Chapter 129

~~Antoinette~~

She felt it the moment she and Samantha stepped up to the comely home. Cold, in the bones, an unnatural sensation that pulsed through her being. Her Beast recognized it, and its instincts kicked in, growling and snarling at the invisible waves of murder and anger that radiated from the house. It did not like being so close to such an aura; Kindred were masters of controlling kine, but had no talents whatsoever that allowed them to manipulate creatures of ephemera, spirit or ghost.

Antoinette had spent centuries learning to affect ephemera and the beings composed of it, largely in an effort to expand her control of everything. One more tool in her kit, to enact her goals on the world. But ephemera and ephemeral beings refused to be cooperative. Every scrap of knowledge she had discovered was uncovered through painful trial and error. The trouble with being a pioneer, was how little help there was to be found, even among colleagues.

Much of her knowledge pointed to the same conclusion: avoid entities made of this strange material. They were beyond the control of vampires, except through strange rituals and ornate symbols hundreds of years of experimentation barely lent meaning to. Tonight, she needed the help of such a frustrating entity, and she was not sure if it could be garnered.

Samantha opened the door, and Antoinette smiled as she followed her in. Best to be pleasant and polite when dealing with ghosts.

“It’s ... it’s not much, I know, but—”

Antoinette held up a hand. “Come now Samantha, I am not so disconnected from reality that I do not understand the trials of a normal citizen. I know the price of eggs.”

That, apparently, shocked Samantha, and she glanced at the likely empty fridge before blinking at her. “You do?”

“Of course. It pays to be economically aware of both the grand, and the petite.”

“Oh. I ... I’m kinda surprised. You’re a billionaire.” Smiling sheepishly, Samantha slid off her shoes on a mat beside the door, and stepped into her kitchen. Antoinette did the same. “You don’t have to—”

“Neither do you. This is no longer your home.”

“I ... guess you’re right.”

“But it is your daughter’s home.” Antoinette set a hand on her childe’s shoulder, offered her a reassuring nod, and a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Now, by all means, show me the house that was once your home.”

Samantha beamed. Undoubtedly the woman delighted in the idea of showing her home to others, with inevitable joy over showing the rooms and bedrooms where Mary and Jack grew up.

And show she did. Antoinette could see Samantha felt slightly uncomfortable walking through her old home wearing a suit and skirt, and doubly so with her sire at her back. But a moment later, she fell into what must have been a routine, something she perhaps once had before Jack disappeared from her life. Did she have a book club? Did other women visit, drink wine and share stories? Perhaps after James died, she looked for solace in friends. Perhaps, after Jack died, she found solace only in the arms of her daughter.

The daughter who had died, and come back to her. The daughter she could not let go of.

Samantha showed her the kitchen, and the living room and its expensive couches. She showed her downstairs, the family room, with its large television and guest bedroom. She showed her the basement, and the ‘movie’ room James had built. Every minute, she spoke of memories, of her family, of the friends that once visited her and her husband. She spoke of the people who visited when James died, friendships rekindled. She spoke of the people who disappeared, when Jack died, people who could not be near her due to her broken state of mind.

They came to the bedrooms on the top floor, and Samantha sighed softly as she opened the door to Mary’s bedroom. Cold. So terribly cold.

“If it wasn’t for Mary,” she continued, “I’d ... I don’t know.” With heavier sigh, she moved over to Mary’s quaint little vanity desk, and stared into the mirror. “Mary, are you there honey? It’s Mom.”

No answer, but the temperature in the room did lower. If Antoinette Blushed Life, her breath surely would have been visible in the air.

Samantha traced her fingers along the desk, scooped up a bright blue bracelet, and smiled at it as she plucked it experimentally, its elastic nature gently snapping back against her. “This is Antoinette, my ... my sire. Sire and childe, the vampire thing. She’s the one who saved me. Well, Jack saved me, really, and Antoinette turned me so I wouldn’t die in ... in that hospital bed.” After several moments of painful silence, she sat on the edge of the colorful bed, and smiled up at Antoinette. A weak smile. “And that’s good! It’d probably be very awkward if Jack sired me.”

“And painful,” Antoinette whispered, “for your son, I mean. It comes at no small sacrifice to create a childe.” With a smile to match Samantha’s, Antoinette sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. The very act earned a startled stare from the woman, as if Antoinette would not dare set her derriere on a simple woman’s simple bed. Silly woman.

