Chapter 49

~~Beatrice~~

Nearing Azamel’s hole in the ground, back in a place she very much didn’t want to be. But this was how the magic happened, throwing yourself into the deep end and seeing if you could swim. She had Jacob with her, so at least he’d help her out if she started drowning. Hopefully. Maybe.

Azamel’s place was still maybe a quarter mile ahead, and each step down the abandoned tunnel sent larger and larger chills up Triss’s spine. She could feel it, her, the old woman, feel the oppression the monster radiated, like something thick in the air. Felt like trying to swim through some sort of sludge, something that made you not want to be there.

And it wasn’t like that the first time she’d come here. It was there, but it wasn’t like this, not like this.

It wasn’t just a feeling either. The tunnel was flickering, fading in and out, and the moving shadows weren’t rare anymore. They were everywhere. And to make it even creepier, they weren’t always black. Sometimes, bits of purple or red sneaked into the waves of shadow, and sometimes bits of gold.

It only got worse the closer they got to Azamel’s place. Sometimes the tunnel faded out, pitch blackness swallowing them, only for a brief flash of something to appear. White pillars with golden platforms circling their contours every twenty feet or so, with small lighthouse-like shapes on the top, and red drapes with gold embroidery hanging from them. And then they were gone, and the two vampires were again walking in a long, boring, abandoned subway tunnel.

Then again it flashed, back in a dream, back in some sort of madness of long stretches of green grass, trimmed, tall, weird bushes, and a river that flowed. Again, gone, replaced with dirty train tracks, concave walls of concrete brick, and the old, dusty floor around them.

Again, more flashes, except now puddles of blood lined white stone floor. Guillotines beneath a red sky, a dozen of them, each with a fresh body to bleed red into the puddles. The pools of red connected into a small, carved ravine in the white floor, and followed its twisting snake-like shape into the river, where the blood flowed away. Then they were back to the tunnel, and its curve at the end where it opened up into Azamel’s home.

A big, empty room of concrete, with a stage a foot or two high off the floor. Here, Azamel had set up Grandma’s place, rocking chair and shitty furniture included.

But it wasn’t Grandma’s place. Holy fucking shit. Beatrice gasped and stepped back as she looked up, gulping down nothing and eyes widening until her new eye started to hurt. A blood moon, literally. A giant red moon far far far too close to the planet, so big it filled half the sky. It bled red, thick, a liquid that fell upon the palace that stood before her, some sort of palace made of white stone, smooth, carved, ornate, with tall pillars surrounding it, and multiples domes on its roof topped with gold spears.

Guillotines were spread around the palace courtyard, and they bled into the twisting, turning man-made stream of red that leaked out into the river beside the palace. More than just guillotines added to the death show, but spears with corpses mounted on them, skin flayed or backs split open from what had to be a hundred strikes from a whip. And then gone again, back to the concrete, the shitty old lights that were somehow still working, and the god awful lamp plugged into an extension cord on granny’s stage.

Her, sitting in her chair, rocking back and forth and smoking a cigarette, an old book in hand. Triss tried to hide her trembling.

“What are you doing here, old man?” she said.

Jacob laughed, predictably. “Pot calling kettle.”

“And you have an eye. You looked better with the bandage.”

“Yeah well, I couldn’t see you all too well without the eye.”

“See me?” Azamel coughed, coughed, and coughed a few more times until Triss was sure she’d cough up a lung. But it passed, and she tapped her slippers on the stage floor twice as she took another drag of her cig. “I had always assumed you could see without eyes.”

“I can, but now, I can see you.”

“You ... can see me?” She leaned forward, set an elbow against the chair arm, and her chin in the palm, cigarette between her fingers. Her eyes, old, worn, stared into Jacob with a piercing gaze Triss didn’t expect from an old woman.

And then the world changed around her again. The guillotines, the spears, and other devices of torture were set about, some with people still in them. Screams filled the air, and Beatrice raised her hands to cover her ears to block them out. But they were constant, rising and falling in volume like waves in a sea of torture. The palace was closer now, and the blood that poured from the moon above dripped down its shiny white walls like slime.

