My Little Ventrue Pt. 10 Ch. 16

The Ripper hadn't been created in a vacuum. It was some sort of twisted, fucked up version of Jack. Jekyll meets Hyde. And, for some even more twisted, fucked up reason, he felt... parental.

"There are few differences between ghosts and striges, and many similarities," Black Blood said. "Reflections, beings of ephemera, undead, and more. It is no accident that Kindred are half dead, after all. Such interesting parallels."

Jack forced himself back up to his feet, fighting against shaky legs and a body that weighed a thousand pounds. Slowly, he walked toward the giant owl, dragging his feet every step.

"Sit down, vampire," Black Blood said. "Your role in this story is over."

Those words, it was like someone had just stabbed him in the back with fire. Heat and frustration pulsed through him, and he clenched his fists hard as he came closer and closer. If Black Blood wanted to stop him, he couldn't with one hand working on binding the Strix curse while the other continued to draw it out of his trapped Beast. Two hands, both in use, a metaphor his mind spun up to show that Black Blood was too occupied to stop him.

Maybe if Jack had been a Gangrel, or more importantly, if Black Blood hadn't bound his Beast up in black coils, Jack could have summoned its strength to help him. But, nope, all Jack had was just Jack. A young guy with a stubborn streak a mile wide. He took another step and another, earning some annoyed snarls from Black Blood.

"You will do nothing but hurt yourself if you attempt to stop me, Jack Terry."

Jack ignored the god of death, and came closer, close enough he could reach out and touch the giant shadowy owl. The chains that bound it meant touching the owl would do nothing. But that didn't mean he couldn't touch the chains.

And one of the links in the chain looked different than the others. It was subtle, super tiny, but one of the links of the silvery ghost chain had a red mark on it. Jack squinted at it, bringing it into focus as best he could. He recognized the symbol. It was one of the symbols in the ritual his physical body was standing on. The ritual that currently had Jack trapped, the ritual made out of Jack's blood, drawn from him when the curse's vitae infused it, was affecting one of Black Blood's chains. Something about the ritual was affecting Black Blood then, and he didn't seem to notice. Maybe he couldn't.

"Black Blood," Jack said. "You're a god of the dead, right? Of corpses or death or whatever."

"My influence is far reaching, but yes." Well, at least the big bastard was willing to answer questions. Typical villain behavior, convinced he'd won so he was willing to spill some secrets. Jack couldn't blame him. Everyone that was a threat to him was accounted for, and currently sitting outside the red barrier. The only people who were even remotely a threat, were: Jack, bound in a ritual; Sam, far too weak to do anything; Mary's ghost, bound in a ghost chain; and Elaine, who Jacob was probably ready to squash into pulp the moment she so much as looked at him funny.

"You bound my sister's ghost like it was nothing. You grabbed her, like she was just a fly."

Black Blood snorted a chuckle. "I am a god of death and the dead, little vampire. She is a ghost."

Right, and he'd said the Strix were strangely connected to vampires, half-dead creatures, and were similar to ghosts. The fact there was some crossover was probably how Black Blood was able to extract the curse at all.

Jack had assumed that one time the curse had actually hit Black Blood, the last time they'd had a mind meld, it'd been because they were in Jack's mind. But, maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe Black Blood was genuinely worried about the curse. Maybe, the curse was a genuine threat to him. And if Elaine knew that... Well, it wasn't like Jack had anything to lose.

"You almost let Jacob die. Antoinette almost got him."

"I was toying with the Prince, nothing more."

Jack smirked. "No, you weren't. You were tired. You would have forced Mary's ghost to help sooner, if you could have. You're exhausted. You're weak. You're not some limitless god of power. So... fuck you."

Before Black Blood could say anything, Jack reached out, and grabbed the chain. No pain. He'd expected pain, like grabbing an electric fence or something, but whatever Black Blood was doing, it had one purpose: binding the curse. It didn't care that Jack touched it.

"What are you doing?"

Jack smirked up at the big bastard again, before looking back into the eyes of the Ripper. No need for them to communicate, Jack knew what it wanted. It wanted to kick Black Blood's ass.

The symbol on the chain glowed. It reacted to him. Elaine, you sneaky bitch.

Jack took a deep, useless breath, and pulled apart with every ounce of effort he could find. All or nothing, everything came down to this.

