My Little Ventrue Pt. 07 Ch. 05

"Not so many that you can just wipe out dozens of people. And besides, they're still people. You're really ok with slaughtering humans like this?"

In the past, he'd have been afraid. Beatrice was a strong Nosferatu, strong for her age too, a Kindred who'd exercised her powers far more regularly than her fellow Carthians. Jacob recruited her for a reason. Once she was old enough, the whole city would fear her as one of the most powerful elders to ever emerge from its streets. She was strong, good with the Cloak of Night, and he knew she could bestow nightmares if forced, the unique ability of Nosferatu.

But now it was different. He wasn't afraid of her, she was afraid of him, and she was acting aggressive because of it. He didn't want to fight her, and the only thing he was afraid of was accidentally hurting her if it came to that.

"It has to be done!" she said.

He winced, looked down, and gulped. Lot of wincing tonight, and he doubted it'd stop any time soon."You've killed people, Triss, on hunts and stuff. I've never killed anyone outside of a battle, you know?" When he raised his eyes back to her, she'd taken a step back, and she looked shocked. "I still think about Mrs. Pavala sometimes, and the interviews I saw on TV with her family."

"That... that's different! She was an innocent, and it wasn't your fault. We're only sacrificing scumbags."

That earned a frown from him. "We're flirting with a line, Triss. I'm terrified of crossing it."

"The fuck? I thought you were willing to do anything to kill Angela."

"Anything except sell my soul down the river."

"... are you going to help or not?"

He sighed, dug up a small smile from somewhere, and nodded. "Yes, I'll help."

Kindred only kill kine when they need to. This was one of those times.

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

Predictably, they went to Devil's Corner, not too far off from the brothels Vicky and Parker ran. Jacob had his fingers in this district, and probably had thralls and ghouls no one knew about, running side businesses and keeping their eyes open. The more he dealt with shit like this, the more he didn't blame the elders for rarely sticking their necks out. One wrong move and an elder could find themselves in the middle of an explosion a rival set up in a random building years before. Boom, gone, no more rival.

He struggled to think Jacob would actually kill Antoinette, but he had to swallow the painful truth that Jacob might, if he could without risk of retaliation. And he definitely would kill any of the other elders if given the chance. They'd probably kill him, too. What about Garry though? He had some sort of relationship with Jacob, but he didn't know the details of it, if it extended to friendship or purely business.

He laughed and rolled his eyes. Kindred instincts were kicking in, warning him of the Danse Macabre, and that he should start playing it. He should be creating thralls no one knew about, setting up spies, surveillance, maybe connecting with some animals. He'd never given Scully or Mulder his blood, but it was a thing he could do, to turn them into devoted servants. The idea irked him, but another part of him said it was just the way the game was played. Animals, kine, they were like money and property, tools to be used to extend his life as long as possible, so the Kindred believed. Ugh.

A glance upward spotted Scully and Mulder, flying from rooftop to rooftop, power line to streetlight. He didn't know if Triss noticed them, but he wouldn't have been surprised if she had. She wasn't a Mekhet, but she was still surprisingly talented for her age, more than she probably realized.

"I'm surprised Jacob isn't doing this himself," he said to Triss as they walked the sidewalk. She had them wrapped in her Cloak of Night, or rather its gentler cousin Face in the Crowd, which let kine see them without actually noticing them. It meant they could walk through the street crowds of Devil's Corner without issue, no one noticing her face, or his suit.

"I guess he'd have a harder time doing this than you. And it's probably a test of your commitment."

"Mmm, love all this cult talk."

"Jack, it's not a cult. You know what's going on."

He shook his head and frowned at her. "I don't know what's going on, and neither do you. You can't honestly believe Jacob or Black Blood are telling you everything."

"They're... telling me more than I bargained for."

That caused him to raise a brow, especially as she avoided eye contact. He almost followed up with more questions, but her eyes had grown cold, glaring, staring ahead, and he pulled back. No need to be aggressive with her, it wasn't like he was in a position to judge.

"Any ideas where we can pick up people we don't mind killing?"

"Jacob says there's a new fucker pushing in on Devil's Corner, some human with delusions of grandeur, setting up trafficking rings. Innocent people are getting hurt. You know the deal."

"I guess, yeah." He didn't always know the deal. Once upon a time, the idea that humans were capable of killing each other over drugs, or territory, or prostitutes, was alien to him. And his parents thought the city was a safe place to live, according to the statistics. It was, but not nearly as safe as he thought, when he was still alive. Disappearances happened all the time in Dolareido, and the Invictus or the Prince covered it up when it suited their purposes.

"Think you can handle Dominating that many?"

"How many is that many?"

"Probably four of five."

He shrugged and nodded. "Easily."

That earned a raised brow from her. "Really?"

"Even without the curse, I'm sure I could convince a few kine to follow us without issue. Maybe not to their deaths, but we could just lie until we knocked them out. Now though? No problem."

