My Little Ventrue Pt 05 Ch 12

~~Jack~~

He hated waiting.

People handled waiting differently, and with different degrees of stress. Some people shut down, to save mental energy. Some people shut down because they couldn't handle the stress in general. Some people became antsy, anxious, and volatile. Some people panicked, and started spiraling down ridiculous trains of thought that were nothing but self destructive.

Jack became a planner. When he had no choice but to wait for the event, the action, the conclusion, the whatever, to happen, he planned. He was a good planner, and he enjoyed it. Spreadsheets of his old diet, before he was embraced, calorie counting and such, were a joy to craft. Writing out flowcharts of his various career choices, and where they could lead him, were too. It helped relieve and manage stress when he had to think about something coming his way that he had to deal with, but wasn't here yet.

These hunters were coming, and no matter how much he looked, no matter how much Mulder and Scully looked, no matter how much the Right Hands looked, or anyone else looked, no more details availed themselves. So, he did the only thing he could do. He went to Bloodlust.

"Hello Eric," he said. "Long time no see."

The man looked him up and down, before shrugging, and leaning against the wall. On the first floor, it was noisier than upstairs, more people around. Jack didn't like it, and from the way Eric was looking at the people around him, he didn't like it either. Strange job choice then. Jack was almost tempted to ask him how he became a bouncer, but the look on his face suggested he shouldn't.

"Jack. Good to see your guts on your inside."

Heh, yeah. Jack looked down, pat his stomach, and slid into the booth beside Eric. Empty, now that the couple that'd been in there were leaving. The werewolf probably scared them off.

And he was a werewolf. Jack hadn't been in a position to analyze him, the first time he saw him, and apparently the man had never transformed until recently. Whatever it was his first transformation had done, it'd changed him. He looked different, smelled different, and moved different. There was something animalistic to his stance, aggression, defensiveness, territorial maybe. Or Jack was letting his knowledge taint his view.

"How's it going?" Jack said. Yeah, small talk, with a guy Jessy warned was not interested in small talk. This was going to go well.

"What do you want, vamp?"

Damn. Spot on. Jack could relate to the antisocial tendency, but not the aggression. The fuck had Jack done to earn the glares Eric was giving him now?

"Checking in, to see if you've seen anything unusual."

"Like those four hunters? No, nothing like that."

"Would you know?"

"I'd smell them."

Jack raised a brow up at the man beside him, and took a sniff of his own. Lots of smells, lots of sweat and alcohol and sex and drugs, but he had no way of separating it from the more subtle smells. Man must have been a blood hound werewolf.

"You sure?"

"If not, I'd see something. I'd notice if something was off about someone, and if they weren't something with fangs or claws, I'd know that that person was dangerous, and probably a hunter. I'd report it. So you can fuck off and—"

"Whoa dude, whoa. Not here performing any kind of check to see if you're doing your job, Eric. Just here because... need a place to wait for the shitstorm." Not entirely true, but good enough to progress the conversation.

Eric grunted, a noise closer to a growl than Jack supposed the man meant to make, because his eyes opened wide after, and he shook his head out. "Fine. Shitstorm?"

"The hunters are going to do something. We need to find them, beat them to the punch." Sighing, he shifted in the seat so he was facing out of the booth. It set his feet near Eric's, so Jack didn't have to yell; not like he wanted the nearby kine to hear. The pulsing music and background noise of sex and chatter was only effective cover to a point. "Probably something involving me."

"You? Because you're dating that tall, white-haired chick?"

Jack smirked up at the man. Tall, white-haired chick. He couldn't tell if Antoinette would be upset or amused at the description. Probably both.

"Maybe. And because I know Azamel. It's her the hunters are after."

"Right, granny in the rocking chair."

"Well, I'm sure after that daring rescue you made, they'll be coming for me, other vamps, and maybe you too."

Eric shivered, and ran his fingers along his shaved head. Jack knew the reflex well; buzzed head versus bald head though. Could be fun to try that haircut, and since he was Kindred, he'd only have to keep the change for a night. Eric raised a brow at him. "Why are you staring at me?"

"Oh, uh, no reason." Chuckling, Jack looked to the door of Bloodlust. There was Damien, and Jessy, coming in to join him as planned.

