Chapter 63

~~Jack~~

“Guys, guys! We need to stick around and figure out all we can.” He tried to get out of their grip, but it wasn’t going to happen. Fiona had a good grip for a small girl, and Damien had fifty years of his second life in seniority. Struggling was pointless, but he wasn’t about to throw this opportunity away. Sandbagging was the best option he had, so he let his bodyweight succumb to gravity. Unfortunately, they were both strong enough to drag him, regardless.

“Jack, you pride yourself on your reasoning, yes?” Damien said.

“ ... I do, yeah.” Fuck. Already knew where Damien was going with this, but he didn’t want to hear it right now.

“I know figuring what to do about this ritual thing targeting you is a top priority. But, we’re in over our heads. We saw what we came to see, but—”

“Azamel’s warning is—”

“Has nothing to do with the hunter ritual.” Damien shook his head, as he looked back over his shoulder at Jack. “We have an idea now of what’s going on, so we should get out of here. Report, meet up with Jessy, delicately avoid talk of mysterious warnings, and mention Azamel’s explanation of where the ritual came from.”

“ ... fine.”

Fiona, giggling and almost jumping in spot, helped him back to his feet. Turning fear into excitement was a skill she had in droves. “Come on! Who knows what ... what...”

Jack stood up, and turned around to face the direction Fiona and Damien were taking him. There’d be something bad ahead, something that warranted Fiona’s pause, something that was going to make Damien right, and make Jack regret his one moment of spontaneity.

“Uh oh, uh oh.” Sky came up behind them, and flapped a feather over their heads. “Leave, better leave!” And leave it did, flapping both wings and catapulting itself into the air, abandoning the three little monsters to find a perch on higher ground. That was fine, Jack couldn’t blame any bird for escaping at the moment of danger, that’s what birds did. But at the same time, he was really wishing the bird would have taken them with it.

They came out of the street, out of the cracks of shadow running along the uneven asphalt, out of the corner where building met pavement, out of the rainy windowsills, and out of the shadows cast by warped benches. Red bits of wavy fog leaked out of crevices, as if someone was smoking, and blowing puffs of crimson cloud. With each wave of the fog that crept out onto the street in front of the three; hissing began, quiet and taunting. Drip, drip, splashes of red liquid fell to the street, before disappearing into nothing, wisps of more red smoke, while entities began to form.

Most definitely not the sex spirits he had seen in Dolareido.

The red things had streaks of black moving through them, or streaks of red moving through masses of black; hard to tell as the two colors mixed and fought for surface area. But with time, it was apparent something black, something that looked like tar dancing with smoke, was draped in red which ran like blood. Drip, drip. The red things had human-like torso shapes, but without distinguished features; legs as solid as cigarette smog. With time, long claws of black crept out of their hands, subtle but massive. Worse were the eyes, glowing white eyes, slitted and slanted. Demon eyes.

And there was a dozen of them.

“Someone ... tore open ... verge ... who?” One of the strange, hovering spirits came forward from the group, and looked at them.

And that was enough for the weight of its presence to hit them. The three of them took a step back, and Jack gulped as he felt the ice in his stomach start to form. He stared into the eyes of the demon creature, until the bent streetlights started to flicker on and off, aware of the eye contact. Shit, shit, shit. As if the city itself was not happy about the creatures, the streetlights warped, bending away from their city-center hope, away from the hovering entities. The shadow was powerful as the lights began to turn off, one at a time; each a flicker, then a dying gasp, before it was gone.

As the strange spirits spread out to cover Jack’s exit back to the ‘verge’, darkness settled on them, until only the moon and its unsteady light offered them vision. Fiona might be able to see in total darkness, but Damien and Jack would be fucked. It hadn’t come to that, but it was getting a little too close for comfort.

Damien and Fiona nudged Jack in the back of his shoulders. Oh, right. Now that everything was going to shit, he was the ambassador, again. If it wasn’t his fault for them getting caught, he’d have kept his mouth shut. Well, would have liked to, but the situation wasn’t giving him any options.

“Um, uh ... verge?” he said.