But now there was something in front of the palace, and Triss backed away again until she felt her butt hit the concrete behind her. An elephant? No, some sort of person with an elephant head, but from head to toe they had the skin of an elephant. Four arms, human, but each hand held a chain, and from each chain dangled something Triss did not want to see. A corpse from one. A giant net filled with fresh skulls in the other. And finally, a sword in both of the remaining hands, scimitars. They were coated in blood, and dripped of it, unending, as if they themselves were bleeding.

The size was impossible. No way, there was no fucking way something this big was real, no way it could have existed. It towered over them, fifty feet tall sitting down, with legs folded in front of it crossed at the ankle, knees apart.

She recognized that figure. She knew absolutely shit all about religions or Hinduism, but she recognized an iconic figure when she saw one, looming over her like a god ready to squash a buzzing insect.

The image faded away, replaced with the sobering world of concrete and tunnels, electricity and shitty green chair that should have been burned for its crime against eyes everywhere.

“ ... you can see me.” Azamel blew smoke toward them, but it dispersed long before reaching them. “No, silly girl, I am not who you think I am.” Another deep drag of her cig, and she shrugged as she leaned back in her shitty, creaking recliner. “I’m not even from the East.”

“I ... I ... uh ... I—”

“And I do not appreciate prying eyes!” She slammed one of her slippers down. Not a slipper, not a fucking slipper at all. As the images of the two realities overlapped, the giant elephant thing raised a leg, and slammed it against the white, bloodied stone that it sat upon.

And the world began to quake. The rivers of blood began to boil, rippling with the vibrating world, and the blood moon cried out its agony, a deep bellowing sound like a great whale speared through its side. The corpses began to moan, the heads that sat about their prostrated or pinned bodies crying out to the sky. Blood leaked from their nostrils, ears, their mouths, and their eyes. It flowed into the twisting blood river, and the edges of the small stream splashed up, over, and onto the white that surrounded Triss.

Back to the real world, back to old granny sitting in her chair, glaring at the two vampires who had the audacity to enter her shitty home.

Oh good fucking god they were going to die.

“A big girl, aren’t you?” Jacob said.

Triss grabbed him by the arm and started to shake the damn bastard. “I’m sorry, did you not see the giant monster woman. Did you not see the fucking corpses? Don’t piss off the giant monster woman!” she said, listening in close to whisper.

Jacob snickered, and kept his eye on the granny in the chair. “So you old bat, I have some questions for you.”

She snorted, and flicked the cigarette his way. He dodged. Even a lit cigarette could be nasty painful to a vampire.

“You bring your blood magic to my home so you can pry into my world, sneak a peek at my true self, and now you have questions for me? The nerve.”

“That I do. Turns out you’ve been busy in the time you were gone. I’d heard you’d destroyed villages before your first arrival in the city, but even after you left Dolareido, you destroyed some towns. Why oh why would a nice old lady like you do such a thing.”

Poking the bear with a hot iron poker. Dead. Yeap, they were dead.

“I pursue my inheritance.”

“So I heard, but you’ll have to forgive me. I’ve no idea what that means.”

“ ... and how did you hear that this was my goal?”

Jacob shrugged, laughed, and did a small spin in place. “My secret.”

The old woman snarled, and reached into her god awful sweater vest to pull out a pack of cigarettes. Trembling hands struggled to retrieve another cancer stick, and she growled down at the package as it fought against her. But with time, one succumbed to her assault, and she set it on her lips and lit it like it was the most natural thing to her, like someone putting on their glasses that they’d been wearing for a hundred years.

It was probably Black Blood that told Jacob about this, but then how did that freak show know? And what the fuck was inheritance, if even Jacob and Black Blood didn’t know what it meant?

“Mark. Get rid of these two.”

Triss almost squeaked as a man stepped out from behind a four panel room divider on the stage, some shoddy piece of hazel crap that she could probably buy at a flea market for a dollar. The man looked entirely forgettable, dark skin, a bit overweight, clean shaven with short, curly hair. Some jeans and a worn out gray shirt covered what she guessed was a fair amount of muscle to go with that fair amount of fat.

How had she not sensed him? Jacob didn’t look surprised, but she was, and she snarled as the unknown man started to walk toward them.

“I’m not leaving,” Jacob said. “Jack’s disappeared.”

“ ... has he?” Azamel said.

“As if you didn’t know.”

“Perhaps I didn’t?”

