. 18

~~Beatrice~~

Their first stop was to go get Aaron. And, shit, he wasn't there. They checked for ashes, but didn't find any, except the ones his limbs left.

Aaron was stronger than a Gangrel his age had any right to be, and apparently, maybe even stronger than he'd appeared to be when he fought Athalia. Regenerating limbs was difficult, even for elder vamps, but the dude was a Gangrel, and they could do it better than anyone. Maybe he had a Crúac ritual set up to allow himself to do that, too, or get yanked across the realms back into some secret hideaway? Or maybe he'd run off, and was now trapped in the Great Below?

Well, shit. Enemy? She fucking hoped not. Dude turned out to be a thousand times scarier than she ever expected of him. Hopefully he'd be happy they let him live, and return the favor. Either way, once they were back to the cave, she was going to either find a new place to sleep, or set up some defense measures with rituals of her own.

Sándor dropped them all off at the Elysium Tower, and from there they went their separate ways. Triss had been tempted to talk to Sándor, to maybe ask him about how his conversation with his wife and kid went, but something told her to leave it be. So, she gave him a very manly 'let's talk later' nod, and got Jen from the tower.

Jen wanted to know what happened, but she quickly figured out Triss was way too fucking tired. They got a quick drink, and went to one of their hideouts to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next night, they made the trip to Jacob's cave, and Triss explained what happened. She explained about Aaron, and what Athalia, Triss, and Mary went through to get to Jack and Sándor. She explained about Jack and the Ripper, and the werewolves he'd killed. She explained about what they found deeper in the Great Below, the crazy ghosts down there, the standing stones, and what Jacob and Black Blood were doing. Who lived, who died, Antoinette's random arrival, what Elaine did, what Samantha did, everything.

"I can't believe he's gone," Jen said, standing outside their headquarters cave in the canyon, on the city's edge.

"Yeah, me neither."

"And Samantha--"

"I can't even imagine how fucked up she's feeling. She cut off his head, Jen. Like... slice..."

"Good god." Jen rubbed her arms and nudged herself into Triss's. "I can't even wrap my mind around it. Jacob, gone... Are you sure--"

"I'm sure, Jen. He's dead."

"Jesus. I... didn't want him to die."

Triss nodded, slipped her arm around Jen, and gave her a sideways hug.

"Yeah, but at the same time, I... I wouldn't be surprised if he's happier where he is now."

"You think?"

"Yeah. After what Julias said, about a great river and shit, I think... eventually, Jacob will be happier where he is."

"Uh, I'm sorry, what?"

Triss leaned in, and gave her girlfriend a quick kiss on the cheek. "I got to speak to Julias."

"Julias?"

"Story time part two."

Triss went into detail about the gold souls, about Julias and Mary in particular, about the things they said, about Mary saving her ghost, about Julias and Triss finally getting to have that last conversation, about all the other souls who showed up, everything. Even Margaret and her kid, Theo, and even Angela.

"You couldn't have explained this last night!?"

"Jen, I was exhau--"

Jen threw up her hands, pouted some, and crawled into the cave. Triss couldn't help but chuckle as she followed her in.

Othello was there, but Madison wasn't. And neither was Aaron. Triss continued on, and went in detail about what happened last night, close enough Othello could hear. The big lug didn't say anything, but he listened with wide eyes and dropped jaw. And when they moved to Jacob's den, he followed, not saying anything, still listening like a confused child.

"What... What was it like, seeing Julias again?" Jen asked.

"It was amazing. It was... sad. We got to say goodbyes, apologize. We got to... to... have that final conversation lovers are supposed to have, you know? That's what he came for, so we could have that talk. That's what they all came for, all the dead people."

Jen sat down on Jacob's furs, and lifted one of his many big scary witch books. The ones he'd left in the Great Below were confiscated by Daniel, but the Prince said she might let Triss have them. Emphasis on 'might'.

"You're doing a bad job telling this story, Triss."

"Well fuck you, sorry I'm not a storyteller."

"Not forgiven! You got to see Julias! You got to see... Julias..." Jen's head collapsed, and she threw the book aside.

Shit. Triss sat down beside her, and hugged her. A proper hug this time, full on, Jen's head against her neck and everything, complete with some back rubs.

"He was pretty sad he didn't get to see you, too. He wanted to."

Jen let out a pitiful groan and nudged her nose into Triss's neck. "And Mary?"

"Super happy and cheerful, just like she'd been when we... you know."

