My Little Ventrue Pt. 08 Ch. 03

He ran faster. Mekhet and Daeva could use Celerity easily, but that didn't mean he couldn't use it, too. Not as well, but he could. He reached into his core, found his vitae, and told it to do one very specific thing: run faster.

The sound of his shoes slapping the rock died in the heavy mist, and he looked down to make sure he was actually moving faster. He was. Each stride took him further and further, until it was more like a fast, hard leap with each step. Sándor couldn't keep up, until he leaned forward, and his feet started to slam into the rock hard enough to spread vibrations. Jack glanced back enough to see a silhouette of the gargoyle, the enormous Horror, surrounding Sándor and going full Tyrannosaurus rex sprint, like a scene from Jurassic Park. Thud thud thud thud.

Twenty seconds later, they found the spider, not a long chase at all. It was big, heavy, and Jack and Sándor were light. The giant creature ran along the rock, eight hairy black legs covered in patchwork human skin. Clara dangled from its right, giant claw, limp, arms hanging underneath it, and small drops of blood falling as she bounced. A claw still skewered her leg, and each bounce was tearing the wound open more and more.

"Let go of her!" Jack threw himself at the strange spider monster's body, and landed on the beast's back. Like a centaur or drider, the human half jutted out from where the spider's neck would be, connecting at the human's waist. It twisted easily, and stared at Jack with black spider eyes that dotted the now bald human skull. Fucking. Gross.

Grosser was the mandibles, and how they opened spreading the torn cheeks of the human head the spider had basically grown out of. Grosser again, was the white shit it spat at Jack. His mind screamed acid, but it was probably spider silk. Either way, he was glad he jumped to the side.

Sándor charged in, and slammed himself into the giant spider monster's ass. To see a man, a normal sized dude, slam into the spider with the weight of what was obviously his Horror, was a strange sight. The spider's giant, hairy, gross ass bent inward at the point of impact, like one of those slow motion videos of a ball hitting a wall.

The spider went flying. Well, maybe not flying. It weighed thousands of pounds, but the fact it rolled over several times after Sándor's impact was damn impressive. A glance back at the gargoyle showed the man had fallen to his hands and knees, and was struggling to get back up. Again, the silhouette of the gargoyle surrounded him, and Sándor flapped his four shadow wings hard as he came back up to his feet.

But, he wasn't the gargoyle, not outside of the Dream. Everything he did to summon the Horror's power was demanding on him, and Jack could see the exertion on his face as he ran at the spider while it was down, and sank his fingers through the exoskeleton along the spider's ass, as if they were the claws of the gargoyle instead.

The monster got up quickly, and spun around to face Sándor, except the man was still attached to it. The spider slashed down behind him, and Sándor used the spider's body as a wall, hiding behind and underneath it.

"Where's Clara!?" Sándor shouted.

Jack lifted himself up from the ground and snapped his head around. Clara wasn't on the thing's claw anymore.

"I don't know! I--"

A monstrous howl erupted, and relief washed over Jack as the enormous werewolf dove out of the fog, and leapt at the distracted monster. She flew high, going over twenty feet up before she fell down onto the azlu's shoulder. Roaring with a primal need, she sank her claws into the monster, tearing and shredding, and doing more damage to the monster's flesh in seconds, than Sándor had yet managed.

Jack looked around in a panic. There were no animals for him to summon here, no legion he could unleash on the monster. But just because he'd been stupid enough to check out the tear without his usual back up, didn't mean he was so stupid he didn't bring guns.

He pulled out his pistol, and started sinking bullets into the spider monster's gut. It shrieked in agony, and spun around, trying to dislodge Sándor and Clara at the same time. No luck. They were both thoroughly stuck to the monster's body, and while it could spin super fast with eight gigantic, sharp spider legs stabbing into the strange rock underneath them, it couldn't get them off. Jack had to time his shots, to make sure he didn't hit either of them, as the spider turned into a spin top.

Bleeding everywhere but not slowing down, it came to a sudden stop, and kicked at Sándor using its hind legs. Sándor couldn't get out of the way fast enough, and the spider's back legs were perfectly capable of stabbing underneath its giant ass. The man screamed as one of them pierced his shoulder, and fell away from the spider as he let go.

