Chapter 85

~~Eric~~

He stared, wide-eyed, and frozen. With Jessy behind him, sitting underneath his head, it was propped up enough he could see. His thoughts were clear enough to understand what was happening now, the wolf Beast in his guts beaten and stabbed into submission by the monstrosity now fighting Caleb. How quickly Michael had beaten him, rendered him nothing more than a bleeding welp. Embarrassing.

He wanted to think it was because he’d been fighting vampires and a werewolf before Michael intervened, but he knew better. The man’s ungodly weight had crushed him, and whatever he’d been stabbing him with had done more than simply stab a few times. His insides were on fire. His insides were mulch. He’d been defeated in a battle of pure brawn, and quickly at that.

Elder vampires were a breed of their own.

Caleb leaped backward, off of Michael’s back, and flipped once before landing on all fours. The abomination turned to face the werewolf, but Caleb vanished into the shadow around one of the buildings. Irraka and their damn sneaky maneuvers.

“How dare you,” Michael said. Some of the mouths on his body whispered raspy noises, echoing his deep, rumbling, garbled voice. “Which wolf are you?”

The shadows responded, “Caleb.” At least Caleb was still in his right mind. Names had lost all meaning, when the wolf took over Eric.

Christ, he’d nearly attacked Jessy when she tried to defy him by moving away from where he’d set her. Like, an angry animal, frustrated with his mate for defying him. No wonder Caleb wanted to test him and see if he was stable when he left the wolf take him over.

The elder growled. “You think the Invictus are just going to accept this?” It annoyed Eric how the eldritch monstrosity managed to articulate well, while Eric and Caleb struggled to speak English in their transformed state; sentences longer than five words were a nightmare.

“You attacked ... kin ... first.” Wherever Caleb was, he wasn’t letting his presence be felt or found, voice echoing about randomly. Nice of him to refer to Eric as kin. Either Eric had passed his test, or Caleb was being a nice guy for the hell of it, which seemed unlikely.

The winged freak snarled, and began to stomp over to Eric, each step compounded by how the one massive arm crashed into the street with ridiculous weight. Uratha were heavy enough the claws on their feet often dug into the surface they stood on, when they needed an anchor. Michael was crushing the asphalt with pure weight; he had to be heavier than an elephant. No wonder Eric’s body cracked and crumbled when Michael had flown up, and landed on him. Oh god, the man had flown with all that weight? Those wings were insane. This monster’s power was immense, and Eric could only stare and watch, lying on the ground, mangled body bleeding everywhere, and head lying in Jessy’s lap.

And yet, Caleb was taking him on. The Irraka did a drive by, taking advantage of Michael’s approach toward Eric, and bit at the monster’s ankle. Uratha teeth ripped through the thickened, armored skin, and blood gushed everywhere, splattering over the black street as Michael roared. He turned around and slammed his enormous arm down, cracking the street and leaving an imprint in the asphalt, but missing the speedy Uratha.

“Your kin was rampaging,” Michael said, again resuming his walk toward Eric. “Lost control.”

“No,” the shadow said, “not completely. Impressive. Respect him.”

Michael laughed, and came in closer, looming over Eric and Jessy. He had a smirk on his fucked up, almost bat-like face; looked really fucked up with the massive teeth poking out, up, and down from his lips.

“He’s young. I can forgive him some stupid decisions considering his circumstance. But know this, Eric Tanverson: I spare your life because you’re useful to the Invictus.”

Eric was very tempted to say ‘fuck you’, but even in his Gauru form, he was still a bleeding, broken mess. He could have been sandwiched in a car crash and be less beaten up than this behemoth had done to him in seconds. And the fucker who just beat his ass signed his checks.

Underestimating the enemy was never a good idea, and Caleb was making sure to not, judging by his guerrilla tactics. Probably learned from Eric’s mistake.

“Boss,” Jessy said, her hand stroking Eric’s furry mane on his neck, “give the guy a break. We were fighting off a bunch of Carthians, and—”

Caleb leaped from shadows. Everyone froze, and Eric’s lungs stopped working, as the werewolf, a blur of dark speed, bolted for Michael’s exposed spine.

