Chapter 161

~~Jack~~

Usually the dreams vampires had during their daily torpor weren’t extreme, just small flights of imagination or memory, like any kine’s. Torpor dreams only got super vivid and extreme when a vampire went into deep torpor for months, or even years, to settle their blood lust. Jack’s dreams last day were unusually vivid, and they were all of the same thing: Elaine, betraying him in some fashion or another, usually with a damn evil grin plastered all over her face.

“What do you think? Should I trust her? Fuck me, it’s so hard to trust her. She’s smart and conniving and she plans ahead, same as Antoinette. Christ, it wouldn’t surprise me if she had that ritual lined up to do on Viktor, and maybe even Julias, but couldn’t get the situation for it. Maybe she needed cooperation for it to work? Maybe she waited all these years just so she could get one of her childer on her side. Or maybe she realized she couldn’t get what she wanted with the curse bound by that Sanctified dude’s binding ritual, and she knew it’d break with time?”

Jack paced back and forth in one of the rooms of his mansion, a large one with hanging red drapes on the walls, with several couches of red and gold. The typical, usual fancy room for entertaining guests and whatnot.

“Of course, I’m letting my dick get in the way of thinking straight. But I mean come on! Look at her!” He held up his phone, and flicked to one of the many, many images he had of Elaine; none had been taken by him. This particular one had Elaine full on posing for a closeup, hands squeezing her breasts, with his cum filling the space between her fingers and dripping down everything. Naturally it’d been Ashley who took the picture and sent it to him later.

“God damn her. Stupid ... fucking ... blonde...” He groaned again as he struggled for a good insult, failed, and sighed as he put the phone away. “And hey, I love Antoinette, and she’s so hot it’s unreal. But I’m not gonna lie. I’m a guy, and with a tall busty woman flirting with me twenty-four seven, fucking with my head as much as she fucks me and my lover, it’s damn hard to think straight whenever she’s the topic. And fuck me, now she’s got a vial of my blood! Or, the curse’s blood. Something. And she’s gonna do something with it.” Sighing, he flopped down on the couch next to his two friends, and yanked out the phone, and flipped to another file in the gallery. A video, Elaine indulging herself with him, this time filmed by Antoinette.

Scully cawed, hopped down from the back of the couch onto his shoulder, and pecked at the phone a couple times.

“Sorry. You ever get laid, Scully? Ever raise any chicks?”

“No,” she said, full on emulating a human voice.

“I’m sorry. Sensitive topic?”

“No.” She hopped across his shoulder a little closer to him, and nestled under his ear. “Familiar, master. Don’t want children, master.”

Yeah, there was that. His crows weren’t crows anymore, they were familiars. Undead familiars at that. Maybe they’d learn to Blush Life over the years, and go on to live fulfilling sex lives ... if birds actually cared about sex for sex’s sake. But they’d never have children, ever, and any biological desire for it was gone. His pet crows were zombies, sorta. The only thing they genuinely craved was vitae, and to serve their master.

Hopefully, with time, he could find ways to restore some of their old bird desires, or maybe help them discover new ones.

Mulder hopped down onto his shoulder too, and pecked at the phone a couple times. “Lei.”

“Lay?”

“Leilani. Veronica.” Damn, Mulder was getting good at enunciating.

Jack blinked at the crow on his shoulder, and flipped through more of the vids and images on his phone until he found one of the two thralls.

“Shinies,” Mulder said.

“Shinies? Wha—oh.” Laughing, Jack flipped to an image of the two girls playing with each other’s breasts, the two of them wearing some rather large and, indeed, shiny piercings in their nipples. Like full on fancy earrings, except on breasts.

“Shinies.” Mulder pecked at the phone. Jack couldn’t hold it anymore, and burst into laughter hard enough he dropped the phone.

“Ah, shit.” He picked it back up and showed Mulder the picture for a little while longer. Hopefully it was the piercings Mulder was attracted to, and not the fact they were piercings on breasts. It’d be pretty damn weird for a bird to be into tits, let alone an undead bird. Both had gotten eyefuls of his thralls, naked and whatnot, and Jack hadn’t really minded, because why would he? Not like ghoul crows would be embarrassed or care about human sex, or real crows for the matter.

He chuckled. It’d make things awkward real quick if Mulder tried to pluck at errant nipple piercings while the girls were in the middle of sex.

