My Little Ventrue Pt. 09 Ch. 15

~No master,~ Scully said. ~Your friends fight on roof.~

~Friends winning,~ Mulder said, ~but confused. Battle seems pointless.~

~It really fucking does. Keep me posted.~

Jack got up, grabbed the twitching Kass up off the floor, and drove his fist into her throat. Breaking someone's fingers with his grip had been disgusting. Breaking in a woman's throat with his knuckles was a whole other level of disturbing, and he scowled at the woman as she fell back, clutching her throat as she stared up at him, as if she could somehow find a grip that could remove the huge dent in it. Eventually she fell back to the floor, uselessly gripping at her neck as she struggled to heal her back enough that her legs could work again.

Joe, on his back on the floor, opened his eyes wide as he realized what was happening. The perfect opportunity for Jack to jump the man and give him a stern lecture.

Fuck that.

Jack kicked the man in the guts. Hard. He pulled his punches with most Carthians, but not this group, not these idiots who were stupid enough to follow Joe. And especially not with Joe.

Every action he did he was usually careful of, now that the curse was fueling his movements. It was like every movement used to be driving a simple car, but was now like driving a tank. With rockets. And with the necklace off, it was easy to turn the rockets on, and Joe deserved to get run over by a tank; kick in the guts worked fine, too.

Joe tried to yell, but all he managed was an open mouth as he flew through the air over Bruce's head, and crashed into the other side of the lobby. The white drywall broke, and so did the wooden beams he crashed into. He didn't have enough mass to smash through the wall and into the other side of the building, but he got halfway there, ass and parts of his legs breaking through.

Jack didn't bother following through. He marched over to Bruce and Bella, who'd gone from a wrestling match to a chaotic mess of clawing, punching, and tearing. Say what you will about vampires, even a Ventrue gets primal when they have to, and Bruce had blood on his mouth where he'd bitten into Bella. Hopefully the man was smart enough to not swallow any.

Jack picked the woman up, and before she could so much as take a swing at him, he threw her at Joe. The younger Gangrel may have gotten stuck in the wall, but the collision with Bella was enough to drive him through it and into a storage room. Papers, more boxes; not with cigars this time.

"Holy shit," Bruce said as he stood up and dusted himself off, suit a mess. "You really are strong."

Jack managed a weak smile. "Yeah."

"And you... want to get rid of this, uh, curse?"

"Yes, I do. And you'll be happy when I do."

"I guess. But--"

Jack put up a hand. "It's not worth it. Trust me, ok?" Before Bruce could answer, Jack got down on a knee beside Vivienne. Still in torpor, and--

Her eyes snapped to him. "They gone?"

"What? Did you--"

She sat up, and poked at one of the holes in her jacket and blouse. "I'm not a Ventrue or Gangrel, but I am smart. Wore a bulletproof vest. Small one, pretty thin. Works well for pellets."

He smiled. Didn't even occur to him. The crew had geared up, and they all probably had vests on to stop something like a shotgun from blowing a hole through their chests. Last thing Jack was worried about was a gun, especially from Carthians, but that'd change once the curse was gone.

~Master. Other vampires. Leaving.~

~Thanks Scully. Keep an eye on them, but don't risk yourself. If they notice you following them, get out of there.~ The Carthians shouldn't have things like sniper rifles, but with Terra Den fueling their war effort, he wouldn't put it past them.

"Alright," Jack said, "now--"

Steve ran past him, at full speed. Kass too, recovering faster than he figured she would. Maybe he didn't punch her back as hard as he thought. Both were still blatantly injured, and in obvious pain, but they both ran past Jack like fire was chasing them.

Jack blinked after them. That was very much not Carthian behavior. Say one thing for the asshole punk anarchists, they didn't give up on shit. He was fully expecting to have to break their arms and legs, and send them back to Garry on stretchers or something, maybe with a post-it note on their chests with a shitty joke like 'Package returned. Reason: Damaged goods'.

"Guess I should have snapped their legs. I..." He slowly turned to face the hole where Joe had fallen through. Bella had already gotten up, managed one quick glance at Jack, before she ran out the front door as well. With Cory and Garner already outside, that left only Joe.

Joe walked out of the storage room into the office lobby by the door, made a quick glance at the hole he'd come through, and then made a quick glance to Jack. He was good at avoiding eye contact, and kept his eyes on Jack's chest, or looked at Vivi and Bruce instead. It took most Ventrue a lot longer than a split second to Dominate someone, but with the curse giving Jack nukes when he should have had a BB gun, he could do it fast. Joe knew it.

"Fuck you."

