My Little Ventrue Pt. 09 Ch. 01

"She's right," Damien said. "Garry is going to push harder on the Mirrden district, and he knows that numbers give him power. Michael's in the same boat. They'll fight it out, and if the city starts to get damaged, the Prince will be put in an awkward spot. She's not stupid. She's controlled the city through politics and the fact she rarely interferes with covenants. But if she does..."

Natasha sighed, and mirrored Vivi, fiddling with her hands and fingers. They were right, of course. In most cities, whichever covenant ruled the city did so with might, often through numbers, hardware, financial assets, and an elder or three at the head. When the Lancea et Sanctum stepped over the line, the Prince enacted the purge, and used many thralls armed with modern weapons, along with Garry's Carthians, to defeat Lucas. But this time, the Carthians weren't her allies. And as strong as the Prince and Daniel were, along with several dozen trained thralls at their disposal, they couldn't go to war against the Carthians without exposing themselves to the Invictus, or vice versa.

The Danse Macabre was all too similar to countries going to war in the modern world. Lies, deception, exploiting loopholes in treaties, and forcing retaliations so one party could claim to be the victim and justify their aggression. And, like modern warfare, the tools of battle between covenants had changed to espionage instead of raids, and assault rifles, flamethrowers, and grenades, instead of swords. Even elders as strong as Antoinette and Daniel would have a hard time managing that chaos.

Sighing to match theirs, Damien grabbed his crutch, and hopped out from between the pews. "Ladies, if you'll excuse me."

Vivi and Tash nodded, and Tash fingerwaved at her friend as he hobbled past the pulpit and to the hidden stairway down to Maria's den.

"He looked happy," Vivi said.

"Mmm?" He certainly wasn't happy about the topic.

Her childe smiled and looked back down at her hands. "I remember when I first met him, when Lucas was alive, down in Tony's old underground base. He... he liked talking about God, and Longinus, and you could tell he was passionate about his beliefs. But when Lucas started asking for the congregation to get ready for war, you could... see his heart sink."

"He d-didn't realize how far his sire had fallen."

"Neither did we. I'm glad I backed out at the last minute, me and the others. But when I saw Damien after that, he looked even worse. Even after he replaced you, and started working for Maria, he was always depressed. Me and the few other Invictus who didn't go with Lucas that last night, we talk to him sometimes, about God, and tried to make him happy. It didn't work." Slowly, Vivi looked at her, smiling. "But ever since he met that Fiona girl, he's gotten happier. And lately, he's been really happy."

"I guess him and Fiona have g-gotten really close."

"Must be. And... and you? I um, I heard you were getting really close to those werewolf boys. But then something happened?"

Natasha grumbled and looked down. Heat boiled up through her, and not the good kind. The scalding kind, the kind that made it impossible to think about anything other than pain, and maybe burning down a building.

"They staked me, t-to keep me out of the way, because Avery had the pack attack Maria." No point in keeping it a secret. Everyone knew about what Avery did. Natasha getting staked though, that was a secret.

"Oh. That's... horrible! Did it hurt?"

She nodded. "Yes. B-But I've been hurt a lot worse. That's n-not the issue." The boys didn't stake her to be violent. Calling it violence almost seemed wrong. She was a vampire. Staking her was less about violence, and more about taking away choice. It was like, what if she'd come up behind the boys and dosed them with chloroform? Chloroform didn't work like they showed in the movies, but the idea stood. What if she'd come up and just drugged them, and then tied them up, until she could come back and release them after she'd done what she needed done? Sure, the violence was bad, but taking away their choice to get involved in the whole affair was a hundred times worse.

It was infuriating. It was beyond infuriating. And no matter how angry she got, she only got angrier, because she couldn't entirely blame them. If push came to shove, if Antoinette told her the city was in danger if she didn't do something, and she knew she'd have to lock Matt and Art up in a basement to do it, she might. No, she would do it. She'd do it because she trusted Antoinette and Daniel with her life; especially her sire, after what he did, when Lucas held her hostage. She'd do it because saving the lives of Dolareido, its kine and Kindred, was more important than her relationship.

Vivi touched her shoulder, and Tash snapped her head up, forcing the girl to pull her hand back.

"S-Sorry, Vivi. Just... I get angry thinking about it."

"I don't blame you. They didn't trust you, and did something so horrible because of it."