His phone rang, and the sound announced it was Antoinette. He answered, video call.

“Hello Antoinette,” he said.

“Jack, my love. How do you fare?”

“Alright. Just fed Mulder and Scully.” He pointed the phone at each shoulder.

“Master,” Scully said, and she pushed her head against his neck under his ear.

Antoinette smiled slightly at Scully. “Your servants adjust to their new lives well. Though I suspect I will become jealous if — I believe that is Scully? — continues to flirt with you.”

“She’s not flirting. She’s ... bonding.”

“She is undead, my love, and already bonded to you by the Vinculum. She is as obsessed with you as your thralls are.”

“But she’s an undead crow, not a person. I ... don’t imagine she has sexual feelings for me.” Raising a brow, he looked down at the bird beside him. Scully cawed a couple times, fluttered her wings, and sent him a couple images into his mind. Very flattering images of Scully basically being the center of attention of Jack, his thralls, and even Antoinette. Gifts were included, each of them shiny trinkets that could be carried by a bird’s claws or beak.

“Jack?” Antoinette said.

“Just get her a ring or necklace and she’ll love you, too.”

“Ah, a whore for jewelry.”

He shrugged. “Aren’t we all?”

She laughed. “I wanted to ask about last night, my love. I know you and Elaine were doing something dangerous.”

“Yeap. That’s why I told you she was here.” After a second to think about it, he scrunched up his nose and leaned in toward the phone. “You get jealous of Scully but not Elaine?”

“Elaine would never try and steal you away from me,” she said. Jack froze. Yeah, she just might, physically. “At worst she would attempt to seduce you, and allow me to watch as I watch you now.”

Ah, streaming sex. The future! A million new ways for people to indulge sex sex sex and more sex.

“Well, I promise you I won’t let that happen.”

Her smile turned evil. “Not with Elaine. But I would not mind watching you engage with your pets.”

“Mulder and Scully?”

“Non! Silly boy. You know I meant Veronica, Leilani, and Rachel.” Antoinette leaned back in her chair, having called him from her office, and she teased her lip with a finger as she smiled at the phone. “I think I would much enjoy watching you indulge your masculinity with your servants, be it in person or through video.”

Jack rolled his eyes. His lover was a succubus, through and through. Whatever she could do to indulge him sexually, she’d do it, and love every second of it.

“I’d prefer to have you with me, you know.”

“If, and when, I descend into torpor for some years to calm my blood lust, I do fully expect you to satisfy yourself and your thralls, my love.” She licked a fang. “Though do make sure to record what I miss, so that I may view your sessions at my leisure.”

He hadn’t really thought about that, honestly. Kindred could enjoy the Kiss to a sexual degree without actually having any sex. Far as he knew a lot of vamps, especially Nosferatu like Maria, did just that. When Antoinette went for one of those multi-year torpors, he just expected he’d abstain from sex, and satisfy his Kindred urges with the Kiss alone.

“You know I don’t need to do that.”

“Oui, I know. And I adore that you would gladly give up sex for such a time for me.” Again her smile turned serpentine. Really similar to Elaine’s evil smiles. Those two had more in common than he realized. “But come now, we are both Kindred, not kine. As long as you recorded the event for me to view later, and did not indulge in the touch of another Kindred, I would be happy to let you fuck your thralls and ghouls as often as you wished.”

“Eh I dunno. I think I’d feel pretty awkward.”

She leaned in closer to the phone. “Then picture vice versa. Me, naked, in bed, with Ashley between my legs kissing my sex, while Julee caresses and suckles my breasts, the three of us anxiously awaiting your rise from torpor in several months. I grab the camera recording us, bring it close, and whisper how much I miss you, as I climax.”

That, was a strangely arousing image. Jack was sure he’d get jealous if Antoinette started fucking a guy thrall or ghoul while Jack was down and out with an extended torpor. But two girls Jack and Antoinette slept with often? Two ghouls at that, completely bound and addicted to Antoinette by the Vinculum? The psychology of sexuality was a strange thing, especially when mixed with Kindred shenanigans.

“Um, let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. I’m still not sold on the idea.”

Antoinette sighed and relaxed back into her big leather office chair. “Very well. Last night, you and Elaine did something relating to the curse.”

“We did.”

