My Little Ventrue Pt. 10 Ch. 04

"I think Jessy was a little nuts before she was embraced, honestly," he said.

Vrall laughed again, and kissed him again.

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Coming out of a nightmare chamber was an interesting thing. The Begotten had ways to get around that didn't involve opening and closing their lair's exits, burrowing through darkness and whatnot. But generally speaking, if a Begotten wanted to bring others into or out of their lair, they had to merge one of the chambers with a place in the real world. A hard thing to do, supposedly. They had to open up the chamber over top reality, and the more similar the place in the physical world was to the nightmare chamber, the easier it made the process. Which was why Begotten often used rooms that were utterly pitch black. Lot of places in their lairs were pitch black, too.

According to Vrall, that wasn't an option for some Begotten. Some of the monsters were aquatic, and all their lairs had to support an aquatic environment. Those kinda Begotten lived near rivers or coastlines, and had to trick prey into coming close to the water, often when it was dark.

But the Begotten in Dolareido all shared a chamber across their lairs, the Dolareido nightmare chamber, and that made getting around the city easier for them. Lucky that such a chamber existed. Vrall seemed convinced the chamber was a little weird compared to others, in how perfect it was for Begotten to travel Dolareido. Azamel told her the chamber was unusual because Dolareido was unusual, in a way they didn't understand yet. Almost as if there was something about the city that amplified things that affected the other realms.

Which of course made more sense than Damien liked. There were too many strange things about Dolareido, affecting way more than just the physical world. At this point, they had no choice but to accept that the city was special, for a reason none of them knew. Which made figuring out what the fuck was going on particularly difficult.

Damien sat up in bed. He'd had sex with Fiona in bed, then she'd opened her lair overtop them and onto, or into, the nightmare hospital Sándor shared with her, in one of the empty patient rooms. Hard for her to do when someone was with her; she said normally you'd lure a person into crossing into the chamber, not open it on them. But considering they'd made the room pitch black for the process, it'd been doable.

Then Vrall had hung him up from the ceiling and cocooned him, and had enjoyed every minute of his struggles; her blood had him fighting like a drunkard. But now that they were done, she opened the haunted hospital chamber back into his bedroom, and closed it. She stayed behind to recover, leaving him alone in his bedroom, and his phone on the nightstand blinking a tiny blue light, the only light in the room.

He checked the phone. A message from Jack.

~I'm starting to trust Elaine more, and less.~

~Sounds like an oxymoron.~

~Just keep an eye on her for me, would you? I'm getting into some deep shit with her, and I don't trust myself to be smart about this.~

~Jack, she's one of the oldest vampires around. I doubt I can keep an eye on her without her realizing it.~

~Then keep an eye on me.~

Damien blinked at his phone. Keep an eye on Jack? He was already doing that, considering the kid was basically a walking bomb if he ever took off his necklace. But the text message was so straightforward, Damien sensed the urgency in it. Something new was happening.

~I will.~

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~~Beatrice~~

Triss braced for flying projectiles, fueled by a ghost's wrath. But it didn't happen. Mary stared at Sándor with her empty ghost eyes for a few moments, everyone else watching and waiting, but she didn't attack. Eventually her frown faded, and she smiled. A creepy ghost smile, but at least she didn't smile from ear to ear, literally.

"Mom's told me about you."

"Has she?" he asked.

"She says you're trying to make up for all the things that happened."

Slowly, the man nodded. "I am."

"Why?" Say one thing for the ghost, she didn't pull punches with her questions.

The man took a breath, which in itself was a huge emotional expression for the gargoyle. "I--"

"You were brainwashed, right? Straight out of a movie. Brainwashed and forced to do bad things." The ghost's head twitched, one of those freaky twitches that were instantaneous.

"That doesn't mean--"

"Don't be dumb. Don't blame yourself because other people are evil." Mary nodded, like what she said was the most true thing in the world. She might have been dead, more dead than even a vampire, but Triss could see the Jack in her expressions. Conviction. "You want to help people, sure, do that. But don't think bad things happened because of you. You didn't stab me." The words pulled another scary smile out of her, and she looked at Beatrice. "Thanks again, for killing Angela."

"Don't mention it," Triss said, wincing slightly.

