My Little Ventrue Pt. 10 Ch. 17

"She's going to hate herself," Triss said, nodding toward Sam. "The moment you... you guys leave, and all she has left is Jack, she's going to hate herself."

"Maybe," Julias said. "But Jacob had to be stopped. Black Blood can't do the ritual without someone else's help."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And maybe he'll find someone, next cycle. But for now, Sam saved the world. She'll need a friend to remind her of that."

"I'm not sure she'll think of it as saving the world."

Julias sighed, and stepped back from her. "She will. Once she's thinking clearly, she'll understand. In the mean time, be her friend."

"You know I will."

Nodding again, Julias half turned, ready to walk away. But he stepped back in toward her, and kissed her. Good, because if he hadn't, she'd have made him do it anyway.

"No regrets, Triss. The time we had was wonderful, and I hope you cherish the memories. But it's important that--"

"That I move on. I get it already, okay? You sound like a fucking therapist."

He grinned at her, and hugged her tight one last time, before letting her go, and slowly stepping back.

"I love you."

God damn it. She choked down another sob, but it still came out as a trembling squeak.

"I love you, too."

He smiled, winked, and walked back toward the tear. Right on cue, as if Julias was leading the pack, all the souls gave their loved ones some final hugs and kisses and tearful goodbyes. Caleb and Monica gave Jack a drive-by pat on the shoulder. Antoinette's ghouls, the other dead werewolves, Sándor's wife and kid, Eric's mom, whoever that was with Daniel, Tash's parents, everyone eventually moved on.

Mary and James gave Samantha extra hugs, Mary in particular, before she took her dad's hand and made for the tear. She didn't get far, of course, before she turned around and gave her mom one last hug. They both cried and squeezed each other until James had to interfere, and gently pry them apart. Sam got one last quick forehead kiss from James, before the two souls moved on, and James gave Jack a knowing pat on the shoulder, and a quick hug, too.

Before he left, Julias walked over to Athalia, and squatted down beside Angela. The two women were still locked in a hug, not talking anymore. After the sort of tense life they had, and then the tense confession Angela just gave, talking probably wasn't the best idea. Just, better to share some 'I love yous' and hug it out.

"It's smaller," Julias said, gesturing to the rock hanging off Angela's neck.

"Yeah."

"Glad I convinced you to come?"

Angela, trembling and crying, managed to nod as she smiled up at him. "Yeah."

Nodding, he held out a hand, and helped her stand up, while also giving Athalia one of his perfect, infuriating winks. Athalia came up with them, and before Julias could react, she hugged him.

"Thank you, Julias."

Julias returned the hug, before slowly guiding Athalia off him, and into Daniel's arms instead. The two men nodded to each other in typical manly fashion, before Julias put his arm around the back of Angela's shoulders, and guided her toward the tear. The woman who'd killed him, and he was helping her.

Triss dragged herself over to Sam and Jack. For a second she'd been tempted to go to Athalia, but Daniel was doing cleanup duty for her, and from the way she was snugged up under his shoulder as she watched after Angela, tears streaming down her cheeks but a smile there too, she was fine. Sam, on the other hand, was having a rougher time than anyone. She wasn't sobbing anymore, but it was damn clear from the look in her eyes that her face would have been soaked in tears if she'd been Blushing.

"Bye! I love you!" Mary waved, pausing by the giant tear as other souls stepped through it. "I love you Mom! I love you Jack!"

"I love you baby!" Sam said, waving in the exact same, exaggerated way.

"I love you," Jack said, with only a pinch of the stand-offish behavior Triss expected of an introverted guy like him. "And I love you too, Dad."

James nodded in that firm, proud father kinda way as he gave them a final wave, and disappeared through the tear with his daughter.

Julias paused at the tear, and waited for Angela to step in. She gave her mom one final look, and a small wave that said a million words, before she followed the others in. Only Julias was left.

He looked to his childe, and Jack returned his gaze. And, because Julias's cheese knew no bounds, he gave the kid a thumbs up. Poor Jack. Everyone in the crowd laughed quietly as Jack returned it, but Julias maintained the most dramatic, intense, cinematic and proud gaze, before locking eyes with Triss. He smiled at her, one last time, before disappearing into the tear.