“But you will not tell me the details.”

“I uh, wasn’t entirely sure of the details honestly, when I agreed to it.”

She raised a brow. “You trust my friend that much?”

“There’s been some developments. So, I mean, I guess I trust her more than I used to.”

“With your life?”

“I ... think so.” And christ, after the shit Elaine told him, she was basically trusting him with hers.

“You play a dangerous game, my love. I trust Elaine in many regards, but in matters of our pursuits in the Ordo? Dangerous indeed.”

“That’s why I told you we were up to something. Insurance.”

“Make sure to keep me informed. Though I must say, I do wish you would tell me more about what you two are planning.”

“It’s ... It’s kinda private. I’ll leave it up to Elaine to tell you more, if she wants to.”

His lover frowned at the phone, but let it go with a sigh after a while.

“I trust you, but this curse that haunts you affects more than just you and her, my love. The next time either of you intend to do something involving the curse, I would like to be involved.”

“Yeah, ok, I agree to that. But you’ll need to convince Elaine more than me.” And that wouldn’t exactly be easy. Elaine wanted to make sure Antoinette never found out about what she did to get rid of her curse, and she’d probably jump through some hoops to keep every encounter Antoinette now had with the curse, or with rituals affecting it, to a minimum. The Ripper had a nasty habit of spilling secrets when he thought it’d create some chaos.

And she hadn’t even shared her worst secret yet. Who the fuck did Elaine commit diablerie on? She wouldn’t have brought it up if it wasn’t relevant. But what connection could whoever she committed diablerie on have to Jack’s situation? Someone she knew? Someone important to her, or important to someone else? If not a random vampire, then—

Then another vampire with the curse. That was the only relevant connection Jack could think of. And the only vampire Elaine had access to do that to back then, would have been Viktor, and she certainly hadn’t killed him. Then either she’d committed diablerie against a childe of Viktor’s no one knew about, or maybe one of Susanna’s, or ... she’d committed diablerie on one of her own childer none of them knew about.

The only person alive today with the curse, as far as they knew, was Jack. If he did the ritual Elaine did to remove the curse, that meant he’d have to sire someone first, and kill them. No fucking wonder she said she didn’t want him to suffer what she’d suffered.

“Jack?”

“Sorry. I ... gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

Antoinette eyed him, making no effort to hide that she suspected him of something. “Very well. I trust Elaine to an extent, but please, if you believe my old friend is up to something devious, likely involving her role in the Ordo, bring it to my attention. If not me, then Daniel.”

“Will do.” If Daniel found out Elaine was a diablerist, or had been, it could end badly. In a straight fight, Ventrue were hard to kill, but Mekhet were fast as fuck, and one as old as Daniel could probably trick even elder eyes with Obfuscate. There was a reason people sometimes called Mekhet assassins. Damien and Daniel were perfect examples.

He hung up, and called Damien.

~~Damien~~

Hanging upside down was interesting. Even when Blushing Life, he didn’t need to worry about blood flow or anything like that. He was perfectly free to watch and admire how strange everything seemed when upside down, even if it was a spooky, haunted hospital room.

Fiona’s blood pulsed through him, strange, alien, forbidden blood that had him and his Beast hungering in a way it didn’t really understand. Drunk and horny, was the best way he could interpret it, with hints of something else, something dark and monstrous. When Fiona’s blood filled and fueled him, a part of him wanted to go on a hunt, but not for more blood. He wanted to get out there, and scare someone, hunt them and terrify them until his role as living nightmare was fulfilled.

But mostly it just got him drunk, horny, and aggressive. Probably because of how the blood interacted with the Kiss.

Fiona liked it when he got aggressive with her. She liked it when he pinned her down, or tied her up. Sometimes she even liked it when he picked her up and threw her down on the bed, or couch. Spanking, hard fucking, or even forcing her to give him a blowjob, hand on her head. It all tickled something in the tiny redhead that always had her delirious with arousal.

Vrall, on the other hand, liked it when he got aggressive, cause it meant she had stronger prey to trap. Even now, with Fiona’s blood telling him to fight and hunt, he struggled against the webbing encasing him. No good. Vrall had cocooned him shoulder to feet an hour ago, and had loved every minute of spinning him in her web as he struggled. She’d loved it so much, she was dripping wet by the time they’d moved onto sex.