Nodding, Jen slipped out of Triss's hug, and they got back to work, checking for any weird traps or rituals Jacob might have left behind.

"I'm glad Mary's ghost got to join Mary, then," Jen said. "I thought, after what happened, after what... we did to her..."

"It only got worse. Mary's ghost was a monster by the end of it. She was gonna become one of the other freak monsters we ran into. If the real Mary hadn't saved her, it'd have been fucking awful. Sam's worst nightmare."

"Jesus christ."

"Yeah, that's what I said."

After a few minutes of more exploring, they got up and headed back out to the main room. Othello followed.

"I can't believe Margaret talked to you," Jen said. "I can't believe she... encouraged you."

Triss laughed again as she poked her head in Aaron's alcove. No changes. The two of them started digging through his stuff, but considering how minimalist Aaron was, they didn't find shit, except some reading material, all fiction.

"More than encouraged me. She basically told me -- us -- how to seduce Sándor."

"Oh! Do tell!"

"Well apparently, you were right. Or at least, more right than I was. When Sándor is in human form, we should... basically just seduce the guy. Like, directly. Like, very directly, in his face directly."

Jen clapped her hands. Sure, Jen felt bad about Jacob, but no chance she was going to put that out on the surface for long. Excitement about romance and sex, on the other hand, Jen was all too eager to indulge visually.

"I can do that."

"The whole city knows you can do that."

Scrunching up her nose, Jen yanked out some of Aaron's fur blankets and threw them out into the main cave, looking for hidden ritual symbols and whatnot.

"But," Jen said, "if he just talked to his dead wife and son, I think maybe we should wait?"

"Yeah. We should drop by and say hi soon, but maybe wait a week or two before trying to seduce him."

Jen grinned at her, and hugged her from behind. "With Julias's blessing."

"Yeah."

"Which is all sorts of strange, you know. Very strange."

"Yeah, it is," Triss said. "Very fucking strange. But, it was... it was weirdly... perfect. It wasn't like it was some creepy scene with ghosts or anything. It really felt... amazing, you know? I don't know if it was the gold water we were all standing in, but it... it was calming, and soothing, and... every word those souls said hit home. It was like one giant therapy session, where everyone was completely committed. Christ, even seeing Angela again, I couldn't get angry at all. And seeing her come to some kind of... understanding with Athalia? Everyone walked away feeling better."

"I wish I'd been there."

"Yeah, it was fucking terrifying, but... amazing, you know? You should have seen the look on Sándor's face when he got to talk to his wife and kid again. You could practically see a hundred thousand pounds get lifted off his shoulders. Dude even cried, a little."

Jen sighed dreamily into her ear. "I can't imagine what sort of meeting that was, for you or Jack to not want to kill Angela... again."

"It was the sort of meeting that gets written down and turned into a religious text some idiot cult misinterprets for the next five thousand years. It was the sort of event someone paints a painting about and then it gets copied a thousand times across a dozen cultures. It was... It was powerful."

"Are you going to do either of those things?"

Triss laughed. "I mean, maybe some stick drawings and some shitty notes? If I'm gonna keep doing this witch thing."

"Jacob would want you to."

"Yeah, he would."

"I am sure I can write poetic witch verse, and draw detailed pictures better than you," Jen said, grinning.

"Then I guess you'll be my ghost writer. Though, I doubt Jacob ever used one. I'll... never be as good a witch as him."

"Give it a few centuries and I bet you'll change your mind. And Jacob, he was the villain in this story, wasn't he?"

"No, he wasn't. Neither was Aaron. Hell, neither was Black Blood." She plopped down in the middle of Aaron's alcove, and gestured around. "It was a giant asshole thing for Jacob to do, to decide the fate of the world for everyone. But... good intentions, right?"

Jen nodded as she sat down beside her. "Do you regret helping stop him?"

"No." And because she said it instantly, she knew she didn't sound sincere. Fuck. "I mean, I... I do, but it had to be done. It's better this way. It is."

"We should go see Samantha," Jen said. "Last time, she was upset we didn't talk to her after her daughter's resurrection failed. And now that Jacob's dead, she... she doesn't have any friends anymore, not really. Jack's her son, and Antoinette's her sire. Neither will ever really qualify."

"Yeah, we should. But... let's make another stop, before we do." Slowly, she dragged herself back up to her feet, and blinked a few times at Othello. Dude stood in the door of Aaron's alcove, jaw still hanging open, staring at them. "You okay, dude?"

