A/N: Sorry about the long wait but my computer broke down pretty much right after I started writing this. All the chapters were temporarily lost until today. But I'm excited! Because I really really like this story! And I can't remember writing it! Because I was on pain medication for the first six chapters! But its really really good! And are you getting annoyed with the exclamation marks yet? Because I know I am!
Well, without further ado, Ladies and Germs, I present to you...the second chapter.
Luc hugged his coat tighter around him as he leaned in the doorway of the cathedral, watching the service without expression.
"Strange, isn't it?" Marcel spoke from behind him. Luc glanced silently over his shoulder at his younger brother, silently inviting him to finish his thought as the other man strode forward to stop next to him. "They pray to God when really they should pray to us. We'll live longer."
"You always were too optimistic for your own good," Victor stated, hands casually resting inside the pockets of his thousand dollar suit as he surveyed the mass with pursed lips.
"Nice suit," Luc offered by way of greeting. "Who'd you have to kill to get it tailored so well?"
"No one," Victor replied. "I can afford it."
"So what's your occupational specialty these days?" Marcel asked, giving his older brother a once over before meeting his gaze dead on, eyes dancing with laughter. "Mortician?"
"Estate lawyer," Victor replied drolly, eliciting a snort from Luc.
"How ironic," Marcel stated, chuckling softly under his breath.
"I thought so," Victor replied, the three of them lapsing into a comfortably silence as they waited for the others to show up.
They were aware of her even before she spoke.
"Charles sends his regards." Her expression was void and her words had absolutely no inflection.
Drone, Luc found himself thinking, shifting so he was facing the opposite direction as he studied his brothers messenger, silently giving thanks that Skye was on the other side of the world.
His family was the crème of the vampire crop – easily among the best, the oldest – but Charles…
There was barely a year separating them in terms of rebirth, but the level of power at which Charles operated gave Luc chills.
Worse, it often had him wondering…was he capable of being that powerful? Were any of them?
The likelihood of the answer being yes was why Luc avoided his brothers like the plague he was slowly beginning to realize they were.
"The meeting will be held in the sub-basement," the drone continued on, eyes not seeing any of them as she spoke the words from memory. "Refreshments are waiting for you there."
Luc's gut tightened at those words.
"Excellent," Marcel replied, teeth showing and eyes lightening to a bright shade of blue as he rubbed his hands together. "I'm famished."
Marcel led the way, with Victor following and Luc bringing up the rear, the drone walking sedately to somewhere else.
Back to the other pod people, Luc thought with absolutely no amusement as the three brothers disappeared through a side door.
Henri waited for his brothers in the basement, eyes drifting over them as they arrived, taking careful stock of their conditions.
Victor looked the same as always – polished and put together and perfectly cool no matter what the situation. He was never curious, just expectant and patient. Almost inhuman.
Marcel had those vicious eyes – perpetually amused – capable of so much more violence than people often believed.
Once upon a time they'd been the closest of the brothers but that was before.
The now of the matter was simple – Henri kept to himself.
They all did.
Too many years together had left all them with too much knowledge to be as close as they once were.
And yet they were all here once more, together again.
"Henri," Luc greeted him with a neutral nod while Victor simply watched and Marcel lost some of his amusement.
Henri jerked his gaze away from them, letting it wander over the familiar walls, unwilling and unable to meet Marcel's probing gaze.
Marcel knew little of what had happened between him and Charles all those years ago but there was a level of resentment there that couldn't be denied – one upon a time they'd been inseparable and in between moments, Henri had cut him from his life. And of course, the blame lay with Henri and not Charles – Marcel would never blame Charles for anything.
He'd save them – all of them.
And it galled at Henri, but they owed him. They would always owe him so they would always come when he called.
"Brothers," Lance spoke from the doorway, a bevy of blank-faced beauties of both genders entering silently behind him. "Dinner is served."
"Finally," Marcel breathed, focusing in on one of the beautiful brunettes. "I'm starving."
Luc fed without sensation – letting his food fall back graceless against the ground, his heartbeat struggling in a rapid tempo to keep up with the rapid loss of blood.
He might live, he might die. Luc wiped at his mouth with one of the fancy napkins that had been provided, eyeing the mocha-skinned man dispassionately as he did so.
"You let them live?" Marcel asked, licking his lips as he settled down in his seat, his meal long since dead.
"Sometimes," Luc replied truthfully enough, watching the man's pulse flutter one last time before ceasing. "Sometimes not."