He watched Eric in the corner of his eyes, and waited to see if his hunch was correct. Once the man looked toward the door, and saw the two vampires, a small crack showed through the wolf's hard exterior. Chin raised, arms relaxed, Eric watched Jessy, and as she came in closer, the crack of a smile on his face grew. Eventually, the man realized he was smiling, and wiped it off with his hand, but Jack saw it all, through the pulsing lights of Bloodlust.

Jessy liked him. He liked Jessy. No issue there, as long as Avery didn't create a problem, and get Eric dragged into it. Worst case scenario. Well, he was paid to think of the worst case scenario now, especially as a Right Hand.

"We're heading up, team meeting," he said, standing. "Wanna come, keep people from getting too close?"

"The fuck you having a team meeting in a club for?"

"Let's us keep an eye on things," Damien said, stepping in close enough for the conversation. Man had good ears.

"Yeah." Once she was in close, Jessy walked up to Eric, tapped him on the shoulder, and winked at him with all the subtlety of a firecracker. "Plus, think of it like a work meeting, right? We'll grab a snack while we're here."

"Never worked in an office environment, or anything with team meetings." He shrugged, and smiled for a moment when Jessy winked at him.

"Come with us," she said. "Be a lookout."

He managed a snort laugh, a quiet noise Jack had heard many dogs make. Sort of like a canine's way of putting an exclamation point at the end of a sentence. Jack wasn't exactly well versed in the man's normal body language, but he assumed it used to be more human; it wasn't anymore. Every glance, every breath, every tap of his finger on his own bicep, and every motion he made, had the calculated, prowling depth of a wolf's movements. He might as well have been Clara or that Carter fellow.

And as the three Kindred went upstairs, he followed, up the stairs and to one of the booths in the back. Dark, secluded, where the music wasn't as noisy, and where the kine weren't. Back in the day, Jack would have found it a tad scary, maybe even spooky, to hang out in the shadowed corner of a night club. Now, he gravitated toward it naturally. Give him some mascara, an earring, a trench coat, and he'd wear them without irony.

Well, maybe a little irony.

The three Kindred sat down, and Eric stood by the booth. Took his job seriously, or knew to go with the flow to prevent issues. Jack made sure to sit down on the outside of the booth, beside the werewolf. Time for the part he wasn't looking forward to.

"Jessy tell you about me?" he said.

Eric raised a brow as he looked down at him. "Not sure what you mean."

"He means," Jessy said, leaning over Jack's shoulder and grinning at Eric once she was in the booth, "that Jack here is your new goto, sort of."

"Did you three come here to have a meeting, or talk to me?"

Jack sighed, and shrugged. "Both, in a way. I need to know what Avery told you, what the Begotten told you, and... well, what your plans are."

Every muscle on Eric's body tensed. Whatever Jack said, it was nails on chalkboard to this guy.

"My plans?"

"Your plans." Ok, at least he was talking. Jessy warned him the man was a 'bitter fucker', her words. She also said he seemed to appreciate honesty. A fine rope to walk, as the truth was usually a tough pill to swallow, and in a bitter jackass, was liable to get spit back out. "If you're going to join Avery's pack, that's fine, I talk to her regularly anyway. If you're not, and you're going to hang with the Begotten, you—"

"Why does everyone think I'm going to do anything with them?"

"You're friends with Fiona, aren't you?" he said. "And Jessy found you in the sewer with them."

"That was... that was an accident."

Accident or not, the mention of Fiona turned his eyes downward. A glance Jessy's way showed a knowing smirk from her though; which, from Jessy, likely meant some sexual manipulation. Ugh.

"Well, alright, if you don't have any plans to side with—"

"What's with this 'side' crap? You guys at war? Not what Avery told me."

This guy liked to interrupt him. Jack didn't like that. A quick glance to his companions showed some different opinions. Damien was annoyed, but not over the interrupting; probably just hated having to waste time talking to this extra thorn in their side. Jessy was smiling, and likely thought the man's antics cute. Blatant bias. If he was anyone else, she'd have the man's head pinned to the table while she drilled orders into his ear.

"No, we're not at war, but..."

"But we could be," Damien said. Stone cold face on, the man put his elbows and fists on the table, and glared at the werewolf standing beside the booth. "When we all thought you were kine, you'd be nothing but a worthless bystander in any potential conflicts. But now you're not."

"Jessy gave me the run down." The man snorted again, and leaned against the wall before folding his arms across his chest. Defensiveness. He thought he was being attacked, but not from Jessy. It was Jack and Damien putting the man at odds. What did that woman say to him, before now?

