My Little Ventrue Pt. 08 Ch. 02

Damien forced himself up from the hard marble floor of the Elysium Tower, and bit down the pain. Daniel was as cold as ice to ignore the fact he'd just broken several of Damien's ribs. But, that was a part of the reason Damien had come to him for training. Cold, efficient, and fast. That's what Damien wanted to become.

And he wasn't worried about becoming too cold, not with Fiona there to warm him.

Damien squinted at the sword's tip, and licked a fang. Still, completely, utterly, still. Daniel's grip was as still as the dead, and Damien slowly rotated his head around the sword tip, looking for any signs of movement. There were none. Considering the length of a blade amplified any hand trembling, the fact the very long sword's tip was dead still, was kind of freakish. And impressive.

"You're saying I need more control."

"Yes, among other things. You need to learn how to control the length of the blade. Using a smaller sword is like swinging a hammer, and requires little finesse in most situations. But if you want the superior range of a weapon like this, you'll need to learn to counter balance for the motion."

Natasha, sitting on a bench nearby, shook her head. "It seems unnecessary. There's a reason w-we usually wield our weapons like this." The tiny woman raised her own dull sword in her right hand, a short thing similar to the sword she usually used. She pointed her left hand's index finger at Damien, like aiming a pistol, and smiled. "A gun has a m-much longer range than a sword."

"A silver bullet is useful against a werewolf," the sheriff said. "Against a fellow Kindred, not so much."

Natasha mimed shooting a much larger gun, with both hands. "Shotgun!" Her smile was vibrant.

Unless Damien was seeing things, Daniel smiled, if only for a moment. Natasha, being happy and even joyful around the cold sheriff, was really cute.

"A shotgun may work quite well against a Kindred, but it will do little to an Uratha. Or a Ventrue or Gangrel that are being defensive with their Disciplines." Daniel relaxed his stance, and gestured with his left hand to his sword. "The only way a Kindred can survive a sword, is a Gangrel exploiting transformations to become a swarm of bats, or a cloud of smoke, or river of blood."

"I've never seen M-Michael do anything like that," she said.

"The man prefers his big, loud, boisterous, strong transformations." Daniel managed a tiny shrug, and adjusted his glasses. "Garry, on the other hand, has been known to become smoke, or Miasma, during the Purge."

Damien and Natasha both shuddered. It was easy to forget sometimes that Garry, despite only just barely hitting elder vampire years, had earned his position. He was very, very strong, and smarter than your typical thug Carthian. He might not have been able to beat his closest comparison, Michael, in a straight fight, but that didn't mean he couldn't beat him in other ways.

"A sword, combined with speed, can handle almost any situation, be it against Kindred, Uratha, or Begotten." Nodding, Daniel lifted his sword and looked back to Damien. "Defend yourself."

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

Beaten and hurting, Damien picked himself off the floor, and dragged himself to sit beside Natasha on the bench. Damien had attempted to hit Daniel in three matches, and had failed all three. Natasha had also attempted three, and had actually nearly managed to hit him, but didn't. The little girl was fast.

Of course, it might have had something to do with how Daniel didn't hit her as hard as he hit Damien. Not because she was a girl, but because she was his childe. The sheriff had a soft spot for Natasha, even if he rarely showed it.

"Sire," she said, grimacing as she rubbed her shoulder where Daniel had cracked her one. "Um, how d-did your night with Athalia go?"

Daniel opened a wardrobe on the side of the gym, exposing the various training weapons within, and put away his training sword. "Why do you wish to know?"

"T-To... be nice?"

Her sire looked at her with a raised brow, adjusted his glasses, and grabbed his trench coat from the bench beside them. "It's personal."

"Yeah! B-B-But, that's part of why it's nice to talk about it. You d-don't talk to anyone ever, Sire. But, Damien and I, we... we're..."

"Similar," Damien finished. "... sort of."

The sheriff eyed them with as much emotion as a rock, before he finally sighed and folded his arms across his chest. Defensive posture. Talking about something like social interaction was definitely something the three of them sucked at, but Natasha and Damien had both been pulled into a lot of socializing the past couple years, Tash especially. They weren't the same people anymore. They'd evolved; a difficult thing for Kindred to do. In this matter, they'd gotten an upper hand on Daniel, who seemed to be the most antisocial man alive. Or, un-alive.

