My Little Ventrue Pt. 08 Ch. 06

Clara and Sándor sneaking away? It was true then, they were injured, as the Uratha said they were. Damien pointed at the four wolves, pointed to his nose, and gestured out to the rest of the train yard. Then he pointed at himself, and to the noise. Noah and Caleb nodded without so much as a moment's hesitation, and the two wolves headed off together. Eric and Jessy took a moment to figure it out, but once they did, they took off in their own direction together.

Look for Clara and Sándor, look for an opportunity to engage, and fight. And Damien was going in first. They all knew who was fighting the azlu, and they weren't going to leave him to do it alone.

Maybe they should have. Damien had seen first hand what the curse could do, twice. He wasn't anxious for a third time.

Damien withdrew his sword, and reached into his coat for his pistol. And put it back. A pistol wasn't going to do anything against an azlu, and the sheriff had made it clear how much better a sword was to a Kindred in most circumstances. Time for a little payback for the gut stab?

He gripped the hilt with both hands, and looked behind him at Fiona and Athalia.

"Fiona, can you be ready to ensnare the monster?"

"Aye!" she whispered, and even the whisper sounded enthusiastic. He loved her joviality, and he prayed to God it didn't get her killed.

"And, if this one breaks apart into small spiders when it dies--"

"Ah will catch them, too!"

"Athalia, can you provide support?"

She frowned at him, a mix of hate and surprise in her eyes. "You trust me to help you?"

"I trust you to help because Sándor is out here somewhere, and if he dies, your mission is lost."

She grit her teeth loud enough he heard it, but after a few seconds consideration, nodded. "I will attack from the shadows when you create an opening."

Nodding, he turned toward the ghost still hiding under the train. "You, uh..."

"It hurt me already! I'm not fighting it again."

Well, he could understand that. Not like most people would survive being hurt by this monster. Then again, she was a ghost. The monster could hurt ghosts? It was something from the Uratha side of the paranormal, so that sorta made sense. Spirits, ghosts, different but the same?

"Alright, we'll take care of it. Thank you for the information."

The ghost raised an eyebrow at him like he was crazy, but he paid her no mind. Behind the train she hid under, beyond a pile of metal, rust, bent steel, and thousands of scattered bricks, Jack was fighting the azlu. Even now, the boy screamed and roared; his young voice didn't match the psychotic rage in it, or the violence he was capable of. But, when Damien jumped onto the train cart, and looked out over the train graveyard, he knew it was Jack.

Not Jack. It was the curse.

Jack and the enormous spider creature circled each other, and where Damien was sure there'd once been cargo crates, train carriages, towers, fences, steel beams, and lampposts, was only destruction. Piles of debris circled the two monsters, much of it broken and dented, with shredded remains under their feet. As if a bomb of chaos had exploded, the two fought in a crater of mayhem, and Damien gulped as he scanned the battleground.

Jack's suit was mostly gone, except for some tattered pants and his shoes. No jacket, no shirt, no vest holster. A couple glints buried in the insanity lying about suggested where the boy's weapons might be, probably used and either empty or damaged, or useless. The azlu that nearly killed Damien had been extremely resilient to anything but the most extreme damage, and fire. No one had fire, which all the vampires were surely thankful for, but it was the tool the werewolves had used last time to make sure the other azlu died and died completely. Jack had killed the second one with a giant metal rebar, straight down through the skull and into its body, only for it to supposedly break into a bunch of small spiders and escape.

This time, they'd be ready for it.

Blood coated Jack's skin, dark blood, darker than human. It swirled, coursing up and down his body, and tiny whips of the heavy liquid cracked the air as it did. The boy's eyes were gone, or maybe hidden, but all Damien could see in his eye sockets was more vampire blood, swirling, leaking but never leaving his body. Gashes and holes decorated his skin and muscles, some small, some large, and blood flowed from them, as if veins had become external. The monster must have punctured him with its scythe arms, breaking through the barrier Jack's curse protected him with. What damage the spider managed to accomplish wasn't enough to stop him though. The curse could probably be left with nothing more than a skeleton, and still survive. Immortal, as long as the curse protected him with its unending tides of damned blood.

