~~Jack~~
Everything happened so fast. Too fast. If someone was sick, they didn't just spontaneously fall over and die, right? And they didn't start bleeding like that!
But Mary had done just that. Five minutes. In five minutes, she'd gone from laughing and chuckling and drinking, to puking up blood. More than puking, the blood had come from her eyes, and fingernails, and everywhere. Her body lay on his mom's lap, soaking her in more blood as she shook.
She managed one final smile for him before looking back up at their mom, who clutched her head on her lap snug to her waist.
"I got to... hug my mom... again."
Her limbs went limp. Her breathing stopped. Her heart stopped. Her empty eyes stared on, blood lining where tears should have been.
Jack stared at her body, identical to the one he'd said goodbye to a year ago. In the hospital, she'd been cold, pale as a vampire not Blushing Life, with cheeks sunken in. He hadn't dared look under the sheet to see her wounds. This time, she was a mess of crimson on her skin and revealing dress, blood that coated him, and utterly drenched his mom. Warm blood. It'd been so warm.
He looked at Beatrice, and she looked at him. A billion words in a single glance, but they all boiled down to three: what the fuck.
His mom burst into sobs, and clutched Mary's body close. "Mary... please don't go. Please... please... please don't... leave me again..."
Jack winced and looked away. Christ, not again.
"I... I don't understand," Beatrice whispered. "She was fine just five minutes ago! What the fuck--"
A ear-piercing shriek erupted from Mary's body, and everyone fell back on their elbows. He knew that shriek. He remembered the pain it put him through when it threw him through a wall like he was a paperweight.
Him, Triss, his mom, the whole fucking ball, everyone stared, frozen and unmoving as the ghost of Mary flowed out of the bloody corpse. Mary, but different. It was her ghost, the same creature he saw haunting his old home, but any semblance of calmness or sanity was gone. Worse than the time she tried to kill him. Her empty eyes were wide to an extreme, and her hair thrashed around like it was alive.
She circled above, screaming louder, until it broke the petrification of the crowd. Everyone covered their ears, and drinking glasses shattered as they hit the floor. A moment later, every glass that hadn't been dropped shattered anyway, as the rising shriek of Jack's sister buried the ball in fury and misery. It was beyond loud. People groaned and screamed too, some falling to their knees and clutching their heads, Jack included, but their groans and yells were completely buried under Mary's.
The windows shattered, and while they were hidden behind enormous, thick black curtains, the explosion of glass was enough to stir them like sails in a hurricane. Bits of glass went everywhere, and the crowd dropped to their knees, either dodging the flying clear blades, or doing their best to keep their eardrums from popping.
"I'm not her! I'm not her! I'm not her!" She yelled and shrieked as she circled overhead, clutching her face and dragging her nails down through it, cutting through her see-through skin. The wounds healed instantly, but she tore at her cheeks again and again anyway, each time letting her jaw hang open further and further until her mouth was open almost an entire foot.
The ballroom filled with mist as it cooled, white fog pouring from ceiling corners like someone had set up a hundred industrial dry ice fog machines. In seconds, it flowed over the balcony down onto everyone below, before the ballroom pit was filled with mist up to the waist of anyone still standing. The cold came next, cold that bit into the bones, cold not even a vampire could ignore.
"Mary!" Jack yelled as he forced himself to his feet. "Mary! Enough!" He looked his mom's way, but only her head was visible in the mist. She was staring up at her daughter's ghost, eyes wide. Shock.
"I'm not her! I'm not her!"
"What do you mean you're not her!?" He snapped his gaze left and right as he tried to get some sort of bearing on the situation. The drapes still covered the windows, thank god. No one could see in. But nearby kine would be able to hear what was going on. Hell, half of Dolareido probably heard the opening scream.
He looked Antoinette's way. She was staring up at the ghost as well, but unlike everyone else, her mouth wasn't agape. She was processing, and looked around to start damage control at nearly the same time Jack did. She caught his eye, nodded, and looked to Michael. Of course he was still standing, and being an obvious presence while doing it, posing in just the right way he could see everything going on around him, and let everyone know he wasn't spooked by some ghost. Luckily Mary didn't seem to notice him. He'd be more than spooked if Mary decided to ram glass shards through his eye sockets.
Michael met the Prince's eyes, nodded, and pulled out his phone. The expression on his face said it all: phones weren't working. Of course not, not with a raging ghost around. But Michael thought fast, and made a small signal with his hand to someone in the crowd. Another vampire, a Mekhet, quickly vanished and disappeared.
They'd get out of the Black Hall, and contact the Invictus thralls and ghouls in the city government. They'd make sure the police and fire department wouldn't arrive any time soon, and hopefully get the guards outside to stop anyone from getting close.
"I'm not her! I'm not her!"
"Mary, stop!" Beatrice jumped up and waved her arms in the air. "Fucking stop! What happened!? Tell us what happened!"
Jack winced as the inevitable shriek followed. Triss didn't know how hard it was to talk to Mary when she was angry, but she found out quick when Mary swooped down over them, close enough to nearly touch their heads, and screamed. They both fell.
"I knew it! It was the dreams! Empty dreams. Wandering in nothing. Nothing! Should have known. Should have known! But I wouldn't see the truth! Couldn't accept it. Couldn't... couldn't..." Her screams faded, and her insane expression settled as she finally turned her empty eyes from Jack and Triss, to their mom.
His mom had one hand out, and was holding it open, palm up, toward Mary.
Jack looked at his mom, and stared through the mist as both he and her slowly got back to their feet. She took special care to lay down Mary's body before she did, and she stood up with no fear in her eyes. Only sadness.
"Baby," she said, voice so quiet Jack doubted anyone else could hear it with their ears still ringing. "It... didn't work."
"No! No... no it didn't." Mary shook her head violently as she hovered in place. No legs, and instead of the fancy dress, she had back on the simple clothes she had when Jack first found her. "It didn't. It didn't. It didn't."
"I know, sweetie. I know." Their mom steeled herself, and Jack stared on as she reached out, and gently ran a hand down the place where she should have been able to touch her daughter's cheek. "But you remember, right?"
"Re... member?"
"What you said, just... just before you died. Just now."
"I got to... to hug my mom again."
Samantha nodded, took a deep, useless breath, and lowered her hands. "And it was worth it, right?"
"It... was." Mary the ghost swam back up in the air. Thank god their mom was there, or she'd have been ripping the whole ballroom into a mess, with probably more than a few casualties. "It was. I was... happy."
"Then... then it was worth it." Nodding, Samantha gestured around them. "This isn't your home, is it?"