Again, she looked surprised, and her eyes flicked from him to the sidewalk and people ahead of her. "That's damn impressive for someone your age."

"I... had a great teacher." He didn't stop to catch her reaction. Better to talk about Julias and move on, not let it weigh them down. "And it was a natural talent, same as my sire and his sire, and I presume his sire and her sire."

"Still can't believe you actually got to see a vision of Viktor's sire, and her sire. What'd they look like?"

"Beautiful women, honestly. Susanna, the... source of the curse, she was short, slim, long dark hair. Beautiful, in a petite, and maybe a little psycho kinda way. And she sired her childe in the middle of a threesome. Her childe was taller, blonde, very curvy and busty with a slim waist. Definitely got some Jessica Rabbit vibes from her. I... I saw her siring Viktor, and she was having sex with him against a wall in what I can only assume was a street in 1600s, England."

That made her laugh, and Jack blinked at her as he waited for her to regain her composure.

"Sex is in your veins."

"I guess it is."

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

Finding the people was easy enough. Four tough guys and one punk girl, wearing clothes that were stereotypical. He hated that it was a stereotype, how it gave perfectly nice people a bad image, but there was no denying the baggy clothes and tattoos were common among the worst Devil's Corner had to offer.

But, that wasn't a fair analysis. In his world, the biggest scum, the dirtiest fucks, the most horrible people that deserved slow, painful deaths, were often the most well dressed. They enunciated and spoke eloquently. They hosted wine tastings, art showings, and hedged stocks. They wore suits and dresses worth the same as a car, and they were very, very good at hiding how fucking horrible they were.

He was usually surrounded by suits. Being down in the dirt, behind buildings, in dark alleys, and under the homes of pimps, was a change of pace for him. Carthians dealt with this particular half of humans usually, and would be better at recognizing the signs, at knowing which kine were dangerous and which were up to no good. All he had to go on was whatever Beatrice told him.

"I'm looking for Clarence," Triss said.

"You found him." One of the kine stood up, and the rest of the group followed, each reaching behind their back, but leaving their hands hooked behind and out of sight. Hands on their pistols, no doubt.

Jack took a step forward, made eye contact with each of them, and sighed. "Leave your weapons behind, don't say a word, and come with me."

The more complicated the instruction, the more difficult it was to get across. Three commands was tough, but doable. Doing it to five kine at once was very tough for any neonate Ventrue, especially one as young as him. His natural talent, and his powerful bloodline helped, but it was the curse that made it easy. Their minds broke like twigs. Not a hint of resistance. He had to pull back, yank on the reins of the force that flowed out of him and crashed into their minds, or he'd have damaged them. They were open to him, and he could turn them into his puppets with ease. He could rewrite their memories until they were empty pawns.

They set their pistols down, and walked up to him, eyes void of anything.

"You... you hit them hard," Beatrice said.

"Yeah, too hard. I'm still trying to get used to this."

"I didn't realize you could just use this curse thing on command, so easily."

"I couldn't before, and I wish I couldn't now. But, it's like someone took my toy gun and gave me a rocket launcher, and didn't bother to teach me how to use it."

"That sounds dangerous."

"Yeap. I'm a menace to everyone around me."

They both laughed. It was good to laugh, like laughing at death. Helped alleviate the cruel, cold truth of reality that he was walking out from behind a building with a bunch of kine that were going to be dead before the night was over.

"Before you say it," Triss said, "yes, I do wonder what Julias would say right now. I'm guessing he'd be pretty upset we're doing this."

Ouch. Jack looked back at the criminals, and checked for a reaction. Normally he'd have to be careful to not let them know what he was doing, if he was going to make them do something they didn't want to do. If a kine realized the orders they were following were dangerous, or suicidal, they'd try and fight to escape his control. This wasn't that. This was full on hypnosis with layers of memory wiping. He had damaged these kine. If they managed to get free somehow, he doubted they'd get full function of their minds back for days.

Christ, in the past using Dominate was like trying to smash through drywall. Sure it was tough, but certainly not impossible. Breaking these kine had been like trying to smash through a glass wall, with a tank. It'd been a struggle to stop his forward momentum, and not accidentally topple the whole house.

He waited a minute before nodding. "Yeah, he would be upset. Julias loved the kine."

"Yeah, fucker did, just like Superman." Her voice choked for a second, and she looked away as she took a deep breath. "He was envious of them, of how they enjoyed life in the moment, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"And here we are, performing rituals to dark gods so we can win a war for our survival, and revenge. And after that, we'll be continuing our stupid games with the covenants, and other shit. It's comical."

"Yeah, it is." He looked back at the group following him again. Triss had extended her Cloak of Night enough to hit all of them, since its weaker form Face in the Crowd was easy to use. Anyone watching would have seen them and their strange group, but no one would care.

