My Little Ventrue Pt. 10 Ch. 15

She glared at the man, and took a moment to push her now red hair over her shoulders and behind her, before her eyes finally settled on Elaine. Fire became an inferno, and her fists trembled all the more.

"You side with Jacob, Elaine? Why?" she asked. Jacob deserved no answers.

Elaine did her best to keep guilt from her face, or any emotion at all. But Antoinette knew her friend well, and a trace of shame cut through her, followed by her own rage.

"I have made mistakes in my life, Ann. I would see them undone." Her words wavered, even as her old friend forced herself to meet Antoinette's gaze. What trials had Elaine suffered, to come to such a ridiculous conclusion?

"Undone?"

"The realms will be merged," Black Blood said, in a voice she had never heard before, in an accent so beyond ancient she could not hope to identify it. "This broken world will be fixed. First, the fallen world, and then across the chasm to the realm beyond. All, back to the way it once was." In the most cliché fashion, the god of corpses felt the need to explain himself. Good. Elen's haruspex had attempted to draw out Black Blood's plan, but had failed. It was too grand an idea for paper and pencil to convey.

Antoinette slowly set her glare upon the giant, and he stared down at her. She would not show fear, not before this relic.

"All this time," she said, slowly turning her gaze from Black Blood to Jacob. "All this time, you two have conspired to... undo the world?"

"You may have hope for this world," Jacob said, "but we don't."

For the first time in the hundreds of years she had known the man, his smile was gone, not even a whisper of it, and his face had become deadly serious. Black Blood was beyond terrifying, but it was not the god of corpses and death that petrified her. It was Jacob, her old friend, and the way he stood. This was not the man who embodied chaos, and the joy chaos brought. This was a man who would die for his beliefs.

"Jack," Antoinette said. "Has Jacob's ritual been completed?"

"No. He's still got some more shit to do. But, uh, Black Blood is--"

"Unable to interfere." She looked up at the nearest standing stone, and then at Black Blood, who leaned in closer to her as he guessed her intentions. "I had suspected as much, for a long time. Elen's haruspex proved it. Without another to act as his intermediary, what he can do and not do is quite limited. His reach is different, in different realms. And down here, in the depths of the forgotten, his power is vast, where ghosts are concerned." To prove her point, she aimed a finger up, at the swirling ghosts above. "Drawn here, I assume? To help power this... insanity?"

Black Blood let out a deep growl that vibrated the ground and churned the water about them.

"I am a shepherd, and--"

"You," she yelled, moving her finger to point at the skeleton instead, "are a fossil from a bygone era! Your power has waned, and despite Jacob's best efforts, you are still but a shell of your former self. You have been all but forgotten by the surface world, and have lost almost all power to affect it. It takes a colossal amount of effort for you to touch the physical world, and correct me if I am wrong, but you are currently spending that effort, on this." She gestured around at the standing stones, and the hurricane of ghosts above.

Technically true. Black Blood, or as Elen discovered, Mictlantecuhtli, could not touch her directly, not without absurd effort and sacrifice of energy. But that did not mean he could not wield forces that could. Curses, rituals, voodoo dolls or their ancient equivalent, tainted items, a host of methods to enact his weakened influence. She had to be careful. But in the moment, face to face with her, he could not touch her.

She had chosen the right moment to strike, had waited for it, and now she had to act.

"Sire, please," Samantha said, "Jacob's not trying to hurt anyone. I--"

"Childe," Antoinette said, and she glared at Samantha until the ignorant pup looked down. "I can understand how you have come to side with Jacob on this. I can understand how others have come to side with him." She gestured to Elaine, and then to the many standing beyond the wall of red light. "I can understand how those forced to watch this madness could, perhaps, side with Jacob if they were given the opportunity. But..." Sighing, she shook her head and looked to Jacob once more. "I would have loved to discuss this with you, Jacob. I would have loved to sit, and philosophize with you. But instead, you have decided to ignore our friendship."

Jacob shook his head as well, and gestured to her. "We can still be friends, Ann. Just step aside, and in the new world, we can still--"

"Daniel. Deal with Elaine. Kill her if you must. I will deal with Jacob."