The strange, shadowy figure of obsidian death and bleeding crimson, gestured to the wall of the factory the three intruders had come from. “Black Blood has claimed this.” The choir of entities hissed, one or two of them shrieking. The sound stirred the rat-like black blobs that ran along the building perimeters nearby, and sent them darting into whatever hole they could find.

“Black Blood has no claim to the old verges!” Sky squawked from his perch on a rooftop, and clawed at the roof edge a few times. “They’re from before!”

The dark spirit in front of its brethren moved forward again, without a glance to the bird. “You ... you two are Kindred. Dead things. Useless. But you...” It drifted toward Fiona, closer, drip drip of something very blood-like creating a trail behind it. “Skin. Sinew. Bone. Organs. Muscle. Fat. Let us see.”

“Oh, I dinnae think so!”

So much for diplomacy. Before Jack could reach out, stop her from turning a bad situation worse, the woman let out her monster.

The giant spider creature, the woman of blades, of horns covering the top half of her face like an elegant mask combining into a crown, of spikes for feet and fingers, of silk and shadow, slashed out. A flicker of shadow in the already dim light was easy to miss, but Jack knew what to look for. The blades Vrall used weren’t for slashing, they were for stabbing, like an estoc sword. A very, very, very long estoc.

Either the strange spirits didn’t recognize what Fiona was, or they underestimated her, and how quick she’d be to throw the first punch. Eight blades upon long, smooth, sectioned spider legs stabbed out, cracking the air with a snap, and stabbing into each spirit, through their chests; if that was a chest, on top of their legs of smoke. It must have been, because the eight creatures all let out a weird shriek, distorted with ear-splitting nails-on-chalkboard shrill sounds.

The eight of them fell to the ground. And then, started to get back up.

“Warned.” One of them said, spreading out, body disappearing into the shadow of a nearby bench.

“Warned about the Begotten.” Another, one getting up from the wound, stood before them, fearless. The hole in its chest showed only more of the black and red smoke that made its body, and the hole was closing back up.

“Begotten opened the door, without permission.” Another moved toward the building on Damien’s left, and its body pressed to the brick, flatter than it should have been able to. As it moved toward them, shadow spread out from where its body merged with the building, burying it and the surrounding asphalt in billowy onyx for a dozen feet. A smokescreen of bleeding tar. “Kill Begotten.”

Ok, yeah, that sounded bad. Sounded like they didn’t want Begotten opening doors that were otherwise locked. Sounded like covering up their tracks. Sounded like Black Blood was giving these things orders, too? He’d ask, but doubted they’d answer.

Jack stepped away again, drawing his pistol and sword, and began firing. No reason to be diplomatic at this point. “Shit. Shit shit shit. Plan?”

“Escape.” Damien mirrored him. Though his weapons were already drawn, he wasted no time following Jack’s lead, sinking bullets into the spirits.

The dozen spirits scattered, becoming smoke on the wind. Their eyes and enormous claws remained solid, but their bodies did not, half opaque as they took to the sky. The one against the building jumped for Damien, one set of claws slicing up through the asphalt like butter. But, a need for melee meant Damien had little trouble putting a bullet through the creature’s head, sending it toppling to the street, at his feet.

It started to get up, hole in its head filling in with a mix of the black tar, and crimson mist.

No one wanted to say it, but none of them knew anything about spirits. Jack was starting to learn a thing or two, but ultimately, he had no idea if spirits were immortal, or if guns and swords could kill them. And these spirits kept getting back, even as Jack and Damien continued to sink bullets into them. Another one dived at them, this one from the front, and Jack sank six bullets into its chest before it went down. It too started to get up, slowly but surely.

“Run!” Sky said, and it took to the air and flew away. Typical bird.

Ok, he took it back. Jack wouldn’t blame a bird for running at the first sign of trouble. Strangle Mulder and Scully when you get back, just because.

Damien tapped him on the shoulder, and nodded his head back toward the path behind them. Empty street, no movement as far as Jack could see, and the curved streetlights pointed the way toward South Side. He was afraid to see what South Side might look like in this strange Shadow world, and it was a good mile or two run from here, anyway. Kindred could do that, no need for air, but could Fiona? It seemed like she couldn’t transform into her horror, not completely, not unless she was in a nightmare.

“Cover me, Jack.” Damien got onto a knee, put his sword away, and nodded his head toward Fiona. “Get on.”

