Chapter XXXI: A Match for a Candle
Shaftesbury Avenue, Westminster, 11:21 pm. 18 November, 1899.
The carriage was moving, the soot-covered bricks of the Lyric Theatre fading behind them. Fading but regrettably not forgotten, decided Lucian, staring with some discontent at the figure across from him. Jacqueline. It was the final hour of her outing. She was lounging in her furs, the scent of rose and jasmine idly drifting from her fan. Without question, perfect in form, graceful when fate opted to nurture rather than needle her sentiments. Her English refined, her French faultless…
"Did you like it," she asked, shifting her legs provocatively beneath her gown, enough glass-beaded silk to clothe all of Westminster. Her face was now partially obscured by a theatre programme, an elaborate printing with the words Florodora strewn across the cover. "…that ungainly woman called it 'risqué,' but I thought it was delightful. Elegant." Her curls were keeping time with her voice. "Only a spinster would say otherwise."
Unable to muster much else, he said, "Mm." Had he been listening, he might have stuck up for the spinster. He might have indicated that Florodora was the worst production he'd seen since Shakespeare's Henry the VIII burned down the Globe Theatre. But 'Mm' had satisfied Jacqueline on many an occasion, and reason told him it would suffice for one more.
"Like a can-can without legs," she purred. "…Florodora, Florodora." With certainty, she flicked her fan at him, almost singing the words, her inability to scent out his mood bearing witness to how young she still was. "I adored every minute. The dinner, the theatre…" She was holding out her arm, touching the gift he had given her over dinner. "…the bracelet…"
His attention was drifting, his eyes meandering to the window on his left. The curtains were drawn, but he could see streetlights through the fabric. They were heading in the direction of Christian O'Riley's home. His prison, to be more accurate.
"It all ended so perfectly…" Jacqueline was not yet aware of their destination… She was going on and on, like roots on a rocky shore, a tree with little hope of survival. "…the singing, the dancing. I know Mother says there's no intellect in theatre, but the coordination of fifty people on a single stage must take some measure of…"
"Forty-four." The number had called him back to attention. Forty-four individuals on stage…eight couples, sixteen labourers, twelve in the back. Coordination: a simple matter of separating members into groups, moving them across a field, like going to war without gunfire…but Jacqueline had no concept of war…no concept of loss.
She pursed her otherwise unblemished brow. "Pardon?"
Ironically, it was the reason she first attracted him… "There were forty-four," he said again, giving her no more than that.
"But…" She was struggling to appear perceptive. Finally, she gave up. "…fifty or forty-four, what does it matter?"
"Matter does not enter it…" He could hear the austerity in his voice. Wrong of him to be bitter over that play, that waste of his time. "…I am only reflecting that if the number has no bearing, then it is questionable why it is the culmination of the last three hours."
The number ticking in his brain. Forty-four. Twenty-seven. Fourteen. Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy. The links on the bracelet, the turns of the street, the seconds as they passed. Forever counting with mounting precision, while the words of his mouth became enigmatic and vague.
"I have some unexpected news," he said, changing the subject abruptly. No purpose to be had from explaining his thoughts to one who would be cursing his name within a week. "…a visit."
Finally, something she could understand. "From whom?"
"To whom." The correction was patronising, but it came with the territory. "An old friend of mine."
"How old?"
He gave a dry laugh. "Old enough to smell you before you think of coming."
The innuendo made her preen, the keen wunderkind for having spotted it. She smiled knowingly. "You mean like you," she said, her bosom choosing to sit up before she did.
"Not quite," he replied, reaching over to the side and picking up his top hat. Rarely used, it was the kind of article that longed to come out on Sundays. Grey with a black trim. "…our sense of smell is the only way we are alike at this point…" He paused. "…how shall I say it…" Prison, he mouthed.
"Oh," she said, no longer excited by the prospect. "What is his name?"
o…o…o
"Christian."
Christian O'Riley. The man looked up, that singular moment allowing the past to creep up on them. Almost six hundred years ago, his name had been Xristo. Pale skin that had not seen the sun in almost fifty years, the curls blackish, the face casting about for some light. "Back so soon," he said. There was a horrible stillness to his body, a composure lost upon eyes that would not stop moving. He was not rabid. Not yet.