“It does?”

“Oui. As you know, the Beast itches to escape at all times. It is nothing more than a hungry animal, and understands little of the Masquerade or the Danse Macabre. And ... when a Kindred does something that is, perhaps, rather animal and mindless, from wanton slaughter, to spreading the disease of vampirism, the Beast grows stronger, while the humanity in a vampire grows weaker.”

Samantha stared at her all the more, like she had just admitted to murder. “You ... hurt yourself, to embrace me?”

“Ben oui, and I am glad I did.”

“But, you didn’t even know me!”

“But I knew Jack, young Kindred, and I knew him well. As did Julias, a man I...” Antoinette sighed, reached out, and pat her young childe on the shoulder. Mentioning Julias was a mistake. Her poor childe instantly devolved into a pit of sadness and misery, and she looked down at the floor as guilt washed over her. “Come now, Samantha. Do not blame yourself for Julias’s death. Does Beatrice blame you?”

“No ... Sometimes she looks at me, and I can tell she’s thinking about what it’d be like if Julias hadn’t saved me. But she’s never been angry with me.”

“Perhaps you should talk with her about him?”

“I ... I don’t think she’d like that.”

“No, undoubtedly she would not. But rarely are the things we need the things we want, or would like.” Sighing, Antoinette looked around at the room, a dead, young woman’s room, and shook her head. “And unlike many Kindred, you were embraced at an age where you know very well how true that is.”

“Ha, do I? I feel pretty stupid compared to every vampire I’ve met.”

Antoinette stroked her childe’s back a few times, a gentle touch to remind her that her sire was her friend, and not simply her boss. Hopefully the message sank in. “And yet, there are many Kindred who are forever trapped in the minds they had when embraced. Appreciate the wisdom of your experiences, my childe, and—”

The once cold room grew colder still, and Antoinette looked to the floor as bits of mist began to flow up through the hardwood. The lights flickered, flickered, and died. The unnatural chill built upon itself until Antoinette could almost feel an ache in her bones. She flexed and unflexed her fingers as the familiar waves of death and foreign emotion given raw form filled the room.

A being of ephemera was manifesting itself.

“You,” the darkness whispered, with all the broken rasp of a corpse, “you’re ... a vampire, too.”

“Oui.” Antoinette considered standing, but did not. Samantha did not, and under the current circumstances, it was likely the better idea, to follow suit.

“Baby!” Samantha smiled, so joyous it was blinding, and she waved a hand at the darkness around them. “This is Antoinette, my sire. She’s the one who turned me, so that I wouldn’t die.”

The blackness remained silent for a moment, and again, Antoinette followed Samantha’s cue to remain silent as well. Ghosts were unpredictable. If Samantha had found a way to communicate with her daughter regularly, whatever approach she used was best mimicked.

“You saved Mom,” the darkness said at last.

“Your brother and his sire saved your mother, young specter. I was merely chosen to be the one who would sire her, to spare your brother the burden.”

“Burden...” A quiet hiss of sadness. Antoinette could not help but imagine a lamenting serpent. “Why’re you here?”

Antoinette looked up toward the center of the room and its ceiling, as movement began to stir within the black. Limbs, a head, leaking mist that fell from a woman’s body where legs should have been. A hint of leg was still visible, but there was no denying the bottom half of Mary’s ghostly form was a classic rendition of a shade. It hurt to see. Whether Mary’s specter was actually Mary’s soul, or the pain of her death scarred the immaterial realm, a scar given form by ephemera, Antoinette did not know. But there was no denying the creature brought Samantha much joy and pain.

No mother should be forced to suffer the death of their only daughter twice. Once alone was too great an injury for most.

“I am here to meet you, Mary Terry. You are the daughter of my childe, after all.”

“Are ... are you taking good care of Mom?”

Antoinette looked to Samantha.

“She is, honey. She is. Very much.”

The ghost, a silhouette against the obsidian, drifted closer to Antoinette. Empty eyes. Terrible, and tragic. How long had it been since Antoinette had come so close with ephemera given form and will that was not a spirit from the Shadow Realm? Many decades, and even then, not with such proximity. That specter had also died a sad, traumatic death, in an equally sad, traumatic circumstance. Such was the way of things, she supposed.