"What do you want to know?"

Natasha shrugged, and rubbed her arm where Daniel had nearly broken it. "I d-don't know! Did you, um... kiss her?"

The sheriff frowned and grunted; barely of course, but he did. "Yes."

Natasha's smile brightened. "D-Did you, um, do more? I mean, I know something horrible j-just happened to her, but, maybe if you, um... you know..."

"Comforted her," Damien added, "she might not be such a risk."

"She is..." Daniel paused, looked down, and stared at the marble floor. "She is sad. But, much of the anger she once felt is gone."

"I suppose that makes sense," Damien said. "She must have hated every moment of life, knowing what she'd been doing to her daughter when raising her, and then again, hated life, when Angela became a hunter. And then, how angry she must have felt, and guilty, knowing what Angela had done to Jack."

The little Mekhet next to him hmmm'd and nodded. "N-Now it's over. It's sad, but... she's free."

"I am helping her," Daniel continued. "How I do that, is private." With that, Daniel walked out.

Private? Damien raised a brow as he watched the sheriff collect himself and leave. No ceremony, no goodbyes, he simply left, leaving Damien and Natasha alone.

"Your sire is... efficient." Damien got up, took a step, and regretted it immediately. The tall bastard had thoroughly cracked Damien's legs with his dull sword, several times. He fell, on his ass, and groaned as he pushed himself up to his feet again.

"He is that." Natasha had an easier time getting up, and she limped over to him before looking him up and down. "Think you'll b-be fine?"

"I will. But a little shocked to learn that Daniel is capable of sex."

Natasha giggled and shrugged. A groan announced her own pain, and regret. Daniel may have gone easier on her, but that didn't mean he didn't beat her bones to their limit as well.

"He didn't say he was having s-sex with her."

"But..."

"B-But, I... suppose he would call that private, if he was having it." She grinned up at him. "I'm happy for him. It's nice that Athalia won't b-be trying to kill Jack, and it's... it's very romantic. Sire is such a c-cold man, and Athalia is..."

"Also cold, but cold like an arctic blizzard." In comparison, Daniel was far more stable. Perhaps his stability would be the foundation Athalia could use to become stable herself.

More giggles from the little lady. "Y-Yeah. And, if they can make each other happy, that's wonderful."

"Don't forget, Athalia was supposed to help us in that raid, and she didn't." Limping as well, Damien dragged himself over to the cabinet of practice weapons, put away the sword, and once she handed it to him, put hers away as well. "The only reason we're not hunting her down and killing her, is because we feel bad for her."

"And b-because she's a Begotten. Hunting her down might not be so easy."

"You think Daniel would have trouble killing her?"

"Emotionally?"

He shook his head. "Physically."

"No, of course n-not. Daniel is... is crazy. He can actually use Auspex to leave his body!"

The two of them left the tower, and started down the street. The weather was turning cold, and less people were outside. Those that were wore trench coats and furry jackets, all with the obvious need to look gorgeous even when the weather didn't permit exposed skin.

"I've heard of Mekhet entering Twilight like that. Out of body experiences, done at will. Lucas told me it was possible, but it was beyond him." Keeping secrets from Mekhet was tricky business. They had lots of ways to learn things, and some of them weren't just about being sneaky.

"Sire says, he wants t-to teach us more about reading objects using Auspex."

The Spirit's Touch. Reading an object to learn about its past was definitely a useful skill, if a bit disorienting. He could still remember touching the sword Lucas had destroyed to fuel his sorcery against the Prince. The scene it'd showed him, of a man, two thousand years ago, getting his ear cut off, would stick with him for all eternity.

"It is useful. I can only barely do it, but it is useful. I should try it more often, and see what I can learn about the--" The thing he wasn't supposed to talk about with anyone except Jack and the Begotten.

Natasha stared up at him, looked around worriedly, and started walking again. "Y-Yes, to learn about... the thing." Nothing slipped past her. She caught the expression on his face, and from that single glance, deduced he knew about the mysterious presence. Impressive.

"The thing." Well, that answered that. The little Mekhet knew about it, too. It made sense. The Prince undoubtedly did, considering Daniel's abilities. "Does... does Samantha know?"

"N-No! Of course not. Um, do a lot of people know?"

He shook his head. "Jack and myself. And the Begotten." Maybe the Begotten simply told the Prince, as they had Jack?

