Chapter 165

~~Jack~~

Everything happened so fast. Too fast. If someone was sick, they didn’t just spontaneously fall over and die, right? And they didn’t start bleeding like that!

But Mary had done just that. Five minutes. In five minutes, she’d gone from laughing and chuckling and drinking, to puking up blood. More than puking, the blood had come from her eyes, and fingernails, and everywhere. Her body lay on his mom’s lap, soaking her in more blood as she shook.

She managed one final smile for him before looking back up at their mom, who clutched her head on her lap snug to her waist.

“I got to ... hug my mom ... again.”

Her limbs went limp. Her breathing stopped. Her heart stopped. Her empty eyes stared on, blood lining where tears should have been.

Jack stared at her body, identical to the one he’d said goodbye to a year ago. In the hospital, she’d been cold, pale as a vampire not Blushing Life, with cheeks sunken in. He hadn’t dared look under the sheet to see her wounds. This time, she was a mess of crimson on her skin and revealing dress, blood that coated him, and utterly drenched his mom. Warm blood. It’d been so warm.

He looked at Beatrice, and she looked at him. A billion words in a single glance, but they all boiled down to three: what the fuck.

His mom burst into sobs, and clutched Mary’s body close. “Mary ... please don’t go. Please ... please ... please don’t ... leave me again...”

Jack winced and looked away. Christ, not again.

“I ... I don’t understand,” Beatrice whispered. “She was fine just five minutes ago! What the fuck—”

A ear-piercing shriek erupted from Mary’s body, and everyone fell back on their elbows. He knew that shriek. He remembered the pain it put him through when it threw him through a wall like he was a paperweight.

Him, Triss, his mom, the whole fucking ball, everyone stared, frozen and unmoving as the ghost of Mary flowed out of the bloody corpse. Mary, but different. It was her ghost, the same creature he saw haunting his old home, but any semblance of calmness or sanity was gone. Worse than the time she tried to kill him. Her empty eyes were wide to an extreme, and her hair thrashed around like it was alive.

She circled above, screaming louder, until it broke the petrification of the crowd. Everyone covered their ears, and drinking glasses shattered as they hit the floor. A moment later, every glass that hadn’t been dropped shattered anyway, as the rising shriek of Jack’s sister buried the ball in fury and misery. It was beyond loud. People groaned and screamed too, some falling to their knees and clutching their heads, Jack included, but their groans and yells were completely buried under Mary’s.

The windows shattered, and while they were hidden behind enormous, thick black curtains, the explosion of glass was enough to stir them like sails in a hurricane. Bits of glass went everywhere, and the crowd dropped to their knees, either dodging the flying clear blades, or doing their best to keep their eardrums from popping.

“I’m not her! I’m not her! I’m not her!” She yelled and shrieked as she circled overhead, clutching her face and dragging her nails down through it, cutting through her see-through skin. The wounds healed instantly, but she tore at her cheeks again and again anyway, each time letting her jaw hang open further and further until her mouth was open almost an entire foot.

The ballroom filled with mist as it cooled, white fog pouring from ceiling corners like someone had set up a hundred industrial dry ice fog machines. In seconds, it flowed over the balcony down onto everyone below, before the ballroom pit was filled with mist up to the waist of anyone still standing. The cold came next, cold that bit into the bones, cold not even a vampire could ignore.

“Mary!” Jack yelled as he forced himself to his feet. “Mary! Enough!” He looked his mom’s way, but only her head was visible in the mist. She was staring up at her daughter’s ghost, eyes wide. Shock.

“I’m not her! I’m not her!”

“What do you mean you’re not her!?” He snapped his gaze left and right as he tried to get some sort of bearing on the situation. The drapes still covered the windows, thank god. No one could see in. But nearby kine would be able to hear what was going on. Hell, half of Dolareido probably heard the opening scream.

He looked Antoinette’s way. She was staring up at the ghost as well, but unlike everyone else, her mouth wasn’t agape. She was processing, and looked around to start damage control at nearly the same time Jack did. She caught his eye, nodded, and looked to Michael. Of course he was still standing, and being an obvious presence while doing it, posing in just the right way he could see everything going on around him, and let everyone know he wasn’t spooked by some ghost. Luckily Mary didn’t seem to notice him. He’d be more than spooked if Mary decided to ram glass shards through his eye sockets.