"How's Sándor?" she said.

"Still a vegetable. I think I could break into his mind, but it'd be like building up pressure on a dam to break it."

"It'd... break everything behind it once the dam went down."

"Yeap," he said. "No one has any ideas of how to get the seal off him. Best I can figure is we kill Elen."

Triss shook her head. "We want to capture her. If we kill her, it might not break the seal. If we capture her, maybe we can force her to remove it."

"Or better yet, maybe if we capture the flesh mage, we can have her do all sorts of crazy shit for us." He made sure the sarcasm was dripping.

"You know everyone wants her. Jacob isn't alone in that. Your bosses want her, and so does your girlfriend."

"Yeah, I know. But I've already fucked up twice with these hunters. I'm not going to make a mistake and let them escape again, because our bosses are elders and obsessed with getting their hands on every angle of power they can." He glared at her, squinting until she was forced to look away. "We'll capture her if we can, Triss, but if you had to pick between that, or killing Angela, which would you take?"

"Not even a fucking question... unless..."

"Unless?"

Triss rubbed the back of her neck. Something was bothering her, for sure. It squirmed out of her, making her fidget until she broke.

"Jacob and I have been talking... about... resurrection."

Full stop. Jack blinked at her, several times, before looking back to the group following him. "Forget this conversation ever happened." They nodded in unison, his faithful zombies, and Jack looked back to his friend with wide eyes. "You can't be serious."

"We don't need Elen, but I've seen the sort of shit she can do, in that weird flesh chamber. It... it's... possible, that maybe she could do something. Maybe she could help us revive people? Julias, Mary, and I'm sure the others would—"

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't. Just don't. There's no reviving the dead, Beatrice. We can't get them back. Christ, how many movies, how many stories, how many fucking comic books do we have now showing how bad an idea that is?" He turned and pointed at his zombies. "Any of you got a car?"

"Yeah," the woman said.

"Take us to it."

She nodded, stepped up, and guided them down a different street.

"The fuck we need a car for?" Triss said. "Let's just carry them and run to Three Kings."

"Easy for you to say. Even with this curse, I'm still short and light. Physics are a thing. And don't change the subject! You can't honestly expect this resurrection idea is possible. We have some of the oldest, strongest vampires in this city, and two of them have been fucking with shit well beyond our understanding for centuries. If it could be done—"

"It can be done! It can, it fucking can. It can it can it..." She came in closer to him, shoulder to shoulder. If she'd wanted to, she was close enough to hit him, and she sounded like she wanted to, but she sighed and just shook her head. "It is possible, but doing it is insanely hard. It's just not feasible unless you're ready to cause a biblical catastrophe."

Wait, what? He put every shred of control he had into his poker face, and kept his eyes ahead of him as he walked. "Biblical catastrophe?"

"I'm trusting you with a huge secret, Jack. Swear you'll keep the... the little I tell you, to yourself."

Good fucking god. This was not good, not good at all, but he needed to know. He ground his teeth until he felt his jaw bone threaten to crack.

"I swear." Fuck. Fuck fuck. He meant it when he made an oath, and she knew it too. Fuck.

"Jacob knows a way to at least attempt resurrection, but he hasn't tried it, because it'd pile the bodies to the sky. Fucked up as he is, he won't try that."

Jack looked to Triss, and he knew he wore shock on his face. She'd think he was shocked that Jacob had actually learned of a way to resurrect someone. He was shocked because holy fucking shit that fit so damn well into Azamel's warning that it made him want to scream. No. No no no, oh fucking god no.

"You're... sure he wouldn't try it?"

"Pretty damn sure, Jack. Jacob's a twisted bastard but he loves this city. There's a reason he calls it his, instead of Antoinette's."

That was true. Jacob did love the city, in his own strange way, in an Erik and Christine sort of way; Dolareido being Christine in that fucked up relationship. And Minerva died a long time ago. If Jacob was willing to destroy the city in order to revive Minerva, he'd have done so already. Right? On top of that, Dolareido was his source of food and shelter. Kindred spent centuries setting up their nests to be safe and sustainable. It made no sense for Jacob to ruin that.

But, what about Maria? Her lover had only recently died, and more than few things pointed to her being up to something. If Jacob knew how to resurrect someone, and wasn't willing to do it, was Maria?

Kine are sheep, Jack. Any elder will gladly sacrifice tens of thousands of them to bring back a loved one.

There are millions of people in Dolareido!

The number is meaningless. Susanna piled the bodies high, because kine are nothing more than bags of blood that inconveniently move around.

Jack squeezed his eyes tight, and forced the voice away. "You trust Jacob?"

"I... I do, more than I should, but I do."

"Alright then. When it comes to Jacob, I'll trust you, Triss. If you tell me I don't have to worry that he's going to do something insane, I'll take your word for it. But promise you'll tell me if that ever changes."

"Promise."