Without Sándor distracting it, the monster looked to the huge wolf humanoid ripping at its arm and shoulder. Clara had managed to remove a chunk of its right shoulder, causing the arm she once dangled from to hang limp at the spider's front side, but the other arm still worked. It raised its left claw scythe, and--

And it met eyes with Jack, as he stepped toward its front. The gun wasn't doing shit, and with no time to summon the juggernaut within with the curse's power, to turn this into a physical brawl, he had to do something and do it quick. He'd assumed he wouldn't be able to use Dominate or Animalism on the monster, since it wasn't a creature of flesh and blood. Except, it was partly human, in a strange, sick way.

When it met Jack's eyes, and Jack met its strange, spider eyes, he reached out with Dominate, and the world came to a standstill. For a brief moment, the world froze, while Jack and the creature met minds.

The human part of the monster was alive, sort of. The brain was gone except for some minor remnants, and the spider had hijacked those remnants. Instead of being able to enter the creature's mind, like Jack easily could with kine or animal, he stared at the spider creature from across a chasm. Walls surrounded them all, a giant dome of warped walls that oozed black and shifting colors. They were inside the mind of the host body, who should have been dead, but wasn't.

Across the chasm between them in the strange dome, was the azlu, with a dozen of its brethren behind it, no longer in its human mutation shape. It was a spider, and it wasn't a spider. It was something else, something old, something ancient, something covered in the dust and ashes of dead civilizations and dead monstrosities. It stood there on its eight legs, a large spider with large eyes, and it stared at him like he was nothing. Its strange, alien thoughts reached across the chasm like someone hollering with palms cupped around their mouths, except the thoughts were disgusting, vile, strangely loud, and driven by instinct.

To it, he was nothing more than an undead creature, a corpse that didn't have the nerve to become dust and ashes like the things that came before. It would kill him as it and its other parts had done to many undone creatures. Parts?

Jack gulped as he looked past the spider and its kin, and glimpsed on the memories of the ancient creature behind it. Images, warped against the dome's wall, started to form where the bleeding colors had been. An ancient land, with ancient creatures, ancient foliage, and ancient skies. A totally alien landscape, prowled by things his mind could not imagine. Giant wolves, rats, and spiders, but none of them looked right, as if each were some sort of spirit interpretation. Or, godly interpretation.

The spider in his mind hissed. It needed to protect the Gauntlet, to strengthen it. To understand why would be to ask how a normal spider learned to spin web. Instinct, an instinct so old and from a different realm, it defied flesh and blood. He was a corpse, standing in its path, and it'd kill him, the moment it'd killed the Forsaken Uratha and the Primordial Begotten.

The spider shut up real quick, as the Beast within and around Jack rose to bury them all in its shadow. The chasm suddenly seemed quite small, and no longer the insurmountable leap it'd been moments before. The spiders on the other side backed away, and fear overwhelmed their hairy bodies and eight legs, as their many eyes stared up at the swirling mass.

"This... thing," the curse whispered in that sleazy, demony voice that sounded eerily like Jack's, "is just an animal. An animal from before even the Strix, but just an animal."

"And how would you know?" Jack looked up over his shoulder at the Beast, frowning. "You have memories from my previous sires, but not--"

The giant black cloud of fangs, beaks, fur and feathers, pointed out toward the large spiders on the other side of the black chasm. It used a foggy limb to point, and the Beast showed a mix of claws and rat tails in its black mist.

"I can smell it, smell the age on it, and I know you can, too. It's beyond old, and despite all that time, it remains nothing more than a useless bug. Look at it, Jack." The Beast lowered itself, loomed over him, and set two titanic hands that looked like crow feet on his shoulders. "I wonder how many thousands and thousands of years this strange thing has existed, and despite all the time, it's still just a bug to be squashed."

"A big bug, back in the real world." Jack gestured to the chasm. "We can't cross this?"

"No, dumbass. It's a metaphor for the distance between our worlds. The only reason we can speak to it at all, is the human body the Host has taken over; as you guessed."

"And we're communicating at the speed of thought."

"Of course, or we'd be dead from standing still and stupid in this thing's path, otherwise."

After shrugging off the damn Beasts' grimy claws, Jack paced left and right in front of the chasm, glaring at the spider.

"But it is an animal. A strange, ancient animal, and according to the wolves, not a normal flesh and blood animal. Not something I can use Animalism on." The fact Jack could attempt to enter its mind at all was only because of the poor kine it'd taken over. "But, still an animal."

