My Little Ventrue Pt. 07 Ch. 14

Only Damien and Jack remained then, and in a battle of brute strength, a Mekhet was borderline useless, especially without his sword. The gargoyle's skin had been difficult enough to penetrate, which led it to getting stuck in the creature's side when Damien had first stabbed it. Jack had taken advantage of it, but that had likely damaged the sword's integrity. Of course it would break, after stabbing it into bone that may as well have been metal.

Jack. The demon stepped closer to the hole Clara had dug, closer, and closer still. All the while, he stared at the gargoyle, a grin on his face and his arms at his sides, palms pointed forward as if ready to catch someone's charge. Pointless. The gargoyle was big enough, strong enough, and heavy enough, that it'd turn the boy into paste if it charged him into the invisible barrier at Jack's back.

Damien went rigid. His hands clasped tight the ugly, hostile tree beside him. His fingers scraped against the harsh bark. He forced himself to crouch low to the branch as a black poison crept up his body, up his feet and into his spine, up his fingers and into his neck. What was that? Good Lord, what was that?

His eyes fell on Jack, and froze. Something was happening to him. Something was twisting and churning inside Jack, something invisible, something that felt black and... and... angry? Was angry the word? It felt aggressive, and hateful, but not in a vindictive way. Then maybe angry wasn't the word. Explosive, hostile, ready to burn everything around it in a display of fury and... and... intense violence and ferocity.

He reached for his vitae, and enabled Auspex. The world changed for him, for his eyes, shadows peeling away slightly, and subtle glows circling everything that lived. Natasha could see in true dark with her Auspex, a freak mutation, or possible gift, of her bloodline. But for most Mekhet, Auspex was used to see the truth in other creatures or objects. At its most basic level, it could be used to spot a Kindred hiding with Obfuscate such as Cloak of Night, and it could be used to sense the power and disposition of nearby Kindred.

Whatever was inside Jack, whatever was piloting his body like a puppet, was doing something, something horrible. He shivered, remembering how Azamel described it, and gulped down the growing fear in his gut as Auspex showed the strange, pulsing aura around Jack. It burned Damien's eyes, but he kept them open, locked onto the boy as Sándor's Horror grew faster, and faster, until it was running at him with a gait only a charging dinosaur could have mimicked, leaning forward with its tail swaying behind it. Its wings were tucked tight to its back, and each step it made send vibrations pulsing through the earth.

"Hit me. Come on, hit me! Hit me!" The kid stomped a foot once, and laughed.

Damien almost said something, almost yelled, almost told Jack to run, almost ruined his hidden position. But he didn't. Not because he was afraid for Jack's life; he was, but that didn't sew his lips. The aura emanating from the boy, the strange, burning sensation that pulsed outward, that burned his eyes and his core, terrified him. There was no other way to think of the cold pain coursing through him, juxtaposed against the searing heat that poured from the boy. It wasn't heat, it was rage, fury, a need for violence that his senses could only interpret as a scalding heat that threatened to kill him if he came too close.

His jaw dropped, and he almost gasped, as the gargoyle smashed into Jack. The titan was enormous, too enormous. In the madness of collision, Jack disappeared beneath the mass of the Horror, and the world erupted into vibration as the creature struck the invisible barrier. It was like watching a transport truck crash into a mountain. The crows that filled the trees, the ones closest to the circle of destruction, erupted upward, joining the clouds above as they blocked out what little starlight and moonlight was visible. Damien held tight to the tree as the following wave of vibration soaked up through his shoes and hands, and into his teeth.

The gargoyle spread its wings, stabilizing itself after the impact. It took a single step back from where its body collided with the invisible wall, and three of its arms pressed hands against the barrier. It had hit the barrier hard, obviously not aware of its presence. Any other creature would have smashed a dozen bones from the sudden stop, but the gargoyle looked perfectly intact.

Jack, was crushed underneath one of its fists.

