My Little Ventrue Pt. 07 Ch. 10

"Nae a problem! Come on then." The redhead bounced out of the booth, bouncing far more than Jack knew was strictly necessary, and took Damien's hand. Then, she pointed a finger at Harcourt like it was a gun, and pointed it toward the stairs. "Come on then, ya wankstain! Walk ahead, and if ye try anything, I'll string up and leave ye to rot in my nightmare!"

Jack watched the three walk off, and smiled. Friends. God damn it felt good to have friends, people he could rely on, people who he could not only trust with secrets, but people who could actually get things accomplished. It was such a change from his younger years in his first life. He never had many friends, and whenever there was a group project in school, he was the one that got shit done.

And now apparently, one of his friends, was drunk as fuck.

"Clara, have you been drinking?"

"I have! You have any idea how much booze it takes to get really drunk as an Uratha? I'm finishing my second bottle here."

Bottle? Right, wine. He pictured Clara for the sort of girl to chug beers, like Jessy. Then again, there was more to Clara than the surface suggested, he knew that.

"Did you say finishing?"

"Yeap! I have to keep drinking, to stay drunk. This'll fade in an hour."

Oh thank god.

"Can y—"

"Is it the tits, Jack?"

"What?"

"Antoinette's tits. Is it the tits you love? That why you like her so much?"

Jack froze, and blinked at the red darkness around him, and how white light pulsed like a heart. She probably wanted to ask 'is that why you pick her over me?' or something like that, and that was a painful conversation. It was also a conversation he never expected to have, ever. Jack never considered himself an attractive guy, short as he was, and while Julias helped get him into amazing shape, he was still a tiny dude. The idea of two women being interested in him? Never in a million years did he ever consider this a possibility, which meant he never practiced it in his head, like he did his other conversations.

What the fuck could he say to her? She was drunk, not thinking straight, and it wouldn't be entirely fair of him to treat her like she was herself. He had to handle this delicately, and he was as good at that as he was at flirting: not at all. Well, he had gotten better at it, he supposed. Maybe he could be delicate.

"Clara, I like you a lot. You're smart and strong, and you are fucking gorgeous and beautiful. I can still remember, in vivid detail, what your breasts looked like when that kine pulled up your shirt." Ok, that was not delicate, at all, but at least it was a step in the right direction. Hopefully. "Trust me Clara, it's nothing to do with that."

Silence, and then, giggling. Clara could giggle. Surprising. "I guess I knew that. It's just nice to hear you say it. A girl can get sensitive about these things when she gets turned down."

"Clara, we... we can talk about it later, ok? I need you to stop drinking and get dressed."

"What? Why?" Ok, if she was aware enough to ask those questions, she wasn't too far gone.

"I need help. I've got a huge tip on where the hunters are gonna be, and I need to hit them, tonight. If we don't, the lead goes cold, and we might not be able to find them again."

"Wow. Um, ok. Who's going?"

"Damien, and Beatrice's gang are. Maybe some of the Begotten. I can't get hold of Natasha or Jessy though."

"You can't? They're probably... doing something dumb. Probably going into the Hisil." Her groan was comical and loud. "Eric wants to be Batman, and the dumb boys probably want to be Robin. Insert gay joke here."

"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck." Why now? Why fucking now? There was no way that was a coincidence, that the same night Eric decided to go into the Hisil, was the night a hunter showed up with the answer to their dilemma. Or maybe it was coincidence, and Jack just had to fucking roll with it.

"Jack, am I a slut?"

Oh sweet mother fucking god, what?

"What?"

"You've probably heard by now I've been sleeping with Jessy's ghouls. All of them. At the same time." She stopped for a moment, and Jack heard the distinct breathing and sipping of someone taking a drink. God damn it. "I only did it because I was a bit sad and lonely at first, and drunk as hell, but... well, it was really fun, you know? And after a while, I figured—"

"You figured it was Dolareido," he said rapidly, "and you might as well indulge, blend in, give into its atmosphere and aura." There could not be a worst time for this conversation. "Yes, I agree, indulge. Just, not right now. I need you at Robina's in an hour, near the Dampheer Bridge. Can you do that?"