Immortal, but thoroughly damaged. The spider must have hit him thirty or forty times, and the only thing keeping Jack from literally collapsing into a pile of shredded limbs, was the blood surging through him. The azlu wasn't doing much better. Several of its spider legs were missing, and it struggled to get its huge body off the dirt and rock beneath it. More obvious, was that it was missing one of its arms. Those arms were massive, each ending in a giant bone scythe, and more than capable of splitting a car in half. Jack had managed to rip one off?

No, not rip. Not even he was that strong, to de-arm a creature of such insane strength. However, beside the spider's removed arm, coils of barbed wire sat, ripped free of one of the metal and wood fences nearby. It was coated in flesh and blood, and broken into two long pieces.

Jack must have sawed through its arm with the barbed wire.

The curse was pushing his Ventrue blood far further than it should have been able to reach, when it came to strength. When Damien had described Jack's assault on Sándor's Horror, Maria had been quiet and contemplative, but he'd managed to detect a hint of fear on her. According to Maria, only ancient elders with many centuries to their name could push their bodies so deep into Disciplines that did not come naturally to them. For a Ventrue to be fighting a giant gargoyle in a melee brawl was an extremely impressive feat, something Maria doubted Viktor would be capable of.

"Come on, bring it!" Jack yelled, and he kicked a rock at the spider. It bounced off harmlessly. "Fucking animal, weak, pathetic, mindless. Come on!" The boy circled the huge creature, but his feet were heavy, and he nearly tripped several times as he failed to lift his shoes higher than the debris. He didn't fall, but it wouldn't be long before he did.

Damien managed to get a peek at his friend's palms. They were shredded.

The alien creature charged. Like Jack, it stumbled, five spider legs struggling to manage its weight, but only thirty feet separated the two combatants, not far enough to be a serious hindrance to the enormous monster.

"Fuck you! Fucking die!" Jack couldn't get out of the way in time, but the spider's charge was a mess. Its attempts to hit him with its scythe arm failed, and it fell forward. It bowled over Jack, crashed into him, and fell onto its stomach at the same time, with Jack literally underneath it.

Jack screamed and roared fury, spat venom, and swung his fists into where the human and spider melded at the chest and waist. The spider shrieked in pain and pushed off the ground in an attempt to try again, but Jack dove at one of the spider's legs. Like some sort of crazed, hungry animal, Jack got his bloody hands on one of the legs, and bit into it. The monster's shrieks rose an octave, and Damien winced as its inhuman cry deafened him, and as the monster's blood gushed out onto the ground. Jack's bite had been vicious, and had ripped a giant chunk of the relatively thin spider leg out. A moment later, Jack ripped the leg in half, and the monster screamed its agony.

Behind him, Fiona and Athalia got into position, Fiona close, Athalia between his train cart and a nearby cargo crate. He couldn't see Athalia's face, but Fiona stared at the mayhem like watching a horror movie. It was not a pretty sight. Damien forced himself to look back to his friend, at his torn and ravaged body, at the dark blood flowing up and down his flesh and through it like it was alive, and he grit his teeth.

First, the azlu, then they could deal with Jack.

He looked around for signs of the others. One wolf sat upon a leaning tower of metal bars, and from his posture, Damien knew the other wolves were hidden in the darkness and mist. Hopefully they were waiting for a signal.

"Fiona, be ready to catch any spiders that escape."

"Aye."

He nodded, tightened his grip on his sword, and poured every ounce of vitae he had into his Cloak, and speed. It was like that time he'd landed his sword on the Prince, and had cut off one of her legs, and one of her arms. Even a mighty beast could be felled by a single swing of the sword, if it could be done undetected. And the spider was very distracted. He just had to be careful to not get hit by that scythe arm on the entry.

The monster raised his arm, ready to strike at Jack again. At this point, Damien doubted the strike would kill Jack. Hell, Jack was likely to win this fight if it continued, but the more the kid drained his blood, the more problematic dealing with him might be. It was as good an opening as any.

Damien leapt from the train, landed maybe a couple hundred feet away from the monster, and closed the distance in a single moment. The spider noticed him somehow, despite the crazed Jack biting and ripping one of his long spider legs apart. But it noticed too late, and Damien jumped up at it from Jack's side, sword up and out.

The spider monster's human, mutated head went flying.

