My Little Ventrue Pt. 07 Ch. 12

He couldn't wait.

The village provided no response to Jack's assault. As his flowing army continued to pour out of the destroyed castle door behind him, and his rats swarmed over the tiny, winding road thousands of feet high on a thin, jutting cliff point, no one stopped them. There were eyes in the windows, but a glance and moment's reach of his senses told him there were no living creatures within the buildings, or unliving. More shadows and illusions, more fake images caused by the nightmare. No human could stay here long without feeling like they were going to be eaten.

The hunters reached the forest, turned around, and started stepping backward into the shadows. As they did, they all unloaded their guns toward the oncoming paranormals, who had closed to the distance to only fifty feet; they were much faster than clumsy, slow kine. Othello and Damien could have caught up to them earlier if Jack had ordered it, but he didn't want those two going in first. Clara could front line, and so could Jack and his army; the others would flank.

And that's exactly what they did. As bullets rained on them by the hunters retreating into the forest, Jack ran forward with his rats scurrying along with him. They were propelled by his will, his need, and their swarming mass worked together to turn themselves into a tide that rose up. Bullets disappeared into the waves of fur, sending blood splattering. The bullets did not last long, as the hunters vanished into the forest, and the trees blocked line of sight.

He managed a glance to Clara. Several bullet wounds decorated her fur, and while most of them healed before his eyes, one upon her shoulder was reluctant to do so. Silver. She didn't let the pain bother her. Good, he'd hate to leave a useful piece like her behind, and a hot piece at that.

"We go slow here," he said as they came to a stop at the forest edge, "one of them still has a flamethrower. Beatrice, you're wounded so you keep an eye on Harcourt for now. If he tries to run, kill him."

"Y-Yeah." She stared at him for a second longer than normal, before she motioned for Othello to set the man down. With the hunter at her side, she waited for everyone else to push into the forest first.

If there ever was a haunted forest, this was it. And, unlike the typical haunted forest with a road to walk down, or a path, this had neither. It was trees pressed to trees, warped trunks giving rise to jagged and sharp bodies and branches, with faces hidden in the bark. Not a leaf in sight. To see movement through the trees was impossible, as ten feet was enough for the thick trees to block off all view with their tight constriction. There was maybe two feet on the ground to move about, two feet of space mixed with roots and dead twigs that provided a choir of noise as the hidden hunters moved through the forest's twisted innards.

It wasn't only the hunters making noise. There were animals in the forest, animals that weren't his. They were as much a part of the nightmare as the trees, and they'd listen to his commandants with the same level of respect. Maybe they'd listen to Sándor, if the beast could be tamed to their cause, instead of the hunter's cause. Maybe not. Either way, they weren't his to command, and many started to disperse deeper into the enormous, endless forest that coated the mountain they stood upon.

His army poured into the woodland, and what was once an impenetrable, unknowable barrier of wood and darkness, became penetrated, and known. Kine would find this mess of forest to be unassailable, and suicidal to enter. To paranormals, this was prime hunting grounds. To him, it was as open as a book, now that his rats and crows flowed between the trees. They chirped, squeaked, cawed, and crowed about the contents, about the trees upon trees upon rocks upon dirt upon trees. They spoke of the hunters, and how they fled as fast as they could, glancing over their shoulders in manic fear as they moved in the same direction. They spoke of Jeremiah, and Angela, heading forward together. They spoke of the limp Angela carried, and how Jeremiah was forced to help her.

Limp. She really wasn't fully healed from their last encounter. Good. Fleeing would be harder for her.

This was how things should be! Kindred, hunting through the dark for their prey, with humans fleeing in terror. None of that ludicrous garbage the Prince pushed for, no. This was how Jacob would have done it, and how the new Jack was going to do it, hunting prey as they went screaming into the night. Fucking orgasmic. The hunters didn't deserve a last stand, a grand battle, anything that would lend satisfaction or gratification to their final moments. They were just vermin to be exterminated, vermin that had infested his world. Hunt them down and kill them off. No epic moments, and no stories to tell. They weren't heroes, they were idiots that wandered into the lion's den. No tales, but maybe a parable, a warning to future generations to not mess with dangers you could not appreciate, dangers in the dark.

Maybe they could pile the bodies high, or skewer their corpses on the trees, as decorations and homecoming gifts for when they inevitably freed Sándor's mind. Surely a nightmare monster would appreciate the gift.

A shame Sándor couldn't join them. He'd bet good money the monster would love to dance in the blood of his captors. Ah well, Jack would have to do it for him. He'd kill the hunters, and if he could catch one, he would Dominate them and make them kill each other, and themselves. Make them drink misery, and look each other in the eye as they ripped each other's guts out.

