Chapter 37

Hawke was lying in his bed, Isabela draped over him. She smelt of salt air and spiced rum. Her fingers pulled playfully at his chest hair as he slept lightly. It was already late morning and he had to go deal with that Templar, Emeric, again. No doubt blood mages would be involved at some point. Weren't they always of late?

"I should get up." Hawke spoke out loud, stretching his arms above his head.
"Hmmm, feels to me..." Isabela ran her hand down his chest and under the sheets, "that you're already up."
"Isabela." He chastened. "I need to get ready. I have to go to the Gallows."
"But the Gallows are boring." She moaned. "Unless I come with you and we find a little nook together and have fun in my little nook?" She chuckled, not letting go of her grip on him, a groan creeping up his throat as she ran up and down his length slowly.
As fun and illegal as that sounded to Hawke, and as good as her talented hand felt wrapped around him, he gave her a hard look to show he wouldn't be swayed. He'd promised his help, he didn't go back on promises.
"Fine!" Isabela relented with a huff, getting out of bed. "I've got things to do anyway." She made a show of slinking around the room looking for her clothing that had been haphazardly thrown around the night before, then slowly redressing herself. It was very tempting to just grab her and have her again, especially if she did that thing with her tongue like she'd done the night before.
"Are you taking Eve with you today?" She asked as she fastened her boots, purposely giving him a view of her barely covered parts. Buggar, she was trying her best to get him hot and bothered this morning.
"No," he managed without sounding too strangled by desire. "I'm taking Anders, Varric and Aveline."
"Ooooh, excellent! Maybe I can catch her and that lanky elf at it!" She smiled wickedly.
"At 'it'?" What was she talking about?
"You, know, 'it'? Mastering her taint? Exploring her Deep Roads? Floating his frigate?"
"They're not having sex." Hawke told her seriously. Yes, since that business with Ramond trying to kill Eve they'd been getting on better, no longer pretending the other didn't exist. It made taking the both of them out on jobs a lot less tense, they were even back to sharing bottles of wine and quiet chatter. Maker knows what they talked about, weapons and the best way to kill someone in five seconds probably, but sleeping together? No way. He visited Fenris a couple of evenings a week, he was helping the elf to read and he was doing very well too, but there was no mention and certainly no sign of Eve. He didn't believe it. Isabela just thought everyone was having relations with each other.
"Oh, they are. I can tell, I can always tell." She drawled.
"Whatever you say, but you're wrong."
"Okay, Hawke, you can keep believing that, but I'm going to catch them, then I'm going to ask if they'll let me join in. After watching for a while of course!" She smirked with a wink.
Hawke shook his head, for one, Fenris and Eve were just friends now. It was obvious anything more didn't work for them. Secondly, even if Isabela was right, they wouldn't let her 'join in'. And thirdly, well, he was sick of thinking about Isabela with anyone else. She still wouldn't hear about committing to anything beyond sex with him, even threatening to put an end to what they had, so that Hawke had stopped asking her for more, had stopped trying to ask her not to see other people, had stopped thinking of ways to tell her he loved her. Besides, right now, with the state of Kirkwall, with angry Qunari, blood mages and Chantry zealots to deal with, he had enough to worry about.
"You know it would be much easier to catch Eve and Fenris if you hadn't had her move in here. You took away my drinking partner!" Isabela was still annoyed about that. But Hawke enjoyed having Eve close by, she was like family and his mother enjoyed her company too.
"You still see her at the Hanged Man." Hawke told the pirate, dressing himself in his light armour, breeches and knee high boots. The new armour he had was a mixture of chain and heavy red cloth, with light pauldrons and leather gauntlets. He'd made the mistake of wearing simple robes in the past which offered no protection from sharp things. He didn't want to get struck in the shoulder by a poisoned arrow again or gnawed on by a baby dragon, it was far too painful.
"It's not the same." She sighed dramatically.
"I might come to the Hanged Man tonight. Will you be around?" He asked grabbing his staff by the side of the bed.
"Tonight? No, I'm... busy." She replied nonchalantly. Busy was code for being in someone else's bed.
"Fine." Hawke said tersely. He couldn't help being jealous and angry over her continual 'busy-ness'.
"Come on sweet thing, we talked about this. I was straight with you from the start. Its just fucking. The only one who hasn't been honest about this is you."
"It doesn't matter, Isabela. Let's just go. I'm meeting the others soon." He started to walk off. He didn't want to get in to an argument about her activities.
"Times like this I think you'd be better off with Merrill." She groused.
He spun around. "What?" Merrill? Was she being serious?
"She's sweet on you, that's obvious to everyone and she is completely adorable. She'd give you what you want."
"And what do you think I want?" He asked scowling.
Isabela shrugged. "I don't know, the standard rubbish isn't it? Love, marriage, little brats?"
Hawke was struck silent. She wasn't far off, in fact she was pretty correct with her guesses. Hawke did want those things, he always had. And why not? Didn't he deserve that?
"You're not denying it." She continued after he said nothing.
"No," he admitted, "I'm not."
"Merrill might be a Dalish blood mage, but she would give you that, in a heartbeat. As long as you wrestled that bloody mirror from her anyway."
"And you won't?"
"I've made that clear haven't I?" She snapped.
"The problem, Isabela, is that as lovely as Merrill is, I don't want her, I want you." He took a step towards her.
"Then you're a damn fool, Hawke!" She told him angrily, barging past him. He heard the front door slam behind her.
Bloody pirate! What was all that about Merrill? Yes he liked the elf, she was sweet, if a little deluded about the danger of that mirror and her blood magic, but they got on, they were friends, but just friends. He loved Isabela, why couldn't she accept that? He wouldn't hurt her, he wouldn't betray her, he would just love her.