But now they were done, and the spider monster hung upside down beside him, several of her very sharp blade-like spider feet balancing on razor tips on spider silk. She was pressed up against his cocoon, and gravity made sure her huge breasts pulled up toward her shoulders, and his, since they were face to face.

Vrall was beautiful, in the exact opposite way Fiona was. His human girlfriend was a shining ray of light, with soft features that matched her unending giggles. A gorgeous ginger that was very huggable.

Vrall had skin the color dark steel, a sharp chin and tiny, sharp lips that were often curled in an evil grin. No eyes. Instead, she had black horns that curled back from where eyes should have been, giant ones that melded into her forehead before curling back over her head, along with several other horns, covering her bald head like hair would have, or a crown. Two claw fingers and a thumb, and instead of feet, her shins ended in sharp blade-like points, same as the eight enormous spider legs coming out of her back. She was tall, with a ridiculously tiny waist, but with a large ass and huge breasts like Fiona’s. Inhuman, feminine features exaggerated, almost like her strange beauty was the drawing light of an anglerfish. It wasn’t hard to imagine some human she’d drawn into one of her nightmare chambers stumbling onto her, getting hypnotized by her curves, and walking straight into a web.

She kissed him with her black lips, and smiled.

“You do not visit me enough.”

“Fiona would get jealous,” he said.

“I am Fiona.”

“So you say.”

“I am Vrall, and Fiona.”

“She says she’s Fiona, and Vrall.”

“Then, I am afraid you are dating the both of us, vampire. And I demand my fair share.” She hugged him with her human arms, hard enough her huge breasts, still hanging upside down with her, squashed against his web-covered chest and nearly hit his chin.

“Never took myself for a polygamist.”

She laughed. “To Fiona’s chagrin.”

“You think?”

“Indeed. She is like the vampire Jessy, in a way, addicted to sex and seeking to experience it in greater thrills.”

“Oh. You mean she wants to have a threesome.” He rolled his eyes. It was a lot easier to think clearly now, now that Fiona’s blood was finally beginning to settle within. “Those can get pretty awkward, I do believe.”

“Less of a problem for vampires, I do believe.” Laughing again, she kissed him more, and rubbed the base of her two biggest horns into his forehead. “One bite of Fiona and you’d be hard as stone, even in front of an audience.”

“Maybe.”

“Imagine it. Sweet little Fiona, sitting atop you while another woman holds her from behind and plays her body like an instrument.”

He rolled his eyes again. “You watched that vid Ashley sent Jessy, didn’t you?”

Vrallar’trakla of the Eight Blade Arach grinned like a schoolgirl. “I did.”

“Is it just me, or are all the women in Dolareido out-of-their-mind horny? Figured that was usually male territory.”

“Dolareido encourages sexual freedom. I think the women here overcorrect.”

“Overcorrect?”

The beautiful spider monster nodded. “I have seen it in cultures before, over the ages. When something has been enforced or restricted for a long time, and is suddenly given the opportunity to not be, people will first dip their toes in water to test, and then almost immediately after, people jump into the deep end of the pool. Overcorrection.”

“Example?”

“I knew a tribe that feared the color blue, and—”

Damien raised a brow. “Blue?”

She chuckled. “In their past, they’d lost ancestors to it. Blue tree frogs, and certain blue plants, all poisonous. It became part of their culture to fear deep, powerful blues, including the ocean. They avoided it, considered it evil, and would paint their weapons with it, assuming it would kill their enemies. Of course, they painted their weapons in the blood of blue tree frogs, only perpetuating the falsehood, now that a single wound from their weapons caused severe illness.

“But, after some centuries, they realized it was not blue that was deadly, but the blue tree frogs, and the blue plants. This understanding came when they accidentally created a blue paint that caused no harm. Before long, the tribe had painted everything blue. Their clothes, their tattoos, all of it.”

Damien laughed. That was so strangely innocent. It’d probably been the cause of a lot of unfortunate misunderstandings, and likely got a lot of the tribe killed before they realized blue wasn’t evil, but the image of a remote culture suddenly deciding to paint everything they had in blue in some sort of celebration, was delightful. It was the sort of story that’d have Fiona laughing herself to stitches, and as she slipped ‘awwws!’ between her gasps.