"Yes, it is," the Beast said, tone growing more sinister as it laughed, "one of the most stupid animals I've ever met minds with. A crow has a hundred times the intelligence of this arachnid." The giant cloud of black smoke followed after Jack, looking at him with a bunch of different kinds of eyes in the upper half of its body. "What're you thinking, Jack?"

"As if you have to ask." It could read his mind, after all, and they were in his mind, and the monster's.

"Heh. You want to scare it, like waving fire in front of a tiger."

Jack looked at the absurd monstrosity infecting his soul. "Can you do it?"

The Beast laughed, a dark and twisted sound, inhuman and filled with layers. Crow caws, rat squeaks, coyote howls, owl shrieks, and other things. As it laughed, the noise far more maniacal than Jack would have liked, the big cloud of smoke grew in size. Bigger, and bigger, until the metaphorical chasm would not have been big enough to stop it from crossing simply by stepping over it.

The spiders clicked their mandibles together. Well, that was a fucking gross sound, especially combined with the spiders tilting their heads to look up at the Beast. Did they understand what was happening? Did they understand this whole conversation was a near-instantaneous moment in its host's head? They must have understood it wasn't a normal situation, given that they hadn't done anything but stand on the other side of the shadowy ravine, and stare at him.

But, as the curse displayed its power, expanded and engulfed the strange metaphorical cavern they were in, it was clear that the spiders were scared. They backed away, chittering and stabbing their feet against the rocky ground as they retreated. Spiders didn't have facial expressions, and these odd, ancient creatures were no different, but the body language was obvious. Scared turned into terrified, as the curse exploded in a flurry of dark claws and black feathers. Whatever space was left in the strange dome vanished, and hundreds of glowing red eyes covered the ceiling. The Beast's eyes, a host of all the different creatures the Beast identified with, could become, could control. Carrion eaters and predators all.

The spiders shrieked, a high pitched, shrill sound that grated on Jack's ears like nails on chalkboard. They turned, and fled.

Jack's grasp on the host's mind fell away, ripped free by the azlu's panic. It had never encountered anything like the curse. Other vampires sure, based on how it originally reacted, and maybe other vampires had even tried to Dominate it or use Animalism on it. But from how it fled, Jack had to guess it was the first time the creature had seen something that genuinely scared it.

That was a terrifying thought, and a thrilling, exciting one.

Maybe one or two seconds had gone by, back in the world of the physical, or wherever it was they currently were. It was enough time for Clara to have moved out of the way of the claw arm that'd been meant for her, but the claw arm didn't come down. Now, with the huge werewolf no longer attached to its shoulder, the spider monster let out a horrific scream, and fled. Its huge spider legs scratched against the rock underneath it as it sped away, moving fast enough to cause the strange mist of the new realm to swirl around and behind it in the following vacuum.

Clara bounded after it.

"Wait! Clara, don't!"

She stopped, panting, growling, her body a silhouette against the gentle, unending mist. After a few moments, she turned around and stomped over to him.

"Why!? This is a hunt! It is wounded!" Her voice was a harsh bark, and Jack winced as bits of the creature's blood splattered onto his suit and face.

"Because we don't know what's out there, and"--he gestured to Sándor--"our one way out of here is currently bleeding to death!"

"One way out?" The way she stood there, panting, each breath a quiet growl, long arms at her sides with blood still dripping from her claws and fangs, was startling. Hunger filled her eyes, and the weight of her tall, muscular-but-feminine werewolf body remained forward in a hunched position, like she was ready to pounce. Scary. Made him feel like a bomb disposal expert. One wrong decision and boom.

Sure, the curse made him absurdly strong, but unless he had time to summon his defenses, or summon a legion, or summon his will so he could Dominate or use Animalism on her, she'd be on him before he could stop her. Being super strong didn't meant shit if you weren't fast enough to use it, and he didn't want to preemptively prepare his abilities. Might set her off.

"Yes!" He gestured to the ground. "Unless you think you can sink your claws into this strange rock, there's no way getting up that wall. We need someone who can fly, or create a portal to get us out of here. Sándor can do both, but he's bleeding out!" He didn't like raising his voice at a werewolf, but if he could get through the obvious bloodlust in her eyes, he was confident Clara would calm down.

