Chapter 13

~~Beatrice~~

Beatrice had no idea Dolareido had so many dark, hidden corners.

“You Carthians. It will never cease to amaze me how much you want to adapt the modern,” Jacob said.

“Modern?” The two of them were deep into North Side, and probably near the edge of the city. It was a big city; she’d never been out this far.

“That you would take a car, instead of this!” The crazy Nosferatu gave that weird chuckle of his, and jumped. With the old, dark robes he was wearing, he looked like a shadow.

They were on rooftops in the old business district, old old, back from way before Beatrice was alive. North Side had long ago turned into more a factory district, full of heavy labor workers during the day, and dead silent at night. And it meant that the two monsters could jump from rooftop to rooftop of factories, warehouses, parking garages, foundries and power plants. They had the freedom to let loose, jump from building to building like the predators they were, and even look up at the sky.

Every so often, that’s exactly what they did. Jacob would hold up a hand, look up at the sky — what the fuck dude your eyes are covered with bandages how the fuck can you see — and sigh with some weird bliss. But hey, when he did, she did, and she had to admit, damn that was a nice sky. You couldn’t see it in South Side, not with all the massive buildings and the constant sources of light.

“It’s hard to go roof jumping when there’s a hundred thousand cameras and a couple million eyes looking around,” she said.

“Hard for us?”

“ ... no, I suppose not.” It was true, of course. Any Nosferatu or Mehket could hide in shadows, and the best of them could hide in plain sight. Jacob could. She could.

She followed after him, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, like cats jumping from tree to tree. “You put your den way the fuck out here?”

“Dolareido started over a couple hundred years ago. Back then, it was just Antoinette, her lover Tony, Viktor, and me.” He grinned over his shoulder at her. “Three groups. We all took a corner, and I have since made sure that my corner is ... not a focus point of attention.” He stopped then, and this time gave her a Joker smile. “Kind of like your Catacomb Fortress of Solitude.”

She grumbled and looked away. The fucker was disturbingly pop-culture savvy, considering he was the oldest Kindred in the whole fucking city.

“Fine. Fuck you, but fine. So I’ve earned your trust, is that it?”

He walked toward her then, and she stood her ground. The elder Nosferatu had had multiple opportunities to kill her; that wasn’t his game. So she wasn’t afraid of him killing her, or at least that’s what she told herself. He was a psycho, and the closer he got, the more her inner-beast told her to shut up the fuck up and run.

“Of course not.” He poked her in the shoulder, and she stood there and took it. The fuck was she going to do to him? “The primogen know of the den. You can do no real harm knowing its location. And besides, I think you’ll like it.”

More grumbles, but she eventually gave a nod, and clicked her monstrous crocodile teeth side to side. “Fine, let’s go.”

All the way outside the city and further up North Side, they came to the mix of hard, dry forest and rock. Lots of lifeless rock. But Jacob gave her a wink, and jumped down one of the larger drops.

Holy mother fucking shit. There was a cave. An actual real cave buried in a dense bit of wood and bush, at the base of the canyon. The fall would have killed any kine, as it was pretty steep, and the landing was almost nothing but jagged rocks, but the two Kindred were able to jump down without issue. Jacob squeezed through all the twigs and sharp stone like a snake, slick and smooth; she got a thousand cuts trying to follow him. But it was worth it.

The cave was, for a good long while, just a tunnel, but after a couple minutes of pressing forward through solid black, her Kindred eyes were suddenly forced to adjust to flickering brightness.

She thought her catacomb was metal, but whatever fucking insanity Jacob had set up in the cave was beyond humbling. The tiny tunnel expanded into a massive, absolutely colossal cavern. A thousand people could have fit in it, and when she glanced around, she could see there were tunnels that lead elsewhere. The floor of the cave had been smoothed out, like a beach stone, and the walls were not only smoothed out as well, they had holes carved into them. They held skulls, and the skulls served as the base for lit candles.

All along the walls of the rounded cave, there were bones hung in symmetrical arrangements. Where someone else may have hung paintings, or splurged on fancy sidings and curtains, the cave used bones. They weren’t just put at random, but arranged as artwork themselves that drew her eye to the center of the room. Skulls were the theme, naturally, and some sort of fountain altar, lined with skulls up and down its rim and sides, stood in that center.