Killing Angela had not been satisfying. Vengeance wasn't satisfying. Sure, it'd settled the part of Triss that'd been willing to burn the planet to cinders if it meant killing Angela and Jeremiah, but it did absolutely nothing to make her feel better. The pain, misery, all the cliche tropes she thought would never apply to her, applied to her in spades, and killing Angela didn't do jack shit about them.

There was no way a ghost would get that. One thing Triss picked up on her last visit, and from her conversations with Sam about her, was that Mary the ghost was unstable as fuck. They had no idea if a single thought ran through the girl's head, or if she was a bundle of memories given a ghostly body, ready to pop and snap at any stimulus that crossed a line.

Tonight was going to be terrifying for Sam.

"So don't be dumb," Mary said, looking back to Sándor said.

"I.... I'll try not to," he said. And god damn, he even looked down, and looked a little sad. Triss had only ever seen him look like that two other times: that night he got drunk, and when he was behind a guitar.

Shit, no wonder he hadn't taken the opportunity to speak to Mary until now. If he blamed himself for her death, this would be the first time the guy got to talk to someone that died because of him. That was the really fucked up thing about ghosts. Not that they were crazy, unstable, couldn't be touched, and could throw shit around with their ghost powers. It was the fact they were dead, truly dead, murdered and gone, and yet they got to stick around and have their say. Vampires weren't the same; well, usually.

But Sándor was a trooper. He looked up and stepped back, giving the vampires the floor, his face steady once again. Now Triss wanted to either get a glass in his hand, or a guitar, since those seemed to be the only ways the dude could express himself. Practically the opposite of her. Practically the opposite of Julias, for that matter.

Christ, stop comparing him to Julias. That is all manner of fucked up.

"Mary," Samantha said. "I have the... the crystal ball." She held up the black bag, and only now did Mary notice it was moving slightly. Judging from her reaction, Sam had already described to her daughter everything about the ritual, or at least that it'd make a crystal ball that liked to jiggle.

How much did Mary know about the dark shit Sam was getting into? If there was one thing that'd make ghost Mary flip the fuck out and start attacking and destroying shit, it was learning her mother was a murderer of kine by accessory, and was engaging in dark witch magic. Considering the shit Mary was about to see, hopefully her mom had prepared her for at least some of it.

"Can I see?" Mary asked, staring at the bag.

Nodding, Sam reached into the bag, and pulled out the small, glowing crystal ball. Everyone froze as they waited for Mary to flip out over seeing something a living person would never be able to see: their final moments etched into a magical object.

Mary leaned in, empty eyes wider than humanly possible. "That's... me?"

Sam smiled. "It's a part of you. Can you see the things it's showing?"

"I can. I can... I can..."

Staring into the crystal ball was a hypnotic experience for all of them, considering how seamlessly it showed Mary and Sam in the alley before they were stabbed, and the thoughts going through Mary's mind at the time. For Mary, the crystal ball must have been like staring into the heart of the universe. She didn't move, didn't say a thing, for entire minutes. Just sat there, the only thing letting everyone know time still moved being the ebbing mist around them, and Sándor's slow breathing.

"That's me."

"Just a part of you," Sam said. "Just a blueprint."

"I don't understand the blueprint part," Mary said. So Sam had told her some stuff already.

Well, time to be the witch in all this, and take charge. Beatrice stepped forward, and the ghost looked at her.

"There's three things we need to get someone up and walking around," Triss said, doing her best to look the ghost in the eyes. There was a reason Jacob usually covered his empty eye sockets with a bandage: empty eye sockets were freaky as fuck. And Mary's empty eye sockets were enormous and far too expressive. "A body and a soul, everyone knows. But the blueprint part, that part was a little more abstract, and we had to figure it out." No reason to tell them about her visit from the Crone. "It'll be the glue to keep everything together. Makes sure the body and soul fit together snug and in the right places."

It took effort to not shudder. The fuck would have happened if they'd tried to jam a soul into a body without the blueprint, or glue, or whatever? A fucked up abomination probably, something snarling and drooling and stumbling around, all twisted and shit, except all the twisted parts would be inside where no one could see, until the abomination jumped someone and bit out their throat in some pointless attempt to devour their flesh and soul and fix their own body. Yeap, nightmare fuel.

Or maybe instead of being Mary, it'd be whoever's brain was in the skull of the body waiting for them back in the cave? Also a shitty outcome.

"I see," the ghost said. "I... I'm scared."

