My Little Ventrue Pt. 10 Ch. 04

Sándor stared at the walls covered in markings, most in blood, some fresh some old, some etched into the stone. He stared at the candles Jen lit, and then down beneath the bowl, and the carved -- or maybe real and petrified -- skeletons that held the bowl up. He stared at the pile of bodies in the back of the cave, covered in a tarp. He stared at the body of Julias and Mary, both sitting in a chair, and both covered in tarps of their own.

"A terrifying sight," Jennifer said.

"It... isn't the first time I've seen something like this," he said, after a few more look-arounds.

"Oh?" Jen raised a brow before leaning over and lighting another candle. Enough light for Triss to turn off her phone's.

"Long life. Met a few witches in the past, other side of the ocean."

"Like her?" Samantha asked, nodding to the dangling, sleeping Elen.

"Maybe. Dark hut deep in the woods, a book, a cauldron."

Triss laughed. "A cauldron? No shit, really?"

Sándor nodded. "I've served witches before, as a guard."

"Any interesting stories for me?"

He met her eyes again, and holy shit, she saw the faintest hint of a smile there. "Yes. I can share them... later."

"Yeah, later." Nodding, Triss walked over to the two bodies sitting in chairs. One of them was breathing.

Slowly, like it... he, might jump up and bite her, Triss lifted the tarp up and took a peek at Julias. She glanced back at Sándor, and sure enough, the dude took a peek at Julias as well, before he looked away. No need for words, that hurt him. But she did offer the guy a small nod and smile, before looking back at Julias, and gave the body a couple pokes and prods. Still living and breathing, still just sitting there, waiting for a soul. Black Blood was poking at that idea for her, and assured her Elen wasn't an issue; even if she did lose her mind, the magic keeping the bodies alive would keep ticking, and Black Blood could possess her and make her do things, too. Which meant Beatrice had time to focus on the more immediate concern.

Triss set the tarp back down over Julias, and pulled the tarp off Mary. Nah, not Mary. The body was a corpse, not living or breathing yet, and didn't look like Mary when you looked closer. At least the body parts they'd sewn together to look like Mary didn't have seams, magic and all that.

Sam stared at the body, and clutched her necklace. "Should I... ask Mary to come out now?"

"Not ye--actually, maybe you should."

Sam tilted her head to the side. "You hesitated."

Triss came up, and whispered into Sam's ear. "Mary hiding in your necklace is a secret, right? If Black Blood can't see or hear us right now -- not sure about that -- then let's keep it a secret as long as we can. If we summon him first, he'll see how Mary got here."

"You... really don't trust him, do you?" Sam whispered back.

"Scorpion and the frog, you know? Let's be smart about this." Triss had no idea what sort of dark shit Black Blood was up to when he wasn't with them, but she knew he was definitely up to something. And had probably been up to somethings for a long time, centuries even. Plus, considering he was a spirit of death and the dead, she didn't like the idea of him knowing how to get his hands on Mary when she wasn't protected in her home.

Nodding, Sam stepped back, lifted her necklace, and whispered to it. Quiet, tiny whispers Triss strained to hear, and failed.

Sure enough, the presence of Mary the ghost was obvious. Cold, mist, the usual, it all built up in the small cave. With the half dozen candles Jen had lit, it really gave the creepy mist a whole new level of scary factor.

Mary rose from the mist, no color except for hints of white and blue and compressed fog, and she was see-through, same as always.

"Oh my god," Mary said, and her head snapped left and right rapid fire as she took in the sights. "It's a... a witches cave."

"Literally," Jennifer said, smiling as she gestured around. The marks and lines, the ritual symbols, the candles, the big bowl, the hanging woman, the dead bodies, the two sitting bodies, all of it. An unsuspecting kine stumbling onto the cave would have said the same thing.

"Literally," Triss said. "You can take a second to get used to it if you want, Mary. We don't know what's going to happen. Better you get comfortable with your surroundings, I guess."

That might have been a mistake. Mary drifted over to the back of the cave, and shrieked when she realized the mound was a tarp over bodies. Everyone -- save Sándor -- threw up their hands and covered their ears as the ghost screamed. Uh oh.

"Baby! Baby, don't worry!" Sam ran over to her, and got between her daughter and the dead. "It's ok! It's--"

"They're dead! Dead dead dead dead dead de--"

"Baby! I told you about... about what we did." Wow, Sam had told her daughter more than Triss figured she would.

