Chapter 6 – Playing By the Rules
"You're lucky I hadn't yet told the police force that I was moving, and had to quit my job as their file clerk, Lucian." Kit set a folder on the table as Lucian and Rex came in. "They are looking for you. They know your name, they know you're alive. Because someone filed a police report accusing you of making an attempt on an Elisa Maloryn's life."
Lucian raised an eyebrow, reaching out one hand to flip through the copy of the report Kit had obtained. Montrose. Not surprising. A smirk came to his face when he saw the full name on the page. Now I have three names. A way to track the elusive Doctor Maloryn down, if I must. Elisa. And her bodyguards. Gabriel Montrose, Alex Brown, and the Doctor St. Claire.
"Well? Now what?" Kit was giving him an annoyed look, much the same as he remembered his mother giving him when he was causing her no end of frustration.
Lucian shrugged. "We let them find me." He closed the folder, heading for the rooms he'd claimed for himself. And then you and I are going to have a long discussion about what you know about lycans and vampires, Doctor Maloryn.
"Let them find you?" Lucian could sense Rex staring at him. "I don't understand, Lucian. Why do you want them to find you?"
Lucian shook his head, a smirk crossing his face. "They will find me, one way or another. But if I allow them to find me when I wish to be found, I meet them on ground of my choosing." Where I will have the advantage, and they will have to play by my rules.
Mr. Corwin regarded Elisa for a long moment after she'd finished speaking. "Do you really think this lycan, Lucian, holds the answer to that question, Doctor Maloryn?" His voice was soft, and he gripped the folder tightly in an attempt to keep him hands from trembling. Almost thirty years I've asked that question, dear child, and never found an answer. And you bring me the key to it by getting yourself into a mess that could get you killed.
Elisa leaned forward, a smile on her face. "I am sure of it. If not by his words, than by his blood, by the strain of the virus in his tissues that allows him to survive silver poisoning. Especially as it is the virus that connects the lycans and the vampire alike to the Corvinus blood lines."
"Elucidate on that, Doctor Maloryn. Why would the strain of virus in his system give me the answer to why the attack on me?"
"Lucian is centuries old. Lab tests show only a slow mutation of the virus, and a lack of mutation within host tissues, particularly with the lycan and vampiric strains. In fact, only when exposed to various sub-strains of the Corvinus strain do the lycan or vampiric strains show any mutation at all. And then, not within the cells, but only within the culture medium."
"Doctor Maloryn, please." Mr. Corwin held her gaze. "In a language I can understand."
Elisa chuckled softly. "My apologies, Mr. Corwin." She paused to take another sip of her tea. "Lucian had to have introduced one of the Corvinus strains of the virus into his system in order to have mutated the lycan strain, which was already present. If our theory is correct. And that would explain why you were attacked. For the virus that you carry dormant in your tissues."
"Interesting." Mr. Corwin leaned back in his chair, his hands steepled in front of him. "And how would you contact this Lucian again? And how would you obtain what you require from him?"
"It's not so much a matter of contacting him, as it is a matter of getting his attention, and drawing him to us." Elisa leaned forward, drawing the rough map she had drawn of the catacombs she'd been searching when she met Lucian. "I take a team down here, and we complete the search I began. It may even be feasible to set up a base of operations there, though I shall leave a full assessment of that possibility to Gabe and the others."
"And this will draw him out?" Mr. Corwin raised an eyebrow, skeptical.
Elisa tilted her head, thinking for a moment. "It may or may not succeed in doing that on its own, but there is the matter of the police report Gabe filed. The police are aware of Lucian's existence now, and will be searching for him. He will likely come to the conclusion it was me, or one of my bodyguards who did this, and he will come looking for me. Probably first at the apartment, but if he does not find me there, I would hope he starts his search where we first encountered each other. I would, in his position."
Lucian shook his head at the number of patrols around the old den. I did not think the Death Dealers would leave it be. And if Doctor Maloryn comes back here, and she is not working for the vampires, they will kill her before I can find out what she knows. Or they will interrogate her for what she knows of my people. And I will not allow her to give what secrets she may have learned to them.
