Chapter 14- Blueprints
Maya was very quiet as we travelled on foot toward the city. It wasn't quite as big or as ornate as London, but it was big enough for a coven of Lycans to hide out from the world; the infrastructure, especially underground, allowed for it. I wanted so much to say something supportive to her that would increase her confidence significantly, but I already felt that I had failed her enough as it was. She was already scoping between confidence and doubt as it was, and I blamed my foolish fears and my inability to hide them. I didn't want to make things any more difficult for her, so I let her be. I clasped her hand tightly in mine though; in hopes of showing her that I would not abandon her. This seemed to pacify her enough, because her facial expression would soften and relax when I'd give her a reassuring squeeze now and then. As we were nearing the city limits, she rummaged in her backpack and retrieved a navy blue sweatshirt. Plenty ordinary and inconspicuous; she was learning well. She pulled her hood over her head; it was a considerably blustery and chilly day, so no one would find the hood over her head suspicious, either. When we arrived, she was already casting her eyes downward.
"Remember, no eye contact. You can look up and around, but just don't give anyone a chance to so much as blink and remember you. Even brief eye contact makes you memorable," I whispered.
"Got it," she confirmed.
I led her to an alley that was not frequented much in the city, and removed a loose manhole cover to climb down into the sewers.
"A manhole into the ground. This is almost cliché. It's so much like a classic vigilante story. Like Bruce Wayne- did Bruce Wayne hang out in the sewers or underground? Maybe not…"
"Bruce Wayne?" I inquired.
"You know, Batman."
"He's a vampire?"
"No he's- never mind."
I paused, curious.
"I'll explain it to you later. He's a fictional character."
I nodded, distracted. "Shall I go down first, and watch for your safety from below, or from up here?"
"I'd prefer if you went first," she said.
"Alright. There's a bit of a jump from the ladder to the ground. It's fifteen rungs down, and then a three-foot jump from there."
"Okay."
I climbed down and jumped from the ladder expertly, with Maya following me a little more cautiously in the dark. She landed with no trouble from the jump, but she let out a grunt when she landed, a little startled, on the ground. We walked about a hundred feet down a corridor, and I guided her that entire distance until we reached an ovular light with bars around it, sending off a sterile, white florescent light through the tunnels in a chain of many lights like it. We twisted trough the sewer system, walking the distance of the underbelly of the city until at last we reached the lair of the Lycans. I cleared my throat, and a stunned recognition passed through the faces of the entire group. Pierce, one of my men, and Taylor, came to greet me.
"Lucian! Lucian is that you?" Taylor called out in disbelief.
"Yes, it is I," I said.
"We thought you were dead!" Pierce lamented, relieved to see I was well.
"Yes well, I do believe the saying is that you can't keep a good dog down."
A general rumble of low chuckles arose amidst a crowd of familiar faces.
"Gentlemen," I announced, facing them all, "I am alive and well. My abilities are evolving yet again, as I have discovered yet another strength that I possess. I was able to push the silver nitrate out of my body in its liquid form through the exit wounds, and I have survived Kraven's attack. I hid far from this city, in fact from the continent, and laid low until I was sure the Death Dealers believed I was dead. I was in America when I met Maya. She is here to help us fight; she wants to help us fight."
A general outcry of disbelief and irritation arose amongst the men, and I found myself growing weary as I realized that Maya's introduction was not going as I had planned, and that she had not been well-received. In that moment, when I realized how insane that would look to them, I understood their concern and irritation, but all the same they did not know Maya, and I intended to see to it that they accepted her.
"Gentlemen! Maya is a woman pure of heart, with a ferocity even as a mortal that is unmatched by a soul I have ever met. If Maya says she will fight with us, then I have no doubts that Maya will succeed."
"Lucian, when will you just take a lover of your own kind?" someone jeered from the crowd.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You've got to stop with your pets. First a vampire, and now a mortal?"
"She is not my pet!" I shouted, my temper flaring and nearly getting the best of me. "I loved Sonja, and she was my wife, and Maya," I paused and looked into her eyes "I love even a thousand times more than I loved Sonja. You should be humbled by her compassion, all of you, for you. You, who she hasn't even met, who she finds worthy of a fight in her that she's never even had to rouse before. And besides David," I glared at the Lycan I was sure the voice belonged to, "there is not a female Lycan alive that I know of. Is there?" I stared out accusingly into the crowd. Maya's eyes glazed over, and she smiled at me appreciatively. I changed my eyes ever so slightly to acknowledge her tenderly.
"Maya and I saw an apparition of Alexander Corvinus stating that there is indeed a female Lycan out there somewhere, and that she is the key to our ending of this war. I must know who created her while I was away. Your discretion would have been instrumental in deciding to turn a mortal and unleashing her unto the world to roam free apart from us. And now we must find her. We must also find the vampire, Selene, and Michael Corvin. Well? Who turned her?"
"Have you gone mad?" a voice jeered.
"Turn a mortal into a Lycan?"
"Why would any of us damn another soul to being a Lycan, the coven at the bad end of a war? All that would do would be to put a mortal in certain danger. To be a Lycan means to be a vampire's enemy."
"We would not thrust someone into a world where they automatically have an enemy!"
A panic arose amidst the Lycans, and I held my hand up. "Silence! Please, I need to know who turned her! I am not Viktor, and you will not be punished. I need to find her though, and she does need to be taught her own digression with which she must act in order to not give our identity away. I also need to know if there are any other newly-turned Lycans and where they are. Speak up!"
The silence was maddening.
"Perhaps Raze can tell me then," I said, knowing I could trust him.
