There were simply too many people inside the Pig & Whistle; Lucien needed to speak to Derek somewhere with less risk for collateral damage. Part of him simply wanted to walk away from his old friend, to turn aside from him and never look back, but Derek was fixated on Lucien, and had gone to the trouble of sending Lilith to dispense with Jean. If Lucien simply walked away now, what was to stop Derek setting his sights on hurting Jean again? Some other time, some other night, when Lucien was not expecting him, when he could not hide Jean away somewhere safe? No, the problem must be dealt with now, but how? A man as far gone in madness as Derek Alderton seemed to be could not be reasoned with. A desperate plea for clemency would not sway him, and neither would a sharp punch on the jaw. Something must be done, and Lucien feared, in his heart, that that something might be drastic indeed.

He had already hauled himself to his feet and so he bulled through the crowd, making his way through the door and out into the evening. As he went, he heard the sharp sound of Derek's marching feet behind him, but he did not turn; let Derek follow, he thought. He would lead his old friend to some dark alley where they could finally have it out with one another, and make an end to this, somehow.

The sun had already begun to sink below the horizon as Lucien turned to the side, slipped between the pub and the little cafe next door, and he spun on his heel as he faded into the shadows, watching and waiting for Derek to come to him. His heart was pounding in his chest; he had no idea what was about to happen, but his muscles were tense, tight, preparing for the fight of his life. Could he do it, if it came down to it? Could he put an end to Derek right here? No, he thought, he did not want to kill his old friend, not even for Jean's sake, but what if Derek could not be reasoned with? There was no authority to whom Lucien could bring his case; he had no evidence of Derek's crimes or his plots, and the army would not have cared even if he did, for Derek was acting, as far as they were concerned, in the interest of the greater good, and the police's hands would be tied as well. There was no one to help Lucien, no one to save him. Whatever must done, Lucien would have to do it himself.

Derek rounded the mouth of the alley, his eyes wild with hate, and Lucien stepped up towards him, his hands raised in a gesture not of violence but of begging, beseeching his old friend to listen, to stop, to turn away from this horror. Before Lucien could speak, however, another shadow appeared, just behind Derek, moving quick and silent as a ghost; the shadow's feet seemed almost to float along the pavement, and his eyes were invisible in the darkness. Like a demon, like some terrible specter of vengeance come to exorcise the evil that had taken hold of Derek Alderton. Quick as a flash, too fast for Lucien even to react, that shadow reached out one great, terrible hand, and Lucien opened his mouth to shout, but in the next breath that hand closed tight around Derek's throat, and lifted him clean off his feet, with an unfathomable strength.

"Stop! Stop! Bloody hell!" Lucien cried, lunging forward, his hands still reaching for Derek, now not in supplication but in an attempt at salvation. The shadow did not answer, but turned away from him, flung Derek hard against the wall, and Derek's hands clawed feebly at the fingers locked tight around his throat, his eyes bulging and terrible to behold.

Lucien collided with the solid wall of the shadow's back; it was Sergeant Hannam, risen from whatever hole the army had flung him in, seeking to end Derek's life same as he had ended Burt Prentiss's. As Lucien tore at the man's arms, his shoulders, Nemea rushed him from the side, teeth bared and flashing in the darkness, but Hannam was too quick; his left hand was still tight at Derek's throat, but the right darted out from his hip holding a gun, and he brought the butt of that gun down hard against Nemea's temple with a speed that was not to be believed, and she crumpled to the ground, and Lucien let out a roar like a wounded animal, and slammed his fist into Hannam's neck. The man didn't move; he didn't react at all, as if he could not feel the pain. Perhaps he couldn't. Perhaps his daemon wasn't the only thing he'd lost.

"This doesn't concern you, doc," the Sergeant said levelly, as if they were simply making conversation, as if he was not exerting all his strength to kill a man and fell a great beast at the same time. When Lucien's attempts to drag the Sergeant away proved fruitless he resorted to punching the man hard, right in the kidney, and the Sergeant faltered for once; his grip on Derek loosened, infinitesimally, and Derek gasped like a drowning man, which Lucien supposed he was, but when Lucien moved in to help free Derek from the Sergeant's clutches Hannam struck him hard in the face with the gun, with such speed and strength as to make Lucien swear later that it was inhuman, and Lucien went flying back across the alley, striking his head on the brick wall of the cafe as he went. Nemea whined, struggling to rise, and Lucien slid down the wall, dizzy, stars dancing in front of his eyes, and the Sergeant resumed the grim work of strangling Derek to death.

