Chapter 169

~~Natasha~~

“Um, w-what do we do?”

The werewolves looked between each other, before settling on Arturo. With them all still in their Gauru forms, the physical differences between Matthew and Arturo were even more pronounced, with Matthew towering over Brianna and Arturo by a nearly a foot. But it was Arturo they looked to for a decision.

And then Arturo looked down at her.

“Run?”

Welp, looked like she’d be making the decision after all.

She groaned, rubbed her eyes with her palms, and ran over to Eric. He was still digging through the rubble, looking for Jessy. But considering there was a giant mountain of red blood on the other side of the biggest pile of rubble trying to kill them, and they all knew a red kraken lurked underneath, Jessy could wait.

“Eric, we have to go.”

“No. Jessy.”

“Eric! She’ll b-be fine! She’ll be safe, hidden!” God, please, let her be safe. “We have to go!”

Eric snapped his head and stared down at her, rage in his wolf eyes. For a second, she got ready to dodge a claw swipe that could probably cut her into ribbons, but none came. The werewolf took a few, deep breaths, fought for control, and won. Eventually he nodded, and gestured down the alley toward South Side, opposite the direction they’d originally been moving in.

“This way? Closest tear. Casino.”

Right, a tear, one that led out of the spirit world and into the ghost place. It was in the basement of one of the casinos here in the spirit world, but the spirits didn’t use it, as if they didn’t want to end up in the Great Below.

Tash didn’t want to go there, either. Damien and Jack told her plenty about the Great Below and how scary it’d been. The story about what Sabrina had done to those other ghosts also sealed the image of how deadly a place it was. But, it was less scary than dealing with Red Tide.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

God, if Jessy died because of this, she was going to kill herself. Or Michael would do it for her.

The four werewolves dashed down the alley, Tash following behind Eric, and Flow behind them. Red Tide chased after them with all the subtlety of a monsoon, and Tash squeaked as the earth trembled underneath her. This wasn’t like the time it’d followed them into a cathedral. This was like a scene from a movie, a giant river crashing through the streets and bulldozing over every car, pushing them over and dragging them along with the waves of red.

The only reason the red river didn’t reach them, was they stuck to the alley. They ran past building after building as they headed back toward South Side, and Red Tide destroyed every building on the way, one after the other. It was a constant earthquake, bricks and concrete and whatever else the old buildings were made of crashing into the water Flow left behind it. But most of the sound and vibration came from the much, much larger spirit, its own body burying the area in destruction.

Nearby spirits ran for their lives. Spirits of rats, crows, flying things that glowed and probably represented electricity or handheld devices, things on wheels or made of asphalt, snake-like things that belonged in casinos, everything panicked and ran or flew, as Tash and her friends left Devil’s Corner, and ran into South Side. There weren’t any cars, nothing that’d have been a very temporary thing in the physical world, but benches, lampposts, power lines that Dolareido still hadn’t bothered burying, all were there, twisted modern versions that were simultaneously slick, and warped to point toward the center of South Side, the economic center of Dolareido. All roads led to Rome, and they followed the path as the giant spirit followed after them.

“It’s destroying everything!” Tash said. “I thought they w-weren’t allowed to destroy the city!”

“It’s bound,” Flow yelled from behind, pouring over the street as it followed them, but keeping its human half formed and ahead of its watery body. “Black Blood is forcing it to take actions against its nature.”

“Twisted,” Matthew said. Even running at full speed, the huge werewolf managed to control his breath enough to speak. Easy for Flow and Tash, not so easy for the werewolves.

“Anyway we can use that against it?” she asked, weaving around a bench. “You were g-gonna use a ban against Street-Tail King, right!?”

“Street-Tail King was a weakling,” Flow said, voice even steadier than Tash’s. It didn’t feel fear. “Compared to Red Tide. Red Tide’s bans are likely connected to violence, and not something we could easily exploit. And we still don’t know its banes.”

Banes, right. Bans were rules spirits had to follow, defined by their nature. Banes were things that could hurt them. What could be used to hurt a giant incarnation of Dolareido’s bloody, violent side? Probably something like, the pistol of a kine who once worked for the mob, and then swore off violence when they met someone they wanted to marry, or have children with, or something else equally as dramatic and powerful. Which meant, Tash and her friends were fucked.