"Yeah yeah sure." Another sipping sound. "I always thought of myself as a one-guy kinda girl. I wanted romance, flowers and movies, cuddling in bed, not throwing myself into an orgy. But the scary thing is, I kinda like it. There's something about doing something so... taboo, I guess, it's freeing. But you know, if Natasha gets to do it, and you do, and Jessy was doing it, and everyone's doing it, why don't I get to? And why the fuck is it even taboo if everyone's doing it?" And she continued, hopping from one thought to another.

It faintly occurred to Jack, that he'd never dealt with this problem. Friends getting drunk and getting into stupid shit, or saying stupid shit, was never an issue he'd learned to deal with, never having run into it; same problem with the two girls fighting over him, no experience in damage control. How did one help a drunk friend, convince them to not sleep with that girl or that guy, or avoid any other poor decisions? It was especially hard, cause he had no idea how to talk to a girl he'd turned down, since she was the only one.

"Clara, this is important. Stop drinking, get dressed, and be at Robina's in an hour. Got it?"

"Yeah yeah, got it."

"People could die, Clara. People will die. I need you there."

"Did you call Avery?"

"You know damn well she wouldn't do this on a last minute whim like this, and she'd stop you if she found out."

Clara laughed, then there was a crash, cursing, and scuffling noises. "Shit, dropped the phone. Fell onto the floor, thank god. Um, yeah sure, I'm getting up."

"And you're sure you'll be sober by the time you get to the meet up?"

"Yeah, mostly."

"I really need your help on this Clara, and... and I know I'm asking a huge favor." Saying that he was asking for a huge favor, was vampire talk for 'I'm super in your debt', like any self respecting mobster.

But Clara just laughed again. "Don't sweat it. These hunters gotta go, and that Angela bitch needs to bleed. I'll be there."

He smiled into the phone. Even Antoinette wouldn't blindly agree to a request like this. She'd argue, or make counter points, or break down the situation and explain how futile it was, in a very matter-of-fact way that wouldn't allow for argument or debate. And she'd probably be right, too. It was in the elder's nature to control everything she touched, being her age and all. Clara, on the other hand, was willing to go with the flow, just because she was his friend. She was so different from Antoinette, in so many ways, in appealing ways.

"No, Clara, I really will owe you, ok? Like, really. This is a life or death situation. You could die. My friends could die. I could die. Anything you want after this, just ask."

"... ok."

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

Damien, Fiona, and the hunter Brace Harcourt, walked through the humid jungle of Fiona's nightmare, on the way to see Azamel. Fiona moved along ahead of them, sharp feet-point things hovering a foot above the mud and roots, while her eight spider legs sticking out of her back walked along the jungle floor, trees, and stone. Her awareness of her surroundings was complete. Even if he'd blind folded her, he was sure she'd still be able to move through the foliage without noise, like a cat using their whiskers to sense what was around their head.

"Are we really bringing him?" Damien said, gesturing to the hunter marching slightly ahead of them.

"He knows where the portal is. And if he can, he'll stop a bunch of hunters from getting in our way."

"He already told us where it is. And you checked, didn't you? Dominated, forced him to speak the truth."

Jack shrugged. "He may have been tricked, too. I wouldn't put it past those two psychopaths to lie to this man, knowing this would happen. And shit might happen. Scratch that, shit will happen. I want him around in case it does." And with another shrug, he nodded toward the hunter's way. "If worst comes to worst, I'll turn him into a wall for us to hide behind."

Harcourt looked back at them, eyes wide, before he squinted and frowned. "I'm trying to help."

The poor hunter squeaked, jumped around, and brought up his hands, ready to karate chop the source of the howl in the night. Just a monkey, Jack was sure, but even Jack felt unnerved by the environment they were walking in. They'd only been in the realm for five minutes, and Fiona assured them it would be a ten minute walk through her chamber to exit into the tunnels with Azamel, but it felt a lot longer. It was a nightmare, after all, not exactly limited to the pure reality of the physical world. A giant jaguar, or insect, or snake, could attack them at any moment, something beyond the power of the normal animal kingdom. Fiona also assured them they were safe, but didn't deny that the jungle held strange terrors.

"You'll forgive me," Jack said with a snarl, "if I don't consider your word terribly reliable. You don't seem to be lying, but that doesn't mean you're trustworthy, that you won't change your mind when it suits you."

The kine rolled his eyes, but kept walking, and his feet went squelch squelch in the shallow mud. "What do I need to do to prove I'm genuinely interested in helping you? Or that I'm good to my word."