Triss, a lot slower than Sam, joined the two of them at the pile. "We were careful, Mary. Very careful. It's why it took so long to get everything ready. The only people we killed were absolute shitholes who deserved it. Rapists, murderers, abusers." She didn't think they'd have to have this conversation, but the closer they got to this day, the more apparent it became it couldn't be avoided. They needed Elen for the ritual to put the crystal ball into the body, and no way in hell were they gonna take the flesh witch or the bodies out of here. Too dangerous, too risky. Acclimating the unstable ghost to a room full of bodies and body parts was their only option.

After seeing Mary now, body twitching hyper speed and shifting in place left and right, again at hyper speed, maybe it wasn't the better idea. Maybe take the dangerous flesh witch out into the world, maybe to Sam's home, set up a hundred different ritual symbols in her basement, summon Black Blood, give Elen the knife and book, surely that'd be perfectly fine. Compared to a ghost flipping the fuck out, maybe.

"Dead! Dead dead--"

"Mary!" Triss swung her arm and pointed at the bodies. "These were people like Angela and Jeremiah! Okay? You sad those two are dead?"

The ghost snapped her head and glared at Triss, panic and rage in her big empty eyes. But sure enough, saying Angela's name brought a spark of awareness to her, and she stopped doing that weird ghost-snap thing. Hovering there, mist pouring off where legs should have been, she slowly looked from Beatrice to Samantha, then back to the bodies.

"I'm not sad those two are dead."

"Damn right," Triss said. "Look, Mary, yeah, this shit is nasty. We're witches. But you trust your mom, right? She helped us prepare. She was there, when we killed the people we used to make this." She gestured to the corpse woman sitting in the chair. "You don't need to trust me, or Jen or Sándor, but you trust Sam, right? She's been with us, every step of the way." And that journey had been one fucked up mess of guilt and murder. Every person they killed, Triss had to make damn sure they deserved it, and convince Sam of it. The only reason Sam agreed to any of it, was because now she had Kindred instincts telling her killing kine was fine. She didn't agree with those instincts of course, but it was a shit load better than how she would have felt about it before she was a vampire.

"I... I trust Mom."

"Good. Now, you trust me about Black Blood, and Elen?"

"I... do."

Nodding, Triss gestured to an empty space by Sándor near the cave wall. Sam walked over there, every bit of her looking half ready to panic over what was about to happen, and what had just happened. Mary slowly mirrored the nod, and floated over to hover beside her mom. Jen stood beside Sándor.

Black Blood you fucking asshole, don't do anything to make this worse.

Triss faced the bowl, and gulped. "Black Blood, I summon you."

Mary's presence was classic ghost creepy. The mist, the cold, the air of death, her instability, it was borderline cliche. Scary, but cliche. The spirit's presence, on the other hand, was like swimming in a graveyard, and having the graveyard sing to you at the same time. It was massive, ethereal, and beyond something as simple as people. To something like Black Blood, vampires were only just slightly deep enough into 'dead' territory to even warrant his notice. Like, a god, only barely noticing his worshipers. And she hated the idea of thinking of that asshole as a god.

Sure enough, when his black ooze began to fill the room, everyone froze and waited, except Mary. She hovered down closer to her mom, and then behind her. Triss made a quick glance at the ghost, trembling in obvious fear behind her mom. This was going to be rough.

Mary's presence, her mist and fog, it all disappeared into the black ooze that soaked them all. The black blood dripped down from the ceiling, and up from the floor into the ceiling. It leaked from the walls. It flowed from the eyes of the skulls underneath the giant bowl the flesh witch dangled over.

"Well I'll be," the darkness said, more of that deep booming voice with an alien rasp mixed in. "Is that Mary?"

Mary looked around randomly for the voice, head snapping, body shaking.

"D-Don't talk to my daughter," Sam said. "She's not comfortable with you."

Triss grinned. Say one thing for Sam, she was a mom, through and through.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am." A thick, Southern drawl, as always. "And is that Sándor? Dolareido's new Batman?"

Triss threw up her hands. "What the fuck? Batman? You've never seen any Batman shit."

"I have indeed."

"Bullshit."

"You think a spirit can't watch a movie? I'm fixing to clock you upside the head, girl."

"I think--" Triss grabbed her hair and shook her head. "Never mind. Yes, Sándor is here. Yes, he's invested in what happens to Dolareido. He lives here now." As if Black Blood didn't already know that.

Black Blood chuckled, deep voice almost shaking the walls. "Then I am glad to have helped the man."

They all looked Sándor's way.

