My Little Ventrue

~~Natasha~~

"Something... h-horrible?" she said.

Art stepped forward into the buildings, into the civilian lobby, and sniffed the air. "Monica told us she found out that, apparently Jack managed to bust his way out of here, and kill a few hunters on the way out. I assume you know more. Can you spare us any more details?"

What details could she share that she'd read about? Antoinette had her ways, and especially so did Daniel, to get detailed reports about what happened here, more than what the Invictus were willing to share. Some things they read were vague, but her two bosses were both more than skilled enough to fill in the blanks based on implication. And Jack was her friend, he'd told her some things, things she'd managed to extrapolate from. Once she'd put it all together, it was a very scary tale.

"Jack... was tortured, and I g-guess it... it pushed him over an edge. He dominated three hunter minds, and summoned an army of rats." She shivered at the image. Rats, swarming, overwhelming, killing? "It sounds like something Viktor w-would have done." Oops. She'd meant to say that in her head.

"Right, his grand sire." Matt shivered, and rubbed his arms, in the same way Natasha did. Made her smile, for a moment. "Avery had some stories for us about him."

"D-Does she? I, um... not sure, about what... what happened back then. Avery showed up in the... fifties, right? I was sired around the purge, in the sixties." A wonderful ostrich tactic, conveniently ignoring the warning about the horrible thing right in front of her in the prison, to get information about the past. Typical Mekhet, need knowledge knowledge secrets secrets.

The two werewolves continued along through the lobby, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing more, picking up something her nose couldn't, before moving on and heading down the hall toward the prisoner lobby.

"Mmhmm," Matt said. "Don't normally run into Ventrue who give Uratha much trouble. Hard to kill, but it's not like they give us much trouble when the fists start flying. Except, this Viktor fucker, he could dominate Uratha easily."

"... he c... c-could?"

Art nodded as he circled around the center desk in the prisoner lobby. "Yeah. Uratha aren't immune to you Kindred and your fucking mental powers and shit. Normally, the younger Kindred can't touch us, mental powers or not. But the older ones, you get your fucking fingers into our brains? It's... never a good thing." He stopped before the gate leading down one of the hallways, where another hallway turn waited, with cells waiting beyond, Tash imagined. "Christ, this wasn't just Jack escaping and killing, this was a bloodbath. The whole place reeks of blood, human and rat, and gasoline. Death."

She couldn't smell any of that.

"According to Avery," Matt said, "Viktor dominated a couple of her companions, at the same time. Forced them both to transform, full on gauru mode, and made them fight each other." He followed after Art, eyes scanning up and down the bars, the floor, everywhere. All clean, all washed, all evidence gone, but whatever the Invictus did to clean it, it wasn't enough to hide everything from the Uratha. "Not a secret, really. Your elders are fucking terrifying."

"I... I guess. I d-didn't know Viktor did that though." Viktor's strength was well known. That combined with his growing insanity and paranoia — according to Antoinette — were the reasons Maria and Michael were afraid to challenge him. "D-Did... anyone die?"

"To Viktor being a jackass? No, no one Avery's told us about anyway." Art shrugged as he continued down the hall, deeper into the complex, Matt and Tash following after him. "He couldn't break Simon though, apparently."

The gentle giant stepped ahead of her, and got down on his knees beside one of the cells. "... that kid really left a scar here."

A rat squeaked, and disappeared into a large crack in the concrete. Where rats were once quite bold, she imagined all the rats for a mile in any direction would be afraid to be seen by anything on two legs, now.

"Scar?" she said.

Art came to a stop by one of the cells. "Yeah, the sort of shit that resonates, creates essence, creates problems. Seems like he's tainted this prison with... I don't know. Rage? Hate?... a lot of creatures died here, painfully."

The rest of them came up to the cell door, and looked inside. Natasha could see nothing out of the ordinary, but both Matt and Art were twitching their noses and looking around, fidgeting fingers and snapping eyes. They didn't like being here.

"Hard to make out their scent anymore. So many vamps came through here, and washed the place down." Walking into the cell, Art cringed as he approached the metal chair, and knelt down in front of it. "... something happened here. Jack must have been in this chair. He... was in pain, a large amount of pain. Panic, pain... then... revenge?" He got up, and turned to face the gate of the cell. "He... broke two minds here, I think. Took them over." He walked back out into the hallway, before turning to face the direction they came from. "Two humans died here, shot down. Then..."