The alley shrank as the buildings grew taller and bigger. The deeper they got into South Side, the less room the structures provided, as everything was meant to direct pedestrian traffic into the buildings, the casinos, the bars, the clubs. Eventually they came to a solid wall, and had no choice but to steer toward the street, onto one of the wide sidewalks.

Now Red Tide was only fifty feet behind them, and the noise was overwhelming. Tash jumped over another bench and looked behind her, before snapping her head back and running faster. It was getting closer. Giant red tentacles stuck out of the pouring crimson waves, and smashed left and right against the buildings they ran past. Sign lights shattered, and huge glass windows, bigger and exaggerated versions of the ones in Dolareido, exploded into millions of pieces. The street was four lanes wide, the sidewalks massive so they could handle the busy city, and most of the buildings on the street had some distance between them and the sidewalk. Red Tide was large enough its flooding waves hit it all, while each tentacle smashed anything they could with reckless abandon.

A bit of its squid-like face poked up from the front wave, a wave of red water as high as a small building showing hints of the strange mouth and enormous teeth of the monster. Not good not good.

“There,” Brianna said, and she pointed to one of the casinos. “Can cross to other casino here.”

They all turned on a dime and ran through the front entrance spinning door.

Dolareido was a strange place in the spirit world. Tash knew that already, and had expected to see some weirdness in a place dedicated to pleasure and gambling.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sheer insanity of Devil’s Blood. She’d had peeks into some strange buildings in the spirit world before, but the Devil’s Blood casino was one of the larger, more important casinos in Dolareido. In retrospect, maybe its connection to the spirit world was why the owner changed the name, a century ago. There were lights everywhere, shining and powerful, burying areas in white and gold beams. The walls were lined with gold. The gambling machines and tables were made of gold. The chairs were made of gold. Cushions looked like they were made of expensive silk, the color of blood.

In the center of the gigantic room, was a fountain. Three gold statues of men held up a massive gold bowl over their heads, and red water flowed down over their perfect bodies, while three women statues on their knees gave the men some very deep blowjobs. The blood, or red water hopefully, continued down the men’s bodies onto the women, over their hair, and down into another giant bowl filled with red where the ladies knelt. That was not the version of the fountain in the physical world.

It was such an extreme display, Tash paused to stare at it. But the sound of street and metal tearing apart behind her sparked her awake, and she ran up to the ticket booth. Gold bars blocked the way into the casino.

“Let us through!”

The spirit in the booth was, predictably, also made of gold. It was humanoid, androgynous, and wearing necklaces, bracelets, and all sorts of body jewelry also made of gold. A flat face, lacking defining features except for a very scary mouth full of teeth. And for some reason, a red see-through sun visor, the sort a ... a ... horse gambler might wear at the racetrack? Dolareido had no racetrack! But, it did succinctly paint the image of something that embodied gambling.

“Sorry, need a ticket,” it said, voice monotone and almost robotic.

“We d-d-don’t have a ticket! We—” She jumped aside as Matthew tore ahead, and ripped through the bars, metal breaking away to his claws with loud snaps. Gold wasn’t a durable metal, but you didn’t go tearing through it like paper either, especially not in the spirit world where it was probably a very durable metaphor, literally.

“S-Sorry!” She managed a small wave for the spirit, who’d gotten up and was baring its sharp teeth as it pointed at them.

“Hey, stop! The owner’s going to—”

Its voice disappeared under the rumbling bass. Tash took a quick peek back again, and almost froze as Red Tide crashed against the entrance of the building. Unlike the buildings of Devil’s Corner, Devil’s Blood was a modern casino that swam in money and was one of the primary income sources for the whole city. It was sturdy down to the foundation. It held, barely. Red Tide let out a roar that vibrated in Tash’s teeth as it bashed against the walls of the casino, its blood body unable to pass through the spiraling doors.

Flow managed. Its angel-like body came through the doors first, only for Red Tide’s colossal waves of red to smash against it and drive its clear body through the entrance. Flow let out a grunt of pain, or whatever it was spirit’s felt, but it recovered quickly, and followed the rest of them through the hole Matthew carved.

