Chapter 7

~~Beatrice~~

Following the Invictus right hands was hard enough, but now she had to follow three.

Shadowing Julias was easy. Like a typical Ventrue, he was useless on his own. His power was in creating and controlling armies. But damn he looked good in a suit. Those broad shoulders, the combed back mafia hair, even the damn tie. It was a good thing she wasn’t using the blush of life, or she’d be rubbing her thighs together already.

Fuck, the stupid knight made her feel like a cat in heat.

The other two were the problem. Younger than Julias, sure, but Jessy was a Gangrel and that meant someone she couldn’t easily predict in a fight. She was an animal, like Garry, and she knew well enough from Garry about dangerous animals. Natasha, on the other hand, Beatrice was sure she could crush into ash in seconds, if she could get her hands on her. And she wouldn’t be able to get her hands on a Mehket. Worse still, the damn Mehket could hide in the shadow like Beatrice, but also see ... anything. Anything and everything.

It meant Beatrice had to drain every last bit of vitae she had within to fuel her cloak of night, but she had no choice. The fuck were the three hands doing in Carthian territory? And that fucking Natasha, the little shadow bitch, was making it so damn hard to even see them with her use of cloak of night. Her eyes would glide off of them and onto the random kine walking the streets, and she’d have to focus herself – with a good face slap – to get her eyes back on track. She couldn’t lose them.

And then she lost them.

Fuuuuuuuck. She dared not even curse out loud, the damn shadow could probably hear it. Beatrice did her best to stay pressed down to the rooftops, and her cloak of night would keep all eyes off her completely. But then Natasha did the same damn mother fucking thing!

Where was this? The convenience store, complete with ancient movie rentals. This was Mike’s hangout! Mike, the stupid punk kid Garry had given Tony’s stuff to. She dug her claws straight into the building rooftop. Shit shit shit shit.

She couldn’t go in there; she was no use to Mike dead. But then if she didn’t, Mike could end up dead. They wouldn’t kill him, or at least Julias wouldn’t. The other two, she couldn’t guess. God damn it, they were Invictus. If they killed Mike, it could spell war. If they killed Mike...

There! The three were suddenly on the street again, heading back the way they came. They were bickering among themselves, but it was too quiet to hear in the bustling streets. She looked between the convenience store and the three Invictus. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck it. Once they had some distance, she hoped down from the rooftop and into an alley. She eased off her shadow hiding, but kept enough of it going to let her glide through the kine without attracting their attention. Just a face in the crowd. Within moments, she’d crossed the street and stopped at Mike’s door. It’d been broken in.

Mike was on the floor with his back against a wall. The kid’s place was a huge mess of the typical nerd shit, but the kid himself looked fine.

“Mike! Mike you stupid fuck.” She almost pounced at him before she reached down and picked him up. “Mike. Mike!” And a slap to the face for good measure.

“ ... Beatrice?” The kid’s eyes opened wide. She was point blank with him, and her teeth were on full display. He was startled.

“Mike you fucking stupid piece of shit. What happened?” She shook him hard enough to crack his head against the wall a few times.

“Ow! Hey hey hey! I, I ... what? What do you mean what happened?”

“What do I mean? The fucking Invictus man! What did they want?”

“Invictus? What?” The kid looked around, absolutely perplexed. “No one’s been here.”

“I ... you ... what? What do you mean no one’s been here.” She dragged him out to the door and pointed at the broken lock. “The Invictus broke in here just five minutes ago!”

“Whoa.” He inspected the lock, obviously surprised. “I don’t know. You ... you don’t think...” He put a hand to his lips and stared back at Beatrice.

“No. It wasn’t Viktor, it was Julias. He isn’t ... strong...”

They both just stared at each other. Julias had rewritten the kid’s memories. Her secret boyfriend had rewritten Mike’s god damn fucking memories.

“Come on, we’re heading back home. I gotta talk to Garry.”

