. 10

~~Natasha~~

Art got up and started to look around her apartment, fingers dragging along her counter tops, her couches, her tables, her laptop. They stopped on the laptop in particular when his eyes found the screen.

"Researching ancient Egypt mm?"

"I... I uh..." She reached over and closed it. Didn't want them gleaming any more than they needed. Or at least that was the plan, but the two wolves were telling her a lot. Maybe she should reciprocate a little? "Why... why are you t-telling me so much?"

Matt shrugged. "Like we said, we're not your enemies. Besides, you seem nice."

"Shit load nicer than the Kindred in Tijuana," Art said.

"You came from T-T-Tijuana?" Art did look like he could have come from Mexico.

"Half the pack," Matt said. "Clara, Art, Stephanie, Teresa, and Javier did. Avery drifted around the world after she lost her pack, so she tells it. Met some of us further North, met a bunch of us in Tijuana, and we've sort of wandered around."

"Which no one likes." Art ambled to her couch in front of the large TV, and he sat down with a bit of a bounce. Her poor couch; Art was a big guy. Not as big as Matt, but still, the man was big enough to make her couch creak with the impact. "We're Meninna. We don't want to drift around, we want a home."

"A home? You mean... D-D-Dolareido?"

Art shrugged, and started looking around the couch and the end table. "Maybe. Most of the pack is used to city living. You got a remote for this colossal thing?"

She blinked at the man, and pointed to the remote on the kitchen table. He fetched it, and immediately started one of the streaming apps on the television. Making his home already.

"What's Meninna?"

"First Tongue word for the Hunters in Darkness, our tribe," Matt said. "Sort of like your covenants. The Meninna don't like to drift; we want a home. We were in Tijuana, and weren't getting along with the Kindred there at all. Got to the point it was going to be war, so... Avery decided to leave."

"Leave? D-Doesn't... sound like something an Uratha would do. Thought y-you would fight for your t-t-t-territory."

"We would have," Art said, "if Avery was the person you all suspect she is, that Jacob suspects she is. Much as David guided us here, I'm sure Avery agreed partially cause she wants to fix the shit she stirred here."

"I... I know she got some Kindred killed, during the hunt. But how's J-Jacob fit into this?"

Art looked over the couch shoulder at her, and raised an eyebrow. "Avery killed Minerva, Jacob's sweetheart. More than sweetheart, from what she says."

Natasha winced. She'd started putting that picture together, but to hear it put so directly was chilling. Jacob had someone he loved, and Avery took her away. Brutally, if Tasha's own encounter with the wolves was any indication.

"Jacob is... a dangerous man, Arturo. If he wants Avery d-dead, he'll... he'll make it happen." No getting around that.

Art shrugged, scratched his neck a couple times, and returned to watching TV. "He can try. Wouldn't be the first elder we've had to put down."

Natasha shivered again. These wolves had so much confidence, but the man seemed quite serious, and Matt nodded with his friend's words. And worst of all, Natasha could feel the strength they radiated; the beast in her gut felt like a pup in comparison.

"Hey, how old are you?" Matt said. "Can never tell with vampires."

"Me? I... I was in my early twenties when I was embraced. That w-was... about fifty years ago."

Both men whistled in unison, with the same pitch. How long had these two been friends? Must have been decades to be so in sync.

"Art and I both experienced our first change when we were in our late teens. Must have been thirty years ago."

That pulled a smile out of her, despite herself. She was older than them, but she looked younger. Werewolves seemed to age, albeit slower than humans. But, for all their strength, they weren't immortal, the one advantage Kindred seemed to have over the Uratha. And it was quite the advantage, when you lived to be as old as Jacob or Antoinette, when you had multiple fortunes in funds, and dozens of loyal agents skulking in the shadows.

"The first change? What w-was that like?"

Art winced and looked back to the TV. Uh oh. She looked over at Matt, and the man winced as well as he looked down at the counter top.

"Tough question," Matt said. "Some people just go nuts and destroy their gym, like I did. Some people can end up killing nearby bystanders, like Art." He tilted his head to his friend. When Natasha looked back to Art, the man wasn't looking their way anymore. He had his eyes on the TV, but she could see the side of his face, and the small frown he held. But he turned down the TV volume, and turned on the captions; nice of him.

