My Little Ventrue Pt. 09 Ch. 17

They all looked at Sándor, and waited.

"W-What do you see?" Tash asked.

Sándor stared at the hole. It hovered about five feet over the gas station's roof, perfect staring height, and the dude did just that. Stared, with wide eyes.

And this close, Eric could understand why. They all stepped up closer, and the world went silent as the four--three of them stared into the endless, golden oblivion the tear was exposing. One of them was a bit too short to see.

"Um... uh..."

Eric held out his arm, elbow bent and forearm up, and created a hook for Tash. She smiled up at him, reached up, put a foot against his thigh, and half hung from his arm, half pressing her weight into his leg, so she could get an extra twenty inches height. So damn light, he barely noticed her boot pressing into him.

"W... Wow," she said. Yeah, wow. "Sándor, you've... n-never been there before?"

"No."

"D-Do you know what, er, where it is?"

"No."

A lie, maybe? Sándor had some idea, but he didn't want to tell them, judging from the expression on his face.

"Can we go in?" Clara asked.

Sándor shook his head. "No."

"Why not? I mean, we've been in dream realms, and we've even been to the underworld. Can't--"

Sándor reached out, and gently pushed down the hand she'd been raising.

"You haven't been to the underworld," he said, "not the underworld you mean. You've been to a realm of ghosts. It is not the same thing."

"Ok, so... what? What's that mean?"

"It means... there are places too high, and too low, for living things to visit." He held out a hand and moved it close to the strange white oblivion, but as his hand grew closer to the tear, he winced. The endless gold and white of whatever they stared into didn't like his hand, and tiny waves of white struck out against it.

Instant smells of burning. Everyone pulled their heads back and stared at Sándor as he casually lowered his hand, burn marks on his palm. That had to hurt, but the man barely reacted. Just, lowered his hand as he stared into the white before them.

"This shouldn't be here," he said.

Clara choked on a forced chuckle. "Yeah, we know. That's why we're investigating."

"It shouldn't be here. It can't be here. It..."

"Can it take us to another tear or not?" Eric asked. "Or, you know, same tear, just tearing into another place on Tash's map."

"It could. It probably does, but we can't go there. Nothing living, nothing physical, no spirit or ghost or Changeling or..." He shook his head. "We can't go through."

"Then we're done here," Clara said. "Avery is going to be pissed."

Pissed was an understatement. Investigating the tear had basically meant go through it, and learn more about whatever was happening, and how to stop it. It might have taken them to a new spot to put on the map. But from how it reacted to Sándor's hand, it'd incinerate them in white fire if they tried.

Well, fuck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Holy shit," Clara said. "You guys ok?"

Avery groaned as she slowly sat herself on the couch. "Fine."

They all went to Eric's apartment. Lot bigger than Avery's, good for a meeting. Plus, he had to feed Kat.

Kat didn't mind the company of course, and she took her time visiting each person for her expected pets and scratches. Which was a lot. Avery's pack of a dozen, Sándor, and Tash, each got a visit from Kat, even Avery herself, who glared down at the dumb feline as she got comfortable on Avery's lap.

Avery, David, and Carter all sat on his main couch, each of them pretty beat up, with torn up clothes that showed they got into a fight of some kind or another. But they weren't bleeding, so it couldn't have been that bad if they could heal from it. Even werewolves took longer than an hour to heal from the really nasty wounds, the sort caused by silver or powerful spirits. Or chainsaws, according to Carter.

"Eric, why is your cat... doing that." Avery gestured down at Kat, and how she snuggled onto the woman's lap.

"Because she sees that I don't mind you." Though he doubted Kat actually cared what Eric thought. "And because you obviously don't like her."

"... yeah, I don't like her."

Tash giggled. "B-Because you're ignoring her, she likes you."

Avery threw up her hands. A big enough gesture to scare off any other cat. But Kat was Kat, and she gave no fucks. If anything, she purred louder.

"Your cat is--"

"Brain damaged, I know," Eric said. Of course, the moment he opened the drawer with the cans of wet cat food, Kat meowed and came running. By the time he had a can in his hand, she was already rubbing against his legs.

"What happened?" Clara asked.

"Red Tide's distraction was fucking chaos. Red wraiths showed up, and Red Tide started attacking anyone nearby. That included us. Black Blood itself showed up, and... I guess Red Tide attacked us so Black Blood wouldn't suspect us, but Red Tide pulls no punches. Some other spirits got involved, trying to take advantage of the chaos; fuckers hate us."