“That’s good,” the ghost said. “Good. Good. Good. Good.” With time, Mary came closer, until only several feet separated the hovering ghost from the two vampires. “Are you here to tell me to leave?”

“Non. Your presence in my city has attracted no attention. Your future will be something to discuss with your family, Mary. I will not intervene.” A lie, but a white lie. “Are you ... stable, Mary? Many ghosts struggle to remain in the physical world. It takes a powerful feeling to keep a specter among the living, and unliving.” And if a shade had the power and raw emotion to remain stable in the physical world, it was generally accompanied by being mentally unstable. One look at Mary’s twitching facial expressions proved that.

Mary hissed, a loud, raspy sound, and the blackness around them shivered with frustration.

“I’m here. I’ll protect Mom, and Jack. That’s all that matters! I...” Her empty eyes lowered, and she drifted down toward the floor. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Honey.” Samantha got down on her knees on the floor with her daughter, and set her hands on her legs. No attempt to hug her child, though Antoinette could see the woman desperately wanted to. She had visited her child many times, then, since discovering her here, to learn to hold back that reflex.

The fact Mary loved her mother and brother was obviously a great part of why she did not cross over, or disperse. But that would never be enough to create a ghost in most circumstances. Events left scars on ephemera proportional to the emotional weight they carried. Her death carried plenty, to be sure, but not enough to create a ghost.

Jack had later explained to Antoinette that Mary was angry with him. Not long after Jack had been embraced, he had wiped her mind of a chance encounter. A powerful and difficult feat for a young Ventrue, but now that the nature of his curse was understood, to some degree at least, such a display of power made more sense. Regardless, Mary’s memory was restored after death. Anger, mixed with love, a concoction that had decimated entire kingdoms in the past. And, according to Jack, Mary had been able to monitor and discern more about what had happened to her, after her death. More anger to fuel the pyre of her ephemeral rage.

And then, there was fear. Perhaps in her first moments of awakening, a moment Antoinette knew was likely followed by dispersal for most spirits that failed to coalesce, Mary realized what had happened. She had realized she was dead, and was now a ghost. Fear of the beyond, of the unknown, perhaps drove her to seek shelter in the one place she could feel safe: home.

The Prince felt a touch guilty for analyzing, but the moment required it. Her research required it.

“Mary,” she said in a soft voice. “Your brother has saved your mother’s life from the hunters, and destroyed them. They are dead. He is a powerful vampire with money and resources at his disposal, and he strives to create peace in this city. Your mother is alive, as alive as a vampire can be. She is my childe, and I will protect her, with limitless resources, and the strength of an elder vampire. They do not need your protection.” She offered the watching ghost a small nod, and a gentle smile. “How does that make you feel?”

“I ... I don’t know. I’m happy! Happy, and I feel ... lighter. But, but I can’t leave! I can’t. I can’t I can’t.”

“You don’t have to leave, baby. You can stay here, as long as you need.” Samantha inched closer, and her knees touched the ghost. If the touch was unpleasant, she did not let it show.

“Mom, you have to be careful. That thing, the thing making the lines, it’s still here. Other ghosts, they see it, and they’re afraid.”

“Lines?” Antoinette said.

“Lines! Cuts, in the world! I can see through them, and sometimes things go through them. And ... and the lines are making something. I don’t want to go there. I don’t!”

The Prince raised a hand slowly. “Mary, listen to me carefully.”

“I don’t want to go there! I—”

“Mary!” Antoinette cut through the specter’s words with a shout of pure ice, a voice she did not want to use. But it silenced the ghost, and left her and her mother staring at her, shocked. Good. “Mary, tell me, have you seen what has created these lines, these cuts in the world?”

She shook her head, body trembling and vibrating. Even as she spoke, she began to fade away. “It’s dark where it comes from, Mom’s sire. It’s dark. Even the strange things that sometimes come through, the ones that can talk and have claws, it’s not dark where they come from. Where this thing comes from, it’s ... it’s dark. So ... dark...”

~~Natasha~~

Someone was watching Maria’s home.