The glowing orbs got to work. They hovered around the tear, and shot what looked like gold lasers at it. It was almost like one of those scifi shows where machines used lasers to cauterize wounds. Maybe that's what they were doing, burning the wound closed. Not much noise, either. All in all, a very anticlimactic end to all the work Jacob and Black Blood had accomplished.

Then they left, without a word, probably to deal with the other tears. No explanations about who or what they were, their relationship to Black Blood, or how they managed to use the tear to let dead souls come for a visit. Assholes.

Triss looked around. Everyone was stunned, not by what had happened, but by what wasn't happening. The world wasn't ending anymore. And, they weren't talking to the people they'd lost anymore. All they had anymore, was silence. And memories.

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~~Antoinette~~

"I believe," Antoinette said, "that we may... return home."

Everyone sighed, tension melting away, replaced with melancholy. It was only natural, after being given such a gift, only to lose it so soon. While it was a beautiful, and cathartic moment to speak with her ghouls Lana and Darlene again, it was also true that she was an old creature, and used to moving on when those she cared for died. And Daniel, who got to speak with his dead childe from so long ago, was also not as emotionally exhausted as everyone else. Elders were used to death.

Beatrice, Samantha, Jack, Athalia, and Sándor, were the ones most obviously drained by the experience, but also fulfilled. Goodbyes that were not said before were said, and final moments exchanged. Perhaps the most powerful, was Athalia's conversation, an interaction Antoinette could not help but watch, overwhelmed with interest, and perhaps empathy, as the woman reconciled with her daughter. Or rather, partially reconciled. The weight around the troubled daughter's neck had diminished, and with Julias as a strange friend in the afterlife, it was likely the girl would eventually be free of her burdens.

The idea that a psychopath, filled with hate and cruelty, could go to some great 'river', and slowly release themselves of their sins to become free to roam it, left her with a strange feeling. Did someone like that deserve such forgiveness?

She frowned as she looked down. How pathetic had she become, to suddenly subscribe to the idea that the compassionate enjoyed their afterlife, while the cruel were doomed to suffer? A religious view, and not her view. Julias had said Lucas could not visit, as he was still weighed down by his burdens. She had to admit, the idea of that lunatic trapped by his sins as anchors around his neck, unable to sail some mystical river, was pleasing, and her frown shifted into a smile.

"Prince," Natasha said, joining her side after a quick conversation with her sire. "What do we d-do now?"

Antoinette touched her chin as she considered. Ask her student about her conversation with her dead parents? No, too soon. Little Vola would speak of it when she was ready.

"Jacob is... dead." She scooped her old friend's robe from the shallow water. "And Black Blood has been indisposed. What those strange entities did with him, I do not know, and they did not have the decency to explain what a cycle was to give me a time frame for his next appearance. But, I believe it is safe to say, we may return home, and worry about destroying this another time." She gestured to the standing stones.

"Agreed," Daniel said. "We're too injured to do it by hand tonight. If a Begotten provides me passage, I'll destroy the standing stones with explosives tomorrow night." One of his arms held Athalia to his side. Such a display of affection was not normal for her sheriff, but it was clear Athalia needed it. And, perhaps Daniel's conversation with his young childe Torrence, had softened him a touch. Perhaps he would even speak of him to his living childe some night.

"Elaine my dear, if you would join me for a moment?" She looked to her old friend, one of her few remaining, and offered her a cold, neutral expression.

Elaine tried to return her gaze, but her face was still a broken mess. It had healed enough to function, but only just. With a few moments to consider it, Elaine joined her, and the two elders stepped aside from the rest of the crowd, who had begun to isolate themselves to absorb what had just happened.

"Elaine," she whispered. "You... made quite the gamble."

"I did."

"I do expect you to tell me the details of your plan."

Elaine managed a grin with her split and ruined lips. "After you lock me in a cell, and turn me into a prisoner, I assume?"

Antoinette returned the grin. "No. I trust you to not disappear. And besides, you... did try and stop Jacob."

"I suppose I did."

"And if Jack had not arrived at all to trigger your trap, and your trap against Black Blood?"

Elaine looked away. "Then... maybe Maurice..." Sighing, she shook her head. "I grow sick of this place. Let us go."

