My Little Ventrue Pt. 09 Ch. 13

"I... I know." Poor woman. Sam shook her head as she hugged herself. "I know."

Jen sighed, and set a hand on the shivering Sam's shoulder. "We wanted to keep this from you, for obvious reasons. But we've been working with Elen to build a new body for Julias for a while, and we kept running into problems. We've had to... acquire more and more bodies."

"Oh god."

Yeap, that sounded bad. That sounded really fucking bad. Seeing the shock on Sam's face was a kick in the guts.

"We're doing our best to be ethical about this," Triss said. "But yeah, I ain't gonna lie to myself about it. We're killing people, a lot of people, so we... so I can try and resurrect Julias. And we can argue philosophy and shit, about if it's right to do that, even if I'm making sure I only kill scum. But I'm still gonna keep going. I'm neck deep in this shit, and I'm gonna keep fucking going."

Staring at her, Sam managed a heavy gulp, and looked back at the pile of corpses.

"I'm a vampire. I'm a vampire. I'm a vampire. I have a vampire son, and a ghost daughter. I drink blood. I'm half dead." Evidently she had a mantra.

"Alright. Now, don't watch if you don't want to. This is gonna get messy."

Samantha nodded, wriggling some more, eyes wide, but she didn't look away. The mantra worked.

Triss squatted down in front of the dead, her kills, and grabbed some dude's body. Some fucker who beat his wife and sexually abused his kids. Maybe she should pick a girl body? Not like Dolareido didn't have women the world was better off without, and she'd piled a couple of them here. Whatever. Julias was a dude, so maybe that mattered.

She grabbed the guy, yanked him toward her by the leg, and picked him up. Lifeless eyes. A quick glance Sam's way showed the woman staring at the corpse, right in the eyes. Rookie mistake. With her left hand holding the corpse up by the back of the neck, Triss closed the dead man's eyes with her right.

And then she cut his flesh open. Her Nos claws were short, but plenty sharp, and cutting through skin and flesh was easy enough. Through the throat first, through cartilage and muscle, and then the spine. The body fell away, ka-splat, with enough impact to cause what little blood the corpse had to squirt a bit from the neck hole.

Samantha screamed and spun around. "Oh my god!"

"Told you to look away." Triss gave Jen a sad glance, who returned it as expected. This was a bad idea, but the woman wanted to see. And after stealing the book and knife from her sire, the fucking Prince of Dolareido, the least the witches could do was let the woman see how the sausage was made.

Samantha managed a few more peeks, but each time it only lasted a couple seconds, as Triss's work only grew bloodier. She needed the skull, the seat of the mind, not the brains and eyeballs and jaw and stuff; apparently blood magic was a little behind the science of what actually held the mind, thinking it was the skull and not the brain. Whatever. Triss ran her claws over the skull, splitting skin, and she tore it off. She sank her claws into the eye sockets, and scooped them out. She ripped off the jaw.

Getting the brain out wasn't so easy, and she knew it wouldn't be. But she'd come prepared, and she used a small metal long spoon stick sorta thing Jacob had given her. Because her boss literally had the tools lying around to get brains out of a skull. Scooping it out through the, according to Jacob, Foramen magnum, the hole at the bottom of the skull, was fucking nasty, but Doctor Jacob had given her good instructions.

Soon, all that was left was a skull. A bit bloody with gross, old dead man's blood and some flesh bits, maybe some brain bits still inside, but a skull. Strange how small it was compared to an actual head.

She held the thing in her hand, the first skull she'd ever extracted from a corpse, and she let the weight of it sink in. A skull, bone, seat of the mind. Ok yeah, maybe the old superstitions about skulls meant something, cause she felt a lot more than literal weight, holding it in her hands. This was something real, something more than a bunch of calcium meant to hold a brain in a protective cage.

Fucking chills.

She handed the skull to Jen. Jen didn't wanna touch it of course, and she grimaced when she held it in her palm, flashlight in her other hand. But once she felt the weight of it too, she stared at the bloody sphere of bone, and Triss got to see what she must have looked like when she held it. There was wonder in those eyes. Much as Jen didn't really consider herself a witch, she was a member of the Circle for a reason, and she'd stuck with Triss through shit that'd scare off any pussy Invictus or Carthian.