The casino was full of spirits, speaking in that werewolf language Tash didn’t know, chatting away like nothing was happening. A few of them looked closer to fairies than anything, wings glittering with gold dust, bodies humanoid but featureless, and glowing every color of the rainbow as they flitted between machines. A couple looked like giant piles of slime, with green tentacles and several fleshy eyes floating inside the semi-clear bodies. They were beyond gross, and left a trail behind them as they moved between the machines. The sex spirits were obvious, because they did look kind of human, or human genies, though the ones here looked like they were made of crystal.

So many spirits, Tash found herself trying to identify what sort of motivations, emotions, and elements of existence might make them. Greed, gluttony, sex, infatuation, addiction, sex, so many things, so many spirits coming here to indulge in ... in what? Essence, bleeding over from the physical world? That’s what the Uratha said. And when the Gauntlet grew thin in areas, usually in areas highly populated by humans, essence bled over in abundance. Spirits hung around in droves, and sometimes managed to slip into the other side, hide in Twilight, or possess people, anything to keep eating the essence, and spread their influence.

Dolareido was the sort of city to really test the limits of the Gauntlet, then. Sin and indulgence and passion, and even history, big moments of history that sculpted the lives of millions of people, it had it all. No wonder Black Blood was here.

“Any r-rules the Casino will use to stop Red Tide?” Tash asked as she jogged after the werewolves.

“Not for forever,” Flow said, following in behind her. “The Casino serves the blood money. Red Tide is part of that blood flow in Dolareido. It has power here.”

“Then why isn’t it—” She squeaked when another earthquake ripped through the place. Red Tide broke through the front wall of the casino, the whole wall, concrete and metal and gold and spiraling doors and everything. A flood of red water poured into the building, and buried the machines and tables in waves.

“It’s supposed to ... deal with red tape, first,” Flow said. “It shouldn’t be able to break into this casino without permission.”

“Black Blood?”

“Yes. Black Blood controls much of the city. It’s probably given Red Tide leeway it shouldn’t have.”

The spirits in the casino went nuts. Whatever they were saying, it turned into shrieks and yells, and they scattered like cockroaches. A few of them literally looked like cockroaches. All of them dashed into whatever hole they could find, back doors, under counters, up to the gold, rounded ceiling to find crevices along the walls, anywhere they could go to get out of the path of the werewolves, Tash, and Flow. But when Red Tide forced its way into the casino, the spirits redoubled their panic, and ran in random directions, colliding with each other and gambling machines alike.

Most of them disappeared under the flood of blood. Where the blood of the fountain ended, and Red Tide began, Tash couldn’t tell, but it quickly didn’t matter as the giant spirit overtook the entire first floor of the casino with all the subtlety of a Hollywood apocalypse.

Tash and the others jumped, and grabbed onto the railings of the floor overhead. There was a second floor, and third and fourth, the upper floors circling the main floor so the center was open for the big fountain and the hanging pretty lights. It was all very expensive looking, very Dolareido. And it was a godsend as it allowed Tash and the others to scale the outside railing of each floor until they’d thrown themselves up to the fourth floor. Even Flow managed to climb, turning into a spiraling mini tornado of water that jumped from floor to floor.

The group stared down at the red insanity below, until Red Tide revealed some of its squid-like body through the red liquid, the giant tendrils, and a massive mouth so scary it’d make a lamprey envious.

“W-What now?” Tash asked.

Arturo looked up and around as he sniffed the air. “No exit up here.”

“Not a real casino,” Eric said. “No fire escape.” Tash didn’t bother adding how it was a perfect metaphor for gambling addiction.

Brianna let out a rumble from her furry throat as she glared over the railing, down at Red Tide. “The tear is in other casino.” She made a vague gesture to one of the walls. A solid wall of gold that looked very, very thick. “That way.”

Well, shit.

~~The Ripper~~

He expected Noah to turn and try to help Clara. And it was obvious the guy wanted to do exactly that. But Noah was a smart man, the critical thinker type, really fucking annoying. He pointed the flamethrower straight at the Ripper, and let loose. Well, so much for taking advantage of their desire to not kill Jack. The others, sure, they might, but this asshole? Not so much.

