Chapter 60

~~Beatrice~

Part of her wanted to sneak up on Julias, try and catch him by surprise, see if her scant twenty years could get past the man’s eyes. Have fun! Play with him, like old times. But, these weren’t old times, and her sneaking into his mansion, or trying to at least, was a bad idea. He probably had lookouts about, snipers, and they’d shoot first if they saw suspicious rustling in bushes.

So the front door it was. Knock knock.

“Good evening Miss Damor, Miss Denver,” the doorman said. “Please, do come in. The master is in his study.”

“Study, eh?” She looked over her shoulder back at Jen. “Cool with just sitting around while Julias and I talk? Join in too, if you want.”

Jen nodded and smiled. It was easy to see the girl wasn’t following Triss in hopes for sex, but rather, because she didn’t want to be alone. Learning the ritual, and testing the ritual, must have been horrible to watch. Going through the process was hell on Earth, but still, she didn’t envy Jen having to see it all. Stuck on the sidelines while being forced to watch torture was a horrible way to get introduced to this stuff.

The Nosferatu touched her new necklace, a simple black string with a tiny, white crow skull on it, and followed after the servant.

The study was exactly what you’d expect in a building as old and as grandiose as Viktor’s mansion. A tall room lined with bookshelves filled to the rim with books. Fancy, thick carpet the color of blood, against the gold trimmings of walls and columns that held the wood bookshelves in place. In the center of the large room was a beautiful table, thin wood, almost as red as the carpet, and Julias sat before it.

There were a couple books on table, on Hinduism. Another on the history of monsters, vague as that was. Another she didn’t recognize; something about artifacts. So, he knew that Azamel was some sort of twisted nightmare version of Ganesha. The book on history of monsters was self-explanatory, but the one about artifacts was odd. Maybe the man was looking into more of the stranger artifacts, things considered magical. Might find something about those handcuffs Jack mentioned.

“Light reading?” she said, coming over to sit at the fancy table across from him. Jen offered the servant a nod, and he returned it before closing the door behind him.

“You could say that.” He wasn’t reading the books though. Smart phone in hand, he probably had other books opened on that, showing on the phone’s screen. Such was the way of the digital age, sitting around surrounded by books and not using them, because ultimately, you had literally 100,000 fold the information available on your phone. Sad, but true.

Once she was comfortable, Julias put the phone down, and smiled at her. Hell, he got up out of his chair, gave her a kiss, a proper one, before sitting back down. Fucker knew how to sprinkle bits of love in just the right way. To inconvenience himself like that, to stop researching, and get up out of his chair just for a kiss? He was too damn good at being romantic.

Which Jen caught onto immediately, and swooned, before she started wandering around the library. Not library, study room. Much as the walls were covered in books, there weren’t any rows of the bookshelves.

“How you been?” he said. “Haven’t seen you for a few nights.”

Triss nodded, shrugging. “Been ... getting in deep with Jacob, honestly.”

Jen threw a glance her way. Probably didn’t expect her to be so forward with Julias about what she was doing.

“Sounds painful,” her love said.

That got a laugh out of her, and an eyebrow raise from him.

“I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“By all means.” He put the phone down, and got in closer to the table, elbows down and eyes on her. “Did you see Jack leaving?”

“No. Was he here?”

“Yeah, got into a little argument.”

Ooh, argument between childe and sire. Something she’d never get to experience. Time to pry and learn.

“About what?”

Julias stopped for a moment. Might have been too sensitive to talk about, and if that were the case, he wouldn’t tell her. But he was contemplating, which meant he was evaluating; maybe it was Jen’s presence’s slowing down the evaluation.

“Kid’s trying to play nice with everyone. I appreciate that he’s taking his role as intermediary with the other paranormals seriously, but he fails to recognize how that niceness can backfire. The specific hangup was Azamel and Athalia.”

She winced, and nodded as she leaned in as well, mirroring his position, elbows on the table. “He probably wants to keep Athalia happy, doesn’t he? Not kill her daughter.”

“He’s going to do something stupid, maybe spare the girl’s life when an opportunity arrives to do otherwise.”

