My Little Ventrue Pt. 08 Ch. 05

But he didn't have time to watch. In front of him was a ghost, and it wasn't Sabrina. A man looking like he walked out of a Great Depression movie came at him, wearing trousers, a tattered and worn shirt underneath with patches on it, and half of his face looked collapsed. Mist poured out from around his knees, but Jack could barely see the bent and dirty work boots. Easy to tell how this guy died: something fell on him and crushed his head. Safety regulations weren't exactly a big deal back then.

The man had a sledgehammer in his hand. Like the ghost, it was partly see-through, gray, and lit by the green that glowed from within the ghost. That confirmed it then, the ghosts didn't have to glow green if they didn't want to. Must have been a thing they chose to do, because they were underground? Or Underworld, or whatever.

Without thinking, Jack raised his arm, and infused vitae into it. The sledgehammer hit him, and it actually hit him. No thunk from metal hitting bone, but something closer to a splat or squashing sound. But it still hurt like hell, stronger than any kine could have done, and Jack fell back onto his ass as he glanced to his arm. Still in one piece, but from the sensation, he knew that it would have broken his arm a year ago.

The ghost, gargling and mumbling, swung at him again, and Jack rolled in, using his small size to get under the swing, and then behind the tall, heavy ghost. He swung his knife as he went past, and smiled as he felt the blade hit something. He smiled more when he heard the ghost roar in fury and pain. Ok, he could fight back!

He turned around and grinned at the man, but his grin faded quickly. There was a chunk of ghost missing where the blade had hit, but the chunk filled in with an ooze-like fog that rippled as the gap healed.

That, was not dissimilar to how Black Blood's ooze behaved.

Now that he was standing on the other side of the ghost, he caught a glimpse of Clara. Already transformed, the werewolf threw herself at another ghost, a man similar to the one Jack was dealing with. She wasn't as fast as she'd been before, and he winced as she had a hard time dodging the oncoming hammer. Unlike him, she'd been up for at least twenty-four hours, and unlike him, she needed food and water.

At least they were ignoring Sándor. Probably cause the man held still where he sat against a cargo crate.

"Back off!" Jack said. "We're just passing through."

The ghost grumbled some more, and did exactly that. He backed off, and faded away, becoming the mist and fog, disappearing into it the same way Mary did.

Before Jack could run to join Clara, the ghost reappeared, underneath his feet. A hand snapped up from the dirt and mist, wrapped his ankle, and Jack fell onto his hands. But, lesson learned from his previous fights, he kept his grip on the knife, and slashed behind him with a half spin. Knife met ghostly flesh on the asshole's shoulder, and again the ghost roared in frustration before he melted away into the mist.

Another scream of pain. Jack looked behind him in time to see Clara get her claws on her attacker, and split the man in half. Literally, in half. Her claws had a lot more grip on ghostly flesh than his knife did, and he stared in awe at the strange sight. Ghost... goo, went everywhere. It split apart, showed the literal innards of the ghost, the intestines and other organs, before they turned into goop as they splashed around, spreading the mist aside. A moment later, they faded into more of the gray fog that surrounded them.

"The fuck are they attacking us for?" he said.

Clara shrugged, backed up, and crouched down by Sándor, one clawed hand to the floor, one hand ready to slash out at whatever came next. In the fog, it was easy to think she was just a big, walking wolf. Next to Sándor though, the proximity made it obvious just how big she was compared to him. It was nothing compared to the size difference of Sándor when he was transformed, but still.

"Sabrina said ghosts angry," Clara barked. "Angry at the living." Jack struggled to keep from chuckling at her broken English.

"They can't make an exception for me? Hello, vampire!" A smile forced its way onto his lips. The human part of him may have been oddly scared of creepy old train yards, but that part was shut away, mostly. Now, he was running on a combat high, and the Beast was getting to play. These ghosts couldn't do shit to him.

"That ghost," Sándor said, gesturing to the place where Clara had ripped one in half. "Is it destroyed?"

The werewolf shrugged. "Maybe."

Jack threw up his arms. "Maybe? Are you shitting me?"

"Ghost. Not spirit. Different rules."

"Fuck me, wish I had some holy water, or a fucking cross."

Clara chuckled, but stopped short as more glowing green lights stepped out from around cargo crates. A lot of them.