She did, taking a deep breath before standing up straighter. After looking back over her shoulder for a moment, she stalked over to Sándor and crouched down beside him. Jack joined her, and the two looked the poor guy up and down.

"That's a lot of blood loss," Jack said.

"I'll live." Sándor said, grunting as he forced himself to sit up.

Jack shook his head, got down, took off his suit jacket, then his shirt, and started ripping the white fabric to shreds. "Don't fucking give me that shit. Begotten don't heal nearly as well as vamps or werewolves outside of the Dream Realm."

Clara snorted, and shook her head as she looked around, still wary of the monster. "Hard to smell."

"The mist?" Jack said.

"Yes." She sniffed the air like a hound, and stalked around back and forth, between Jack and where the monster had run off. "The air. Thick. Smells of strange spirits. Dead spirits." Each word was almost a bark. Considering she had a snout, it was a wonder she could talk at all.

Sándor grit his teeth as Jack wrapped a strip of his shirt around the man's shoulder. "I'm an idiot. I should have realized--"

"Realized what?" Jack said. "That an ancient spider creature that follows instincts older than any of us can appreciate, would be on the other side of the tear, in what is apparently very much not the Shadow Realm?" Another question for Azamel.

"Yes."

Jack rolled his eyes. "You are an idiot, for a very different reason. Hold still." Bandage press, bandage wrapped around the shoulder, bandage wrapped across and around the opposite shoulder, and some wrapped around the top of his chest. Sándor groaned, but Jack could tell the man wanted to scream, as Jack pressed on the wound while wrapping it. It was a shoulder wound but it went dangerously close to the chest, and covering it wasn't easy. A human would bleed out without an ambulance. A Begotten would live, hopefully, as long as Jack's shirt managed to help a little.

Clara let out a heavy sigh, and transformed back into her human shape. Jack watched, a little mesmerized. It was pretty awesome how the wolves could transform in a matter of seconds, and it looked... painful, honestly. But within moments, Clara stood there, panting and sweating, back in her clothes, covered in blood. Her leg was a horrible mess of red, and her jeans had a giant hole where the creature had stabbed her, but she was healed. The Gauru form and its ability to heal were pretty insane.

"Ok, plan?" Jack said.

Clara stared at him, and when he didn't say anything, it was her turn to roll her eyes. "Hey, you're the Ventrue, and the dude everyone apparently looks to for this sorta shit. What do you think we should do?"

"Ugh, you're foisting the role of leader on me?"

"Yes," the two of them said together, Sándor more so with a grunt.

Sighing, Jack smiled. God, he'd be terrified of something like that in the past. He'd have still done it, and maybe even done it well, but he would have been scared as fuck. Not so much anymore. Except...

"Uh, as far as I can tell, we're in some kinda ghost realm, like Sándor thought. So, uh, let's not touch anything, draw any attention to us, and get the fuck out of here as quietly as we can. I have no idea if the sun can rise here, and it looks like we're in a cave so I should be safe. But eventually, I'm going to pass out, and you're going to have one injured monster and one comatose vampire to protect, Clara."

Nodding, she looked down, found the blood trail she'd originally created, scooped up Sándor from under his good arm, and started walking.

"Then let's get out of here before that happens."

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~~Natasha~~

She left Damien behind, and went to find her boyfriends. She half expected them to take her to Bloodlust, but nope, they suggested no such thing. Instead, they invited her to walk around the Carthian district.

She agreed, reluctantly. It wasn't like she couldn't do it, or wasn't allowed. Even when she'd been in the Invictus, she was technically allowed to walk around with the Carthians. It just wasn't done. It was tempting fate for no reason. As long as no one else but a Carthian fed in the Carthian district, they were allowed to go into it, except, an Invictus going into it was asking for trouble.

She wasn't Invictus anymore! She didn't need to worry, because the Carthians and the Ordo Dracul got along in Dolareido. During the Purge, they'd worked together, which was a pretty huge accomplishment for any two covenants in any city. There was no reason for the Carthians to look at her with suspicion, especially since she was close with the Uratha, who were close with the Carthians.

But she wasn't an idiot. She brought a pistol underneath her suit jacket, a short sword, and a large silver knife that was almost a short sword itself. If things got crazy, she could defend herself. Better yet, she could hide behind her boyfriends; not because she couldn't fight, she could, but the Carthians were less likely to shoot at them. Plus, they were big, and easy to use as cover.