Spirits did seem to default to hating Uratha. It made hunts into the Hisil pretty fucking annoying, but there was also a strange thrill to being universal hated, and feared. Uratha were strong, and could deal with spirits in ways most things couldn't. But it also meant spirits might do something like get involved in a fight if they saw an opportunity to kill a werewolf. The respect and power said spirit might earn, if they managed to devour one of the pack, would be huge.

Bunch of assholes.

"We didn't know what Red Tide would do," Carter said. "I don't think it knew what it'd do. But it worked... right?"

All eyes fell to Sándor. Eric, in strategic brilliance, took extra long scooping food out of the can for Kat, in the corner of the room, out of the crossfire.

Sándor shook his head. "We got close enough to touch it. But... we can't cross it. And I can't go there... ever."

Avery raised a brow. "Come again?"

"There are realms," Sándor said, "that we can visit. The realm of spirits, you know well. The realm of dreams, Begotten know well. There are others. The realm of ghosts. The brighter places of the dream Begotten avoid. Darker places of the Great Below. You can go higher in the place of dreams, and higher to places above that. You can go deeper in the Great Below, where... where more than the dead die."

More than the dead die. For a stoic, quiet man, Sándor could be damn poetic when he wanted to be. Creepy.

"I can go high in the dream world, and deep in the land of the dead. But..." He shuddered as he looked down at his burned palm. "That tear cut into some place far above the dream, far above the places above those places. As if Black Blood had cut into..."

They all stared at him as the room grew deadly silent, until the only noise was Kat's licking and munching.

Heaven. He was talking about Heaven, or something like it.

Avery shrugged. "Ok, so, what's that mean to us?"

"It means... I don't know. It means whatever Black Blood's planning isn't... as small a plan as we thought."

"Small!? It's trying to tear everything down and--"

"That's small scale, compared to... compared to what I was looking into."

Avery half got up, winced, groaned, and sat back down. "Explain then, for fuck's sake."

"I can't go into the realm that tear cut into."

"Yeah, I get it. So?"

"Monsters go where we want. There isn't anywhere I can't go. If there's a door, I can open it." His eyes hardened as he looked at Avery. "Anywhere. But... I couldn't go where that tear went."

"W-What Sándor means," Tash said, "is... we thought Black Blood was maybe trying to tear down the Gauntlet, right? And then w-we realized, maybe it's trying to do more, cause the tears cut into other places too. Other 'realms'," Natasha air-quoted realms, "that, um, are nearby?" She looked to Sándor, and he nodded. "Like, m-maybe it was going to turn everything into a big mixing pot, mix all the realms together. But... b-b-but if Black Blood is making tears to... to sacred places, maybe it's not about that?"

"Sacred places?" Clara asked.

"Places we're not allowed to go," Sándor said. "Places only... souls can go, I guess."

Avery laughed. "You guess? Thought you Begotten knew everything."

"... we don't."

Well, that silenced the room pretty quick. Except for Kat. Finished, the damn cat jumped back on the couch, and without hesitation, once again got comfy on Avery's lap, completely oblivious to the cold blanket smothering everyone in the room.

Sighing, Avery eventually set a hand on Kat's head, and absentmindedly pet her as she looked down at the cat in thought.

"What's that mean for us?"

Sándor slowly shook his head. "I'm not sure. But... I think, according to the ritual symbol Tash drew, the center of the ritual is probably not the point we need to worry about. It wouldn't make sense if the ritual is a 3D shape, anyway. It's probably a point above or below, finishing the crystal shape, points where Black Blood is... reaching, maybe using points higher and lower, to reach even higher, and even lower."

"You said those places were dangerous," Noah said.

Right, Sándor had said there were places in the dream, and in the underworld, that were 'above' and 'below' the six places he'd found in both realms. He could go to those places, but said they were dangerous. And apparently, the tear they found tonight, cut into a place even higher. Fucking confusing.

"They are dangerous. But we don't have a choice, do we?" the Begotten said.

No, they didn't have a choice. Eric sighed as he sat down on his couch arm by Avery.

"Guess we go scouting," he said. "And if we're going into deep places, or really high places, we can't do that without your help, Sándor. Or maybe the others."

