~~Beatrice~~
This was going to be interesting. And dangerous. And scary. And exciting.
Jacob guided them back down into the chamber beneath Three Kings Cemetery. Guess he didn't care if Julias found out where this ritual chamber was. The dragons knew, so, it couldn't have been his most secret, most important, most diabolical location. And considering the array of limbs and blood symbols he had on the back wall, where darkness hid the collection, she could only imagine the sort of fucked up shit he had in his primary ritual chamber. Or primaries? Or whatever other chambers he had.
But this one was more than enough to have Superman staring, wide eyed, at the grotesque imagery.
Once they reached sacrifice bowl, wide eyed became stunned. There was a fresh corpse hanging from the hook, drooling guts and blood into the rusted concave metal, so poor Julias got an eyeful for his first visit into the depravity of the circle.
"... I saw a police report on this man," Julias said. "A pedophile from another city, on the run."
Jen nodded as she came over to the bowl. The woman wasn't entirely comfortable with crΓΊac yet, but she was getting there. Triss though, for some reason the blood and slaughter came to her naturally, quickly, and she embraced it. She'd killed kine before she ever met Jacob, and butchering some sick, twisted, or otherwise needs-to-die fucks, in order to perform their experiments and rituals, was fine by her.
Maybe not so much for Julias, though.
"I drug them and keep them under," Jacob said, smiling at Julias, while pushing the corpse so it started to swing on the hook. "There are some rituals, that require pain and torture and all that juicy goodness, but I don't normally indulge. Especially not with the girls here." There was still a chunk of intestine hanging over the pelvis, where Jacob had slit the bastard's stomach open. It was connected to the ass, after all, so she imagined it was the large intestine dangling; Jacob had ripped out the stomach, she saw that. Kindred craved blood, not flesh. Seeing the man's insides didn't tickle her appetite, but it did tickle something else inside her, when she used his blood to paint symbols.
"Thanks for that, I guess." Wincing, Julias came up to the bowl. Bold. He looked into it, and winced again as he no doubt noticed the mountain of blood, guts, and the way they'd been torn out, not cut out. "What sort of ritual were you performing?"
Triss and Jen looked at each other, and then to their boss. Of course, their boss laughed, and shrugged.
"Witchy witch kind of stuff."
"... uh huh." Rolling his eyes, Julias set his hands on the bowl. Blood on his palms and fingers now, but he kept them there. Very bold. "What do I need to do?"
"You need to cut off your hand."
Beatrice and Jennifer both winced, sucking the air in between their teeth, as they looked between Jacob and Julias.
"I can't just bleed for you?"
"No. We're opening a door, and that takes a sacrifice." Jacob reached into the bowl, moved aside some guts, and found one of his rusty knives. Fucking bastard just had to make this as hard as possible for Julias. "Cut off your hand, and fill the bowl with your ashes and vitae. I will perform the ritual, and open the door to your childe. Lucky for you you share the same blood, or I wouldn't be able to open this door."
"You wouldn't?"
"Of course not. How would I know where to go? I'll be delving into a world of dreams and nightmares, piloting through an endless sea of fog and mayhem. Thoughts and fears and desires from the entire plane of existence. I'llβ"
"Ok, I get it. You'll use my blood to home-in on him."
"Exactly."
"And if we didn't have my blood?"
Jacob tapped his finger, big jackass smile on full display, doing the work of expressing what his bandage-covered eye sockets couldn't. "Perhaps the sheriff's blood, though it's unlikely he'd willingly give me that. Without a strong guiding light, I won't be able to find the realm, so if it's not blood, it's nothing. You are lucky Jack went on this mission."
Triss pat her lover on the shoulder. She knew he didn't trust Jacob, but Jacob was proving to be a very informative teacher. Sort of. If he said he needed this or that, he needed this or that. Sometimes he fucked with you, but it was always in good fun. Sort of. Lots of sort ofs, with Jacob.
"Have you done this before?" he said.
"I've been experimenting with the nightmare realm, yes. Azamel is a large threat, and so is her group of friends."
"So you've found her nightmare lair before?"
"No. Like I said, I need a guide, something crΓΊac can understand. Your blood. Your flesh. Your ashes. Without the guide, I'll just be drifting around in the dreams and nightmares of the world. And fuck that, you know?"
Triss choked on a chuckle, keeping it down but only just. Her boss's antics were growing on her, but she could see they were irritating to Julias. And it wasn't a good time to chuckle. Jacob handed Triss the rusty, shitty knife, and gestured to the bowl.
"Ladies," Jacob said, "a drop of your own blood, too. And a drop of mine." The old man smiled at her, and waited.
Nodding, she put her hand over the bowl, and concentrated. There was more to this than just a drop of vampire blood. CrΓΊac was about intent as much as anything else. The beast in her, that thing she had connected with somehow, it had crossed a barrier inside her, exposed her to something new and wonderful and thrilling and fucking dangerous, something in her blood. The vitae she concentrated and forced into her blood was the same mental effort you'd use to make a ghoul, or resurrect a fresh corpse as your childe. It was special, magical, and it deserved respect. It was what Jacob wanted, and as much as he joked and goofed around, she knew he had all the respect in the world for the power of their blood. And now, now that the beast inside her was whispering in her ear, she did too.
A single drop, before she handed Jen the knife. A single drop that was mentally draining, and left Triss a bit dizzy for a moment. That single drop did more than suck the energy out of her, it also quietened her mind, softened her thoughts, and let something with fangs and claws nuzzle a little higher up in her spine. It was almost like a purring sensation, coming from something that lived inside her, something that was now happy with her. Something that wanted to go hunting later.