She kept a close eye on Mike. Julias had been in his head, and who fucking knew what sorta shit a Ventrue could leave in there. She’d heard stories from Garry, about all the nasty tricks a Ventrue could do to someone’s mind. They could brainwash you, turn you into a sleeper agent, and attach triggers to you. It was some seriously scary shit. She was shaking just thinking about it; what if Julias done something to her?

“You ... you just ... stay here.” She ushered the kid back to his room, back at the abandoned apartment building, and sat him down on his bed.

“The hell Beatrice, why are you dotting on me?”

“Just don’t touch anything! I need to talk with Garry. You had a fucking Invictus Ventrue inside your head man.” She reached up and pointed at her temple. “So do me a favor and stay put.”

Finally, realization hit the stupid punk. His head lowered, his jaw dropped, and his hands grabbed at the knees of his jeans.

“I ... I get it. I’ll just ... yeah.”

“Yeah,” she said, and despite herself, reached out to give him a gentle pat on his slumped shoulder, claws and all. “Don’t worry about it though, Garry’s dealt with this kinda shit before.”

He nodded. Good, he wasn’t freaking out, cause fucking hell she was. What if Julias had done something to her? What if it had all been a god damn Ventrue ploy? A trick? Fucking smooth talking bastard could have done anything to her.

She forced herself to walk. No use in getting everyone’s attention. Garry would know what to do; he always knew. Dude was fucking ancient and a beast, and he’d saved her from stupid shit multiple times.

She opened the door to his room without so much as a knock. The Gangrel was standing and looking out a window into the night sky. He practically dripped of introspection and reflection.

Which was weird as hell. Garry didn’t do shit like that.

“Garry! Sir! You told me to keep an eye on the right hands, so I tracked them and they fucking found Mike, and they fucking did ... did something to his mind! He seems fine, but he can’t remember anything. Not a damn thing!”

The ancient Gangrel gave a quiet sigh, and turned over his shoulder to look at her. “Is he alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah he’s alright. He’s fine I think, but who the fuck knows what Julias did to his brain! I didn’t know he’d gotten that strong. He’s ... that’s dangerous. That’s so fucking dangerous, Garry! The fuck am I supposed to do if he can just-”

“Julias isn’t Viktor. He’s not strong enough to do much more than make someone forget.” Garry raised a hand dismissively, folded his arms across his chest again, and resumed looking out the window. “I’m glad Mike is safe.”

“Yeah, Mike is ... is...”

She stood there and stared at him. The Gangrel lowered his head and turned it just enough to keep her in the corner of his eye. He was ... relieved.

“You knew!”

He turned back to the window, like as if his silence would have been enough to end the conversation.

Well fuck that.

“Garry, what the fuck?” She stomped right over to him and stood in front of him. He avoided her glare. “What the fuck is going on?

More silence.

Fuck him! She reached out and shoved him hard enough to drive his back into the wall. The bastard didn’t even look shocked. “Tell me!”

“ ... just let it go, Triss.” He stood up straight then, put a hand against the wall, and stepped back to where he was. He looked down at her, and the weight of his eyes crushed her. For just a second, Garry looked old, so old.

“Come on, you can’t just-”

“I can’t tell you, Triss. Let it go.”

They stood there, the two of them, and stared at each other. She wanted to stay angry at him, maybe even push him around some more, but the Elder Kindred and her most trusted friend in the damn world was looking at her with enough burden in his eyes to make her sick. What webs was he weaving? What stupid Kindred bullshit of manipulation was he playing at? What the fuck was he doing that risked Mike’s life?

“Enjoy your Primogen meeting, jackass.” She kicked over his desk – who the fuck cared how juvenile it was – and stormed out.

Within a few minutes, she was back in Mike’s room.

“Beatrice, I heard a slam, what—”

“You’re fine, Mike. Julias didn’t do anything to you, except make you forget whatever information he got.”

“Oh ... ok ... that’s good, right?” He blinked at her. She must have looked furious.

“Yeah. Get a snack and move your computer shit to a new haunt before something happens.”

“R-right ... yeah.”

He looked sad. Stupid kid had spent a lot of time building that nest probably, but it was compromised now. Tough lesson and a tough way to learn it.