“Well, you know now. And I bet you know what’s happened to him.”

Azamel raised a hand, and blocked Mark’s forward march. “What does a witch care for the Invictus boy?”

Jacob shrugged. “Kid’s great, isn’t he? Has this nasty habit of getting to the truth of things, and opening his mouth about it when he should probably just keep his lips sealed.” Old Joker started to pace, and put his hands against the small of his back as he walked around. Fucking Sherlock Homes being a jackass. “Avery asked for his help in being an intermediary with her and the Kindred here. Makes perfect sense, given this is a vampire’s city, and the werewolves are just guests. Given your recent strifes with the Invictus, Athalia’s talk with Jack at the ball was probably you asking him to be the same thing, wasn’t it?”

Well. Damn, she should have realized that. Or maybe she shouldn’t have, cause Azamel’s frown was only growing, and she lowered her hand once more.

Mark jumped down from the stage, and walked toward Jacob. The flickering realities struck Beatrice once again, and she sneered at the sight of Mark, at the weird, worm-like entities crawling on the man’s skin. Big, slimy, gross worm things, all over him.

Not all over him. Him. They were him. The worms worked into his flesh, and out again, out through his nostrils and where eyeballs should have been, then back into his ears. One worked up the jaw, the exposed bone letting it wriggle up into the man’s skull, and then down into his rib cage. A skeleton, but not. A cloak of something like dark, leathery, wet skin was draped over his shoulders, but the chest was undone, and the skeleton inside was visible as Triss’s eye exposed the hidden nightmare’s form.

She could smell rotting flesh. Jacob’s eye was doing a lot more than letting her see the nightmares these monsters brought with them. It was letting her experience them.

“You don’t want none of this, Mark.” Jacob raised a hand, index finger pointed down, and twirled it around. “Just turn around and walk away before I put you in the ground.”

Mark sneered, raised his hands, and cracked his knuckles. Not a word from him though, the silent lackey type. If he’d been wearing some brass knuckles, it would have fit the motif perfectly. But not the rotting motif, the corpse walking around motif, the disgusting stench and stomach-turning display motif. As he came closer, Triss took another step back, hand raised to cover her nose.

“Hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” And out came Jacob’s fist. At first Triss thought her boss might give the Begotten a warning punch, something to let him know the man meant business. Surely something to let the idiot know what it meant to fuck with an elder Kindred, especially one as old at Jacob.

But, no, Jacob didn’t do things the way you’d expect. He gave Mark a proper punch, the sort of punch he used on Antoinette, the sort of punch that destroyed jaws to the point they ripped off the face. This Mark fellow was going to die.

Mark fell apart. His body shattered around Jacob’s fist, but didn’t get sent flying backward. Instead, he fell to the ground, and him, his clothes, everything just fell away into a giant pile of really big worms. Like, foot long worms, an inch thick and shiny with their slimy, wriggling bodies. And not in the weird nightmare world either that Beatrice could see, or at least not only there. It was in both worlds, a big mess of gross.

“Couldn’t hold together, heh.” Jacob marched over to the pile of worms, and glared down at its writhing mass. “You’re not the first Begotten to try this trick.”

“Oh?” Azamel said. “I think you underestimate my companion.”

Jacob shrugged, and dusted off his shoulder. “We don’t have to fight. I came here for information, about you, and Jack. Just tell me—”

The old man jumped back, and frowned at the mess of worms. It was rebuilding itself, but coming for Jacob at the same time, spreading out over the floor. One-eye snorted and kicked at the pile, and a dozen of the giant slimy bodies splattered, guts and such landing around the concrete beneath them. But, the guts, the gooey skin, the slime, they started to pool back together, until the worms were whole once again.

“Ooh, impressive,” her boss said.

Yeah, she was going to stay out of this and just watch for a little bit. Cause, gross.

There were more worms though. Triss raised a brow as she looked around, and grit her teeth as the flickering realities fought to break her mind. A trail of worms, of big, fat, juicy worms were mixed into the nightmare world. She didn’t understand it, didn’t get it, but was pretty sure she wasn’t in the nightmare so it wasn’t like she had to worry about all the crazy shit she was getting glimpses of. They weren’t in the nightmare, right? Fiona said you had to go into it, that you couldn’t be in both at the same time. But, also, the beast and horror kind of were? Didn’t make any fucking sense.