“Hard to imagine.” She remembered what the kid looked like when she found him, and how terrifying the imagery was, of Angela sitting on him and ready to cut him into bits. “And of course, she could still be dead. No one’s seen her since the accident.” Accident was a funny word to pick for actively running someone over, and she smirked.

“If only we were that lucky,” Jen said, sighing as she sat on a nearby couch, pulled out her phone, and ... probably checked her Twitter feed. Ugh.

“New necklace?” Julias said, hand gesture included.

She smiled. Just like Julias to notice; she loved that. It wasn’t like she hadn’t worn similar, things that matched her tattoos and piercings, and yet the man noticed anyway. Always the little things that made her smile grow.

“Mmhmm. Jacob’s been putting me through hell, and this is a first step to becoming ... his apprentice, I guess.” She flicked a fingernail against the skull, and cradled it between two claws. “I’ll show you later how it works.”

“You should have seen her, Julias,” Jen said. “It was ... disgusting, and brutal, and I know few Kindred who could stomach what she went through.”

Triss threw a grin her way. Yeah, it was disgusting and brutal. And it was so god damn empowering. The blur, the haze of her memory, she could still feel it, smell the scent of the beast and the touch it left upon her. It was exciting, thrilling, and it got her undead blood surging through her with a desire to taste more.

She really was a twisted fuck. Probably what led to Jacob being interested in her in the first place.

“Is that why you have a new necklace?” he said.

Triss nodded. “Yeah, but, it’s a secret what it’s specifically for, sorry.” Much as she loved her man, Circle secrets were Circle secrets. He’d understand of course; not like he dumped Invictus secrets on her.

“And Jen was with you during all this?”

“I was.” The other Ventrue got up and joined them, sitting beside Triss. She was in her usual suit, but the shirt was done up this time. The torture session put a bit of chill into her, Triss could see, and the woman had become a little less open to having her breasts hanging out, considering how gory and scream-filled the past couple nights had become. That’d probably change, now that Jacob had taught her the first ritual, and it’d be a little while before he’d teach her another. And of course, because Julias was here, and Jen did love to throw herself at him, she’d probably get the tits out sooner or later.

Except, she didn’t seem to want to right now. The woman was looking at Triss, her necklace, and then back to Julias, and just watching, thinking thoughts Triss couldn’t guess. Seeing the Nos get cut up, stabbed, bled, and screaming her head off, put a fear into Jen. It’d really suck if it damaged the relationship. Jen was her friend, but also a fuck buddy, and that fuck buddy dynamic was working out unusually well. It wouldn’t continue like that if Jen could only picture screaming, blood-drenched Triss in a giant, dirty metal bowl, with kine body parts sitting around in the metal basin with her.

“You look spooked,” Julias said.

“It was ... hard to watch.” Jen shivered, but slid in closer so her chair was almost touching hers. “Beatrice is a lot tougher than I expected. I used to think I was tough, but it’s a different story, when Jacob’s ... yeah.” They couldn’t share the details of the ritual, but no reason to tiptoe around how brutal it’d been.

“I know the Circle, and Jacob, can get into some horrific stuff,” he said, “but you girls are always welcome to visit me and wash away some of that horribleness. I get the impression blankets and pillows aren’t a luxury you get to have in your dark caves.”

“Ha.” Triss shook her head and leaned back in her chair. “We got it pretty cozy, actually. Not as cozy as here though.”

“No sign of the hunters?”

Jen shook her head. “No. And we have been looking. Aaron and Othello have been looking more than us, but they’ve reported nothing.”

Superman nodded, and pulled out a deck of cards from within his suit jacket. “We’ve been looking too, of course, and we have a lot more eyes than the Circle does. But still, these damn hunters evade us. It’s really starting to get under my skin, that they can hide so well.”

Both girls watched the man’s hands. Was he trying to be sexy? Hard to tell. He liked shuffling the deck, one-handed at that, showing off his skill like a god damn peacock showing off its feathers. And it was sexy, whether he meant it to be or not.

Her mind turned to sex the moment Julias was in the same room as her, and Jen was only making it harder to stop. And lately, with all the dark, witch stuff she was doing, she felt ... empowered. She wasn’t the little Nos girl watching insanity from the sidelines anymore. She was learning. She was becoming one of those creatures of fiction, the sort you read about, practicing dark arts, exploring the boundaries of only god knew what. A witch. And that filled her with a tingling thrill.