"I'm sure she did." Damien looked at her with the same cold face, and Jessy rolled her eyes in return.

"Whatever." The werewolf shrugged. "My plan is to keep working here, and help out if those hunters show up."

Jack shook his head. "What does helping include? You understand if those hunters show up, or anyone else does with a similar agenda, helping could mean listening to our orders, when we tell you what to do?" The man didn't seem to get it. Another poor sap sucked into a world they didn't want to be a part of, and their desire to stand on the sidelines was not acceptable. He was too valuable as an ally, and too dangerous as an enemy, to ignore. "That could mean doing whatever Avery tells you. If things turn weird on us, it could mean doing whatever Azamel tells you. It will likely mean us telling you what to do. And that isn't simple either. The Carthians might ask for your help. They might want you to help with the hunters, or they might pull you into some shit that will force you to make enemies of the Invictus; or at least piss them off. It's a complicated world of darkness, Eric, and we're just trying to stay afloat."

Ok, rant over. It was enough to pierce this asshole's shell though, and get through to him a little, based on the man's expression. Pensive, contemplating, his eyes fell to the booth, and his head tilted slightly as thoughts undoubtedly rolled around in his head.

And Jessy winked at the man.

That wasn't good. Jessy was talking to this man, and talking to him about more than just sex, if she was winking at him about this topic. What game was she playing? Much as he wanted to believe she was too stupid for the Danse Macabre, too stupid to be playing a sneaky game of her own, he doubted that was true anymore, not since he'd become a Right Hand and started seeing her intelligence shine through.

"I can't just... tell everyone who comes to bother me to fuck off?" he said.

Jack laughed, and shrugged. "You could try. It might even work. But we're talking about strong entities, people with the individual power to pursue staggering agendas. They rarely suffer a neutral party. They're with us or against us types." He put his hands up in surrender before Eric could interrupt him again. "If you want to try and remain neutral, fine. My sire told you to talk with Avery, and we'll defer to her about this. If she's ok with you being neutral, then I hope you can remain neutral."

Chuckling, Jessy leaned in, and pushed Jack in the shoulder, always buddy buddy. "Except, of course, if you try and play the neutral card, you'll default to working for us Invictus, since we write your cheques. I assume you want to keep the job and the nice apartment and shit." And, again, a wink.

She might have been smarter than she seemed, but the lack of subtlety was a nasty weakness. Her brute strength might have worked on weaker Kindred, and she was damn powerful, but Jack was starting to grow worried the woman was going to get them all in trouble. Azamel wouldn't swallow her bull shit, and neither would Avery.

"The Prince told me a neutral party Uratha used to live in the city," Jack said. "Said she was a ghost wolf, or something."

"Ghost wolf?" Eric raised a brow, before a small smile came in. "I like that."

The four of them looked to the stairs across the second floor of the Bloodlust, as a couple of women walked up to join them. Fiona, with her pale skin, freckles, and frizzy red hair, could not have looked more different than Athalia, with her dark skin and long black hair. Short versus tall, and curvy versus skinny, too. What they were wearing was just as contrasting, Fiona fully embracing the club label Bloodlust carried, despite its lounge nature. Athalia wore some torn-up, tight jeans, and a tight white t-shirt, while Fiona wore a dress, a green dress, straps tied around her neck, and plunging cleavage showing off her impressive breasts.

Jessy whistled, and motioned for her to come sit beside her. Giggling, Fiona jumped in place a little — boing boing — before hopping over to sit beside her. Damien was trapped between Jessy and Jack, but based on the look on his face, he preferred that to being closer to the other people joining them. Fiona getting into the booth put him on edge, and it put Eric on edge, though he seemed a little more interested in looking at her, than looking away from her.

Fucking high school romance drama crap. At least they kept it to their body language, and didn't put any of it to words.

"You, you fucking little devil, looking fucking gorgeous in this." Jessy leaned in, put a kiss on Fiona's neck, and earned more squealing giggles from her. Ok, maybe not so high school.

"Keep it in your pants," Athalia said. "Not here to fuck."

"Could do you some good." Jessy, laughing, put another kiss on Fiona's neck, more deliberately this time, and the earned giggles weren't as girly anymore. There was a moan in there.