"Jacob's dead?" he asked.

"Yeap."

"Samantha killed him?"

"Yeah..."

"And Aaron--"

"Mary's ghost fucked him up bad, put him in torpor. Or at least, so we thought."

She took a few minutes to clarify shit for Othello, each word making his jaw drop more and more. It was strangely satisfying, seeing the normally calm and collected playboy look so utterly confused. She wished she could have enjoyed it more, but thinking about Jacob kinda ruined it.

And what she was about to do next, ruined it more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elen wasn't in the cave. The Prince had her. The book and knife were still hidden away, but Triss didn't even entertain the idea the Prince would let her keep them. She might even confiscate all of Jacob's other stuff, probably in hidden caves and tunnels and shit Triss didn't know about.

Would she give Elen back, if Triss asked? Without her, Julias's body would eventually die and rot away.

No reason to even think about it. No point.

She yanked the tarp off Julias's naked body. There it sat, unchanged, eyes closed, breathing in only the slow, methodical way someone in a coma could. The body was completely oblivious to everything that'd just happened. To the soul that'd paid Triss a visit. And to the shitty news that souls in the afterlife weren't 'life compatible' or whatever. The body was useless. Unless she found some way to do a genuine godly act of divine power, to somehow bring a piece of that other domain along with Julias's soul back into the physical world, it was never going to work.

And even if it was possible, Julias wouldn't want it. And, neither did she.

She held out a hand, and Jen handed her a knife. Othello stayed behind at their headquarters cave, and that was for the best. This was too personal.

"Triss, we could just--"

"No. I'm not going to leave him... it, here, to starve to death and rot."

"But it's empty. It's just flesh."

"It's not just flesh. It's..." Sighing, Triss gently pressed the knife against the body's chest, where the heart would be. She didn't push it in, not yet. "Every night, I feel like I know what it means to be a witch, more and more. I feel like... like I get where Jacob was coming from with all those stories and shit. The Ordo Dracul might treat everything impartially, scientists filling out numbers in a fucking spreadsheet, but... the Circle of the Crone know better.

"Everything has weight. Everything has meaning. This isn't just a body. It's a representation of the shit I've gone through, the stupid decisions I've made, and the shitty, brutal reality we all deal with. In the past, I'd say sure, that's all true, but it doesn't make this empty body special, like dealing with it is now some kind of rite I have to push through. But it does, and it is. It really fucking is. It's all... connected..." She could almost feel the electric tingle of something magical with her knife resting on the body's flesh. Magical and personal.

Jen came a little closer, and stuck her head in front of Triss enough so Triss saw her cock an eyebrow as they met eyes.

"You don't need a ghost writer, Triss. That sounded exactly like the sort of thing Jacob would say. The sort of thing you'd read in one of his books."

Triss managed a weak chuckle. "Yeah. Guess you're right. I thought about maybe talking to Garry and going back to the Carthians, but... fuck me, there's no going back. I can't even talk without sounding over-the-top dramatic anymore. Jesus christ, I really do sound like Jacob sometimes."

"It's warranted." Jen straightened up a bit, and ran her fingers back through the empty body's blonde hair. "So, I guess... the meaning of this act, this rite... is obvious..."

"Yeah..." Triss gulped on a dry vampire throat, and set her free hand on the body's head, next to Jen's.

There were some things about life you couldn't get around. Eternal truths, even to vampires. The body sitting in front of her, empty and waiting, was the result of her trying to break the rules.

No, that was only half the truth. Sure, big magical rules and realms of existence, the afterlife, the inevitability of death, crazy shit like that, it was all very real, and impossible to ignore. But the witch in her knew that was only half the puzzle, half the lesson to learn. The other half was far more personal, and far more real. After letting her suffer in ignorance and confusion for a while, Jacob would have told her straight up exactly what the lesson was, and he'd have told her to suck it up and use it. It was the perfect lesson for a witch, complete with permanently scarring trauma.

You had to let people go.

She pushed the knife into Julias's body, straight into his heart. He was dead in seconds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They buried the body deep in the rocky sand, near the cave. Triss half expected it to crumble and melt away on death, but nope, it really was just a perfectly normal body, which made burying it a hundred times harder. It was like life wanted to rub it in just how much she'd fucked up. But at least digging up a big hole wasn't hard, vampire strength and all.