Michael met the Prince’s eyes, nodded, and pulled out his phone. The expression on his face said it all: phones weren’t working. Of course not, not with a raging ghost around. But Michael thought fast, and made a small signal with his hand to someone in the crowd. Another vampire, a Mekhet, quickly vanished and disappeared.

They’d get out of the Black Hall, and contact the Invictus thralls and ghouls in the city government. They’d make sure the police and fire department wouldn’t arrive any time soon, and hopefully get the guards outside to stop anyone from getting close.

“I’m not her! I’m not her!”

“Mary, stop!” Beatrice jumped up and waved her arms in the air. “Fucking stop! What happened!? Tell us what happened!”

Jack winced as the inevitable shriek followed. Triss didn’t know how hard it was to talk to Mary when she was angry, but she found out quick when Mary swooped down over them, close enough to nearly touch their heads, and screamed. They both fell.

“I knew it! It was the dreams! Empty dreams. Wandering in nothing. Nothing! Should have known. Should have known! But I wouldn’t see the truth! Couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t ... couldn’t...” Her screams faded, and her insane expression settled as she finally turned her empty eyes from Jack and Triss, to their mom.

His mom had one hand out, and was holding it open, palm up, toward Mary.

Jack looked at his mom, and stared through the mist as both he and her slowly got back to their feet. She took special care to lay down Mary’s body before she did, and she stood up with no fear in her eyes. Only sadness.

“Baby,” she said, voice so quiet Jack doubted anyone else could hear it with their ears still ringing. “It ... didn’t work.”

“No! No ... no it didn’t.” Mary shook her head violently as she hovered in place. No legs, and instead of the fancy dress, she had back on the simple clothes she had when Jack first found her. “It didn’t. It didn’t. It didn’t.”

“I know, sweetie. I know.” Their mom steeled herself, and Jack stared on as she reached out, and gently ran a hand down the place where she should have been able to touch her daughter’s cheek. “But you remember, right?”

“Re ... member?”

“What you said, just ... just before you died. Just now.”

“I got to ... to hug my mom again.”

Samantha nodded, took a deep, useless breath, and lowered her hands. “And it was worth it, right?”

“It ... was.” Mary the ghost swam back up in the air. Thank god their mom was there, or she’d have been ripping the whole ballroom into a mess, with probably more than a few casualties. “It was. I was ... happy.”

“Then ... then it was worth it.” Nodding, Samantha gestured around them. “This isn’t your home, is it?”

“No! No it’s not.”

“Then you should go home. It’s safe there. I’ll come visit you again.”

Mary lowered herself down even closer to her mom, until they were face to face. While Mary’s face had returned to normal, ish, it was still a ghost’s face, with empty eyes and hair that shifted and moved with a breeze that didn’t exist.

“You’re not angry at me? For not telling you?”

“About your dreams? Honey, you couldn’t have known this would happen, not like this. No, I’m not angry. Now please go wait for me at home. I’ll come visit you before the night is over.”

Jack stared at his mom. It was crazy how calm she was, how strong she looked. It was his mom, standing in front of a raging ghost, talking with her usual gentle mom voice, a voice he’d heard a million times before. She’d used that voice even when their dad died. Hearing it now, it was like someone hit Jack upside the head with a baseball bat, just how much strength it took her to use that voice.

He looked around at the crowd. Everyone had gone silent, and were staring, either at the mist that flowed around them, or at the ghost Samantha was soothing. No one moved, not even the people on their knees in the chilling fog. And despite how deadly silent it was, Mary didn’t seem to notice, or care.

Because it wasn’t Mary. It was something else.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll...” Mary the ghost stared down at her flesh body through the mist, and her whole body shifted and twitched, like a bad signal on analog cable. Jack got ready to get thrown around like a baseball. But slowly, her image returned to normal, and she nodded as she smiled at their mom. “Okay.”

“Cya later, baby. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” She nodded, smiling, and blew her daughter’s ghost a small kiss.

Mary smiled, a little wider than humanly possible, before she sank into the mist, into the floor, and was gone.

It only took moments for the ball to return to normal. The mist faded into the ground, and stopped seeping from the ceiling. The bone-chilling cold went with it, along with the heavy presence Jack had grown all too familiar with over the years.