Not waiting to find out if the creature could live through beheading, Damien landed on the monster's fat, hairy arachnid back, turned, and sliced his sword down straight onto its neck with both hands. There was clear, obvious resistance from the monster's flesh, far more than a human's body would give, but Damien put every bit of power he could into the strike. The sword would have broken, but swords for Kindred were built to withstand brutal amounts of punishment.

His blade pushed down through the flesh, down between its shoulders, shoulder blades, down beside its spine, and into its guts. Cutting off its head hadn't stopped it from attempting to swipe its scythe arm at Jack, but it had missed. And, despite losing its head, it tried to swing again. But once Damien pushed his sword down further, and further, cutting through the human half's guts and then into where it joined the spider, the creature finally stopped. It fell over onto its side, and Damien jumped free to land beside Jack.

"The fuck?" Jack said, releasing his bite. He turned to face Damien, anger in his blood-filled eyes, and Damien took a step back as he lowered his sword. Lowered, not sheathed.

The flesh of the monster beside them churned, tore, and broke apart. The human, ultimately a small piece of the creature's body, fell off and away, while the spider half shimmered and dissolved before their eyes. Jack didn't seem to care, eyes still locked on him, but Damien raised a hand. It was enough of a signal to draw everyone.

The wolves arrived first, and Damien took a step back from them as well to give them room. They weren't in their normal wolf forms anymore, they were in much larger wolf bodies, so large Damien and Jack both had to step aside to not get knocked over, as the titanic creatures jumped upon the scattering spiders.

"Jack, we must--"

"I had it! You fucking took my--"

"Jack! Focus! We have to kill the azlu before this situation happens again!"

"Aye!" Fiona said. She ran over to them, excited smile on her face as she made her way through the mist, the silhouette of her spider legs visible like shadows against fog. She pointed them and her hands out at the spreading swarm of large spiders, and began to unleash her webbing.

More than Fiona joined in. Jessy emerged from the mist in her wolf body, and transformed. Gangrel transformations were a lot more disgusting than Uratha transformations, with twisting flesh and bubbling muscle contorting like rubber stretched over bone. She became partly human, partly something else, something grotesque that ran on all fours, and was covered in spikes. She fell upon the spiders, and started tearing.

Athalia did as well, though she stayed well clear of Jack as she approached. The scattered spiders needed to be slain, and she knew it, but that didn't mean she had to be near Jack as she got to work. The titanic silhouette of her Horror reached out, and slashed out with its bone claws, tearing spiders to bits.

Sabrina must have realized what was happening, because the crazy ghost let out a maniacal cackle, and dove upon the spiders, slashing away with a small blade. Ok, mental note, be careful with Sabrina.

Jack continued to glare at him, and Damien took another step back. The boy wasn't stupid. He knew how important it was they take care of these vermin before they evolved into another one of the giant, deadly monsters. Jack knew, but the curse seemed more interested in a satisfying fight, or rather, how Damien had taken its conclusion from him.

"I fucking had it, Damien."

"Maybe. But... look at you."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Jack took another step toward him, and again, Damien took a step back.

Damien looked around for something reflective. No such luck. The train graveyard was enormous, but everything in it was broken, rusted, stained and worn. So with heavy sigh and heavier concern, he lifted his sword slowly, and pointed the flat side at the kid standing in front of him.

Kid. It was hard to think of Jack as a kid anymore, not after everything that'd happened to him, and everything he'd done. But more so, thinking of him as a kid just wasn't possible with the curse in control. The boy looked like a monstrosity, a mythic entity, a phantasm of blood, with dozens of enormous cuts along his near naked body flowing with tendrils of tainted crimson. The blood pulsed, resisted gravity, and flowed up and down his body like slithering snakes; maybe more like slithering millipedes, burrowing into and out of the wounds of a corpse.

Jack looked at his reflection, and froze. The blood pools for eyes melted away, exposing the honest green Damien was used to, and the kid reached out for the sword. He was tempted to hold onto it, but helping Jack was worth the risk. He let the sword go, and Jack held the blade with both hands, finger and thumb pinching it, grip perfectly still.

And then he threw the sword down. It bounced several times before half spinning, and coming to a halt at Damien's feet.

"Jack doesn't deserve me. He'd be dead if it wasn't for me!"