Triss squatted down over the corpse, and took a second to think. How to get it out? Bone saw and shit? Nah, fuck that. It wouldn't have the same weight, the same meaning and value, if she cheated. She was a vampire. Crúac was blood magic for vampires. She had to do this shit like a proper vampire would.

She ripped the dude's shirt open, sank both of her claws into the chest sternum, and ripped the body a fresh new hole.

Samantha outright squeaked this time. "Oh my god! Triss, you... what're you doing?"

Ripping a chest cavity open wasn't a seamless process. She had to break ribs, tear through flesh, and push shit aside. Messy. If the corpse had any blood left in it, she would have been soaked in gore before she was done. It was noisy too, and every crack, crunch, and squelching rip earned more panicked noises from Samantha.

But when Triss wrapped her right hand around the fucker's heart, and sliced it out with her left hand's claws, the same chills shot up through her hand and into her whole body. She stood up and stared at the organ in her hand, a flesh pump, a muscle that only knew how to move blood through a body and nothing more. But to a lot of cultures and beliefs long dead and gone, the heart was the seat of the soul.

She had a hard time believing that. Hell, she was a vampire, and had been for a decades now. Her heart wasn't anything more than a withered prune unless she was Blushing Life, and she damn well knew she had a soul. But holy fuck, holding the organ in her hand definitely had her questioning if she should dismiss those old beliefs. Power. Tingling, almost electric power coursed down through her arm and into her core. Holy fuck, what would it feel like to rip the heart out of a living person?

No wonder Jacob had all those tools for dismantling bodies in his main ritual room. Assuming that was his main ritual room. Dude had to have others.

"There, got what I need." Triss picked the body up and set it beside the pile. Beside, not on. Didn't want the guts and whatnot spilling on the other bodies and making a disgusting mess even worse.

"Finally." Samantha turned around again, and looked at the skull and heart, eyes wide and locked. "It's... it's really like in the stories. Witches and stuff."

Triss grinned at the woman, pulled the big black -- had to be black -- jewelry bag out of her pocket, set the heart in it, and held it open for the Ventrue. Jen was considerably gentler with the skull than Triss was, and she was stuck somewhere between grimacing and smiling with each moment. But Triss could also see the intrigue there, the curiosity, the wonder, as she set the skull in the bag.

Even Samantha stared on, curious, making an effort to keep her eyes off the pile of bodies, but drawn by what Triss was doing.

Triss took a deep breath, pulled out her phone, and brought up a picture at an angle so Jen and Sam couldn't see. Julias. Dude was sitting around reading a book when she took this picture, but he'd looked up quick and managed to get a pose. The classic, subtle but powerful smile, the sort really confident rich dudes who could secretly be mastermind villains had. Fucker was so damn photogenic, it was hard to take a bad picture of him. Not that she'd taken many, Masquerade risk that it was creating any sort of paper trail of a vampire. But she had a couple, and this was one of the better ones.

She dug through the memory, and let it envelop her. Julias's damn, stupidly awesome smile. His big arms wrapped around her. His calm, soothing voice. His demeanor, the suaveness that she loved and hated. The way he had a big soft side that was so sappy, it was painful. To other vampires, Julias was a deadly ancilla. To her, he was a big mushy puppy dog. Except when he wasn't, except when he took control, and took her into his arms, held her down, and did things to her. Except when he kissed her.

She dug through the memory until it hurt, until she'd rather be cutting herself open and pouring acid in the wounds. She'd suppressed these memories, and let them fade as best she could. Jen had helped a lot. All the sex helped a lot. Hanging out with the Circle, watching Sam getting DP'd and loving it, and Triss watching, enjoying by proxy, it was all an indulgence that helped her forget.

And she threw months of progress out the window as she cast the ritual. She reached into her core, that part of her that could summon vitae the way everyone knew how to flex a muscle. The strange energy poured up into her, and she funneled it into her right arm. With a heavy sigh, she bit her wrist open, and continued to pour her energy through her and into the arm, until she summoned a large droplet of vampire blood. Dark, thick, so much thicker than kine blood. And she stared at it as she infused her vitae into it, and her memories.

The blood fell into the bag, held by her left hand. Another drop, and another. This wasn't a small ritual, something easy like a warding spell. She was summoning a piece of Julias, a chunk of who and what he was, something she'd use as the seed for his actual body, the seat for his mind and soul.