Natasha growled under her breath, and reached for her pistol. Still there, in its vest holster. She reached for her other pistol. Still there, opposite side, and armed with silver bullets. Knives? Still there, one silver, the other normal. A—normal? What metal were knives usually made of? Steel? She whipped out her phone and made a quick note to look up the answer later.

She wrapped herself in Face in the Crowd, and slowly approached the Grand Cathedral from a fair distance. A quick peek up at a nearby building through her binoculars showed an Uratha was watching the building, and a second peek revealed it was Noah. He was a pragmatic Uratha, and probably did the math already that Maria couldn’t be trusted. Tash wouldn’t be able to appeal to his empathy, like she could Matt and Art. If he saw Natasha going into the cathedral, he’d report it to Avery, and that’d lead to awkward conversations.

So, better he never knew.

As she grew closer to the huge building, she escalated her Obfuscate Discipline, wrapping herself in her best Cloak of Night. Training with Daniel had definitely upped the quality, and she felt pretty sure she could avoid a werewolf’s senses, even when moving forward.

She shivered as a deadly memory jumped up from her past. Her, hiding in the darkness, from a group of monsters that turned out to be a bunch of werewolves. That’d been such a terrifying night, and in the end, they’d been able to catch her. Of course there’d been a bunch of them, and they’d been strong enough to rip through metal and concrete in the pursuit. This time there was only one, and she was much better now.

She hopped over the fence. Nothing stopping her from just walking through the front door, except she wouldn’t be able to cloak a door opening. If Noah saw the door open but no one going in or out, he’d investigate. She didn’t want that. This was going to be a private conversation, and she had to have a face-to-face for it.

Unlike the Hisil, getting into the cathedral through a side entrance would be easy. She walked toward the back of the church, and—and found another werewolf! Caleb, the hothead. Ok, one werewolf keeping an eye on the cathedral, she could understand. Two? It wasn’t like the pack was large and had the bodies to spare. Were they preparing to run into Maria’s den now? No. Judging from how Noah and Caleb were patrolling at a distance, they were just keeping an eye on things.

That’s how wolves did things. They hunted as a pack, but they also had scouts that would roam and stalk potential prey. They didn’t just blitzkrieg the enemy like a bunch of Carthians. And that meant she had to be extra careful.

Climbing the cathedral was super easy, compared to the Hisil’s version. A hop up onto the slopped roof, and then in through one of the windows. She did her damnedest to keep every motion slow, and found a window darkened by one of the cathedral’s towers to open. Unless someone was watching with night vision goggles, they wouldn’t notice the window gently sliding open, and her slipping in.

The nave was empty. She knew some Kindred occasionally visited, like her childe Vivi. For kine turned Kindred who found their life over and a second life given to them in a corpse that sucked life out of others, soul searching was inevitable. Many who turned to Longinus’s teachings were either religious before their embrace, or became religious, in some bid to find meaning in their second lives. She could never understand that way of thinking, but it worked for Damien, and even Vivi.

Now she realized she’d been half hoping Vivi was here. They didn’t talk anymore, but not for any drama reason. They just grew apart. It’d be fun to catch up with her, talk about her growing role in the Invictus, and her interest in the Lancea et Sanctum. But if the Uratha killed Maria, there’d be no revival of the Lancea et Sanctum. Damien probably wouldn’t be able to do it alone.

Natasha didn’t care about the Lancea et Sanctum, not really. She cared about finding the truth. What Mekhet didn’t?

She rubbed her arms as she walked down the isle, and stopped in front of the pulpit. A bible sat on its wood surface, and she smiled at it as she stepped around. It was hard to imagine Maria standing up and giving lectures to listening Kindred. It was hard to imagine Damien doing it too, but then, the first time Natasha had ever seen Damien, he’d been doing just that. She’d snuck into Tony’s old lair, and found Damien helping out some Kindred with understanding their faith.

She smiled at the memory. A lifetime ago. And Damien had been so strangely suave and charismatic when talking about Longinus, that Tash now had a hard time thinking it was even the same person she knew now. He even had a girlfriend now. A very horny girlfriend. A very drunk, horny girlfriend.

Maybe Fiona enjoyed playing up the stereotype? Fiery redhead from Scotland who loved to drink and fuck? She seemed like an airhead on the surface, but no one who lived in the paranormal world could stay like that for long. No, Fiona was smarter than she let on, and probably just had fun acting like the girl she could no longer be, since a nightmare monster came along and decided to share a body with her.