Sam put the crystal back in the bag. "Don't be scared, baby. Even if this doesn't work, you're still my baby girl. Nothing is--"

"If it doesn't work, then... then does that mean I'm not Mary?"

"Mary, don't talk like that. You know you're--"

"Mom!" Everyone froze like ice when the ghost shrieked, everyone except Sam. The sudden sound washed over her like a shrieking baby's routine crying washes over any mom's back, after a while. "Mom, you don't know that. I might not be her."

"How can you say that?"

"We talked about this, mom! Jack told me I might not be me. He visits sometimes, and he said... he said..."

Oh fucking shit Jack. Stop being so damn honest with people.

Triss gulped as she looked between everyone in the group. A glance Sam's way showed her looking at Triss, letting her handle the question. Well, she did decide to take charge. Time to follow through.

"We don't know, Mary. None of us know a thing about ghosts. No one really does. And we're not going to lie to you. If resurrection was a sure thing, something people had figured out before, then my boss would know about it. He'd know about it, and so would other people in the Circle. Someone, somewhere, would have written about it succeeding. They haven't." She squatted down in front of Mary, maybe a little closer than was safe, and looked up at the kid. "There's a lot of ifs in all this. But your mom and I are in this shit deep. Me for Julias, her for you. She's got an advantage though, cause the hardest part, the soul, it could be right here, in front of us."

Mary looked between them, spending some time on each, before her empty eye sockets settled back on Triss. "I don't want to be a ghost anymore. I don't want to... to be seen by that dark thing anymore."

"Thing?" Jennifer asked.

"The dark thing. It goes to a dark place, and it's watching the city, and waiting. It... oozes. It draws lines everywhere, and it's... scary."

Holy fucking shit. Black Blood, what the fuck are you up to?

"Not gonna lie," Triss said, "this ritual needs the help of Elen."

"I know."

Triss looked Sam's way, and Sam slowly shook her head with a wince. She hadn't told Mary this part, yet.

"Yeah, but you don't know we have a friend who helps us force Elen to do what we want. Black Blood, a spirit."

Mary shrieked again, and jumped back. Jump turned into hover, and she pressed her back against the wall as she crawled up it until she was half against the wall, half pressed to the ceiling. Mouth open wide like her eyes, she stared down at Triss, head occasionally twitching in that freaky fast way ghosts apparently did. Whatever movie director or SFX dude who first thought those crunchy body motions for ghosts was a good idea, fucker had probably seen a real ghost sometime in their life.

"Black Blood! It's out there! It's... it's tearing at things, drawing lines and cutting them. It's dark and death and--"

"Has he ever hurt you?" Triss asked.

"... n-no." And like her panic was a balloon someone had popped, she deflated. "No."

"But he can see you?"

"It... he can! He can. He moves through the city, in that... place between, where I hide, where we can't touch things. He can see into that place. And everywhere he goes, it's like... like he leaves a trail of... of..."

"Yeah, that sounds like Black Blood." Triss shook her head as she stood up. "This is all dark magic shit, Mary. And Black Blood is willing to help us."

"Why?"

Because Triss sold her soul to the spirit. Well, not really, but pledging to work with him for who knew how many decades or centuries, to be a student and partner, was pretty damn close.

"It's complicated. But you don't have to worry about Black Blood, he's on our side. He's also going to be the one controlling Elen. We'll want her up and aware in case... something happens."

Slowly, the ghost hovered back down to the bed.

"I've taken a peek at Black Blood," Mary said. "From inside the house, I mean. He's scary."

"He's fucking terrifying," Triss said, laughing. "But, same could be said about us, you, and the gargoyle over there, to a normal person." A flick of the wrist to Sándor helped draw a small smile from the ghost. "He helped us build your body. He is a spirit of the dead, and deals with dead stuff."

"Like me?"

"I... don't know. You said he can see you, even when you're hiding in your, uh, ghost place?"

She nodded. Ghost place, or whatever the proper name for it was, was a place ghosts could apparently hide in the physical world. Far as Triss knew, spirits could do the same thing. But if that was true, then Mary would probably have something to say about spirits other than Black Blood, cause there was probably a few spirits roaming Dolareido, hiding out of view. Black Blood was no ordinary spirit.

Triss stood up. "He'll be there, when you enter the body. Your body. Are you ok with that?"

"Mom?" Mary asked.