Maker be damned, now he felt miserable. Go on the roof and set things on fire kind of miserable. Maybe he'd run in to some idiots that needed their undergarments set aflame.

Hawke was sweaty, bloody and tired by the time he shuffled home in the early hours of the evening.
Shades and a deluded blood mage, a demon, more shades and a dead Templar had been the order of the day.
Poor Emeric, the man had only been finding out what had happened to some missing women and he'd been right about a killer in Kirkwall, despite everyone's refusal to believe it, even Hawke hadn't believed it at first. Maybe if he had less people would be dead.

He was walking through the front door of the estate when he heard Gamlen arguing with Sandal. It would have been rather funny if Hawke hadn't noted the anxious tone of his uncle's voice.
"What's wrong?" He asked walking up to the two of them.
"There you are! Where have you been? She's missing!" Gamlen reeled off harshly.
"What? Who's missing?"
"Leandra! You're mother!" He said exasperated. "No one has seen her all day! She was supposed to meet me today, she visits once a week like clockwork and she didn't turn up!"
"Maybe she is with her suitor. She received a bouquet of lilies this morning." Bodahn piped in, ushering Sandal away.
"A suitor? Leandra has never mentioned such a thing." Gamlen sounded both shocked and disgusted, but Hawke wasn't really paying attention, Lilies? That rang a bell.
"Wait, lilies? I know something about that..." He mused out loud before realisation hit him like ice water. "No!" Hawke exclaimed.
"What?" Gamlen demanded.
"There's a killer in Kirkwall, I've spent the whole day on a wild goose chase trying to find him. He gives his victims a bouquet of lilies before he takes them."
"You think he's taken her? Oh Leandra!"
"Wait, it could just be coincidence." Hawke tried to reason, though it sounded like a badly spun lie even to his ears.
"We should go look for her." His uncle declared.
"Yes, I can get Aveline to have the Guards look out for her too."
"Good idea. I'll head back to Lowtown, maybe we missed each other while I was on my way here." Gamlen said hurrying to the door.
"I'll go to the Barracks now then head to Lowtown." Hawke told Bodahn.
"I shall stay here and wait for Lady Amell." The dwarf nodded. "I'm sure she's fine, Messere."
"If Eve turns up, let her know what's happened and where I went." She'd want to know, want to help.
"Yes, of course Messere."

Hawke rushed out the door. She had to be okay, he couldn't lose his mother, he'd lost everyone else. Surely the Maker couldn't be that cruel.

There was blood everywhere. Why in the Makers name was there blood everywhere?
It smelt like death and decay too. Mould and mildew clinging to floor and walls. Dread built in Hawke's gut, poisoning hope for an outcome that wasn't anything less than awful. It didn't matter what Varric said, or Merrill's platitudes, he knew it was not going to be alright. Not since hearing how his mother had received lilies and especially not since hearing she'd been accosted by a bleeding man in Lowtown and they'd followed a trail of blood to the Foundry where Hawke had found the bloody remains of missing women a couple of years back. It must be that mage, Quentin, the one DuPuis had spoken about earlier.

