~~Jack~~
He left Harcourt with the monsters. Athalia said she wanted to talk to him, in private, and Harcourt agreed the same way a scared child might agree to something. But Jack knew the monsters wouldn't hurt him, not while he was still under the Prince's protection.
A part of Jack wanted to stick around, be a part of the conversation, maybe build some sort of bridge between him and Athalia, like she and his mom had. A much larger part of him knew he'd rage and snap, talking about Angela, and that wasn't what Athalia needed. The woman needed closure, not an enemy. And as much as she'd nearly become one, Athalia wasn't an enemy. Better to leave her be and let her recover without his interference. It wasn't like Beatrice was going out of her way to talk to Athalia; far as he knew the two hadn't talked to each other since she killed her daughter.
He wanted to fix things. It ate at him, like a fucking ant in his shoe, when he couldn't fix something. The problems with the Invictus and Carthians, the problems with Begotten and Athalia, the problem with Mary being a ghost, and now the problem with his mom dating a bastard who might actually be trying to destroy the fucking world or something. The shit he would do for a magic wand, so he could just zap away and fix the problems.
"Jack," Sándor said, "I wanted to talk to you."
"Yeah, gathered that, from you coming with." He kept the words light, playful, testing Sándor's disposition.
The gargoyle didn't so much as smile at the comment.
"And don't worry. Harcourt will be fine."
"I know."
"I... wanted to ask about Beatrice."
Right, cause the man was a masochist and was determined to make himself feel even more guilty than Jack did about his mom. What a pair they were.
"Alright. Hit me."
Sándor nodded. At least the two of them understood the value in being straight with each other, and not dancing around bushes.
"She and Julias. I understand they were a close couple. A bit of a... two wayward souls finding solace in each other situation."
Jack sighed. "Ah, you want to talk about Julias too."
"Sorry. But--"
"It's ok. We can skip the typical back and forths, the apologies and creeping on eggshells stuff. I'm guessing you're sick of it."
"Sick is a strong word. But... I appreciate your candor."
"Same. And yeah, Triss was your typical angry Nosferatu, and Julias was depressed with his second life. They really helped each other out. He helped her with her anger, she helped him find happiness again." Jack put up his hands. "I'm quoting him, by the way. These are the things he told me. Though really it was the whole Circle that helped Triss get over her issues with her Nos deformities. They don't care. Julias can't take all the credit for that."
"You were close with him."
"Pretty close. Becoming a vampire put a strain on the relationship. But yeah, even when things got heated, we were still friends. Close friends. We talked to each other about almost everything, Triss included." Ah fuck, that brought up the memory of the conversation in the hospital, the last normal conversation they had. "He was going to marry her; propose, anyway. She would have said yes."
Sándor only barely flinched, but with this guy, that was essentially running him over with a train.
"Julias was... You were there, at the end. I guess I don't need to say how amazing he was."
"No... you don't."
Nodding, Sándor took a breath, pushing past the pain, same as Jack was.
"And Beatrice now?"
"We don't talk as much as we used to. She's probably doing some ritual shit that I'm happier not knowing about." Jack looked Sándor's way. If what he said meant something, Sándor didn't react to it. "So, you want to know about Beatrice? She's an angry punk on the outside, but on the inside she's a normal girl, right down to fantasies of being a princess. When she was alive, she wasn't anything special, just a really pretty, athletic girl who liked attention. Would be an instagram ass model if she was alive today."
"Instagram... ass model."
Jack grinned at the man. Yeah, made sense Sándor wasn't exactly up to date with online stuff.
"Internet, self made model, showing off her ass."
"I see. She was that... bold?"
"Ha! Vain is the word you're looking for, dude. And before you defend her, she admitted it to me herself. She was a vain bitch when she was alive, and hey, if a girl wants to show off her ass for clicks and likes, or whatever they did back in 1990, by all means. But she got the attention of a stalker, a Nosferatu asshole. Course the Prince killed the fucker for siring without permission, but, yeah, waking up from death with a new set of big nasty teeth, that left her pretty angry. Down in the bones angry, you know?"
Sándor slowly nodded, eyes ahead and on the tunnel tracks. He knew. He probably knew better than anyone in the whole damn city.
"And Julias helped her overcome that?" he asked.
"Yeah. Julias was great at helping others. Not so good with helping himself."
"Who is?"
"Good point."
"And Beatrice. She's taken to the Circle well?"
"Yeah, really well. I don't trust Jacob, but I guess he called it right, getting her from the Carthians. And I guess I see it, now that she's neck deep in it. Triss will make a good witch."
"You didn't think so before?"