A couple of ghouls were walking around, nothing special about them, except they had brooms and clothes and were casually cleaning.

“ ... did you find this?”

“No. Decades of effort were required to carve this hole.” Jacob jumped across the whole of the massive room, and landed by the center altar, just opposite of her. She walked, walking was fine, but her eyes were drawn to that altar; as she approached, she could see it was filled with red liquid, thick and viscous.

On the way toward the altar, she glanced around. Many of the tunnel holes dug into the walls were actually just small rooms, some ground level and some higher, all rounded and filled with furs. And one of them had noises coming from them.

She took a peak at Jacob, but he just shrugged at her with a smirk, and looked into his bowl of blood. So she had the freedom to explore, did she? They probably figured she’d be too timid in the new surroundings, well fuck them. She walked toward the noise, got comfy in the doorway with her shoulder against the wall of stone, and folded her arms against her stomach.

“Beatrice.”

“ ... Othello. Haven’t seen you in a while.” She tried to hide the shock in her voice, but it was true she hadn’t seen the man in some time.

Othello was a dark-skinned fellow with delicate brown eyes, long black hair, and whoever had groomed him before embracing him had put him through a grueling training regimen. He was of average height, sure, but he was built like a tank. Steroid abuse had probably been in his history, when he was kine. He was a Daeva too, and as far as Beatrice knew, he was almost a century old, almost as old as Julias. He was one of their strongest Ancillae Kindred; he’d been a Carthian before he kinda just upped and left.

Apparently, he’d joined the Circle of the Crone. And apparently he was enjoying himself, as was the woman sitting on his lap. A curvy, short creature with clipped red hair was facing Beatrice, her back to Othello, with her legs spread and her ass grinding into his naked body. The Kindred was just sitting there, letting the girl do all the work, but judging from the noises she was making she was perfectly happy with that. The quiet Daeva’s cock had spread her ass open, so the woman’s cunt was on full display, and it was a mess of juices. The room smelled thick of her sex.

“Enjoying the view?” The big guy’s hands reached out for the curvy little fox on his cock, and they started to drift and roam up and down her body. He made a showing of pinching her nipples, lifting her breasts by them to let them drop, jiggle a little too, before sliding down to her pussy. His fingers slipped into her cunt, and from how the girl started moaning, he was probably stroking her insides with his shaft deep in her ass.

Beatrice shook her head for a second to snap her eyes back up to Othello’s; now was not the time to think about sex. But there wasn’t any harm in looking, right?

“You could say I’m a little surprised. You witches just fuck like animals, all the time, no privacy?”

“We could have privacy, if we wanted,” he said, “but we don’t. No desire to. It’s not really in the spirit of the Circle, is it?” Suddenly, the ghoul started squirming and mewling; Othello’s fingers had started doing a number on her insides.

“ ... I suppose not.” She took a peak around his room. Nothing in there except a mountain of furs to rest on, and fuck on.

More noises, but not from those two. She gave Othello a small nod, he returned it, and she moved on. She really, very much tried to not think of the girl having the anal sex with the fingering and the wriggling and the squirming and the cumming. Arg, she could smell sex, and it was making her hungry.

The next room with noises required a good thirty-foot jump to reach, but was otherwise the same, just a really large, carved-out nook in the wall of stone and bones. It was all smooth stone with a couple of skull candles in its walls, and a mountain of furs.

This time she found Jennifer. The Ventrue was only a decade embraced, a neonate, and they actually looked kind of similar with their ear-length raven hair that framed their face, average height, slightly dark skin, and slim, fighter physiques. Every time Beatrice saw her, it was a painful mirror of what she’d look like if she wasn’t Nosferatu.

Jennifer’s side was to the doorway, and she was laying down on her back on top of a man. And on top of her, was another man, and she had her legs spread around his hips.

“ ... you have got to me shitting me.”

“Oh, Beatrice. Jacob said he’d be bringing you here today.” Jennifer let out a quiet sigh of pleasure, and turned her head to look to the Nosferatu.

She didn’t stop fucking though. In fact, the two men – ghouls, Beatrice assumed – just continued to fuck her and ignored Beatrice completely. Even knowing she was coming, Jennifer hadn’t bothered to hold off her sexual desires until later. Everyone just went with their desires in the Circle, evidently.