"Y-You lose control?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah. After that, we're Uratha. See the world differently, see it like wolves. Learn the First Tongue like a scene from the Matrix, injected straight into the brain. Some of us start hearing and seeing things, like David. And we're all changed in unique ways. I became Rahu; Kindred in Tijuana called us warriors... and barbarians, when they felt like being jerks. Art became Irraka; Kindred in Tijuana called them assassins."

Art laughed, and rolled his head back to look over his shoulder at them again, frown replaced with a smirk. "I'm sure they were trying to insult me too. Not much of an insult, saying I'm good at my job."

Natasha tilted her head and looked at the man. Art was an assassin? She could... understand that way of thinking.

She touched her chest. "I'm Mekhet. We... we're... sneaky."

The two wolves laughed. Big, hearty laughs, and nodded. "Yeah, you are." Again, in unison.

"I... I don't t-t-talk with Kindred in other cities... almost ever. We keep to ourselves, usually. What were they like? In T-T-Tijuana."

"Brutal," Art said, "nothing like how Avery said Dolareido is. Much as shit ended badly last time she was here, she had nothing but good things to say about the Kindred situation. Other than the Prince messing with the Gauntlet."

"D-Does her messing with the Gauntlet make her your enemy?" She had to talk to Antoinette about the Gauntlet. Did she know what that meant? The Prince must have, if she dealt with the Uratha in the past. But whatever happened with the Uratha back then, it wasn't stopping Antoinette from experimenting with the occult.

"No," Matt said. "It would, if she was causing some serious imbalances. But, honestly? I'm surprised. Despite Avery's concerns, despite David's warning, things aren't bad here. Not yet."

"That's... good then?"

"Maybe," Art said, "maybe not. The hosts are sneaky fuckers, sneakier than any Mekhet. And we haven't been here long enough to have scouted the whole city. Other things from the Shadow are hiding in the city too, we know that. And other things again." The man sighed, ran his fingers through his black hair a few times, and motioned for the two of them to come to him. "Sit, watch. My favorite show has two new seasons I haven't been able to watch, and I plan to binge."

She blinked at him, got up off her stool, walked over to him, leaned toward his face, and blinked at him a few more times from close range. "Excuse me? This is m-m-my place!"

"What, you don't like Game of Thrones?"

"I... I do, but—"

"Come on." He reached out for her, took her two shoulders, and picked her up like she was weightless. She squeaked and started squirming, but all it did was land her on the couch beside Art. "I sense an impending sex scene and I don't want to miss it."

She blinked a dozen more times, looked down at herself, then at the TV, then at herself, then over at Matt. The big guy winked at her and came over to sit on the couch as well, trapping her between the two men.

Welp, self conscious didn't begin to describe what she was feeling. She had so much information to share with Antoinette, so much information she needed to filter through to see what was even safe to share with her boss. Too hard to focus on that when she was sitting between two huge wolves, and a combination of deadly circumstances and very hard nipples were on the television screen.

And to make everything worse, when she glanced at Art, he caught her glance and sneaked in a wink before she could snap her head back to the television. When she glanced Matt's way, he did the same thing! These two ruthless predators acted like a couple of silly buffoons.

Good god what had she gotten herself into.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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~~Damien~~

Someone was looking for him.

Damien listened close, eyes closed, ears as open as he could manage, and he filtered through the quiet hum of the tunnels. At this depth in the tunnels, the sound of the traffic above still made noise, but barely more than a gentle purr. What made more noise was the whirr of ventilation, and computers. His current hiding spot was an old maintenance room off a functioning subway tunnel, for no other reason than sometimes, he wanted to hear nearby people.

Someone was walking down the tunnel to his little hideaway. The trot of high quality shoes on the concrete. Invictus probably. Knock knock.

He opened the door, and eyed the man standing before him. A tall man, dark skin, shaved head, very well dressed. And alive.

"Madam Maria Turio of the Invictus, of the council and triumvirate of the First Estate, would like to speak to you, Mister... Damien."

Mister Damien. What a joke. Damien sighed and looked the man up and down. Judging by how he carried himself, he was wearing a vest holster under his suit jacket, probably with two different pistols within if he remembered correctly; and he usually did. A high caliber pistol meant for punching holes through barriers, large holes. And likely the fully automatic pistol Invictus occasionally sported. Perfect for reducing a target to mulch. He'd seen the ghouls switch to such armaments not long after the Uratha became a known presence.