She turned around and left.

“Triss, where ya going?”

She dismissed him with a small wave, barely more than a shake of her claws, before she marched down the stairs and back out into the streets.

Someone was going to get an earful. If Julias had been playing her with his ‘Kindred are so tiresome’ talk, she was going to cut his balls off with her claws and feed him the ashes.

~~Antoinette~~

How dull it was, in the demon’s mouth.

The Prince of Dolareido sat upon her throne, a luxurious leather office chair, and leaned forward with her elbows on her desk. Behind her, a glass wall was the only thing that separated the room from the hundreds of feet to the street beneath them. Every so often, she turned her chair halfway toward the glass and gazed out over the city. In the center of the Elysium, the South Side district was full of lights from the nightlife, and she let her eyes wander over the beautiful dance of it all.

The room itself was devoid of anything that would cause distraction beyond the window. The walls were white. The floor was black. The ceiling was white with hidden LEDs to light the room. All was designed to maximize the efficiency of its purpose.

To house the squabbles of demons. Within the center of the room, a massive table of clear glass connected to her desk, and surrounding it were chairs fit for kings. Her Primogen.

“Rebecca and Julias are going to kill each other eventually.” Viktor Honors, eldest of the Invictus triumvirate. He did look good in a suit, but his Ventrue habit of talking like he owned everything was irritating. Maria and Michael were sitting on either side of him, the ghost woman and the animal.

“You have no proof of that.” Tony. Her ex-lover and childe. The Daeva sat across from Viktor, and he held his chin in his palm with a stupid smile of feigned innocence on his face. Sometimes she wondered why she let him remain Primogen, with no covenant of his own. Better the devil you know, she supposed.

“She was seen in Invictus territory, near Julias’s home.”

“The Prince hasn’t given a no-trespassing law. Only that we can’t feed in each other’s districts,” Tony said.

Viktor grumbled, and Tony smiled. Antoinette did her best to not groan.

“Don’t fuck with us, Tony. We know Rebecca was snooping around the Invictus chunk half of South Side.” Garry. The Gangrel didn’t bother to dress up for her meetings, but she really wished he would. While Michael looked like he was trafficking drugs across borders, she imagined Garry could pull off a casual blazer with the sexual flare of the bad boy.

“So what if she was? Sorry if I like to keep a feeler out. Like you guys don’t do the same.” Her childe knew just how to talk to sound like a juvenile, but he gave each of them a tiny glance – just for a second – that made them hesitate to challenge him.

“Is this why we’ve gathered this month? To bicker over Rebecca?”

Then there was Jacob.

The Nosferatu took a long look at each Primogen, and then looked at her. The others would never hold her gaze for long, but Jacob would look into her eyes, as he did now, and smile. While Maria’s physical deformity of her Nosferatu clan was her ghostly appearance, Jacob was another beast entirely.

At first glance, he looked normal enough, with short, wavy salt’n’pepper hair and the subtle wrinkles of an older man, but it only took a second glance to realize there was much more. He had no eyes, as if someone had scooped them out – his eyelids too – with a smoldering, serrated spoon.

Looking into the eyeless Circle of the Crone was like looking into the inner-beast of them all.

“Gentlemen, please.” Antoinette straightened her chair to point back at her group of cutthroats. “Viktor, Tony is correct, you have nothing but suspicions. Bring me proof that Rebecca was breaking the no-violence or no-feed treaty, and I will punish her. She is not forbidden from entering the Invictus state in South Side though.

“And Jacob,” she continued, just a touch of venom on her voice, “we meet to discuss what matters. You may think it immaterial, but wars have been fought over smaller incidents.”

Daniel gave a small nod and hmph to mark her words. Her fellow dragon was an innocent-looking fellow, average height, fairly thin, with somewhat short brown hair. He wore a pair of reading glasses, and with him in his trench coat, she would not put it past him to be a school teacher. His expression was – as always – blank and emotionless.