Tash shook her head, trying to dislodge the images of that night. Everyone topless! Which, now that she thought about it, wasn’t really all that shocking, at least not in the amount of new skin. She’d seen the Prince naked, and Jack, and her boyfriends of course, and Jessy, and Eric, and Fiona; she’d caught Jessy fucking Eric one time in Bloodlust, with Fiona right there. Newcomers to her mental catalogue of people’s breasts and chests: Elaine and Damien. Elaine looked like everyone knew she looked like, the tall, glamorous, busty blonde model look, with a hint of harshness in her eyes that reminded Tash of her old boss Viktor. Scary. And Damien would have fit perfectly on a Twilight poster.

Matt and Art had teased her unendingly when they got her home, partly because they were drunk, and partly because they saw that Tash had found the situation highly arousing. She’d gotten a bit angry at them, and they apologized. As they fucked her. Damn boys!

But, seeing how comfortable everyone was with each other, had put Natasha into a certain mindset again. She was excited to make her next movie, something really naughty and dark. Maybe too dark? It was just a movie though, a fantasy, not real!

She stopped, blinked, and shook her head harder this time. Stop. Thinking. About. Sex. Ugh, Jessy’s corruption was complete, so complete Natasha was thinking about sex while on a dangerous mission, and in a church!

It wasn’t just that. What she was doing now could potentially put her at odds with the Uratha, and that meant she might lose Matthew and Arturo. She was thinking about them, because if she made a mistake, they could be out of her life. Bad, because she’d lose out on the best sex she’d ever had, and was getting frequently. Worse, she’d lose out on an amazing relationship with two amazing men, men who cared about her, men who ... might love her.

Maybe she should have invited them? It’d have been really mean to put them between her and their boss like that. Help her, make Avery angry. Pick Avery over her, and hurt her feelings. So she’d made the choice for them, which was kinda mean, too. But this was her choice, and she didn’t want them put between a rock and a hard place.

Sighing, she stepped toward the organ in the back, and then around back where the curving wall held a door. Then she went down, and down, into Maria’s den. The woman had spent decades carving herself out a long hall in the rock, and Natasha shivered as she looked at the beautiful stone. Tiny lights lit the way, but it didn’t take long before she came to the first barrier of bars.

Bars wouldn’t stop a determined Kindred or paranormal, but they would stop a kine, at least momentarily. A moment was all that was needed for a quartet of highly trained ghouls armed with sniper rifles, explosives, and flamethrowers to take down anyone trying to break their way in while Maria slept, and that included almost any paranormal who was up during the day. At night, Maria had only one ghoul, a disfigured, jolly man with a hunch back, who happily kept Maria company, and her den clean. At night, Maria felt more than comfortable defending herself against any threat.

So, being the brilliant mastermind Natasha was, she knocked on the bars. “Hello?”

After a few long moments, Maria’s ghoul sauntered up to the gate. It took him a while, being that he had to open the other gates in the way too, but he arrived eventually, and smiled at her.

“Natasha.”

“Hello Matthias. How are you?”

The man smiled again, mouth a little crooked and warped, and he dialed in a code on the wall panel. The bars raised, and he smiled wider.

“Good. Good.” Nodding as if everything in the world was right, the man began the walk through the long tunnel back to Maria’s den, and he did it quite slowly.

“Damien here?”

“No. Only me and the master.” After a small grunt of acknowledgment, he nodded to her again, and stopped following her. Apparently he’d noticed a bit of dirt on the floor, and since the man was never without his broom, he got to sweeping, leaving Natasha to go on without him.

Natasha returned the man’s smile, and gave him a small pat on the arm, his smaller arm. The touch surprised him, and he flinched away slightly, but when he realized what’d happened, he smiled at her again, and got back to sweeping. Far as Tash knew, Maria treated Matthias well, but the man’s mind had never really settled into adulthood. He was damaged, and Tash knew to be gentle with him.

She moved on, and after passing a few more gates already opened, she came into Maria’s den. A giant dome room, with huge paintings on the curved stone walls and ceiling, hanging curtains, and various desks covered in old tomes. There was a grand piano, and near it against the wall, a very Gothic casket, huge, the sort of casket a rich family would get their dead lord, three hundred years ago.