"Daniel," Antoinette said, loud enough to summon him. "Help Elaine, would you? She is gravely injured. And... do keep an eye on her."

Elaine choked on a small laugh. "By all means."

Nodding, Antoinette walked past the others, on her way back to her lover and her childe. The mix of sadness and joy in the crowd was palpable, and no doubt poor Jack wanted nothing more than to separate himself from the powerful aura the group radiated. Such was the way of any introvert, when emotionally overwhelmed.

"Antoinette," he said. "I uh... I'm not sure--"

She held up a hand. "Let us go, drink, and sleep. It would not do to speak of these events so soon, and as injured and exhausted as we are." Slipping an arm about her injured lover's body was easy enough, as he sought her touch.

Samantha was not so easy. Her childe appeared more torn now, than she had been when Antoinette first arrived through the flesh tunnel.

Poor, dear Samantha. She spoke at last.

"I... I was... going to let Jacob--"

"Samantha, my childe, you were thrown into chaos you could not have even begun to appreciate, and told by a... by a wonderful man, that you could be with your loved ones again. Anyone would have been seduced by his words in such a circumstance."

Jacob had been, for all his chaos and strange, primal views, truly a wonderful man, and she did not regret calling him such. But in that moment, the words hit Samantha with more weight than Antoinette could have anticipated, and her childe broke into sobs once again. Jack, battered and barely standing, slipped an arm about his mother, and hugged her as best he could.

Antoinette looked back, and found Beatrice nearby, close enough to hear what she had said. After a heavy moment, Antoinette offered her old friend's student a solemn nod.

Beatrice stood strong, and nodded in return.

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Antoinette had been tempted to speak to the others, but she knew her own advice was true. There would be time to speak of the realities in the future. For now, they needed rest.

"Sleep well," she said to her childe, and pet her shoulder as she gently ushered Samantha into her room, deep within the Elysium Tower.

"You too," Samantha said, and she sat on her bed in the grand room of black marble. While her room and bed were not as massive as Antoinette's, it was still quite vast, and her blankets a beautiful shade of sky blue. Antoinette had half expected her childe to acquire stuffed animals for her bed, but Samantha was not Natasha.

Antoinette nodded, and turned to leave, but stopped and set a hand against the door frame as she looked to her childe.

"Samantha. I... I cannot even begin to imagine the agony you must be suffering. But--"

Her sweet childe looked up from her netted hands, and smiled up at her.

"Mary told me to live, sire. That's what I'm going to do. You don't have to worry about me."

"That... That she did." Antoinette nodded to her, and left.

The Prince went to bed, where her love waited.

Jack sat upon the edge of the bed, wearing only his boxers, his hands between his knees and his head hanging. His body had not healed, despite a quick trip to find food. His crows rested at the mansion, and Antoinette did not need to be a master of Animalism to know the crow Scully was not happy with her. The memory of the small bird cawing at her with frustration as she released Jennifer, was strangely amusing.

She sat beside her love, and set a hand behind him along his lower back, where his injuries were few.

"You are in pain," she said. "The injuries, I mean."

"Yeap."

"The curse would have healed them by now."

"Nah, not completely. Those werewolf claws hurt."

She nodded, and rubbed the man's spine. "Still, they would have mostly healed by now. I believe this is proof enough that the curse has truly been removed."

He nodded as well. "Yeap."

"Are you... content? Not about the other insanities that befell us this night. But about what Elaine did, for you."

"Not sure. The curse is gone..." He raised a fist, and squeezed it experimentally. "My body feels like it's on fire."

"And yet you sit there, as if under no pain at all."

"I'm getting used to pain."

With a heavy sigh, she reached out, and slowly turned her love to look to her. He still had but one eye.

"Without the curse, it will take you weeks to fully heal from these wounds, my love."

He managed a small grin. A stomach full of fresh blood had, at least, mostly healed his broken jaw.

"You won't mind if I just, relax here, all that time? Sleep a bunch? Maybe you could tell Michael to fuck off and leave me alone? Business reports can wait?"

She returned his grin, and gently slid her fingers back over his hair, against the grain. It would likely be a gesture that soothed him for the rest of time. He melted back into her touch, and she rewarded him with a kiss upon his head.

"The Invictus and Carthians leave each other be, thanks to you. You have earned rest."