“It is a common thing in culture,” she said. “In Dolareido, all women are actively invited to be as sex obsessed as the men, with no fear of judgment. Some women were bound to overcorrect. Female vampires are probably the perfect example.”

Ah yes, female vampires, coming into their power and realizing no other vampire gave two shits how many people they slept with. Just part of the hunt, or the politics, after all. He could see it, a female vampire realizing just how free they were now to fuck and fuck and fuck, and get a little trigger happy. Especially with Jessy going around telling every girl she met that they should.

“I think Jessy was a little nuts before she was embraced, honestly,” he said.

Vrall laughed again, and kissed him again.

Coming out of a nightmare chamber was an interesting thing. The Begotten had ways to get around that didn’t involve opening and closing their lair’s exits, burrowing through darkness and whatnot. But generally speaking, if a Begotten wanted to bring others into or out of their lair, they had to merge one of the chambers with a place in the real world. A hard thing to do, supposedly. They had to open up the chamber over top reality, and the more similar the place in the physical world was to the nightmare chamber, the easier it made the process. Which was why Begotten often used rooms that were utterly pitch black. Lot of places in their lairs were pitch black, too.

According to Vrall, that wasn’t an option for some Begotten. Some of the monsters were aquatic, and all their lairs had to support an aquatic environment. Those kinda Begotten lived near rivers or coastlines, and had to trick prey into coming close to the water, often when it was dark.

But the Begotten in Dolareido all shared a chamber across their lairs, the Dolareido nightmare chamber, and that made getting around the city easier for them. Lucky that such a chamber existed. Vrall seemed convinced the chamber was a little weird compared to others, in how perfect it was for Begotten to travel Dolareido. Azamel told her the chamber was unusual because Dolareido was unusual, in a way they didn’t understand yet. Almost as if there was something about the city that amplified things that affected the other realms.

Which of course made more sense than Damien liked. There were too many strange things about Dolareido, affecting way more than just the physical world. At this point, they had no choice but to accept that the city was special, for a reason none of them knew. Which made figuring out what the fuck was going on particularly difficult.

Damien sat up in bed. He’d had sex with Fiona in bed, then she’d opened her lair overtop them and onto, or into, the nightmare hospital Sándor shared with her, in one of the empty patient rooms. Hard for her to do when someone was with her; she said normally you’d lure a person into crossing into the chamber, not open it on them. But considering they’d made the room pitch black for the process, it’d been doable.

Then Vrall had hung him up from the ceiling and cocooned him, and had enjoyed every minute of his struggles; her blood had him fighting like a drunkard. But now that they were done, she opened the haunted hospital chamber back into his bedroom, and closed it. She stayed behind to recover, leaving him alone in his bedroom, and his phone on the nightstand blinking a tiny blue light, the only light in the room.

He checked the phone. A message from Jack.

~I’m starting to trust Elaine more, and less.~

~Sounds like an oxymoron.~

~Just keep an eye on her for me, would you? I’m getting into some deep shit with her, and I don’t trust myself to be smart about this.~

~Jack, she’s one of the oldest vampires around. I doubt I can keep an eye on her without her realizing it.~

~Then keep an eye on me.~

Damien blinked at his phone. Keep an eye on Jack? He was already doing that, considering the kid was basically a walking bomb if he ever took off his necklace. But the text message was so straightforward, Damien sensed the urgency in it. Something new was happening.

~I will.~

~~Beatrice~~

Triss braced for flying projectiles, fueled by a ghost’s wrath. But it didn’t happen. Mary stared at Sándor with her empty ghost eyes for a few moments, everyone else watching and waiting, but she didn’t attack. Eventually her frown faded, and she smiled. A creepy ghost smile, but at least she didn’t smile from ear to ear, literally.

“Mom’s told me about you.”

“Has she?” he asked.

“She says you’re trying to make up for all the things that happened.”

Slowly, the man nodded. “I am.”

“Why?” Say one thing for the ghost, she didn’t pull punches with her questions.

The man took a breath, which in itself was a huge emotional expression for the gargoyle. “I—”

“You were brainwashed, right? Straight out of a movie. Brainwashed and forced to do bad things.” The ghost’s head twitched, one of those freaky twitches that were instantaneous.

