. 18

~~Jack~~

~Are you alright, master?~ Scully asked, perched on a powerline outside.

~I'm fine. Any kine wandering nearby?~

~No.~

~Any signs of Michael?~

~Not yet,~ Mulder said.

The ability to communicate with his familiars over distances psychically was freaky and awesome. Normally Animalism required some sort of visual or auditory contact. But now that Mulder and Scully were his familiars, dead and revived as half vampire creatures, no auditory or visual connection necessary. Full on magical connection. Ye're a wizard, Harry.

Garry waited, tapping his foot, growing angrier by the second.

"Kill me?" Jack said after a perfect dramatic pause, voice dripping with sarcasm. "What did I do?"

Garry glared at him as he came closer, eyes scanning for weapons. Well, Jack had none. He sat in a crummy old chair behind a crummy old desk, and with his feet up on the desk, he hooked his hands behind his head, and grinned at the Gangrel.

Garry growled, a little more like a predator -- from Predator -- than Jack liked. Scary. While Jack wore his usual suit, various shades of gray, Garry wore the usual as well, a white tank top and blue jeans. And with Jack sitting behind a desk, the situation reeked of a stereotypical Carthian Invictus encounter.

"The fuck are you up to? Fucking rat." Garry came up to the desk, and licked a fang. Not the sexy kinda lick that Antoinette often did. This was an angry, get ready to fight kinda lick, like an animal getting ready to bite something.

It was an empty room, despite Garry's obvious concern it wasn't. No vampire sat around in the dark corners, waiting to spring up out of their Cloak, lit only by the few old bulbs flickering with age. Garry could tell. No explosives covered any surface. It was just a big, empty room.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Don't fuck with me, Jack. I know you set up a meeting to talk to one of Roland's relatives. The fuck are you trying to prove?"

Jack shrugged, and picked up a stack of papers on the desk.

"The fuck do you care?"

"The fuck do I care? You know why I care! Otherwise you wouldn't be doing this."

Grinning, Jack looked at the pages, picked one, and set it down where Garry could see the picture. A copy of a newspaper article from fifty years ago.

"1970. Mugger dies, quite randomly, in a dark alley. Stolen purse found on corpse. Cops delivered it to the woman who lost it."

Garry's eyes widened.

Jack flipped to another page. "1984. Car accident. A man nearly died, and the hospital needed a special kind of blood for him. Some weird deficiency. And for some reason, a woman no one knew shows up at the hospital to give him a transfusion of her blood. She had the kind of blood he needed to save his life. Turns out she lived in your neck of the woods."

Garry's eyes hardened into sharp slits.

Jack flipped to another page. "1920. A robbery goes bad and the robbers take a couple hostage. Later, the robbers are found dead, the hostage were fine, and all the hostages can say is something happened in the dark. Something loud, and crunchy." He couldn't help but laugh as he read over the paragraph again. "Cops were pretty perplexed, and it was the 1920s. A lot of them got superstitious about it. Called Dolareido the Blood City."

"Are you fucking serious? You tracked my..." Garry snarled and looked away. That was as good as admitting.

Jack didn't track all this information, of course. He didn't know the first fucking thing about it. Hell, the idea that Garry would go out of his way to help Roland's family after Roland's death didn't cross his mind. It crossed Antoinette's mind though, and she dug up the details without issue. She was too damn smart.

He kinda wished she'd told him she'd left breadcrumbs pointed to him, though, breadcrumbs for Garry to find. He understood why she didn't, cause he might given up what was happening if she did, but still, risky.

"As you can probably guess now," Jack said, gesturing around them, "no member of Roland's family is on the way. I tricked you into coming here, to take a peek at this." He gestured at the stack of papers.

"You tricked me here? You?"

"Evidently." The right word to use to piss him off.

"... and the distraction in my turf?"

"You knew it was a distraction."

"Of course I knew it was a fucking distraction."

"And when your tail told you I'd been up to something here, you came running when you realized I was distracting you. You have had a tail on my ass for a while now, right? Someone who noticed I was looking up information on Roland's family? Someone who thought I set up a meeting with them?" Someone that Antoinette tricked. "You thought 'oh that fucker Jack is distracting me while he gets involved in my shit. Well surprise, Jack, I know where you are'. Sound about right?"