Jack smacked his forehead with a palm. "Really? You somehow manage to convince Garry's strongest Kindred to come here and start a fight over a drop zone and distribution center for fucking illegal cigars, after we've already fought over it, and you have the fucking nerve to stand there like I did something?"

"Fuck. You."

Jack threw up his hands. "The fuck do you want me to do, Joe? I'm trying to keep the peace, but I'm not going to let the Carthians march over the Invictus. I--"

Joe reached behind him, and tossed a small, circular object onto the floor at Jack's feet. He did it in such a casual way, no one even tried to stop him.

Jack had never seen one of those before, at least intact like this. But some Invictus brains had put together the remains of one, from the Xnomina attack.

Time slowed down. An instant moment of surprise turning into a spike of awareness. Jack knew what that was. Jack had seen the damage it'd done to the Xnomina building. And the Tanvar building was flammable.

Jack summoned his blood, and forced it out of him and over his body. Thick Kindred blood gushed out of him, through his pores and skin, until every inch of him swirled with writhing veins of the dark, crimson liquid. And as he summoned the power of the curse, he threw back his arm against Vivi with enough power to break bone. But he had to get her away.

Bruce was closer to Joe, but further from Jack, and further from the incendiary explosive. As the fire exploded outward, rushing out from the small device like a cracking egg filled with napalm, Joe jumped back hard, but Bruce didn't. Jack stared, body frozen, limbs unmoving except for the one that flung out for Vivi, as the fire enveloped everything around him.

For a flash moment, everything froze, and he could see laughter in the eyes of the fire.

It crashed against his shield of Kindred blood, and the Juggernaut Discipline fought against the oncoming wave of fire. Liquid, infused with vitae, but still of Kindred, and still weak against flame. Unbelievably weak. The fire pushed against Jack, spewing everywhere in a strange, small, but point-blank explosion of something that burned. It took every bit of effort Jack had, every ounce of vitae he could summon in the instant, to keep the insane flame from reaching through the shield.

The building was just an office building. The outer walls were made of concrete, but it wasn't like Xnomina and its use of marble. There was wood everywhere, and drywall with wooden studs, and boxes and paper and cigars and everything between. It all quickly caught the unusual flame.

Jack spun around as his self preservation reflexes finally kicked in. Move, get out of the way, get the others out of the way, do something! But he wasn't a Mekhet or Daeva. Speed wasn't natural for him. Even if it was, Joe's apparent kamikaze was so insane, the fuck was Jack supposed to do? He turned and put his back to the flame as best he could, but the weird grenade had already done what it was supposed to do. Fire was everywhere.

Jack managed one quick glance back at Bruce as the man's pants caught the flames, eyes wide with a single moment of horrified understanding, before his fellow Ventrue erupted into screams. Jack blocked them out as best he could as he scooped Vivi up, threw her out onto the street, and jumped out the window beside her. He was on fire, he knew that. The blood protected him, but it didn't protect his suit, and the flames spread along it like kindling. He could hear it in the crackling, in the strange roar of the flame, 'die vampire die'. He tore off his suit as quickly as he could, ripping off what remained of his jacket, shirt, and pants.

"Aaah!" Vivi, on her side on the street, shrieked as she flailed her right arm. Jack jumped up and snapped his gaze around, taking stock of the other Carthians nearby, before looking back down at Vivi. Some of the strange flame, carried by some sort of liquid, had gotten onto her arm, and was eating through the clothes and her flesh. And vampire flesh burned like paper.

Jack grabbed her arm with his blood-covered hand, pressed his shoe down against her chest, and yanked.

The arm came off easily, and he tossed it aside where it burst into flames. And he knew he'd never forget the weird sensation of how her flesh had resisted his strength for a moment before tearing.

Vivi stared at him, eyes wide, mouth open, and silence fell on them for a few seconds before she screamed again.

"My arm! My arm!"

"Vivienne! Calm down! You'll regrow the arm eventually," he said. She disagreed, from the noise she was making, screams and screams and screams, and existential terror in her eyes as she stared at him. Growling, he got down on a knee beside her, grabbed her by her remaining shoulder, and shook her. "You're fine! Yes, it hurts. Yes, it's miserable. Take a moment to feel it, accept it, and get control of yourself!"

Control. Get control of the situation. He looked around again at the nearby Carthians, but they were skulking away,

~Mulder, Scully, report.~

~Carthian vampires gone,~ Mulder said. ~Your friends, confused.~

Jack reached for his radio. Gone. He looked over at his pants with the belt and equipment, and jumped for them. Radio, destroyed. Bag! He yanked out the small bag with his necklace, and sighed relief as he plucked it free before the flames could grab it.