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Don’t be dumb. Don’t blame yourself because other people are evil.” Mary nodded, like what she said was the most true thing in the world. She might have been dead, more dead than even a vampire, but Triss could see the Jack in her expressions. Conviction. “You want to help people, sure, do that. But don’t think bad things happened because of you. You didn’t stab me.” The words pulled another scary smile out of her, and she looked at Beatrice. “Thanks again, for killing Angela.”

“Don’t mention it,” Triss said, wincing slightly.

Killing Angela had not been satisfying. Vengeance wasn’t satisfying. Sure, it’d settled the part of Triss that’d been willing to burn the planet to cinders if it meant killing Angela and Jeremiah, but it did absolutely nothing to make her feel better. The pain, misery, all the cliche tropes she thought would never apply to her, applied to her in spades, and killing Angela didn’t do jack shit about them.

There was no way a ghost would get that. One thing Triss picked up on her last visit, and from her conversations with Sam about her, was that Mary the ghost was unstable as fuck. They had no idea if a single thought ran through the girl’s head, or if she was a bundle of memories given a ghostly body, ready to pop and snap at any stimulus that crossed a line.

Tonight was going to be terrifying for Sam.

“So don’t be dumb,” Mary said, looking back to Sándor said.

“I ... I’ll try not to,” he said. And god damn, he even looked down, and looked a little sad. Triss had only ever seen him look like that two other times: that night he got drunk, and when he was behind a guitar.

Shit, no wonder he hadn’t taken the opportunity to speak to Mary until now. If he blamed himself for her death, this would be the first time the guy got to talk to someone that died because of him. That was the really fucked up thing about ghosts. Not that they were crazy, unstable, couldn’t be touched, and could throw shit around with their ghost powers. It was the fact they were dead, truly dead, murdered and gone, and yet they got to stick around and have their say. Vampires weren’t the same; well, usually.

But Sándor was a trooper. He looked up and stepped back, giving the vampires the floor, his face steady once again. Now Triss wanted to either get a glass in his hand, or a guitar, since those seemed to be the only ways the dude could express himself. Practically the opposite of her. Practically the opposite of Julias, for that matter.

Christ, stop comparing him to Julias. That is all manner of fucked up.

“Mary,” Samantha said. “I have the ... the crystal ball.” She held up the black bag, and only now did Mary notice it was moving slightly. Judging from her reaction, Sam had already described to her daughter everything about the ritual, or at least that it’d make a crystal ball that liked to jiggle.

How much did Mary know about the dark shit Sam was getting into? If there was one thing that’d make ghost Mary flip the fuck out and start attacking and destroying shit, it was learning her mother was a murderer of kine by accessory, and was engaging in dark witch magic. Considering the shit Mary was about to see, hopefully her mom had prepared her for at least some of it.

“Can I see?” Mary asked, staring at the bag.

Nodding, Sam reached into the bag, and pulled out the small, glowing crystal ball. Everyone froze as they waited for Mary to flip out over seeing something a living person would never be able to see: their final moments etched into a magical object.

Mary leaned in, empty eyes wider than humanly possible. “That’s ... me?”

Sam smiled. “It’s a part of you. Can you see the things it’s showing?”

“I can. I can ... I can...”

Staring into the crystal ball was a hypnotic experience for all of them, considering how seamlessly it showed Mary and Sam in the alley before they were stabbed, and the thoughts going through Mary’s mind at the time. For Mary, the crystal ball must have been like staring into the heart of the universe. She didn’t move, didn’t say a thing, for entire minutes. Just sat there, the only thing letting everyone know time still moved being the ebbing mist around them, and Sándor’s slow breathing.

“That’s me.”

“Just a part of you,” Sam said. “Just a blueprint.”

“I don’t understand the blueprint part,” Mary said. So Sam had told her some stuff already.

Well, time to be the witch in all this, and take charge. Beatrice stepped forward, and the ghost looked at her.

“There’s three things we need to get someone up and walking around,” Triss said, doing her best to look the ghost in the eyes. There was a reason Jacob usually covered his empty eye sockets with a bandage: empty eye sockets were freaky as fuck. And Mary’s empty eye sockets were enormous and far too expressive. “A body and a soul, everyone knows. But the blueprint part, that part was a little more abstract, and we had to figure it out.” No reason to tell them about her visit from the Crone. “It’ll be the glue to keep everything together. Makes sure the body and soul fit together snug and in the right places.”