“So you all really do just fuck like animals.” This time she did look away, but the image was already burned into her skull. One girl, two guys, six legs, the rhythmic back and forth of three sets of hips, and Jennifer’s quiet, controlled sighs.

The Ventrue just laughed, and wrapped her hands to pull the man between her legs closer. “We are animals, just at the top of the food chain. I think we’re entitled to a few perks.” Spoken like a true Ventrue. “Come join me. My ghouls won’t mind a Nosferatu, what with Jacob terrorizing them regularly.”

The two men chuckled at that, but still didn’t stop. They’d buried their faces in the girl’s neck at that point, and just kept gently fucking the Kindred between them. It was all so surreal, the way their limbs all just entwined on each other, their bodies on the furs. Jennifer was apparently quite comfortable with the position, and she relaxed into their bodies while her hands roamed over one of the men’s back. The Ventrue angled her hips in just the right way, and raised her legs in just the right way, to keep everything moving in just a perfect pace of sexual god damn fucking beauty.

Well, Beatrice was definitely down with the Circle’s approach to sex. It took everything she had to look away, but she had a boyfriend now though. Shit, now she had thoughts of Julias, naked, doing things to her.

“Um, can’t, but ... I’ll ... uh ... talk to you later.”

She didn’t wait to hear whatever Jennifer had to say, or moan. She’d seen more naked bodies fucking in fives minutes than she usually did in weeks of hunting, so that was enough sex thoughts for now. A second later she was down by Jacob.

“Enjoy the sights?” he said.

“This is like, some Phantom of the Opera shit dude.” She gestured to the array of candles that lined the back wall. Unlike the other candles, the ones along the back were all sitting on hands of bone that jutted out from the wall, instead of sitting in a carved indent. “ ... if Erik had been even more horny. You all just fuck all the time?” Then she gestured to the holes-in-walls with the two Kindred and the sex noises.

Jacob just shrugged, like it were the most casual question. “My acolytes? Jennifer, Othello and Aaron do. The Circle encourages us to embrace our primal desires. You want to fuck? Fuck. You want to kill? Kill.”

She winced at that last part. “That where you got all these bones?”

“Indeed, from decades ago. I thought you would be comfortable with killing kine though. I know you have, many times.”

“Yeah but ... I did try to always make sure anyone I killed deserved it.”

That was enough to get Jacob laughing. He put a hand up to his salt and pepper hair, and raised it on the bandage that covered his eyeless eyes. “Don’t we all?”

“No, we don’t all, you jackass. I know some Kindred who are sickening.” She put her claws on the edge of his big blood altar, but her eyes were on him. “You think Tony or Viktor didn’t occasionally kill a kine, or maybe someone’s new childe, just because they could?”

“And now they’re both dead.” That grin of his was massive and disturbing.

“ ... ok, ok, but you said you wanted to sew some chaos. The fuck are you aiming for?”

“What do you know of the Circle of the Crone, Beatrice?” Jacob began to circle the altar then, and dragged his finger along the bowl’s edge where the skulls surrounded it.

“Fuck all, cause you’ve told me fuck all. All I know is that you’re all a bunch of primal fucks and ... that’s it. Carthians are trying to secure modern government for Kindred, with groups and votes and shit, while you disturbing weirdos would prefer anarchy.”

“Not anarchy.” He shook his head, dipped his hands into the bowl of blood, and then ran his fingers along the skulls of the altar. “Anarchy is bullshit. Freedom for everyone? Everyone gets to just do their own thing? Don’t make me laugh.” He laughed, and raised the finger to lick some of the blood off.

It was old blood, and most definitely not appetizing. Fucking gross.

“The Circle,” he continued, “wants us to accept what we are. And that’s it.”

“That some philosophical bullshit?”

“Not at all.” He stepped between her and the altar, and slipped his hands into his robes while he got comfortable leaning back against it. “Tell me, when you tore Rebecca apart with your claws, how did you feel?”

Shit, Rebecca. She’d sunk her Nosferatu claws right into that bitches back, when she was about to kill her man, and she’d torn her apart. “ ... fucking awesome.”