She wondered how that made Jack feel, considering all the buzz he was getting. Did he get inta-horny when he was around Antoinette, ego as swollen as his dick? Heh, probably.

“Hey Julias,” Jen said, grinning at him, and the cards in his hand. “Looking to play?”

The poker room. Triss was sure that’s what it was for, cause even though Julias had only moved in a nice, legit poker table recently, the room reeked of high-stakes gambling. Not a small room, not a large one either, with armless chairs with nice, red cushions. A fancy chandelier, a small one, hung from the center of the ceiling, and it cast a gentle light over the table, the sort of dim you wanted when eying other players to read their tells.

“How come we haven’t played in this room yet?” she said, pulling out a chair. “We’ve played in others, but not, what is apparently, a room designed for this?”

Julias shrugged, pulled out another chair, and sat down. “This room is meant for serious poker. Back in the day, I’m pretty sure Viktor did negotiations in here, while playing poker.”

“Well, deal ‘em up.” Jen rotated her right arm, then left, like she was prepping for a fight or a workout, before she sat down as well. Jen was likely to immediately establish the rules for the game, with sex as the intended outcome. Strip poker, or something like that. “How about a game of ... history?” Or not.

“History you say?” Julias smirked, for a moment. That look in his eye, of confidence and determination, faded. He wasn’t sure of himself, maybe, feeling a bit exposed. Not a look Triss was used to seeing on him. “Elaborate.”

“We play, and cash in chips to learn about one piece of history from everyone else at the table.” Jen gestured to the chips already on the table. It was normal for them to use chips when they played, and cash in your chips to earn something. It made strip poker take a while, but far more interesting than just comparing hands. These Ventrue loved to bluff.

“ ... personal history?” Julias said.

His nemesis nodded. “Personal history. I want to learn more about you, Julias Mire, and maybe a little bit about Triss here too.” The evil woman got comfortable, and waited for Julias to deal. He always dealt first, his house after all.

“I ... I’m not sure,” the man said.

Triss blinked, and so did Jen, both women looking the man up and down. Always so confident, and his suit betrayed no weakness. But his eyes betrayed plenty. They fell to the table, to the cards he was shuffling, and he winced every so often.

Triss didn’t go digging through the man’s past willy-nilly like this. It was enough to learn the man had once been married, before being embraced, and had to leave that life behind. Watched his wife move on without him, meet someone else, die of old age, all the classic turmoil Kindred went through, given enough years. Everyone human, everyone they let live their lives without becoming a ghoul, or a vampire, gave way to the years. Kansas had it right, people were dust in the fucking wind for someone like Julias. So Triss let the topic be.

Jen had no such compunctions. “Of course, if you do well, you won’t have to share anything.” Her slender fingers took a stack of chips, and lifted them, only to let them fall back to the table in controlled fall between the fingers. Satisfying click click click sounds, masking the gravity of what she was asking. And she was a smart girl, she knew exactly what she was asking, for Julias to take a trip down memory pain lane. Strange timing.

“ ... deal.” He tilted his neck to the side, managed to get a small crack out of it, and started dealing the cards.

“Wait, Julias,” Triss said. “Come on, you don’t have to—”

He shook his head, a hand up, while he dealt the cards with a single hand, sliding a card off the top with his index finger. Fancy fucker. “It’s ok.”

Was it though? She eyed him closely, head drifting to the side as she tried to analyze his face. But he put on his poker face, and that meant she was fucked in that department.

She sighed, and tossed in a chip; no blinds here, just everyone putting minimum bid into the pot. She barely understood how to play poker, and shit like ‘blinds’ and ‘ante’ and fucking whatnot was hard for her to wrap her mind around. But Julias and Jen were merciless, which she both appreciated, and did not.

Texas Hold ‘Em. She knew how to play that, mostly, sort of, kind of. A little. The fact Julias and Jen liked to pay with some house rule quirks made everything just a little harder to figure out, too. Julias tossed each of them a card, and then another. And she was going first, ugh.

Queen and an Ace. Good, yeah? Or not good? She frowned and made it look like she had bad cards ... which, she may have had, for all she knew. A glance at Julias and Jen was borderline pointless, their gazes showing their usual, calm, collected faces. Julias didn’t blink, or anything, as he waited for her opening bet.