"Nah. Before I knew her very well, I thought she was kinda like Jessy, loud and angry. But they're nothing alike. Getting sired against her will really fucked her up, and that proud pretty girl she used to be shattered and turned into someone with a lot more rage and... depth, I guess. Depth she probably didn't want, but she got it anyway. Jessy isn't like that. Deep as a plate. Awesome, in her own way, but yeah."
That managed to get at least a small smile out of the gargoyle.
"That's good."
"What, that Triss has depth? Why? You kinda gave me the impression Jen's attempts to seduce you with TNA was a failure." Jack put up a hand again before Sándor could ask. "Tits and ass."
"I see. I... guess I am interested in Beatrice, yes. We've talked, and she's intriguing."
"Don't mind the crocodile teeth?" Jack pointed at his cheeks.
"No." A complete lack of explanation. Typical. But it made sense. Dude was a Begotten, and probably met a lot of monsters who looked fucking horrible. Just another day for a nightmare creature.
"Well, from what I can tell, Beatrice and Jennifer are best friends, and friends with benefits. If you want one, you get the other. Which, I mean, Jen's ridiculously hot, so I imagine most guys would be happy with that arrangement. But something tells me you're more of a vanilla guy?"
Even wording it like that, hoping to poke the guy's ego a bit and crack his shell, got nothing. Pure deadpan face.
"My life with my wife was... not vanilla." Jack's words didn't crack Sándor's shell, but his own did, for a split second at least. He flinched, just barely. Interesting.
Jack chuckled. It felt good to laugh, after everything he'd been through lately.
"If you want to ask her out or something, I say go for it. Just... just be careful. Julias's been dead for a while, but not so long it doesn't still sting."
"I'm not sure dating is what I had in mind."
Not sure? Dude had something in mind.
"Triss is awesome, but probably a little fragile right now. Julias was her pillar, you know? She leaned on him, and she isn't the sort of girl to do that lightly."
"I hear a lot of people relied on Julias."
"Yeah, that's true. He was a Right Hand of the Invictus before I was, and the Invictus relied on him heavily. Then his sire died, and Julias replaced him on the council. Everyone was happy about it, cause yeah, people trusted Julias to not only do his due diligence, but he also didn't have ulterior motives. Usually. Of all the Kindred in the city, he was the only damn one you could trust to not screw you over."
Sándor nodded as he took it in. "Dolareido is worse for his passing."
"Yeah, it is." Jack almost launched into a 'it's not your fault' speech, but Sándor had made it clear he didn't want to hear it. And Jack was happy to oblige. "I'm not entirely sure what you're aiming to do, Sándor, but there's no way you can replace Azamel, be a protector and teacher for all the younger Begotten, and simultaneously replace Julias, you know? If anything, replacing him is my job."
"You're a little busy to replace him, don't you think?"
"I guess." The turf war was definitely something Julias would have handled, and better than Jack was, but the shit with the tears, Black Blood, and potentially Jacob, was a twist he doubted his sire would know how to handle any better than he did.
"And I suppose I'm not looking to replace your sire. But I am looking to heal the wound as best I can."
"So you can fix things."
"Yes. I have to fix things. Even if they're not my fault, they're still my responsibility. I... have to fix what I can."
Jack smiled at him. "I know the feeling."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It'd be sunrise soon. A bit over an hour. Tomorrow night he'd pay Antoinette a visit, and see what they could do about... about everything. In the mean time, he had one other thing to check up on, one other thing he was trying to fix.
He stepped into his old house, his mom's old house, and let the darkness and cold envelop him. The house was officially haunted, and all those old movies made a lot more sense. Haunted houses weren't just creepy, they had an aura. You felt death when you entered them, in a way only a ghost could cause. Unnatural death.
"Mary, you here?" He took off his shoes and set them beside the side door on the mat. Habit. The side door took him into the kitchen, and he walked through it as he looked around. "Mary?" She usually hung out in her room upstairs, but no reason to not ask out loud for her before he got there.
Sure enough, no response. But the place felt cold, weird and in the bones cold, and that seemed to be an indicator she was around. So he headed upstairs, and knocked on her door.
"Mary, you there? I'm coming in." The memory slapped him in the face. He'd said those exact words before, when he was young and she was still alive.
He stepped into her room, and the cold bit into him like knives. Not real cold. A vampire didn't really give a shit about temperatures outside of absurd extremes, but something about being around a ghost made that defense moot. It was painful cold in Mary's room, and mist flowed over the floor up to his knees.
Course all that was forgotten the moment he saw his sister sitting on the edge of her bed, looking through a photo album. It sat beside her, not on her lap like Jack figured she'd hold it. Then again, ghost.
"Hey Mary. You uh, learned how to touch stuff?"
She shook her head. "Mom helped me with this. It's... it's taken a lot of time and effort, but I can turn the pages. Barely."