Natasha did her best to not imagine a music montage, of a song shrinking an effort of days down into seconds, like typical TV forensics drama scenes. But, she stared on, wide eyed, as she listened to a bass-heavy alternative rock song play in her head, while Art managed to come to conclusions from utterly nothing.

"Then the madness started. You said rats, right? Lot of... lot of dead rats. Hundreds... They started here." He motioned to the crack in the wall. "And from similar holes in this old place." He gestured around to the others cells too. "... they didn't die quick either. Most of them died in pain."

"That's what it is," Matt said. "Christ, kid was in pain... and inflicted a lot of pain."

"The hunt-t-ters, they... used fire, and... burned all the rats," she said.

Art nodded, and followed the hall back out to the lobby again. "Yeah, death death and more death, all marked with pain. All starts with that chair. And, everything has a generous, heaping pile of hate on it, like... tar."

"... in the report, it said... that J-Jack, that um, he had to cut off his hands, t-t-to get out. He d-dominated the two hunters watching him... despite, um, enchanted hand cuffs, designed to work on vampires we think. He forced them... t... t-to cut off his hands so he could escape." A Mekhet would have used the situation to get a quick phone call out, not cut off their own hands. But she wasn't there, maybe it wasn't reasonable.

Both werewolves winced, sucking in their breath between their teeth. "Damn," they said.

She winced as well. Yeah, damn. "He, um, summoned rats. All Kindred know animalism, you p-probably know, b-but, Gangrel and Ventrue are good at it, naturals at it. And... Jack, he's... he's Julias's childe. Julias is a p-prodigy, sort of. Very, very strong. Viktor was... also very, very strong, and... and J-Jack is..."

"Is following in his sire and grand sire's footsteps." Art knelt down by the desk in the civilian lobby, the three of them almost back out of the building. He ran his fingers along the tile of the floor, and smelled them. "He's not the first vamp to have an explosion in skill at a young age, but this is pretty big. This whole place reeks of death, pain, and panic. And... disgust."

Matt nodded as he walked around, wincing every so often. "We'll have to keep an eye on it, in case any wraiths show up."

"W-Wraiths?" Wait, didn't that secrets spirit thing say something about wraiths? Something about them, and Black Blood?

"Yeah. Not ghosts, though I wouldn't be surprised if ghost wraiths existed. No, these wraiths are a type of spirit that have grown in Dolareido. Mix of death and fear. There's not many of them, but enough to be a problem."

Ok, moment of truth. Tell her boyfriends she knew about Black Blood? Don't tell them? They might not like her knowing about it, and she didn't want to become another Minerva. But, Antoinette knew of it, and the werewolves weren't trying to break down her door or anything.

"... d-do they... do bad things?" she said. Ok, so she wasn't going to tell them. Yet. She had good reason though, because, secrets and stuff. Mekhet needed their secrets, and it was part of her job to acquire information. If they didn't know that she knew about Black Blood, they'd be more likely to accidentally tell her things, things she could deduce conclusions from that they wouldn't expect her to be able to.

Harmless information gathering. Harmless.

Matt nodded. "Yeah, they can get involved in some pretty dark stuff. Seems they're working together with some other shit, and we're not sure why."

"David knows more, but getting straight answers out of spirits is never easy. Always comes with a fucking price tag." Art shrugged, and continued along until they were back outside, the outer gate they climbed over before them. "And... you might want to talk to your buddy, Jack, about this. To leave a scar like this, from one incident? It was nasty. I doubt the kid is even aware of how badly this must have fucked with him."

"I... I'll t-talk to him." She wasn't sure what she could say that Antoinette or Julias couldn't, but there was no harm in checking up on her friend anyway. And, she was sure Antoinette was doing her best to soothe the boy's soul.

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~~Julias~~

He really wanted to go back to his home, the mansion, lay in bed with Triss — and Jen — and stop thinking about all this garbage. He was going to kill these hunters, if only so he could take a single day to truly, wholly relax again. No matter what he did now, the hunters were on his mind, squirming into his thoughts, until it ate at him.

The Primogen meeting room. He was there, as were all the Primogen. No one had missed a meeting since Tony's death, since he was the only fucker who had the nerve to ignore them at his whimsy. Good riddance.