Her sheriff, forever her weapon, did not hesitate. Whatever strange relationship he shared with Elaine, considering her many years of attempting to seduce the man, did not stay or slow his hand. Sword in grip, body and coat drenched in blood, he dashed for Elaine with speed so great, a splatter of crimson followed in his wake.

Elders did not battle like this. It was simply not done, and for good reason. Their was no way to prepare for such conflicts, where each Kindred was capable of feats grand and godly. Battles of power and wit, where the smallest mistake meant death. Perhaps Gangrels did, forever chasing the rush of the Beast, but even then, it was beyond rare in elders.

In any other circumstance, Antoinette would have used Majesty, enamored an army to do her bidding, and have them fight for her. In any other circumstance, Jacob would have stuck to the shadows and avoided combat entirely, or bury a victim in a most heinous Nightmare that would leave them paralyzed for hours, if not days. A Nightmare so strong, suicide would be the only outcome once it was over. They were above settling battles with their own, literal hands. Usually.

Elders were smarter than this.

"Prince!" Jack said. "There's--"

A shadow erupted from the water between Elaine and Daniel, and grabbed Daniel's foot. Mark, the Begotten, and one of the stealthiest creatures she had ever encountered. Antoinette snapped her glare to the disgusting man as he yanked the foot out from under her sheriff, but she knew the mistake the moment she made it. Jacob leapt for her, and she was forced to duck and roll.

Jacob would never be as fast as her, but he was fast nonetheless. Daeva and Nosferatu were both the primary embodiments of pure Kindred strength, but neither were terribly resilient, and if the man managed to hit her, there was a good chance it would prove immediately fatal. And while she could dodge his attacks, and he would struggle to dodge hers, his next maneuver rendered such an advantage moot.

Jacob vanished.

Antoinette jumped to her feet, and flexed her toes against the stones underneath her; she was barefoot, having already abandoned her heels. She ground her teeth as she looked left and right, and poured vitae into her senses as she scanned for the man, but reality was not kind. No vampire, not even an elder Nosferatu, could vanish before her eyes from a mere thirty feet away, not without preparation.

She looked down and searched for the blood, but it was pointless. Jacob had no doubt already soaked the area with his vitae, and now both she and Daniel were trapped within his grasp.

"Oubliette," she whispered. They were trapped within the maze of his Oubliette. She looked for Daniel, but her eyes betrayed her. The colors of the great tear portal twisted and danced, and angles of surfaces turned on their sides. Up became left, left became right, and she doubted the very stone she felt beneath her feet as she took small steps away from where she last saw her old Nosferatu friend.

"Prince!" Sándor's voice. "Break the standing stones!"

Jacob's maze of distorted vision may have compromised her eyes, but it did not affect her ears. She had assumed the standing stones were important, but with no time to process the information, Sándor did well to guide her. The nearest stone was thirty feet away, and in any other situation, she could have reached it with a single leap. She dared not attempt it. The maze was lying to her vision, and such a leap could easily launch her straight into the barrier, or through it if it were one way. She could have trusted her memory, but in the scant few moments she had had to memorize the area upon arrival, it was not a risk she was willing to take.

So she walked. With eyes scanning for patterns in the warping and winding invisible path, she tested directions for whichever brought her closer to the stone covered in glowing symbols. Black Blood and the tear waited within the maze as well, and as imposing as both colossal entities were, neither moved. Elen's divinations had been correct. Black Blood did not have the power to touch her, not even here, not with him drained by performing this ritual, and with how weak the entity was compared to who he used to be, 600 years ago. But that did not mean it was safe for her to touch him, or the tear. Yet another reason to tread carefully.

One step toward the nearest stone took her further from it. Another to the left took her closer to it. She built a map in her mind as she tested each direction, as she scanned for Jacob's invisible approach, as she looked to the red barrier beyond and the onlookers watching, as she looked to Jack and his concentrated, worried expression, as she looked to Samantha who now knelt beside her bound and captured ghost's daughter, whispering with her, and as she looked to Daniel.