He figured he'd have a pretty huge epic moment. Maybe some roaring and screaming as the chain resisted him. Maybe he'd have a Samson moment, resummon his lost strength and push down some big pillars, hopefully without the dying part. Maybe something out of an anime, where Jack would find the spark inside him to overcome any barrier, any obstacle, any resistance!

Nope. The moment Jack pulled the chain, the symbol on the one link flared, the link disappeared, and Jack was flung back by a big, invisible, explosive force. He landed on his ass hard, and tried to get up fast. Didn't work. He was fucking exhausted already, so he sat up instead, hands pushing down against the black shallow water, and watched the insanity unfold.

"What!?" Black Blood snapped his head back, but it was too late. The chains changed. Instead of the ghostly, silvery, dark chains Black Blood had spun to coil and trap the curse, they changed into dark red chains. An intimately familiar shade of red. Those, were chains made of Kindred blood.

The chains snapped out, still wrapping around the Strix curse, but also wrapping around Black Blood. One chain wrapped around the back of his skull. Another chain got the hand that'd been chaining the curse, and yanked it back behind Black Blood's shoulder. His hand sucking black smoke out of the bound Beast got a chain, too, forcing the hand against Black Blood's chest, stopping his ritual.

The chains did more than that. They pulled the giant shadow owl straight toward him.

The curse, with chains behind it but no longer wrapping it, stuck out its giant black wings, and let out a paralyzing screech. Jack clutched his ears, but it didn't help. It was the sort of sound Mary made, a shriek you couldn't make with vocal cords. The sort of sound only something ephemeral could make, and only something that embodied death itself could make.

The giant owl slammed into Black Blood's face, and everything exploded. The world, Jack's bound Beast and the black ropes that bound it, the endless mindscape and its black water and clouds Black Blood filled it with, Black Blood himself, the curse, it all shattered and fell apart. He couldn't see. Everything was gone.

Jack fell on his ass. Again. In black water, again. The world crept back into view as he forced open his eyes. Eye. He groaned as pain ravaged him, pain the Ripper had been suppressing. The scar tissue, the barely formed layers of skin and muscle, all screamed at him to get blood in him and take a long torpor. The curse--

The curse was gone. The anger and rage, the extra personality whispering in his mind. The sickening desires. Gone. Jack clutched his chest and looked down at the ritual circle around him. It was gone, too, and no longer pushed out the black water. Deactivated, or completed? Either way, he was back in the real world.

He looked to his mom. She sat beside Mary's ghost, holding her, now that Mary was back in chains. Both of them were looking up. Elaine and Jacob were both looking up, too. Jack looked to the red barrier. Same thing. Everyone beyond it was looking up.

The screeching noise yanked Jack's eye up as well. And just like everyone else, he froze, and stared.

A giant black owl was fighting Black Blood. No, fighting was the wrong word. The curse, the Ripper, whatever it was now, its black wings erupted out of Black Blood's right arm, followed by black smoke that exploded outward like someone had just opened a door or window to a house fire. And Black Blood slammed a hand down on the wings and smoke hard enough they again exploded, and disappeared. But before the skeleton could recover, black wings erupted from another piece of his bone, this time from his left shoulder. Again, the god of corpses slammed a hand against the invading parasite, and ripped and tore at his own bones and black ooze, until the owl shrieked in agony and disappeared, only to reemerge somewhere else on Black Blood's body.

"Get out! Get out!" Black Blood roared, and the sound hit like a blast wave. If Jack hadn't already been on his ass, he would have fallen over as the black water around the giant god shot outward from him. Again and again, invisible pulses erupted from Black Blood, each followed by a grand boom.

"Black Blood, what the hell!?" Jacob jumped back to his feet, and put his book and knife on the table. Unfortunately for Jacob, the pulsing eruptions of Black Blood fighting off the curse parasite sent his table over, and a dozen artifacts fell. He paused long enough to glance to them, before looking down at Jack's mom, at Mary, still bound, then to Jack, and then finally, to Elaine.

"What. Did. You. Do?"

Elaine shrugged and gestured up to Black Blood.

"Why ask me? Your god of corpses is the one who failed."

The giant god raged and tore at his own body, but the curse refused to die. Its shadowy body emerged from the god's forehead, and it screamed until everyone was forced to cover their ears. Black Blood again raked at his own body, and dragged his claws across his bone face, shredding the shadow owl that fought to exist. Wings erupted from behind his shoulder, and he spun as he reached for it, sending giant splatters of the black ooze on his body outward, thick as sludge and heavy enough it caused the black water everywhere to splash violently from impact.