“ ... I open one.” Woo, opening bet. God, she had no idea what she was doing.

“I’ll call,” Jen said, throwing a white chip into the pot.

“Call,” Julias said, mirroring the two women. With a devilish little smirk, Julias ‘burned’ a card, whatever the fuck the point of that was, and dealt the ‘flop’, three cards face up on the table. Queen, Seven, and a Five.

Triss felt the urge for a cheek muscle to twitch, but she didn’t have cheeks, so it caused the edge of the muscle above her crocodile teeth to shift slightly. Was that how Jen and Julias could read her? Her hair was covering her crocodile teeth though, so maybe not. How those bastards were able to figure her out, every time they played, was her new mission to find out.

But two Queens was good, so.

“I bet one,” she said.

“Raise you one.” Jen winked at her, earning a long groan from Triss, before she looked back to Julias as she tossed in two chips. “Did you play poker much, when you were alive, Julias?”

“I did, actually. But, isn’t that one of the pieces of information we’re supposed to be playing for?” He threw in two chips, and made an obvious point of showing another before tossing it in as well. Raising by one, then.

“Call.” Triss tossed in one again.

Grinning the biggest, most devilish of all devil grins, trying out out-devil Julias, Jen put her cards down, folding. All that confidence, and she wasn’t pushing forward. Did she have a bad hand, and was masking it with her control of facial expressions, or did she have a good hand, and was folding anyway, to throw people off the trail of her tells. Triss couldn’t recognize a tell to save her life, so it didn’t do much for her.

“I was hoping the secrets we’d be playing for would be of a more personal, meaningful nature,” she said.

“Trying to get your fingers into every personal aspect of my life?” Julias chuckled, and juggled some chips in his hand as he played around with his poker face. But, after a while, Superman nodded, burned another card, and tossed another onto the table. A Queen. Triss felt her finger twitch.

“I bet two,” she said.

“Fold.” Julias reached out, took back the cards, and started shuffling.

“God damn it.” She frowned down at her claws, and stabbed one against the table. Not hard enough to pierce the nice surface, but hard enough to make a click. She won, but she could have won double that or more, if she’d managed to pull Jen and Julias into the hand.

This wasn’t a game for Carthians, that was for sure.

“I am trying to get my fingers into your lives, yes. You may have noticed that I like Triss quite a bit, and I think you and I should connect as well.” Jen leaned forward over the table. With her shirt done up, it almost looked cute, how her breasts were concealed instead of being served on a silver platter.

Julias raised a brow. Not his usual ‘I’m surprised but not really’ eyebrow raise, more like his occasional ‘I’m actually surprised’ eyebrow raise. Knowing her man well enough to recognize those expressions wasn’t helping Triss with poker; if anything, he was taking advantage of it for his bluffs. But still, it wasn’t what she expected to see from him, to Jen’s statement.

“It may interest you to know the Prince keeps on eye on you,” he said as he handed Triss the cards. Her turn to deal.

Jen raised a brow, same way Julias did. “Does she?”

Two peas in a pod.

“She does. She wasn’t happy that your sire left.”

Rolling both her eyes, Triss dealt each player two cards. If the Prince was watching Jen, it was because Jen wanted people watching her, considering how she acted and the way she dressed. But then, there was that time where Triss and the Prince talked, on the balcony, and looked out over everyone, including Jen. Antoinette had taken particular notice of Jennifer, enjoyed how much the girl embraced sexuality. Her dream for Dolareido, or something like that.

Everyone threw a chip into the center of the table, before looking at their cards.

“Marcus felt ... wait, I’ll save that one, for after the game.” She winked at him, licked her lips, lifted the corner of her cards off the table to take a peek, and tossed in a couple chips. Opening two, then.

“I never spoke with Marcus myself.” Julias held a chip in his hand, and rolled it across his fingers, knuckle to knuckle. “I do remember he enjoyed wearing suits. A rarity, considering he was a Carthian.” Julias tossed in a couple chips as well.

And what did Triss have? A Two and a Five. Well, whatever. She tossed in a couple chips too, calling. Round over, Triss threw in three cards for the table. Two Sixes and a Five. Ooh la la. Feint having a bad hand, or push for a win? What to do what to do. But, not her turn yet.

