My Little Ventrue Pt. 07 Ch. 17

The bullet hit Angela's head, and came out the back end, with all the horrific detail Triss didn't want to see anymore. She forced herself to watch, forced herself to meet Angela's dying gaze, and watch the light leave her eyes as her brains splattered the wall behind her. The pistol fell from her hand. The world ceased to be for a few seconds, an empty void of nothingness left in the wake of the gunshot. Vengeance had. Mission successful.

All she felt, was cold.

The pistol hit the wood of the stage, and Athalia shrieked. Her alien voice, fucking freaky as it was, sounded a hundred times worse as the Begotten erupted into horrible cries of rage and sadness. So much for victory. So much for feeling satisfied. All she could feel, was the cries of agony of Athalia, and not because of empathy. She didn't care about Athalia, not a lot, at least, but the mother's desperate screams captured the empty feeling overwhelming Triss's insides. This sucked.

"Trissy, really?" Snorting, Jack kicked Angela's leg, hard enough that it snapped up over her other leg, and hip. Crack. "We could have had fun with her. I was looking forward to making her rip her fingernails off."

"You said you wouldn't kill her, if she was defeated!" Athalia screamed.

"And you said you'd come help us catch her." Jack turned on his heel, like he was dancing, and marched over to Athalia. "We could have died, because of you. Give me one reason I shouldn't—"

The church doors opened. Beatrice knew who it was before the two became visible. The presence of the two vampires approaching the church had been massive, and obvious.

The Prince and the sheriff stepped into the church, Daniel first, with his ridiculously long sword held ready. Antoinette was only a foot behind him, and Triss smiled as she realized the Prince wasn't wearing any shoes or socks. Well, it did kind of make sense. Shoes, even combat boots, paled in comparison to the grip and feedback actual feet provided. And it wasn't like stepping on broken glass or a nail would stop an elder.

"Annie! Dan. Didn't expect you guys to come with Azamel. Didn't expect Azamel to get involved at all, really." Jack offered the two of them a small wave, before he unleashed a heavy kick into the enormous skeleton monster's skull. If he'd been heavier, he could have put more power into it, and likely pierced the bone. But he only used enough strength to send the huge skull away from him several feet, and earn a grunt from the still weeping mothe—woman.

Triss stayed on the stage, and watched the train wreck unfold before her. Daniel looked ready to fight, eyes locked solidly on Jack. Antoinette looked like she was ready to deliver a hard speech in a board meeting. Both looked ready to kill.

"Where's Elen?" Jack said. "I left her on the ground, when I knew you two were following me. Tempted to kill her, but, you know, she could be useful."

The two elders looked between each other, each offering only the tiniest sliver of shock through their expressions, before they both solidified to stone again.

"Jack," Antoinette said, taking several steps forward. "The battle is over. Jeremiah is dead, and... so is Angela." Her guard was up, weight on the balls of her feet, and vitae coursing through her. Didn't need Auspex to feel the power flowing from her. She'd come ready for a fight, and for a moment, Triss couldn't figure out why. Did she expect to fight Athalia, or the two final hunters? No...

She'd come ready to fight Jack.

"Yeap. Mission successful. Though I'm wondering about this bitch right here." Again, Jack kicked Athalia, this time one of her enormous arms. Same result. Her arm flung away from the impact, crashing into some pews and knocking them over. If there was any wiggle room in Jack's Dominate for her to try and resist, or at least not flop around like a dying fish, she didn't use it. She lay there, sobbing, and turned her head toward the stage.

This whole fucking night sucked, and it was only getting worse.

"This is... Athalia, I imagine," Antoinette said. "What has she done?"

"Tried to save her daughter. Bailed out on helping us. I'm thinking, I'll break every finger in this monster body of hers. Teach her to—"

"Jack." Antoinette came closer, and stared down at the boy as she came within arm's reach of him. "She was a mother who wanted to spare her daughter. And you should spare her."

"What? Why the fuck would I do that? She—"

"Jack." She came in closer again, until only a foot separated her from the tiny, shirtless Ventrue. "You would not harm Athalia."

Jack stepped back. Triss couldn't see his face from where she was on the stage, but the body language was clear: startled, and then annoyed.

"Are you shitting me, Prince? She nearly got my crew killed. I could have died. Me. Me! I could have died because of her selfishness." The hypocrisy of the statement was probably lost on the curse.

"Jack... she is just a mother, who wanted to save her daughter. Surely you must be able to understand that."