Trying to understand what Daniel, Elaine, and evidently, Mark were up to, was as difficult as tracking bullets in a maze of mirrors. Daniel was fast, faster than Antoinette, and certainly faster than any Ventrue, but it was clear he had become trapped in the maze of invisible, warping paths as well. Thankfully, it also seemed so too had Elaine and Mark. And from the few, short lived glimpses Antoinette managed of Elaine's face, her old friend was forced to create a mental map, same as Antoinette. She had not anticipated her partner-in-crime to trigger an Oubliette directly on top of them.

Elaine. How could she do this? What could Jacob have said to her to convince her this madness was the best possible course of action? What mistakes had she made that she refused to share with her? With the nature of the curse known to them all, as well as Elaine's history with it, Antoinette had had no choice but to assume Elaine had performed a rather heinous experiment to rid herself of it, so long ago. But for Elaine to feel so guilty, so broken over what she had done, or perhaps feel guilty over other secrets in her past she had not shared, that she would aid Jacob in this madness, Antoinette struggled to accept.

She wished Daniel would spar with Elaine verbally, in an attempt to learn more. But it was not his way, and while he was clearly superior to Elaine in melee combat, he had two opponents to deal with. He needed to focus. And, while Daniel was as skilled at Obfuscate as Jacob, and quite capable of hiding himself if given the correct situation, trapped inside Jacob's Oubliette was not such a situation. And if he used Auspex to search for the truth in the maze, it would be a moment's hesitation that could get him killed.

But that did not mean he could not give Elaine and Mark trouble. Once Elaine was close enough the warping vision of the Oubliette was not enough to stop her, she took a swing at the man, and Daniel responded with masterful use of Obfuscate. His body became a blur, a distortion of light, not a product of speed but of his ability to twist the shadows. Elaine missed, and Daniel sliced along her side as he stepped around her. The sword cut through her suit and skin, but could not penetrate deeper, as the Ventrue undoubtedly poured vitae into her flesh.

Neither Mekhet or Ventrue were particularly well equipped for melee combat. That was the purview of Daeva, Nosferatu, and Gangrels. Elders compensated for such limitations, and compensated well. Mekhets frequently learned to use swords. And Ventrue never fought alone.

Mark burst from the black water yet again, and for a sliver of a moment, the silhouette of something grotesque gushed from the onyx fluid, a mound of maggots and other insects that swam out in all directions. Again, Mark reached up for Daniel's leg, but the sheriff stepped clear, only for Elaine to drive her fist into his chest. He recovered quickly and adopted a defensive stance. Elaine did not have the strength to kill him instantly, but unlike Daniel, she had the Resilience to outlast him. A battle of attrition.

A blur, identical to Daniel's own, came for Antoinette's face, and she sidestepped it, only to return Jacob's punch with a fast jab. But unlike her, Jacob could tell where the walls of lies of his Oubliette were. He stepped away and disappeared as quickly as a fly in a dark room. Normally her senses would have been able to track him, with him so close, but not within this maze of twisting vision.

"I really wish you'd just stay out of this," Jacob said. There was no point in turning to find the source of the voice. All a deception.

"You are trying to destroy the world, old friend."

"I'm trying to save it. To fix it. You know what that's like. You spend every day trying to fix this broken system, but you just don't think big enough."

"Is that what you told my childe?" Antoinette set her harsh glare on Samantha, who knelt with her daughter's ghost and stroked her hair. How unfortunate that, for the first time, Samantha could physically touch the ghost, and yet Mary had apparently degraded into something horrible, something Antoinette had only seen glimpses of in her long, long life. She had become the sort of ghost that folklore tales were written of, to frighten young children and keep them away from old, abandoned homes, or dark forests.

"I told her the truth," the old Nosferatu said.

Samantha looked to Antoinette, eyes beyond distraught. The poor thing did not understand, overwhelmed by circumstance and the potential joy of Jacob's promise. And now every moment the young woman struggled against the insanity before her. Wisped away into the depths of the Great Below, to watch her lover and his god-of-the-dead companion attempt to collapse the realms into one ball of existence, all things she could not have even considered twelve hours ago. No wonder she looked paralyzed.

"You told her what you believe. That is no truth."

"You telling me you think life is fine the way it is?"

"I did not say that."

A chuckle. "It's a broken system, Ann. We all know it."

