My Little Ventrue Pt. 06 Ch. 17

He came, and slowed down his thrusts. She didn't. As he felt his fluids pour into her, each clench of his muscles spurting thick warmth up through his length, Vrall continued to grind herself against him, squeezing hard enough to make him wince. Orgasm turned his glans sensitive, and her thrusts were almost painful, as she milked every last drop of him into her awaiting body.

She stopped once she started shivering, and hugged him. Her face disappeared into the nook of his neck, forcing his head to lean over to make room for her horns. The moans and pants the spider monster made were amazing, and he closed his eyes as he relished the feel of her insides squeezing, shivering, and the feel of her heart beating against his chest. The feel of her breasts, massive and overflowing, and the feel of her thighs, squeezing around his hips, was a euphoric mix of softness, and power.

"Now," the spider monster said, turning her head, and then kissing his earlobe, "I want you, Damien, to understand. I have seen many men who refused to embrace comforts when they came their way, for many reasons. Take it from someone much older and wiser than you, that that is foolhardy. Enjoy what pleasures you can find in this world, vampire. They are few."

"R-Right. I... I think I... can see your point."

"Good." With another pleasing sigh, she floated away from him, and hovered about three feet out from his body while her eight spider legs remained attached to the web. She reached down, scooped up between her legs, and traced a line of white up her tiny waist, and then up onto one of her heavy breasts. "While I do expect you to take Fiona to bed, and fuck her regularly, Damien, I also expect to find you back here in my web frequently as well. Understood?"

"Um, understood." He was dating two women. How had that thought never occurred to him?

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

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

~~Beatrice~~

Everyone was waiting for her.

Sighing, groaning, she got up from crawling through the tiny cave entrance, and stood before the witches of the Circle of the Crone. Jen came up behind her and stood with her. She'd stayed with her, when Triss had decided to not return to the cave after learning about Julias. But this was the next night, and she had to report back. The cave was also the only truly safe place she had anymore, now that she couldn't stay in Julias's bunker. Last night, she'd risked sleeping in a dark little corner in the tomb, and Jen had stuck with her.

Stupid girl. Triss was lucky to have her.

Othello and Aaron both approached, but Triss held up a hand, halting them from fifty feet away.

"Not looking to talk, guys. Besides, you'd suck at it."

That managed to lighten the heavy weight blanketing them all, at least a bit, and the two men smiled a little, nodded, and backed off. Jacob stood by the sacrifice bowl further back, between it and the hundreds of bones that decorated the wall of stone behind him. Dressed in his black robes and white eye bandage, he looked like his usual, imposing self.

Except, he wasn't smiling his usual jackass smile. He wasn't shifting around like a restless child annoyed with the world for being too slow, like usual. He wasn't in his weird half imposing, half inviting postures, and he wasn't chuckling, or making any sound. All her boss did, was stand there, and look at her. His expression wasn't cold, but it wasn't playful or teasing like usual either. It wasn't anything. It was just there.

She walked up to him, put her hands on the disgusting sacrificial bowl's edges, and looked at him. Four feet separated them, and the fucker didn't flinch once. Hell, he could have been a statue; not like vampires needed to breathe.

"You heard?" she said.

"I did," he said.

"You know what I'm going to ask for."

"I do."

"... I don't plan to ask, not yet."

A small smile broke through on his lips, but it faded just as quickly. "Smart."

"Black Blood paid me a visit."

"Did he now?" Not a break in his tone or a flinch in his expression. Either he knew, or expected.

"It, Jacob. It's an it."

"It identifies as a he, Triss. Don't judge."

Rolling her eyes, she couldn't stop herself from chuckling at that. God damn it, she didn't want to laugh right now. "It... he..." She looked down at the bowl. Empty. Her fingers squeezed on the metal, avoiding the bone of the skulls and whatnot that were part of its shape. Don't break the bowl, the bowl did nothing to you. "He thinks I should... think... about things."

"Sound advice."

"... can we talk? In private?" She looked over her shoulder to Jen. "You ok with that?"

"Yeah, it's fine. I'll catch the boys up." Jen nodded her head toward Aaron and Othello, and the three of them disappeared into one of the alcoves carved in the cave wall. Some of the ghouls drifting around came with her, following the Ventrue with intent to obey her orders. They were trustworthy, according to Jacob, and Triss had grown used to their presence in the many months she'd spent in the cave.

But she didn't want them around when talking with Jacob, not about this.

Jacob nodded, and the two of them took a side tunnel into a winding path. Eventually they came to his room, though Triss knew he slept elsewhere. She couldn't blame him. Elders had earned their paranoia, surviving for centuries by trusting no one, not even their closest servants. After last night, she thought about asking him for tips. If nightmares were going to haunt her daily torpor for the rest of her life, the least she could do for herself was ensure she did it someplace safe.

Jacob pulled the hanging fur aside, and the two of them sat down on the floor on his many furs. She didn't visit his room very much, not since the hunters had made an appearance. If she had to stay someplace for the day, someplace safe, her and Jen could just stay at Julias's. But that was the past, and she had to adapt. Don't think about Julias, think about the future. Think about revenge.

