~~Natasha~~
"Something... h-horrible?" she said.
Art stepped forward into the buildings, into the civilian lobby, and sniffed the air. "Monica told us she found out that, apparently Jack managed to bust his way out of here, and kill a few hunters on the way out. I assume you know more. Can you spare us any more details?"
What details could she share that she'd read about? Antoinette had her ways, and especially so did Daniel, to get detailed reports about what happened here, more than what the Invictus were willing to share. Some things they read were vague, but her two bosses were both more than skilled enough to fill in the blanks based on implication. And Jack was her friend, he'd told her some things, things she'd managed to extrapolate from. Once she'd put it all together, it was a very scary tale.
"Jack... was tortured, and I g-guess it... it pushed him over an edge. He dominated three hunter minds, and summoned an army of rats." She shivered at the image. Rats, swarming, overwhelming, killing? "It sounds like something Viktor w-would have done." Oops. She'd meant to say that in her head.
"Right, his grand sire." Matt shivered, and rubbed his arms, in the same way Natasha did. Made her smile, for a moment. "Avery had some stories for us about him."
"D-Does she? I, um... not sure, about what... what happened back then. Avery showed up in the... fifties, right? I was sired around the purge, in the sixties." A wonderful ostrich tactic, conveniently ignoring the warning about the horrible thing right in front of her in the prison, to get information about the past. Typical Mekhet, need knowledge knowledge secrets secrets.
The two werewolves continued along through the lobby, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing more, picking up something her nose couldn't, before moving on and heading down the hall toward the prisoner lobby.
"Mmhmm," Matt said. "Don't normally run into Ventrue who give Uratha much trouble. Hard to kill, but it's not like they give us much trouble when the fists start flying. Except, this Viktor fucker, he could dominate Uratha easily."
"... he c... c-could?"
Art nodded as he circled around the center desk in the prisoner lobby. "Yeah. Uratha aren't immune to you Kindred and your fucking mental powers and shit. Normally, the younger Kindred can't touch us, mental powers or not. But the older ones, you get your fucking fingers into our brains? It's... never a good thing." He stopped before the gate leading down one of the hallways, where another hallway turn waited, with cells waiting beyond, Tash imagined. "Christ, this wasn't just Jack escaping and killing, this was a bloodbath. The whole place reeks of blood, human and rat, and gasoline. Death."
She couldn't smell any of that.
"According to Avery," Matt said, "Viktor dominated a couple of her companions, at the same time. Forced them both to transform, full on gauru mode, and made them fight each other." He followed after Art, eyes scanning up and down the bars, the floor, everywhere. All clean, all washed, all evidence gone, but whatever the Invictus did to clean it, it wasn't enough to hide everything from the Uratha. "Not a secret, really. Your elders are fucking terrifying."
"I... I guess. I d-didn't know Viktor did that though." Viktor's strength was well known. That combined with his growing insanity and paranoia — according to Antoinette — were the reasons Maria and Michael were afraid to challenge him. "D-Did... anyone die?"
"To Viktor being a jackass? No, no one Avery's told us about anyway." Art shrugged as he continued down the hall, deeper into the complex, Matt and Tash following after him. "He couldn't break Simon though, apparently."
The gentle giant stepped ahead of her, and got down on his knees beside one of the cells. "... that kid really left a scar here."
A rat squeaked, and disappeared into a large crack in the concrete. Where rats were once quite bold, she imagined all the rats for a mile in any direction would be afraid to be seen by anything on two legs, now.
"Scar?" she said.
Art came to a stop by one of the cells. "Yeah, the sort of shit that resonates, creates essence, creates problems. Seems like he's tainted this prison with... I don't know. Rage? Hate?... a lot of creatures died here, painfully."
The rest of them came up to the cell door, and looked inside. Natasha could see nothing out of the ordinary, but both Matt and Art were twitching their noses and looking around, fidgeting fingers and snapping eyes. They didn't like being here.