The kid swung his arm out in front of him, dismissing her words as if they were utter insanity. "She's a fucking... traitor... and..."

It didn't come quickly, like Triss thought it might. Slowly, as if waking up from a dream, Jack looked around at the mess around him, the destroyed pews, the weeping monster, and the two bodies on the church stage. It was a sickening scene, and Triss found herself taking a step away from the two dead kine, as if she'd committed a crime. She hadn't, she knew that, but that didn't change that the scene of the two dead hunters was a sobering sight.

Sobering for more than just her. Jack looked up to her where she was, still on the stage, then to the bodies, then to Antoinette and Daniel, then back down to Athalia.

"I... I uh..." He teetered for a moment, before reaching to grab his side, as if he'd been stabbed. "I... I'm not... I won't..." His other hand found his head, and he rubbed his hair in that way he always did, as he stared down at Athalia. "I... won't... won't..."

After taking a deep, pointless breath, Beatrice walked through the pews, down to Athalia, around her, and then to Jack. "It's over, man. It's... it's over."

Jack looked up to her, eyes wide with panic. He blinked a hundred million times, before looking to the stage again, and the two corpses there. It was a long moment of silence, except for Athalia's sobs, before Jack, trembling, took a few steps closer to Athalia's giant skull.

"You're... released."

The skeleton creature sat up, stared at the small boy standing beside her, and the world froze again. The tension was there, Triss could feel it, a string ready to snap. If it did, Athalia would attack, maybe try and slice Jack open. Maybe try and slice her open? Unless someone jumped in the way, Triss would get cut to ribbons if the giant, half-body skeleton creature nailed her with one set of those claws.

As the monster got up onto her hands, and her strange bone wings spread out behind her, she stared at Beatrice. And, Beatrice met her gaze, for a few seconds at least. There wasn't much to say. 'I'm sorry I killed your daughter'. 'Be happy I didn't torture her'. 'Be especially happy I didn't let Jack torture her'. 'I hate you for defending your psychopath offspring'. 'I can't imagine the pain you're going through'. It'd have all been empty words. There was no way anything Triss said could have come across as anything other than insulting, pandering, bullshit.

The best she could manage, was a few seconds of eye contact with the strange monster, and her two white dots for eyes inside her large, shadowy eye sockets. Then, she lowered her gaze, and lowered her guard as well. Yeap, she was done. Take your shot, Athalia, if you really want it.

The skeleton stared at her for many long, painful seconds, before she walked past her. She had no legs, so her huge hands were her legs, and her palms didn't make a sound as she walked across the church floor toward her daughter's corpse.

"We... we should... go," Jack said. Jack, the real Jack, the original, and not the curse that made Beatrice want to run in the opposite direction every time they met eyes, said that. Thank god. Thank fucking god.

It was over. Fucking finally, it was over. Are you happy now, Julias? Probably not.

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~~Jack~~

Are you happy now, Julias? Did I do good? Was it worth it?

Whether Athalia left the gateway open, or had reopened it, he didn't know, but the hole in the grave was still there. Daniel went in first, then him, then Antoinette and Beatrice. As they jumped in, he could hear Athalia screaming in the church, weeping, and shrieking. It sounded like his sister did, his ghost sister, the wailing screams of a banshee.

He was going to be sick. He was a vampire, a corpse, and unless he Blushed Life, he wasn't going to be vomiting. But even without the Blush, he felt sick, to his bones, to his soul.

"I was... awake," he said, once the four of them were back in the forest of Sándor's nightmare. "Aware, I mean. I... I saw everything. I remember everything. I—where's Elen?"

"We can discuss the shaman later," Antoinette said. "But know that she is detained."

Jack looked up at the white-haired vampire, and caught her glance for a moment. There was something there, in her gaze, that told him she wasn't saying everything, and hiding even more than was obvious.

"Triss, you good to walk?" he said, looking back over his shoulder.

He almost wished he didn't. Of course she'd seen all the shit he'd done, the destruction he'd created, and the pain he'd inflicted. Hell, she'd probably been hoping he'd have been as nasty as he was, at first. As the mission went on, he could see her resolve waning, the more people died, the more horrible things got. And at the end there, when he'd tried to goad her into having a torture-fest, that conversation stuck out in his memories and made him sick. Really, really fucking sick.