Sighing, Tash leaned forward and set her head against the pew in front of her. "Yeah, b-but... I don't blame them, not completely. And that makes me angrier. I d-don't... I don't want to be able to do what they did, you know? That's not... that's not..." Love.

"Tash, you look miserable. And I bet they're miserable, too. You have to talk to them."

"I had the Prince lock them up, hanging from chains, for th-th-three days! And now the pack and the Ordo are on bad terms. Jack's gonna try and s-sort things out, b-b-but he... might not be able to."

"If they're as miserable as you are, I think they'll risk pissing off their boss to talk to you."

She shook her head. "No! No, not yet. Not... n-not until the Ordo Dracul aren't the reason that we might get into an argument." She couldn't take an argument with Matt and Arturo, not now. It'd shatter her, and she knew it. And that made her angry, too. Antoinette could handle an argument, even a brutal one. If she and Jack suddenly found themselves in an argument over their future, Antoinette would steel herself, and be brutal with the man. Because she knew her relationship with Jack was solid, and would survive it.

And after what happened, Tash didn't know what to think about hers.

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~~Antoinette~~

One month after the incident.

Natasha and her friends began calling the confrontation between Maria and Avery the 'incident', not long after it occurred. That night, her city changed, and the new point of reference was an adequate one. The Right Hands of the Invictus were busy almost every night now, as Garry Tones took advantage of Maria's helplessness.

Garry took back the Mirrden District, as predicted. No Kindred died, but there was damage. Antoinette knew to mention it at the next Primogen meeting, but she knew neither the Carthians nor the Invictus would back down. Naturally, she would be forced threaten them, to keep their disagreements from damaging her city. It was a dance they had all danced before, the slow increase of hostilities that would eventually lead to deaths.

"No one's died yet," Garry barked, "so don't freak out."

"How dare you." Michael clenched his right fist where it sat on Antoinette's glass table, and he glared daggers into his fellow Gangrel. "Several thralls and ghouls were injured."

Garry shrugged. "We were careful."

"You destroyed several vehicles! The fires drew the eye of the city, the media, the police."

"Yeah well, had to be done. You wouldn't back off. Fire works pretty well." The man grinned, leaned in, and grin evolved into smirk. "Mirrden's mine. I got a whole team set up there already. Now, how about you fuck off, Michael?"

Michael snarled. Maria, wearing a rather fluffy white gown that covered her shoulders and growing potential arms nicely, snarled as well. Jacob, opposite of Antoinette, grinned, but said nothing.

"You can't honestly expect we'll let you keep it," Michael said.

"You took it from me. I was just taking it back."

"Idiot boy. The area did not always belong to you!"

"Not like you had a fair claim on it, asshole." Garry swept his arm through the air, dismissing Michael's words.

"You risked the Masquerade," Maria said. The woman did not need arms to make sweeping gestures, with how expressive her corpse eyes were. "We did no such thing, when we forced you out from the district."

"Risked, but not violated in any way." Garry shrugged, leaned back in his chair, and gestured to Antoinette. "Prince? Did I overstep? Is there anyone in the whole damn fucking world that thinks this dispute's been anything more than a turf war? Hell, most agencies think it's some third party hired to do some property damage or scare some assholes into paying back their debts." Information Garry had likely secured through Terra Den's power.

"Garry Tones is correct," Antoinette said after a time. "The Masquerade remains intact, and relatively undamaged."

Without missing a beat, Garry, Maria, and Michael fell back into squabbles. From across the table, Jacob smiled, and more often than not, his eyes fell to Antoinette; the bandage over them did, at least. No need for words, his grin said it all.

Jacob and Garry had worked together before. Garry likely manipulated Avery into attacking Maria, or rather, nudged her in that direction. Jacob likely nudged Garry, without the Gangrel realizing, into nudging Avery. The Nosferatu wanted Avery dead, though he would not risk his neck to do it, or his influence over his pawn Garry, who liked Avery.

And now with Viktor, Tony, and Lucas gone, Garry was free to be aggressive, stirring trouble in a way Jacob desired. But to what end? To kill Avery indirectly, as Antoinette did Tony and Viktor? Or did he simply wish for Garry to remove Maria and Michael from power? Whatever the man's goals, he had succeeded in creating chaos.

Perhaps that was his goal. To create chaos for chaos's sake? No. Jacob, despite his beliefs and attitude, was not some force of chaos incarnate. He had goals.

