“I did not realize that it would be happening so soon,” Viktor said, and started to walk toward the small Ventrue. Jack did not look him in the eye, and decided it’d be best to keep his head down entirely. He gave a small bow.
“There were unexpected developments, and I was forced to embrace him early. He’d been stabbed.”
“Was he now?” This time it was the Nosferatu Maria who spoke up. Jack could feel the chill in his spine when her hoarse, raspy voice hit him. If someone had been thrown into a basement and left to die without water, he figured there final words would have sounded kinda like that.
“Yes. I believe it was Rebecca,” Julias said. Funny, Jack thought he could hear a moment’s hesitation in his friend’s response.
Alder Viktor, whatever Alder meant, walked up to Jack and looked down at him. Down didn’t do it justice. It was a king looking down at his servant’s servant. A god looking down at a pleb. He smiled, but Jack dared not look any higher than to see his lips and fangs.
The amount of body language reading was overwhelming. It was business, and he knew business, but these gods were all looking at him, and even a child would have noticed how they were thinking thirty steps ahead, purely on how he moved or didn’t move.
“I am sorry, Master Terry, that your embrace had to be handled so callously. I am sure Mister Mire did what had to be done to save your life. Tell me, what do you remember of who attacked you?”
The gods wanted him to speak. Fuck.
“… your Excellency, I remember… a woman of similar height to myself, with red hair,” he said with lowered head. His voice wavered, and he could barely hear himself. He was sure he could hear Michael suppress a chuckle.
“That does indeed sound like Rebecca.” Viktor turned and paced before Jack and Julias. His hands had slipped behind his back, fingers netted, and his face was hardened into a small grimace. “A dangerous accusation. We’ll take it into consideration. In fact, it may have had something to do with your mission, Mister Mire.”
“Mission, Alder Viktor?”
“Yes, it… perhaps you should send your childe home. We have business.” Viktor slowly lowered his gaze down to Jack, and the little boy averted his eyes with a snap. If he could avoid eye contact for the night, maybe he’d come out in once piece. He could still feel that thing inside him, something new and unbridled, demanding he escape these titans.
With a nod, Julias put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and escorted him out of the room, before closing the doors behind them. They stopped in front of the elevator, and Julias turned Jack to face him.
“That went well,” Julias said.
“It did? I got kicked out. That lasted a whole two minutes.” Jack squirmed as they waited for the elevator. Some idiot must have called it back down, and now they had to wait, with those terrors behind him.
“Trust me Jack, that was a good first impression. Now, take the elevator back to the lobby and just head back to my place. Drink more of the blood I have in the fridge, and wait for me.”
“How long you going to be?” Jack said.
“Don’t know, but-” The ding of the elevator interrupted him. “Just get home quickly, and drink as much blood as you want. I really shouldn’t just be abandoning you on your first night like this, and Viktor knows it. If he’s got something I need to do now, it’s important.”
“Are there things I should be worried about on my first night?”
“Not if you just get back to my place quick and stay inside my apartment. I’ll catch up with you later.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~Julias~~
The building was already on fire.
“Oh shit. God… fuck.” Julias stood at the edge of the building, just some run down old apartment building in the old district, but the flames it gave off were starting to rise. He couldn’t go rooting through the building’s rooms, he’d be ash in seconds, but Viktor wanted that data and supposedly it was in there.
He paced from side to side and looked through the windows. No fire alarms were going off; the building must have been abandoned. Probably condemned. The neighborhood was in the factory district, old and filled with typical lowlife. He wouldn’t feed off these streets. And it meant it’d be a while before the police department showed up.
Which meant he had time. The fire was filling the front windows, but around back and behind maybe there was still time. Behind it, the parking lot was empty save for some broken cars and shopping carts, and the backs of other buildings that surrounded the block in the typical dead-city fashion. It was the sort of place he expected a Nosferatu would hang out to feed.
Third floor, apartment 35. Viktor had said a Mekhet would be there, some no-name with sensitive data. Data his master wanted. But now the building was on fire, and the whole thing stank of ash, chemicals, and unlikely coincidence.
The back door to the old building was broken off its hinges, and the fire hadn’t done it. In fact, the back of the building was still mostly intact. He stepped up to the door and took a long sniff of the air, but only managed to get smoke. There was movement ahead though, someone else, some short person in a trench coat. They were trying to get up the stairs, but flames blocked their way.
“Rebecca.”
The Daeva turned around. Her speed was a blur, like it was just innate to the she-demon to move with such swiftness. She dug the balls of her feet into the flooring, and growled back at him.
He hated that she was so damn gorgeous. A somewhat petite woman with long red hair and blue eyes, she had the look of a lounge singer, and even her trench coat had that Daeva fashion sense. Classy, sophisticated, but luxurious.
“Julias. Setting fire to the building? I must admit, that’s pretty smart.”
She was accusing him of setting the fire. That meant she hadn’t done it, or was just trying to trick him.
“You stabbed my friend.”
“Ah yea, the boy… stabbed, but not dead then? So you had time to turn him? Ah well.” The bitch gave a shrug, followed with a devil smile. Flames burned behind her, easing up and devouring the wallpaper, but she didn’t seem phased. “I should have just stabbed him in the face.”
He growled right back at her as the beast within his ribs clawed at his insides for blood. He was going to enjoy ripping her into a fleshy mess and leaving her for the flames. There was no escape, as his body was broad enough to cover the small doorway, and Rebecca knew it. Try as she might to be confident, he could see her eyes glancing around and looking for an exit. It was only getting hotter.
“Here for the data too then?” she said.
“Of course.”
“You even know what’s on it?”
“Do you?”
“Of course,” she said, and gave him a wicked grin. “Tony isn’t Viktor.”
“Then by all means, share with the class.”
“No.”
He thought he’d have learned by now, but no matter how many times it happened, he always underestimated Rebecca. Her fist smashed into his chest, hard, hard enough to break bones and send him stumbling back. She was such a tiny thing, but she was a Daeva, and that meant she was fast and damn strong. He’d managed to get one of his hands onto the door frame though, just in time to block the doorway when she tried to get past him.
It felt really good to crack her in the face with his knuckles. She rolled back onto her ass, but was on her feet in just a second. To his satisfaction, he could see how his punch had dented in her cheek; the bone underneath was damaged, and the fire was growing behind her.
“Get out of my way, Invictus.”
He grinned and stared down at her. “No.”
“Move! The sun is coming up soon. We’ll both die here.”
“Maybe. I’d really love to make sure you burn first though.”
Her Daeva beauty faltered for a moment when she screamed death upon him. She lunged at him, but this time she brought out her knife mid-flight. He’d forgotten about the knife.
Even as a Kindred, a knife was not something to ignore. The feeling of it cutting open his stomach was painful, but his vampire body would not let his blood escape through the wound. He took the opportunity to reach out and take her neck with both hands, and squeeze.