Once they were done, Triss looked down at the crow skull necklace dangling from her neck, and gently flicked it a couple times with her index claw. There was no going back. She was a witch, now.

After the burial, and a few painful words, the two of them went to the Elysium Tower.

Daniel met them at where the Elysium Tower's front stairs met the big hedge maze front lawn, and what do ya know, Athalia was with him, hanging out. It was weird. Neither of them had the hanging-out personality, so seeing them just standing around, chatting, was very strange. Seeing Daniel wear a small smile, stranger.

"Athalia," Triss said, and she gave a small wave.

"Beatrice." And, holy shit, Athalia returned it. Just as small, but still.

"Sheriff."

"Miss Damor." Daniel's smile vanished, and he adjusted his glasses, single finger against the bridge. God forbid the dumbass let anyone know he actually had feelings.

They went silent. Not an awkward silence, but a calm silence, complete with some real eye contact full of acceptance and understanding. It was super out of place for them, and Jen picked up on it instantly.

"I really missed out, didn't I?"

Triss shrugged and kissed her girlfriend on the cheek. "Yeah, you did. Sorry."

"Five people died," Athalia said. "Maybe six, if Aaron's dead. More, if you include the ghosts."

"Yeah, I know. But you all got to have something so special."

Daniel nodded slowly as he sat down on one of the hedge maze's very Gothic stone benches, and Athalia sat with him.

"It was," he said. "But Athalia is right. Five people died, and many of us nearly died. I am sorry to say, a young Ventrue like yourself wouldn't have survived."

"Jacob wouldn't have hurt me," Jen said, "I don't think..."

Triss slipped her arm behind Jen and pulled her in so she stood hip to hip with her.

"He didn't want to hurt anyone."

"No," Athalia said, "he didn't."

They all looked down, even Daniel, and let the shitty reality of what happened last night sink in. Jacob was dead, and sure, it needed to happen, but that didn't change that the guy wasn't some evil fucker who deserved it. And it sucked that he was gone.

Triss spoke up first. "How's Samantha?"

The sheriff managed the smallest shrug she'd ever seen.

"She hasn't come out of her room."

"Eesh, really? I mean, she sounded fine when I texted her. Asked her if Jen and I could visit, and she said yes."

Daniel shrugged again. Ugh, the dude was useless.

Triss turned and made for the stairs, stopped, and walked over to Athalia.

"Athalia, I--"

"It was wonderful, getting to talk to my daughter again, Triss. I want my last memories of her to be of... of what happened last night. My daughter, in my arms, crying. She told me she loved me, you know? Whispered it."

"I... wow."

"So, don't worry about it, me, us. I don't want to think about the stuff that happened between you and her, if you don't mind. Let me have my last memory of her as... as what you saw."

"Yeah, yeah sure." Nodding, Triss gave Athalia a smile, and Athalia returned it. That was what last night gave people. Closure. Sure as fuck Triss wasn't going to ruin that for Athalia, who'd had it worse than any of them, save for maybe Sam.

Jen and Triss walked into the tower, where one of Antoinette's thralls waited, some dude in a suit with the bulge of a pistol hidden under his jacket.

"This way, please." The thrall bowed, and headed to the back stairs, past the elevators.

Jen and Triss rolled their eyes. It wasn't like they were a threat to Antoinette, or could sneak around and steal Ordo secrets. But whatever, they followed anyway, as the guide took them down into the tower. It was a pretty awesome tower, and as much as Triss had grown pretty damn fond of dark, scary caves lit with candles and covered in ritual symbols, the black marble walls with their cool white lighting lines were very cool. They fit Antoinette well.

Down and down, the staircase grew wider, and a glance down hallways showed some of them led into very large rooms filled with furniture, or electronics. One of them had a pool.

"I wonder," Jen said as she poked her head into the giant underground pool room that'd probably cost a billion dollars, "what sort of antics Jack gets up to in these rooms."

"Probably everything you're thinking, considering Antoinette is... you know, Antoinette."

"This way, please," the thrall said, and they continued on, earning a pout from Jen.

Eventually he stopped in front of a big metal door down a hall of black marble, bowed again, and walked back the way he came. He stopped at the hallway entrance, and waited. Yeap, Triss and Jen weren't allowed to go roaming alone, and apparently the Prince and Jack weren't around to play chauffeur.

Triss knocked. She expected to hear a quiet, meek 'come in', but instead, the door opened, and Samantha smiled at them from inside her room.