So here you are, Night Huntress lovers: a fic of Spade and what would have happened if he found his soul mate in mid-19th century England instead. I've had it in my head for a while and just recently decided to type it up. Hope you enjoy!
It's got a lot of ideas taken from the Sherlock Holmes movies, since when I thought of this, they had just come out. No copyright infringement intended, all characters and other story ideas that are not my own are owned by Jeaniene Frost or those people from the movies.
He was just beginning to think this whole job was a wild goose chase. Spade had been here for hours, trying to figure out why the hell Mencheres had sent him. "I need a sum of money recovered," he'd said. Yeah, sure. Spade had been here for hours and he'd seen nothing but solid stone corridors and the occasional errant guard.
Spade's boots tapped on the floors as he walked. As far as he knew, the building was some offices for a bank. It was placed upon a beautiful hillside, forest surrounding. What offices were doing here, he had no idea, but it certainly wasn't his idea of a fun night. If not for his sire, he'd be back in the city, in bed, probably someone else's.
He reached a pale, thin hand into his waistcoat pocket. He clicked open his watch and found that it was nearly midnight. Nearly all the guards must have gone home now. And yet, faintly, he heard voices. The building plan was huge and complex and he knew that for a tone to reach his sensitive ears that weakly, it had to be miles away.
Spade stopped and listened. He turned toward the noises, and began to walk in their direction. He might as well start somewhere. As he grew closer, the volume increased. He could almost make out the words. They were male, and seemed to be taunting something. Or someone. He heard laughter, and a weak whisper. His pace quickened. He would be damned if he let another being go through what Giselda had-
A long, agonized scream cut into his head. It was the sound he had been waiting for and dreading. He began to sprint, and the screams quieted until there was nothing but more laughs and a few hushed cries.
As he approached the source of the noises, he slowed, quieting his footsteps. A figure was silhouetted in the moonlight, dressed in a workman's trousers, waistcoat, and shirtsleeves. It had a shabby hat covering its hair. It was hovering, but not in the grace of a vampire. The form was curled in on itself, hands wrapped around something.
Swiftly, the profile was jerked up and its head was thrown back. Another tormented shout tore through the room, and the hat fell back, releasing a torrent of dark blonde hair, almost brown.
It was a woman. They were torturing a woman, a hook stabbed into her shoulder. Anger surged through Spade, and he entered the room just as the human in the middle of it was lowered, then tugged up again. Her screams seared his ears and brought back images of that awful day, when he'd found Giselda. In the direct light, he saw the feminine form under the men's clothing and that the woman was barely a teenage girl.
Spade assessed the room. There were two human men with their feet planted firmly on the ground. One was holding the other end of a rope which was slung over a rafter and holding the girl up, and the other was sitting in a luxurious wing-backed chair, smoking. Neither looked like much of a threat. He went for the one with the rope first, bringing out one of his long, lethal knives, severing the man's spinal cord and throat in one movement. The line went slack in his hands, and Spade turned quickly in order to catch the fallen girl. He set her on the floor and felt her blood on his hands as he whirled and faced the one with the cigar. The bloodstained knife flew out of his hand and landed in the man's chest. The tip of his cigar glowed intensely as he took his last breath. Spade spun and knelt next to the girl.
The girl seemed tiny, too young to have this much blood spilling from her. Spade had hesitations about healing her instantly with his own blood, and ripped a strip from his jacket sleeve to try to staunch the bleeding. The wound was too far up her arm to make a proper tourniquet. It was only when he'd gotten her waistcoat open that he paid attention to her face. She was staring up at him, eyes wide with terror.
"Wh-" for a second she seemed to be about to say "who," then she stopped. "What are you?"
"Baron Charles DeMortimer, but you can call me Spade."
"Natalia Helena Rose Lexington. But you can call me Lia." Her voice was wracked with pain.
"That's quite a mouthful, Lia. Care to tell me how you got in this situation?"
"Care to tell me how you'll get me out of it?"
"You'll have to say how you were planning on getting out of it in the first place." The blood was still spreading. Spade grasped the wrist on her injured arm and pulled it to the opposite shoulder. Lia arched slightly and gave a small scream.
He tore another strip from his sleeve and bound the wrist tightly to her body until it was nearly immobile.
"A…train. Coming in…" she glanced at Spade's watch. "Ten minutes. On the track at the edge of the forest."
"Let's hurry, then."
"Wait. There was another one. He ran."
Spade swore. This would complicate things. He got Lia to her feet. "Can you stand?"
She nodded. Already, Spade could hear the pounding of footsteps behind them. He looked around and scanned the room and found another door. He kicked it open and helped Lia stumble through. "C'mon. We haven't got much time if we're to get that train in ten minutes."
The cold England air blasted them as they entered the forest. Lia shivered, and they began to run. Spade tried to let Lia go on her own, though he could hear voices and the chatter of a machine gun strafing the trees. Without warning, he reached over and, with one hand, covered Lia's mouth, and with the other, raised her onto his back. He ran faster, but it wasn't good enough. The trees were in his way, the guns too close. Finally, fearing for Lia, he dropped into a small hollow behind a tree. She protested, but he cut her off.
"I'm going back to see if I can get some of them off our track. Stay here, but run if you hear the train."
Spade took off in the opposite direction without checking for her assent. He began to fly, rising up over the trees and searching for the gun-wielding guards. He spotted them, small, dark smears under the shadowy green pines. Spade waited, then at exactly the right time, he dove and grabbed one in each hand. They screamed as he threw each of them into the sharp branches, then went silent.
The others stood mutely for a second. One backed up a step, and the stillness was broken. The guards scattered. Spade heard the train approaching, and saw what he hoped was Lia running towards the noise. Her movement caught another eye, though, and he paused in his thrashing of a guard just in time to watch one of the men pull a grenade out of his pocket.
