Chapter 168

~~Jack~~

“Why would ghosts care about us?” Noah asked, gesturing to the approaching green lights. Thankfully, they were taking their sweet-ass time coming their way.

Jack ground his teeth as he looked around, checking for any ghosts that might come up out of the ground and do ... whatever it was ghosts did to living, breathing people. Or in his case, non-breathing people. His encounter with the ghosts of angry workers from the industrial boom had been violent enough he knew anyone with a pulse would struggle to survive dealing with them. At least, humans would.Werewolves would fair better. And this time it wasn’t just him, Sándor, and Clara.

“They care,” Sándor said, “because they’re angry. We’re alive. They’re not.”

Noah frowned as he stared out at the lights. “Kind of cliche.”

“Not so cliche,” Jack said, “if it’s true. Clara told you what happened last time we ran into them, I assume?”

Nodding, the werewolf gestured back to Clara and Avery, who were inspecting nearby webs.

“So we’ve got three problems,” Noah said. “Ghosts, the azlu, and Jacob and Black Blood are probably tearing down the whole world right now.”

“Yeap.”

“Any idea why Jacob wants us to stay here?” Noah asked.

“He wants us to deal with the azlu,” Jack said, “and otherwise, not interfere with him, I guess.”

“Agreed,” Avery said, joining them. “But I ain’t waiting. Let’s go.”

Wincing, Jack nodded, and followed after Avery as she marched ahead. A glance Sándor’s way showed the man doing his usual stoic thing, but even he looked a little concerned. They were stuck, and the only way out of it, was to expose their flanks to ghosts and giant spider monsters. Fucking. Great.

Everyone went silent. Sándor took rear, and Jack and Damien took middle, with Damien doing his best to keep them wrapped in his Cloak. Brutally difficult for anyone except an elder, and every time Jack looked Damien’s way, it was obvious the man was struggling. The original plan was to sit and wait for the azlu to show up, not go marching forward through a giant, dark cave, filled with enormous rocks the size of hotel buildings, and ravines deep enough it’d take hours to climb back out of them; assuming falling into them didn’t splatter their bodies apart over the jagged rocks. It was going to be a tough time for the vampire Cloaking them.

Mist was everywhere. It came and went as they walked, sometimes peeking up between the uneven floor up to their ankles, sometimes reaching up to their waists and hiding everything below it, and sometimes disappearing entirely. More than a few times, Jack ducked down to see if he could see what the hell was happening around his feet when the mist reached high, but the mist was too thick. They had go to slow, but they had to go fast.

At least they had a path to follow. The ravine with the spiderwebs continued on, sometimes filled with mist, sometimes not, and every so often it stopped having webs, too. But after another five or ten minutes of walking, they found traces of another web. The spider was in here, somewhere, and much as the werewolves struggled to smell much in the Great Below, they could smell the azlu.

The green lights stopped coming closer, and many faded away. Everyone stared up at them, trying to figure out what was happening, why the ghosts stopped approaching, but no one had a clue. All they could see was, in the distance and way, way, way up, lights drifted by, going in the direction of ... something. All except one.

A pair of ears poked up from the mist, and Jack flung himself back as he yanked out one of his pistols. A wolf. He snarled at the damn werewolf as he put the pistol away, and the creature morphed back into human form with a few sickening crunches of bone. Caleb.

“It’s up ahead,” he whispered.

Avery and Clara looked between each other, wincing.

“Sándor,” Avery said. “Can you burrow yet? Open your lair, or whatever?”

“No. Still blocked.”

“Then we push on past it,” Clara said. “I hate this. We hate this. But the azlu has to wait.”

Caleb nodded, transformed back into a wolf, and disappeared under the mist that hung around their waists. How he managed to prowl around, while spending energy using the Uratha version of Cloaking on himself, Jack didn’t know. His own Beast instincts knew how to meld him with a crowd, and hunt among sheep, not literally hunt with nose to the ground and eyes peeled like a wolf.

He hated not being in control, but it was better to let Avery and her pack lead.