He nodded, and crawled back on the bed. He moved with more solidity than someone as injured as him should have.

She sighed as she watched him, and disrobed. Once she was naked, she crawled over to him, and pulled the blankets over the two of them. For the unlife of her, she wanted to pull his head to her breasts and let it rest there, but the position would be awkward and painful to him.

"It's a strange sensation," he said. "The curse, it... it was power, you know?"

She turned to face him, and continued to lightly stroke his head.

"You wish to speak of it?" A strange topic. She thought he would wish to speak of Julias or his sister, but perhaps he felt those topics could wait until he felt better.

"It's g... He's gone, now. Lot more comfortable talking about it."

"Then, by all means."

He nodded, and turned so he could rest his back against her breasts. He wanted to be the little spoon, and she happily obliged.

"When the curse started to get it hooks into me, before Julias died, it hit me with some of the most twisted, sick desires you can imagine. Real psychotic shit. When I released it, it... I don't know. I guess it copied a part of me, and created its own intelligence? But that part was also part Susanna. And it was part Strix, it had to be, to be that fucking vile. It was like... having a really, really powerful horse between the legs, one I'd raised from a foal. When it worked with me, it was amazing, thrilling, and empowering. When it fought against me, it was terrifying. This creature had zero sympathy. It hated the very idea of empathy. It was, fucking stupid as the word is, evil. But..."

"But?"

"But I still... feel like I'm missing a part of me. Or maybe, like I'm missing something important to me." Again, he slowly clenched a fist in front of his face, curling and uncurling his fingers. "It's like, someone's taken my crazy horse, a horse I've been driving for years, shot it dead, and told me to walk."

"Quite the malevolent horse, though."

"Yeah. Good thing it's gone, I know. But it still feels weird. Feels like... losing something that, yeah sure it was horrible, but it was still mine. It's gone, and it feels... empty. I keep trying to put my hands on the reins, but they're not there, because the horse isn't there anymore."

An interesting dilemma. She kissed the back of his head, and risked a hug, a gentle one.

"It was 'your' horse." She emphasized 'your', sealing the meaning.

"It was. I thought maybe an extra limb was the better comparison, or maybe a car. But, no, the curse was alive. It... He had his own personality, his own desires, and life. He was mine, and now he's gone. I know I should be happy, and I am. I fucking am. But... it feels... strangely lonely. And I even feel... a bit guilty, about him dying. He was my horse. He killed so many people. He killed Monica, and Caleb. But... he was my horse."

"You would be surprised, my love, how many people have felt similar feelings, over similar circumstances. Someone with a violent dog. Someone with a violent friend. People have followed their destructive companions into misery and worse, in some misplaced need to help them, or feeling bound to them in some way."

He let out a quiet chuckle, and groaned with pain.

"Toxic relationships."

"In a sense. Even mutually destructive, forced companionship, is still companionship. But with time, you will forget the sensation of the curse beside you. You will move on."

"Yeah, I guess." He nodded, and relaxed into his pillow.

She dare not say what she thought. Jack was convinced the Ripper was truly evil, and perhaps it was, but her love thought that neither he nor anyone else were capable of such levels of evil. He was convinced only the Strix, or similar, soulless creatures, could be capable of such total lack of empathy, and the ability to indulge and enjoy in cruelty of biblical proportions.

For all her love's wisdom, he was still naive. Even a human was capable of becoming a monster who could enjoy such cruel indulgences. A Kindred, more so. It was quite likely the Strix curse did not carry any Strix desires at all, and was merely Susanna's own personality, twisted by hate and rage, carried onto Jack. Or perhaps even worse, simply Jack's personality, from an alternate world where he had suffered whatever horrible betrayals Susanna had.

It was better he continued to think such things impossible.

Day came, and torpor took them.

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"There were many flaws with your plan."

Antoinette stood in front of her grand office window, and looked below to her city. Safe, secure, at least from cataclysmic events brought on by gods and witches.

"There were." Elaine stood beside her, both of them dressed in their usual business suits.

Antoinette's insides still felt quite pained, Mary's ghost claws having left lasting injuries. Elaine had suffered no magical injuries, but had been beaten ten times worse. She looked much better after a night's sleep, but she moved as an old woman suffering arthritis might.

"How long had you been working with Jacob?"