Garry stared at him until his eyes twitched. Every word Jack said was right, and Garry was going to boil over any moment as Jack rubbed it in how stupid the man was. He wasn't stupid, of course. Antoinette was just really fucking smart, and even she couldn't have put this together without Jack's help. Even she didn't anticipate how important Roland had been to Garry. But, better Garry didn't know it was her plan, not yet. Probably not ever.

"Jack... you've crossed a fucking line."

"Have I? Just dug up some records."

"You don't--"

"Garry, shut up." Oh the anger in the man's eyes. It was kind of thrilling, doing this. As shitty a sport as bullfighting was, Jack couldn't deny it must have been thrilling as fuck to be a matador. "Roland isn't the first lover you've lost like this, is it? A little bird told me you were romantic with another man, someone in the Lancea et Sanctum. Lucas killed him." Jack shook his head. "You really just can't catch a break, can you? No wonder you hate Michael with--"

Garry flipped the desk. Papers went everywhere. Jack barely had time to react as Garry dove under the desk as it flew through the air, and tackled him. But Jack already had the necklace off, safe in his pocket, and his Beast responded just as quickly. He grabbed Garry's wrists before he could get them around Jack's throat, and held him at a distance. Jack was still sitting however, and inertia was a thing.

They landed in a roll. Jack wanted to kick up against the man's chest with both feet, push him off, but physics were a bitch, and the two landed and rolled the moment friction had a say in the matter. And Garry didn't come at him with some weak tackle either. The concrete floor ripped and tore up Jack's suit like a cheese grater as the two rolled until they eventually slammed into the wall.

No longer tethered to each other, Jack rolled up and away faster than Garry, and hopped up to his feet. Up and away. Garry, eyes wide with absolute rage, chased after him, and didn't bother with the slow build up like last time they fought. The man's clothes disappeared into his skin, talons erupted from his boots, a tail shot out from behind him, and giant wings burst from his back, leathery, with a giant claw on each main joint. Similar to the creature Jack had fought last time, but with some minor differences. Maybe he couldn't recreate the same shape every time? Well, either way, a gargoyle creature ran at him, and this time, Jack didn't have a dozen tables and a thousand boxes to hide behind.

Then again, Mulder and Scully weren't in the room either. They were circling outside, keeping an eye open for inevitable arrival of Michael. Which meant Jack didn't have to worry about them.

Garry charged at Jack with all the subtlety of a monster truck, mass included, and his talons tore up the concrete as he grew heavier, and bigger. His tail split into two, and flailed wildly behind him as spikes emerged on its tip. His jaw split down the center, and spread into mandibles. Extra eyes opened on his forehead, seven of them, and his newly formed mandibles grew extra sharp teeth that would have made a crocodile envious.

"Holy shit!" Normally Jack would say that in his head, but sometimes you see something so damn freaky you have to say it out loud.

Garry, on the other hand, didn't say a thing. He probably couldn't with a mouth like that, except maybe for some sinister laughter. Jack was tempted to make the joke about that, but the bastard closed the distance so fast Jack had to roll to the side as the behemoth stomped past him. Each step hit the floor hard and pulsed the area with vibration, like Garry weighed twice as much as one of the werewolves. Sure, he was like a mini Sándor, but that was still huge. Plus, he was really freaky, like 'oh god it's going to eat my brains' freaky.

And the look in his... nine eyes, was pure, unadulterated hatred.

Garry tried to veer and catch Jack on the roll, but whatever he did to his body, he was too heavy now. It was like a car trying to turn on a dime, or a transport truck. The freak alien gargoyle thing ran past Jack as he turned, and his talons ripped ravines through the floor as he struggled to stop his mass. But he managed, and picked up the chase again as Jack put as much distance between him and the Gangrel as possible.

"Kill you," Garry said. Ok, apparently he could talk. It didn't sound human in the slightest, like some freaky demon without lips had to use only tongue and throat to make sounds, but he managed. "Fucking kill you!" A loud, raspy voice, mixed with high pitched shrills. Yeap, alien.

But the huge alien came to a stop -- after digging a few more trenches in the floor with his talons -- when another person walked down the tile stairs and stepped into the concrete room.

"Garry Tones," Michael said, snarling as his eyes moved from the alien to Jack. "Mister Terry."

Garry stood there, all nine eyes showing some weird mix of hate, rage, and surprise.