"It is not a broken system!" She risked peeking behind her, only to catch a blur of Jacob's movement. He was nearby, looking for an opportunity to hit her. Elaine and Daniel would be forced to land multiple hits against each other, but for Antoinette and Jacob, one good blow could be cataclysmic.

She had to be especially careful.

"You can't be serious," Jacob said.

"I am. There is beauty in this unfair world, old fool. You know as well as I the power of context. All that you love and hate, you owe to the power of context, of comparison and limitation and definition. And it is that power you wish to strip of everyone."

"You sound like the beaten wife who says her husband is good some of the time, and those good times are why she stays with him."

"It is not the same!"

"It is!"

She did not need to spin about this time. Her old friend manifested in front of her, a mirage of shifting dark colors, and his fist came directly for her face. She ducked underneath, only to jump away from the man's knee as he drove it up toward her skull. Too far. Her own strength betrayed her, and she launched twenty feet back from the man, through multiple walls of the bending, winding Oubliette. They had no texture, they were no barrier, but each wall she passed through twisted and warped her vision.

She closed her eyes and let gravity guide her before vertigo could betray her. Water and stone met her feet, and she landed gracefully as she opened her eyes again. The red barrier was directly behind her, where moments before it had been much further away. Another trick of the Oubliette. If she was not careful, her old friend would simply force her through it, assuming it could be passed through from this side, and she would be doomed to watch the world end on the sidelines with everyone else.

"It is not," she said. "There is much to be had in this unfair world, and much to defend. You seek to undo life."

"I don't. Life will still exist, just not as a shitty cycle of dying and living."

"Then it is not life! It is existence as stale and meaningless as that of a stone."

Jacob came at her again. Black Blood moved above, but he was nothing more than a distraction to be ignored. Invisible splashes in the black water around her came closer and closer, first from her front, then her right, then her left, then behind. She did not turn.

The final splash came directly beside her, and she spun to meet Jacob as again the man swung for her head, only for his fist to pass beside her as she dodged. She was faster than any Nosferatu, but there was also a moment of hesitation in Jacob's punch. Was he toying with her? No, his frown remained deadly serious, and the strength of his attack was blatant. If he had hit her, fist to skull, it could have very well been enough to kill her.

"I think," he said as he blurred into shadow, "we should agree to disagree."

"How quaint." She swung a fist for where the man's shadow and where it seemed to be heading, but the moment she took several steps forward, the orientation of everything changed, and again she could no longer tell her left from up. Attempts to use the standing stones, or even the giant above as a land mark, proved futile. Again, she was forced to build a mental map as quickly as she could.

"You don't wish you could talk to Tony again? You know, François? Maybe apologize to him for dragging him into the Danse Macabre, and letting it slowly turn him into an asshole?"

She snarled as she tested another step, again moving toward one of the standing stones. Black Blood put his hand in the way, but she knew very well he would not be able to use it against her. Once she reached the bony appendage, it would be a simple matter to jump over it, or perhaps simply push forward, and force the colossal creature to move his hand for her. She did not want to touch it, but if she had to, then so be it.

"Tony's mistakes were his own."

"Right right, because everyone lives in a vacuum, and no one affects each other at all." The sarcasm was palpable. "Tell that to everyone else on the fucking planet, who knows just how much that isn't true. Tell it to everyone who knows how full of shit you are!"

Again, the shadows blurred, and Jacob appeared. He came at her from the other side this time, and again she was forced to dodge first, stepped back so his fist slipped past her waist's side. She spun, and brought up the heel of the opposite leg behind her and around, hoping to drive her bare foot directly up into his stomach with enough power to shatter his insides. But her old friend rolled with the kick, a dodge sideways that required him to land on his hands and roll.

By the time she caught up with him, he was again a shadow. She was tempted to spare another peek for Daniel, as the man continued his battle on the other side of Black Blood, but she could not so much as glance his way again lest Jacob put a hole through her skull. And she knew, if she witnessed her sheriff cutting off Elaine's head, the image would scar her. She did not wish to lose another friend, lost to the damnable cycle of life and death.

Do not think about Jacob's madness. Do not entertain the thought. Do not consider it. He is wrong.