Armed with only a tiny box, Lucian shut the door behind him. From the box, he shook out a match, lit one of the candles, and then discarded the box on the floor. Matches were hard to come by in this place. "Three years was not long enough?"
"Not for you," Xristo replied, closing his eyes, taking a long whiff. They could both smell it. Jasmine. Rose. Jacqueline was waiting outside, but her perfume had followed. He exhaled. "I hear she's young."
"Who isn't, these days…" Lucian walked deeper into the room, lighting candles as he went. It was a small and plainly decorated apartment, furnished with stools, chairs, and a scratched-up wooden table. Several skins and a pair of antlers pinned to the wall. The lycan prisons were built in the 1860s, deep underground as the sewage rose up around them. As there was only so much space, most of the inmates were harmless; any real threats were executed rather than set free. Xristo's past had given him some leeway in that respect. Alive, well, and locked up for the rest of his natural life.
The voice behind him became gruff. "Well?"
"Well, what?" He turned.
"Why so grim?" The man's head was following him, a vicious grin arrayed upon his features. "Feeling guilty?"
"About the Horde locking a door?" Lucian took a seat, laying the candle upon the table. He needed both impatience and anger for this interrogation to go smoothly. "Hardly."
"You were the final vote." It was an accusation. As if they had not discussed this fifty years ago and every decade that he had visited since then.
"Allegra was in charge of the Liberals, and they had a majority." The man was still not angry enough. He added a jab for compensation."Besides, you think I should have supported another traitor?"
The lycan thundered to his feet, crossing the small room quickly. "I was never a traitor." A calloused hand thumped the table. "We were the exiles, not them. They were vampires. Given half a chance, they'd run back to their coven with their fangs behind their lips."
"While you ran back to your Conservative interests…" He knew his voice was pleasant. "…and the way I remember it, they were looking for a new master to take the reins at the time. You did take the reins, didn't you?"
The man growled. "I never took that offer."
"You paid for it, Christian, which is why you're here and they're sunbathing in Cornwall." Without pause, he swung the question on the table, sweeping conversation into the realm of interrogation. "So why start on the exiles again?"
"What?" Instant confusion on the man's face and smell. Scent of confusion was often taken as innocence among the youth. Older lycans did not have that luxury…and Xristo was very old. "What are you talking about?"
"I am merely curious…" He started running a finger across the flame of the candle. "…why, on the very evening of my arrival, you start murdering exiles again. Tell me, was it a whim or a paltry stirring of the waters?" Once, long ago, he had believed in the notion of 'innocent until proven guilty.' Xristo had changed that.
"I don't know what you're…" Xristo's eyes were silver now, popping out of his head, pouncing along the wall. "…you think it was the Blackmarks?" Since their rebellion had been quashed, Blackmarks had become the common name for Xristo's old followers; it was an expression of the scent cards they used to leave behind and the black mark they had earned for it. By no small chance, all of them were Conservatives. "You're saying they've started again?
Lucian shrugged, as if to say it was all the same to him. "You tell me, Christian." Last night's meeting had shown him the unrest brewing inside the London Den. The Liberals fearing for their rights, the Conservatives parading their intolerances. If Xristo or his Conservative followers were indeed planning another rebellion, then it was only appropriate that he planned accordingly. For example, stabbing had always worked well in the past.
"I'm in prison." The smell was becoming nervous. Unhinged. Xristo was old enough to smell exactly how serious his situation was. Perhaps the man had finally come to some unlikely conclusion that being locked up was better than being dead. "Even if something happened, how could I have anything to do with it?"
"You know, I had the same thought," Lucian murmured, still playing with the candle. "…except in hindsight, I think mine was a little more grilling and far less rhetorical." His fingers were starting to blacken. "So where shall we start?" It was like a dance…
"What makes you think…" Xristo's voice died as unblinking, Lucian tossed a scent-card across the table. It was the card Raze had brought him eight nights ago. Mary Parker. Vampire scent. The bloody X drawn in blood. Two types of blood, the first that of the dead vampire, the second, the one who killed her.
"My apologies," Lucian said offhandedly, his hand going back into his pocket. "I must have thrown the wrong one." With the same black fingers, he tossed a second, far older card onto the table. It was the card that had helped convict Xristo fifty years ago. "Don't get me wrong, Christian, I can barely tell the difference myself…but that is your blood on both cards, isn't it?"