She looked around the walls of Jacob's alcove. There were bones on the walls, hanging masks, and furs from animals she didn't know. She'd described one of the masks to Jack once, and he assured her it was from a video game. Apparently, a playful imp stole it from a merchant who had a bunch of masks, and put it on. Unknown to the imp, the mask was possessed with some sort of evil god or entity thing, and it took over the imp to use him as a conduit for destruction.

She told him no fucking way it was from a video game. The fuck would Jacob be doing with a fucking cosplay prop? Surely everything in the room was authentic. The bones, the voodoo bags, the carvings, it made the room look like some sort of occult shop, and there was no way the five-hundred-year-old vampire would stand for anything less than authentic. She hoped. It was Jacob, and he was a joker, a trickster, and an all-around maniac. Maybe it was all silly fake shit?

"Black Blood visited you?" he said.

"Yeah. He... he wanted to present... options."

Jacob reached up, grabbed one of the masks, and put it on. Holding it by the chin, he kept it against his face, and started talking in a Southern accent.

"You sure you want to make deals with the devil, pretty lady?" The mask was solid black, covered in bark or something, and she had to admit, if Black Blood ever needed to wear a mask, it'd be a pretty good option.

She slapped the mask off his face and out of his hand. "Not in the mood for laughing, Jacob."

"Then it's the perfect time for laughter, isn't it?" He put the mask back, sighed, and looked at her. With his knees apart, legs crossed, he almost looked like he was meditating, considering he was wearing a robe. "Black Blood is free to do what he wants, and if he came to you, he sees an opportunity. Plus, he's going to be drawn to you."

"Drawn?"

"Black Blood is old, older than me. He's absorbed the disgusting waves of murder and death in Dolareido, since long before the Prince and I showed up."

"So... he's a murder spirit?"

The Nosferatu shook his head. "Spirits are everywhere, and they've been fucking with shit for as long as Earth has existed, Beatrice. They've shaped our side of the curtain, and we've shaped theirs. If they live long enough, they get big, and complicated, and weird. Black Blood may have been a murder spirit at some point, but he's absorbed things, merged with things, eaten things, and... he is Dolareido."

She frowned. Ok, either Jacob didn't really understand the nature of his friend, or he did, and Triss was struggling to grasp the sheer scope of Jacob's explanation.

"Ok, assuming Black Blood, this grotesque monstrosity that's been helping you help me learn Crúac, really is the spirit incarnation of our city, that means our city is based on murder?"

Jacob laughed as he nodded, and he reached over to grab one of his books, one of the creepy ones she was half sure was bound in human skin. "Probably crawled up out of the ground as a spirit of death, not murder, and the area was ripe with death. Maybe some sort of clan war? Maybe the natives fought off invaders. Something happened here, before the Colonial period." After flipping through a few pages, he motioned for her to come sit next to him. She did, putting her back to the wall and knees up to her chest, with only a couple inches between them so she could look at the book.

Someone had drawn stones, a big circle of stones. And they'd drawn bones, lots, and lots, and lots of bones. The stones weren't natural, but carved, big and square and sticking out of the ground. Skeletons were tied to them. Remnants of clothes were drawn, but the artist wasn't the best; shitty parchment and a drawing that must have been six hundred years old didn't make for accurate depictions. But she could feel the death coming off the page just by looking at it.

"Where'd you get this?"

"Early colonials traded for information about this place. A flood must have come through or something, destroyed the site, but the natives remembered it; probably told ghost stories about it. The natives tried to warn the colonials off. They didn't listen." Triss hadn't signed up for story time, but she knew better than to interrupt Jacob. And besides, it was relevant, if she was going to do business with the devil. "So the colonials started up a tiny village. Lot of convicts sent from across the drink. Far as I can find out, once they got the homes built, people started getting underhanded. Murdering each other for resources, for pussy, for whatever. Must have been at each other's throats for two or three hundred years, lying, stealing, killing. Black Blood was there for that, so he tells me, when he was nothing more than a tiny, creeping ink stain, looking to hide from hungry spirits on the other side. He seeped into the cracks in the Earth, into the walls of their homes, and he watched, and... partook.

"That's when the Prince and I showed up with the Sheriff, and Viktor. We took over, and turned that shitty little village into the utopia you live in today. Black Blood was there, watching, absorbing, learning."

"Spirits can do that?"

"When they get as old and intricate as him, yeah, apparently they can. He's part death, part shadow, part environment, part... so many things."

She frowned at Jacob, and shook her head. "How can Dolareido and this thing be so intertwined, if Black Blood is a death... shadow... spirit thing?"

"He's not. The fuck did I just say? He's grown well beyond that. All the dark, twisted, weird, sexual, loving, deadly parts of Dolareido, Black Blood has absorbed in some way. Simon called him a Magath, whatever that is."

"Simon, right, the Uratha Avery used to go with."

"Fuck those dogs." Jacob ground his teeth, and flipped to the next page. It was written in some language she didn't recognize, so no reading. The pictures were good enough, and this page had a picture of some woods, with some skeletons tied to them as well. Christ, Dolareido might as well have been built on unholy ground or something. If she went digging outside in the canyon, she'd probably find legions of dead.