Which left a ballroom full of confused and shocked people. They started talking again, but no one dared talk loudly, as if their voices would resummon the ghost who just thoroughly thrashed their good time. Jack threw a glare their way, and everyone shut the fuck up quick, before he walked over to his mom. She’d already gotten back on her knees, and was closing Mary’s eyes.

No, not Mary. Just a vessel, a failed one.

“I’m ... sorry,” he said. “I told Sándor and Damien to wait until after the ball, to check her dreams. I ... I didn’t want to ... I was avoiding...”

His mom smiled up at him, nodding. “Thank you. I’m glad you did. It was ... It was good, while it lasted.” Not sobbing anymore, not crying, not shaking. She’d turned to stone.

“Fuck me fuck me fuck me,” Triss said, pacing in place. “I don’t fucking understand. I—”

“She said it,” Samantha said. “She said she wasn’t her.”

“Not her? I—oh fucking shit, you mean she isn’t Mary?”

“Maybe ... maybe.” Nodding, Jack’s mom stood back up, and looked to Beatrice. “Can you take the body back to Elen? She might be able to do something with it, but ... but I ... but I don’t think it’ll ever work, if Mary’s right.”

If Mary was right. If Mary was right, Mary wasn’t Mary.

“Mom, you—”

“I don’t care if she’s not Mary.” She looked Jack’s way, and her steady, steel gaze struck him still. “She’s my daughter, and she’s in pain, and I’m going to go make sure she’s okay.” After another slow nod, she clenched her hands into fists, and walked up to Daniel, who still stood between the crowd and the stairs to the front door. “I need to get clean, and change clothes. Can you take me back to the tower?”

Daniel blinked down at her, mild shock still in his eyes, only half hidden behind his glasses. He looked back to Antoinette and Athalia, got confirming nods, and took Samantha up the stairs leading outside. The moment the front doors opened, they vanished in his Cloak.

“Triss,” Jack whispered, “you—”

“I’ll be fine.” She managed a weak shrug for him as she knelt down and picked up the body. More clack clacks of high heels announced Jennifer’s approach, and Jack stepped aside to let the witch join her friend.

But before they left, Jack spoke up. “Jacob—”

“Had nothing to do with this,” Triss said, eying him with her green snake eyes. “Neither do Othello or Aaron. You got questions, you come to me. But this was—”

“I’m not judging. Really, I’m not. Just ... wanted to know if there was anything I could do.”

It took a few seconds for her to realize he was being serious, and her expression broke into the same sadness he knew was on his face.

“Nothing. There’s nothing. I’m ... fuck me, I’m so sorry, Jack. Your sister ... christ.”

“You heard her,” he said, sighing heavy and shoulders slumping. “She’s not her.”

“Fuck me.” Groaning, Triss looked past him, and scanned the crowd. Not for Jacob or the other witches, they were still there and she kept looking. Sándor? Jack looked back, and sure enough, the man was gone.

Oh shit, Sándor. Poor bastard was going to need a therapist after this. The one fucking thing that someone had managed to fix, something the hunters had broken, something he blamed himself for, and it went down in flames.

Triss sighed, probably coming to the same conclusion, and walked to the door with Mary in her arms. Weightless to a Nosferatu’s strength.

Jen paused at the base of the stairs for a moment, before leaning in to whisper to Jack.

“I appreciate your need to fix things, Jack. I appreciate your need to force people to accept truth and reality where you can, as well. But listen to me. Do not push your mother on this, not tonight. She’s worked toward this goal for months, and has bloodied her hands in ways you can’t imagine.”

“I can imagine a lot.”

A quick snarl from Jen gave him pause. She was serious.

“Give your mother space, and let her accept this reality on her own terms. Okay?”

“Okay, I get you. I won’t push her.”

“Good.” With a small nod that looked as heavy as an anchor, Jen left with her girlfriend.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Antoinette said, voice raised slightly, and she stepped up to stand beside Jack. “Tonight, we have seen ... something unfathomably horrible. Please forgive me, but I must dismiss you all. Expect another ball in the future, but for now, the pleasantries must end.”

Jack stuck around as people left. He wanted to go see his mom, but knowing she’d be with Mary, and Mary would be unstable as fuck, it was a bad idea. No one calmed Mary down like his mom, and his presence could send her into a proper destructive mood. Anyone’s presence could right now, save for his mom’s.

The Carthians and Invictus left, and so did Aaron and Othello. The Uratha stuck around, but even they eventually left, except for Eric. Him and Jessy remained, Fiona and Damien too, and they joined Jack as he pulled himself up to sit on one of the tables along the walls.