Sighing, Antoinette raised a hand, and the squabbling slowly ceased.

"The confrontations between the Invictus and the Carthians must not draw the suspicion of the kine. If, at any point, someone violates the Masquerade in relation to these skirmishes the two covenants insist upon, I hereby decree that I will send Daniel to execute said violator. A zero-tolerance policy, in regards to these skirmishes. Do I make myself clear?"

The three elders looked at her, glaring, but silent. They knew it was coming, the bloody fools.

"Harsh," Jacob said, smiling unwavering.

"Oui, it is. But we have peace in this city, and we will continue to have peace in this city, even if only on the surface. If the Invictus and Carthians wish to poke and prod each other, very well. Dolareido is my concern, not your meaningless disputes. You are guests in my city. Do not forget that."

Michael glared at her, and for the first time in many years, she found obvious aggression on his face. For the man to conspire against her, that was expected, but to openly show hostility? That was a level of confidence and bravado she had not seen in some time.

"Do you take issue with my command, Mister McDonald?"

"In a manner of speaking, Prince."

Antoinette met the man's eyes, and she responded to the growing fire there with cold ice. "Then speak."

"If you're so concerned with the Masquerade, why do you let the Carthians openly attack and damage my property?"

She leaned forward in her grand chair, over the glass table of her highest office in her Elysium tower, and offered Michael a single second of visible rage. A fleeting moment, her mask removed, and furor exposed. It was enough to have the man draw his head back a touch, enough for him to realize she was the stronger of the two of them, and that it would do him well to remember that.

"As Garry said, he has only acted in a way that could not possibly lead to investigative reports from curious kine with eyes for the paranormal. Your ridiculous 'turf war' is of little concern to me, as long as my city continues to operate, and the Masquerade is upheld."

"It might seem like just a turf war to you, Prince," Garry said, "but to some of us, it's a fight for the god damn land we grew up on. I have vamps who call these places home, who grew up in these places, who know the people and consider it their fucking responsibility to keep those kine safe. These Invictus assholes think it's just territory, a place to expand so they can fuel their fucking money machine. Yeah, fuck that, and fuck them. Times are different now. I got plenty of new Kindred with their own names, their own pasts, and they got as much right to be a part of this city as these money-loving sacks of shit."

Ah, yes, the new Kindred. There was of course, the unfortunate truth that she was a dragon, a member of the Ordo Dracul, a secretive organization that ultimately recruited few members. Numbers were a powerful advantage. In the past, her age and strength would have been enough to handle a hundred young Kindred, but with today's technology, such feats were risky. While her thralls were well trained in weaponry and modern technology, it was difficult to forever check for possible threats such as hidden explosive devices. And no elder, not even her, could survive being doused in napalm and lit aflame.

She had to be careful. To rule over her city with an iron fist was simply not an option anymore. The only thing that kept the Invictus, or the Carthians for that matter, from launching a full scale assault on her for control of Dolareido, was the nature of Kindred. Vampires were not werewolves, and did not cooperate instinctively. They fought for themselves, no matter how altruistic they perceived themselves to be.

Garry could not ask his Carthians to jump into a meat grinder for him, nor could Michael and his Invictus. As long as Antoinette remained a just and appreciable ruler, most Kindred would respect her position.

The issue, however, was that no matter how hard she tried, forever events continued to spiral out of her control. True conflict was inevitable between the Invictus and Carthians, they all realized it, and this whole meeting was nothing but pointless pretense.

She sat back, and shook her head. "You have been warned. Overstep, and I will interfere. Am I understood?"

Garry and Michael nodded, though they looked at each other like dogs, ready to strike.

"And Maria, we spoke of this before, but it bears repeating here for the others. I do not condone what Avery has done. Whatever misguidedness led to her blatant attack, rest assured she is being dealt with."

"You worry about the wolves," Micheal asked, "but not the Carthians?"

"Dolareido is a Kindred city. The Uratha do not have permission to affect the lives of Kindred."

The man snarled. "Simon--"

"Was removed from the city the moment he overstepped himself. Avery is more reasonable than Simon, to some extent at least, and I would be a fool to ignore her value. She did catch and eliminate the threat of those azlu spider monsters in my city's underbelly, after all." She looked to Jacob for his expected retort, but he said nothing. The ever present smile faded, but his gaze remained on Antoinette, bandage-covered eyes aimed at her. "But she will be dealt with. She owes the Ordo as well, for assaulting Natasha. There shall be... compensation."