Maria sat at the piano, playing some classical piece Natasha didn’t recognize. Maria was a virtuoso, and could play anything anyone else could. She could play it blindfolded, given a few days to memorize the sheet music. When Natasha saw the movie Gattaca, there’d been a minor bit where the actors mentioned a pianist who had twelve fingers, and how there was music only he could play. Maria wouldn’t need twelve fingers.

She wore her usual white dress, something a rich woman might wear by her lonesome, two hundred years ago. White mist leaked from the cracks in her ruined skin, and disappeared on the floor like dry ice fog, something that even seasoned Kindred tried to avoid having touch them. Nosferatu came with many sorts of mutations and deviations, from hidden, huge crocodile mouths and snake eyes like Beatrice, to Bob, a classic Nosferatu vampire from the movies, to Kindred like Maria, who looked like a corpse risen from a lake and possessed by a ghost or something. The mist was harmless though, and Natasha ignored it as she approached.

“Madam Turio,” she said. “I ... H-How are you?”

“Madam Vola.” Her crackling, dry voice was soft, and Natasha almost didn’t hear it over the music. The elder continued to play. “I trust you are doing well?”

“I am.” She came closer, until she eventually stood beside her old boss, and the huge piano she played.

Maria’s eyes didn’t meet Natasha’s, and they didn’t look to the sheet music in front of her either. They locked onto her fingers and didn’t let go, as if she could see something in her ruined skin Natasha couldn’t.

“Does your career in the Ordo Dracul blossom?”

“Um, sorta? It’s ... it’s d-definitely a weird covenant. The Prince is slow to show me secrets, but when she does, it’s...” Scary.

“Yes, I imagine your time with the dragons will be filled with strange things. Terrifying things. That is why you originally left them, is it not?”

“I...” Sighing, Natasha stepped in a little closer, and set her hands on the side of the piano. “It was, and it still is. B-But, I’ve learned a lot since then, and I think I’m ... I’m strong enough now, to deal with it.” She smiled at Maria, and though Maria didn’t lift her eyes, Tash knew her old boss saw it. “You’re part of the reason for that.”

Maria’s playing faltered. Just a moment, a fraction of a second where Maria hit a note a little softer than she should have. That was more vulnerability than Maria ever let show.

“I made your life difficult, Natasha.”

Hearing Maria drop the titles was enough to make Natasha’s hand slip, and she almost fell. That wouldn’t have been a fun way to have this important, and quickly turning emotional conversation with her old boss, with a split lip.

“Y-Yeah, you did. But, you also gave me responsibilities. A lot of p-people think I’m just a ... weak little Mekhet. But you helped me become a Right Hand of the Invictus. Daniel may be my sire, b-but ... I first learned how to take care of myself from you.”

Maria’s playing didn’t falter this time, but she did smile, a tiny thing that her broken lips struggled to make. “Why have you come to my den?”

“I ... w-wanted to talk, about ... stuff.”

Without slowing her playing, Maria sighed and shrugged. “I don’t talk as much as I should, I suppose. Ever since Lucas disappeared, so long ago, I don’t talk to anyone, save for Matthias.”

“What about Damien?”

She smiled at the mention of the young man, and shook her head. “It is painful, to look at the man sometimes. He looks and behaves nothing like his sire, but I can sometimes see hints of Lucas in him. Sire to childe, I suppose.”

“Have you, um, ever considered siring someone?”

“No. I do not wish this Nosferatu curse on anyone.” That was more compassion from Maria than Natasha expected. Maria was a cold, cruel, calculating woman, and to hear her openly admit to an act of empathy was alien to her ears. Maria noticed her notice, and she shook her head as she closed her eyes, still playing. “Nosferatu are twisted, Vola. They rarely sire unless they are compelled by their scarred minds to do so. And what Kindred who do not kill themselves upon awakening and seeing their deformities, slowly grow to be as twisted as their sires. I would not inflict that madness on anyone, unless I had to.”

That, was true. Nosferatu were generally the least counted of the blood clans, because of the reasons Maria said. They hated themselves. Only Nosferatu who were either psychotic, or twisted up with resentment, were willing to pass on their curse. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that not all Kindred could take a friendly stroll in public.