Angela was dead, though. Beatrice killed her; even got to have some final words, too. He felt happy about that. Athalia was devastated, and he felt horrible about that. Jeremiah was dead, killed by Sándor, who apparently had more reasons than they realized to want the man dead. He felt good about that. But, Azamel had been seriously injured by Jeremiah and his crazy ritual. He felt sad about that. Much as Azamel was a bitch, she wasn't nearly as bad as Jeremiah thought she was.

"Yeah, I'm good," Triss said. She tried to meet his eyes, but it didn't last. Thinking the same thoughts he was, probably. Mission successful, but it didn't feel as good as they'd hoped.

It took a few minutes to get back to the clearing where all the shit had gone down. The fire was out, and the smell of cinders was in the air. As they broke through the walls of trees and into the open space, the damage the fire had done, and the much greater damage Jack and Sándor's Horror had done, looked like a scar on the land. If it'd been real, people would have assumed a bomb had gone off, a big one, the kind used to blow up large buildings. But it wasn't real, and even as Jack walked toward the clearing where Sándor stood, he noticed some of the damage was repairing itself. It was subtle, hidden, but in the corner of his eyes, he could see the trees regrowing, reforming, along with the grass.

Mulder and Scully came to him, as he knew they would. When they perched on his bare shoulders, they weren't as gentle as they should have been, and he winced as their claws scratched his skin. But it was understandable. They both crooned and crowed, and rubbed their heads against his neck and ears.

"I'm fine, guys, I'm fine." They didn't seem convinced. Or maybe, they were happy he was back, and not the other Jack. "You guys were great tonight, really great. That... that other... Jack, he... he didn't..." With a heavy hand, Jack gestured to the dead rats and crows that littered the forest floor. "Don't listen to other Jack, if it puts your lives on the line, ok?" They both nodded, as if they knew who other Jack was, and what kind of villain he was. "Do me a favor, if you're up to it? Get Aaron, Jen, and her prisoners, ok?"

The two crows nodded, and took off. Mulder remained for a few seconds though, and Jack could see he was hesitant to leave him; worried, about him. Jack leaned his head toward the bird, and nudged his nose into his friend's neck until the bird eventually took off.

With both birds gone, he scanned the clearing for his crew. Harcourt was hiding behind a tree, but in reality, everyone was just ignoring him for now. Clara, in her human form, stood by the altar, and she was looking over Othello, who sat against the side of the big rock. He was still in torpor, but at least he was out of the tree, and the hole in his chest seemed smaller than the branch he'd been skewered on would have left. Maybe Clara gave him some of her blood.

More surprising was Damien, and Fiona. Judging by how Fiona scooped Damien off the altar rock and clutched him close, borderline panic blatant on her spider legs and clutching arms, she'd just arrived. She wasn't crying, but she was close, and she trembled a little as she clutched the vampire tight to her body.

"Jack!" she said, turning her head to stare at him; he thought. She had no eyes, so knowing if she was staring was hard to do. "Jack, you... you're..." Vrall's voice was so different to Fiona's, it took a second for him to adjust.

"Angela's dead," he said, and he couldn't keep a sigh out of the proclamation. "All the hunters are dead." Barring those still in the city, or captured. No need to bring them up and ruin the victory.

Fiona's smile brightened, and she nodded before tightening her grip on the vampire. "And Athalia?"

"Alive, and unharmed. And..." His head dropped again. Neck pain was in his future, if tonight continued as it did. "She tried to save her daughter, but... but..." She could have attacked him, in the church. She didn't. Much as she loved her daughter, she wasn't willing to attack Jack. At first he thought it was because she was afraid of the curse, but in retrospect, Athalia would have fought a volcano if it meant saving her daughter, under normal circumstances. No, she didn't hit him, because he wasn't her enemy.

And they'd killed her daughter anyway. He winced and glanced back at Triss. She had the same look in her eyes he knew he probably did. Guilt. They shouldn't feel guilty. They'd saved other Kindred from these hunters, and got revenge on a woman who was a psychopath and needed to be put down anyway. Guilt was the last thing they should have been feeling. But the sounds Athalia had made, and the destroyed look in her alien eyes, had been horrible.

The whole fucking night was horrible.

The gargoyle turned to face them, but once he saw them, and the blood covering them, he looked satisfied. He got to his knees beside Azamel, and set one of his many hands on her side.