"Hard to make out their scent anymore. So many vamps came through here, and washed the place down." Walking into the cell, Art cringed as he approached the metal chair, and knelt down in front of it. "... something happened here. Jack must have been in this chair. He... was in pain, a large amount of pain. Panic, pain... then... revenge?" He got up, and turned to face the gate of the cell. "He... broke two minds here, I think. Took them over." He walked back out into the hallway, before turning to face the direction they came from. "Two humans died here, shot down. Then..."
Natasha did her best to not imagine a music montage, of a song shrinking an effort of days down into seconds, like typical TV forensics drama scenes. But, she stared on, wide eyed, as she listened to a bass-heavy alternative rock song play in her head, while Art managed to come to conclusions from utterly nothing.
"Then the madness started. You said rats, right? Lot of... lot of dead rats. Hundreds... They started here." He motioned to the crack in the wall. "And from similar holes in this old place." He gestured around to the others cells too. "... they didn't die quick either. Most of them died in pain."
"That's what it is," Matt said. "Christ, kid was in pain... and inflicted a lot of pain."
"The hunt-t-ters, they... used fire, and... burned all the rats," she said.
Art nodded, and followed the hall back out to the lobby again. "Yeah, death death and more death, all marked with pain. All starts with that chair. And, everything has a generous, heaping pile of hate on it, like... tar."
"... in the report, it said... that J-Jack, that um, he had to cut off his hands, t-t-to get out. He d-dominated the two hunters watching him... despite, um, enchanted hand cuffs, designed to work on vampires we think. He forced them... t... t-to cut off his hands so he could escape." A Mekhet would have used the situation to get a quick phone call out, not cut off their own hands. But she wasn't there, maybe it wasn't reasonable.
Both werewolves winced, sucking in their breath between their teeth. "Damn," they said.
She winced as well. Yeah, damn. "He, um, summoned rats. All Kindred know animalism, you p-probably know, b-but, Gangrel and Ventrue are good at it, naturals at it. And... Jack, he's... he's Julias's childe. Julias is a p-prodigy, sort of. Very, very strong. Viktor was... also very, very strong, and... and J-Jack is..."
"Is following in his sire and grand sire's footsteps." Art knelt down by the desk in the civilian lobby, the three of them almost back out of the building. He ran his fingers along the tile of the floor, and smelled them. "He's not the first vamp to have an explosion in skill at a young age, but this is pretty big. This whole place reeks of death, pain, and panic. And... disgust."
Matt nodded as he walked around, wincing every so often. "We'll have to keep an eye on it, in case any wraiths show up."
"W-Wraiths?" Wait, didn't that secrets spirit thing say something about wraiths? Something about them, and Black Blood?
"Yeah. Not ghosts, though I wouldn't be surprised if ghost wraiths existed. No, these wraiths are a type of spirit that have grown in Dolareido. Mix of death and fear. There's not many of them, but enough to be a problem."
Ok, moment of truth. Tell her boyfriends she knew about Black Blood? Don't tell them? They might not like her knowing about it, and she didn't want to become another Minerva. But, Antoinette knew of it, and the werewolves weren't trying to break down her door or anything.
"... d-do they... do bad things?" she said. Ok, so she wasn't going to tell them. Yet. She had good reason though, because, secrets and stuff. Mekhet needed their secrets, and it was part of her job to acquire information. If they didn't know that she knew about Black Blood, they'd be more likely to accidentally tell her things, things she could deduce conclusions from that they wouldn't expect her to be able to.
Harmless information gathering. Harmless.
Matt nodded. "Yeah, they can get involved in some pretty dark stuff. Seems they're working together with some other shit, and we're not sure why."
"David knows more, but getting straight answers out of spirits is never easy. Always comes with a fucking price tag." Art shrugged, and continued along until they were back outside, the outer gate they climbed over before them. "And... you might want to talk to your buddy, Jack, about this. To leave a scar like this, from one incident? It was nasty. I doubt the kid is even aware of how badly this must have fucked with him."
"I... I'll t-talk to him." She wasn't sure what she could say that Antoinette or Julias couldn't, but there was no harm in checking up on her friend anyway. And, she was sure Antoinette was doing her best to soothe the boy's soul.