They stood in the living quarters of the underground hideout. They had found the woman who'd been with DuPuis only earlier, Alessa, who was very much dead. Hawke had saved her from that crazy Orlesian mage only to end up dead by the real killer.
"Maybe it's just me, Hawke, but that portrait really looks like your mother, don't you think?" Varric called his attention to a worn painting above a fire pit. He wasn't wrong, the facial features were very similar. The warm brown eyes, the rounded face, small chin and kind smile.
"It looks like a shrine. Maybe for a wife or mother perhaps?" Anders suggested.
"I don't know." Hawke said looking at the burning candles that glowed around the portrait. It was creepy.
"There's a book on necromancy here." Merrill called out waving a hefty book at them.
"He has a lot of books, lots of things about blood magic and necromancy." Anders stated looking through the bookshelves.
"That's never a good sign." Varric grumbled.
Hawke leafed through the book Merrill had found, reading words about preservation of bodies after death, creating creatures from parts of deceased animals. He felt like he was going to be sick. His head swam with fear.
"We need to find her. Now!" He strangled out, throwing the book to the floor as if it would infect him with the monstrosities within.
"Right behind you Hawke. She'll be okay." Varric patted him on the shoulder.

They turned a corner, down a flight of stairs, the place eerily quiet, the smell of rot strong enough Hawke heard Merrill gag a few times.
He saw a man, Quentin, it had to be. The killer that had apparently abducted his mother, whispering to a figure sat as still as stone in a chair turned away from him, dressed in a yellowed and aged bridal gown. Hawke prayed it was not his mother, he prayed that she had been found far away from here, that this was all coincidence, that she was home berating how he was worrying over nothing and putting his own life in danger chasing after death obsessed lunatics.

"I wondered when you would turn up." Quentin spoke, his voice a crawling sneer. "Leandra spoke of you often. She was so sure you'd come."
"Just tell me where my mother is and let me take her home. No one has to get hurt." Hawke tried to reason, his grip tightening on his staff, desperate just to see his mother alive and well.
"I'm afraid it's too late for that. But you're in time to see my creation. Something I have worked so hard for. I have done what no other has ever imagined could be done! I have touched the face of the Maker and lived!" His eyes were wild.
"What have you done?" Hawke could barely manage a whisper. Dread suffocated him, numbing him, making his heart beat ferociously.
The madman smiled, turning back to that still figure in the chair. "I pieced her together from memory. Her pale skin, her delicate fingers and her face, her beautiful face. I have spent so long without my beloved, but now she is here, she is mine again." He bent down. "Come my dear, they want to meet you."

The person rose from the chair, limbs jolting as if controlled by something else, puppet like. Hawke could see ragged cuts crudely sewn across the shoulders, wrists, staining the pale, deadened skin and macabre bridal gown with blood.
She, for Hawke could tell that much, stepped towards them, head down, erratic movements, before lifting the veil covering her face with trembling fingers.
"Mother! No!" Hawke cried, almost collapsing to his knees in anguish.
The face of his mother stared out at him, eyes clouded by death, nothing but a walking corpse. Her head on a body that clearly was not hers.
Hawke wanted to be sick. "I will kill you for this!" He shouted with a rage he'd never felt before.
"No! You will not separate us! She is mine!" Quentin roared, his hands casting quickly.

Corpses rose from the ground around them, shades, demons, abominations. Hawke could not recall much of the fight, wrapped in the despair and shock at what had happened to his mother.
He barely remembered killing the mage that had done it, only registering Quentin's death as he lay in a pool of blood at his feet, before he incinerated the evil bastard till he was nothing but a scorch mark on the ground.

Hawke turned around to look for his mother, the shuffling of feet drawing his attention as she reached out for him. He caught her as she fell weakly to the floor, laying her gently in his lap. She was dying, he could see that, but he couldn't accept it.
"Anders! Do something!" He pleaded.
"I can't, Hawke, she has only been kept alive by blood magic. There is nothing I can do. I'm sorry." Anders replied full of regret.
"But you're a healer!"
"I'm sorry." Anders repeated, bowing his head.
"No." Hawke choked out. How could nothing be done?
"Oh Garrett." His mother spoke, her voice quiet and strained. "Do not fret darling. It is better this way."
"There must be something. There must..." He trailed off, but deep down even Hawke knew it was useless. He had been too late. He hadn't looked out for her properly. He hadn't protected her. He had failed her.
"Don't blame yourself." She said gently. "You saved me from him. He would have done terrible things to me. Kept me alive. Now I'm free, to be with your father again. With Bethany and Carver." A tear fell unashamedly down Hawke's face. It wasn't supposed to be this way. "But you, my dear sweet boy, you'll be left behind."
"I'm sorry." He was sorry for so much. Sorry for not being able to protect her or his siblings.
"You have nothing to apologise for. Just look after yourself. Be happy. I have always been so proud of you. I love you, Garrett."
"I love you too mother." He replied hoarsely.
Her eyes closed, her body going limp as she died in his arms.
He had lost everyone. He had failed them all.