~~Jack~~
He pressed the button for the elevator to his apartment, and waited. Man, what a shit show. Walking alone with Jacob had been startling, but if his time with Antoinette had taught him anything, it was elders were like onions. You had to peel them to get to the layers. And they had a lot of layers.
It wasn't the first time Jacob had taken interest to him. He interested the elder, as did Damien, because they were unpredictable. Jack always figured the more impulsive and brash Kindred like Jessy or Beatrice were unpredictable, but now that he thought about it, Jacob had a point. They weren't unpredictable, just loud. So what the fuck was it about him and Damien that Jacob considered so unpredictable? What layer of Jacob would expose the fucked up thought processes of a five-hundred-year-old vampire.
Like trying to walk more tightrope, except made of spiderweb.
In the elevator. He sighed, looked around, sighed some more, and let his head hang as his thoughts drifted back to the Primogen meeting. Elders had layers alright, and one of those layers was painting Antoinette in a bad light. He hated it. It was easier to think of her as intelligent and wise, ancient but seductive and fun, not as a real person with issues and hangups and prejudice.
Course, the prejudice may have been justified. Fiona had already killed thirteen—twelve people, in ten months. Dolareido was a huge city, but that many kills in that amount of time in that specific area was bound to attract attention. The Invictus and the Prince could suppress the evidence, make it disappear, so the pictures of the claw marks and odd blood splatter didn't attract the wrong kind of attention. But sooner or later, someone was going to wonder why people kept dying in mysterious circumstances in Devil's Corner. Investigations would start, kine would get involved, and eventually someone would discover something they shouldn't have.
With jangling keys, the familiar tink tink calling him home, he opened the door. Some peace and quiet, a moment to consider his thoughts, to—
"Hey Jack."
"Mother fucking!" Keys up in the air, along with his hands, and panic levels. "B-Beatrice? The hell? Fiona?"
The two women were sitting on his couch, laughing and chatting, smirking and smiling, and all the things that came with breaking into someone's home when you knew you could at any time.
"Saw this girl buzzing your number, said she knew you. So I helped her get in."
"How!?" he said, arms up and waving.
"Well the elevator can be bypassed by climbing," Beatrice said, "and your lock I can open cause I got mad skills. And I relocked it with your spare keys."
Spare keys. Fuck, the spare keys. He'd meant to give them to Antoinette, but Beatrice dangled them from her claws before tossing them his way.
"Right, right, so... um, hello?" He stood in front of the two girls, and gave them both the most angry, scrutinizing eye he could muster. Didn't work; they just laughed and giggled.
"I wanted to talk," Fiona said.
"Thought we did?"
"Aye... I dinnae ken. Felt like talking, visiting a friend."
Heh, friend. She really was the type to make friends easily, wear her emotions on her sleeve sort. It took months for Jack to make friends, but Fiona figured the connection was made in just several days.
Nodding, he threw his suit jacket on the couch arm and sat down across from them.
"Sure. Shit was pretty horrible today," he said, "so I mean, yeah, hang out. Sunrise isn't for a couple hours."
Fiona smiled, beaming, and put her feet up on the table again.
"Jack, if Antoinette catches you hanging out with fiery Scots women in your free time, she's gonna tear you in half," Beatrice said.
Both girls laughed again.
"Beatrice, why're you here? Figured you'd be at Julias's place."
The Nosferatu sighed, hopped off the couch, and helped herself to some of his blood from the fridge. His apartment was fast becoming a hangout.
"Worried about Jacob. This werewolf thing has him... pretty fucked up. He's gone silent psycho mode. Went out a few hours ago, still hasn't come back to the base, so I figured I'd drop by and see you. Julias's been worried about you. He couldn't say why, official business and shit, but with werewolves — and monsters apparently — at our door, and you, well, being you, I figured you might have been involved."
"... wait, what?" He threw up his hands again and slapped his knees. "You just assumed I'd be involved?"
"You have a habit of getting in the middle of shit," she said. "Prove me wrong."
Fuck.
"Not fair."
"And to top of it all off, this gorgeous woman says she knows you, and she knew I was a vampire on sight. Tells me she's a monster. Not a vamp or wolf, but a monster. Like, under the bed monster, in the closet monster, creepy things under the water monster." The Nosferatu didn't blink or anything, just shrugged and took a sip of the red drink. "She telling the truth?"
"Course I am!"
"She is."
"Fuck me that's scary." Crocodile-mouth laughed. Scary, yeah right. Jack could see down her throat with how wide her mouth could open, the weird long tongue, the huge teeth where her cheeks should be. It was enough to make Fiona blink and stare, and then laugh too.