After some time to ponder, Maria sighed and nodded. "Very well, they do have their uses. I will leave it in your hands, Prince. But the next time Avery intrudes upon my estate without permission, I will kill her."

Antoinette smiled, and nodded. How nice of Maria to dispense with bravado, and state her intent plainly.

"Dismissed," Antoinette said. As everyone stood, she raised a hand. "Jacob, I would like to speak to you of private matters." Once the others left, Jacob offered one of his usual, quiet chuckles, and sat down in a chair much closer to her. "Daniel, would you be so kind?"

Her sheriff nodded, and left, leaving Antoinette with her old friend Jacob the warlock, and forever thorn in her side.

"What's this about, oh Prince of mine?"

"Samantha."

He laughed. "Straight to the point? Not very dragon-y of you."

"Yes, well, this is not a matter of the Ordo Dracul, or my role as Prince. This is about my role as sire, and my childe, who has spent an increasingly large amount of time in that den of yours."

Laughing harder, Jacob leaned in and grinned at her. Not a sinister grin; she had seen many of those. No, this grin was playful, and dare she think it, cheerful.

"Worried I'm mistreating her?"

"Non. She is quite... enamored with you. Though she is wise enough to temper her expectations, she nevertheless finds herself excited to visit you, and your witches." While she subtly encouraged her childe to pursue relations with Jacob, she had long made sure Samantha knew to be careful with her heart and the Nosferatu before her.

His grin grew into an almost wondrous smile, and he leaned back in his chair as he looked up. "I wonder if it's in their blood."

"You mean her and Jack?"

"Yeap. Something about her just..." He shrugged and shook his head. "It's personal stuff, but you probably know what I'm thinking. You're dating her son."

She returned his smile. She knew of what he meant, of the boy's inexplicable ability to make her forget she was ancient, and instead, bring out the playful, younger side of her she had long suppressed.

"I wanted to ask about your..." She frowned as she looked down, and tapped a finger against her chin. "I do not presume to know your intentions, or wish to impose upon your designs, old friend. But I cannot help but worry about her. Her son has become the focus of many events and dilemmas, and her daughter's ghost haunts her home, and potentially Samantha herself as well. The mother of her daughter's killer is close friends with my sheriff, and--"

Jacob held up his hands. "Yeah, I get it. Shit's pretty crazy, and she's gone through hell. I should be careful, use kid gloves." His grin softened, and he relaxed into the chair. "You've done a good job, helping her get over that shit."

"Have I? She spends much of her time with you these nights, not I."

"Ha. Yeah, but she's been... been helping me, as much as the other way around." And as quickly as it had softened, his grin spread wide once again. "And I didn't have to push her very hard, to get her to open up, with the whole Circle."

"Oh Jacob you fiend, you did not."

"Ha! I did. Fucked her in front of everyone. She loved it. Embarrassed as all hell, but she loved it."

Antoinette rolled her eyes, leaned back, and laughed, mirroring the Nosferatu. A topic unbelievably crass, when it came from Jacob, but in Antoinette's ideal world, such sexual joys would be commonplace.

"It has taken Jack years to be comfortable with only a fraction of such exhibitionism."

"Yeah well, he's younger, and he's a guy. Lot more girls in the porn industry than dudes."

"And yet, Othello--"

"Othello is porn incarnate. The porn gods came to Earth, found a new baby, and imbued him with all the porn powers, creating the ultimate avatar of porn. He's the exception that proves the rule." He tapped his chin, mocking Antoinette and mirroring her in return. "Your childe has a huge crush on him."

"Does she? The man is a mountain of meat, and last I heard, refuses to have any form of sex other than anal."

"Yeap. But Samantha seems to embrace kinks of all types. One little push and I could have her--"

"Please do not trade my childe around like a sex toy, Jacob."

"Nah, nothing like that. I'll be there. But, I'd be lying if I said she wouldn't like being passed around like a toy."

Again, Antoinette rolled her eyes. Not because Jacob was incorrect; he was not. But, his word choice was so boorish, it did not do justice the sexual delights and pleasures he was describing. Antoinette desired a world where such pleasures were accepted without taboo. Jacob, on the other hand, used the very fact such acts were taboo to increase the bliss they provided; likely to great effect, with a woman like Samantha.