"I've seen Black Blood," Sam said, "as much as anyone can see him. He's very, very scary. But he's only helped... and made jokes. A lot of stupid jokes."

Triss and Jen laughed, which soon had Mary smiling too. A creepy smile, ghost and all, but a happy smile.

"Ok," Marry said, "let's do it."

Sam smiled bright, turned on the bed, and faced her child full on. "Ok. If you think something's wrong and you want to stop, you can stop anytime you want."

"I know." Nodding, Mary turned to face her mom, and leaned in toward her, almost like she was going to hug her. And Sam held her arms open to her, like she was going to hug her back. When the two touched, Triss froze, for the umpteenth time that night, because it almost looked like the two were able to touch. But before any weight or impact could sink in, Mary's body broke apart into mist, glowing a soft blue.

The glowing mist tightened, shrinking, and at the same time, floated into Sam's necklace. It was a quiet, almost anticlimactic thing, how easily and smoothly Mary flowed into the necklace, almost like she'd done it dozens of times before. It quickly left the room empty of mist, and lifted the crushing cold. No more ghost. No more haunted.

Wait a minute.

"Uh, Sam," Triss said, once Mary was completely gone, and the mist around their feet was gone, too. "You uh, you wear that necklace a lot, and--"

Sam scrunched up her nose at Triss as she stood up. "She's never in it when I'm with Jacob."

"Oh, good. Cause that'd be weird." No kid, no matter who or what, should ever have to see their mom in the middle of an orgy.

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"Sure you don't want Jacob here?" Jennifer asked as they entered the cave, buried nice and far on the outskirts of the city in the desert rock.

"I thought about it," Sam said, following behind her as they worked past the rocks and stone. "But you said it yourself, you and Triss, that Jacob thinks this can't be done. I... I don't know. I sorta want him here, but another part of me thinks it'd be better if we do this without him. It's a part of his life he's abandoned, right? You said he tried to revive Minerva decades ago and couldn't."

"Yeap," Triss said.

"Then maybe we shouldn't involve him. Don't want to get his hopes up."

Triss chuckled. Jacob get his hopes up? She didn't even know if the dude was capable of hopes anymore, with how old he was, and all the crazy shit that'd happened to him over the centuries. If he managed to find some happiness with Sam, and it seemed like he had, that was likely the best the dude could hope for.

Did he tell Sam he was thinking about leaving Dolareido? Would she go with him? Would Antoinette even let her?

Sam paused in the entrance to the cave, and looked back past Triss. "Sándor, did you want to come?"

Slowly, the gargoyle shook his head. "I'll stay out here. I don't want--"

"Don't be like that. You heard what Mary said. And besides, no offense to Beatrice or Jennifer, but... it'd be nice to have someone else nearby who's been a parent. You... you might have some... I don't know, insight, into whatever happens?"

Triss looked back at Sándor and watched. What would the dude do? Close off? Walk away? Shake his head, say nothing, turn around, and wait, like a gargoyle?

Sándor took a deep breath, and looked to Triss. Eye contact. Christ it was hard to look the dude in the eyes. Look at him anywhere else, sure, he was a stoic dude who didn't express much. But the blue eyes had hints of more, a lot more.

She'd hung out with him several times, since that night she saw him playing guitar. Talking to Sándor was easy, no awkwardness at all. Great listener, and was happy to do it, too. But looking him in the eyes was a whole other beast.

"Come on," Beatrice said, after a few seconds. "We don't know what's going to happen. It'll be nice, having a strong Begotten around in case shit hits the fan. And besides, you've met Black Blood." Nodding, she took out her phone and turned on the light.

"Met is a strong word. A couple of very short encounters in the dream." But he nodded, and walked in. "Alright."

The next part was going to be a little rough. She glanced back at him a couple times as they took him through the small passage, and she gulped on a dry throat as madness came into view.

Somehow, the man didn't say a word, as he entered the flesh cave, but the look in his eyes said a million things.

Elen hung from the hook over the giant metal bowl, but at least Triss had made her some cuffs to dangle from, instead of having the metal skewering her wrists. She dangled high and was bound with some extra rope, too, just in case she suddenly turned hulk strong and tried to fling herself off the huge hook. No chance, but still. And fuck, the woman looked awful, as emaciated as ever. The only reason her arms weren't popping out of their sockets was because of whatever strange magic that made her immortal. But considering she was in a deep sleep, she couldn't have been that uncomfortable.