“Oh, my hero!” Giggling, always with the giggling. She hopped onto Damien’s back, and like he’d done this a hundred times before, he started running, one arm hooked onto her thigh to keep her secure as she hugged him. With his other arm free, he continued to fire his pistol, and unlike Jack, he didn’t miss.

Well, at least this way they didn’t have to worry about Fiona growing tired now. Jack broke into a full on run, letting a touch of the beast out, a little of the hungry animal channel into his legs, tapping into that Kindred part of him that had no issue running. The beast loved to run, hop building rooftops, stalk the shadows, and track prey. Running was all he needed, for now.

The spirits gave chase. Naturally. But they didn’t run on legs to do it; hell, their legs had vanished. The dozen spirits floated after them, flowing left and right in the air like sharks, arms hanging underneath them and pulling back with the momentum of movement and the impact of the air they cut through. Some of the spirits merged into walls, others into the street. They flowed after the three running intruders like living shadow. As the three of them rounded a corner, one of the spirits hovered over a bench, and its claws sliced through its bent shape without resistance.

It was like running from a bunch of Wolverine ghosts. What the fuck?

“Fiona, can you not walk like you do in the nightmare?” he yelled, turning back and shooting at one of the spirits as it pulled ahead of the pack. Miss. Miss. Hit! It shrieked as lead tore through its demon eye, and it collided with the street, crimson and onyx splattering around, half of it in drops like tar, or thick blood. Half of it spreading into the air like mist. But, with time, the ethereal splatter of whatever the spirit was made of, began to pull itself back into its host.

“I cannae! Nae easily. Summoning Vrall out ‘ere is hard. It’s ... it’s nae home, nae the nightmare. But if we can find a place dark and secluded, someplace quiet, I might be able to open a pathway back to my lair.”

Easier said than done. The whole place was dark, but secluded wasn’t going to happen, as every corner, every building, every object they passed, Jack was sure he saw something alive, or at least moving. More of those rat-like wisps along the corners, or new things he couldn’t put a name to, but looked like slugs creeping up old buildings. Hairy, old slugs.

A shriek sent him down, falling to his chest hard enough for the street to tear into his suit, and some of his skin. Ripped fabric and bits of ash, lovely. One of the spirits flew over his head, and he shot at it from behind as it darted through the air, left and right. But, if it was going to consistently move like a shark, he could use that, and predict.

Miss. Hit! Getting better. The creature went down with another shriek, higher pitched, full of pain, and frustration. Physical things hurt them, but were they dying? How they fuck was he supposed to know, they kept getting back up.

He threw Fiona a glance as he got up, while Damien waited for him. Nice to know the man wouldn’t leave him behind, when the shit hit the fan. There was so much shit, Jack struggled to see anything else. Trapped in a parallel dimension, with ghost things chasing them. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

They rounded a corner, and Damien threw open a door of a nearby building. Front door of an apartment building.

“We’re going to be trapped in here,” Jack said, running up the stairs after Damien.

Damien shook his head. “We’re going to get run down, if we stay out there.” Once he stopped by an apartment door, he set Fiona down, and kicked it hard. Jack expected wood to splinter and the door to fly open; kicking open doors was a common Kindred tactic. But the wood did not budge. Tilting his head to the side, Damien tried again, driving his boot into the wood hard enough to send an echo through the hall. Nothing. “ ... what in the world.”

The door snarled.

The three of them jumped back, and stared at a door that just made noise. It opened a couple of eyes from the white coating of cheap paint. Small eyes slitted vertically with black pupils. A lipless mouth followed, large and reaching from edge to edge, with bars for teeth, the sort of bars you’d find on a window in a rough neighborhood.

“Go away!” it said, voice full of deep thuds.

“Go away!” another door said.

“Go away!” said another.

“Ye’ve got to be shitting me.” Fiona, caught between a laugh and hiccup, turned around and looked at the doors. They were all doing it, all sprouting eyes and mouths, all glaring at the intruders. Did people in Dolareido really live in this sort of paranoia? Maybe the Carthians had it right, and it wasn’t as good a place to live as the Invictus and Antoinette liked to pass off.