An image of the past formed in Jack's mind. There were nasty injuries on these guys, all men, and all with huge dents in their flesh. Something had happened to these guys, and considering the clothing they were wearing, it happened to them all in the same vocation. Maybe they were miners, or chemical workers for the train company or something, Jack didn't know, but as a seventh, and eighth, and ninth man emerged from the fog, each turning on their green glows as they grew closer, Jack couldn't help but think of how many men died in industrial accidents back then. A hundred years ago, those kinds of accidents were common; so was screwing over the worker so they had to work all day, six days a week, just to put bread on the table.

Those were the kinds of environments and circumstances that led to mass deaths, revolts, violent strikes, and murder. A hundred years ago or more, did Dolareido have a place like that? Well, Dolareido had a lot of tunnels underneath it, most abandoned, and miles and miles of railway. Something happened in the city's past, something that got a bunch of these workers killed, a death that left them royally pissed, so angry that they didn't pass on to the afterlife.

One of the closer ghosts ran at them, a man without a jaw and a chunk of his shoulder missing, or maybe it was crunched into his chest like a beer can. A stampede followed, and the ghost men roared as they fell upon them.

Or they tried. Maybe they didn't get it. Maybe they didn't care. How often did these ghosts come across anyone alive, to be able to consider that maybe Jack, Sándor, and the big wolf walking on two legs, weren't entirely human? Did they even have the mental capacity to understand anything more than three people had trespassed on their train yard? What sick, tragic tail led these men to become the mindless husks of ephemera and anger that they were?

"And it's go, boys, go," he mumbled, "they'll time your every breath. And every day you're in this place, you're two days nearer death. But you go..."

Six of the ghosts ran at the werewolf, but instead of sitting around and waiting for them to come to her, Clara pounced at them, catching them off guard. She put a lot of strength into the pounce, and the mist swirled around in her wake as she bowled over the men. Some dropped their hammers, and the heavy things fell with a thud before dispersing. Others recovered quick and ran at her, full body, each intending to swing into her with all their weight and the full length of their hammers.

Jack didn't get to see if they were successful. He heard roars, and he heard the strange sound of claws on ghost flesh, but the three other ghosts were on him a second later. As hammers swung for him, he managed a quick glance at Sándor. The man was down and out of the way, and the ghosts' attention was firmly on him and Clara. Good, sorta.

Jack reached out with his mind as he scanned the ghosts' eyes, but their empty eye sockets gave him nothing, nothing for his Dominate to latch onto. And with no animal of flesh for a hundred miles in any direction, he couldn't use Animalism either. But, Ventrue were resilient, and could summon vitae to protect themselves easily. It took a moment, but when it was done, they were damn well impervious to shit like sledgehammers.

He stood his ground, knife in hand, and infused the vitae into his limbs. The curse easily turned a moderate amount of vitae into something grand, something powerful and overwhelming, and he shivered as he felt the mythical energy infuse his skin. Some of it, he channeled into speed, and some he channeled into strength, but neither were his natural talent. Resilience, on the other hand, came naturally, and with the curse to increase everything he did to absurd levels, the dark blood coursing through his limbs felt like steel.

He raised his arm, and blocked the oncoming hammer of the leading ghost. Thunk. The ghost material, manifested so the ghost could get physical, collided and bounced off his arm. The impact forced Jack's arm down, but pain was minimal, and his flesh didn't dent. The other two ghosts came up around the leader, and each took a swing at him, horizontal and aimed for his chest. They cracked against his ribs, and he slammed back against the cargo crate behind him. No more pain than a mild slap, and no damage, no wounds, nothing. Bit disorienting getting tossed like that, though.

"Well, a process man am I, and I'm telling you no lie." Quiet words slipped out of his mouth without him telling them to, all a whisper. "I work and breathe among the fumes that trail across the sky." He liked the song, the covers of the song, and had memorized the lyrics long ago. And as a vampire, he didn't need to breathe. He could sing all he fucking wanted. He kept it quiet, mumbles and nothing more, but, sing he did. "There's thunder all around me"--he swung his knife for the man on his right, and got him in the throat--"and there's poison in the air." As he stepped forward, he drew his pistol, and shot the ghost on the left in the forehead. They went down, heavy and limp, but from the reaction, he could tell they weren't hurt bad. "There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell, and dust all in me hair." Before the leader could react, clearly confused by Jack surviving three direct blows from big sledgehammers, Jack pointed his pistol at him, shot him twice in the gut, and stabbed the ghost in the head when he leaned forward.