The shallow ravine the azlu used was on their right, so Avery, with a growl and snort, moved them more toward the left. Jack could see the frustration through the back of the short woman’s head, but it was the urgency and panic he was more worried about. Everyone was feeling it. They had to get away from the webs, from the azlu, as soon as fucking possible so Sándor could get them out of the damn underworld.

She froze. Everyone else promptly did, too. No need to explain. The visible werewolves leaned forward, weight on the balls of their feet, ready to transform. Noah had the flamethrower now, and since he wouldn’t be transforming, he stayed in the center of the group, surrounded on all sides. Damien drew his longsword. Jack drew a shortsword and pistol. Sándor did the same as the Uratha, though he turned around to face behind them and slowly tightened and released fists at his side.

Something was nearby.

“Azlu?” Jack asked.

Avery shook her head, half turned and put a finger to her lips.

Nodding and biting his tongue to force himself to shut up, Jack raised his pistol and held it over his sword hand’s wrist. Sword was a strong word. Big knife. But it did make it easier to handle the thing when working with a pistol. Not that he figured they’d be of much use, but still, it was better than—

He jumped back and unloaded six bullets down at the mist in front of him, but it was too late. The ghost giggled as she flew away, a glistening knife in her hand, and the most manic smile Jack had ever seen. Big, empty, black eyes, that didn’t match her soft face at all, and a gray, see-through body whose pants — jeans, they looked like — combined with flowing waves of mist at the knee. She wore a t-shirt, something from the nineties, and her long hair went past her shoulders. He recognized her.

A tiny bit of string flew through the air, and disappeared into the mist.

“Oh fuck oh fuck.” With his knife hand, he scooped some fingers down his neck and chest. When his fingers found the knife wound, the pain followed, and he groaned as he took a few steps back, clutching at the skin as it struggled to heal. The burning sensation came a moment later, like the ghost had cut him open with dry ice. No normal knife wound felt like that.

She’d come up from the mist, and had sliced him across the sternum, deep enough to penetrate his shirt, skin, and a bit of bone. And his necklace.

Everyone looked his way before looking up at Sabrina. She laughed like a banshee as she circled overhead, fifty feet up and out of reach. Apparently the Cloak of Night didn’t do a good job of hiding from ghosts. Or maybe, it didn’t do a good job of hiding from her. Considering what she did to the other ghosts Jack ran into on his first trip into the Great Below, she was a scary, powerful creature. And judging from the crazy, evil smile she had on, she was happy to slice Jack’s chest open. She’d gone for the necklace on purpose.

“You were told to stay where you were!” she screamed, before cackling again.

Jack breathed deep and fast until he was hyperventilating, but it did nothing. Panic set in, and he clutched at his chest again and again, hoping the necklace was actually still there, and seeing it disappear in the mist had been a trick of the eye. It hadn’t.

“Sabrina!” Clara yelled. No point in staying quiet anymore. “What are you doing!? You did that to—”

“Viktor’s killer! Jack killed Viktor! Killed my master! Killed his own grandsire! Black Blood proved it to me!”

Everyone froze as they looked between Sabrina and Jack, and only then did they realize his necklace was gone.

It hit him like a wave. Overwhelming, overpowering, the Beast and its instincts rushed him and buried his thoughts in primal hunger. He winced as he looked away from them, closed his eyes, and summoned the flame in his mind Elaine taught him. Throw the thoughts, throw the feelings, throw it all into the fire and let it burn away. Empty your mind.

It didn’t work. He couldn’t do it, not now, not with everything falling apart around them and a gun to their heads.

“Sabrina,” Damien said, aiming his longsword at her. “How dare you.”

“Me? Me!? He killed Master! Vile, horrible vampire!” She cackled again as she hovered in circles. “Black Blood told me what to do. Jacob told me what to do. You should have stayed where you were, and killed the azlu. Now you all have to die.”

They all looked to Jack again, and he gulped on a dry throat as he met their eyes. Avery’s gaze was mostly steady, but he spotted some anger there, and fear.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “I’ll be fine. Let’s just get this done. Don’t drop a piano on my head again and we can all—”

A harsh, raspy growl cut him off, and every wolf looked in the direction of the inhuman sound. They all recognized that sound.