Course, they didn't know that he knew. He was very good at what he did.

"And you are?" Damien said.

"Mister Smith."

"... sure." Invictus had the imagination of bricks. "Do I need anything, to speak with the elder Maria?"

"No... except, in the Invictus, we generally refer to people by their last name... Damien."

And of course Mister Smith didn't know his. Damien couldn't help but smirk at that, before he got up and shrugged off his shoulders. For all his cockiness, he was going to be talking to an elder. To Maria Turio. She had two centuries of Kindred life on him. She was an ancient entity, and he was a child next to her, a child who'd avoided other Kindred his entire second life.

It was going to be a weird encounter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Grand Cathedral. Such a magnificent display, such beauty, such imposing brutality. The angels crushing demons, the cross, the virgin Mary. Standing before the enormous building filled him with awe, reverence, and fear.

"This way, Mister Damien... I must say, it is not customary for Invictus to address each other so formally." Mister Smith walked up the stairs, and pushed open the grand doorway. He made each step slowly, with weight and impact, as if his very walk was a ceremony to the grandeur of Lucas's work. "Do you not have a last name we can address you with?"

"... been living in holes and tunnels for half a century, Mister Smith. Barely said a word to anyone in that time. Last names are..." He put his hand up to his face and shook his head. Dramatic, Damien. You don't have to hide in tunnels anymore, so stop acting like the victim. "Burksen. It's Burksen."

"... very good, Mister Burksen." The ghoul nodded, adjusted his tie, and stepped into the cathedral.

The nave of the huge building. Majesty and powerful elegance, it pulled at his memories and made his insides ache for the comfort of what used to be certainty, what used to be the simple joy of trusting someone else to guide your life. Candles were usually lit, back when he visited the cathedral when Lucas used it. And he saw such candles still existed, but were not lit. He knew Maria slept within the church, but not where.

His gaze lingered on the enormous pipe organ in the far back of the Cathedral. If God's voice could be given sound, it would be the pipe organ.

Mister Smith waited for him halfway down the aisle, and after a moment to recollect himself, Damien walked after him. The empty pews struck another memory chord, each time he passed one, and he had to shrug the pain off. You're a new man now, let it go.

By the pipe organ, there was a door. It looked like wood, and a crucifix adorned its face, but as Mister Smith opened it, the weight of its metal bulk became apparent. Damien had never seen the door opened before, but now he could tell it was most definitely meant to be a true barrier, something strong enough to stop Kindred—or at least explosives. Mister Smith took one of the nearby candles, lit it, stepped into the darkness past the door, and motioned for him to follow.

A stairway through darkness lit only by the candlelight of his escort. Every step fought to make him smile; such was a home he could agree with. The weight of the building above and around him felt less a cage, and more a foundation, of structure, of something he could lean his weight on knowing it'd support him.

Just delusions, Damien. You have a lifetime of beliefs to reevaluate, stop falling back on old views.

The stairway opened to a hallway of concrete bricks, not dissimilar to many of the tunnels beneath Dolareido. But this hallway was massive, easily fifty feet wide, twenty feet tall, and lined with candles that hung from braziers on chains, braziers with spikes that jutted from their bottoms, and small ones that lined the sides. Gates of a similar style blocked the tunnel at certain intervals, thick gates, closely knit, spiked bars, a formidable barrier to any humans that might try and break into the elder's sleeping grounds come daybreak.

Kindred were safe from each other during the day; they were not safe from each other's ghouls and subservients. It was not unheard of for ambitious — or stupid — Kindred to attack each other during sleeping hours using their servants. Sometimes it worked, but usually Kindred important enough to risk attacking were well guarded in such hours, like Maria.

There were other ghouls walking the underground tunnel, suits, each with a gun in hand; they had shotguns, and he was sure the pistols in their vest holsters were fully automatic. A single bullet was of little danger to a vampire, but a hail of them was a problem.

At each gate, a ghoul on the inside had to open it for them to continue. And not with some old fashioned lock and key or bolt, but with some heavy duty electronic, thick, tri-bolt locks with digital security keypads. The security keypads were subtle at least, likely to preserve the Gothic feel of the tunnel. He could understand; Lucas would have done the same.