"If Jack knows, and my b-boss knows, then..."

Damien shook his head again. "We must keep this a secret, no matter how many important people know."

"But, why? We d-don't even know what's going on. Why is everyone so scared b-by this?"

"Azamel made it clear. Whatever this thing is, it's risking everyone's lives. It's damaging things like the Gauntlet, and other barriers between realms." He tried to shrug, to pass it off as yet another threat, like the ones they'd faced before, like the spider monster or the hunters, but the shrug died halfway. "It's making me nervous, like there's a ticking time bomb underneath our feet."

That earned a shiver from the small woman.

"Yeah. It's... it's scary. This rumor has b-been going around for a while, but nothing's come of it."

"There's also a rumor going around that Maria might be trying to perform resurrection." He glanced Natasha's way to see if she'd heard it. From the way her eyes flicked to him and then down, she had.

"Yeah."

"Know anything of it? She was your old boss."

She raised a brow at him. "She's your current b-boss."

"Touché. So, I guess neither of us know anything."

"I think... think m-maybe I should see if the Uratha can help learn anything. Spirits might be involved."

He nodded. "Ok. I'll try and get closer to Maria, see if I can get something out of her. But..."

"But?"

"But, I've already been getting closer to Maria as the months have gone on, and have seen no suggestion that she's reaching into other realms." He raised his fingers to air quote 'other realms'. It was such an absurd concept, and yet, it'd become a regular part of his life the past couple years.

What if Heaven and Hell truly existed? If realms of spirits and dreams existed, then maybe Heaven and Hell did. He'd always thought they did, but there was a difference between a realm existing as some sort of unknowable thing, a background idea, a belief based on faith, versus something that existed as an actual thing to be touched. It almost sullied the idea.

The more he learned about the world, the more he believed God must exist, but that his existence couldn't be accurately defined by the Bible or the Testament of Longinus. Perhaps God was as the new age philosophers and spiritual sorts believed, a being that was the universe, literally, and that everyone was literally a part of God. Or, maybe, God was some sort of machine, and the physical realm, the spirit realm, the dream realm, and whatever else existed out there, were part of some kind of resource harvester and simulation, like the Matrix.

Scary.

"I... I know she loved Lucas," Tash said. "B-But, she accepts that he was horrible. I have a hard time imagining she would just... try and d-do something like that."

"Me too." Cause, as much of a cold hard ass Maria was, she also had a soft side to her, and a wise one. She may have been sad and alone, but he doubted the woman would be so shortsighted as to pursue something as dangerous as communing with deadly, perhaps evil spirits, for something as selfish as resurrection. He hoped.

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

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

~~Jack~~

It wasn't easy, finding Sándor. It took a whole week, actually. Jack had to visit Azamel twice, and call Damien four times to get him to ask Fiona about it, before anyone managed to provide a hint on where Sándor was. No one knew. The man kept to himself.

But Fiona being Fiona, rambunctious and filled with wanderlust, apparently managed to track Sándor based on his movements, and intercept him to deliver Jack's message.

Jack waited for him outside his mansion, sitting on the stairs in front of the huge front door. Eventually, the Begotten walked up the driveway, alone, an unreadable expression on his face. Stern, cold. It wasn't exactly resting bitch face, so much as the man seemed void of emotion. Someone who didn't know his circumstance would probably assume he was angry, or indeed had resting bitch face. To Jack, it was clear he was a scarred, broken man, doing his best to keep the rage inside where it wouldn't destroy everything around him.

That was the problem with revenge. It might start allowing someone to heal from trauma, but it wouldn't heal damage itself. Only time would do that, and a couple weeks was nothing.

Jack stood up and gave a small wave. "Hey."

"Hey." The taller man stopped in front of the stairs, and looked up at the huge building. "You vampires and your need for... boastful habitation."

Jack laughed, and pushed open the door. "Yeah, it is pretty ridiculous. Ventrue are the worst for it."

Sándor followed him in, looking left and right at the mansion and its beautiful, royal, over-the-top Victorian decor. "I suppose it's no different than kings and queens living in castles."

"You old enough to have seen that? Like, medieval ages?"

"No. I am... about two hundred years old, I think. I was born in Romania, and left quite young."

A gargoyle from Romania. Heh.

"Judging from what Azamel told me, you must have started having nightmares at some point, about a gargoyle? Trying to... eat you?"

