My Little Ventrue Pt. 04 Ch. 11

Too much chaos, too much insanity. Jack could barely see through the flames anymore, as the bodies piled high and the thick smell of burning flesh filled the room. It was a horrible smell, sizzling fat and blood and muscle and skin, not too dissimilar to pork, but pork or not, none of it appealed to a vampire's nose. It joined the maelstrom of death surrounding him, crackling fire and licking flames on the walls, and the air around them bending and twisting with the fumes and growing heat.

His mom used to cook chicken wings in the oven, and he liked to stare into the oven through the glass window as they baked. The sounds and sights that surrounded the chicken wings, the glowing heat, the wavering air, the crackling of flesh, it sometimes made him wonder how horrible a torture it'd be to be in that oven. He didn't wonder anymore.

More bullets came for him, but they went wide again as Henry got up on a knee, began firing more to keep enemy heads down, rather than trying to pick his shots and go for kills. But, even in the scorching inferno and roars of hundreds of rats, Jack recognized the sound of an empty magazine.

Henry dropped the gun, took out his knife, and ran for the side of the counter where a woman hunter was standing up and aiming for Jack again. The tool jumped at her, knifed raised, and the woman had no choice but to turn to him, raise her hands, and catch him. An opportunity for Jack then. The hunters would probably all come to the same conclusion: if they could get Henry's knife away from him, they could save him.

Bingo. The three other hunters ran over to Henry, and jumped him. A brawl, arms and legs kicking out, and Henry slashing at his friends as they did their best to catch his wrists. A perfect opportunity for an observant Ventrue to get in close, and break them to his will.

Or at least it would have been. Angela didn't turn, didn't try and save Henry, didn't even so much as throw the man a glance. Angela slid over the counter, and started shooting at Jack.

Surrounded by fire, its whispering curves along the walls and tile floor, he could do nothing but send more of his rats forward. Angela waited for them, a big grin on her face as she unloaded bullet after bullet after bullet through the haze and dancing fire, while at the same time, spreading more of the fire around the floor. He was still too far away, a good forty feet, for her handmade flamethrower to reach him directly, but each bullet she shot landed against his chest, some skimming along his face, and one ripping the side of his cheek bone off.

The pain was excruciating, but its claws could not sink into his mind, not now, not as the beast in his gut roared its anger. Angela would not be able to hear it, feel it, human as she was, but that didn't change that the beast in Jack's hole-ridden corpse was screaming bloody murder at her. Every muscle, every fiber of his undead being wanted to sink his teeth into her, and end her.

He stood there, growling, arms dangling at his sides and Kindred blood dripping from the handless stumps as the thick liquid trickled down the wounds in his neck, his face, and the copious holes now filling his chest and shredded insides. Angela was laughing, loudly, her cackles breaking through the yelling hunters behind her, the roaring fires around her, and the burning shrieks of hundreds of rats yet again dying horrible deaths to hungry flame.

"Thought you could get out? Thought you had us beat just because you caught us off guard?" She laughed again, louder, enough so her voice boomed through the hall between the two lobbies, where Jack stood. "Or maybe you thought you scared us off, that your hat trick kills overwhelmed us? Kid, you're just an idiot vamp who got lucky." At first she laughed again, then roared, and so too did the flamethrower as she aimed upward, and blasted the ceiling with the liquid flames. Where her roars ended and the fire's began, Jack could no longer tell.

Jack looked down at himself. Belly full of fresh kine blood also meant some of that was leaking out of him, and he snarled at the sight of his meal's lifeblood trickling down his abs and pants. Holes, everywhere in his flesh. Still not as bad as that night Antoinette had fought Damien, but he was getting closer to that point. And closer again, as Angela sank a couple more bullets into his chest, each forcing him back a step, each forcing his muscles to tense, to fight the need to fall over.

Just keep distracting her for a little bit longer. Look for an opportunity, any opportunity.

He found no opportunities, only bullets. Again and again they crashed into him, until Angela aimed lower, and another bullet slammed into one of his knees. The distinct sensation of a hollow-point round shattering his kneecap was a very unique feeling, followed by a very unique pain, enough to pierce the numbing of his bloodlust. He screamed as he fell back, no longer able to stay standing, and writhed on the ground as the joint ceased to function. Kindred blood flooded the wound quickly, prioritizing it above all others. Heal the knee or you can't move, and if you can't move all the other wounds were meaningless.