The others had avoided involving themselves in this tear business, except for Azamel supposedly being the first one to warn the Prince something was up. Other than that, Athalia, Fiona, and Mark didn't get involved. Probably on order too, since it'd become clear Black Blood was their enemy, and Azamel didn't want them getting hurt. Sándor apparently didn't agree.

When Azamel died, Sándor would be the big bad Begotten. They'd listen to him. Maybe then, he'd ask them to help?

Of course, the idea of Fiona getting neck deep in dangerous shit irked Eric. He liked Fiona. He still felt a bit guilty about touching her; way too young and bubbly for him. Sure, she was a lot smarter and more mature than she appeared, a lot like Jessy. But in ways, wasn't.

It was funny. Damien was older than Eric, but a better match for the young woman.

"I should go alone," Sándor said.

Caleb laughed. "You know that's bullshit, dude."

Clara nodded. "You take a group of us to scout a location, and we'll go together. Maybe not the whole pack, but I know Tash is going, and she's still got the boys on a leash. I'll probably go." A quick glance to her leader confirmed. "Noah and Caleb too."

"And me, I guess," Eric said. Because hey, if everyone was jumping off a cliff, there had to be a good reason.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Damien~~

Two days later.

Bella, Steve, Kass, and Garner all being injured meant the Invictus had an opening. Much as Jack did his best to keep the peace, the ramifications of the curse's actions meant the Invictus had the opportunity to push an advantage. And they did. Predictably, the Carthians pushed back, and they pushed hard.

And this time, people did die.

The Right Hands weren't there to see it, but a couple Carthians and Invictus died. In fire. Kindred on site said it was an accident, that one of the Carthians had one of those devices from Terra Den, and didn't plan to use it, but the brawl grew extreme. Kindred were using powers left and right in the basement of an old apartment building in Devil's Corner; officially abandoned, thankfully.

Buildings in Devil's Corner were built in that strange time period when humans thought it was a good idea to build large buildings with wood and brick. The result was extreme.

Damien stared up at the burning building as the fire department arrived. No delay this time, they arrived in droves, and immediately took to the ten-floor building with enormous geysers of water. But the building was doomed. It burned and burned, and Damien stared at the flame from across the street atop another building.

Vicky and Parker stood beside him.

"This was one of your dens?" Damien asked. They'd been the ones to describe what happened.

"Yeah," Vicky said, eyes wide as she looked the burning building up and down. "We had... a bunch of prostitutes working here. We got them out, barely."

"More kine you enthralled with Jacob's help?" Good to remind them he hadn't forgotten those two had a strange artifact that helped them enthrall kine, an artifact they got from Jacob.

Parker grunted and threw Damien a hard glare, but he sighed and nodded as he looked back to the burning building.

"Jacob had nothing to do with this attack. He helped us out, and we let him dig his fingers into the kine in the area. This, this was the Carthians."

Much as Damien wanted to interrogate the man further about what Jacob might have been up to with their help, he was right. This fire was because the Carthians and Invictus got into a fight, and it went bad, just like Jack knew it would.

And there wasn't any chance Jacob let either of these two in on any secrets. They were hedonists, concerned only with their own pleasure, nothing more.

Damien believed them. If this was one of their brothels like they said it was, they didn't want to lose it. The war was reaching out further and further, and now it was affecting everyone. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before it reached out and affected Kindred who stayed out of reach of most issues. Leauvion and her acting troupe, for example.

The Begotten, for another.

He shook his head. No way the fighting would drift into their neighborhood. Sure, all Kindred used the tunnels, but the Begotten were well out of the way of the most commonly used tunnels. But then again, fights were chaotic, could lead to chases, and...

Damien pulled up his phone, and called Jack.

No answer.

First reaction: mild panic. The Right Hands were all on call with each other with this war on. The only reason they could have for turning off the notifications on their phones, or ignoring them, was they were in some sort of stealth mission, or they were indisposed. Or dead. So he called Jessy.

"Yellow."

"Jessy. I'm here in Devil's Corner."

"Shit, yeah. That apartment building on fire. Our fault?"

"Carthian and Invictus brawl turned ugly."

"Shiiit."

"One of Vicky and Parker's brothels."

"Shiiiiiit."

"Four dead. Two Invictus, Donny and Carlyle. Two Carthians as well."

"Shi--"

"I get it. And Jack isn't answering his phone."

"Jack did seem a little preoccupied last I talked to him. And we know there's no chance he's dead."