Jen tossed in a chip. “Carthians sometimes wear suits. But they don’t always feel comfortable on the soul.”

“Believe in a soul?” Julias tossed in a chip as well.

Jen nodded, and nodded again in Triss’s direction. “After the things I’ve seen? I have to believe in something beyond a simple body.”

Yeah, no argument there. Triss nodded, and tossed four chips, raising by three. Jen and Julias called, so Triss dealt in another card to the table. A five. Full house! No, wait, don’t get excited, control yourself. Don’t start bouncing your knee, and don’t look to Jen in anticipation of the round starting.

“Do you not, Mister Mire?” Jen said, and tossed in a chip, betting one. It’d be nice if they could say what they were doing, to help Triss keep track. But the two Ventrue lived and breathed this atmosphere.

Superman tossed in a chip, and another. Raise by one then. “I’m not sure honestly. I consider myself a pragmatist, but I’ve seen enough in our world to believe in something beyond that.”

Triss smiled. Good, because she’d hate it if it turned out Julias didn’t believe in anything. It was rare for vampires to be atheist, considering all the shit vampires were, and could do. They were usually agnostic to some extent, believing in something beyond flesh and blood. And after the trip Jacob had sent her on, into the unknown of where-the-fuck-ever, Triss certainly believed there had to be something more than simple science. Part of the reason she was in the Circle, as was Jen. They believed the old myths, the old mythologies, in some form or another, that they were perhaps metaphors, or interpretations of grand designs.

She thought back to one of her first conversations with Jacob. ‘Do you think there is some hidden meaning to being a Kindred? Some explanation to our existence that will raise us to a new level of understanding?’ he’d said. And she’d said no, because of course she didn’t think so. A new level of understanding, like a religious person finding divine purpose for their life? Fuck that. But, as she hung out with the others in the Circle, she started to notice Jen, Jacob, Aaron and Othello, everyone seemed perfectly open to the idea of there being higher entities, like gods, or greater aspects to the individual, like a soul. And Triss found herself leaning in that direction more and more.

Heavy topics seemed to be the theme of tonight, all driven by Jen.

Triss won the hand again. She felt like a bystander in the conversation though. Julias and Jen were fencing verbally, that much she could tell, poking at each other and looking for holes in their statements. Too preoccupied with each other to care about the game, maybe.

Triss slid Jen the deck, everyone threw an ante into the pot, and she dealt the cards.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Jen said, handing everyone their cards almost as smoothly as Julias would, “if the Invictus believe in anything beyond money and power.”

“Money and power are pretty appealing, and have proven their worth time and time again in the real world. The concept of a soul, or whatnot, hasn’t so much.” In went a chip from Julias’s pile, betting one.

Triss checked her cards. Five and a Jack. She tossed in a chip as well, calling, as did Jen. Her friend dealt three cards to the table. Three, Six, and a Queen. Nothing. But, the two Ventrue weren’t glancing her way, only looking at each other. Perfect time to try bluffing.

Julias tossed in one.

“I’ll see your bet, and raise three.” In went four more chips from Triss. Ahead, but if this backfired, she’d be hurt. Why was she bluffing? No fucking idea, except that it was something people did in poker.

Jen matched Triss’s bet, and raised by three as well. New raises always had to be at least as much as previous raises, according to them. “Has it not?” Jen said. “You Invictus deal in only the things you can touch. The Circle, the dragons, even the idiot priests deal with real things that exist beyond your money, or defined walls of power.”

Julias threw in his chips, calling. “No one in the Invictus denies that the Circle touches on forces that defy science, and our understanding of Kindred.”

Triss called, and Jen threw in another card. Queen. Still nothing for Triss then.

Julias threw in two chips. So did Triss, and another two. Jen saw it, and then raised four. Pot growing damn big.

“Sometimes the Circle gets the impression the Invictus look down on us,” Jen said, playing with a few chips in her hand as she waited for Julias to make his decision. “You and Triss hooked up when she was a Carthian. She’s a witch now, though, a member of the Circle. Would you have given her the same chance?”