The sound of a loud crack forced Eric to start breathing again, and he gasped as Caleb flew in the other direction. Without a moment’s hesitation, Michael turned around, and began walking after the werewolf, as Caleb rolled and crashed into a nearby wall, denting it, bits of concrete raining about. Something twisted and wormed left and right behind Michael, fast, snake-like. A fucking tail. Not a normal tail though, like you’d find on a reptile or mammal. No, the fucker had a giant scorpion tail sticking out from his tail bone, something he’d grown in the seconds between Caleb’s attacks.

How the fuck.

By the time Caleb had regained enough awareness to prepare for any sort of movement, Michael was in front of him. He stabbed his tail over his shoulder at the beast’s stomach, much like a scorpion would. Caleb howled, and slid up the wall as Michael lifted him, enormous tail slowly raising the wounded werewolf, poison stinger sunk into the man’s stomach. Higher, and higher, until Caleb’s long body was dangling, feet hanging a full six feet above the sidewalk, back pinned to the building wall.

“And you,” Michael said. “The only reason I don’t kill you, is because we strive for good relations with the Uratha. Avery’s pack is useful, to a point. But fighting other Uratha in the streets, risking the Masquerade? A single mile closer to South Side and I would consider this a severe Masquerade violation.”

Caleb, growling and twitching, tried to lift his arms; no such luck. Maybe Michael’s stinger had some sort of poison. It’d have to be a ridiculously strong venom to work on a werewolf, but Eric doubted Caleb was so injured that his limbs weren’t working from the impact alone.

“As for the rest of you!” As Michael gestured to the many watching Kindred, he whipped his tail to the side. Caleb went flying once again, landed on the street not far from Eric, and rolled over several times before coming to a halt against Eric’s side. “Squabbles between covenants are on hold, until the hunters are found and exterminated. Do not think I do not realize you instigated this, Joe Turner. Tones will hear about this, and you will be punished. Madam Herrington, Eric Tanverson, and this beast here,” he gestured to Caleb, “are at fault as well. They shall be reprimanded.”

Sighing, the elder vampire shrugged out his arms, his wings, his tail, and everything began to fade away. The extra mouths on his skin began to spit back out the suit he’d been wearing, and it slowly enveloped his skin as he shrank. The giant mutant arm fell off, literally, as did the wings and tail; all turned to ash in seconds. A proper arm regrew where the giant one fell from, and the various bits of spikes, extra mouths, and hardened skin either faded or withdrew back into his body, before his suit pulled over it once again. It was like watching floating fabric drift outward from a body of flesh and blood, poke out over the surface, and cover grotesque, cancerous flesh beneath it.

And then there was only Michael MacDonald, tall, strong man in a suit, shaved head, and a single chain connecting nostril to ear. He growled at the watching Kindred, and they all visibly cowered. The aura of the elder was absurd, disgusting, a blood leech corpse letting his power rise to an overt display Eric had never expected. Jessy had said the man was over two centuries old in Kindred years, and in that amount of time, a vampire could gain and master absurd powers. He believed it now. An elder Gangrel was fucking freaky.

Eric and Caleb both began to return to their human form, threat gone. It was painful, and Eric doubted he’d be walking much, once he was back in human form. He was right. As his clothes reemerged, and his weight returned to normal, he looked up at Jessy, and tried to sit up. Holy shit pain, but not overwhelming. He managed, with a little bit of Jessy’s help, and she smiled at him as she helped bring him to standing.

Joe came over to them, eying Michael closely with every step, before he reached down, and provided the same courtesy to Caleb. “Lucky Garry isn’t here,” he said under his breath at Jessy.

She rolled her eyes, and started walking, making sure to keep Eric’s arm draped over her shoulders. “Fuck you, Joe.”

“Herrington,” Michael said, staring at her, glaring daggers. “Enough.”

“Yes sire.” She forced her eyes away from him, and started walking faster, keeping Eric up. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

“ ... sorry,” he said, once they had some distance between them and the group of Kindred. “I kind of fucked things up. Got carried away.”

“Nah, you were pushed into it by that Caleb fucker, and Joe. And besides, seeing you run through a fucking wall, and fight another werewolf? Holy fuck, I am soaking my panties.”

He laughed, and regretted it immediately. Christ, what the fuck had Michael done to him? It was like he’d been stabbed with silver, not regular spikes. Broken bones were put back together, but tender; they weren’t the cause of the extreme pain. It was the unreal, serrated damage of Michael’s spikes that had hurt him so much.

“No you’re not. I’d smell it.”

“Well, later, when I’ve got the Blush going.”

“What about ... that red building, the spirit told us about?”