But that’s what the eyes were for, to try and figure out how these Begotten things worked. And so far they worked really fucking scary like. She took another step back as more worms started to appear, and more, and more, until she could feel them pressing up against the toes of her boots and she had to jump back again to get away from them.

Jacob felt no such compulsion. He folded his arms across his chest, and watched the sea of worms begin to grow around them. Deeper, more of them, until it was up over the ankles.

Time to nope the fuck out. Triss jumped, a good twenty feet through the air, to land on Azamel’s stage. “Yeah, uh ... I’m just gonna watch if that’s ok with you.”

The old monster shrugged, and kept her eyes on the sea of gross surrounding her home. It was getting darker too, and Triss had to cover her new eye with a hand to make sure it was something actually happening, not more fake nightmare shit. It was real.

Mark’s hand shot out of pile of worms, near Jacob’s leg, and grabbed his ankle.

“The fu—” The old man went down, yanked and yanked hard. The teeming pile of worms was a foot deep, and it surrounded Jacob for thirty feet on all sides of him. More than enough space for Mark to hide and strike out. When he did, Triss covered her normal eye, and watched a skeleton draped in a cloak of old flesh strike out from the foul mound, bony fingers clutching the Nosferatu’s leg and yanking on him to the side.

Like watching a shark thrash around, some helpless seal in its mouth getting torn to bits. Jacob didn’t tear, but the comparison was apt. Mark’s hand moved left and right through the ocean of worms, his form hidden underneath the surface, and Jacob’s body was dragged along at speeds fast enough to break bone. Left, right, each thrash crashing Jacob’s limbs against the worms, whiplash causing the sorts of sounds that made Triss wince and groan. Dislocating limbs.

Jacob reached down, wrapped his fingers around the hand, and returned the unwanted yank. Up came Mark, out of the mountain of death, and out into the open. Dislocated limbs or not, Jacob stared at the man, growled at him, raised him up by the collar of his shirt, and shook him.

“You’re annoying me, pest. You think you know nightmares? Think you understand nightmares? You’re just a fucking child, someone given a gift, and you didn’t earn it.” Jacob threw the man down into the worms, and glared at him as Jacob’s limbs, his knees, his elbows, all snapped back into their proper orientations, each with a crunch. “Want a nightmare? Here’s a fucking nightmare.”

Mark was unfazed by all of this. Didn’t say a word, didn’t grumble or groan, and his facial expressions seemed just as bored, as if none of this was a threat. If Jacob took another swing at him, Triss figured he’d just melt apart into more worms.

But then he started to grumble. Squirm, groan, and then the Begotten raised his hands to cover his eyes. His voice started to come out, a normal, a perfectly normal sounding voice, except it was getting louder, more pained, filled with rasped screams, until the screams were ringing off the walls.

The worms vanished, faded away, some melting into goo that dispersed into nothing, and others vanishing like dust in the wind. The poor man fell forward onto his elbows and knees, clutching his face, screaming into his palms as he was trapped between a sob and a death cry.

Jacob stood beside him, grinned down at him, and let out a long, warm sigh, the sort of sigh Triss made after she’d had great sex with Julias. Fucker was happy with himself, for what he just did, for forcing a nightmare on a nightmare. He was a Nosferatu, it was in their blood to make people fear, fear on a level they wouldn’t understand until the deformed vampire burrowed into their brain, ripped open a hole, and dropped in a nightmare that could literally drive kine to commit suicide to escape it.

It was horrible. It was truly, utterly fucking horrible, and Triss hated doing it. She rarely did, and only to people who deserved it. A nasty kine who needed to die, or that Joe fuckwad. But Jacob took things to a new level.

The skeleton, the man, fell forward, and screamed into the floor.

“You really think I came here for a brawl with your buddy here, Azamel?” One-eye shrugged, and started to pace again. Chin in hand, he used his other to wag a finger around, Joker smile growing bigger.

“No ... I suppose not. Release Mark.”

“In a bit. Gotta let the bastard soak in the juices a minute, you know?”

Fucker thought he was on a cooking show. Beatrice winced again, and again, as Mark cried into the floor, screamed bloody murder, and fell onto his side. Poor guy curled up into the fetal position, and screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

“Dude, please,” Triss said. “Pretty sure point’s made.”