"More information, for a start," Jack said. "I've seen the hunters use some knives that kinda glow. What's up with that?"

"Blessed knives. They harm monsters and shit more than regular knives."

"Blessed? Damien here basically lives in a church. Why the fuck would a blessed anything affect us more?"

The hunter could only shrug. "No idea. I've seen monsters ignore crosses, but Jeremiah's shit does work."

Jack stepped in closer to Harcourt, and looked at his neck. "And the tattoos? I've seen tattoos on all of you."

The man winced and stepped away from him, failing to hide a tremble. "Yeah, some of those are Jeremiah's work, and some are Elen's. They help fight off some vampire shit, and a lot of them stop monsters from finding us in our dreams."

Right, right. Jeremiah and his cause were actually centered around killing monsters, not vampires. Vampires were a mild annoyance to him, cockroaches. Monsters were legends to be fought and defeated.

"Ok, better question. How did you become a hunter?"

That got him. Harcourt winced, visibly, through his whole body, and had to take a second with dramatic pause before continuing on. "Vampire did some shit to my family. Ok?"

"Jack," Vrall said, looking over her shoulder at him. Rather, he assumed she was looking at him, since she had no eyes, only the enormous, regal horns that curled backward from her eye sockets and forehead. "I do not sense a... meal, in this man, if that is any help to you."

Vrall fed on people who deserved punishment for being abusive, for being bullies, and being all-around aggressive shits. Far as he could figure, her hunger was something that fed on the psychological aspects of the chosen target. If Harcourt was actually a pretty fucked up, nasty person who liked to use power to abuse people, then Fiona would be able to pick up on it.

What other hungers did monsters have? What other twisted cravings did some of the more fucked up monsters indulge in? Which ones had desires that fit right in a Stephen King book, complete with otherworldly awareness? It made him glad Fiona's was, relatively speaking, nice, because he could still remember the look in Angela's face and her one good eye, when she explained the trauma Athalia had inflicted on her when she was a young girl.

"Vampires did shit to your family? Be specific, Harcourt." Time to push some buttons. He didn't want to, but if he could knock Harcourt off balance, maybe he could get a better look at the man underneath.

"I didn't come to you to pour out my personal bullshit, Jack. I came—"

"Tell me what vampires did to you, Harcourt." And when Harcourt looked over his shoulder at him, Jack stared into the man's eyes. He didn't make the connection, didn't reach into the man's mind and break him. It was a gamble doing that, with the curse fueling his efforts, and he didn't want to violate what little trust the two had between them anyway.

"The fuck do you care?"

"I need to know something about the man I'm working with. Beyond that, you don't need to know. Tell me."

It took a few seconds, but Jack could see the man's will fold. He was trapped in his circumstance, out of his element, and at the mercy of monsters who could do anything to him, physically and mentally. He was afraid. Jack could almost smell the fear, and he could definitely feel it, something the Beast in him recognized and delighted in.

Maybe that's what it felt like to be a Begotten monster, with that feeling dialed up to eleven.

"A vampire killed my parents, ok? Dad saw something he shouldn't, got involved, Mom was there, and the vamp took them out. And... my sisters are vampires now."

"I... damn, that's hard. And your sisters are vampires, not were vampires?"

"Yes, are. I have no idea where they are. If I manage to find them, I'll kill them," the hunter said. Jack couldn't help but wince. Ok, yeah, that was a powerful motivation, having your parents killed and your siblings turned. "Until then, I'm a hunter, hunting all the nasties I can find."

"... except here?"

"Yes, except here. Dolareido's low on the priority list, you know?"

"No, I don't know." He'd assumed, but this was the first time a hunter had ever confirmed.

Harcourt shrugged, and followed after the spider monster half floating ahead of them. "Hunters talk. Words spread. We have groups, organizations, some even say cults, and news spreads along the grapevine. When word comes up about Dolareido, it's usually to leave it alone, like I said. Didn't used to be that way, when some nasty fucker named Lucas was up and about, but word is he's dead."

"That makes sense, I guess." It was a far cry from the advanced communication network of the Invictus, but he supposed the Carthians communicated in a similar way. A lot of word of mouth, and a lot of unorganized information drifting, unfiltered and unconfirmed. Hunches. "And about your sisters. Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why kill your sisters?"

"Because they're vampires. I—"

"That makes no sense. You're willing to give Dolareido a pass because we're not all that bad, but we're vampires, too."