The gargoyle stared on, face a rock, slowly looking at random objects as he searched for the source of the sound.

"Thank you."

"You're quite welcome. Now, three vampires, a monster of nightmares, and a poor lady outside her body. I imagine you're all here 'cause you're ready to start this shindig?"

They all looked Sam's way.

Sam gulped, pulled out the black bag, and removed the crystal ball inside. "I'm ready. Mary?"

"R... Ready," she whispered, still hiding behind her mom, empty eyes wider than ever.

"Ok baby. You just stay there for now. We gotta get the body ready."

"Okay." Mary, the deadly ghost who'd thoroughly trashed Jack in the past, now looked as meek and helpless as a little girl.

"Time to wake Elen, then." Black Blood's booming chuckle had them vibrating literally this time. He was like one of those jolly uncles a family might visit with their timid kids, and the uncle's plan to get the kids more comfortable with him, was to laugh and be merry like fucking Santa Claus. It didn't work in that scenario, and it didn't work in this scenario. Mary stayed back and away, and drifted closer to Sándor, as Sam stepped up to the body.

"Elen," Triss said. No response. "Elen!" She reached out and slapped the woman's ankle.

Elen opened her eyes. No jolt or snap of life and the usual shit that'd come from getting woken up with a pinch of pain. Nope, just an old woman coming out of a long sleep with all the casualness of coming out of hibernation.

"Oh my," she said, tired eyes drifting around the room. "Is that a ghost?"

"You," Mary said, and she snarled very inhuman-like as she glared at the flesh witch. "You helped Jeremiah and Angela."

"That I did, sweetie."

"Why!?" A punch of sound, high pitched with far too much volume, and everyone winced and crouched like they'd just gotten shot. Except Sándor.

"Jeremiah wasn't the only person who thinks monsters should die." And again, with all the grace and rush of a slug, she looked to Sándor. "Enjoying freedom, Pavel?"

Sándor said nothing and showed nothing, but Triss did see a tiny twitch in one eye from the Begotten as he watched Elen. Dude could have yanked a shotgun out of his back pocket and shot the bitch right there, with that exact expression on, and no one would have been surprised.

"Hush you," Black Blood said. "You're just a tool now, Elen. See what your blood thirst gets you."

Triss blinked around at the darkness. Was Black Blood being a hypocrite? She didn't say it. Honestly, she didn't even know if it was true. Had Black Blood ever killed anyone?

Before Triss could suggest it, Black Blood began the possession process. A grotesque sight, watching black ooze creep its way up Elen's legs and into her body through any orifice it could, tear ducts included. Mary and Sam stared, and poor Mary looked all sorts of disturbed. She looked at what Black Blood was doing the way a kine would look at a ghost.

Once Elen was possessed, Triss jumped up onto the bowl, got her down, put her in her wheelchair, and Jen armed her with the book and knife Sam stole from her sire.

"Alright," Elen said, Black Blood's Southern accent gone, rasp mixed into her old woman's voice, "bring the body, and the mold."

Right, Elen called the crystal ball the 'mold'. Triss was sure blueprint fit it better, but whatever. She took the body's chair, and slid the corpse over to her, all while doing her best to not look at the ghost Mary. Sam stepped up too, crystal ball in hand, and the golden glow fought against the harsh black mist that clung over everything.

Elen smiled and nodded, flipped the pages of the book with her extremely scrawny, wrinkly fingers, found the page, and hummed to herself--himself as he cut a line across the naked body's side. That knife looked like it belonged in a museum, and was way too fucking sharp.

"Insert the mold, Samantha."

Sam gulped, both hands clutching the crystal ball, but after a few seconds and a few seconds more, she pushed the ball into the flesh of the corpse.

Everyone watched the body expectantly. Even Mary the ghost wandered closer, eyes stuck on her potential body. At first, nothing, but a moment later Sam gasped, the first to notice the changes.

Triss glanced back and forth between the ghost and the body in the chair. Yeap, it was changing. Black Blood had used his command of death and the dead to craft them the body from corpses, and even do some magical surgery and shit to try and get it as close to Mary as they could. They'd gotten pretty close, Triss thought, but only now that the nose shifted a few millimeters, and the eyes adjusted outward a few millimeters more, did she realize just how fucking important the small details were. Things like height, hip, tits, all of that morphed with small adjustments too, but it was the head, especially the face, where the super tiny mistakes made a giant difference. The blueprint fixed them.

And then it was Mary.

