"What are we looking at here, Blake?" Matthew asked him softly.
To tell the truth, Lucien didn't quite know how to answer him.
They were standing together beneath a copse of trees on the edge of a field on the outskirts of Ballarat. Night had fallen, and all the world was dark and still, but the call had come in and they had answered, had driven out here and used the headlights from Matthew's car and a torch from the boot to light the crime scene as best they could. Matthew's daemon Athena sat with Nemea just behind them; the both of them had attended their fair share of crime scenes, and knew it was best to keep out of the way as much as possible, to keep from muddying up the footprints or otherwise disturbing the evidence, but they were nervous, the pair of them. Lucien could feel it.
"It's hard to say," Lucien told him, taking the torch from Matthew's hand and crouching down beside the body. "Something's got hold of this poor fellow, that much is clear, but as to what...I don't know, Matthew."
"Dog, maybe?" Matthew suggested, but Lucien just shook his head.
"No, these lacerations are too small, I think. Too neat. They definitely look like teeth marks, but I think we're looking for a smaller animal."
"An animal smaller than a dog that's still strong enough to rip a man's throat out," Matthew grumbled.
A gruesome thought indeed. For a moment Lucien was quiet, peering down at the body of the poor fellow sprawled across the dirt, but then he noticed something rather strange.
'Well, see, that's not quite what's happened here," Lucien said, pointing. "The angle of these marks; this fellow was bitten on the back of the neck. Clawed, too. Whatever this was, it didn't come at him from the front, and it took some time to kill him. It must have been...dreadfully unpleasant."
"Back of the neck," Matthew mused. "What sort of creature attacks like that?"
Lucien gazed uneasily up at the canopy of the tree branches overhead, vanishing into shadow. All sorts of things could be lurking up there, high up in the dark, waiting to fall on an unsuspecting man.
Poor fellow probably never even saw it, Lucien thought.
"A stoat," he said, grimly.
It took quite some time to finish up at the field; a few of the other lads arrived, along with the fellows from the hospital, and they loaded up the dead man, took him off to the morgue for Lucien to autopsy in the morning. He could have done it right then, he supposed, but he really, really didn't want to. He didn't want to pass the long hours of the night in the company of the dead. The ghosts came walking, when night fell, and he did not wish to entertain them. His thoughts were bleak enough as it was.
So instead he and Nemea made their way back home. The pair of them were both quiet, as he drove along; there was no need for them to speak, for Nemea knew everything that Lucien did. She had the same memories, and the same heart, had come through the same horror with him, and she knew, as he did, that Lucien had not simply been guessing when he suggested that the predator that had killed their man was a stoat. In the wild it would be all but unheard of, a stoat taking a man down by the back of the neck the same way it would incapacitate a rabbit, but not every stoat was wild. Some were cleverer, more devious than others. Some killed for the thrill of it.
He'd seen it before, in Singapore. They'd been caught in close quarters with a few enemy combatants, Lucien and Derek. Nemea had been fearsome in that scuffle, but so, too, had Lilith; she had found a mark, and clung to his pants leg, scaled her way up his body while he twisted and turned, tried and failed to catch her, and then she had latched onto the back of his neck, done to him what had been done to this man tonight, and Lucien would never, ever forget it, the smear of blood and worse across her white head, the gleam of her shiny black eyes. She had enjoyed it.
But Derek and Lilith weren't in Ballarat; they were off in Canberra, or wherever, causing havoc far from Lucien's door. Weren't they? If they were in town, what possible reason could they have had for coming? And what had that poor fellow in the field done to deserve their ire?
Such questions swirled through Lucien's mind as he walked through the door at home. He meant to take himself straight off to his bedroom, to strip out of his clothes and splash some water on his face, to slide into bed and try to dream of brighter things, but he was waylaid, for a moment, by the soft sound of the wireless floating down the stairs. The lights were still on, up there; Jean must have still been awake, despite the lateness of the hour.
In the next moment his feet were guiding him up the stairs quite without any direction from his conscious mind; he wasn't thinking anything at all, just then. There was only the sense of unease that had settled low in his belly at the thought of Lilith, and the faint, intoxicating seed of hope that Jean had planted in his heart. It was his heart that ruled him, and led him to her, his heart that was begging for a piece of goodness to wash away the stains of the past, and make him whole again.
At the threshold to her room he paused; the door was ajar, and he leaned up against the wall, peering inside, smiling as he watched her. She was so lovely, was Jean. She'd plucked the pins from her dark hair, and her curls spilled loosely around her angel's face. Her thick eyelashes were downcast as she read a book, held gently in delicate hands. A soft white blanket, one she'd no doubt knitted herself, covered her legs, but he could see that she was still wearing the same white blouse she'd sported earlier in the day, though with an extra button or two undone. No doubt she'd only meant to make herself more comfortable, but those extra buttons had revealed a swath of warm, soft skin, and Lucien was struck, then, by a sudden longing to go to her, to rest his head in her lap, to feel her run her fingers through his hair, to hear her promise him that everything was going to be all right.