Jacob came closer to Black Blood and waved a hand up at him. "Destroy it, before you lose control of the ghosts!"

Lose control? Jack looked up, and gulped. The hurricane of ghosts were dispersing. The mutated, horrific creatures, with see-through bodies made of limbs in all sorts of strange combinations and permutations, spread out from their tightly wound circle. Slowly, as Black Blood fought against the parasite, more and more of the ghosts dispersed, some disappearing into the endless black, and others swirling around the gigantic pillars of bone before flowing away. No green lanterns. Ghosts down here didn't have them. Like blind animals, living in pure darkness and only capable of mindlessly roaming as they searched for a new meal, the ghosts floated away.

"Mom?" Mary said. She squirmed against her chains, but they held true for now. She hadn't been able to squirm at all seconds before. They were getting weaker.

"I don't know, baby. I don't know what's going on. I--"

"Malachi! Behind you!"

The old Nosferatu spun around, just as Elaine swung a knife at the back of his neck.

Jacob was ready for it. Somehow, even as the man stared up at Black Blood, obviously confused as all fuck, he spun around and smashed the back of his hand against Elaine's face. He didn't hold back. Ventrue were hard to hurt, and an elder like Elaine was very hard to hurt, but Jacob put enough fury and malice into the backhand that Jack felt it. A hard enough punch that Jacob screamed with it. Elaine fell, and the knife flew into the black water.

"After everything I've done for you!" Jacob stomped after her, and Elaine struggled to get back to her feet. "After everything I've sacrificed! After everything you've sacrificed! This is how you repay me!?" By the time she managed to get back to one foot and one knee, he drove a foot into her chest, and she flew back. Her body smashed into one of the standing stones, hard enough her head cracked against it. Her cheek and jaw already looked damaged from the backhand, and now Kindred blood splattered over the stone where her skull hit it. The standing stones were, apparently, a lot harder to knock over than anyone figured they'd be.

Jacob marched after her. The jokes, gone. The chaotic, random funny remarks, gone. This wasn't the Jacob any of them knew. There was that one time Jack and Jacob were hanging out, when Avery and Clara had approached, and Avery had tried to make peace. Jacob had backhanded Clara so hard, a human would have been in the hospital for weeks. This was a hundreds time worse than that.

"Mom!" Mary said, not screaming, not even yelling. Just, talking, in the most Mary-like voice Jack had ever heard her use. "Stop him, please. Stop him. I don't want this! I don't want this!"

Their mom looked down at Mary, and clutched her tight as she looked into her empty black eyes.

"Baby, we can be--"

"No! No, it's not right! Mom, it's not right! He's going to change everything for everyone, and... and... ruin things, for everyone."

"But--"

"No! You're wrong! You're wrong! You're wrong!"

"Mary..."

"I'm dead, Mom. You're alive! You're alive, and Jack's alive! Be alive!"

Mary's ghost, a bundle of ephemera and memories and a mountain of hate and destruction, said the words Jack struggled with. Just like old times, Mary didn't have any problem saying the emotional bits. The ghost wasn't Mary, but she was damn close, and Jack had been adamant about making her cross over. When Mary's ghost looked his way, he tried to hold eye contact, lasted half a second, and looked away. Fuck, he felt like shit.

If Jacob heard Mary, he didn't react. He couldn't have, not with how close he was to Black Blood now, and how loud the giant skeleton was as he ripped and tore at the curse fighting his body. The vampire continued his walk toward Elaine, and he yanked off his eye bandage as he did. Snarling loud enough everyone could hear it even over Black Blood, he tossed the bandage aside, and closed the distance to Elaine.

"I can tolerate a lot, Elaine. But a traitor? Fuck you. You can die here, and you better thank God itself that in the new world, when I find you again, I won't be able to kill you a second time."

Elaine wobbled as she pushed herself back up to her feet, back sliding up the stone pillar, the smallest grin on her face.

"I regret many of my decisions, Jacob. This is not one of them."

The only reason Jack heard her, over the insane roars of Black Blood, was how close he was now. He'd ignored his wounds, ignored how drained he was, ignored how fucked up it felt to have an ancient deadly curse pulled out of him, and had walked toward Jacob's back. After everything that'd happened, knowing Elaine had actually set shit up to fuck Black Blood over, to give them a chance? No way, no fucking way, he was going to let her die.

Elaine didn't even so much as glance Jack's way, knowing it'd give him up.