First it was Damien, and then Natasha, and now Beatrice. Fiona got along well with the younger Kindred, but seemed to irritate the older ones who knew about the Begotten.
"So are there others of your kind?" Beatrice said.
Fiona nodded. "Aye, all kinds, all sorts, with different hungers. I feed on punishing abusive, minging folk, but I know there are others. The Dark Mother showed me peeks of things in the ocean that fed on destroying ships, but nae folk. I saw things in the sky that fed on flesh. I saw things in basements with hoards of nick-nacks, and others in corporate headquarters with hoards of secrets. They all feed so differently!"
"Holy shit, so many nightmares I had as a kid now seem justified," Beatrice said.
Fiona nodded. "That's where we come from."
"Eh, wha?"
"Nightmares. Horrors. That's where Vrall came from, and the others without their own names. They come from the dream, where they feed. Even now I can feel her drifting through my lair."
Both Kindred stared wide-eyed at the monster, talking about dream monsters like they were normal things.
The Nosferatu leaned in. "So, you... you just... feed on abusive people?"
"Nae exactly, I have to punish them. They have to ken they've done bad things, and that's where the food comes from, for my horror."
"Damn." Beatrice tapped her teeth with one of her claws before taking another sip. "This Dark Mother shit sounds right up Jacob's alley."
"Oh oh! Can ye introduce me? I heard the Circle of the Crone is sort of similar?"
Jack raised a hand. "I was with Jacob a moment ago. Got into a bit of an argument with the werewolves. He uh... clocked one of them pretty good, but otherwise, things went... better than I figured they would? Sorta?" It was true. The whole night felt like it was building into a nasty battle, but through it all, Jacob hadn't even taken a swing at Avery despite her prodding.
The more he talked with Avery, the less he liked her. Confident as fuck, and more than willing to get physical about it, even against a crazy bastard like Jacob. She seemed like she was trying to keep her pack safe, to take the hit for them; Clara taking the punch was a perfect example of what was probably going to happen instead.
"What has Jacob told you? About the Uratha," Jack said, looking at Beatrice.
The Nosferatu raised a brow and set the glass down. "Fuck all; he's avoided the topic. He mentioned the monsters, the, uh, Begotten, but didn't bother with details; didn't seem to worry him. Fuck me, if I had known scary ass shit like that was lurking in our city, I'd have... fuck, I'd probably have sought it out." Again, she laughed, Fiona right along with her. "But the Uratha seem to be his primary concern. If I had to guess, he had a personal issue."
Shit. Shit shit. No one else talked about it, not their place. But...
"I'm sure Jacob will tell you when you speak to him next," he said, "that the Uratha picked me to be the middleman for communications between them and the Kindred." Beatrice nodded with his words, but her snake eyes squinted as she undoubtedly scanned him for hidden meanings. "But... but, with Avery, you should... walk lightly, Beatrice. Jacob has every reason to hate her. Every reason."
"... Antoinette mentioned someone named Minerva," Beatrice said, "one time, when she came to visit the Circle. She and Jacob got into a little fight, not long after Lucas died, and... and she called Jacob out on being an asshole. And that, when he had someone named Minerva, he wasn't an asshole. If you're right, and he hates Avery that much... guessing it has something to do with Minerva."
He put up his hands. "Really, I shouldn't talk about it. Ask Jacob."
Beatrice eyed him closely, but nodded eventually and leaned back on the couch.
"Fiona," Jack said, "you might want to find this Azamel."
The redhead blinked at him, eyebrows raised and glancing Beatrice's way. "Eh? Ye sure?"
"Yeah. Antoinette said she couldn't stop you, and... and I feel like there's shit going on, but I don't know enough to make a judgment call."
"You two in cahoots or something?" Beatrice said.
Jack shrugged. Not in cahoots, he didn't think so anyway. But Damien had asked him for a favor, and for some damn fucking reason, he wanted to follow through.
"There's a connection," he said, "between the Uratha showing up, and Fiona. Don't know what it is, don't want to jump to any conclusions, but from how the Prince mentioned Azamel, she... she could have some answers."
"I dinnae ken. Talking to Azamel could make me Antoinette's enemy."
"She doesn't like you already."
"Ha, true lad."
Beatrice raised a brow as she listened, before eventually taking another sip of her drink and setting the glass down. "Azamel?"
"Another Begotten like Fiona. She's... well, I don't know. She's dangerous as all fuck, I know that much. But if she has information, I want it."