"Oh... no." Damien looked around quickly, eyes snapping, panic gripping him. Shit. Shit shit shit. If Jack died, everything was over. Escape? He could run away. Yes, he could run and hide. He was good at that. Did it for fifty years. Maria would understand. There—

No, don't be ridiculous. Calm down, and think. Jack had stood there, and invited the creature to charge him. You've seen what the curse can do, the power it could summon. Jack isn't dead.

He knew it was true. Jack wasn't dead, because he could still feel that black, searing, inhuman, invampire rage pouring out of him.

Sure enough, as the chaos settled, Damien focused his vision on the gargoyle, and noticed movement underneath the fist it had planted against the barrier. Jack. The gargoyle's fist was nearly the size of Jack's torso, and it was planted firmly into the boy's chest, pinning him to the wall. It'd punched him. The gargoyle, charging like a bull with the weight of a truck, had punched Jack, poured his mass and strength into it, and flattened the kid into the barrier.

Except, Jack was still alive. He wasn't ash. He was there, behind this fist, and with a growing smile, the kid raised his arms around the fist, and set his hands upon it.

Blood began to pour out of the boy, dark red, and angry. It leaked from him, from his mouth, from his nostrils, from his ears, and from his eyes. It leaked out from where the Horror had crushed his chest into the barrier, spilling over the monster's fingers and into its fist. It leaked from the boy's undoubtedly crushed waist, and down his legs.

But not a drop hit the ground. It seeped, flowed, and began to fly. It sought its master, bound to his skin, and covered him, coating him until pale flesh was hidden behind a crimson wall. It binded to him, showing pockets of skin as it began to run along his body, coursing unendingly.

The gargoyle roared in pain, after Jack lifted his right hand, and brought it down on the fist. It backed off, but Jack held on; big as the gargoyle was, it wasn't so big that Jack couldn't hold onto its wrist with his left hand. Cackling madly, Jack brought his right hand down again, held in a fist and swung like a hammer. This time, Damien could see the gargoyle's finger break, earning another deathly roar from the creature.

The Horror stepped back again, and brought all three free hands down toward Jack, palms open. It was going to remove Jack, like a pesky bug that'd gotten stuck between its fingers. But as they descended upon the boy, Jack reached up and grabbed some of the incoming fingers from two of its hands. Crack, crunch, followed by more roars of pain. He didn't have enough hands to stop them all, though, and the third hand managed to grab Jack's body, and sank claws into him. It didn't matter. The red blood flowing over the boy's skin gushed into the holes the Horror made, and forced the claws out of his body.

Damien knew what this was. He'd never seen anyone perform the ability, though from what Jack told him, his sire had managed it for a few moments before death. To tap into his vitae, summon it, and infuse blood with it so the crimson liquid coated and protected him, was not a feat done easily, or for long.

Two crows next to Damien poked at his jacket.

"Ow!" he whispered. "What—oh." Mulder and Scully. They poked and pecked several more times, before they flew to another tree, this one across the clearing of destroyed forest, and much closer to the hole Clara had been digging. It wasn't like Damien could break through the barrier, and without a proper explosive, it'd be difficult to create the explosion of force needed to—

The explosion had been created. The Horror's charge into the barrier had shook the entire, cursed nightmare. Now all he had to do, was see what damage had been done. Was that Jack's idea, or the curse's?

He closed his eyes for a moment, tapped deep into his body, dug up his vitae, and infused it into his limbs. Speed. He needed speed. As he felt the tingling sensation of glorious, overwhelming speed demand action, he spun more vitae out of him, around him, and buried himself with his Obfuscate. He was getting tired. He'd launched several attacks on this creature tonight, and had barely done anything to it. But it didn't matter. This needed to happen, or everything would be for naught.

He set a foot against the tree behind him, and forced as much vitae and strength into his leg as he could, and jumped. Air greeted him, the familiar sensation of jumping through the sky. Roof hopping was a common mode of transportation for Mekhet and Nosferatu, but landing on a rooftop was a hundred times easier than landing in the high branches of sharp, twisted, brittle trees.