Maybe he could talk past the door? Screams ripped down the hallway, putting an end to that idea as each door closed their eyes and mouths, becoming regular doors once more.

The three of them turned to face the sound, and began to back away from it. The hallway was lit with flickering light, bulbs that dipped in and out of different colors. Red to white, to black, and then back again, as if the light itself was bleeding on them in rhythm with the delightful ear-splitting shrieks that filled the corridor.

Silence fell on them, heavy and cold. They continued to back away from the stairway, pistols up, swords out, and the two Kindred glancing over their shoulders to look behind them. The hallway came to a stop except for strange windows, which looked like they were being rained on. Despite the lack of rain. The carpet was damp, dark, and stained. The walls were cracked, bleeding rust, and showing other signs of wear and tear. It was one of the apartment buildings built on the North Side’s edge, where people could find a cheap place to live without risking Devil’s Corner shit. Maybe that’s why the doors wouldn’t let them in.

How much Dolareido reflected on itself, in this shadow world, was startling. But, it was also useful information. If he could predict what sort of reaction they’d get from environments based on what he knew about the city, maybe he could avoid situations like this.

Too little, too late. The silence pressed against them, and shadows beyond poked at the corners of the hallway. Outside, where they could run, the strange ghosts had been scary; inside a hallway, with no escape, the strange entities took on a new level of terrifying. Not Damien’s fault, but Jack couldn’t help but give the man a frown, as the shadows dancing on the edge of the corner ahead of them, started to emerge.

“Give us the flesh.” Beedy eyes poked out from around the corner, but they didn’t expose their bodies, yet. They carried darkness with them, like ink, or a poisonous fog. It hid their features, so only their glowing eyes cut through the obsidian nebula surrounding their guise.

“W-Why would a spirit want flesh?” Jack said, small sword in one hand, and pistol set to brace against his wrist. Whatever spirits were made of, they refused to die, no matter how many bullets the two Kindred sank into them. Fiona’s monster limbs seemed to do better, but not much better. Would silver work? Probably not.

Another set of eyes poked out from around the distant corner, white slits cutting through the pulsing, bleeding light. Drops of black and red fell from wisps of onyx, and crept along the ruined carpet toward the three intruders. Every moment it got closer, darkness was drawn inward, like a vortex.

Vampires, and a Begotten of darkness, stepping back from shadows. Fucking lovely.

“Flesh, blood. Tools from the other side. Stupid creatures know not the power of their own bones, of their sinew.” Claws reached out from the black, arms misty red and flowing with waves of darkness, like food coloring dropped into water. Drip, drip. The claws came out further, then sank into the floor, as if the shitty carpet was nothing more than water.

The thing was talking about human bodies as if they were toolkits, as if the limbs, organs and contents thereof, were items to be used in ... in a ritual. Crúac? But, there was more to crúac than just guts and bones, as far as Jack’s paltry understanding was concerned. It didn’t make sense.

“Did ... did you have ... anything to do with a ritual ... with pictures? Drawn pictures?”

A laugh, a shriek mixed with ups and downs of tearing vocal cords. Another spirit crept in with the black, piercing eyes drifting down along the floor, then up against the opposite wall.

“One of us. Not one of us. Secrets, on the parchment, of the flesh and bone. A glimpse of who it is the monster speaks with. The trail for their goal.”

“W-What? I don’t understand, I—”

The chorus of shrieks erupted, and the eyes and claws came with it. Darting out of the black, the spirits ripped and shredded the floor, ceiling, walls, and doors as they dashed for the three intruders. The doors opened their eyes and cried out in pain, eyes flitting around in a panic as claws sliced them open. Some of the doors fell apart, revealing obsidian endlessness beyond them, cold and empty.

Jack and Damien started backing up, each unloading bullets into the oncoming swarm. Screams echoed through the hallway, against the hollering doors that cried in pain, as more claws came for them. Rabid animals.

Fiona swung both her arms from side to side, as if knocking aside a great tide. The monster inside her snapped out with its limbs, and splattered white against the walls. Webbing, a mountain of it, in a pattern of chaos. Ropes, and ropes of it, joined wall to wall, thick strands, more than big enough to hang a man, covered the hallway passage.