“Jonah, Hella, and I will drive back, once we drop you off at your place.” She laughed, and leaned her head in toward his, pressing the top of it against his neck and chin. “Don’t try and fight any elder vampires in the future, ya? I’d be really fucking sad if you died.”

He turned his head enough to give her a small kiss on the forehead. “Me too.”

~~Jack~~

His mom wasn’t doing much better. Almost as pale as Mary, and face sunken in a bit, and with a big tube coming out of her mouth, she looked like she was in a sci-fi horror movie. If he took out the tube, she’d probably start coughing and sputtering up black ooze, unplugged from her induced coma by the evil corporation that was selling her body to an alien species. The fantasy was preferable to the reality.

Sighing, Jack looked at his mom, and watched her broken, withered body try and breathe. The machine kept her going, life support, and she’d almost certainly die if he took her off of it. The doctors had found brain damage, and didn’t know if she’d ever wake up.

He stood at the foot of the bed, and listened to the quiet clop clop of doctors and nurses walking by. He had to Dominate a few of them, to let him in, and to get an update on her condition. No change, of course. A sick, twisted fate, her life paralyzed by this strange moment. God was laughing at him, holding him in limbo at this horrible point. If she woke up, things would be different. If she died, things would be different. Damien would probably say God was testing him. Well, Jack was, at best, agnostic, and didn’t give a shit about any deity trying to teach him a lesson.

The bar on the bed frame was still dented with his grip. They’d fix it at some point, he was sure, but for the moment, it was a nice reminder that he had to control his temper. He was a vampire, and the Beast was in his guts, telling him to claw and tear and rip and shred a hundred times more than it ever had before. Looking at his half dead mother, more than looking at his dead sister, was bringing his rage up to the surface, demanding he scream and roar. At least with Mary, there was a sense of finality, but the limbo his mom was trapped in was triggering anxiety mixed with anger to the point he could feel vitae building up, despite no effort on his part to call it.

The Beast was calling it. Antoinette had said his Beast was unusually strong, and he was letting it get to the surface more than he should have been. Great.

A vampire’s strength was directly related to their Beast, he knew that much. It was the piece of them that was inhuman, mixing and mingling with their human body and soul. An animal, a monster, that gave them their strength, their inhuman senses, their strange ability to speak to animals, transform into them, or manipulate the minds of kine. The closer he grew to his, the closer it got to the surface of his mind, and the more he didn’t like it. More than that, the louder his inner monster grew, the more it didn’t feel like anyone else’s Beast, the more it felt strange, and angry. He wanted to ask Viktor about it, and now he couldn’t.

Julias kept his Beast well under control, holding it deep inside, far away from the surface. Jack pieced that together on his own, watching his sire work, seeing how the man reacted to negative stimulus; a master of holding his inhuman side at bay, under control, contained. Either his sire was lucky, or had spent dedicated years of effort training himself.

“But me, Mom? I don’t know. It could be me, or just the circumstances I keep finding myself in.” He squeezed on the metal bar, and his fingers slid into the dent grooves. “I regret Viktor’s death. Julias doesn’t seem to have the same bite, the same inner ... fury. Maybe he just saw it in Viktor, and did his best to avoid it. Maybe.” He squeezed the metal a little harder, and closed his eyes as he felt it threaten to bend more. Sighing, he relented his grip, and moved over to sit beside her again.

“Julias is great. Amazing teacher. He even fit the father figure bill for me, to some extent. I learned how to think from him, how to be smart ... too smart.” He forced down the lump in his throat that threatened to rise, the memories of his conversation with his sister coming up. “You said he looked like a loan shark, remember? That was funny.”

Samantha did not stir. Her eyes didn’t flicker underneath her eyelids. Her fingers remained still, and pale, sitting on the hospital-green bed sheet. Her lungs moved, but only because a machine was making them. Half alive, like him, in a way.

“I said goodbye to Mary. She didn’t have much to say, but I figured it was important. It was weird, doing all the talking while she listened. Big switcharoo, compared to the past.” He reached out, and began to stroke his mom’s hair. Short brown hair, gentle curves and waves, less messed up than they were the first night he saw her in the hospital, but still not as bouncy as they were when he saw her through the window. “Not sure about you though, Mom. I ... I could say goodbye, I suppose. That could mean leaving you here, in a coma, but you’ll probably die eventually. I could take you off life support now, and that’ll kill you. Or, I could ask someone to sire you ... or I could sire you.” He shivered, and shook his head. “No, I can’t. Sorry I mentioned it. I’m barely holding on by a thread here, and if I did something like that, I know ... I know I’ll be as good as dead. Draugr, they call them. Mindless vampires who’ve given into their Beast completely.