He raised his gaze to meet Marcel's and whatever the other man saw there had him smiling slightly before turning his gaze to the front of the room, ignoring the two drones that appeared to take away the bodies.
"What's this about, anyways?" He asked into the silence. It was just the four of them again – Lance had disappeared through a side door and Charles had yet to make an appearance and Coraline…
"What it's always about," Henri answered, face fixed in a front as he crossed his arms and slouched in his seat, gaze fixed firmly forward. "Survival."
"As always," the smooth-as-whiskey voice had them on their feet in an instant, turning almost in tandem to face the man in the doorway. "You're power of observations are truly astounding, Henri."
Henri flushed slightly at the bladed statement but kept his silence as Charles glided into the room.
In the movies he'd be wearing something completely ostentatious like tights and a tunic complete with a fur-lined cape and a crown, but this was no movie.
He wore a pair of dark gray suite pants, tailored carefully, with a dressed shirt tucked into those pants, his cuffs carefully clipped, but with the two top buttons carefully undone.
His hair was carefully cut in a style that bespoke of wealth and power and his shoes – who were probably worth more than Victor's entire suit – making no noise as he entered.
It was the complete lack of sound that had Luc shifting silently backwards, realizing his action only after it was complete, but comforted immediately but the fact that he wasn't the only one who'd done so – both Henri and Marcel had as well, Henri with a flash of unease and Marcel without consciously realizing why.
Only Victor didn't seem impressed by the act.
"Charles," he greeted with a tilt of his head.
"Victor," Charles replied drolly, a faint smile at the corner of his lips. "How's business?"
"Excellent," Victor smiled, baring teeth. "I'm making a killing."
Nobody laughed at the joke.
"Brother?" Charles called and Lance appeared, caring something in his arms.
Someone, Luc corrected, peering carefully at the woman in his brother's arms, his eyes widening in alarm as he realized two things.
One, the body had a stake in it's heart – a most painful fate that Luc remembered suffering through and loathing every moment of it with a heartfelt terror that had his skin crawling with even the sight of it.
The second realization had him jerking his gaze up to his brothers, meeting Henri's startled gaze before switching to Marcel's suddenly pale expression. Victor didn't even glance away, the narrowing of his eyes his only visible response.
"What happened?" He asked, watching silently as Lance carefully set Coraline down on the altar at the front of the room.
It had been centuries since that altar had been used for anything but at the same time, seeing his sister lying there made Luc extremely uneasy and he wasn't the only one.
"She betrayed me," Charles replied simple, walking forward so that he was standing behind her, one hand in his pocket, the other traveling carelessly over her hair down in a sensuous line to where the stake was lodged in her chest before resting almost carelessly on it's end.
"How?" Henri asked, voice tight. Charles smiled, but his gaze remained fixated on Coraline's face. All of them could see the tears that were falling silently down her cheeks and Henri felt his heart lurch. If he could break out in a cold sweat, he'd be soaked by now.
He knew, better than any of them, what Charles was capable of. He wouldn't wish the forces of his brothers attentions on anybody, the least of whom was his only sister.
"She stole the Formula," Charles replied and Henri felt his heart give another lurch.
Oh Coraline, Victor thought to himself, feeling a surge of pity for her.
"Why?" Marcel asked, voice calm. He seemed almost subdued in the moment and it was so odd Henri managed to tear his gaze away from Coraline to stare at his brother.
"For Mick," Charles replied.
"Mick?" Luc exchanged confused looks with his brothers, but none of them seemed to have any idea who this 'Mick' was any more than he did.
"Her husband," Charles replied and Luc felt himself draw back, startled once more.
"She's married?"
"Divorced, actually," Victor answered and of course he would know.
"Yes," Charles agreed. "Married and divorced and yet still attached. It's tragic," but the way Charles said the words made it abundantly clear he didn't agree with them.
"Does he know…" Luc trailed off uncertainly.
"No," Lance replied from his position at the door just behind Charles. "He has no idea. But Josef does."
"Josef?" Henri remembered the vampire – he'd never been quite as bad as Marcel and Henri, but by the time the three of them had met, the other vampire had seemed to have acquired a certain level of maturity Marcel had yet to obtain and that Henri had found the hard way.
"Yes," Charles interrupted the flow of conversation, fingers tapping against the end of the stake. Each tap had the brother's wincing.
A stake through the heart was agony, any motion to jostle that stake…
It was like fire and ice and poison all at once – all you would know from that moment onwards was the memory of that pain. You may grow to function once more, but you would never forget what it felt like.
"Does he know what happened?"