That was true. Much as Jack had to worry about with the amount of enemies he'd made, there was essentially zero chance the man was dead. Unless someone found him with a high powered sniper rifle from an extreme distance and took out his head, or hit him with a nuke, the curse wasn't going away any time soon.

"I--hold on." A message from Jack.

~I'm gonna do something really stupid, and I need you and Jessy to head down to the Carthian district and stir up trouble. I need a distraction.~

"Jack... is asking us to do something."

Jessy laughed. "Of course he is. You know we're both seniors on him, right? By fifty fucking years?"

"The boy has a knack for tactical reasoning and quick thinking."

"Pfft, I guess. What's he want?"

Damien looked at Vicky and Parker. They were both watching him, and making no efforts to hide their eavesdropping.

"Let me call you back."

"Fine fine."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We seriously gonna do this alone?" Jessy asked.

"Yes."

"Why can't we ask for help?"

"Because Jack doesn't want us killing anyone. And now that people are dying, we can't tell fellow Invictus to avoid killing."

Jessy grumbled as she leaned over the building's rooftop railing. Most rooftops had them in Dolareido, railings or raised edges, as if Antoinette and the others knew they'd be frequently used by both Kindred and kine when they built the city. Considering the woman's intelligence, she probably did know.

"Can't believe Carlyle and Donny are dead. Holy shit, I was talking to them last night."

Damien shook his head. "Don't. If you get angry about it, you're going to kill the Carthians we're supposed to be distracting."

Jessy frowned at him, but it didn't last long. Eventually she relented and nodded before looking back out to the crowd.

"Eric says the shit they're dealing with is getting even bigger than we thought."

It was Damien's turn to frown. "The moment we're done with this war, we have to shift targets."

"Done with this war? Yeah, I guess. But Garry and Michael have been at each other's throats for a long time, you know? And even if they weren't, Carthians and Invictus are like oil and water. Shit just doesn't mix."

That was true. Even if Jack managed to find a way to end this war, and return Garry and Michael to a truce, it'd be temporary. Somehow, somewhen, they'd start fighting again. Maybe it would be better to try and wipe the Carthians out entirely?

Not possible. Not only was Garry smart enough to have defensive plans, likely extreme ones, even if he did die along with his covenant, other Kindred would move to Dolareido and restart the movement. Unlike the Lancea et Sanctum, there was no shortage of young Kindred who felt their anarchist ideals were a better fit for Kindred society.

"We do what we can for now."

"I guess." She sighed as she rotated her shoulders, getting ready for a fight. "God, I want this shit over. I want to go back to Eric, and get stuffed by some giant werewolf dick, you know?"

Damien slapped his forehead. "Must you?"

"Ha! Come on, I know you've been fucking a spider monster girl. You can't give me shit."

"Fiona talks to you too much."

"Fiona talking to me is half the reason you're such a lucky man."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Jessy snorted on a laugh. "What, you think Fiona learned how to do that thing she did last night on her own?"

Damien squirmed. "You--"

"I didn't touch her, calm down. Haven't touched her since that night at the club with Eric." Laughing, Jessy reached out and gave him one of her patented buddy punches in the shoulder. "Anything else you want to try with her? I can give her tips. I can give you tips."

"No thanks."

"Aw. You doing that guy thing, where you don't talk about shit?"

"I'm doing that guy thing where I keep the details of my sex life private."

"Well that's no fun. Come on, talk to Eric about the sexy stuff! Trade pointers. Share measurements."

"I'm not going to--"

"Haha! I'm fucking kidding, about the measurements thing anyway. Don't mean you can't talk to each other about what things girls seem to like and shit."

"I saw far too much of what you like through your window."

"Well if you didn't go spying on the city with a fucking telescope all the time, you wouldn't have seen it! And it's not like you had to gawk while I enjoyed my ghouls." She turned, put her back to the railing, and rested her elbows on it as she grinned at him. "Bet you enjoyed the show, though."

He rolled his eyes. "You are attractive, I admit that."

"Damn right."

"But I never indulged myself watching you, if that's what you were thinking."

"Ha. I was wondering, yeah. Lot of people do, you know? Jerk off -- or jill off -- while watching the windows. That's half the fun of putting on a show, knowing people are watching and enjoying it." Her smile faded. "Much as I love Eric, and the sex is fucking great, I do kinda miss having more legs in the bed, you know?"