Christ, he was sour. No word, no sighting, nothing about the hunters. And it was all he could think about, all his mind was concerned with; which made it hard to focus on what Jack was saying.

"Carter and Clara will be staying in the Carlava Villa soon," the kid said, looking to each elder around the table as he updated them on Invictus business deemed shareable. He stood at its end, opposite of the Prince, hands at his sides and posture rigid. If he'd been wearing a military uniform, the hair would have fit even better. "For an indeterminate amount of time."

"This some desperate ploy to make friends with Avery?" Garry said, rolling his eyes as he leaned back. "You Invictus are fucked in the head, especially if you think you can bribe her."

Michael frowned, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table, eyes cutting into Garry. "We offer her a roof, same as you. And we want what you want, Tones, to encourage her aid in dealing with these hunters."

The two Gangrels frowned at each other. There'd be barking soon, if someone didn't do something.

Jacob, of all people, leaned in first, and swept the antics away with a hand gesture. "Jeremiah is a deadly beast, to be sure. I spoke with Azamel myself, and while that old bitch refuses to be straight with me, she was obviously afraid of the man, in some capacity. It would appear we're stuck in this problem she's created. I don't blame the Invictus for trying to get some extra help on our side."

The Prince sighed, tapping a finger on the glass table, the other hand gently combing waves of hair over her bosom. "And we are certain that the damage is done, and the Kindred are bound to this conflict?"

Everyone else sighed, and looked to Jack, knowing what the kid was going to say. He winced, and nodded.

The Prince met his gaze, looked down at the table, and sighed as well. "Merde." With a growing frown, she gestured for Jack to continue.

"Avery isn't against helping us," the boy said, "just... she doesn't want a repeat of the last incident, with Simon."

Maria sighed and shook her head. "She is paranoid. Viktor and Lucas are no longer with us, and they were Simon's two biggest antagonists. Even Tony didn't cause too many issues with the Uratha when they were here."

Jacob laughed and snapped his fingers once. "Were, they were her two biggest antagonists. She can fucking die in a fire for all I care."

"We need her help, Jacob," Garry said. "I know Avery did some horrible shit, but she was working for Simon and it was his call. She doesn't work for him anymore, if he's even still alive, and she's here to try and fix some of the crap Simon left behind. Cut her some slack." If there was anyone on the Primogen council who could convince Jacob of something, it was Garry supposedly, at least according to what Julias knew about them. But Julias wasn't so sure it was that simple, that Garry and him were simply friends helping each other out. Nothing was ever that simple with Jacob.

But, with a few moments to ponder, the old Nosferatu offered Garry an understanding nod, before leaning back in his chair again. Poor Jack was standing closer to Jacob than others, due to the position closer to the door, and Julias could see Jacob's quick tongue got the boy anxious. Elders arguing with each other was not a sight his childe was used to.

"In the mean time," Jack said, "she'll continue... pruning the weeds, I suppose is the best metaphor, hunting what Uratha hunt. She says she's happy with the state of the city, though."

"And yet, she does not leave," Antoinette said. "In fact, she intends to stay."

"... yes, my Prince." Jack rubbed his hair, before snapping his hand back down once he realized he was doing it again. "Issues with the Circle of the Crone aside, there are many advantages to her staying, and she's being quite reasonable... about most things."

Sticky situation for the kid to be in, having to argue and make points on behalf of the Uratha, without pissing off his superiors, particularly the Nosferatu with the Joker smile. Julias hid his smirk. He didn't envy his childe, but he was happy with the job he was doing nonetheless.

"Reasonable?" Antoinette said, glaring at him. "She has taken residence in my city, without my permission. What is reasonable about that?"

A pin drop would have shattered glass in the silence that followed, as the Prince glared at the boy. If there was any concern Antoinette would play favorites with her lover, she was successfully crushing them.

"My Prince, she has no intentions of disrupting the Kindred world here, in Dolareido. She only intends to help. That Azlu monster in the sewers was here before she arrived, not because of her arrival, and she dealt with it. Apparently, other such dangers may exist in the city, and one of those Azlu monsters survived the encounter as well. She is doing all that she can to deal with these issues, without damaging the Masquerade."

"... we did not ask for her help with these matters," Jacob said, snarling.