The Ripper ducked into the mist and dashed to the side. Vitae pumped through his limbs, and with the power of the curse, he easily created more. Mountains of it, until he felt ready to burst. Sure, he was no pussy Mekhet or dumbass pretty Daeva, they were always speedy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pump fuel into Celerity until he was damn fast. Dodging the flames was easy enough.

He was stronger now. So much stronger.

Sándor, bless his stupid dumbass heart, was with Clara a second later, and already throwing David away. Blood went with the huge werewolf as he flew through the air, but it wasn’t his. It all came from his claws and his mouth. Maybe Clara was dead already? He honestly would have preferred to kill her himself directly, and indulge in torturing her, and Jack, but alas, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

For now, the asshole with the fire.

The Ripper dashed in, but he knew what would happen. No matter how fast he was, all Noah had to do was turn. And sure enough once the Ripper closed the distance to almost nothing, Noah got the nozzle pointed at him once again, and fired.

The Ripper engulfed his body in Kindred blood, the power of the Juggernaut’s Gait overflowing and empowering him. As liquid flame smashed against the blood shield, it instantly burned the shield away, and the Ripper screamed as the fire reached skin. But it lasted only a moment before the Ripper pushed through it and crashed into Noah.

They both came tumbling down, but the Ripper jumped back up, grabbed the damn gun by the front nozzle, put a foot against the man’s chest, and yanked it off him, hard. Noah let out a groan as something dislodged in his shoulder, and the straps holding the tank to his back tore free. The Ripper threw the stupid contraption aside before he leaned down, and punched the fucker straight in the throat. He didn’t have time to put a lot of strength into it, not with Sándor standing up just twenty feet away, but it was enough that the asshole’s throat made a very satisfying crunch, and half collapsed to Jack’s fist.

Noah fell back, gasping and clutching his fucked up neck, and disappeared under the mist. Lots of choking noises followed, along with some gargling. Beautiful.

“Finally.” Sighing, the Ripper looked at his body.

The suit was partly ruined, with bits of cinders dying away as they tried and failed to burn the clothes. Flame retardant. His blood pulsed around him, but it struggled with the parts of him that were burned. And there were a lot of parts. Animal snarls bubbled in his throat as he looked at his forearms, and how much of the muscle had burned away. He could see his tendons when he flexed his fingers.

He concentrated, and pulled up more of his vitae. The curse turned the smallest drop of human blood into a reservoir of energy, and he used it to tell his flesh to recover. It didn’t, at least, not as quickly as it normally could. As much as he knew he was borderline invincible with the power of the Strix at his command, borderline was a nasty contract with deadly caveats. Fire, sunlight, werewolf claws, and apparently ghost knives, would be a problem.

Whatever. If he had to walk around as nothing more than a skeleton with tendons and pulsing, snake-like tendrils of Kindred blood, than he would. For now, he was mostly intact.

Sándor popped up out of the mist, body drenched in blood, Clara’s blood, and a hint of a frown on his lips.

“Ah, Sándor. She alive?”

He said nothing.

“Christ, you’re worse than the sheriff. No banter at all.”

Still nothing.

“Guess I’ll talk for the both of us, then.” The Ripper licked his lips as he walked closer, and tore off the remains of his burnt suit jacket. “Imagine my surprise when that fucking ghost went for the necklace, all at Black Blood’s order. He knew once it was off, it’d only be a matter of time before I came out, and fucked you all up. Maybe I’ll thank him, after I stop Jacob.”

“You want to stop Jacob?”

“Uh, yeah?” And an inkling of an idea of how to do that, was startling to formulate. “I mean, it’s not hard to understand why Jacob’s doing this. Love of his life spends decades researching how to remove the barrier between worlds, then dies. The old fuck naturally becomes obsessed with her research, and in his manic depression, sees an option. Take her idea to the next level, and fucking change everything. No more death, no more life. Turn everything into a big soup of existence.” The Ripper shook his head and shrugged. “Can’t say I blame him for coming to that conclusion. But, fuck that, I happen to like life and death, pleasure and pain, up and down, left and right.”

“I doubt Black Blood would go along with Jacob’s plan without his own motivations.”

“True. I’m sure the fucker’s up to something. Whatever. I’ve faced him once, I’ll do it again.”