His boots slid against a fat branch, his target. His hands caught the trunk, but inertia made sure the rest of him hit it anyway. He thudded against it quietly, quiet enough only a keen beast would notice, and the gargoyle was far too distracted by its battle with Jack to notice something like a Mekhet sneaking through the trees above it.

Jack continued to hold onto the gargoyle's wrist, and as it swung its arm around in an attempt to dislodge the small boy, Jack held on. The Horror gave up moments later, and again slammed Jack into the invisible barrier, open palm, like crushing an egg. Blood splattered outward from the impact, and Damien swore he could see Jack's body momentarily implode. A second later, it filled itself out, and the blood that erupted from the boy's body forced itself back into him.

The kid brought up both hands above his head, created a single fist, and slammed them down against the gargoyle's wrist. Crack. The snap of its enormous bones was audible, as if Jack had cracked a steel beam in half. The gargoyle backed away yet again, leaving Jack to fall to the ground as it grabbed its hand, roaring in pain and surprise. And fear.

A sharp pain in Damien's ear earned a wince, and he snapped his eyes around. A crow sat upon a small, nearby branch, and flapped its wings several times before pointing down at the hole not far from where Jack was fighting the monster. It wasn't a deep hole. Clara hadn't been able to make much progress in the single minute she'd had to dig at it, at least not relative to her size. She was a huge creature, and she needed room to be able to throw her weight against the wall of dirt in hopes of breaking the barrier, a plan she never got the chance to enact.

If Jack's plan had failed, they were screwed. Lord why, why didn't you give him a sign to bring a blasted grenade? Maybe he should go back to the hunter Clara killed at the door. She might have had a grenade. Or the hunter crushed in the forest, they... they were buried under half a dozen trees now.

Groaning and rolling his eyes, he hopped down from branch to branch, and poured every ounce of vitae he had into his Cloak. He couldn't allow himself to be spotted. If Jack's plan had been successful, this was their only chance to stop Jeremiah.

On the way down, he spotted Triss and Harcourt. The human was hiding well, like a soldier in a trench, far from home. Triss was recovering, but it was obvious to see she was out of commission. She wouldn't be fighting anymore tonight. Considering the very young Nosferatu had managed to do far more damage to the gargoyle than he, or even the far older Daeva had, she'd done more than enough. And if Harcourt so much as earned a stern look from the gargoyle, he'd likely explode violently. He wouldn't be fighting, either.

Damien crawled past them, inching carefully over bark and twigs and dead rats. Better to not let them see him, lest they give his position away. Then again, it might not have mattered, considering what Jack was doing. The plan Jack was communicating to his crows, somehow, in the middle of battle, with a Horror, was to investigate the place Clara had been attempting to break the infuriating barrier the hunters had created. Checking the barrier in a stealthy manner was to his advantage, to avoid drawing the Horror's attention, but then again, Jack was currently in the process of bashing the creature's arm in. Attention drawn.

The gargoyle stumbled back again, and Jack, now dropped to the ground, jumped after it. His skin, his suit, all of it swirled and flowed with the dark liquid, and the holes the gargoyle had put into the boy filled in. For a moment, Damien could see bone, but it disappeared under the red, only for a layer of skin to appear a second later. His body had been crushed to utter oblivion, but now the boy was walking around as if nothing had happened. His suit told another story, with a few dozen breaks from where the gargoyle's attack had punctured and tore it.

Julias would not have survived that. Viktor would have struggled to survive that. Jack walked it off.

The demon landed between the beast's legs, and now protected by his shield of blood and death, the creature within him unleashing its violent need, he went on the offensive. He dove for the monster's right leg, and punched at the knee. He hit the knee on the inside, and sent the monster down onto its hip as it collapsed, weight giving way. The impact launched Jack backward hard, and his back bounced against the Horror's other leg. But, as the gargoyle fell, landing on its palms, Jack dashed around its legs to get underneath its torn neck, and he punched upward.