The three ghosts melted away, groaning in pain, when two of them should have died nearly instantly. Ok, ghosts didn't die normally. If anything, they weren't dying at all. Much as he could see them spilling their guts and blood, it was all the same gray that surrounded them already, and it reformed on their wounds like ooze. It was good money that the ghosts could heal damage, probably completely disconnected from where the wound actually was. Head shot? Same as a foot shot, if they were all made of ephemera or whatnot.

And, he could see it on the ghosts when he shot them and stabbed them, that his weapons weren't hitting as hard as they should have been. Knife to the head, or even the foot, should have got a bigger reaction, but the ghost just hollered in half pain, half anger, and melted away. And--

And came back. Hands reached up from the mist, three pairs, and they clutched at his ankles, and holy fuck, that was solid grip.

"White-livered wrinkler."

"Greedy guts."

"Scamp!"

"Yellow belly bastard!"

Jack stared down at the rising faces, and froze. They weren't strong enough to hurt him, not with the curse imbuing him with absurd resilience, but that didn't mean the sight of their agonized faces, seeping up from the dirt and rock around his feet, wasn't terrifying; the switch he'd flipped flipped back with a vengeance. Tears of black lined their faces. Their voices were raspy, dry, cracking like snapping wood, and all he could hear as he listened, was Mary.

Rattling drew his eyes, and he ducked as an enormous piece of sheet metal soared past. More rattling, violent shaking from some metal beams, and he leaned to the side as it flew it at him. It crashed into the cargo crate behind him, fell back down onto him, and knocked him to one knee.

As he got up, a fourth set of hands reached out from the cargo crate through its wall, grabbed Jack around his head, and yanked it against the crate. It was the ghost Jack had beat earlier, and in the last seconds before some fingers covered his eyes, Jack saw the man's knife wound had healed completely, before he disappeared behind the crate with only his hands and wrists sticking through the metal. And then the four men tightened their grip on him, pulling at him, their hands solid but the rest of them incorporeal, so their bodies were hidden inside the ground and crate.

Yeap, this was a problem. The ghosts were manifesting themselves, otherwise he doubted they'd be able to interact with him physically. It allowed them to hit him, and for him to hit them, but they weren't able to do much damage to him, or vice versa. Clara though, maybe she could do something, if she fought spirits on a regular basis.

He managed a peek between some of the ghostly fingers trying -- and failing -- to crush his skull into the metal. One of them almost got his eye, and he yelled in frustration as he twisted his head to keep it from getting finger stabbed. Clara was fighting off ghosts, but there were more than six now, and while she was easily destroying one, several more were on her. Three of them had ghostly knives, and they jammed them down against her hide, sinking through the thick fur and skin, and earning blood and roars from the beast.

"Clara!" Again, Jack twisted as much as he could. More, he needed more vitae, more strength, pump it through his undead veins until he was a juggernaut. But before he could do anything, Sándor got up, clutching his shoulder, and started to walk toward the werewolf. "Sándor, don't fuck--" The ghost behind Jack got some of his fingers around his mouth, and Jack did the only reasonable thing he could do: opened his mouth, and bit down. Ghost flesh tore apart, and the disgusting ooze flooded Jack's mouth, unnaturally cold. For a second, he was terrified digesting it might do something to him, but the strange stuff faded into mist inside him. It was enough to get him a few more seconds of vocal freedom. "Sándor, sit the fuck down, and stay out of the way!"

Sándor continued to walk toward Clara, ignored by the ghosts. A glance back from the man to Jack showed a look of pain in his eyes Jack didn't understand. Hunched forward, swaying with exhaustion, clearly still fucked up, the man was going to get himself killed.

The ghost behind Jack, the one hidden inside the cargo crate, and pinning his head to it with his arms reaching through the metal, screamed. Not the weak groans of pain Jack managed to stir in the ghosts with his earlier attacks. The sound of someone dying, really dying, a painful and horrible death, erupted from the cargo crate, and filled the whole train yard. The sound had power, a horrific sound that everyone knew instinctively, and it was enough to bring the battle to a halt.