"Well well, Michael, nice of you to drop by," Jack said, and he waved.

Michael's eyes hardened. "What is going on here?"

Garry looked between the two of them, and snapped both his tails against the floor, but said nothing. He was confused, too.

Grinning like the biggest jackass alive, Jack turned, and walked back toward the desk Garry flipped. Right past Garry too, to help stoke that rage. The papers were everywhere, but after rooting through a few, Jack stood up with one, and turned to face the two Gangrels.

"Michael. I got a record here about a financial collapse in 1953, a street corner store. " Jack squinted at the paper, dramatically of course, before smiling at his boss. "And three days later, the store opened for business again. Apparently they'd gotten an anonymous donation, and some new traffic."

Michael just stared.

"This one is even better. 1921. Looks like whoever held Roland's funeral didn't have to pay out of pocket."

"Jack," his boss said. There went the titles. "I'm warning you."

"I got a bunch more here. Looks like one of Roland's cousins, the one who came to the funeral, suddenly came into a hundred grand. And one of his daughters got a free education. And her grand daughter is currently undergoing leukemia treatment for free. Some sort of strange loophole in the insurance that doesn't actually exist, but Roland's family now thinks it does."

Jack shrugged, and grabbed another paper. "Here's a report about a guy who disappeared for a while. Addict, got mixed up in a bad crowd. Looks like he was about to get, uh, 'iced' by a loan shark, after a thorough round of torture." Yeap, the language on the report actually said 'iced'. "But then the loan sharks let him go. Told him to keep his nose clean, and his debts were wiped." Jack tossed the paper aside. "Now, I don't know about you, but the loan sharks I've met would sooner cut off their own children's fingers than give up an opportunity to make a statement to other customers. Oh, and this guy was dating another person related to Roland."

Garry took a step closer to Jack. "You had no right digging up shit about us, our past."

"This was... is, our business, Jack. Not yours." Michael came closer as well, his eyes drifting between Garry and Jack, back and forth several times, rage building.

Jack blinked between the two guys. "Wait, our business? You... knew? You two knew you were both playing guardian angel to Roland's family?"

Michael tilted his head to the side, like he was going to crack his neck. Vampires couldn't crack joints or knuckles, but the effect was still the same: intimidating. Michael was a big, beefy guy, and he looked like he was getting ready for a fist fight.

"We knew," Michael said. "Garry's useless guilt gestures--"

"Gestures? Guilt!?" Garry stomped his way toward Michael. "You try and buy everything! Even love! Money won't wipe away your guilt you fucking--"

Garry was already boiling at full rage, which was exactly what Jack wanted, but Michael still needed--

"You think your empty gestures mean anything, Garry? Roland is dead because of you! You tore him apart, and helping his family with your useless acts means nothing. At least money helps them. You pretend to be a vigilante guardian angel for them, and then disappear. Useless!"

Ok, the gaps in the puzzle were filling in. Garry and Michael knew that the other was helping Roland's family out, and it turned into some sort of twisted competition over the years. That was a sort of a good thing? Kinda? It meant both had compassion for Roland, and Jack was banking on that. But it also meant they were trapped in some weird guilt spiral that had them trying to outdo the other. Which meant they were probably brewing up this rage guilt bomb over the past century.

Well, he had more than enough fuel to piss them off. Now the problem was whether he could use it to play psychologist.

"This is quite the soap opera drama, isn't it?" Jack said. "You two idiots had some bad shit go down a long-ass time ago, and now, instead of talking about it and working out your differences, you've got the whole damn city fighting."

Garry stopped marching, and turned to face Jack instead as he clenched his hands into fists. When he unclenched them, he grew out his claws until they were six inches, and sharp on the inside curve, like swords.

"The turf war is not personal," Garry said.

"Wrong." Jack kicked some of the pages under his feet. "Contempt, anger, all just bubbling under the surface, edging each little brawl and scuffle until it turned deadly. Four more Kindred just died because of your bullshit! Oh, and don't forget the shit Joe pulled."

"Joe was..." Garry snarled and shook his head. "Joe was--"

"A fucking dog," Michael said. "A dog you fed with your lies and bullshit and delusions of idealism. Viktor hurt him, and you took advantage. And now Bruce is dead because of that mongrel."

More puzzle pieces.