"Lucien!" Halcyon crowed from his perch on Jean's shoulder, flapping his little wings and racing towards the doorway. At the sound of his name Jean looked up sharply, but her surprise faded into a smile so soft and sweet it was nearly enough to make him weep.
"Hello, little one," Lucien said as Halcyon fluttered to a stop on his shoulder. "Might we come in, Jean?" he added, watching her.
"Of course," she answered at once, marking her page in her book and then casting it aside.
It was not the first time Lucien had been inside her bedroom; it was in fact the third, but he still approached cautiously, still settled himself politely on the bench in front of her dressing table. Nemea did not seem to share his concern for propriety; she glided past him and then leapt easily up onto the bed, paying it no mind as it sagged beneath her weight. She went straight to Jean and laid her head down in her lap as Lucien so wanted to do himself, and he watched for a moment, staggered by the intimacy of the vision before him. By the way Jean welcomed Nemea, without hesitation, by the way she reached for the lioness, and brushed her hand gently over Nemea's proud head, neither afraid nor troubled, but tender, instead, welcoming, instead.
"Has something happened, Lucien?" Jean asked him, very quietly. She must have noticed it, he thought, his own distress, Nemea's apparent need for comfort. Something soft brushed his cheek, and he turned his head to find Halcyon watching him, still perched upon his shoulder. What a merry band we are, he thought, bemused. Their daemons had switched places, without thought or care, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it was. Perhaps all the old wives' tales were right; perhaps the daemon knew secrets the heart would not dare tell.
Slowly, haltingly, Lucien told Jean the truth. About the lad in the field, about the man Lilith had killed, about his own fears. As he spoke she was silent, listening intently, but her expression grew troubled, and when he finished his tale, Jean had one of her own to tell.
"We thought we saw her, while you were away," she said. "The stoat. She was in the garden."
"You saw her? Why didn't you say something?"
Jean frowned.
"What was there to say? We thought we'd seen her, but I wasn't certain. It didn't make any sense. But now it seems like it must have been her."
That thought did not sit well with Lucien. What business would Lilith have, nosing about in the garden while he wasn't there? And just who was that dead lad, and what connection did he have to Derek?
"I don't like this, Jean," he said darkly.
"Neither do I. What are we going to do?"
We? He wondered, looking at her. With her back ramrod straight and her hand resting on Nemea's head Jean looked fierce, despite the soft blanket that covered her, despite the pink walls that surrounded her, despite the gentle loveliness of her features. She looked like a warrior queen of old, reclining with her beast of war beside her. She looked like she would fight this battle beside him, and gladly. He didn't want that, for her. He wanted her safe. He did not want his mess to upend the simple elegance of her life, did not want her dragged down into the muck where he had spent most of his days. Whatever Derek wanted, he was dangerous, and fighting him would be dangerous, too. Once already Lucien had risked Jean's safety and reputation by calling on her for aid where Derek was concerned, and he was loath to do it again. Of course, last time she'd saved his bloody life; maybe he needed her. Maybe he couldn't fight all his battles alone. Maybe he didn't need to.
"I don't know," he confessed. "I need more information before I can make a move. I'll autopsy this lad in the morning, and the police are working on finding out who he is. Once I know that, I might be able to see what Derek's part is in all this. But even if I can't, I might see if I can get in touch with him. It's clear he wants something; maybe the best way to find out what is just to ask him."
"Is that too big a risk, do you think?" Jean asked him, worry etched into every line of her face. "If he knows you suspect-"
"If he knows I suspect him, he may get sloppy. Derek never was any good at thinking on his feet. I know him, Jean. I know how he operates, how he thinks."
"You used to know him," she corrected him, not unkindly. "It's been a long time, Lucien, and people change. Just...just promise me you'll be careful."
She was worried, he realized then, but not for herself, or for her safety. She was worried for him. As much as he wanted to protect her, to keep her whole and well and safe, she wanted the same for him. When was the last time, he wondered, that anyone had been worried about him? When was the last time anyone had cared for him, for Lucien, not for the soldier or the doctor or the police surgeon, not for his skills or the services he could provide, but for the man? It had been so very long he had quite forgotten what to do with it, how to respond to someone else's concern.
"I promise, Jean," he said. It wasn't entirely a lie; he did intend to be careful. But so often in life, intentions were for naught. He hoped she'd forgive him, should he fail her. He hoped he'd live long enough to accept that forgiveness.