Damien blinked at the man, and looked beside him to the slaughter. The wolves, and Jessy, Fiona, and Athalia did a great job assaulting the spreading spiders, with Fiona's webbing helping in particular. The spiders seemed impervious to its stickiness, they were spiders, but she crafted the web into nets, and hauled on the dozens of enormous spiders like fish being hauled from the ocean. The giant wolf abominations were particularly effective, and they shredded through the spiders with familiarity.

None of them could spare a moment to deal with Jack. If Damien yelled, called for help, they'd come, but it was better they deal with the scattering swarm of arachnids while they could. And besides, Jack hadn't attacked him, yet.

"Jack, this isn't you. This is--"

"What? The curse? You act like I'm some sort of thing, and not a person."

Damien raised a brow, and forced himself to hold still as Jack took a step closer. His eyes weren't pools of blood anymore, likely regenerated from whatever the azlu had done to them, but he could still see madness in them.

"So then... what are you?"

"I'm Jack, you fucking asshole."

"You're not Jack."

That was not the best thing to say. The boy in front of him stared at him with rediscovered anger, and clenched his hands into fists as he came closer again.

Luckily for Damien, New Jack had spent who knew how long throwing trains, giant metal fences, steel beams, and had handled barbed wire with his bare hands, to dismember a giant spider monster. He was covered in dozens of enormous gashes, along with several holes that likely went through and through. For all his rage, New Jack wasn't God, and he stumbled as he approached him. The coursing snake veins of exposed blood dissipated and fell apart. The rippling of his skin where the blood poured underneath calmed and smoothed. The rage in his eyes began to fade.

So Damien did the only reasonable thing he could, and gambled. He poured every bit of vitae he could into his speed again, snapped up a piece of broken wood nearby, and jammed it into Jack's chest, straight into his heart.

"The fu--" Jack managed to look down and stare at the piece of jagged wood sticking out of his bare chest, before torpor took him. His eyes closed, and he fell into the mist and rubble. Maybe gambling wasn't such a sin.

Damien grabbed his sword, and squatted beside his friend. He'd been worried maybe putting Jack into torpor would prevent the curse from keeping the boy alive through all his injuries, but Jack remained intact. Currents of dark blood continued to run through his body, deep in his wounds, but otherwise the boy looked normal again, save for the holes and gashes, many of them a couple inches deep.

"Damien!" Clara's voice. Oh bless the Lord, she was alive. If she was dead, Jack would never forgive himself.

Damien raised his head and looked around. It was hard to hear much, considering a slaughter was currently going on, spiders screeching and clicking and dying everywhere, but Clara's voice managed to punch through the mess.

She walked through the fog, body heavy, each step dragging along the rock and metal underneath her. Her clothes were soaked in her blood, but she didn't look injured; probably healed from her earlier wounds. But she was exhausted, to the point she could barely move.

Sándor walked beside her, limping, and moving with a similar level of exhaustion. Unlike Clara, there was a blatant wound in his shoulder, and a grimace on his face as he looked down at the boy at Damien's feet.

"Jack!" Sabrina's voice. Uh oh. The ghost swam down for Jack, and scooped the boy up. For a second Damien thought she'd fly away, but she whimpered as she tried to lift him, settled on the ground, and released him. The injury the azlu dealt her must have been powerful. "Why did you stab him!"

"Sabrina," he said, "it's... complicated. He'll be fine, ok?" Reasoning with a ghost. How does one reason with a ghost? His first introduction to ghosts was Mary, and she'd been very unstable, even with her two closest relatives there to calm her. "He's a vampire, and--"

"I know he's a vampire! He's the master's grandchilde. And you stabbed him!"

He blinked, several times. Master's grandchilde? Who was--

"You're Sabrina Douville. One of Viktor Honor's ghoul." A rather menacing person Damien had spied on once or twice. She'd died in a pointless turf skirmish between the Carthians and Invictus.

The ghost hissed at him, and floated circles around the unconscious vampire. "You hurt the grandchilde!"

Damien stood there, dumbfounded. Looking around showed the spiders had been thoroughly destroyed, and while Noah and Caleb ran around, looking for potential leftovers, the rest of the group rejoined him. Slowly, they all circled the ghost and the boy she protected, both Eric and Jessy returned to human form, and each raised brows in confusion. Athalia kept a healthy distance back, but she too stood close enough to look down at the unconscious vampire, surprised and confused; whether by the ghost or the destruction one vampire had managed to unleash, Damien didn't know.