Did he have anything to do with this? Was what Victor was actually asking.
"No," Charles replied with absolute surety. "He's reckless at moments but hardly stupid."
Hardly suicidal, Luc thought with bleak amusement as he recalled the smart-mouthed younger vampire.
Well, most of the time, he amended as he really recalled the smart-mouth especially.
"Is there any left?" Victor asked, a bare hint of genuine concern in his tone, one that all of them understood.
"Yes," Charles replied. "Enough but no more."
"Does it matter?" Henri broke in bitterly, watching his sister's face with angry eyes that he didn't dare show to Charles. "It won't work again."
"Maybe," Charles replied, his tapping stopping as he rested his hand against the stake.
They were silent at that, watching and waiting for his elaboration.
"She was trying to re-create it's effects," Charles murmured into the silence, surprising all of them into another moment of silence.
"Did she succeed?" Victor asked for all of them.
"No," Charles replied, raising his gaze to watch the rest of them impassively. "But she might."
There was a story there – an explanation that had them all looking at the eldest of their line with patient expectation.
"She may succeed," Charles informed them in his quiet but powerful manner. "Which is why I've called this Quorum."
He abandoned Coraline, stepping from behind the alter to walk down the steps until he was standing in front of the four of them, Lance taking up his position at the altar, watching them with those odd eyes of his. One big, one small.
It was a birth defect that had marked him as odd during life and made him even stranger in death.
It held no mystical powers, that much Luc was certain of, but it was unnerving and sometimes unnerving was a good thing to have on your side.
"We must vote on whether or not to let her continue her work," Charles informed them without preamble. "Should she succeed, it would mean safety for all of us. Should she fail, it means the ending of our race."
"Explain," Victor snapped immediately. Henri jerked back at the briskness of his brother's tone – especially when addressing Charles – but Charles didn't seem the least put off by it.
"She requires the original Formula for her research," Charles stated. "If she depletes our supply, when the time comes for another Cleansing we will have no defense left."
"It won't work for us anyways," Marcel stated, arms crossed as he let his gaze drift past Charles to Coraline.
"This isn't about us," Charles replied, a real note of annoyance creeping into his tone and causing Henri to inch closer to his other brother. Charles watched the movement, lips quirking upright, ire dissipating slightly at the defensive move before refocusing on Marcel.
He made sure the catch his younger brothers gaze and hold it as he spoke in order to emphasize the seriousness of the situation – the complete lack of humor Charles had concerning this subject.
"We are a dying race," Charles stated and Marcel's amusement at the pun was barely a drop in the ocean because of the seriousness of Charles tone and the honesty with which he spoke. "Each day as humans advance it becomes harder and harder to hide who we are – what we are. Our numbers are not as they once were."
"So we raise them," Marcel interrupted somewhat belligerently, but the way he balanced on the balls of his feet and held his body made it abundantly clear he knew the foolishness of that decision should it be made.
"We cannot," Charles replied, the slightest of harsh inflection on the words as he hardened his gaze. Marcel shrank back then but Charles didn't lessen his expression.
"When another Cleansing occurs – and it will occur for it always has – the humans will wipe us out unless we can preserve ourselves and the only matter of defense we have at our disposal is the Formula."
"Who would we give it to?" Victor asked, sidetracking the conversation with a genuine level of interest.
"The worthy," Charles replied, something about the way held himself making it clear that he already had several candidates in mind.
"If she does get it to work?" Luc interrupted, genuinely curious. He remembered his brief foray back into humanity – a bittersweet affair if there ever was one – but it still made him wistful.
"If she does get it to work," Charles turned, fixing Coraline in her gaze. "Than she will have proved herself truly invaluable now, wouldn't she?"
There was a speculation there that made Henri uneasy.
"How will we know?" He asked to break the silence and tear Charles gaze away from his sister. He swallowed compulsively. "If it works, how will we know?"
"She will use the newly turned," Charles replied, expression mildly annoyed not at the interruption but because Henri had demanded and explanation of something even the others viewed as obvious.
"On us," Henri elaborated, his voice quiet, expression solemn.
"We'll see her progress on the fledglings first," Charles stated, neatly sidestepping Henri's question. "And then we'll see."
Luc didn't like the hanging question but he knew better than to pursue an answer so he focused, instead, on the task at hand.
"So we vote then," he stated. "On whether or not to let her use the formula."
"Second," Charles stated, walking up the steps once more, fingers trailing the altar until he was standing next to Lance, looking up to fix the rest of them with his steady gaze. "But first we decide whether she lives or dies."