"Joe didn't deserve what Viktor did to him!" Garry roared, outright roared, and the room shook with the vibration. "It doesn't matter anymore. The Carthians and Invictus can't coexist."

"It could!" Jack threw up his hands. Like talking to a fucking wall. Walls. "You don't see what I'm fucking pointing out here? You two idiots have been at each other's throats for so long, making everything worse for everyone, but you're doing it over the most idiotic reason! You both loved this dude, and--"

Michael's body erupted in an explosion of mass, flesh, and madness.

Jack jumped back and stared on as the man's height rose until his head hit the ceiling. His shoulders expanded wide, and his arms grew thicker than his original body. As his suit disappeared into his skin, a third arm erupted from his right shoulder and neck, thinner than the others, but longer, with long claws. His legs remained short, but their width increased more than enough to handle the hulking titan of mutating flesh.

His face devolved, eyes shifting over his bulging bone until everything looked lopsided. One side of his mouth grew larger than the other, and the fangs on that side of his mouth grew large enough to split skin. And as the Gangrel grew heavier and heavier, he leaned forward, and put his weight onto his enormous knuckles, like some sort of mutant gorilla. As he did, another new limb shot out of his body, a tail, something leathery but still the beige color of his normal skin. The tail looked like it was made of hands connected to each other, holding onto wrist after wrist after wrist. John Carpenter would have been proud.

Jack stared on, and glanced at Garry, who didn't look super surprised by Michael's look, but rather by Michael's actions. Apparently he didn't expect Michael to flip out, but he'd seen it before. The two assholes had probably fought each other multiple times in the past, in secret. Elders didn't normally fight, but like Jack was saying, this shit was personal, even if they didn't believe it.

"Jack," Michael said, voice deep and gurgling in his giant, fat throat. "You tricked me into coming here. You tricked me into thinking you were going to tell Roland's family about me. You tricked me... and Garry, for what? To tell us that we've been fighting each other because of an emotional grudge based on nothing?" With a heavy, alien snarl, Michael's mouth opened far wider than it should have been able to, exposing a hundred misshapen teeth as rolls of neck fat fell over each other. "Your curse has made you a dangerous ally, but I was willing to put up with it. Now? After this insult? Die."

How the hell did either of these two dudes manage to talk with fucked up mouths like that?

Michael charged him, the same way a gorilla would. Small, beefy legs doing double time between galloping crunches of his hands against the floor.

Jessy had told Jack about the crazy shit her boss could transform into. She should have taken a picture. He was not ready for the absurd insanity of the disgusting monstrosity straight out of Resident Evil charging toward him. Sure, Jessy could transform into weird stuff too. He'd seen her grow enormous claws and weird, chitinous body armor. He'd seen her warp her skeleton so she could run on all fours, with a fleshy tail to match. Jessy was a strong Gangrel who'd displayed some impressive feats of Protean, but she had centuries to go before she could do anything like Michael was doing now.

He wants to kill you. Hit him. Hit him so hard he learns his fucking place.

Jack waited until the barreling monster was right on top of him, before he jumped, and drove his fist up into the titan's blubbery mess of a face. And he let the rage of the curse pour up through him as he did.

He didn't let the Ripper out. He had no plans to do that. Every time the curse got out, he got his stupid fingers deeper into Jack's mind, made it harder to push him out. But the curse had power. With the necklace off, Jack could summon some of that power. But in order to really tap into its ridiculous strength, he had to call on his Beast, the thing the curse infected. Gangrels did it all the time, but not Ventrue. Calling up the Beast and using it like a war horse was not something a Ventrue would ever be good at. But that didn't mean he couldn't do it.

This war horse came with a second rider, someone trying to rip the reins from Jack's hands. He had to be careful.

His fist collided with Michael's chin, or something approximating it, and the titan slammed up into the wood beams above. The fucker's mass was enormous, and parts of his body continued forward with momentum even as his skull hit the ceiling and came to a quick stop. Body parts a lot harder than Jack thought they'd be slammed into him, and threw him back until he smashed into the back wall, again. Only then did the giant collapse to the floor under his own inertia, like King Kong falling.

Groaning, Jack got up to his feet, and glared at the two bastards as he summoned up more of his vitae. More, and more of it, until he was swimming in it, until its tingling power rippled down into his fingertips.