“Someone else could sire you, though. Julias probably could, but I don’t want to put that strain on him so soon after siring me. My partners, Jess and Damien, they could. Neither of them have sired, and you’d be their first. What do you think? As a Gangrel, you’d be really in tune with your Beast, and that primal edge would be at your fingertips. And as a Mekhet, you’d be sneaky as hell. Sneaky and fast. And they got that Auspex thing that lets them see into things, into people, items, places, more than other people can. Scary stuff, right? Either of those interest you?”

His mom said nothing, and he sighed as he took her closer hand into both of his. He rubbed her fingers and knuckles, hoping against hope she might squeeze. No such luck, but he kept trying anyway.

“There’s Nosferatu. I ... I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, though. Not everyone gets off as lightly as Jacob or Triss.” He shivered as he pictured his mom looking like Maria. Fuck, that’d be horrific. “You could end up with eyes all over your face, or an extra arm growing out of your butt.

“Then, of course, there’s Antoinette, and the Daeva. You’d be sexy, I can guarantee that. Sexy ... and obsessed.” He leaned in, put his elbows on his knees, and put his chin on the bed next to his mom’s hand. “Daeva obsess over different things. Material things, art, music, romance ... sex.” Laughing, his shoulders shook with his chuckles, and he looked up the blanket toward his still mother. “I really shouldn’t be talking to you about my sex life, huh? Not really a normal topic for a mother-son conversation. But maybe it should be.

“Antoinette is my lover, and the love of my life. She’s smart, wise, confident, super rich, and has a massive sex drive that’s eternal.” He checked her face; no response. “Yeah, I know, don’t freak out. I went from being a loner nerd, to somewhat of a playboy, I suppose. Antoinette has two ghouls, girls, and ... yeah. That sound like something that might interest you? I mean, igniting your love life again, having one, making one. Certainly doable. Hell, you could bang a half dozen strangers every night if you wanted, as a Daeva.” He sat up and slouched forward, with elbows on the blankets again. “I know you were trying to get back into the dating world. That made me happy. The last thing I wanted was for you to linger, and get buried by remorse, you know? Throw me in a box in a ditch; what do I care, I’m dead. The living shouldn’t sit around lamenting the dead, wasting money on them, except for maybe a party to celebrate their life. Just the one party, to help move on.”

Groaning, he shifted the chair closer to her head, and set a hand on her shoulder. “I suppose that’s not the same. You didn’t know I was dead, just missing. I’ve been missing for almost two years. No closure, not really.” He gave her shoulder a little shake. No response, of course. “So, what do you think? Being a Kindred ain’t so bad. You get to start a new life, and it’s damn freeing, you know? Everything from your old life, gone, all the chains and weights removed. Clean slate.

“Except, that’s ... that’s the problem, isn’t it? For someone like me, that wasn’t too hard. For someone like you, it ... it could ... could be tough.” Another shake for her shoulder. No response. “But it’s better than dying, right? The Beast isn’t so bad. It hungers, and you have to feed it regularly, but you don’t have to kill anyone.” That earned a twitch, from him, and he grit his teeth as he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “You don’t have to, but it could happen. It happened to me, once, by accident. I handled it well, at the time. Not so well, I suppose, as the months went by. Mrs. Pavala. Her empty stare still haunts me, and ... and knowing you, it’d be worse, if it happened to you. It’d eat you up until you crumbled, killing an innocent person. But I wouldn’t let that happen.

“Julias says it was unusual that I frenzied that first night, especially since he gave me some blood. Cold blood from a fridge, but still, it was something, and should have been enough to stop a fledgling like me from full frenzying like that.” He looked down at his chest, the suit and tie, and clutched a hand to his sternum, fingers digging into bone. “This thing inside me is fucking ravenous, and I haven’t done nearly as good a job as Julias pushing it down. From day one, it was doing its damnedest to get out. It’s strong. People have noticed that I’m unusual, for better or worse. Kindred younger than me, and some older, are afraid of me. I ... I don’t understand. Viktor was a monster, but I don’t know how much of it was him, and how much of it was our bloodline. And Julias—”

“Julias got lucky, very early on.”