Spade dropped the bloodied man and got a grasp on the back of the other just as the grenade left his hand. A huge explosion suddenly shuddered through the forest; a few fires broke out among the trees. Spade ran through the smoke and searched frantically for Lia. He found her, nearly unconscious, a few feet ahead. A hole was burned through the back of the shirt on the opposite shoulder as the bleeding one and Spade could see raw, glistening flesh through the smoldering fabric.
He mentally cursed Mencheres. Lia groaned and tried to get up. Spade grabbed her roughly and continued to run to the train as it gained speed. At last, they reached the last car. Lia rolled onto the floor and Spade tugged himself up next to her. She let out a deep breath and shut her eyes tightly.
"Come on. You can't sleep yet." He said. Spade pulled her into his lap and removed her destroyed waistcoat. She moaned quietly at the movement.
When he had torn rents in the cloth near her wounds, Spade set to work at cleaning them. He wasn't sure why he didn't just slash his own skin open and let himself heal her. And so he painstakingly cleared her burn of dirt and twigs; he blotted the blood away from her skin. She was conscious again when he turned her over.
"How old are you?"
His question came out of nowhere. "Seventeen, eighteen in a few months," she answered. "You?"
He went with the easy answer. "Twenty-three."
Lia winced as he pulled a pine needle from her shoulder. She was too light, too thin in his arms for a seventeen year old. He tried not to notice how her body seemed to yearn to be curvy, as if all it needed was a bit of food and she'd be one of the most enticing women he'd ever seen. Even smeared with blood, her face was beautiful and angular.
"Where're we going?" he asked.
"16 Montague Street, Whitechapel."
"That's a nasty bit of town. You're sure about it?"
"It's where I live."
"How'd you end up here, anyway?"
"Writing an article for the Chronicle, are you?"
"Wouldn't dare to get my name in that bloody rag. My mates would never let me live it down."
Lia laughed quietly. Her eyelids slipped shut and she returned to unconsciousness.
шшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшшш
Spade had a bit of trouble finding a cab driver who would go into Whitechapel. Add that to Lia slung over his shoulder, and it was nearly bloody impossible. Finally, he green-eyed one and told him the address. The man acquiesced without complaint, and they pulled up to a shabby-looking three-story house.
"Lia," Spade said, waking her, "is this it?"
She blinked blearily, looked up, and nodded.
"Right then," he said, opening the carriage door. He nodded at the driver. "Thanks, mate." Spade handed him a pound note. The driver stared at it, then grinned and pocketed the money.
With Lia once again over his shoulder, Spade made his way to the front door of number 16. A few small, emaciated children poked their heads out of doors, and one woman gave them a funny look.
"Drunk 'imself pissed last night, luv," he said in her direction. She took the explanation and his faked East End accent and disappeared back inside her own home, taking the children with her. Spade walked up to the front door of the larger house and knocked on the door. After a few moments, a maid appeared.
"'Ello, sir. Can I do somethin' for you?"
"I believe I have something that belongs to you," Spade said, taking Lia off his arm. The maid gasped.
"Miss Lia! Oh, thank you, sir, we've all been wracked with worry, come in, come in! Is there something the matter with 'er?"
"Let's just get her upstairs. I can explain then."
"Very well, then, and I'll get Mr. Mason. Go up to the second floor, third door on the left."
Spade looked at the interior of the house. It was sparsely furnished, with an old, cracked armchair and a small table in the center of the room. The walls were damp stone, the ceilings were low, and candles were the only source of light. There was a door through which the maid disappeared, presumably leading to the dining room or kitchen. A narrow staircase led up on the right side of the room and disappeared into the ceiling.
He started up the stairs, feeling the worn wood bend under his and Lia's combined weight. The hallway he entered at top was lined with doors. Spade entered the third door he found, which was marked with an L made of old bits of wood from the docks.
The room inside was cold and dark. It was extremely small, with an old cot, piled with blankets, pushed up against one wall and a cracked washbasin in the corner. A little shard of a mirror was propped up against the basin. Tracks of water were trailing down the stone walls.
Lia groaned as Spade set her on her side on the cot. She was supported on both sides by the piles of worn blankets. "Spade," she whispered, "How bad are they?"
He didn't know what to say. Over a hundred years alive, and he didn't know what to say to an adolescent, poor girl with two bleeding, open wounds.
"Not too bad. They'll heal eventually."
"Good," she sighed, "'Cause they hurt like hell."
There was a knock on the door then, and a fatherly, slightly overweight man walked into the room. He saw Lia lying on her bed and his eyes widened. The man, most likely Mr. Mason, gave orders to the maid.
"Go heat a basin of water and get some old linen. Tell Cook to bring up her poultice."
"But Mr. Mason, the coal budget…"
"Nevermind the coal, go get that water." His eyes fell upon Spade. "Who are you?"
"Charles DeMortimer. I met your girl here at the old bank offices in the woods. Any idea what she was doing there?"
Mr. Mason took Spade to the corner of the tiny room. "Mr. DeMortimer, let me explain to you what we do here. We make a living off the crimes and victims of this god-forsaken city. People come to us and we help them. A couple weeks ago, a man came to us, saying he needed to find a certain Mr. Baker, who was a retired banker. Lia is our most competent operative, so we gave her this job."
"You're a private investigation agency."
"In essence, yes." The maid entered with the supplies, and Mr. Mason turned to her. "Get some tea for Mr. DeMortimer here, then start dressing Miss Lia's wounds."
The maid bobbed and made to turn to Spade to ask his preference in teas.
But Spade was already gone.