She was a child, reaching into dark water, completely unaware of what lay beneath. Well, maybe not a child, cause she was smart enough to be fucking terrified. Something lurked in the dark, something that listened to Triss and her ritual, something that was dancing to her tune. The Crone? No chance, she was too big, too powerful. Each ritual probably touched on something different, and each one probably came with its own risks of touching things that shouldn't be touched.

Didn't matter. In for a penny.

She stopped the bleeding, closed the bag, and held it up with both hands.

"Be found and returned, Julias," she said. The words were stupid and cheesy, and every part of her thought she'd cringe saying them. No way witches did idiotic shit like chant crap verses like this. But when she said the words, she knew it was like knocking on the door of whatever was out there, listening, and waiting. "I call to the darkness that watches and listens, that knows the dead. Find, and bring a piece of Julias back to me."

The room had been pretty damn dark before, with only Jen's flashlight lighting it up. But when the still air turned into a swirling wind, and a howl that didn't sound like wind at all filled the room, the tiny flashlight flickered, flickered, and died.

The bag grew lighter.

Triss held onto the bag with both hands as it shook. Something was inside the bag, and it fought to get out. Hisses, growls, it shrieked and wailed in the same pitch as the wind that filled the corpse fridge.

"Triss!" Sam yelled. "Triss, what's going on!?"

"Nothing! Just stay put. Wait."

What sort of rituals had Jacob cast that had repercussions a thousand times scarier? What crazy sort of shit did he do, that had everything around him reacting? She could imagine it, easily, Jacob sacrificing a kine under the full moon in a forest, and the forest flipping the fuck out. The fire would go out, animals would flee, and the wind would start shrieking like a fucking banshee, like it was now.

Thank god Triss's little ritual didn't last long. The bag got lighter and lighter, and soon it stopped fighting. The wind in the fridge turned into still air again, and the shrieking died with it. The flashlight flickered again, and stayed on.

That was a quick brush with one of the more fucked up rituals. Jacob had warned her they could get nasty, and dangerous, and she might have to do more than just say a few words and sacrifice some vitae next time. Wrestling with the forces of darkness, struggling to keep them bound to the ritual, to force them to enact the witch's desire? Yeah, that sounded witchy. And what Triss did felt almost like she'd been teasing a cat with a toy, and then yanked the toy back.

Which of course meant there was a chance she pissed something off, and it might bite her in the ass later. No wonder witches supposedly made protection talismans for themselves and whatnot.

She lowered her hands, rubbed her crow skull necklace with her right, and let the bag dangle at her left. Tempting to look, but it could wait.

"It's... it's done?" Jennifer asked.

"Yeah. Let's get back to Elen. I don't know how long this... this thing will last, and I don't want to do this again."

Her friend grinned. "You don't? You looked almost excited to be casting a ritual."

"Excited... yeah, I guess I was." Excited. Terrified. Some mix of the two. She didn't really know.

Sam threw up a hand. "That was scary! Oh my god, it was like a movie! And I could hear howling, and and and--"

Jennifer gave Samantha a pat on the shoulder, and everyone went quiet as they looked at the bag in Triss's hand. It was a lot lighter, and not bulked with mass anymore, but it wasn't empty. Something was in there, and it wasn't fighting against the bag anymore, but it wasn't holding still, either.

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~~Antoinette~~

"Ann, what ever is the matter, dear?"

Antoinette sighed as she looked down, and combed her hair over her shoulder. Elaine sat across from her at her desk, and set a hand on it as she leaned in and looked her in the eyes.

"My childe is in a terrible predicament."

"Samantha?"

"Jacob is... perhaps involved in terrible things, and I let my Samantha get close to him."

Elaine sighed as she relaxed in her chair. "I thought you wanted that?"

"I did. But now that her life is in danger, I am... regretting the decision."

"Because her life is in danger? What has Jacob done?"

Antoinette shook her head. "I cannot share the details. My apologies, but this is deeply important, and dangerous."

With a heavier sigh, Elaine leaned back in her chair as she shared a sorry smile with her. "Well, if it is Jacob we speak of, then I can only agree. Not about your regret over Samantha, but the man's tendencies. Whatever he is up to, it is probably quite dangerous. But... I saw him with Samantha, Ann. I did not get the impression he was being insincere with her. Perhaps a little overtly flirtatious and playful, but not insincere."