Jack jerked his head toward the door. His sire stood there, hand in pocket while the other eased the door open silently. With quiet steps, Julias leaned back against the door, closing it, and offered Jack a small smile.

“Julias?”

“Not long after I was embraced, I visited my wife. We started to argue, and I hit her. Not a slap, either. I hit her hard enough to nearly break bone. Had to take her to the hospital. I vanished that night, and never saw her again.”

Jack stared at the man, and gulped. “You?”

“Me.”

“Hit your wife.”

“Yeap.”

“ ... why?”

“All these years, I assumed it was because I was a colossal asshole. And I’m sure that was part of it. But, after seeing what became of Viktor, and seeing ... what’s happening to you, I’m starting to wonder if our bloodline really is cursed.” Julias pulled up a chair, and sat across from him, looking at him over his mother.

“Cursed...”

“Maybe cursed is the wrong word. Viktor was strong, always was. So was I. I thought Viktor returned from his long torpor twisted, but ... I wouldn’t be surprised if the man had been a horrible, twisted soul before, and just did a better job hiding it before his torpor. And me, I felt that anger in me when I hit my wife, how it seared my soul, and I ... I pushed every bit of that anger deep down into my guts. Hated myself, for a century, until I met a girl like Triss.”

Jack stared at him for a while, but laughed once the cliché reality of his words sank in.

“For the love of a woman, right?”

“Exactly.”

Jack laughed again, and pat his arm on his mom’s shoulder as he smiled at Julias. “I don’t have much context. First relationship of my life is proving to be a keeper.”

“First relationship I’ve had in forever is proving to be a keeper, too.”

“Sometimes I wonder about marriage. A paper contract seems so ... meaningless, compared to ... well, everything about our lives.”

“Yeah, it does. But fuck me, I was going to ask her anyway, Jack.”

That was a bit surprising. “Think Triss’ll say yes?”

He nodded, and offered him a small grin. “Jen and I have been trading secrets, with Triss as a spectator. Personal stuff. I’m going to use the fifth and final secret as a marriage proposal.”

“Sounds disgustingly romantic.”

“Very. Triss will hate it, and love it.”

Jack smiled at the man. To know Julias had struggled with extreme rage was comforting, in a way. If the great and mighty, and sorrowful Julias, could quell his rage, maybe Jack could, too. Then again, Julias hadn’t gone through the same sort of pain Jack had. His Hell had been different.

The two chuckled for a little while, before they both looked back to Samantha.

“I’d sire her, Jack, if you asked.”

“I can’t ask that.”

“I can handle it.”

“Maybe.” Maybe not. If Julias did have a Beast as fucked up, twisted, and angry as Jack’s, siring another childe so soon could bring it to the surface. “I don’t want to put that on you.”

“You could sire her, but ... no, it’d be a bad idea.”

“Agreed.”

Sighing, Julias looked up at the machine showing her vitals. “Natasha wrestled with this.”

“ ... she did?” He hadn’t thought about that.

“Yeah. Her mother died of illness, brought on by her extreme depression over her daughter’s disappearance. Not long after, her father killed himself.”

“I ... I don’t understand. Why didn’t she embrace them, or ask someone to?”

“Many reasons. She didn’t have the same friends you did, or clout. And at the time, embracing was off limits except by special circumstance.” The man sighed, and leaned in toward Jack, over his mother’s waist. “And, even if she could have, she’d have hesitated.”

“Kindred life can be rough.”

“Yes, it can. Natasha’s life in the Ordo Dracul terrified her. She left, joined the Invictus, and lived inside numbers and books as she coped with how scary her new life was. I’m not exactly friends with the sheriff, but the few times I saw Daniel during those first few years after her embrace, he looked ... especially stone-like. I didn’t know why at the time, since his embracing a childe was a secret.”

“And getting hit by that fear is a very real possibility with Mom.”

“Yes, it is.”

“But it’s better than her dying.”

“Is it?”

Jack glared at his sire, and leaned in as well, only a foot remaining between their faces. “You think it’d be better if she died?”

“That’s not what I said. I can’t make this decision for you. Personally, being Kindred has been a roller coaster of ups and downs, with greater highs and lows than I could get when alive. But your mom is going to be starting from a very, very low low. It could ruin her. It could save her, give her a new lease on a broken life.” The man didn’t pull away, staying close, and matching Jack’s gaze.