Jacob stopped pacing, raised the brow of his new eye as he looked at her, and shrugged. A snap of the fingers later, and the screaming stopped.

Mark sat up with a jolt, and turned over to look at Jacob. He was sweating, his eyes were wide, and his body was trembling. Triss covered her normal eye to get a glimpse of the other side, to see the nightmare inside this disgusting thing, to see what sort of shit Jacob’s nightmare discipline had done to the wretched soul. The skeleton thing was trembling as well, to the point its bones rattled, and worms and insects fell from it and the skin cloak it wore, onto the bloodied white floor of the palace courtyard.

Beatrice had gotten the impression Begotten and Werewolves considered themselves stronger than vampires. And it was true for the most part. Elders were the exception to that rule.

Triss could tell she wouldn’t be able to handle Mark in a fight, not easily. She was a young vampire, and that was to be expected, especially when up against major freak shows like these Begotten. But Jacob was a different story, a whole different story. So damn easy to forget when he started acting like a juvenile jackass, that Jacob was fucking ancient, and for a vamp, that meant fucking strong.

She had to raise a clawed hand to her face to hide how a grin was coming through. Proud, maybe, that her boss was that much of a fucking powerhouse? Yeah, she could be a little proud of that.

The man wasn’t screaming anymore at least, but his eyes refused to blink, locked onto Jacob. No one said anything, moved, did anything, and soon Triss could hear the panicked man’s heart beating up a storm in the silence. Fucker was still terrified, despite Jacob having released him.

Triss hopped down onto the floor, and stood beside her boss. Still moans and groans happening behind them as Mark continued to back away, sliding his ass on the floor until his back was against the concrete bricks.

Jacob winked at her. With the eye. Fucking gross.

“I think I may have overestimated Mark’s abilities,” Granny said.

“Underestimated mine, more like it.” One-eye shrugged and resumed his pacing. A fedora or deerstalker hat with a pipe between his lips would have been a good fit. “I’ve been here, in this place, since you were just an idiot child, Azamel. Antoinette and I let you stay because you are more trouble than you’re worth to expel, not because we can’t. Don’t forget that.”

She snorted, blew some smoke his way, and leaned back to begin gently rocking her chair. “So what do you want to know?”

“I want to know who you’re running from.”

The old woman snorted again, and slammed her foot. And again, the flickering images of the great beast she was, and the temple of blood she guarded awoke before Triss. Again, the room shook, and the alien monster trumpeted its annoyance. An elephant’s trumpet noise, but thunderous, booming and layered with growling roars.

“I run from no one. I am the conqueror, idiot vampire. I am—”

“On the run from someone. Or something. Or maybe a group of people. How many did you piss off to make you want to return here and hide away in my city’s underground?” Apparently giant elephant monster and her temple of torture didn’t faze Jacob. It wouldn’t surprise Triss if the old man had created a similar landscape in his youth.

“ ... and why should I tell you?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll beat you up.”

Another puff of smoke, and the old woman growled at the scary bastard threatening her. “Is this how it’s going to be between us, Jacob?”

“Looks like. I got a good thing going in Dolareido these days and I don’t want you spoiling it.”

She tossed aside her cigarette, and lit another. The missing piece of herself, cigarettes. Triss had never suffered a true chemical addiction before, and she could only imagine what that must have been like if you’d been smoking your whole life. Would probably have had an easier time convincing the woman to try metal music.

“It was spoiling when I arrived, old man.”

Both Nosferatu raised a brow, looked at each other, then at her. “How?” they said, in unison.

“Viktor, Rebecca, and Tony’s death did not go unnoticed. Hunters spread word of the change, so I hear. They came, and watched Dolareido tear itself apart with Lucas’s madness. Then he was dead, by the Prince’s hand, and a host of Kindred with him.”

One-eye sighed, but nodded, and walked over to Azamel. Cause, yeah, that was a good idea. He hopped up onto the stage, and started rooting around through the old lady’s things. Dresser, back of the chair, bed — she’d added a bed since the last time Beatrice visited — and some of her other things. Like a nosy kid.

“Dolareido’s a peaceful place these days,” he said. “Like I said, I got a good thing going.”