"You know what he's done?" Hannam said, but Lucien's consciousness was fading, and the voice came to him as if from very far away. "He took my daemon from me. From me, and God only knows how many others. He has made abominations of us all, and he must be stopped. For what he has done to me, and to others. For what he will do in the future. It's for the greater good, doc."

That's what Derek had told him, the argument he'd tried to use to sway Lucien to his side. That they must serve the greater good. But how could Hannam and Derek both serve the greater good, and be at cross purposes with one another? Which of them was right, in the end? Lucien's last thought, before the darkness claimed him, was that it must have been Hannam in the right, for Derek had divorced himself from his daemon, and in the moment when he needed her most, when Lilith could have saved his very life, she was far from his side, too far away to reach him, and it was Derek himself who'd sent her away. As Lucien faded Nemea swayed to her feet and came to him, draped herself over him protectively and kept watch over him as Hannam finished his bloody work.


It was very late, but Jean wasn't sleeping. She was simply sitting, staring blankly at the wall. She'd not even turned on the wireless; the noise in her mind was too much on its own, and she couldn't bear the further clamor of music. Even Halcyon had gone still and quiet, as if he felt it, too, the growing sense of dread that permeated the air, the restlessness in her hands and her feet. Instead he only perched upon her shoulder, and brushed his head against her cheek from time to time. The seconds passed, turned into minutes, into hours, and Cec did not come back to her, and there was no word from Lucien, and the night rolled on, heedless of her troubles.


It was full dark when Lucien woke, and Derek Alderton lay dead on the other side of the alley, and Sergeant Hannam was nowhere to be found.

"We must go, Lucien," Nemea was saying, nudging him with her great head. "We can't have anyone find you here."

With a low groan Lucien raised his arm, ran his fingertips over the back of his head and felt them come away tacky with blood. If anybody found him, his story that he had been attacked in the process of trying to help Derek would surely be believed given his own injuries, but the army would want someone to blame, and they may well hang him just to spell an end to this bloody business. She was right; he needed to get away. He needed help.

"Are you all right, my darling?" he asked her as he reached for the wall behind him, planted his palm there to keep himself steady as he rose ponderously to his feet.

"Pain can be borne," she said softly. There was blood at the side of her great golden head, and Lucien's heart ached to see it. "I will live, Lucien, and so will you. That's what matters."

"Why- why didn't he shoot?" Lucien wondered, mostly to himself. Hannam had held a gun in his right hand, but he'd only struck them with it, had not tried to shoot either Lucien or Nemea. And he'd not shot Derek, either, though that certainly would have made a cleaner, faster end of him. Why hadn't he used the gun to his advantage?

"Bullets ricochet," Nemea reminded him, and together they began to limp, slowly, away from the alley. "And guns are loud. He was protecting himself, Lucien."

The high street was deserted, no lights on in the windows around them, no people passing down the pavement, and so Lucien and Nemea turned, and began to make their way down the street with no one there to witness their departure.

"And I think...I think he didn't mean to kill either of us," she continued. "He came to put an end to Derek's scheme. He meant us no harm, not really."

"I wonder what will become of him," Lucien pondered grimly. As they made their way down the street the police station came into view, and he could see lights on inside. It would be best, he knew, to go to Matthew now. To report what had been done to Derek, to let Matthew handle the brass in Melbourne and the army and everything else. It would be best, but what he wanted, more than anything, was Jean. Her warm eyes, her gentle touch, her soft voice; his heart was aching, and he longed for the comfort of her, the reminder of what had almost been taken from him, of how far Derek had fallen, to soothe some of his own grief.

"Maybe the army will find him. Maybe they won't."

"But what becomes of a man with no daemon, and nothing to live for? They made him the perfect soldier and now he's turned his back on them. Where will he go?"

"Wherever it is," Nemea said, "I hope he finds peace."

It was a kinder thought than the ones running through Lucien's own mind, and so he held his tongue, and walked along beside her in silence until they reached the comforting lights of the police station at last. There was work yet to be done; he could sort through the tangle of his own emotions later.