"Oh my god," Mary said, and she hovered over to the body, so close she was almost touching Elen. The corpse took a breath. "Oh my god!" She snapped back, almost teleporting as she put the big ritual bowl between her and the body.

Elen chuckled. "Calm down, deary. Empty body, empty mind."

Sam motioned for her daughter to come back, and she did, staring at the awaiting naked body.

"It's me."

"No, baby," Samantha said, shaking her head. "It's just a vessel. You're you."

Triss smiled slightly at Sam. Vessel. It wasn't the sort of word someone like Sam would use, but Jacob and Triss used that sorta language all the time. Dark magic, rituals, Sam was getting neck deep in it and was changing more and more every night because of it. Maybe she'd leave the Ordo and become be a witch? Or maybe she'd ride some kinda line between them, like Minerva had.

Hopefully Sam wouldn't follow in all of Minerva's footsteps.

"W-What do I do now?"

"Possess the body," Black Blood said. "You saw how I did with this one. Though it should be easier for you."

"Easier?"

"You're not like me, sweetie. There's a much smaller barrier between you and the humans. Ghosts possess people sometimes, and corpses. And considering this body has no mind or soul, and is eagerly awaiting its missing soul, you should snap into place like a puzzle piece."

"I... I still don't know how."

Elen shrugged. "You'll figure it out. Touch the body, and move into her. It should come naturally." Chuckling, Elen closed the book, and picked at her fingernails with the bloody knife. "I could force you into the body."

Sam glared at the old witch. "What do you mean?"

"I am a spirit of the dead. I have... some ability, to affect ghosts." Black Blood returned Sam's glare with a teasing grin. "But I don't think it will be necessary."

"Don't touch me!" Mary glared at Black Blood, the crazy sort of ghost glare that usually announced incoming flying objects and murderous intent. From terrified of the god spirit of death one moment, to ready to brawl him the next.

Elen put up her hands, smile unwavering. "I wouldn't dare, child."

Jen stepped up behind Elen and rolled her a few feet away, earning a merry chuckle from the old woman. It was all a game to Black Blood, their lives, the rituals, the experiments, using Elen. To Black Blood, everything here was a side note, something he was experimenting with while he did his own shit elsewhere. Well, whatever, as long as he did what was asked of him. If he didn't, Triss would call off the deal, and the fucker could rot. But honestly, she got the impression Black Blood was the sorta fucker to follow through on his deals. An asshole, but a trustworthy one, like Jacob.

Sam stood beside the body, and motioned to her daughter. "Whenever you're ready, baby. Take your time. If things go bad, Elen can keep the body alive. Right?"

Elen nodded. "Julias's body waits in that chair, and has for months now, without food or drink. Elen's flesh magic is connected to her own life, and she's made herself immortal, albeit in a strange way. As long as she's alive, which should be indefinitely, we can keep our vessels alive and kicking. Unless someone comes along and damages them in a way that would kill them quickly; avoid cutting off heads or stabbing hearts, please."

His joke didn't earn a smile from anyone, but Triss did have to suppress hers. Bad time for a nasty joke with Mary and Sam here, but Triss did like dark humor.

Everyone went quiet as they waited. Nothing to say anymore. It was all on the ghost, now.

Mary floated in front of her double, and stared at the vessel, its eyes closed. Eye contact would probably have been a bit much, so Triss didn't open them. After a minute of hovering and staring, Mary turned around, and sat in the chair, on, and into her body.

The mist sucked up into the body like she had a mega vacuum in her mouth. A deep, heavy, unending breath they all heard, like the cave had transformed into a wind tunnel. All the mist, hidden beneath Black Blood's presence, swirled around them like a whirlpool before flying into Mary's new body through the mouth and nose. And as quickly as it started, it stopped. No bang, no explosion of light, nothing. The ghost, the ghost presence, it was all gone. Only one candle survived.

Well, that was pretty damn anticlimactic.

"Did it work?" Beatrice asked. "It--"

Mary opened her eyes.

"Mary!?" Sam squatted down in front of her child, and looked up at her, green eyes wide.

"M... Mom?" Mary looked at her mom, eyes wide too. Green, with hints of blue, like Jack's. Like Sam's.

"Oh god, baby!? Are you ok? Do you remember anything?" She threw herself at Mary and hugged her, almost knocking the chair over. Triss got there quick and stopped it, and Sam didn't even notice. Just a bundle of tearless sobs as she hugged Mary.

"Mom!" Oh thank god, Mary hugged her back. Not a mindless zombie, then. "It worked! It worked, oh thank god!"