“Of course, Prince.” The Circle of the Crone witch put both his hands on the table. “Is there anything else to discuss? Rebecca causing a stir is nothing new.”

Antoinette looked to each of the Primogen in turn. No one said anything. “This meeting is adjourned then.”

That was it. The Invictus trio bowed, Garry and Tony managed small nods, and Jacob put a hand to his chest. She bowed in return. Without another sound, they walked out through the door, and would disappear from her tower in whichever way they deemed fit. Sometimes she wondered if they’d start trying to kill each other right there outside her door.

Once the doors closed, Antoinette let out a weary sigh, got up from her chair, and walked over to the window. She dared not touch the glass for fear of dirtying it, so she netted her fingers together behind her elegant business dress.

Daniel stepped in beside her, a little shorter than her despite his tall figure, and he too gazed out the window.

“How many Kindred are there in my city now, Daniel?”

“Over three-hundred, Annie.” His voice was so deadpan, so straightforward that she almost found it cold. It wasn’t though. That was just Daniel. He raised a gloved hand to adjust his glasses.

“Most of them Invictus and Carthian. Do I let them grow too large?”

“I do not think so,” he said.

She frowned, but after a few moments, it turned into a smile, and she chuckled at her sheriff. She would have a better luck getting blood from a stone.

So the two of the stood in silence, and watched over the city.

It was a good twenty minutes of admiring the sparkling lights of the night skyline of Dolareido, before her memories eventually drifted to the little boy she’d met thrice now. She had been there to witness his first controlled feeding. She got to see the pure bliss of it overwhelm his almost comically honest face. And to her delight, the young man had pushed through his fear to see her a second time, not to ask for more free blood, but instead just to talk with her.

She licked her fangs at the thought of him.

“ ... what do you think of Jack?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Annie.”

She reached out for Daniel and put a hand on his shoulder. The man did not even flinch or turn to face her.

“You know what.”

“ ... he certainly isn’t Tony.” For just a brief second, the Mehket managed a small smile, and Antoinette’s own smile grew in response. Daniel’s smile vanished quickly, as if he’d been caught in a shameful act, and he adjusted his glasses again.

“I think I would like to see him, then. Send for him, and bring him to Elysium garden.”

“Yes, Voivode.”

Her tower, at the center of the Elysium ground, was a gigantic thing of glass, curved and nothing but windows. In the day, it would have spelled death for any vampire within with no where to hide from the sunlight, but at night it was the center of Elysium, her official no-violence zone. In all directions from the skyscraper was garden and artistic pathways of road and sidewalk within curving walls of stone.

Kindred fledglings hung around in Elysium, safe from the hungry teeth or games of their betters, but as she walked down the stairway of her tower to the street, all fled at the sight of her as politely they could. She could force them to her, naturally. Her control of the Daeva disciplines was enough to have every young Kindred and every kine in all of Elysium begging at her feet. But there was no soul in that, no truth or intimacy or friendship.

It was an old, cruel story. She was not so delusional as the mighty Viktor or the consumed Tony to think herself immune to such solitude, but with age came barriers and shackles.

The taxi pulled up to the front of her tower. Jack stepped out, wearing what was obviously his best suit – Julias had dressed him well – but perhaps a little out of place for what she had in mind. He looked ready for a company merge negotiation.

She smiled at him from across the entry lane. It was further past the bushes and trees, near the entrance of her garden, but she was confident the fellow Kindred would see her in the dark. She’d sat upon a bench, an artful piece of stone vines, and she waited for him with a small smile.

“My Prince.” He walked to her, caught somewhere between a hurried step and his best businessman’s walk. He looked so happy, excited, but his innocent face could not hide his fear either. Silently, their two inner-beasts looked at each other, smelled each other, and without hesitation the boy’s knelt in submission.

Hers crooned with interest.

“Mister Terry.” She motioned for him to join her, and he sat beside her with a small bounce. To him, it must have seemed such a natural thing, to be so expressive.

“My Prince ... are you alright?” He blinked up at her, then quickly looked away and scratched his buzzed head. “You seem sad.”