Jack met the old man's eyeless gaze. "Not everyone that needs help is willing to ask for it, elder Jacob. I wouldn't ask for a werewolf to help in matters of nuance, of money or politics or controlling a city, but I know that we Kindred are barely aware of... the strange things, hiding in the darkness. They are more aware, and more equipped to deal with it."

And again, the silence was profound. Everyone knew about Jacob's constant probing and exploring into such darkness, such secrets and madness, and Jack was straight up calling him out on it, saying the werewolves knew more. Ok, it was fine to be proud of your childe, but at a certain point Jack was going to cross a line; he was already flirting with it. One step too far and he was going to really piss off the old witch.

Jacob laughed, and winked at him. "True that. Much as I hope that Avery bitch dies a horrible death, she has her uses." Winking with no eyes, a bandage covering them, was weird, and only noticeable from the muscle of the eyebrow and cheek moving.

"... you may continue to placate them, and perhaps recruit their aid with these hunters, my Primogen," the Prince said, "but I assume you are all pursuing measures to deal with this threat without their aid?" The group all nodded. "Good. Keep me informed of any discoveries, as I will you."

Much of this had already been said in the emergency meeting following the incident with Jack's kidnap and escape, but Julias appreciated the Prince's thoroughness. Pretty sure she was also doing it to remind everyone they were in this together, not against each other; nice to have her in his corner.

Maria leaned in. "What of Azamel? She and her subordinates have done surprisingly little, when it is they that have brought this trouble to our door. We pester the werewolves, when it's the monsters that created this problem."

"Azamel will help us," Jack said, nodding with the statement. "She is... concerned about the city, in her own, weird way. Not like the Uratha though, I wouldn't trust her that much. For her it's more a tactical thing. But, she's more willing to form an alliance with us than Avery, and more committed to taking down Jeremiah than any of us."

The Prince mirrored his nod, but her eyes looked into each Primogen as she tapped her fingers once again. "Then I must address the elephant in the room. If Azamel is willing to help kill Jeremiah, is she willing to help kill Angela."

Julias almost said something, almost got angry. But, no, ill-timed and misplaced. As much as he was frustrated so many people were concerned with upsetting Athalia, Antoinette's worry was about Azamel. That worry was justified. He didn't want to deal with an angry Azamel, none of them did.

"I... don't know," Jack said. "Athalia is torn. She says she... she..." Kid scratched his head some more, giving up all pretense of being professional. No one minded, not at this point. "She doesn't want to kill her own daughter, but if push comes to shove, I'm not sure it'll be that simple. Maybe not kill Angela, but detain her or subdue her, maybe? As for Azamel, I get the impression that if the opportunity presented itself, she'd kill Angela, but attempt to detain her first."

"... I suppose that is better than nothing." The Prince leaned in, like many of them already were, and set her elbows to the glass table as she looked at each of them. "It has been weeks since they have shown themselves, these hunters. And the Begotten have become scarce, hiding in their tunnels — my tunnels — and hiding in their dream world. Everyone must both remain vigilant, and cooperative. That includes with the monsters and the werewolves, to an extent. If you see an opportunity to earn the help of these groups, consider taking it. We must expel these hunters above all else.

"That said, do not risk your own lives or the Masquerade for these trespassers. I do not want them in my city, but, they have not earned my wrath. Yet." Her face steeled, and she looked at each individual with a long, determined stare, yet again. On the surface it was innocent enough, a disgruntled boss. Behind that, where the skin didn't show it, where only the beasts in them could hear the silent growling, she bore into them with her gaze. "Not all of you agree with me, for enacting the purge. On that, your opinions do not matter. It was the correct option, and following it, we had decades of peace. Even Tony's infantile meddling did not disrupt that. But now I find the city growing more, and yet more unruly, at the hands of these newcomers. If I have to, I will call upon a purge once more, to remove either the Begotten, or the Uratha, or both. And in that matter, I will demand the aid of all covenants should I decide to exercise my right. Do I make myself clear?"

Jack's eyes were wide, but everyone was looking at Antoinette. The kid hadn't expected those words. Hell, Julias hadn't. But, they all nodded, and let the implication sink in. If such a thing happened and one of the covenants disagreed, vampire ashes would rain down on the city as much as blood and bone.