“That ... was fucking horrible,” Jessy said.

“Yes,” someone said. Everyone looked up when a voice they didn’t normally hear in their friend conversations jumped in. Jacob. “It was horrible.”

Jack glared at the man. Everyone at the table knew Jacob was a threat, and possibly working with Black Blood to fuck up the whole city, and worse. He should have been trying to avoid letting Jacob know that Jack suspected him. But with how shitty the situation was, he had a good excuse to glare at the man.

“You...” Jack clenched his teeth and looked away. Don’t blame him, this was on Triss. Her words. But holy fuck, it was so much easier to want to blame Jacob than it was his friend.

And Jacob knew it, too. Jacob shook his head as he sighed, and took off his sunglasses. Everyone at the table winced and looked away, but Jack lifted his eyes and stared the man straight in the empty eye sockets.

“I gave them the tools, Jack. And a fuckload of warnings, too. I told them this wasn’t going to work, but they deserved to try, right?”

“You warned them?”

“All the fucking time, kid. But I knew they’d try something. And I ... all I can do is make sure my witches’ mistakes don’t kill them, so they can learn from them.”

“You sound like a parent who thinks the best way to teach his kid to not get electrocuted, is to let them get electrocuted.”

The old Nosferatu shook his head again. “It’s not the same, and you know it.”

“I—”

“I’m going to go check on Samantha, and Mary.” He put the sunglasses back on, and walked away, leaving everyone at the table to stare after him. Only once the front doors closed behind him, did people relax.

Jack looked to Antoinette. She stood in the center of the ball, arms folded under her breasts, red eyes pointed down as she went into think-tank mode. She’d be there for a little while, processing how best to handle the situation, how to manage the response from the government and media, and how and when to set up the next ball. Forever planning. He loved her, and normally he’d be right next to her, obsessing over details and planning. But at the moment, the only thing he could think of, was Mary’s bleeding eyes, and the utter fucking despair on his mom’s face when Mary fell over.

He looked over at Eric and Jessy. The werewolf had an arm around her shoulders, stroking her, while she leaned into him. Both looked troubled. He looked over at Damien and Fiona. Same situation, though Fiona pressed her face into Damien’s chest to cry. Natasha stood in the pit with Antoinette, nodding whenever Antoinette whispered something, and took notes in her smart phone. But she spared a glance for Jack, and the look in her eyes was heartbreaking. She’d been getting along with Mary, quite a bit.

Everyone got along with Mary.

Jack leaned down, picked up a piece of broken glass, and held it in front of him, high up, between him and the chandelier. What a shitty fucking night.

~~Beatrice~~

The trip out of the city was a quiet one. Jen stuck with her, but didn’t say a thing. Better to stay quiet until they were out of the city, even with how good Triss was getting at her Cloak. But that wasn’t the main reason neither of them were talking.

Thirty minutes later, thirty really fucking long minutes of carrying a corpse she never wanted to carry again, they were outside city limits, and out in the desert on the way toward their hidden little cave.

“Sándor left,” Jen said. Thank god she said it first.

“Yeah. Kinda bailed on us, didn’t he?” Which was kind of a dick move on his part, and very out of character for him. “Probably went somewhere to brood. Maybe cry. Maybe rage a bit.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah. As a recovering brooder, I should know. If I had to guess, he’s back in his lair, sitting on that big throne in his castle, and just ... being a statue, collecting dust, tearing himself up over this.” Because no matter what anyone said, the dude would never stop blaming himself for Sam’s pain.

Jen sighed, but nodded as she touched Triss’s shoulder. “Probably.”

“Once we get the body back in Elen’s, uh, aura or whatever, we should go check on Sam. I ... I guess she’ll be in Mary’s room, with her ghost again, and ... crying, maybe.” They couldn’t get teary without Blushing Life, but she could sob and cry just fine. Funny enough, Sam hadn’t sobbed or cried, back in the ballroom, once Mary’s ghost appeared. If anything, it was like something had suddenly cast her out of iron.

She didn’t want Mary to see her cry. She wanted to make sure Mary, or Mary’s ghost, didn’t freak out and make everything quickly go from bad to worse. Christ, what sort of fucking person did you have to be to be a ... a mom? It wasn’t the same as being a sire, not at fucking all, and Triss’s stupid vampire brain couldn’t understand it.