“You want peace? Don’t lie to me Jacob.”

“ ... What I want is a little more complicated than that.”

“Isn’t it for everyone?”

Triss shook her head and raised a hand. “No. Think I’d be happy with a regular source of blood, fucking, and a safe place to sleep. Call me simple.”

The two old farts glared at her. Yeah, not a good time for jokes.

“Hunters have come,” Azamel said, “and were coming all along. They have been silent, content to take their time in planning the downfall of Kindred in the city. Four of them of particular skill have been here since Lucas’s death, and they have begun working with ... an old enemy, that followed me here.”

“An old enemy?” Triss said.

“Yes little girl, an old enemy. A killer of my kind. Jeremiah is human, but more, and he has recruited a host of hunters to join him in his crusade against me.”

“So if I get rid of you, they’ll leave?” Jacob said. Not really a question, given the huge smirk on his face.

“Not until every Begotten, Uratha, and Kindred are dead, I imagine.”

“ ... so now your problem is our problem. Unless of course you’re lying, and this Jeremiah fellow will leave once you’re dead.” One-eye came up beside the old monster, and frowned at her. Smirking, frowning, smiling, sneering, man was all over the place, and each expression was accompanied by a one-eyed gaze that kept ... looking at things. This whole night was filled with grossness.

“Or he stays, and you would be killing a powerful ally in this little battle that is now, as you say, your problem.” Granny turned her head, looked up at the Nosferatu glaring down at her, and breathed smoke into his face. “If you can kill me, that is.”

And, again, silence fell upon the room and everyone in it until all that could be heard was the breathing of the two living creatures, and their heartbeats. Mark’s, loud, panicked, and Azamel’s, steady, and soft. The two old monsters stared at each other on the stage, until Triss was sure a spaghetti western song would start playing. Or, maybe, some Japanese drums

Footsteps down the tunnel. Everyone turned, watched, and waited, for the source to make itself known. Athalia came out of the darkness, a grocery bag in each hand, and an eyebrow raised to match their’s.

“Um ... what the fuck is going on here?” she said.

“An interrogation.” Jacob smirked, hopped off the platform, and started to walk toward Athalia. “Jack’s missing. The elephant woman here says a mad fucker called Jeremiah is in town. Connection?”

Athalia set down her groceries, but didn’t get to do much else as Jacob came in closer. Poor girl had no choice but to back up a few steps, and lean back as she noticed the bastard had an eye.

“Jack’s missing?”

Triss nodded, and jogged up to stand beside Jacob. And maybe stop him if the man got a little violent, or nightmare-y. She was starting to think that maybe the man took it personally, that these nightmare monsters thought they could be scarier than a Nosferatu and his unique ability to bestow hallucinogenic nightmares. Jacob probably considered himself the scariest thing Dolareido had to offer, and these Begotten thought themselves the same thing.

Professional rivalry? Heh.

“Jack is missing,” she said. “And we were hoping you’d know where.”

“I ... I don’t know where. Didn’t even know he was missing.”

Triss almost said something, but stopped herself as the eye in her skull did its magic. A flickering image, a momentary glimpse of the other side, of the realm these nightmare creatures called home. And more importantly, a glimpse at Athalia, at true Athalia.

Tall, dark, waving bits of shadow as a backdrop, and a massive skull in the foreground of this monster, this entity that filled the tunnel. It had horns. Spiked, jagged and sharp. Arms too, like a skeleton’s, but massive and black, dripping a black fog too, like a toxic cloud. The arms were covered in the same spikes, serrated, and they reached out from the blackness that surrounded the monster, blackness that she wore like a cloak.

Triss looked up and up, and stared at it, her, the thing, skin so tight and gaunt she didn’t notice it wasn’t a skeleton at first. It had no legs; instead, a dangling spinal cord hung from a partly exposed rib cage in the waving shadow. Two enormous, black wings joined the darkness that surrounded it, as if someone had taken an angel and burned it to char.

The only thing that didn’t scream darkness was the two, white, glowing dots in the center of its empty, black eye sockets. Like staring into the eyes of death itself.

Fuck, that was happening a lot lately.

Jacob must have noticed it too, cause he whistled and folded his arms across his chest. “You look like a bigger threat than that Mark jackass.”