Talk about awkward. Either Jessy was a brain dead moron, or she was trying to pull some reactions out of Eric and Damien. Why, he didn't know. Could be trying to push Damien into fighting for Fiona, so she could have Eric to herself? Or vice versa... or she could be trying to engage a foursome.

Jack choked on a laugh. A foursome as Damien's first foray into sex. The ramifications on the poor man's mind would be worthy of poetry.

Athalia wasn't amused. She sat down in the booth as well, and offered Eric a small nod. "Hey dumbass. Still alive I see."

"Yeah." The man shrugged, and forced his eyes away from the sight Jessy was creating. "You all here to talk about me?"

Damien shook his head. "No. We're here to talk about the hunters."

Fiona, finally free of Jessy's lips, nudged Athalia with her arm. "Tell them!"

Rolling her eyes, Athalia leaned in, and motioned for them all to, as well. "Saw an old woman fitting Azamel's description of the shaman. We think she's somewhere in Devil's Corner."

"You sure?" Jack said. "They brought me to North Side, when they caught me. Figured they'd have a base or underground hideout or something in that half of Dolareido."

"Or they're smart, and wouldn't bring you close to their HQ." Athalia shook her head, and took a moment to look around. "Sure it's safe to talk here?"

Jessy nodded. "Yeap. Built by vamps, for vamps. The only people who could be eavesdropping would be other paranormals."

Athalia frowned, and continued looking around. When she caught Jack's eye, he shrugged at her, and offered her a small smile; like Jessy's, but gentler. Bloodlust was a great place for what it was meant for: a place for Kindred to get an easy meal. It turning into a good meeting spot was a strange turn of events, not the intent. They could trust Eric's nose though, to spot the hunters. And it wasn't like the hunters would come waltzing into the center of Invictus territory anymore anyway.

Several of Jessy's ghouls were around, too. And once the vampires, werewolf, and monsters were all together, the ghouls happened to start getting busy with some of their girlfriends. Their moans were background noise, joining other moans, groans, and thudding crap music from the rest of the club. No one would be able to eavesdrop through the noise, anyway.

Athalia's gaze lasted on the sexual display longer than Jack thought it would. Maybe his talk in the Black Hall sank into her a bit more than his impression gave him. Something told him the woman could use a good lay; Jessy, specifically, told him that, on several occasions.

"Devil's Corner," Damien said, "is problematic to deal with. Lot of places to hide. A lot of people to make deals with, too. I wouldn't be surprised if they've recruited, without explaining to who they've recruited exactly what they're up against."

Yeah, it was a messy place to handle. "I'd prefer to keep casualties to a minimum," Jack said.

Athalia scoffed at him, but said nothing. Good. It was starting to get irritating, how she absolutely refused to give him or any Kindred an inch. How much of a paradise did Dolareido have to be before she realized Kindred weren't all just looking for blood and slaughter.

Paradise by a vampire's standards, maybe. Begotten weren't having as easy a time of it, thanks to Julias and the others.

"We can try," Jessy said, "but when push comes to shove, getting rid of these hunters takes priority. Besides, we don't know if they're hiring. That'd be dangerous to do, don't you think? Hire random strangers. Might give away what they're up to."

"They're good at hiding what they're up to." Nodding, Damien pulled out his phone, and brought up a map of the city. "Killed Barry here, kidnapped Jack here, brought him here, and then disappeared when the Invictus showed up. We found the weird ritual here, and—"

"Weird ritual?"

Everyone looked up over their shoulders, to see Eric looking at what they were doing. If the man wanted to remain neutral, his reflexes didn't agree. Curiosity killed as many dogs as cats.

"Sure you want to know?" Jessy said, smiling at him.

"I... you know what? Sure. If these hunters are doing something, I should know too. They know my face, know I helped Fiona. I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to shoot me on sight."

Yeah, Jack could agree with that. Nodding, he leaned back a bit, so the man could see past him to Damien's phone easier.

"Here," Damien said, "in a storage locker in Devil's Corner, we found a ritual. An occult ritual. Your imagination will probably end up closer than you think. Blood symbols, a fresh skeleton, the works. The peculiar thing was, we found drawn pictures of a body being dissected, rigorously, every detail. And, attached to the skeleton, we found a face."

"My face." Kind of Damien to leave out that detail, but Eric was right. The hunters considered him a threat, so there was no reason to not fill him in on the pertinent details. Hopefully.