“Right? To get your nails right into someone and just destroy them in such a savage way. I’m sure you felt something deep down inside. I only wish my Nosferatu curse had given me such delightful claws.” Jacob ran his bloody fingers along his face then. His fingers looked normal, but he was forced to wear bandages over his eyes lest a kine see them, or lack there of.

She frowned. Her inner-beast had reveled in the bath of Kindred blood and ash, but it made no sense for Kindred to just give in to their beasts. Inner-beasts were mindless, incapable of keeping the Masquerade, and if the Masquerade fell, all Kindred everywhere would get wiped out; humans had this nasty perk of outnumbering Kindred ten million to one.

“Yeah, I get you. Fucking felt satisfying, but-”

“Not just satisfying. Don’t fucking lie to me, Beatrice.” He reached out and grabbed her hands. Now she had old, disgusting blood on her huge claws, but she didn’t try to remove her hands from his grip. She probably couldn’t if she tried. “It felt natural. Like instinct.”

“Instinct.” She raised an eyebrow, but Jacob gave her a long, waiting gaze. He wanted to know what she thought, no lies, and she had never really thought about it. When Rebecca was about to kill Julias, she’d just acted, no thought to it. Well fuck. “Then ... yeah, I guess. I mean I just ... just went with it.”

“Exactly! By the grace of God, she’s seen the light” He let go of her hands and raised his own, like a preacher giving praise to the lord, but the dopey and psychotic smile on his face betrayed him. “Someone wanted what was yours, so you tore them apart when you saw the opportunity.”

“Yeah ... so?”

“So? You ever seen an elder get their hands dirty like that?” He walked around the altar again until it was between them, and this time he kept his face pointed down at it. “You think a human, blood-cattle kine, would have the instinct to rip into someone like that, with their bare hands, or their teeth?”

She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot, but shook her head. “So elders are bitches, and we’re not like kine, is what you’re saying?”

“That is part of it. The Circle of the Crone is such a simple thing, such a straight forward thing, and there is only one binding view. Just one mother fucking thing you need to believe to be a member.” With that, he made a large sweeping gesture to the cavern around them. The furs of dead animals, the skulls and bones of dead kine, and the altar of blood before them. “That we’re natural.”

“Natural.”

“Natural.”

“Natural?”

“Natural.”

“Natural! I get you said natural, ok? Fucking explain it.”

Her frustration just made the bastard laugh. “What else is there to explain? Do you think God reached down from the sky and cursed Vlad the Impaler, or Longinus and his spear, with undeath?”

“ ... no.”

“Do you think answers to our plight can be solved with governments, monarchies or democracies, totalitarians or councils or politics? You really think the Invictus or the Carthians will be able to carve out something worthwhile out of the clusterfuck of insanity that is a bunch of lone predators trying to live together and share food?”

“ ... no.”

“Do you think there is some hidden meaning to being a Kindred? Some explanation to our existence that will raise us to a new level of understanding?”

“ ... no.”

“Then you are no Ordo Dracul, Invictus, or Carthian. And thankfully, no Lancea et Sanctum either. Now perhaps, do you think that Kindred simply ... are? That we have been around for as long as kine, and we exist just as they do? Do you stare up at the night sky and think of God casting his judgments, or do you think the universe is just really fucking big, and you are one tiny fucking spec inside that infinite cosmos?”

Well, she didn’t look up at the stars much, but yeah, that was exactly what she thought. She clicked her teeth to the side and blinked her snake eyes at him. “Sure.”

“And that is what we believe. We simply are what we are. Lone predators who have been hunting the kine since there were kine to hunt.”

She tapped her foot on the ground some more. “That’s a lot of preaching and not much to do with it.”

“Too true, too true. The truth is, I have need of a right hand, such as the Invictus have.”

“Pretty sure Othello is a lot older than I am, Jacob.”

“Perhaps. He has value, but he does not have the same hunter’s instinct as you, not the same...” he tapped his bloody finger on his lip, “affinity for brutality that you do. Like I do.”

She winced again, but found herself taking a small step back. The old Nosferatu loved to leave little implications like that laying around, like candy eggs or land mines.

“You realize you’re asking me to leave the Carthians, right?”

“Garry is a friend ... of a sort. He will understand, and I do believe you’d prefer some of the tasks I have planned for you, over Garry’s meaningless tests of territory with the Invictus.”