"I wanted to talk about Black Blood, and Crúac, and... and..."

"My attempts to resurrect Minerva."

She froze, and slowly moved her eyes from the page of the old book, to the Nosferatu elder sitting next to her. As if he hadn't said anything, he flipped the book to the next page. A cliff, overlooking the ocean. Nowhere near Dolareido then. Whoever this traveler was, they must have been important, for Jacob to want their book. Maybe they'd been a vampire.

"So you did try."

"I did. Even learned how." He flipped the page. Woods, and some tipis sitting about, with people sleeping around them. No, wait, not sleeping, dead. Fucking horrible. "I expect you'll want to jump for joy, knowing that."

"Minerva's still dead, so... whatever it is, I can't believe I could do it if you couldn't." She wanted to believe, fuck did she want to believe, but she wasn't stupid. "Black Blood says I should wait a couple weeks, so I can calm down before I do anything stupid."

"Good advice." The next page. Some very spooky trees, with a few owls perched on the branches. Dark, shadowy owls. "And if you're looking for me to tell you how to resurrect Mire, I—"

"Don't... please don't say no. Please?" She collapsed back against the wall, head falling forward to dangle. "I'll wait. Two weeks or something, before I ask. Ok? Please." She couldn't keep the begging sound out of her voice. It made her sound pathetic, and she didn't care. If Jacob decided to tease her, rub her misery in her face, that was fine, she didn't care. All that mattered was—

"Beatrice, look at me."

She froze, again, before slowly lifting her head enough. As she did, Jacob raised a hand, and pulled his bandage down around his neck. Eye contact. The man's empty eye sockets stared straight at her, and she did her best to meet them. She had snake eyes, but Jacob's lack of eyes was a thousand times scarier, especially considering his eyelids looked like they'd been removed by a serrated spoon.

He looked sad. The ancient, deadly vampire, looked sad. It hit her in the stomach, and a harsh sob worked up through her before she could stop it. The following sobs were quieter, and she managed to keep them from exploding out of her; doubtless they'd have summoned Jen if she let them out at full volume. No, enough crying. But meeting the old man's face, and how his fucked up deformity didn't stop him from showing some real, genuine emotion, was just too fucking hard to deal with. Her gaze fell back to the floor.

"I hate this," she said. "This... this wasn't... wasn't supposed to happen."

Jacob turned back to the book, closed it, and kept his scary gaze on its dark, stained cover. "It never is. And unlike those fuckers out there, or everyone else, none of those assholes know what it's like, to have love taken from you like that. I know. I know what it's like to find someone who connects with you, emotionally, physically, and intellectually. I know what it's like as a Nos, to... fuck, I'm just wasting my breath, aren't I?" He laughed, quiet and heavy, and shook his head. "My words can't—"

"No... no, tell me. I want to know." She sniffed, and pulled her knees up to her chest tighter so she could hug them. "You're right. How many of them know what it's like, to be a Nos, find love, and then have their love fucking killed? Murdered? It... it..." She squeezed her legs harder. "It's burning me up. It's in my bones. It's in my fucking chest, and I want to reach inside and tear it out, and I can't. I can feel myself ready to frenzy, even though I've fed. I ca... ca... can't handle this, Jacob. I can't! I can't I—"

Touch stopped her cold. Jacob set his hand on her shoulder, but still looking down. Maybe he caught on that she couldn't handle looking him in the eyes right now, not when he looked sad as well.

"Minerva was... something like Julias. She looked for the best in people, without being naive. And, she wasn't afraid of me. Well, maybe a little afraid, but she didn't let it stop her. We grew to know each other because of her courage and insistence. She was... intelligent, far more intelligent than she had any right to be. The Prince and I both included her in our more specific experiments, as we both tested the waters of the spirit world."

Oh, wow, real knowledge about Minerva. Holy shit.

"You and the Prince?"

"You think Annie and I are enemies?"

"It... does seem that way, a little."

Jacob laughed. "I guess it does. But, we both have an... academic interest, in the Shadow Realm. So did Minerva. I let her in on a few secrets, so did Antoinette, and before we knew it, she was performing her own experiments. She learned about Black Blood, and other spirits. She became convinced that... that things could change."

"Things?"

"This." He gestured around him, to the wall covered in bones and masks, to the shelves carved into the stone that held dolls and small bags filled with only god knew what, and several books as old as dirt. "Other things, too. Vampires, sucking on veins, fighting each other over sheep. Werewolves, slaughtering spirits or the possessed. Monsters, bound to their hungers no vampire could hope to understand. She thought she could change the world, find missing pieces of the puzzle, fix things. Spirits, ghosts, dreams, death, life, the afterlife? She dug deep into learning all she could about those things, and tried hard to find ways to bridge the gaps between them."

Beatrice gulped. "I never thought of it like that, that it's all... separate. She wanted to bring it together? How?" It sounded too crazy to be real, but at the moment, crazy was better than reality.

With a dark chuckle, Jacob nodded, and licked his teeth. "I'll show you."