymore; honestly, he was getting sick of it. Cried over Mary, then the next night, cried over Julias with Beatrice. Now, same night, crying again. He was emotionally exhausted.

A minute later, the sobs passed, and he pulled his head away from Antoinette's robe.

"Sorry," he said, "for... not wanting to spend the rest of the night sputtering sobs, I guess? I'm just too tired."

She nodded, and pet his head a few times before she scooted back further onto the bed. "Come, lie with me. I wish to hold you."

And there was that. In all the chaos and insanity, he'd almost forgotten about this part, about how, while Julias died and left Triss alone, he'd also almost died, and almost left Antoinette alone. Selfish of him, to forget that. And, kind of selfish of Julias, to leave Beatrice like he did. Selfish and selfless.

Jack slid into bed with her, and curled up, facing away, knowing she'd definitely want to be the big spoon tonight. She was a foot taller than him, so the big spoon came naturally to her, but they didn't always go that way. This time, he knew she'd want to, because he fucked up, almost died, and... and put her through what Beatrice was going through.

Sure enough, she pulled the blanket up to their shoulders, turned to face him, and pulled him into her. She pressed her body to his back, held him close, and set her cheek against the back of his head.

"Sorry," he said.

"For?"

"Almost dying. Almost... yeah."

"It... would have been devastating, I cannot lie." She sighed, a knowing sigh. "There are many things we should speak of." She was too smart. All the thoughts he'd taken a day to process, to realize, she'd probably thought of immediately. Julias's death, Jack's curse, his Masquerade violation, Sándor's capture, his mom's embrace, and the fallout of everything related to those five things, she'd probably made a list of in her head and gone through them and the hundreds of connected variables already. Him, he was still struggling with accepting the five things as reality, let alone calculating possible outcomes from the fallout.

"I think I can talk now," he said.

"Bien. What did the Invictus bestow upon you as punishment for violating the Masquerade?"

He managed a small chuckle. "Nothing. They're... they're pretty broken up about Julias, too. And they understood the extenuating circumstances. I have to take time trying to figure out this curse, before I'm allowed to return to work."

"Then Maria and Michael have grown wiser, since they arrived in my city so many decades ago." She squeezed him a little harder for a moment, and kissed his ear once. "The circumstances were extreme, and the loss, far worse. They know better than to damage a valuable asset, or harm a dear ally, such as yourself."

"A tactical decision, then."

"No." She squeezed yet again, and nudged her cheek against his head. "Well, perhaps. They are Invictus, after all. But I believe they are not the soulless manipulators they pass themselves off to be. They care about the Invictus, and its Kindred."

"It's hard to imagine Maria being emotional about things. And Michael, I expect would sooner throw a punch." His turn to sigh. "But that's not really what you want to talk about, is it?"

"No, I suppose it is not."

His sigh turned into a groan, but he knew it was coming. "The curse, the thing, I assume Daniel filled you in on what I told him?"

"Oui, but... I must hear it from you."

Yeah, that was understandable. He really, fucking really didn't want to, but it was the least he could do.

"Maria and Michael said it was the Strix, when I described the dream." That earned a hard freeze from her, and her grip on him tightened. "Striges, or whatever. They... infected me, or my ancestor, a woman, my great great grandsire. A Sanctified sealed it away, locked the curse behind some sort of spell. And over the centuries, it wore away, and I managed to break it. I... I guess I'd been trying to break it ever since Angela first hurt me." He turned around, and faced her. Her eyes were wider, staring at him as if he might turn into ash in her hands. "Don't look at me like that."

"I... I am sorry, my love, but—"

"I'm still me, Antoinette. The thing, it's there, but it's... it's no different than the Beast we all deal with." Not true. Now it could speak to him. Now, it had desires that extended beyond the typical hunger and animal aggression of a mindless beast. Now, it wanted revenge, with the sick joy of a psychotic killer. "Ok, it's not the same. It's different, but it's not different in that it's not me, but a separate thing, same as your Beast. It's hungry, and angry, and it's..." He closed his eyes and pushed in closer, setting his forehead to her sternum. "It's fucking terrifying, but it also helped me, saved my life, captured Sándor, killed three hunters, and..."

The elder Daeva shivered for a moment, and clutched him tighter still, almost hurting him as she squeezed.

"I... am frightened, my love. Of all the possibilities, I had not thought something as grandiose, or horrible, could be lurking within you."

He wrapped his arm around her, the other underneath him on the bed, and he held her close as well.

"It seems... unreal, doesn't it? People dying, that feels real, like a hard punch to the gut. But this... thing... it doesn't feel real. Feels more like a fairy tale, something out of a book."