The spirits crashed into them. Either they didn’t see, or didn’t expect them, many getting their claws trapped underneath the webbing at angles they couldn’t use to cut. And as they struggled, the three of them continued to back up, shooting, and shooting.

Jack glanced over his shoulder. Window. If the doors weren’t going to open for them, though even if they did, nothing seemed to exist behind them, then the window was the only way out. Jump out the window? He could handle the fall, Damien could handle the fall, and Fiona could too.

“Go, go!” Jack yelled as he slammed his back beside the windowsill, reloaded, and fired into the approaching black cloud. Swirling bits of red followed the pairs of eyes moving up and down in the obsidian wall, and the webbing Fiona left disappeared into the rolling waves. Left, right, up, down, the eyes moved around and around, letting out shrieking cackles, and dragging a pair of claws up the walls, floor, and ceiling. Jack shot at them, taking his time to aim for a set of eyes each time, and squeezing the trigger with solid strength, Kindred strength. The odd sounding thud of bullets hitting spirit bodies joined high pitched shrieks, as pair, after pair, of slitted white eyes fell into the black. Then, got back up.

Damien shot the window. Jack half expected the window to not break, then announce its frustration to the intruders. But the satisfying sound of a bullet shattering glass filled the hallway, causing Jack to sigh, in relief, as he glanced at Damien, watching him work. Boot against the glass and wood, Damien made short work of the window. Before he could say anything, Fiona jumped out.

“Fiona!” Damien threw his hands up, before he, too, jumped through the window.

“Give us the woman,” the spirits said, their voice a harsh whisper between the gunshots. Many voices, fading in and out, speaking out of turn from each other. Voices overlapping, cutting through each other. “Give us the woman, Jack Terry, and we will tell you more of the ritual of faces.”

Ritual of faces. Name? Could be, or just what the spirits call it. Better than nothing, though. He had something to go with, something to sink his teeth into, and learn about. Later. For now, Geronimo.

They weren’t up very high, so landing wasn’t easy. He was light, undead; the combination made falling a couple floors easy to manage. His shoes didn’t like it much, but his bones handled it fine. Fiona landed on her spider legs. Jack expected her to descend to her human feet, but she turned around, and sliced several spider blades at the window. The monster’s blades slashed over Jack’s head, crashing into the window, and slathering it in webbing.

A moment to catch their breath. Or for her to catch hers. The Kindred looked at each other, the web-covered window, then around themselves. Two courses of action: run, or ask Fiona to cover the apartment building entrance with webbing, and then run.

A shriek from around the corner, outside the building, made the decision for them. Jack looked left and right, and let his shoulders drop, as more of the deadly creatures started to emerge from shadows. Their eyes blended into the flickering darkness, slits of white joined by dripping blacks and reds that leaked onto the street before them. Cracks in the sidewalk filled with the dark liquid, mixing red and black into ribbons, little streams, and overflowing veins that bled onto the street.

“Leave the flesh.”

“Leave her to us.”

“Undead will be left alone.”

“But only if monster left behind.”

“Will dissect her.”

“See her insides.”

“Blood, muscle, organs, bile.”

“And the horror inside. Where is it? How does it work?”

“Taste. Let us taste the Begotten.”

If aliens came to Earth, and needed to ingest people to figure out how they functioned, Jack figured they’d sound like this.

“I’m nae letting ye touch me!” Fiona backed away, down the empty street toward South Side. But, even if they could run to South Side, there wasn’t anything there to escape to. Where were they running?

They weren’t running anywhere. They were just running. Sky said run, and unless the bird had some miracle planned for their rescue, their running was fruitless.

Damien didn’t agree. He scooped up Fiona, and bolted, making his way to South Side. “Don’t stop.”

“But—”

“Jack, keep running. We’ll figure this out.”

Easier for a Mekhet to say in the circumstance. He could run, he could hide. A Ventrue was at his best when standing his ground, preferably with army of thralls and ghouls under his command. An army of animals, at his beck and call, would not go amiss, either.

But, he had none of that, so he did the only damn thing he could. He ran, firing shots behind him. Was Sky overhead? He didn’t know, and couldn’t pause to look. Run. All he could fucking do was run. All he could do was—the two vampires, and the monster luggage on Damien’s back, came to a dead stop, and stared at the wall of water coming their way.