She did hate the stupid bickering the Carthians and Invictus had all the time. Kindred got hurt, sometimes killed, because someone didn’t respect feeding grounds, and it was just a bunch of stupid political bullshit, red tape, and lies to get justice. Jacob had her pegged.

“Ok, alright, I admit you guys really got a thing going for you that I like. Maybe a little heavy on the Gothic shit,” she said with a motion to the walls decorated in bones, “and maybe a little heavy on the porn show,” and another motion to the rooms where Jennifer and Othello were getting off, “but yeah, you’re talking my language. I’ll give it a shot. What’s your test?”

Jacob gave a slow nod. His face turned serious, very serious, which was so very odd on his almost constant Joker expression.

“Lucas has risen from torpor, and that means there will be conflict soon.”

“Lucas?”

“An old friend from long ago. When the Prince was finally at the end of her patience, she expelled the Lancea et Sanctum, and killed the Bishops and Priests. Lucas, the Archbishop, disappeared, and no one was able to find him. We had simply assumed he left Dolareido, even me, but I was wrong.”

She just listened, and as he talked, her mouth dropped more, and more. He talked about it like it were the most casual thing, but he was talking about the purge of the Second Estate. It was well before Beatrice’s time, but she’d heard the stories. She knew about the Prince and the Sheriff, and the killings and the blood hunts. It was the the story Garry told them, when they questioned if they really needed to bother with any of the covenant bullshit.

“So he was in torpor?”

“Yes, deep in the bowels of the city. Only his childe Damien knew where.”

“How the fuck do you know all this?”

Again with the Joker smile. “This is not just the Prince’s city, as many would believe. It is also mine.” He shook his head then, and gave a long, slow, psychotic chuckle. “I like you. You’re fun.”

Every conversation with this insane Nosferatu elder was like some twisted vision of her future. If she lived another four hundred-years, would she be this ridiculous? She’d be strong enough to do whatever she wanted, but Jacob was so hard to follow.

“So your test is to confirm something for me. I want you to sneak into Tony’s underground network. I am sure that is where Lucas has set up his new nest. Then I want you to determine what you can about this childe of his.”

“You don’t know him?”

Jacob frowned, turned, and started to pace his altar of blood. “I don’t. This Damien, probably his new Bishop, is a sneaky creature. A sneaky Mehket is something to worry about.”

~~Julias~~

Sometimes, it disturbed Julias, how quickly he adapted to his new role.

Maria Turio and Michael McDonald seemed happy with him, at least. The Nosferatu ghost woman, and the big brute of a Gangrel slid into a rhythm with him that felt quite natural. They talked as a council, shared views, debated with intelligence, and even wisdom. His two fellow council members did not preach of meaningless values or views like a zealot would, like Viktor sometimes did with his mindless devotion to the Invictus.

It was pleasant. They could argue sometimes, but he was arguing with equals, and that was satisfying.

“Miss Amanda Pol and Master Jordan Leval have both disappeared.” Michael made a grand, sweep gesture to the giant touch screen that covered the wall. They were in their primary meeting room, at the top of the Xnomina HQ, and the three of them were standing and looking at the screen’s display of a map of Dolareido.

“They were only a few years embraced, still young neonates,” Maria said. “Perhaps they were caught unawares by sunrise?”

Julias shook his head. “I’d thought as much, but I’ve already asked their sires. They’d looked into it and both agreed it was highly unlikely. The two are simply gone.”

Michael grumbled, adjusted his tie, and leaned forward until he’d placed a hand against the wall, beside the wall display. “Last seen here.” He reached out with his other hand, and drew a circle on the display around a chunk of South Side. The display app circled it in red for him.

“Near Tony’s district.” Julias got up and stood next to Michael. They were both tall, broad guys in suits, but Julias standing next to Michael felt like standing next to a barely-contained wild animal. He was a Gangrel though, so Julias was just going to have to get used to standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Tony’s gone, and Rebecca’s gone. We know of no one else in his flock of covenant-less fools who would be both strong enough, and stupid enough to kidnap or kill our Kindred.”