Pierce and Taylor lowered their heads.
"Lucian, Raze was killed not long after we thought you were. It was at Viktor's hand," Taylor said quietly.
"He was filled with rage and the overpowering desire to avenge you when he thought you were certainly dying," Pierce added reverently.
"Raze," I said quietly, grief washing over me. "Viktor," I hissed; I nearly spat his name.
"Singe was killed too," Pierce said. "He told us that if you survived, he has instructions on how to make your anecdote in a vault in the laboratory. He said that you'd most likely be able to mix it yourself. That is, if you truly choose to leave this life as a Lycan."
"Yes," I said, my voice flat. I took a breath so as to not let everything I felt wash forth. "Gentlemen, I need a moment. I trust that when I return you will be prepared to discuss a plan of attack on the vampires' mansion. From the back of the crowd, a lean figure removed a hood from a long jacket, revealing her short hair, pale skin, and ice blue eyes. Another figure with an ordinary hooded jacket stood beside her.
"Good, you are here. I trust you and your Hybrid will be prepared to join league with us?"
The female vampire nodded her head, and spoke in a confident alto voice. "Yes." She and the Hybrid, Michael Corvin, exchanged glances.
"Yes," he agreed.
"Good. Now if you will all excuse me, I need just a moment."
Maya met me with eyes full of concern, and I communicated with my eyes for her to follow me. She pushed her way through the crowd of my brethren, and I led her around a corridor to a place where I often went to think; I'd had many centuries of life experiences and often needed a place to filter it all through my mind away from the noise of so many men. I sat down in a room we had constructed underground to think. Maya sat down next to me, and took my hand in hers, tracing along my palm with her thumb absently.
"We can wait a few days; give you time…"
"No, Maya. I'm alright."
"No, you're not."
"I'm hurting, but I'm alright," I insisted.
"Are you doing this just to be strong for them?"
"Yes. But please understand why. The death of two old friends of mine just gives me more reason to push through. I'm not acting strong just to be strong. I'm being strong so that the life we envisioned can finally be a possibility. We have all collectively dreamt of a world where Lycans and vampires and Hybrids can all live in peace with each other and accept each other. Raze especially would not want me to just give that up."
"But I'm not saying give it up," she protested. "I'm just saying take a day to nurse your wounds, and bring yourself to better focus when you're out there."
"I promise you, Maya, I'll be alright. This will simply help me focus. It will be my drive to keep going. Raze and Singe would not want me to stop, they would want me to plow through the pain because it's what I've always done. They would want me to act as I am; as they know me. I would not be me if I didn't keep going with my belief ever as strong."
"I understand now," she nodded. "If you're sure you'll be okay, then I believe you."
"I will," I said. "I did want to come here for a moment and think of them. I met Raze within days before Sonja's death, so he has been with me a long, long while. It wouldn't be right to not take any time at all to pay my respects."
We sat there for a while in comfortable and serene silence, and acceptance finally washed over me, setting my soul at peace.
"Well Raze old friend, I hope you are happy wherever you are now. Singe, I am forever obliged to you for being so thorough about my anecdote. You thought ahead in case I ended up not being able to complete the full regiment."
Maya suddenly sat up rigidly as she remembered something. "Lucian, you haven't taken the anecdote since we left! You didn't bring it with you!"
"It's alright Maya, it's all for the better that I haven't. Now than ever I am needed as I am, as a full-blooded Lycan. I am the strongest of them all, and my strength would have been diluted with the anecdote doing its work and me being so close to the end of the six months." I sighed as I became aware of the time. "We should hurry back. Night will be falling soon and we need to plan our attack."
By nightfall we had solidified plans to infiltrate the mansion's security, breach the main room where the council convened, and attack as many of them as was possible so that selecting candidates for new elders would be circumvented, and work our way down the chain until there was enough confusion and mayhem that the vampires didn't know whose orders to follow anymore. Some of the Lycans would seek out the female Lycan so that when the time came that the most powerful vampires were not there to stop us, we would be able to unleash this warrior princess upon those who were left, eventually forcing them into surrender, and into giving up their attention to her and whoever the prophesized female vampire would be. I learned from Selene and Michael that they had defeated both Markus and William after Markus had been awakened, and that Selene had slain Viktor; Markus had slain Kraven upon his awakening. I could not help but feel the bile rise in my throat at the mention of his name, and felt the venomous sting of disappointment that he had not died at my hand; that was a battle I had been bitterly saving for last. I supposed, though, that it was for the best that he had been slain already. It made the task at hand to take the vampires under siege a slight bit easier. After the biggest threat of them had been taken out, our prophesized saviors, a female of each race, would speak to them they would all yield, as would our kind, and heed the warning that our kinds must coexist to not eradicate either completely. We would show them Michael, a civilized example, and the only living example at all, of a union of the bloodlines, should more couples like Sonja and I had once been fall in love, or couples like Selene and Michael had been before he was turned into a Hybrid; he had once been a Lycan after all. There would be a long battle and a great many casualties ahead of us until the female Lycan was found, but we were prepared. The pain and agony of eight centuries would soon be brought to an accord, and we all lusted after that more hungrily than we did after each other's blood.
A/N: Please, I hate to be that person, but I need to ask that you guys review this, I need some feedback, if nothing else, to tell me that you're enjoying the story.
Also, I have no idea if Taylor and Pierce actually died in "Underworld." It probably doesn't matter though, because their characters aren't even shown in "Evolution," so it's not like I'm messing up any major continuity. I just needed someone Lucian knew to break the news about Raze and Singe. If Taylor and Pierce died, then I can always change it. I think that's all I wanted to say for now.