Angela got closer, and closer. Laughing all the more, she fired the flamethrower into the air again, decorating the walls with living flame. But once she entered the hallway between the two lobbies, where Jack was currently lying prostrated, she let the flamethrower be, and held it to her side while her pistol was out, pointed at him. She took a step, and fired, slamming her foot down as she did, sinking the bullet into his guts. Another step, another bullet, tearing through his arm. Another step, another bullet, ripping into his other leg's quadriceps, this one joined by chuckles far, far darker than the earlier ones.

She was right over him.

He stared up at her, snarled, growled, bared his fangs, did all the things a vampire about to frenzy would do. Pain was back, and worse than when he had his hands cut off, but the roaring in his gut buried it once again. Pain could be ignored. Pain didn't stop an animal from chewing their leg off if they were in a trap, just like he'd done with his hands, and pain wouldn't stop him from trying to kill this woman with the gun pointed at him.

She got in closer, and closer, and once she was over him, she slammed her shoe down against his gut. Boots, hard boots. She twisted her heel, tore his skin, and forced another scream out of him as the agony stabbed him. Seconds into the scream, more of his snarls came back, but they were weak, pathetic, and worthless. He could try and hit her with his legs, but both of them were barely working. It was taking every ounce of effort he had to force his vitae to heal his legs as fast as possible, and ignore the growing wounds in his torso.

"Thought you had us, fucking leech? Christ you caused a lot of fucking damage." Her heel ground harder, hard enough he could feel his punctured guts squash against his spine. "Almost got out. You're a real fucking Viktor, aren't you? Killing cause you like it, brainwashing people, using rats like... like this." She nodded to his left and his right. Dead rats were everywhere, many still on fire, while others had been crushed in the mayhem, their blood and guts coating the floor. "Regular fucking animal, a hungry animal, a monster."

Oh god if she didn't kill him soon he was going to do it himself, or at least vomit his guts out at the the sound of her juvenile bullshit. What person could possibly think it was ok to give this child a gun? Let alone a flamethrower.

"Fuck... you."

"Ha! Say it again, cause damn that's music to my ears." She got in closer again, put the pistol to his jaw snug up underneath it, pointed upward, and she smiled a big Jacob smile. "Lost good people today because of you, leech. Bunch of my hunters down, but there's plenty more here, and more coming. And you didn't get Henry."

Henry, Jack's last remaining tool. Jack could still hear his yelling, his hollering, as the man fought against the several hunters trying to keep him down.

"You... deserve to die. I never... did anything... to you."

"You're a vampire. Isn't that enough?" Laughing, always with the laughing, she got even closer again, and put her nose to his. Her glass eye was tame compared to the real one, and it glared into him, cut through his soul, as she pulled the trigger.

Click. Empty.

This woman was a fucking nutjob, a sadist, and fucking deadly. But she was young, probably his age, and really, really full of herself. And that meant liable to make mistakes, like not paying attention to her pistol, and how the slide was open, indicating the magazine was empty.

She laughed, rolled her eyes, and tossed it to the side. "Wanted to see your brains splatter. Ah well. I'll just—"

She stopped. The world stopped. The fire went silent, and the squealing rats faded away, as Jack stared up at the woman. She forced herself to stand, the flamethrower falling from her hands and clanking against the prison tile floor.

A knife, coated in blood, stuck out from her stomach, a few inches to the side. She put her hand to it, felt the blood, stared at how it coated her hand, and then turned around.

Henry was standing there, but only for a few moments before three hunters jumped him. He must have gotten away.

"You... stabbed... me..."

Go. Now!

Jack stood up, forced his vitae into his knees, his legs, forced his power through him, forced his limbs to heal faster, forced his body to obey. Forced it, controlled it, dominated it like a Ventrue should. And, as Angela turned around, the sight of her wide eyes was the sickeningly sweet dessert to join the crunching sound of his shoe colliding with the other side of her stomach, hard enough to break ribs. She fell, hard, and the knife skidded along the floor from the impact.

He ran toward the exit, and ignored the fire as it turned his skin to ash.