Without a word, all the werewolves — save for Noah — transformed. Clothes disappeared, fur emerged, and their bodies grew to massive sizes as the war form came out. Huge muscles and long claws, each werewolf hit at least eight feet tall, towering animals with crazed eyes and bared teeth. Noah transformed into something different, muscles getting bigger and body getting definitely hairier, but otherwise still a human dude. One of the other werewolf forms.

The werewolves spread out, and Noah backed up as he pointed the flamethrower in the direction of the noise, and turned on the small ignition flame at the tip. The flamethrower was basically a pressured jug of fuel in a metal container on his back, ready to spit a flammable liquid out as a stream, hitting the ignition flame on the way out. If Jack got hit and wasn’t ready for it with his blood shield, it’d kill him instantly, and Damien had no such defense.

The two vampires steered clear, backing away, until they’d reached Sándor’s position. Jack looked at him, Sándor looked back, and shared a very knowing glance. If shit went bad and the Ripper came out, there was a good chance it’d be up to Sándor to do something about it.

“Get what you deserve!” More cackling from the dead ghost above. “Get what you deserve! Tricked me. Tricked me!”

Her laughter was insane, and constant. And purposeful. Was she pulling the azlu to them? If so, that was a good thing, sorta. Deal with it now, and they could focus on the bigger issue. The delay was a problem, but if they could deal with it quickly, then that was better than nothing.

He thought the azlu was trying to avoid the werewolves. Maybe it had been. Except there were thirteen werewolves in Dolaredo including Eric, but only nine of them were present. Maybe it sensed an opportunity.

Damien jumped ahead. No, not jumped. Flew. Jack and Sándor spun around as several other ghosts appeared in the mist, and threw themselves at the two of them. Not blue collar workers from the fifties, like the ghosts Jack had run into before. These three looked like regular men and women, wearing modern clothing, or maybe a decade or two old.

“We’ll be free!” One of them said.

“Soon, free!” The woman laughed and smiled, big, empty, black eyes staring into Jack’s soul.

“Free!” the third one said. “The god of the dead promised us. No more Great Below. No more wandering. No more weight pulling us deeper, and deeper. We’ll fly! To the heavens!”

Black Blood had, evidently, recruited some ghosts to help him, and had promised them quite a bit.

“Black Blood—” Sándor didn’t get to finish. The girl tackled him, and the two of them fell into the mist. Even five feet from Jack, he couldn’t see Sándor or the ghost wrestling him to the ground. At least the man hadn’t looked too surprised by the situation. Considering the sorts of journeys the Begotten had been going on to prepare for stopping Black Blood’s ritual, he was probably well acquainted with ghosts at this point.

Jack didn’t get time to make a judgment call. He went down as one of the other ghosts tackled him, and started punching him. Hard. Very hard. It was a strange feeling, getting punched by a ghost, because the weight felt off. It was like getting hit by a gust of wind so strong it could send you flying, somehow limited to a single fist.

Thankfully they weren’t using the crazy telekinetic shit Mary did to him, the first time he met her ghost. Maybe it was something ghosts could only do in areas important to them? Whatever the reason, getting punched by something clearly stronger than a human, was infinitely better than getting tossed around or squashed under a thrown boulder by a crazed super ghost haunting her home.

Problem was, he knew from last time defeating a ghost wasn’t easy without something that could really hurt them. Last time, that’d been Sabrina. He had werewolves this time, but they were a little busy, judging from the encroaching rumbling, screeching, and the howling wolves.

He stared up into the empty eyes of the ghost directly over him. There was nothing for Dominate to latch onto, nothing to conquer and enslave. The thing punching him, its great strength still incapable of hurting Jack with the curse coursing through him, had as much presence of mind as an amoeba. Just like Mary’s ghost.

Jack winced as the memory cut him, before he glared up at the ghost, summoned vitae into his limbs, and punched him in the face. The ghost’s face half collapsed in as Jack made sure to punch the fucker hard enough it’d have killed a kine instantly. It flew back in the air, ten feet up before it fell back into the mist, head snapped back far enough it nearly came off. As long as the ghosts were going to manifest physically, he could at least punch them.