Azamel. Jack gulped as he stepped around her titanic leg, and moved in front of her. She was on her side, breathing, but it didn't sound good. Who the fuck knew what a monster like this would sound like when breathing normally, but she sounded exhausted, and beaten. Her eyes were open, and Jack shivered as he came in close to her face, and those huge eyes. Her tusks were big enough that he had to step around them, as well.

"How you doing, Azamel?" he said.

The elephant creature tried to laugh, a quiet — relative to her usual noises — trumpeting noise, before her trunk went still again. "I live."

"You sure?" He offered his best, goofy smile, anything to ease the tension and sorrow grating at his insides. "You look like hell."

A quiet chuckle from the monster announced his success. "Yes, but I do live... for now." She tried to sit up, but even with four hands pressing on the grass, she couldn't get her body upright.

"Are you—"

"I will heal, little vampire. But it will take time, and I... I..."

He winced as his head dropped, again. She didn't need to say it. The soul ritual or whatever the fuck it was may not have been completed, but that didn't change that Jeremiah did some damage to her, and not just to her, but her her, the stuff underneath the skin. She was wounded down to the soul, or her Horror, or whatever. They weren't wounds that healed like flesh, and she didn't know if she'd recover.

"Sándor," he said, "how are you feeling? I... should apologize. The curse, it—"

"I am free," the gargoyle said, bass-filled voice almost enough to make Jack's teeth rattle. "Thank you." As if Azamel's exhaustion was contagious, the gargoyle fell onto a knee, before slumping onto his side against a tree, beside the giant elephant monster.

"I would have killed you, if that continued much longer," Jack said. "Er, I assume if I kill your Horror, you—"

"Yes. That would kill me." He shook his head, and his mighty horns grazed against the tree behind him. It was quickly becoming obvious the gargoyle didn't enjoy chatting. A stoic dude. "Azamel explained the curse to me. I... You have my sympathies, Jack."

The big gargoyle had sympathies, for him? The creature whose family had been killed by Jeremiah, and had been a slave to the man for who knew how long, was pitying him? The words struck Jack cold, and he took a deep breath as he tried to ignore the Beast in his guts.

"Thanks..." He tried to look at Antoinette, who seemed content to follow and listen, but a quick glance was scarring. Despite the obvious anger he could feel, her frustration that he'd done something this stupid, it wasn't the most powerful emotion he could sense from her. She wore her mask, her Prince mask, as she always did, but he'd been around her for two years now, and could recognize the more subtle things that told how she truly felt. She could have probably hid those ticks, if she wanted to, but she didn't.

The truer emotion she was feeling, was more pity, redoubled by Sándor's comment. She was pitying him, the same as the Begotten was. Every time she seamlessly avoided stepping on any of the bird, rat, or hunter corpses around, she looked to him through the corner of her eye, and bit her bottom lip slightly. Not in the sexy way, but in the 'oh god my poor love, how will he ever survive this?' sort of way.

In the past, it'd have pissed him off. Now, he was starting to think, he could accept a little pity. Just a little. After all, he was going to be pitying Athalia until she was likely to kill him.

"Clara," he said, and he walked over to where she sat, next to the unconscious Othello, against the altar rock. "You ok?"

"Yep." She saluted him, and even met his gaze. He wished she hadn't. There was something there, something new in her eyes, something that replaced the borderline flirtation she usually held when looking at him. For a second, he thought it was concern, and it was, but that was mostly buried under something else. Fear. Not a lot, not enough to overpower her expression, but he recognized fear.

God damn it.

"Um... hello."

They all turned around, and looked at the tree they all knew Harcourt had been hiding behind. He hadn't moved from there, since helping Damien. A frightened animal knew better than to move, when escape wasn't an option. They played dead, or bit anything that came close. Playing nice, on the other hand, wasn't the usual, but it was Harcourt's only choice if he wanted to live.

Once everyone slowly settled their monstrous gazes on the hunter, he froze solid, and for the life of him, Jack couldn't help but smile a little. Three monsters, four conscious vampires, and one werewolf, any of which could have taken on multiple hunters at once. And all of them were looking at Harcourt like he might be an enemy. Poor guy.

"Harcourt's the reason we were able to pull this off," Jack said, looking to Antoinette. "We made a deal. There's two other hunters spared, and—and there they are." Jennifer and Aaron came down along the village road, and while Aaron kept his cool, Jennifer did not. Her eyes were wide with fascination and fright as she looked the surroundings up and down. They kept the two hunters in front of them, and the two hunters looked more terrified than anyone else, by far. They were no threat.