Sándor actually looked surprised at that. Barely. Just another idiot that didn’t understand who the Ripper was, and what he could do.

“Now,” the Ripper said, “time for a rematch.”

“We’ve never fought.”

“Technically correct. The best kind of correct.” The Ripper came closer, flexing his fingers into fists, and wearing his favorite evil grin.

And the best, most awesome thing ever happened. Sándor took a step back. Either the man was trying to trick him, or Sándor really was weaker when not in his lair. Which meant the Ripper had free rein to beat the ever living shit out of this fucker, and—

A blur came at him, from the side, but the Ripper was waiting for him. He turned just in time, brushed the sword aside with the back of his left hand, and drove his right fist into Damien’s face as the stupid Mekhet’s momentum carried him forward. He couldn’t have landed the punch better if Damien had stood still and asked him to hit him, and the dude’s face collapsed inward like a watermelon to a sledgehammer. His fellow vampire, clotheslined by the punch, flipped once before smashing his knees and skull into the stone, and skidded for a while before rolling like a broken dog toy. Still alive though, damn.

The chink chink ding of the sword disappearing in the fog, matched the following silence fucking perfectly.

“Fool me once, and all that shit.” The Ripper licked a fang as he took another step toward Sándor. The werewolves that’d fought the azlu were coming, but judging from the speed, they were exhausted, battered, and a few of them looked a little more than broken. And only five came. Either the Carter fucker was dead, or too hurt to move.

“Jack,” Sándor said, “you must—”

“Oh this oughta be good. You wanna give a speech? Try and call the kid out? I’ve locked him up six feet under cement, in a coffin wrapped in chains. Insert metaphor about the chains here. Like, maybe, chains about guilt or misery or something, whatever.”

The Begotten frowned slightly yet again as he took another step back. No response, though. Damn. He really was no fun.

“I don’t know why Beatrice likes you.”

Finally, something he said earned a proper reaction from the gargoyle. He blinked.

“She—”

“She likes you, dude. I guess it’s the whole stoic, mysterious, dangerous guy shtick. I guess maybe it’s because you’re one of the few dudes around who’s genuinely nice, like that idiot Julias was. Of course, like Julias, you’ve got a dark side, right? I bet that hits a deep itch inside her she wants to get scratched. Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if she — and her slut girlfriend — fantasized about getting railed by a giant, twelve-foot gargoyle. And then, because Beatrice really is nothing more than a stupid young girl who wants to be a princess, she’d shift into Belle mode and try and care for you, tend to your wounds, pet your head, teach you how to fucking waltz.” He gagged. “Which is probably exactly what a pathetic worm like you needs in his life. Ah well, too late. Now you die, and I’ll make sure to show her your head before I rip her in half, and have some fun with her useless girlfriend. Maybe—”

Sándor spread his wings. Apparently if you managed to get the dude angry, he grew wings, big shadowy wings, four of them. They didn’t have the texture the Ripper had seen when he’d fought the Horror, way back when. Whatever Begotten did to summon the power of their Horror when in non-dream places, it made them come through as shadowy silhouettes, temporary. And yet, the wings stuck around. The four wings flapped in slow, heavy motions, creating winds casually, like they were accidental. The mist spread out, revealing a lot of the floor between Sándor and the Ripper, and the Begotten stepped into the open space.

“You are chaos incarnate.”

“Nah, just a guy who knows what he likes.”

“You are no man.”

The Ripper rolled his eyes. Ugh, semantics.

“Alright, let’s go, tough guy.”

“Last chance, creature. If I have to kill you to save everyone, then I will.”

It was like trying to banter with a cliche paladin from some shit fantasy story, pointless and futile. So, the Ripper did the only reasonable thing possible. He punched each of his palms, and ran at Sándor.

For now, a fight. And then, control.

Sándor pulled back one of his own arms, and threw a punch at the Ripper, from about five feet too far. It was the warning sign the Ripper needed to know a shadowy arm was about to form out of nothing and come straight for him, and he dodged to the side at the last second. The asshole shouldn’t have been allowed to be so fast with such a huge extra body, but he was.