"It was quite real, my love. The crows, the blood and carnage, the... personality... that emerged." More shivers worked through her, and she loosened her grip on him enough so she could lean back and look down at him. "The weight of death, murder, family, bullets and knives, money and blood, we contend with these every day. They are easy for us to understand, to grasp, and combat. But we are also creatures of the night, of fantasy and nightmares. The fantastical, and the horrific, we must also concern ourselves with. As easy as it may be to dismiss this curse as... less real, than the death of your sister or sire, I urge you to reconsider. I have dealt with entities beyond our understanding before, and... and the wake of destruction they can leave, is far too real."

He nodded, and she leaned back in to hold him tight against her. She was right, of course. Julias and Mary's death felt like serrated blades in his gut. Memories of Angela, and the way she and Jeremiah had tortured him, felt like hot pokers being dragged down his spine. This curse, lurking in his heart, waiting to pounce, was almost too insane to believe.

But it was real, and it wasn't going away.

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~~Damien~~

"Hey Damien!"

Damien got up from his seat on the roof, and walked over to the fire escape on the side of the building. He held out his hand, and Fiona took it, pulling herself up and joining him.

"Hey."

"What're we doing up 'ere?"

"Wanted to update you, in private."

She raised a brow, and wandered around the rooftop, hands behind the small of her back against her brown, leather jacket. "Update? So... not a date?"

He couldn't help but laugh. How had he not seen that coming? He really was a dumbass, as Jessy said.

"Update tonight, date another night?" he said. There was maybe ninety minutes before sunrise, and he wouldn't waste them on a date, even if he really, really wanted to.

"Ugh, fine!" She bounced over to him and beamed up at him. "What happened? No one's told us anything, but we ken something's going on."

Sighing, he nodded toward the building edge. He sat down, legs dangling off, and she joined him, sitting beside him. It was a twenty-story building, and beside them was a giant, bright neon sign that read 'Dips and Curves'. A hotel, and brothel. Men — and some women — came to stay the night, usually with a partner they brought, but sometimes they acquired a partner at the hotel itself. It had a strip club, a bar, a supposedly reputable buffet, and many other amenities that made Damien laugh thinking about them.

Lucas would have hated it, how the building encouraged a casual view of sins. Compared with the shit getting shoveled Damien's way these past few months, it seemed too petty a concern.

"Julias is dead."

"Julias, Jack's sire?"

"Yeah."

"I... how?"

"Angela and her group attacked the hospital last night, to try and capture Jack's mother. Jack was there, with Julias. They saved her, fought off the hunters, killed a few of them, and even captured Sándor, but Julias died in the fight." Three sentences to summarize what must have been an utterly horrific experience for his friend. Three sentences didn't do it justice.

"The crows!" Fiona pat him on the leg, several times, each basically a slap, an exclamation point for her waves of surprise. "I saw on the news! And it's aw over the internet."

Wincing, he nodded, and looked down at the tiny woman beside him. "That was Jack."

"... really? Wee Jack?"

"Yeah, really. He awoke some sort of curse inside him, far as he can tell, something ancient and a part of his bloodline. It... snapped, when Julias died, broke free, and Jack summoned an army of crows." Damien shivered as he remembered the sky, the thousands upon thousands of crows that descended from above, and the hundred or more that had killed themselves in order to break a few windows. "It was terrifying, and awe-inspiring. I thought, for a moment, that perhaps I was witnessing a biblical event, something out of the Old Testament."

"I was in my lair, sleeping, recovering from yer Kiss." She managed a smile for him when she said Kiss, but it faded quickly. "Jack, he... he must be feeling horrible. What happened to his maw?"

"The Prince turned her, and brought her back to the tower."

"Yay!" Fiona bounced in place a few times, butt hitting the rooftop edge. "Oh, oh, so she's Daeva now! I bet she'll be fun... once... she gets over her wee one dying."

"I think it'll be a little while before we can see Samantha. A little while longer, before she feels comfortable enough to... socialize, with other paranormals. I suggest being a little more... um..."

"What?" Her smile returned, and quickly became a mischievous grin, with a hint of 'I dare you to insult me'.

"Less aggressive with her, than you are with others."

Her grin only grew wider. Wham. She threw herself at him, a full on tackle; impressive, considering she was sitting down. But she managed to get some weight into it, and it was enough to send him onto his back.

"I am nah aggressive!" she said, even as she crawled onto him, and straddled his waist. His legs were still dangling off the building edge, and it was a far enough drop to give any Kindred pause. If Fiona fell, would she survive, die instantly, or swing away like Spider-Man?

Of course that's where his mind went, not to the fact the beautiful woman was straddling him, and grinning down at him. An ingrained reflex, to always look for the negatives, when a positive was set on his lap.