The vampires snuck through the trees without issue, for the most part. But they were all city vampires, after all, and couldn't help but step on twig. It didn't matter. As thousands of rats swarmed over the roots and earth, any noise the vampires made became irrelevant. Like a hundred horses galloping and creating thunder, the legion of rats filled the air with a sound not unlike raining glass shards, as if someone had shattered a million windows at once, and all anyone could hear was the sound of the bits hitting streets for miles in all directions. The crows were quiet by comparison, and their caws didn't reach the same level of sheer, imposing grandiose allure; that'd change, as more of his flock arrived, and their wings blocked out the moon.

Scully and Mulder cawed from perches above. They knew better than to get into the thick of his army, where their lives were in danger. His two closest pets were not to be wasted.

"Clara," he said to the darkness around him, "we don't have time to be sneaky. Rip it down."

The beautiful choir of rat chirps and the constant rain of their claws on bark and rock, disappeared under the shattering roar of the titan. Clara pushed forward and began to rip the forest apart, literally. Her claws sank into wood and went through it like a knife through flesh, and the forest began to collapse around her as she doubled the speed she moved forward. She'd have gotten stuck eventually anyway, considering how big she was.

And, now that Jack had leverage, he was free to use his own strength. Back in the castle hallway that led to this nightmare, he couldn't really get a grip on anything. But here, surrounded by trees, physics were on his side. He reached forward, put his hands between two trees, pointed outward, and spread his arms. He didn't have the sheer weight and velocity to his movements Clara did, or claws for that matter, but there was one simple, undeniable fact, that he was delighted to show off.

He was stronger than the huge beast currently ripping the forest down.

Othello, the oldest of his crew, and a Daeva to boot, with natural strength coursing through him by the power of his blood clan, wouldn't stand five seconds against Jack. Clara, who was probably stronger than Othello in her transformed state, wouldn't last ten. If he could get his hands on them, get a good grip, get his fingers wrapped around something vital, it'd be all over. He'd crush them like a grape, like he did that hunter in the hospital. For now, tearing the forest down would have to do.

He heard a gasp from behind him, Harcourt's, and Jack glanced over his shoulder to laugh at the man, as Jack spread his arms out completely, causing the weaker of the trees to crack, break, and begin to fall. The dark trees were two feet thick, tough as nails, and they fought to stay standing, but that was the fun part. If they just broke like twigs, it wouldn't make any difference. The fact that he and Clara were tearing the whole damn forest down as they chased after the hunters, a strong, sturdy forest, turned the hunt into a theatrical affair of booms and screams.

Screams? Ah, yes, one of the hunters, the closest one, was pinned under one of the trees. Yeap, that was a broken leg, and probably broken hip or something too. The man was trapped under one of Clara's trees, and she pushed past the victim, stepping onto the tree as she continued forward, ignoring a free kill.

That wouldn't do, not at all.

"Harcourt! You gotta do something! Please!" The man held his hand out for his fellow hunter.

"Jack," Harcourt said, desperation in his eyes, "that's Larry! Let him—"

Jack laughed, pointed a palm at the man, and unleashed Hell. Rats poured over the downed hunter like piranha, and the screams turned into shrieks of agony as hundreds of teeth bit down into his clothes and flesh. Shrieks turned into gargled noise that no human mouth or throat could create, and seconds after, silence.

"They had their chance, Harcourt." It didn't make any sense to spare the ones that surrendered now. What kind of message would that be sending? That Jack was soft. Couldn't have that.

He stepped over the corpse, still teeming with rats, and continued on. The squeaks of his army were a mix of satisfaction over the meal, and information about the forest they moved through. The hunters had given up trying to shoot behind them, and were doing their best to move toward somewhere in the forest as fast they could. But the forest was so tight, even his crows had trouble navigating it from above.

Scully and Mulder did their best to provide him with more detailed information. All they could see of the strange nightmare forest was its size, and how it went on endlessly, consuming the mountain as it descended into fog, miles down. No doubt the nightmare was localized to the village and the forest on its edge, and the hunters wouldn't be able to keep going without running into some sort of impassible barrier.

So where were they going? He couldn't wait to find out.

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~~Beatrice~~

She was following a demon.

She'd seen Viktor get angry before, and do some pretty nasty shit. She'd seen Tony and him get into scuffles before. She'd seen Tony and Garry throw down on occasion, and really tear up a place. When elder vampires decided to get physical, shit got crazy. They wielded insane power, to the point it could be hard to really appreciate.

What Jack was doing was at least on that level, if not a level past. This was some Jacob-level shit, and she'd seen Jacob throw a punch when he beat Art and Matt into the ground like children. Hell, this display of Jack's was something Jacob would have struggled to do, probably. The little guy was marching through the woods, and tearing down enormous trees, while commanding an army of literal thousands. When he managed to get between a couple trees so he could get his footing, he pushed them down and broke them even faster than the giant werewolf ripping the forest open did.