They stared at each other for a little while, in the eyes, without blinking. No malice or frustration. Julias wanted Jack to see what was going on in his mind without saying it, and Jack did his best to see.

Give her a chance, Jack.

“ ... I ... I think I’ll ask someone to sire her.”

Julias smiled at him, offered a quick wink, and leaned back in his chair. “Whatever happens, she’ll get the best welcome possible. I mean come on, her kid’s one of the Right Hands of the Invictus, and a prodigy. She’ll be treated with respect.”

Prodigy, heh. Julias knew how to inflate his ego, that was for sure.

“Except she won’t be of our bloodline. She’ll be ... someone else’s.”

“Yeah, she will.” Instead of the frown Jack expected, Julias’s smile remained. It was a good thing she wasn’t of their bloodline, if this insidious Beast in their guts was genuine. It’d be years before Jack was in a position to sire, and Julias probably wouldn’t want to for years, or decades. Plenty of time for them to figure out if this problem was fixable, manageable, or ignorable.

“Julias, I ... I just wanted you to know, for all the shit that keeps coming my way, our way, I don’t regret what happened.”

“You don’t think it’d have been better if I could have sired you on your couch, after a conversation and some preparation?”

“Heh, maybe if you got me drunk, first. But I see what you mean. Siring me while I was bleeding to death must have been a tough decision.”

“You’re making the same decision as we speak.”

“I ... I guess I am.” And it was a damn tough one. “And if I knew then what I know now, I would have wanted you to embrace me.” He’d never have met Antoinette if Julias hadn’t.

The two of them nodded and leaned back in their chairs, each folding their arms across their chests and suits. Decision made, then.

“I assume you’re going to ask Antoinette?”

Ok, decision part A made, part B pending.

“I think so. But imagining Mom with a Daeva’s ... quirks, is difficult. She’s an airhead.”

“An airhead, or maybe she just doesn’t overthink everything. She lets the small things roll off, and focuses on the big things. Maybe she lets her emotions guide her a little more than she should, but then, being logical isn’t always a good thing. Humans and vampires alike have this nasty requirement of needing to listen to their emotions in order to be happy, Jack, and a silly airhead has figured that out intuitively. In a way, they’re a genius.”

They both chuckled. It was half true, and they knew it.

“I wonder about Damien,” Jack said. “Fiona reminds me of Mom. I wonder if she’ll help put a dent in Damien’s mind. Dude has a wall the size of Everest between him and the joy literally throwing itself at him.”

“Damien and the sheriff are similar. No one’s cracked Daniel’s shell, except for Natasha, and even then it’s only a little. I have no idea if Fiona will be able to get through Damien’s thick skull, considering he’s had half a century to build it.”

“Half a century. God damn. Really makes all my whining sound so juvenile.”

Julias shook his head, sighing. “No, it doesn’t. The burden you’re carrying is unusual, Jack. I trust you to carry it, but don’t underestimate its weight.”

Nodding, Jack reached out, and stroked his mom’s forehead. “I’m ... excited, to talk to her again. Fucking terrified of telling her Mary’s dead, but excited to show her I’m alive. Hell, I’m even excited to tell her she gets to live for forever now. Excited and so damn terrified.”

“I look forward to speaking to her again, as well. And, Antoinette will get to speak to the mother of her lover.”

Well, shit. Jack hadn’t even thought about that. Was that a good thing, or a bad thing? She’d tell Antoinette about how dirty he used to let his room get, or that one time when he was a boy and he had food poisoning and—yeah, bad thing, all bad.

~~Damien~~

They sat there for a while, and listened to distant echoes of combat. Matthew’s roars, and the crack of gunfire, were far enough Damien had to assume they were a near mile off. By the time the sound reached them, it was warped and a shell of its former self, which gave the three vampires and monster enough quiet to sit, recover, and chat. Chatting was, perhaps, the wrong word. Groaning was a better one.

“I am so sore,” Vicky said.

Damien grumbled and looked her way. He was sitting, but only because Fiona had managed to drag him over to the tunnel wall, a good fifty feet away from the crumbled ceiling. Above where the trap had been set, was mangled earth, steel bars, and shattered concrete, threatening to fall at the edges of the hole. Fiona had spent some time hooking webbing to the hole, but without supporting arches or pillars, it was a band-aid at best, not safe to stay under.