Jack got up, snarling and spinning around. Burning, pulsing sensations rippled through him, and he ground his teeth as he looked for the nearest target. Damien was up, and already slicing through the ghost woman that came at him. But while the slice earned a shriek of pain from the ghost, and literally cut her in half, she reformed a second later, and fled into the mist.

“We can’t kill them,” Jack said.

“Yeah. Any ideas?” Damien asked.

“Sabrina saved us last time.”

“Yes, well, old friends and all that.”

Yeah, old friends that come back with a mind to kill. Karma was a bitch.

Jack spun around. “Sándor? You okay? Sándor!”

Another ghost flew into the air, before two enormous shadows reached up, grabbed it, and ripped the ephemeral thing in half. Again, ghost shrieks echoed through the giant cave, but the ghost reformed a second later as it collapsed back into the mist below.

Sándor stood up, a tiny frown on his face and a bleeding lip, but otherwise he seemed fine. Jack looked at the blood on his chin a little longer than he’d have liked, before he looked back to the Uratha. Most of them had run off a few hundred feet away, and their howls and roars mixed with the cries of an animal that shouldn’t have existed. Waves of mist pillowed and spread, like a giant shark swimming under water and pushing waves with its mass. Bodies flew left and right, massive, furry bodies, but they landed on their hands and feet before dashing back at the giant creature.

The azlu had arrived, and it was big.

Noah and Clara weren’t with their pack. Noah, still in his larger, muscled human form, pointed the flamethrower at the spider far in the distance, but he looked around at himself, at the fog, and at the new nearby ghosts that poked up from the mist. More ghosts. Some of them looked modern, but Jack noticed a few that wore old fashioned clothes from the fifties or sixties. All of them had twisted faces, giant black empty eyes, and mouths that opened far too wide.

Clara stood with her pack mate, transformed into her enormous war form, teeth bared and claws at the ready. When one ghost poked up from the mist, she slashed down at it, but the ghost ducked away and disappeared into the thick fog. One unlucky ghost wasn’t fast enough, and Clara raked her huge claws down the ghost woman’s face and neck. The result was far more visceral than anything Jack, Damien, or Sándor managed, and the ghost wailed as it clutched the wounds the claws left, before she fell into the mist. She didn’t come back up.

“Plan?” she half said, half barked. More ghosts poked up from the mist, and more.

“Plan, plan, right.” Jack ran over to her, sword in hand, and he parked a little ways from them so Clara could keep swiping at whatever got close to Noah. The further Jack stayed away from the dude with the flamethrower, the better, but it was becoming obvious they were surrounded by more than a few ghosts, and they had to get their backs together. “The ghosts know what Noah’s going to do. We protect him, get him to Avery, torch that azlu, and then we get the pack to deal with the ghosts.”

“Trying!” Clara said. “Too many!”

Shut up.

Shut up!

Oh fucking shit, the Ripper was right. If Jacob had the opportunity to achieve some crazy, ridiculous dream, and kill Avery as some sort of icing on the cake, he would.

“Sándor, help Clara. Keep Noah safe. Damien, you’re with me. We deal with the azlu now. Noah, use the fire on the ghosts. I’m betting it’ll do at least something. Let Damien and me get away before you accidentally kill us.”

Sándor and Damien both nodded, without hesitation. The instant trust was beautiful, and a problem. Without the necklace, they shouldn’t have trusted him so quickly.

Noah threw him a harsh glare. “We brought the fire for—”

“We don’t have time to kill the azlu the proper way! I know if we kill it and let it do the multi-spider thing, it’ll escape and reform later. We have more important things to worry about! So just keep the ghosts preoccupied, and let me save your boss’s stupid ass! The ghosts are trying to stop you, not me!”

Jack ran off in Avery’s direction, and didn’t look back. The ghosts looked at him, but the few that got in his way lost their heads as Damien ran past him as a blur, and sliced their skulls off in a single swinging motion. They reformed in moments, but it was enough of a delay for Jack to run past, unblocked.

The ghosts didn’t pursue. He was right. The Ripper was right. Sabrina had orders to take Jack’s necklace, but the other ghosts were told to keep whoever had the flamethrower away from the azlu, to force Avery to have to fight it the old fashioned way. And of course, without the necklace, there was always the chance the Ripper would replace the azlu as the threat.