"It's pointless!" Jacob yelled. "It doesn't matter! Why--why am I wasting my time explaining this? It won't matter, once everything is together." He came up to her, and put a hand around her throat as he pulled back his other. Elaine grabbed his wrist, but she didn't have the strength to break his grip, not anymore. "No more speeches. I'm done playing games. Goodbye."

Before his other fist could turn her head into plaster, Jack grabbed the arm from behind and kicked the back of Jacob's right knee. Somehow, Jack found a sliver of strength he didn't think he had, some remnant of vitae, some tiny little bit that screamed out and told him to attack. Something angry.

It was enough. Jacob got halfway through the punch before his body collapsed, knee giving out. You didn't need to hit a knee very hard if you got it from behind. The punch went wide, his grip on Elaine's throat went wide too, and slid her to the side enough that Elaine managed to get out of the fist's path. It cracked the stone.

She threw herself at Jacob, eyes wide with the mania of a hungry vampire ready for a fight to the death. Unfortunately for Jack, he was still directly behind Jacob, and Elaine tackled him with far more strength than Jack could have guessed. The three of them hit the ground tumbling and rolling, and Jacob and Elaine locked hands like he had with Antoinette. They rolled closer and closer to the red barrier, and the overturned table near Mary and Jack's mom, making loud growling and hissing sounds every foot of the way.

Jack scrambled to his knees as fast as he could, only to find Jacob in a full mount over Elaine, straddling her waist and slowly pushing his fists down toward her. She had her hands up, each open and blocking Jacob's oncoming fists, but the man had given up trying to punch. He was trying to get his fists down to her face, so he could rip her head off.

"Jacob!" Antoinette's voice. The Prince slammed both hands against the barrier once, but it was enough to make a harsh impact sound, and force Jacob to look her way.

"Mom." Mary squirmed harder in her chains, and stared up at her mom with enough panic in her ghost eyes Jack felt his insides ache. Their mom was watching the violence, paralyzed, and it was breaking Mary. "Mom, please!"

"I... I don't--"

"None of you understand!" Jacob yelled. "And I'm sick of trying to explain it. I understand it. Black Blood understands it. And Samantha understands it. The rest of you can--"

His hand snapped out, out of Elaine's palm, and straight into Jack's face. So much for sneaking up beside him. The world went white as Jack flew back, and something in his face cracked. Pain followed, joining the merriment faster than he expected, and Jack rolled and bounced, and bounced, until a red glow hit him.

He was one foot away from crossing the red barrier.

Groaning, he touched his jaw. Mistake. Burning pain shot through the bone and into his skull, and he choked on a scream of agony. No time for pain, no time for misery. He got back up, and dragged himself toward Jacob again. A glance back showed Antoinette directly across the red barrier from him, looking at him, eyes wide. She wasn't even looking at Jacob or Elaine, or the raging Black Blood anymore. She was looking at him.

For a single moment, he thought about walking through the red barrier, to spend a few final moments with her. But some really big, stupid part of him told him to drag his ass back toward Jacob, and do whatever he could to stop the inevitable. He didn't know what Elaine hoped to accomplish by fucking over Black Blood like this. Maybe her plan had backfired, or failed somewhere along the line. It didn't matter. He wasn't going to let his great grandsire get her head ripped off by Jacob, not after this. No way in Hell.

"All of you!" Jacob threw a glare at everyone beyond the barrier with his empty eye sockets, before getting back to the elder between his legs, and resumed violence. "I'll bring you all into the new world, alive or dead, even if I have to drag you as you kick and scream like idiot children." He raised a hand, and punched straight down. Elaine tried to block it, but Jacob had raised his fist high enough it was basically a haymaker. It crushed her hand into her own face.

He didn't stop. He pounded into her, again and again, and she managed to block them, but each block was pitiful and weak. Elaine didn't cry out, didn't scream, didn't beg for mercy as Jacob broke bones, driving her blocking hands into her face. And when her eyes refused to open anymore, eye sockets crushed, she held up her forearms, and blocked as best she could as Jacob broke those as well.

"Stop," Jack said through a broken jaw. "Stop, please. Stop it." He was too far, way too far. Even if he'd been close enough to fight him, what could do he? The curse was gone, its power gone. He wouldn't be able to do a thing to the elder witch. Slow him down? For what? At best he'd stop Jacob long enough to get thrown through the red barrier and be forced to watch the world end on the sidelines.