Triss raised a brow, and almost said something. But the environment was perfect for listening, digesting, absorbing. She knew Julias didn’t care she was a witch, hell if—

“If anything, Jennifer, I would have been more intrigued. I dislike the Carthians and their juvenile attachment to their illogical anarchy. But the Circle? I respect your group, quite a bit, and I respect your beliefs ... what I know of them.” Julias called, throwing in enough chips to catch up.

They were playing for secrets, personal secrets. Kind of weighty, kind of a big deal. Twenty chips for a cash-in, to turn these innocent pieces of plastic into valuable information about the other players. It was a weird thing to play for, especially considering how open Triss and Julias were with each other. If Triss wanted to know about his past, she could just ask him. But, she felt it might be akin to torture for him.

“Triss hasn’t told you much, about the Circle?”

“She’s told me a little. She respects the privacy of the Circle.”

“I try,” Triss said with a grin, calling. Neither Ventrue looked at her, gazing at each other, or glaring. Almost made Triss envious, with how Julias was looking at Jen. Or maybe not, considering how much it was starting to look like a fight brewing.

Another card on the table. Better for her. Better for the others though? Their expressions were unreadable, but she was committed to the bluff. Julias threw in some more chips, so did she, and so did Jen. Only person looking at the chips was her though, the two Ventrue doing some sort of mind dance with each other. Now she was thinking about two cowboys dueling at the strike of noon, or two samurai, having a stand-off.

“I have to admit,” Julias said, “I do occasionally imagine you lovely ladies, dancing naked around a bowl of blood or something. Chanting and swaying, painting your bodies with charcoal, and praying to unseen entities.”

Triss snorted on a laugh. Half true.

“Maybe we could show you sometime?” Jen said, tossing more chips into the pile.

“I’m not sure your boss would be comfortable with that.” Chuckling, Julias threw in some chips as well.

“And if he was?” More clink clinks, Jen shifting chips around in her fingers.

“Then I would say yes, I’d be interested. To observe, of course, not to partake.”

“Does the concept of dancing naked around a sacrifice in the moonlight frighten you?” And of course, Jen had to add sacrifice to the description.

“Yes, but I also find it intriguing, and romantic in a way.”

Heh, yeah, he probably did. Considering the sort of paintings Julias liked to keep around, he had a love of macabre shit, and dancing around naked in moonlight around a sacrifice was probably a painting he had somewhere already.

The hand ended. Triss came out on top. Again. This was getting very strange, because it was the first time Triss had more chips than others, let alone what was turning into all the chips.

But the two Ventrue had enough left for some more hands. Chips were going fast, faster than usual. They could cycle them back in, but they’d put out enough chips for a total of five secrets, and considering how powerful each cash in was, getting secrets from all other players, too many chips would have been deadly.

Normally, with strip poker and they way they played it, it was each time someone lost ten chips down from their starting pool incrementally, they’d have to remove some clothing. Pair of shoes, pair of socks, pants, shirt, etc. Doing it this way, getting to cash in on secrets, everyone’s secrets, was weird. Why didn’t she notice it before? Jen proposed the rules, Julias accepted, and Triss just went along with it. It was a weird way to play.

Were they letting her win?

~~Julias~~

Well, Triss figured it out, perhaps a little. Poor girl wore every expression on her face, beautiful snake eyes dilating with every good hand, every realization.

Julias had picked up on Jen’s plan the moment she’d mentioned the word secrets about their past. Talking about the Circle, souls, everything, was just pretense, poking at each other and seeing where boundaries lay. Dancing around each other in silly circles, because Ventrue never liked to lower their guard, expose their neck when engaging in contract negotiations.

Which is what they were doing, in a way. How deep were they willing to take the secrets they were willing to answer? Jen brought up souls, and he responded in kind. She invited him to see her dance naked around a sacrifice, and he found that inviting. Scary, and inviting.

This woman would be amazing at the Danse Macabre, if she engaged in it more. Jacob kept his circle out of city affairs, mostly, so Julias had little exposure to Jen when it came to dealings about territory, or dinner parties with Kindred poking holes into each other’s defenses. Did so and so do so and so to so and so. Answer a question without really answering it. Ask a question without asking it. Imply a threat, suggest a course of action, without ever exposing your own motives. She’d be really good at it.