Now he was kinda regretting not just listening to Jacob, and waiting where he’d left them. But it wasn’t like he was going to let Jacob trigger fucking Armageddon, either.

He almost looked back when a loud roar erupted, and the cave floor vibrated with impact. He recognized the sound. A giant, angry, four-armed gargoyle made that sound. If Noah made a mistake and torched Sándor ... Jack didn’t even want to think about it. But shitty as it was, better Sándor than Jack or Damien. He might survive.

The azlu was just as disgusting as the others they’d seen. A spider had gotten an old woman, crawled into her, and ate her from the inside out. Then, a giant monster body came out of the host’s waist, almost like a centaur had a horse’s body below the belt, except it was a disgusting, freaky, mutated, monstrous spider body. The host’s body was also mutated, pulsing with muscle and equipped with giant scythe-like arms made of bone. And too many eyes.

David and Avery tore into its sides, and it spun around, shrieking and screeching and swinging its arms at Carter. But the old werewolf was fast, and ducked under the arms before jumping the monster straight on and landing on the human half of it. Jack couldn’t tell who the others were in the chaos. They were covered in blood, and they stood up from the mist as broken bones snapped back into place. Erica, Caleb, Monica, and Mason, all four of them with huge gashes on their body, gushing blood that disappeared into the fog. It only slowed them down for moments before the wounds closed, and the blood-soaked beasts again threw themselves at the giant monster.

“Noah!” Avery yelled, feral eyes looking in Jack’s direction. “Fire!”

“Can’t get here! Ghosts are blocking him! Black Blood knows what you planned!”

“Fuck!” Evidently not happy about the news, she sank both her claws into the fat spider body, and got to tearing, until the monster’s blood gushed over her.

“Damien,” Jack said, “look for an opportunity to get in there and end this quickly. Stay hidden as best you can until then.”

“On it.” Damien slipped away, crouched into the mist, and vanished, his Cloak and the fog working together to make him almost invisible. His friend was tired. Cloaking all of them for so long had drained him How well the Cloak worked on the spider monster, Jack didn’t know; didn’t seem to do much against ghosts. But with seven werewolves trying to tear it into bits, it wouldn’t notice a vampire hiding in the mist.

Jack, on the other hand, wanted it to notice him. He walked straight up to it, and fired every bullet in his magazine as fast as he could. Big as the werewolves were, the azlu was gigantic, and aiming for the lower half of its body, where spider body connected to human body, was enough to avoid accidentally shooting them. It shrieked as it noticed the new pain sensation, but when it tried to take a step toward Jack, one of the werewolves sliced at one of its many legs hard enough it stumbled. Jack slapped in a new magazine and unloaded it as fast as the gun allowed. And another magazine. And then another. The azlu shrieked and screamed, and hints of the human it possessed came through in its voice. Jack emptied his last magazine into it, before holstering the pistol. Dozens and dozens of bullets, and the damn thing just refused to die.

He pulled up his Beast, and sent vitae into his limbs. Mountains of it. Without the necklace, it was like riding rapids, a torrent of energy and instinct that hit him and threatened to drag him under the overpowering current. If he’d been back in his mansion, or maybe in the Elysium Tower, he’d find some peace and quiet, and throw his thoughts into a flame. Now, all he had was chaos, roars and shrieks, blood, and an enemy he had to kill and kill now.

He jumped straight at the giant spider monster, and sank his shortsword into its chest. With anything else, the short blade would have sunk straight through the chest and into the organs, and ended the fight in seconds. With the azlu, it was like trying to stab through a thick layer of wood, and his sword penetrated maybe three inches before it came to a stop, and Jack was left dangling from it like a fish on a hook. Jumping at it with his small body had not been the smartest plan.

The monster swung both its arms down for him, and while he managed to swing aside enough to avoid one, the other bone scythe arm collided with him and smashed him into the ground. Thick Kindred blood coursed over the wound, summoned under the skin and thick enough it stopped the monster from getting through the limb. The stone ground was not forgiving, but nothing broke, and Jack groaned as he forced himself back to his feet.

He had to be careful. He couldn’t have a repeat of what happened with him and Avery, or Garry and Michael, and let the Ripper out by getting pulverized.