Harcourt shook his head harder, as if the exaggerated movement would lend weight to his words. "I don't know how you do it. That thing inside your guts, that thing that makes you a monster, it does some pretty nasty shit to most vampires. You start treating people like livestock, things to farm and kill at will. Been in a lot of cities where the homicide rate is high, and most of them are vampires killing without remorse. Fuck that, and fuck them."

"How many vampires have you talked to?"

"A couple, before I dusted them. Fucking blood-hungry psychopaths."

Rage crept up Jack's skin, until the telltale sign of his Beast tingled in his fingers, a burning anger that demanded he hurt this man. Of course, that'd be proving the man right, that vampires were just blood-hungry psychopaths, slaves to their Beasts, and unable to stay above its brutal desires.

Jack was so focused on the curse and the things it was doing to him, it was sometimes easy to forget the Beast was, on its own, a problem for all vampires. Dolareido was, by the standard of other cities with a vampire presence, moderately peaceful for both vampires and humans. Killing kine was discouraged. Killing Kindred was basically not allowed, because it'd trigger a war. Hell, there were probably cities with vampires that went unknown, without ever killing a soul, Jack figured. Hard to prove that, though.

How was it, really, in the more violent cities? Did Kindred just, ignore their half human, and let their bloodlust run rampant? Viktor certainly had no issue butchering kine like cattle, but Jack had assumed the curse had something to do with it. It must have. But then, Lucas was bloodthirsty, as was Tony. The stories about them included plenty of murder of kine. If Harcourt was telling the truth, and it seemed like he was, assholes like Tony and Lucas, who had no issue killing humans, were common. Or at least, more common than in Dolareido.

Oh god, Mom. How was she handling the Beast, handling its cravings and desires, its need for blood, and compulsion to establish territory. He hadn't talk to her in a little bit, since she was hanging with the Prince and doing dragon things. He should, he really should. If his mom ended up like Harcourt's sisters, a bloodthirsty psychopath who indulged in killing, he wasn't sure how he'd handle that. He knew Damien and Beatrice had killed kine, kine they didn't need to kill, but kine they felt deserved death anyhow. Antoinette supposedly had a dungeon filled with kine she kept locked up or permanently unconscious.

Kindred, acting like judge, jury, and executioner. What was worse was, Jack didn't blame them.

"Yeah," Jack said. "We can be blood-hungry psychopaths. But we don't have to be. It's a struggle, but we don't have to be."

The human snorted, shrugged with more exaggerated movements that looked like they belonged in a cartoon, and kept walking. "Whatever you say."

The picture was coming into focus, the more this silly man talked. It wasn't like it was a picture Jack hadn't already guessed, that hunters were dangerous humans driven by personal reasons into a rough life of tracking and killing monsters. But seeing this man, who by all accounts seemed like he'd be more comfortable on a stage acting or singing drunk in a bar, ache with what amounted to a cliché story that belonged in a monster movie, put details on what was originally a blurry picture. It wasn't just a cliché story. There were actual humans out there who dedicated their lives to hunting down people like him, for the nasty shit they did, because vampires were no longer human and felt they were in a position to kill humans if they wanted to.

Somewhere, deep down where he didn't like looking, a part of him felt proud of that. Vampires were creatures of the night, literally, and they fed on the humans. They were predators. Humans were prey. Why wouldn't he feel proud that humans feared him?

He sighed and marched on after Fiona. He could wrestle with these issues later.

"Harcourt," Jack said, "this change of heart you had. It seems pretty random."

"Yeah well, kinda had to see a lot of shit to put the picture together. And I made a move tonight because it looked like there were less of your patrols on the street."

That might explain why he came out the same night Tash and Jessy were gone, then.

"Did you... have any sort of indicator beyond what happened at the hospital? Like, maybe something else... random, happened?"

"Ha, if you call a fucked up dream random, sure. I mean, who the fuck wouldn't have nightmares after seeing the fucked up shit you did at the hospital, only to learn your boss is a murdering, raving lunatic?"

Jack smiled. This man really shouldn't be a hunter. Far too outgoing and honest. Hunters were supposed to be surly, stoic, angry, and disturbed. He certainly had the back story to be that sort of man, but he wasn't. There was a personality in there, something with more flair than a mossy rock like Jack expected most hunters to have. How many of the hunters he killed were like this Harcourt?