He turned, slipping through the catacombs back towards where he had told Rex to wait for him. A silent shake of his head was all that was needed to tell him that it was as they suspected.
"What now?" Rex asked, his voice low as they made their way towards the city center. "If this Elisa Maloryn is working for the vampires..."
"No." Lucian cut Rex off with a sharp wave of his hand. "It doesn't matter if she is working for them or not. We cannot afford to let her return to where she found me." He paused at an intersection, listening for patrols before stepping into the larger passage. "You return to the safe house. I have other business to attend to."
"How long do Kit and I wait before we should leave, and count you for dead?"
"You don't." Lucian turned to look at the younger lycan, who was frowning with confusion.
"Don't which? Wait, or count you for dead?"
"Either. I won't take long. I will be back before sun set tomorrow." Lucian turned away again, silently padding towards the ladder that led up to the streets. It would be a long walk, but it was safer on the streets than below them with the Death Dealers patrolling in force. More room to fight or run.
"I don't know how you talked Mr. Corwin into this mission, Elisa. It's dangerous, and downright insane." Gabe sat across from Elisa in the armored van as it made its way though the city in the early morning hours. "Even with a full team. Lucian has proven himself to be a very dangerous lycan."
"And I need to speak with him, and hopefully obtain at least a blood sample. Lucian could provide the answers to the puzzle that is the lyco-vampiric virus and the beings - and cultures - it has engendered." Elisa met his concern and annoyance with a calm expression that belied the excitement she felt. If I have the chance to speak with him, I can put to rest the notion I knew him before I met him. And I can get the answers to the question Mr. Corwin wants answered, and to the question of why all the bodies. Why this feud between the vampires and the lycans?
"He's still dangerous, and if it comes to a choice between the mission and you life, I will kill him." Gabe frowned at her, and Elisa sighed.
"We are not even certain that silver nitrate can stop him, Gabe. It might slow him down, but from what Jacob and Zach gleaned from tests on the samples we have, I doubt it will do anything more than that."
"Which would be why there are the dart guns and the heavy-duty tranquilizers among the weapons for the mission, Lis," Max said quietly. "Even if they can't kill him, they will take him out. And you can get your samples from him while he's unconscious."
"And that would be a saner plan, with less risk to the personnel involved." Gabe sighed, leaning back against the wall of the van, crossing his arms over his chest. "Why didn't you propose that, Lis?"
"You should know that by now, Gabe. The most important information he can give me is not in samples and numbers and blood." Elisa leaned forward, her eyes boring into his as she let some of her excitement show. "He represents a chance to understand why the evidence points to a some long-standing was between lycans and vampires. A chance to know why I have the field of study that I do, instead of it being merely a hobby."
"And your safety is more important than any of that information."
"For you. It is your job to be concerned about my safety, and that of everyone else. But my work is obtaining information. And for me, to find this out it worth almost any price."
Gabe scowled, his expression dark. "And what if the price for this information is one you're unwilling to pay, Lis?"
"I will cross that bridge if I come to it, Gabe." Elisa smiled briefly, trying to ease his concern, her expression fading to a neutral one as the van came to a stop.
Lucian watched the van pull into the garage across the street, remaining pressed close to the wall beside the window of the empty flat. Others had arrived earlier, setting up a perimeter that barely missed him as he made his way into the building earlier. A grim smile crossed his face, his gaze moving to the boarded up window of Elisa's flat. Now what, Doctor Maloryn? Why come back to a flat that has been compromised?
He ducked back into the shadows at movement below, glancing out to see who had emerged from the other building. Montrose stood in the doorway, barely visible in the shadows cast by the early morning sunlight. Searching for anything out of place, not trusting the perimeter to hold. Or expecting someone else to arrive.
The feeling that Elisa represented a threat to him resurfaced, making the point between his shoulders itch as if targeted. He snarled silently, moving away from the window, and towards the door.