~~Antoinette~~
Oh no.
She sat upon the highest floor of her tower, a tower she had built upon what she designated would be Elysium territory, where Kindred-on-Kindred violence was prohibited, where feeding was prohibited, and where discussion was encouraged. To place her tower within its embrace was a choice she had made, a political stance signifying her devotion to peace and cooperation. And within the highest floor, her main office was her place of control, and where she could personify coolheaded wisdom.
She was boiling. Despite being a creature of death, with no heartbeat of her own, heat filled her body, scalding, raging. She pushed away her laptop along the desk, stood from her grand chair, and walked to the enormous window to stare out over the thousands of lights of her city.
How dare they.
She snarled as she folded her arms across her chest, and stared out the window. How dare they. She would kill them, absolutely, utterly demolish, rend them asunder, and drown her tower in their blood.
She reached behind her and dialed in to the comm system. "Miss Vola, come to my main office immediately."
Natasha's tiny voice chipped in over the small speaker. "Um, y-yes Prince. Is there—"
"Now."
"Yes m-ma'am!"
Sighing, Antoinette turned around and looked out the window once more. It was her city, her labyrinth of tunnels, buildings, alleys, sewers, brothels, casinos, bars, hungry corporations and sprawling districts of factories and neighborhoods. A perfect place for Kindred to herd and control the kine. A perfect place for hunters to hide and reek havoc on her and her kin.
How had she not seen this coming? Poor Jack. To lose his first life's family, at this age? The gal of these hunters, to murder innocent humans for the sake of their vengeance. It was unheard of. For all the flaws of hunters, for all their murderous intents and all-consuming obsessions, they did not kill innocent humans. To kill a vampire's previous family, to either draw a vampire out, or to inflict pain upon him, was absurd.
It would not have been hard for the hunters to learn of Jack's first family. They knew the boy was a young vampire, and they knew his name. To search the city's obituaries and missing persons reports would have been easy for many hunters, and from there follow the trail back to the Kindred's first family. But, there was almost never a reason to be concerned over them. Only juvenile Kindred, fledglings with grudges, bothered to harm other Kindred through their first families, and such mindless acts of cruelty were rare. All Kindred knew that first families were things they all had to lose at some point, and to assault a fellow vampire through that tie was only going to free them of that burden sooner. Free them, and turn them into bitter enemies.
But these hunters did not think this way. They did not think in terms of centuries, only in weeks or months. They did this to hurt Jack, and perhaps draw him out, perhaps force him to make a mistake and get himself killed. How that could help them with their goal of killing Azamel, she did not know. Perhaps Angela was simply pursuing payback.
Jack. She sighed as she hugged herself, one hand combing a wave of her hair that cut over her shoulder to her chest. The boy likely knew by now, and had not contacted her. She knew why. The boy had told her of his father's death, and of how much it had hurt him, how badly he had pulled into himself. No doubt he was afraid of doing such a thing to her. Or, perhaps, he was afraid of her, that she would shatter the now fragile state of his mind. She could not deny, that if Jack entered the room at this very moment, she would be overwhelmed with the need to hold him, cradle him, hug him and tend to his wounds.
If the boy, likely holding onto the strength of himself to keep from crumbling, stood before her now, and she could not help but lament for him, he would either retreat into himself, become cold and numb as he did with his father, or he would fall to pieces in emotional turmoil. The latter was necessary at some point, in order for the mind to move on, to mourn, and Jack was intelligent enough to know that. But was he wise enough to internalize that and understand it? Kindred were not kine, and had to come to terms with the end of their first life, and its remains, in unique ways. She had seen it in others; all Kindred her age had. Such was the way of immortal beings.
To make matters worse, the age difference between her and her love was vast, and Kindred did not age as kine did. For all her knowledge, she would forever have the mind of a thirty-year-old woman, and to hold the wisdom of ages in such context could make any conversation about matters strangely painful, and a touch awkward. What could she say to him that would not feel like pandering, or placating? Hollow. Words would fail her.
Perhaps it was best she let the boy come to her, when he was ready. And when he did, she would have to say nothing emotional, and be very careful with how to look at him. Every fiber of her being wanted to scoop him up, hold him in her arms, and embrace him tight enough to wash away his pain. And there would be a time for that, but not until the boy... the man, had, on his own, accepted and internalized the reality of his situation. There was no way to help him with that, except to give him space.
And that drove her to rage. Being powerless, was infuriating. It was not a feeling she felt often.
The door opened. She looked over her shoulder, and offered her little student a smile. "Vola, please, come, stand with me."
"Y-Yes Prince. You s-s-sounded... upset, on the phone." Vola trembled a few times as she came closer. Perhaps Antoinette had been harsher with her voice than she realized.
"I am, though not with you, Natasha. Fret not. Have you seen the news?"
"N-No, I haven't. I've b-been reading mythology, ancient m-monsters, seeing if there was any hint about... about m-m-monsters like Azamel, or the others." She nodded to herself as she looked down and held her chin in her fingers, digging through her mind. "I d-d-don't watch the news much these days, honestly. When I was in the Invictus, I m-monitored our internal network that our thralls curated."
Antoinette had a similar network, though she had long given instructions to her thralls to curate only the most important information; her decisions were made on a larger scale than the Invictus. But her thralls knew who Jack Terry was, who his first family was, and had sent her the information. Would the Invictus? There was always the possibility the boy did not know what had happened, and perhaps she should—
No. Let him come to you, Antoinette. He is not a boy, he is a man, and a vampire. It is important that he overcome the first stages of his grief on his own. Kindred were solitary creatures by nature, and she knew, if she violated those instincts, she might drive her love into himself.
She could ask Julias, if Jack knew about his mother. It was tempting, but as much as she wanted to pry, poke, learn and discover more about the situation, it was better to let the boy and his sire handle it on their own. In the relationship between Jack, Julias, and the boy's first family, she was the outsider.
As Natasha stood beside her, as Daniel often did, Antoinette sighed, and nodded out toward the city. "Do any of your first family still live, Natasha?"
"Um, I have an uncle, v-very old now. Lives in Canad-d-da. I have some cousins, and their children, and... b-but I haven't talked to any of them. I d-d-didn't talk to them even b-before I was embraced."
Nodding, Antoinette refolded her arms, combed her hair, and forced down the urge to run out into the city to find her lover. "When Kindred come to me, and ask if they can be allowed to bring members of their first family into their second life, I acquiesce, but not without warning. Fledglings, and young neonates, are often at the mercy of their attachments."