With a heavy sigh, Sándor nodded as he followed Jack, eyes up and taking in the sights of the huge, master staircase, and the chandelier. "Yes. It's one of the reasons I fled my home. I thought I was cursed, and that the monster would devour me. But, the nightmares followed me across the ocean."

"Across the ocean? So you did what Antoinette did, came to North America during the colonization period."

"Not long after that period was done, yes. I believe your Prince came here a hundred years before I did." Sándor was talking a lot more than Jack figured he would. Either he wasn't as wholly miserable as he used to be anymore, or Jennifer had started to open him up.

Jack sat at the top of the stairs. Sándor raised a brow at him, slightly of course, and eventually sat down beside him. There were couches and shit, fancy rooms and whatnot Jack could have taken the man to, but, none of them felt natural or right. It was better like this.

"Still, that's really old. You must be pretty damn strong, in more ways than obvious."

"I... suppose."

Jack shrugged and gestured to the man. "We had a fist fight, but that's it. Begotten can do more than that, can't they? I've seen Athalia bury an entire area in darkness, and start slicing things at random like a... well, a nightmare. I've seen Fiona spin web. We've both seen that Mark asshole sneak around. What can you do?"

Sándor thought about it for a moment, eyes pointed down at the stairs he sat on. "I'd rather not say."

"Heh, good." Jack smiled at the man when Sándor looked at him, confused. "I didn't have Azamel in that list, cause I don't know what she can do. I'm sure she can do a lot, but her abilities are a mystery. I'm sure that's intentional. She's smart."

"She is."

"And she's dying."

"Yes... she is."

"And the three Begotten she's been taking care of, they'll be leaderless without her. Or, I should say, without protection."

"They're Begotten, capable of defending themselves." His tone grew dark. "Why?"

Welp, time to make the pitch. "Azamel wants you to meet the others, and become... well, their new protector, when she's gone."

Sándor grunted, eyes still pointed down. But, Jack could see he was thinking about it.

"Azamel overestimates me."

"Does she? You said yourself you're super old. And, I'm sure if you'd been in control while I was fighting your Horror, the fight would have gone differently." Who knew what sort of crazy things the ancient creature could do. Apparently he'd invaded Eric's dreams before, so it wasn't like Sándor didn't have tricks up his sleeve. The Begotten could do more than just physical things.

"I am strong, and capable. But despite that, I still lost my family."

Ah, right. There was more going on than a broken man struggling to recover from his pain. His confidence had been shot, too. How much did he blame himself for their deaths, for not being strong enough to save them? Probably completely. Probably to the point he would have killed himself, if he'd been given a few moments of peace after killing Jeremiah.

But, he hadn't gotten it. Jennifer had latched onto him immediately, and started to insert herself and Beatrice into the man's life. Maybe she'd come to the same conclusion Jack had.

That woman was too damn smart.

"Sándor... Jeremiah, with that witch Elen, managed to outsmart and dodge some of the oldest vampires in the world. The Prince and the sheriff were both looking for them, and couldn't find them. Isabella lost one of her men to them. I lost my sire to them. I lost my sister. I nearly lost my mother. And the only reason things didn't get worse, is because of this fucking curse inside me they woke up." Worse, relatively speaking. It still sucked being cursed, but its power allowed him the opportunity to bring the hunters down.

"Silver lining," the gargoyle said.

"Yeap. Otherwise, more Kindred would be dead, and probably all the Begotten."

"Your point?"

"My point is, you can't blame yourself for this insanity. And hey, I'm all for self blaming, when it's warranted. If some shmuck walked up to your door and took you out, then killed your family, sure, blame yourself. But this was an extreme circumstance, Sándor. Cut yourself a break. You're a powerful man, and the other Begotten need that. More than that, you've been around, and you've learned a lot more than they have. I have no idea about Mark, but Fiona's just a kid, and Athalia's... more broken than you are."

Sándor slowly turned his head, looked at Jack for a long while, completely still, before looking at the stairs between his feet again. "You're asking me to take up a new burden, knowing that I owe you."

"Yep."

"I... suppose I should speak with Azamel again. I have been meaning to ask her, about how to better control hunger."

Jack smiled. "Sounds like a plan."

The gargoyle nodded as he stood up, but only got up halfway before he sat down again. "I have spoken with her once already though, about a different topic."