Ventrue did not have the natural strength of Nosferatu or Daeva. They could develop it, sure, but they never came to it with the same ease like Beatrice or Othello, or Jacob or the Prince would. What Jack was doing was the territory of Jacob's strength, and the Prince's. The summoning he was doing was something only Viktor could have rivaled, and she doubted he could match it. Good fucking god, she pitied whatever fucker had to suffer Jack's Dominate.

Fuck her, she should have stayed back with Jennifer, guarding the two hunters who'd given up. She could be keeping the second portal open, like Aaron was.

No. No, no no no, she had to come. She had to see this through. She had to kill Angela. And, she had to make sure Jack came back from this, and more than just alive. No way in fucking hell, could she let this fucking abomination go walking around in Jack's skin.

God, Julias, what have I done to your childe?

"Stay out of his way and shut up," she said to Harcourt. The two of them were relegated to following the crew now, and she was kind of happy she was. She didn't want to be upfront with the kid, not anymore. Clara was beside him, ripping down trees and charging forward, but she wasn't making quite the same impact Jack was, as the kid pushed trees down like a child marching his toy dinosaur through a Lego city he'd made expressly for the purpose of smashing. Othello and Damien had stopped trying at some point, and had taken up defensive positions right behind the leading two, ready to leap out and attack any hunters who got caught.

The first hunter who did get caught, Larry apparently, was nothing more than bone and strips of shredded clothes, as they stepped over him. Harcourt put a hand to his mouth, gagged, vomited, cried, and pushed on, all in six seconds. Well, she had to give it to him, he had resolve to be able to experience all that and keep going.

"You have no idea where your buddies are going?" she said.

"No. Jeremiah and Elen had lots of secrets, you know? We... we never got to see everything. They were always protective of their secrets, and they only let us know about the... sacrifices, after we'd been with the group for some time."

"Pretty fucking stupid, to work for a boss who sacrifices people as part of their magic."

"Fight fire with fire, was their plan."

Snarling, she pushed her shirt up a little and ran a claw along her stomach. The cut was still there, but at least it had closed, Kindred blood pulling the threads of her skin together to keep her guts from falling out. But it was only skin deep. Her insides were not happy with her, and if she dared do something stupid like run or jump, she might lose a spleen. She was an undead creature, and a withered, useless spleen falling out of her wasn't exactly a big deal, but fuck, it would have hurt. And even an undead creature like her would die a second death with enough structural damage.

"So, because some psychopath told you they were fighting fire with fire, you thought it was cool to start sacrificing people you stole off the street, so you could divine information from their guts, and use their blood to open portals into a literal flesh chamber, some sort of pocket dimension thing, crafted by a witch?"

"Fuck you, I'm here, aren't I?" He wiped his mouth off, and hopped from one fallen tree to the next. "Marge and Dennis are going to live, and that makes this worth it." Marge and Dennis were the names of the two hunters with brains, then.

"Yeah, well, if things—"

Jack and Clara, and the army of rats and birds came to a stop. A clearing sat before them, fully exposed now that Clara and Jack had pushed all the trees in the path down. Most of the trees. Some trees in the path still stood, but as Clara and Jack tried to reach the few remaining, they couldn't. And those trees had corpses nailed to them.

Everyone other than Jack and Clara found trees to hide behind, and there were plenty with the forest still surrounding them. But pushing further ahead seemed to have come to a stop. Clara slammed her hands against the air, and Triss could hear the impact, as if the werewolf were hitting some sort of super hard, perfectly clear plastic.

Damien spun around, eyes on the ground. "Look for an amber light, or circle!"

Everyone did, but no amber light made an appearance, for the first few seconds. But an amber glow eventually did start to arise from between the fallen bark and branches, a line that stretched wide, until it circled the hunters and the clearing they were standing in.

No gunfire came, despite Jack and Clara being out in the open, with only the few trees beyond the protecting line between them and the hunters. A few trees, with bodies nailed to them, were paltry defensive against assault rifles, but the hunters didn't take a shot. The group of kine were huddled together in the center of the clearing, surrounded by trees with, what Triss had to guess, were sacrifices crucified upon them. In the clearing, a dozen hunters had their guns pointed at Jack and the werewolf, but Jeremiah and Angela were rooting through some bags sitting on the dirt.

Elen, in her wheelchair, was holding a small knife. Triss couldn't see the handle, but from how the blade gleamed and showed a few decorations along its length, she imagined a host of nasty witchcraft had been done with that blade. A glance at the corpses on the trees proved it; they all had symbols carved into their skin.

In the center of the clearing, a large stone stood, flat, rectangular, and pointing toward the sky at an angle. Elen and the others were ignoring it; apparently it wasn't the reason they'd come to the clearing. But Beatrice couldn't look away from it.

On the slab of stone, a giant sheet of skin was plastered, human skin that'd been cut free from a body. And on that, was another one of Elen's fancy emblems, large, complicated, circular and filled with dozens of symbols.

"I recognize that symbol," Jack said over his shoulder to the crew. "That's the symbol on Sándor's back."