With time and many gates behind him, the large tunnel opened into a larger room. Shaped like a dome, the huge room was lined with hanging drapes that covered where the curved concrete met the floor. Each drape was adorned with powerful imagery of history, of men with swords cutting down swaths of people, of victims being hanged by tree branch, of men riding into battle on horseback with bows and arrows. There was a painting of Jesus and the crucifixion, of Longinus stabbing him with the spear, and the following days of torment for Longinus.

Damien stepped closer toward the back wall where Maria was no doubt waiting for him, but his eyes continued to drift toward the decor. More of the hanging braziers with lit candles, but also many tables with various scatterings of objects: knives, swords, metal ornaments of similar intent. Other tables held shrines, more candles lit with tiny pictures surrounding them. But the center of the room and toward the back, it was open space save for a coffin stood upright against the the back wall, and a grand piano beside it.

Maria sat at the piano, dressed in a white nightgown that ran long, spilling over the floor in waves. Upon the piano were more candles, sitting on tiny metal skulls. One man, an ugly fellow with a hunched back and mangled face, slowly walked the room and swept, adjusted the candles, the drapes, everything.

He came close to Damien, and looked down at him from his great height. Big ghoul, one arm larger than the other, and one half of his face drooping so a touch of drool wet his lip. He wiped it away, nodded, made a tiny groan sound, and moved on.

"Forgive Matthias," Maria said, raspy voice cutting through the quiet, "I rescued him from a mob two hundred years ago. He has since forever been my loyal ghoul and companion."

"Two hundred years..." Damien managed a small nod for the sauntering man, before he walked past him and toward the ghost woman at the piano. The lighting was dim, even with a hundred candles, and the scattering of light sources made a thousand little shadows dance along every surface.

"Is that so long?" she said. Her fingers were on the keys of her piano, but she wasn't playing anything yet. No music book either.

"It's... hard, to think about that long a life."

"You spent half a century skulking around in the tunnels of this city, Damian Burksen. Half a century with only yourself for company. You are well aware of how long life can be, and how much longer that is when you are alone." Her fingers started to move. Gentle sounds came from the piano, slow, deep, heavy waves that blanketed the room in the quiet tune. Deep and gentle? Quiet and heavy? Damien didn't get music, but he knew enough to feel the emotion of the piece. "Frédéric Chopin's March Funèbre." Not a name he recognized, but the tune was a little familiar.

He watched and listened for a time, and looked around while the music's gentle but depressing tone filled the room. March Funèbre indeed.

"You... wanted to speak to me, Madam Turio?" She wasn't his enemy, no need to make her one. Use her title and maybe this can go smooth.

"You understand this is the first time I've seen you in person, Damien? Impressive, considering how long you've been in the city. Very impressive."

"... thank you."

"You waited fifty years before you felt it was time for Lucas's return. Patience is another trait I admire, Damien. But your ability to hide and your patience are not why I have asked you here. You are here because Mister Mire has brought your proposal to the Primogen. Or rather, it was brought up by Garry Tones before he was ready to speak of it; the mutt has his eyes and ears everywhere." She smirked, and stopped playing as her eyes drifted from keys to him. "But, that would be hypocritical of me."

Damien tried to not stare too much. But Nosferatu had disfigurements, and getting used to them was always a challenge when it was a new Nosferatu. He'd dealt with plenty in his small stint as bishop for Lucas; not enough time to become comfortable with them the way other Kindred had. And Maria's disfigurements were not subtle. Such ruined skin; he'd seen fire logs that looked better. And the little bits of white mist that dripped from her clothes reeked of ghostliness.

"So... everyone knows then, about Mister Mire's idea."

"Indeed." Maria chuckled, a weird sound coming from her raspy, destroyed voice. "Needless to say, Mister Tones and the Prince are not thrilled with the idea."

"I imagine not." Damien looked down at the piano keys when Maria's gaze became too much.

Seemed she got the hint, and started playing something different. When Damian raised a brow, she leaned into the piano a little to emphasize a note.

"Do you not recognize this piece?"

"It... I recognize it, but that's it."

"Claude Debussy's Suite bergamasque, third movement. Light... of the moon." She closed her eyes, and fell into each soft note. A very delicate piece of music, like floating on clouds. "Quite the famous piece, played everywhere and used in media all over the world."