The Tanvar building was not so lucky. Whatever was in that weird grenade, it burned hot, and fast, and the lobby burned like a Christmas tree in July. Flame poured out of the window as the insides of the lobby erupted, wood and paint and paper exploded in heat and smoke, and Bruce was still inside.

Jack looked up. His companions looked down over the building edge, realized what the fuck was up, and bailed, jumping off the building and out windows. It wasn't tall, and some of them landed on the ground, others on nearby buildings, and the ghouls and thralls could risk the fire escapes. They'd be fine. Vivi would be fine. The Carthians Jack had easily dealt with would be fine. Bruce would not.

Joe got out. Somehow, the stupid Gangrel clawed out of the lobby by the front door, some burn damage dealt to his chest, but he must have taken off the shirt quick. He knew what was going to happen, and how quickly to get it off him. He knew. He'd planned this.

He'd fucking planned this, to kill Jack.

Bella, Steve, Kass, Garner, and Cory all came walking toward Joe from where they'd run off to, but Jack, dressed in nothing but his fucking dress shoes and boxers, necklace bag in hand, walked over to Joe too, and put himself between him and his friends. He stared at them, his blood still pooling along his skin, and as the rage boiled up through him, the blood acted less and less like a blanket covering his skin, and more like snakes, red snakes that bore out through his skin and back into it as they coiled around him.

The four ancilla and their young friend backed off, each of them staring at him with wide, panicked eyes as he stood between them and their leader. Jack stared hard at each of them as he ground his teeth, before he turned his back to them and looked at the building. It went up in flames. Sure the building itself would be left standing when all was said and done, concrete outer walls, but everything inside was doomed.

Bruce was gone.

Jack looked back at Vivienne. She'd managed to get control of her screaming, but the look of pain in her eyes was obvious. If she'd been Blushing Life, she'd have been drenched in tears. Slowly she sat up and stared at the burning building, her empty arm socket, and then to Jack.

He hated the look in her eyes. Guilt. Thankfulness. Shame. All the shit that comes with someone else making a hard decision in her favor. Christ, he already knew how the conversation would go later, about how she felt horrible he helped her in the middle of a mini firestorm when Bruce was there too. That he'd saved her instead of Bruce, because she was Natasha's childe, or because she was young, or because she was a girl. The thought of the conversation made him nauseous.

Jack glared down at Joe as the man got up. A big, nasty burn ran the width of his chest, deep enough Jack could see ribs; Kindred flesh didn't sizzle, it just turned into ash wherever fire touched it, leaving a window for Jack to see Joe's insides. The man was in agony, face scrunched up and teeth bared, but he got up to his feet anyway.

And he grinned at Jack.

Jack walked up to the much bigger man, and drove his fist into his chest. The fucker's sternum cracked in half on impact, and Joe fell to the ground with a howl of misery. But they were just sounds. Just the sounds of a stupid man who didn't matter.

He's a cocky fucker. Full of himself. Convinced he knows what everyone should do.

Shut up shut up.

Sure enough, Joe, with a chest cavity barely working anymore, forced himself onto his hands and knees, and grinned up at Jack. The defiant grin of a delusional man thinking he was a martyr.

You know what you want to do, Jack. Hell, you know what you should do. Joe said it himself, fuck Garry. This moron is just doing whatever he wants, against his boss's wishes!

Jack reached down, hooked his hand under Joe's jawline, and picked him up until his feet were dangling. Sure Joe was a lot taller than Jack, but not so tall Jack couldn't lift him high enough the man clutched at Jack's wrists as he hung like a dead fish on a hook.

"Why!?"

"Fuck you."

Jack glared hard, and with his free right hand, small bag clenched in his fist, he punched Joe in his fucked up chest. The man screamed.

"I said why!? Don't make me tear the truth out of you, Joe. Don't make me go dumpster diving through that fucked up heads of yours and rip out every stupid little secret you have."

Imagine how worthless this loser's mind is. You think Garry has ever told him a secret worth a damn? Not a chance. He's a maggot.

Joe coughed between his groans of pain. "Fuck. You. You're just a stupid Invictus. Garry's wrong about you. The moment we turn our backs, you'll stab us in it. You always do that. You're all fucking evil shits, every last one of you. And you're the worst. Viktor's childe. Going to fuck us all over in the end." He talked well considering how Jack was holding him, even with all the grunts and struggled words. And he managed to look in the corner of his eye toward the burning building. "I guess your friend didn't--"

Jack lowered the man down until Joe was on his knees in front of him. They met eyes, and Joe finally showed a hint of fear as he realized what was about to happen.

The Ripper ripped his fucking head off.