They stepped into the cave, and set the body on the chair next to Julias’s. Thankfully his body was still breathing, and hidden under a blanket. Made it easier to not picture him with blood gushing out of every orifice and then some.

“Oh dear,” Elen said. Dangling from her hook, her emaciated body hadn’t changed much in the past few months. Maybe she’d stay like this for the rest of time? Pretty shitty situation, but one she deserved.

Triss snarled. “Don’t.”

“The ghost and the body didn’t agree with each other. What a shame.”

“I said don’t.” Triss came up to the bowl and glared up at the flesh witch with enough venom to kill an ox. “I didn’t come here to talk to you. Just make sure the body doesn’t rot. We can still use it, fix it up, and do the ritual again.”

“All flesh in this cavern is safe from decay.” The old bitch offered a cracked, evil smile, and met Triss’s eyes with all the care and concern of a retired granny watching her favorite TV show, while high as a kite.

“Good.”

“But no matter what happens, no matter what magic you use, you cannot bind a ghost to a living body for forever.”

“That...” Growling, Triss kicked the metal bowl hard enough the room echoed with the impact, before she stormed off.

Getting out of the cave took a bit, but once she was back out with Jen behind her, she screamed. Full on roar screamed. Tore up the voice screamed. Screamed until it fucking hurt, screamed.

Jen said nothing. She stood beside Triss and waited, wearing a weak, patient smile.

“You could rub it in my face, you know,” Triss said. “Say ‘I told you so’ and shit.”

“I didn’t tell you so.”

“You basically did. All the times you tagged along, I could tell you never really thought this would work.”

“I ... was routinely surprised at how much you accomplished, Triss.” Jen came up behind her and hugged her, not caring about the blood she got on her hands. “I stuck it out because I knew you’d accomplish something amazing, the same way Jacob knew. And I stuck it out because I love you.”

Triss sighed, and leaned back into Jen. Lean eventually became turn and hug, and hug eventually turned into kiss.

“You love me?”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course I do.”

“But you don’t want me to yourself.”

“I...” Jen frowned a little as she looked up slightly, thinking. “We’ve had this conversation before. I’m just not interested in some sort of dove pairing. I don’t want a relationship with one person to be my significant other. The idea has never interested me. I love you, I know you love me, and I want you to find someone else to love, too.”

“You are so weird.”

“Yes, well, so are you.”

Triss chuckled, which of course was Jen’s goal. Christ, how much shit she did, just for Triss. How little Triss did for her.

“Alright, let’s go see Sam.”

Jen shook her head as she stepped back. “I got a text from Jacob. He’s visiting Sam.”

“Really? He’s comfortable being around Mary?”

“No idea. But he feels compelled to go to Sam, and you saw how quickly he got along with Mary when she was ... alive.”

“She got along with everybody,” Triss said. “But ... it’s weird. I guess I had trouble thinking of Jacob really loving someone else to that point. Always got the impression Sam was kinda like a fling for him. Some fun.” Even when earlier evidence suggested she was more.

“Apparently not.”

Triss looked down at the desert rocks as she weighed her options. Go see Jack? Nah, nothing to say to the kid, not really. Go see Othello and Aaron? Nah, they’d be back at the cave, Aaron reading, Othello ... doing whatever he did when he wasn’t fucking Madison.

“Sándor,” Jen said before Triss could. “You want to find out if Sándor’s okay.”

“I ... I guess I fucking do.” Before she could stop herself, Triss threw up her hands and paced back and forth. She’d taken off her heels at a certain point and tossed them; you can’t pace in heels. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“You like him.”

“I like Julias! I love Julias! I—”

“Triss, your chances of seeing Julias again are slim to none, and you know that.”

Triss cut into Jen with a harsh glare, but Jen stood her ground.

“Then why am I still hoping to bring him back?”

“Because you loved him, and you cherish those memories, and being teased by the possibility of having him back is a lure most people wouldn’t be able to ignore?”

A deadly lure Triss had read more than few stories about, a lure that’d destroyed plenty of people, like prey to an anglerfish.

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Because you’re self-destructively obsessive?”

Triss laughed. A weak, shitty laugh, but at least it was a laugh. “Aren’t we all?”