The result was absurd. Little Jack. Tiny, skinny little Jack in his torn up suit, gave the goliath monstrosity an uppercut, and because the upward force drove Jack's weight into the ground, he was anchored. The full might of the demon child's punch connected to the gargoyle's jaw, and the colossal creature went upright with the force of it, before falling backward over its own legs. It crumbled onto its back and right side, and tore at the ground with its arms as it struggled to get back up.

But Jack didn't let it. The kid ran around, got underneath its chest, and punched upward again. And again, the explosive force sent the creature up and back, half rolling over itself. The creature weighed thousands and thousands of pounds, and Jack was punching it hard enough to almost send it in the air. The second punch earned another audible crack, followed by a shrieking roar that threatened to burst ear drums.

"Don't get me wrong!" Jack said, laughing between his movements as he jumped after the creature. "I don't want to hurt you, nightmare. I respect the Begotten, to a degree. And you are a certifiably badass, deadly creature. I don't want to kill you. But I will if I have to." The demon boy jumped around to its head again, and came from above this time, slamming both hands down on it. The impact was enough to send the gargoyle down onto its chest, and head into the ground hard enough Damien felt the impact. It also sent Jack into the air, high into the air, propelled upward by his own strength.

The curse controlling Jack, and infusing him with absurd vigor, may have had the power to Dominate anyone, control an entire legion of creatures, and perform true feats of strength Damien doubted Jacob or the Prince could match, but balance and dexterity were skills of finesse, timing, and practice. Jack spun around in the air, a dozen times, before gravity eventually took hold of him and brought him down. Damien would have landed on his feet. Jack landed on his ass.

That didn't matter to the new Jack. He laughed, a joyful, arrogant, ruthless sound, and hopped up once again. Crimson continued to coat him, protected him, repaired him, and fueled him. But it did nothing for his reflexes. The gargoyle got to one knee, and swept its tail with a twist of its body. Crack, a whip snap, like the one that had hit Triss and broke her.

Jack took it straight on, and Damien could see his body fold in half before the tail launched him into a distant tree. It was like seeing a baseball bat hit a ball hard enough to drive it through the stadium itself. Sure enough, Jack hit the so hard, he went through it. More than go through it, the trunk shattered around him like a brick through glass, and Jack disappeared into the dark wood beyond.

Damien froze and stared, forcing his body to hold still as he crept toward the pit Clara had dug. The silence that followed the explosion was deafening, but it wasn't the hit that Jack took that shook him to his core. It was the laughter that followed, a creepy, insidious laugh, that felt right at home surrounded by the horrible trees, the corpses, and the destruction. It wasn't the gargoyle laughing. That would have sounded louder, and more animal. This laugh came from the shadows beyond, from within the forest, from where Jack had landed.

Several enormous trees, lying on their sides, rolled over each other, as the small Kindred pushed the insane weight off of him. Body a broken mess, suit half ripped off, exposing his chest and right arm, Jack stepped over the ruins of wood, and walked back toward the gargoyle. Damien could see bone through holes left on his body, holes that quickly filled with the crimson liquid. He could see gashes seal, and he only realized it once it was healed, but Jack's right foot had been twisted almost completely around. It snapped back into place as if someone had grabbed it, and literally screwed it back into the correct position, like twisting a cork.

A chunk of the boy's face had lost its skin, and Damien stared at the demon child as blood flowed up and down Jack's cheek, hiding the eye socket, cheek bone, jaw, and teeth that'd been exposed a moment before. Soon, skin once again covered the wound. And, judging by the sadistic smile the boy now sported, his face was completely healed.

Jack licked his lips, threw off the tattered remains of his suit jacket, and marched toward the gargoyle. "That the best you got? Fucking pathetic."