Holy fucking hell, had a meteor hit Earth? That’s what happens in all the movies, a giant wave of water followed the meteor’s impact, and half the world drowned, or some such. A quick glance up showed the moon was still there, so the Moon didn’t fall to Earth. And the water wasn’t coming at five-hundred miles an hour; maybe a tenth of that. But there was no denying, it was a giant wave of water, fifty feet high, hitting the rooftops of North Side factories and warehouses, as it crashed down and around them.

Jack threw up his hands, covered his face, and waited. He couldn’t drown, he hoped. He didn’t need to breathe but considering where he was, for all he knew a giant wave in the Shadow world was more than capable of drowning a vampire. Maybe he’d melt away, like in some vampire myths. Maybe he’d walk on water.

Whatever it’d do to him, he didn’t get to find out, as the crashing tide split around him and Damien at the last moment. Snapping out and back in, whipping around them with ferocious drive, the great water smashed into the oncoming, shrieking dozen of pursing death creatures. He turned, and stared on, as thunder rumbled through his body, enough to make his feet inch along the vibrating street. It would not have surprised him if one of the spirits had started to cry out ‘Moses!’, as the collapsing walls of compressing terror crashed in upon the ghastly creatures. Poor Ramesses.

Like drops of red and black food coloring, lost to insurmountable amounts of crashing water, the spirits began to fade away into the unending liquid. They cried and shrieked, alien sounds that reminded Jack of a fox’s scream. Bone chilling. It was impossible to see what happened to them after the first ten feet of water, as the splashing white foam and rapid, crashing waves disguised their journey, well and beyond what he could see. But, with how hard the water was slamming against the buildings, any human would have cracked like an egg on contact.

With time, the water began to fade, and Damien set Fiona down before drawing his sword once more. Jack still had his, but the hell was a sword going to do against water? He stared into the path ahead, where they had planned to run; there was now a river cutting around them. Nope, no glass between him and the water, but Jack peered into the water anyway, wondering if fish would be swimming by, like in one of those underwater aquariums.

The strange places a mind went when death was on your door. Maybe this was why Fiona always turned into a weird, giggling creature when she was super excited.

The water was eventually gone, draining into the gutters and manholes, and leaving behind a goddess of the Nile. Jack tilted his head to the side, and stared at the beautiful entity, with white wings, rising high, and catching the moonlight. Whatever the wings were attached to, it had womanly curves, formed in the clear blue liquid body. The goddess had no arms, but a human-ish body nonetheless, with jaw, neck, shoulders and hips. Its legs merged into a flowing blue wave which seemed to churn on itself, over the asphalt. Mist sparkled and flowed out of the woman’s shoulders where arms should have been, and the sparkling crystal spread outward, nudging against the dead streetlights, rekindling them.

“ ... you are Terry?” she ... it said, as it came toward them. “And you two must be Damien and Fiona. You are lucky my pack did not catch you during the misunderstanding, monster, or your death would have been sure.”

“I, um ... your pack?” Pack? The misunderstanding had been with the werewolves, but—”You work with Avery?”

“She does.”

Jack felt every muscle, every tight, gripping, squeezing bit of his insides relax, as he recognized Clara’s voice. She stepped out from behind the strange spirit, wearing jeans, brown hiking boots, and a loose white shirt. Casual, comfy, and beautiful against her tan skin tint.

“Hey, Clara.” Wait, shit! They weren’t supposed to be here. Crap! This wasn’t a good thing, but at least it was better than being cut up by those other things. “Um ... how’s it going?”

“Oh, you know, fine. Was hunting some red wraiths, until apparently, someone stirred the hornets’ nest. Every red wraith in the area converged here.” She nodded up to one of the rooftop ledges, where Sky had perched. “And this fucker found me and Carter, said you were in trouble.”

Carter, right, one of the werewolves getting a new apartment, courtesy of the Invictus. Older, and tough as nails by the look of him.

“Um, er ... yeah, uh—”

“This one,” the water creature said as it pointed at Fiona with one of its angel wings, “tore open the verge ... but it is closed once more. So, not torn, then. Opened?”

Fiona, with a single nod and silly giggle, hopped off of Damien’s back. “Aye! I go where I want. I’m a—”