“Dude,” the Ripper said, getting up and dusting off his already ruined white shirt before gesturing to the huge shadowy creature overlaying Sándor. “Is this a JoJo reference?” No response, not even a grin. “Christ you suck at this.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“It’s all a joke! Every fucking minute of all this is a joke!” Laughing until his guts hurt, he closed the distance with the bastard, and readied for a fight.

But of course, that was when the other werewolves finally arrived, healed enough they could run. Still only five of them, Monica, Avery, Erica, Mason, and Caleb. No Carter. What a shame.

Avery jumped for him first, but the Ripper sidestepped easily. He was faster than last time they’d fought. And stronger.

“Too slow!” As she turned to face him, he slipped in close and uppercut. “Shoryuken!” Fist, against werewolf flesh, nice and solid, and infinitely more satisfying to hit than the weird ghost shit. Avery flew back with the impact, and landed thirty feet away with a nice, satisfying thud. Damn werewolf bodies were fucking tough. He’d been hoping to put a hole in her guts.

The other werewolves came in without hesitation, full on sprints meant to tackle something much larger and heavier, and slower than the Ripper. They were desperate, and exhausted. Perfect.

One of the werewolves went to the side before turning hard and diving at him, while another werewolf jumped for him straight on. Hard to dodge two angles at once, so he jumped into the werewolf that went for the side pounce instead. But he wasn’t so stupid to try and tackle them head on, so he slipped under them, and let them land on him instead. One solid punch to the chest sent the dumbass dog flying, complete with the crunching bones of a ruined sternum.

The other werewolf came in low and tried to bite him. The Ripper kicked them in the face hard enough they yelped and backed off, giving him the time to get back up, only for another werewolf to grab him from behind, huge hands wrapping his biceps. And of course, another werewolf came for his exposed chest.

He leaned forward, brought his feet up behind him, and drove them both into the guts of the werewolf holding him. The stupid mutt let go as they fell back, yelping from having their guts caved in. To top it all off, the Ripper managed to land on his feet, like a mother fucking acrobat. All those backflips and squats he’d been doing in Jack’s mind over the months, paying off.

“You fuckers don’t understand,” the Ripper said, licking his teeth as he marched toward the werewolf that had planned to get him while he was held. “I don’t have my army. That’s a shame. But that means I get to put every single drop of vitae I have into—” He snapped forward, fast, spread his legs wide while facing to the side, and smashed his fist into the unprepared werewolf. A big, wide stance for a stable punch, rooted to the ground. The punch couldn’t reach very high, and the stupid wolf was too damn tall, so he punched the fucker in the knee. It went crack, and the werewolf fell over with a roar. “Into my body. Admittedly, it’s not as epic as I’d have liked. There’s something magical about a swarm of rats eating someone alive, you know? But hey, if I have to rip every one of you in half with my bare hands, that’ll do.”

The remaining werewolves stepped back, and looked between each other as they spread out. They knew they couldn’t take him in a direct fight.

“Jack,” one of them said, gray fur, and older looking than her pack. Much as she tried to hide it, she was hurting, and not just from what the Ripper had done to her.

“Don’t insult me, Avery.”

She snarled and bared her teeth. “Ripper. Stop. No time.”

“I’ll deal with Jacob and his pet buddy soon enough. But you and your pack? I’m going to kill every last one of you.”

“Stupid. Jacob will ruin everything. You need our help.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help.” Well, except maybe Sándor’s. He laughed and shrugged. “Y’all are so convinced he can really pull this off, but no one else ever has.”

“Father Wolf—”

“Oh fucking god, you actually think I give two shits about your fucking religion. That’s cute. Listen, the only fucking religion that matters, is—” He dashed forward hard, fast enough Avery could only half respond and try and dodge. But he’d planned to do something he’d never done before anyway, something she wouldn’t predict. He side kicked, full Mortal Kombat side kick straight into her big fucking ass. Okay, not actually the ass, but his kick hit her in the side below the hip, and she yelped as she fell down from the impact, rolling a good thirty feet.

He bounced off her from the kick, and landed with a stomp, before he turned around and faced the rest of the werewolves still standing. And as he did, Sándor marched toward him, hands bloody, eyes glaring, shadowy wings still out. He looked angry.

“You never did tell me if she was alive,” The Ripper said. “Clara, I mean.”