"W-What the..."

The ghosts holding down Jack's feet and legs flew up and away from him, their bodies becoming more translucent as they did. Once they had twenty feet between them and him, they turned, each glaring down at him with their empty eye sockets, fear and rage on their faces.

Jack managed half a step forward, and then froze. Slowly, a knife came out through the cargo metal behind him and into view on his right. So damn slow, it didn't trigger a defensive reflex, but he did turn to look at it. No, not a knife, a letter opener. A sharpened letter opener.

He froze over again as ice filled his guts, like when that ghost's fingers had fallen apart in his mouth, except a million times worse. His eyes went wide, and he struggled to turn his neck enough to look ahead again to Clara and Sándor. Both of them stared at him, and at the ghost coming through the cargo crate behind him. The serial killer flowed forward, through him, and as her mouth passed through his head, he heard her chuckle, literally chuckle inside his skull, before it erupted into an outrageous laugh when her lips passed his face.

"Hahaha! Old geezers, you just refuse to move on. Either disperse or go deeper, but there's nothing left for fossils like you." Sabrina licked her letter opener, and slowly hovered toward the fleeing ghosts that'd been holding Jack down. But, once she had a few feet on her, her laughter redoubled, and she launched herself up, then arced down toward Clara.

She was fast. The mist swirled, and Sándor only barely managed to duck as Sabrina divebombed past his head, and into Clara. Into, and through her. But as she passed through the werewolf, earning a howling yelp of surprise from the giant beast, she held out her ghostly knife, and got to cutting. One of the men screamed, and the horrific sound of agony and death gushed out over the train yard until it deafened Jack.

The ghost died. It wasn't like when Jack had shot and stabbed the other ghosts. And it wasn't even like when Clara had torn ghosts apart, using her weird magic claws to do serious damage. Whatever it was Sabrina was doing, was a thousand times worse than Jack or Clara could do to these ghosts, and all she had was a letter opener. A sharp, ghostly letter opener.

One of the men on Clara's back stopped stabbing, and threw himself at Sabrina, but she swam forward and got him in the guts, shoulder against his chest, both hands around her weapon so the blade went directly into the man's stomach. Collision between the ghosts was far meatier than it had been with Jack. Whatever it was that made the ghosts fluctuate between corporeal and incorporeal, it didn't mean shit to other ghosts.

The one stabbed in the gut fell, clutched at their stomach, and writhed, screaming and shrieking like someone had poured molten lead into their belly. After a few seconds, their screams died away, and they melted, collapsing into goo, and dispersing into the mist. And it didn't fade. It didn't take a ghost expert to tell what Jack and Clara had been doing was only hurting the ghosts. What Sabrina was doing was killing them.

The mist was made up of dead ghosts.

Seeing another of their buddies die was apparently enough to break the resolve of the ghosts. They turned, and fled. Some of them disappeared into the ground, and some others darted away, hovering into some of the train carts. One flew up and into the warehouse, and another disappeared into a crate, slamming the heavy metal doors behind him without so much as glancing back. The metal ringed with impact, but as the sound faded, it left only silence.

Chuckling, Sabrina lifted the knife to her mouth, and licked the blade again. "You should have stayed where I put you! It was safe there."

Jack gulped down on his dry throat as he watched the crazy woman hover there. She made no attempt to attack them, and if anything, she looked like she was ready to dance to some rave music; no feet to do that, but still. Her green glow, hidden before when she'd sneak attacked, was in full bloom again, and she chuckled a few times as she tossed the letter opener up and down in her hand. It half rotated with each flip.

"S-Sorry," Jack said. "We couldn't wait. We need to leave before my friends start to suffer."

"Suffer?"

"Food, water, that sorta stuff." He gestured to Clara, who stepped back and stood beside him, still in her werewolf form. She didn't trust Sabrina. Blood oozed from the wounds in her back, and Jack glanced back at them, sighing. They were closing, but he'd seen werewolves take harsher punishment and heal faster. He doubted a wound inflicted by a ghost was as easy to heal from as a normal blade. Plus, she was getting weak, and transforming all the time was probably doing a number on her stamina.

"But vampires don't need to eat," Sabrina said, nodding. "So you're fine, until your vitae runs out, right?"