He managed a glance back to Sándor’s group. Enormous shadows cut through the air over pillars of flame that shot out in random directions. With all the mist, the distance turned everything into a blur, and he couldn’t tell what the fuck was happening over there. But he didn’t hear any screams of pain, so, probably alright enough he could focus on the giant spider monster trying to kill him.

Avery and the others ripped and tore into the creature with more ferocity than Jack could manage. Claws, ripping through exoskeleton, drawing splatters of more monster blood, until the whole place smelled of it. The spider turned and slashed at one of the werewolves, and they dashed out of the way before disappearing into the mist. Shadows enveloped them, and they ceased to exist, only to pounce from the mist on the spider’s other side, and get his mouth around one of the enormous spider legs. But the spider was too big, too strong, and a solid kick of the spindly leg sent the werewolf flying back into the mist.

It quickly got worse. As Jack looked for another opening to jump onto, or maybe get under the damn spider, or maybe get his sword back, the huge thing jumped. Apparently eight legs and monstrous strength allowed for some pretty big jumps, and the huge thing cleared twenty feet with half a dozen werewolves stuck on its body. It landed hard, nearly collapsing onto its side, but managing to stay standing, while three of the werewolves fell off.

As Carter got back up, a spider leg came down onto his chest, through him, and pinned him to the floor. Screams mixed with roars, but Jack couldn’t see the man now that he was below the mist. His clawed hands stuck up through the surface of the fog, and swiped at the spider leg several times, before falling back down below.

Avery roared. Not a normal roar, something that’d hurt the ears but otherwise do nothing. It was a blast wave. It erupted from her like an explosion, and everyone not currently attached to the monster with a clawed grip flew away, and they didn’t land nicely. Whatever it was Avery just did, it hit Jack hard enough he fell back and slid over maybe thirty feet of stone before stopping, and when he got back up, he was facing the wrong way.

He spun back around in time to see Avery’s claws erupt with flames, and sink into the spider’s large abdomen. The whole fight had been filled with screaming and shrieking monster sounds, and it only got worse as bits of the monster’s flesh caught fire. It wasn’t normal fire. It faded away quickly, thank god, but once Jack ran back in to join the fight, he could smell the burning hair of the spider’s body.

Those claws hurt. He knew.

Six werewolves took the opportunity to jump back up from the mist, and tear into the spider’s big fat abdomen where Avery had left a nasty gash. Blood rained, and Jack took a step back as the monster spun around at high speed, trying to dislodge the pack. They held on, sinking their claws in as deep as they could go, as if they were trying to burrow their way into the spider’s insides. It bucked and roared, and sliced at them as it turned the human half, but couldn’t get anything more than passing grazes on the wolves that cut but didn’t kill.

Jack wanted to help, but any time he got close, the spider spun around again and swiped hard. With his blood shield protecting him, he’d survive a hit, but all it’d accomplish would be getting sent flying again.

The spider finally stopped bucking and spinning long enough to turn its human half again, and raise both arms, ready to take a big swing down at one of the wolves with both hands. Before it tried, a blur of motion cut through the mist, and slammed into the side of the spider’s head. The spider’s swings went wild, twitching randomly and slashing at nothing and everything around it.

Damien hung from his sword, both hands holding the handle tight, the long blade skewering the monster through the temple, all the way through. He’d put a lot more power into his jump than Jack had. But the monster wasn’t dead. It swung its body in random directions, not swinging at anything in particular, but its death throes were still deadly as fuck, and Jack backed away again.

Okay, monster was dying, that was good. Carter was down and not getting up. Not good. He could still hear Clara and the others fighting ghosts off behind him. Not good. Help Carter, or help Clara and Sándor?

“Damien! Help them finish it off!” He spun around, and jogged toward Clara. The werewolves behind him continued to rip and tear into the spider monster, but it’d die eventually. It’d break apart into a bunch of smaller spiders, with the azlu’s spirit half hidden inside one of them. Maybe they could catch it? No, not a chance in the mist. They’d have to find it and kill it again later, but for now, he had to save as many people as he could. And he knew he’d never forgive himself if something happened to Clara. And he hated that he knew he still felt that way about her.