“Then perhaps something else is going on?” Maria walked around the table to join them. Now the ghost woman was on his other side, looking like a freshly dragged river corpse as usual. Just being near her was enough for Julias to feel the unnatural cold pour off her. “We’ve seen unusual activity from the anarchists. Even without their leader, they are doing something. They scout their area like it were still their territory.”

Michael grunted. “Without Tony or Rebecca to stop us, why don’t we just march in there and stake them? Put them out for sunrise one at a time, one kill a day, until one of them tells us what we want to know. They have no covenant to claim them, so the Prince will not mind.”

Julias shook his head. Staking a vampire in the heart paralyzed them, forced them into torpor until the stake was removed, so Michael’s plan would certainly work. But hell no. “They’re all neonates, Mister McDonald. Tony was the only elder, and Rebecca their only ancillae. They are just children.”

“No, they are not.” Maria was the one to frown this time, and the tiny corpse looked up him from behind her flat, black hair. “Do not let your new role as sire cloud your judgment, Mister Mire. Unless I am correct, your childe was quite thorough in undoing the damage of an error on their first night. Beheading the kine corpse, I believe, of someone he’d killed in frenzy. Not childish behavior.”

Invictus had good memories. “ ... he did, yes. Master Terry is not as easily broken as most fledglings though.”

“Perhaps, Mister Mire. Perhaps. But the fact remains, we should not underestimate them, or be lenient simply because they are young. They had every opportunity to join the Invictus, even the Carthians.” Then she gave a small smile, which was all sorts of disturbing on her quiet face. “Even if they’d joined the Circle of the Crone, at least they would have been a known factor.”

“Then I suggest we investigate first,” he said. He stepped closer to the screen, and drew several lines along rooftops and subways. “We send two or three Kindred we can trust to handle themselves. They can report back, and we can make an informed decision then.”

“It’s a smart choice,” Michael said, “but it delays action by a night. Maybe two.”

Julias gave a small nod, and looked to the animal on his right. “We do not survive centuries by jumping to conclusions.”

That earned a small smile from Michael too. Julias always knew what to say to make them happy, and get his way. He really did have a knack for this; Viktor would have been proud.

Natasha and Jessy walked in, and Julias gave them both a small nod. He was leaning back against the table of the meeting room, while Michael and Maria sat further back at the table. They were there to listen, nothing more, he hoped.

Little Natasha, the Mehket, and Maria’s right hand. A bit short, with long black hair and dainty features, he worried she’d one day wake up and find her skeleton had cracked in half. She really was too thin, but she was fifty-years embraced; it was far too late to tell her to eat a sandwich. She was in a casual gray business suit, pants and single-button jacket over a white shirt. It was so plain, so Mehket. She reminded him of the sheriff.

Then of course there was Jessy. Short blonde hair that, he had to admit, looked pretty sexy on her boxer figure. She was almost as tall as him, and had no trouble meeting his eyes and trying to stare him down; she reminded him of a panther. She too was in a suit, black, but her jacket was open, her shirt unbuttoned enough to show some of the black bra underneath, and a pair of sunglasses hung in the pocket. She even had a gold necklace that trickled down between her breasts, and long gold earring chains.

Thirty-years out-of-date fashion sense, but that was alright. He knew what that was like.

“Madame Vola,” he nodded to Natasha. “Madame Herrington.” Another nod for Jessy. Using titles of address was proper for Kindred in the Invictus, whenever discussing things in an official capacity, but for the moment, he just wanted to rub their noses in his success. What good was there in being on the triumvirate if you couldn’t tease your old comrades.

They both give him back their own, weird, slightly embarrassed nods.

“M-mister Mire. You summoned us?” Natasha said.

“Indeed. I have a mission for you two.” He walked over to the digital map on the wall; for a second, he reminded himself of Viktor, strategizing and giving orders. “Miss Pol and Master Leval have gone missing. Last we heard, they were hunting near Tony’s old grounds.” He circled the large chunk of South Side where Tony used to nest. It was prime black market territory, with a lot of bars and a lot of dark alleys that made the alleys of the business district seem tame.

Natasha took a tiny step forward. “T-that...”

“Madame Vola?”

“Yesterday, my childe Vivienne ... Miss Maiorie ... she did not report in. I had assumed she had simply forgotten, lost in her w-w-work.” Natasha looked down, then to the side when worry painted itself on her face. “Her apartment is near there.”