"I am sure Jacob seduced her to annoy both Jack and I, but since then, Samantha has shared with me details of their time together. I believe what was likely Jacob being his typical, mischievous self, has evolved into something more."

"Ah, a classic tale of romance then? The mischievous man plays with a girl's heart, only to find himself smitten?"

Antoinette could not help but smile at that idea. She had done the same to Jack, the first time they met in Bloodlust, oh so long ago. A young man, attractive, intelligent, squirming with fear and surprise, and she could not help but indulge her desire to tease the man, balancing his fear with arousal and intrigue. But then they had begun to converse, and she quickly found the boy far more interesting than he had any right to be.

Surely the same had happened between Samantha and Jacob? Her childe's sexual indulgences did not exactly speak to typical juvenile flights of romantic fantasy, as Jacob, like Antoinette, did not mind sharing their lover with others; as long as they were there, of course. Perhaps that sexual freedom offended others, but to ancient vampires like Antoinette and Jacob, the act of sex meant little. It was the emotional exploration that carried weight. And Samantha had certainly spent time exploring with Jacob and the Circle. But once one took eccentric sexual tastes into account, Samantha's tales of Jacob spoke of more than simple mischievous play.

"I believe my childe is safe. I believe Jacob is not a villain."

"As do I. But then, one does not need to be a villain to be an enemy." Sighing, Elaine shook her head as she tapped her chin with a finger. "But if something has happened that now causes you to doubt Jacob's romantic interest in her?"

"No. But... we should be careful with the Circle, I believe."

"If the Circle will cause trouble, that is not a trouble that will befall Samantha due to simple proximity."

"Perhaps. But physical proximity and emotional proximity are not the same thing. If Jacob does something, something dangerous for the city, Samantha may find herself involved."

"I think you should trust Jacob to not use your childe against you. He is many things, but he is no vile serpent."

Antoinette sighed relief. She knew this, but to hear another confirm her beliefs was important, especially after her argument with Jack.

"Jack, he knows."

"Oh my. He has told her?"

"No. And I gave him orders not to."

Elaine smiled softly as she met Antoinette's eyes again. "That is why you seem depressed. I cannot imagine that conversation with your love went well."

"It did not."

"Will he obey?"

"I am not sure. He is intelligent, and capable of tactical reasoning. But after what the hunters did to his mother, he feels immense guilt about her. No doubt the boy will do whatever he feels is necessary to fix whatever situation Samantha finds herself in."

"Even if by doing so, the situation for others will worsen?"

"I... do not know." Jack was unique for a man his age in his ability to use sound reasoning. Given time, he would grow to become a powerful ancilla and eventual elder, with the power of his will and the sharpness of his intellect. But at the moment, he was undoubtedly trapped between his intelligence and emotions, and the strange power the curse granted him.

"Well, since you are determined to hold your secrets from me," Elaine held up a dismissing hand, not offended, "I believe I can safely say that Jack will not act without yet another conversation with you. And perhaps in this second conversation, you can plead your case?"

"True. But, I am also concerned about the emotional repercussions. Jack has never been on the receiving end of my decisions, not like this."

"Ah." Elaine nodded as she tapped her finger to her chin once again. "In that, I do not believe I can be of help. It has been centuries since I have known the taste of love, and I cannot even begin to imagine the strange circumstance you find yourself in. Young Jack, confronted with the truth about his love, that she can be cold and ruthless about someone as important as her own childe, and his own mother."

"Please stop." Antoinette groaned as she leaned back in her chair and combed her hair faster. "As you said, you have not known love for centuries. I have tasted it and I will not let it go. I..." Her frustrated groan turned into a weary sigh. The Daeva half of her would sooner see Dolareido burn than give up Jack. He was hers, and there was no universe where she would let him go. The human half of her realized how quickly that would destroy their relationship. To grasp sand tightly was to lose it.

"I do not know, Ann. Perhaps explain to him you do not make these decisions easily? Appeal to his emotions?"

"Perhaps. It would not be a lie. I am tempted to lock my childe up in the basement and leave her there until this issue with Jacob is resolved. But, that would tip my hand to Jacob. And I do not wish to damage my relationship with Samantha as with Tony."