“Because you’re afraid of letting go and moving on? Afraid you might find happiness again without him? Afraid of how horrible and guilty you’d feel if you actually managed to find happiness again, when Julias was the first taste of it you had in twenty years?”

“I ... Fuck.” Triss walked up to Jen, and hugged her again, tight this time. “I am so fucked up.”

“Yeap.”

“Why am I ... stuck in this stupid high school romance drama? Fuck me, after what happened tonight—”

With a tender chuckle and soft hug, Jen wrapped her arms around her again, and gave her neck a quick kiss.

“Worry about what we can affect in the moment. We can talk to Samantha tomorrow night, unless she contacts us before then. For now, let’s go see Sándor and see how he’s dealing with this.”

“Alright. You’re right.” Nodding, they both got underway. “You know, I just realized something. Mary was alive for exactly three days and three nights.”

“That ... is rather disturbing, isn’t it?”

Beatrice stepped into the big, empty room that once served as some sort of boarding room for a subway train, maybe for workers down in the tunnels. A prototype maybe or something, from a century ago, because it’d obviously never been finished. The train tracks went past a big concrete stage, but otherwise, all that was in the room, was the room.

At least until Azamel showed up. She put a bunch of shit on the boarding platform, crap furniture that looked far more homely than it had any right to. The old lazy recliner was still there. The ash tray was still there, too. The bed, the changing screen, the couch, a few other chairs, it was all still there, shit anyone could have lifted from a flea market. Not that there was a reason to shoplift from a flea market when everything cost less than dirt.

No Mark, thank god. No Fiona. Probably with Damien, crying her eyes out. They’d only seen each other like, once, but it was obvious they’d have probably become best friends if they’d gotten to spend some time together, considering how similar they were.

No Sándor. Shit. But there was someone there, sitting in a chair beside Azamel’s, and reading a book. Athalia. Shit shit.

“Sorry,” Triss said, glancing up at Athalia only long enough to see Athalia was looking at her. “I’ll go.”

“Don’t,” Athalia said, voice solid and steady. Well, that was a lot better than the shriek full of fury and agony Triss expected to hear from the Begotten. They’d had more than enough of that tonight.

Triss blinked at Jen, who blinked at her, before they both looked back at the deadly woman on the stage. She’d changed out of her ballroom dress. Triss and Jen still hadn’t.

“You uh, don’t want me to go?” Triss asked.

“No. You want to see Sándor, I assume.”

“I ... do.”

Nodding, Athalia set the book down on Azamel’s chair arm, and leaned back in her own.

“I’m not going to attack you, Beatrice. Calm down.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t quite believe you.”

Athalia rolled her eyes. “It’s been ... painful, these past months. For you, for me, for Samantha, for a lot of people. But the past is the past ... for most of us.”

Triss winced. The past was quite suddenly and painfully very much not the past for Sam.

“Yeah, I get that.”

“I’ve had a lot of time, and help, to come to some ... realizations. I don’t hate you, Beatrice, and I can’t blame you for what I did.” She shook her head as she looked to the side. “I can never forgive you, but I can’t blame you, either.”

Triss blinked at the Begotten, and again at Jen who returned the same, shocked expression.

“I—”

“Don’t. We’re done chatting. You want into Sándor’s lair?”

Okay, no chatting, but at least her relationship with Athalia had jumped a few rungs, up from ‘potential murder victim’.

“That where he is?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes, I’d like to see him.”

Sighing, Athalia stood up and jumped down from the platform. “I can get you into his lair. We’re connected, here in Dolareido. But Sándor made it clear he didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“He can’t lock the door to his lair?”

“He can, but won’t. He ... doesn’t like the idea of us not being able to come to him for help, if we need him.”

Triss winced and looked down. “Of course he doesn’t. Dude just ... really wants to be helpful, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does. He’s one of the few.” Athalia eyed her, and didn’t hide her sneer. “So if you hurt him, we won’t be on such good terms anymore, vampire.” And back down the ladder to potential murder victim again. “Alright, come with me. I’ll open up a path to his castle.”

“Thanks.”

Athalia snorted, less like a pig and more like a deadly giant skeleton nightmare titan, all raspy and shit. Beatrice and Jennifer both shivered a little as they followed her. For her age, Beatrice was a damn strong Nosferatu, and Jen was an impressive Ventrue too, but Athalia in her Horror form could probably rip her in half like a phone book if she got her hands on her. And despite what she said, she’d probably enjoy doing just that.