"That…" Xristo's hand was starting to shake. He picked up the first scent card…and then the other, squinting at them, holding them up close. "…that's not…" He sniffed the stained canvas as Lucian had done eight days ago. "…I mean, it's my blood, but…that's not possible."
"According to your interpretation or mine?" He had learned to be pleasant until the very moment of resorting to physical force.
"Wait…" The lycan took the other chair, briefly holding his hands up, now keeping the light out of his eyes. "Just wait." Fifty years alone had left him with little loyalty to his former supporters. "There were vials. They kept vials of my blood around the city. After the trial, it didn't seem important."
"How many?"
The man was caving. "Just a few. Enough to leave scent-cards for when I was in hiding…it has to be old blood, I swear it."
It smelled of confession, but there was no way of knowing without proof. "Who kept the vials and where?"
"A lycan. His name was Finnegan, but he hung himself a few nights before you ran us down. He organised where and when, but I'll wager the rest of the Blackmarks knew as well."
If we could all be so lucky. "Do you recall the addresses?"
"Isle of Dogs. They burned every safehouse down, but it was on Poplar High Street. They all had cellars." The man was eyeing the locked door. "Someone must have retrieved the vials."
"Elaborate on 'someone' if you will."
"You already have the list, don't you?" The gruffness was showing again. "Staford, McIlroy, Douglas, and Finnegan. If someone's murdering exiles, one of them's behind it, not me."
Staford was a banker. McIlroy was a stockbroker. Douglas was a sycophantic dandy who spent more money than Queen Victoria. "You said Finnegan was dead."
"Check his family."
"He had none."
Xristo made a face. "There's your culprit then. Every upper-class bastard has a lower-class portrait hanging in the scullery." He sneered. "I'll bet junior took his mother's name. Gresden. Grinley. Something like that."
"If you are lying to me…"
"I'm not."
"You said that last time, O'Riley." Removing two vials from his breastpocket, Lucian rolled them across the table, the glass clinking over the marred surface. Xristo caught them and without protest, began to roll up one of his sleeves. Not bothering to fetch the bowl from one of the side-tables, one of his nails grew, the sharp end gouging into his flesh like a knife, his blood spilling onto the ground. The glass vials were filled, wiped against the sleeve and handed over. Satisfied, Lucian tapped the side of each one and then pocketed them. Returning both scent-cards to his waistcoat, he stood and walked about the room, snuffing each of the candles in his wake. About to see to the last when the man's gruff voice gave him reason to pause. Again.
"Kerr?"
"Speak fast, O'Riley." His hand was poised beside the flame, the heat passing across his fingers. He knew what was coming. He could hear the blood still dripping, though Xristo's flesh must have healed by now. Few realised how difficult it was to cut one's wrists permanently when you were as old as they were. God knew they both tried.
Xristo did not mince words. Xristo who let himself be swayed by envy, hatred, and what he believed to be the casualties of war. "After we burned the coven, why did you choose Raze?"
Why. How many times did they have to go over this? Asking about choice when war had no place for it. Only strength. Survival. Five centuries ago, they burned Viktor's coven and in the coming days, three lycans had shown themselves worthy to be his second: Sabas, Xristo, and Raze. Of the three, Raze had been the strongest. It was as simple as that.
"Until next time," he said, snuffing the candle. Xristo hated the light anyway.
Secretly, they all did.
o…o…o
When he came down the stairs, Jacqueline was seated on the edge of the bench, waiting for him. She stood and took his arm, following obediently at his side. Rare the moment when she took his arm without argument or question. Rare when she took his breath away, almost making him regret what would happen when Allegra arrived in one week. The Devil herself was coming for one of her monumental visits, leaving Vienna tomorrow morning, traveling by train and then ship. Her primary reason was, of course, visiting Raze. Her secondary was annoying the hell out of the lycan-master. Her third was comforting Jacqueline, for as she had reminded him via correspondence through Raze (who still had no business showing the lycan-master his love letters)…
'…comforting a slighted woman was right up her alley, and would they please mind waiting until she arrived before he broke the news to Jacqueline. Poor girl. Oh Raze, how she missed Raze. In addition, would they mind terribly if she used one of the extra bedrooms for storage space? She had planned to bring only four trunks, but how was she supposed to wear the entire spring collection without an adequate wardrobe? Forever yours, the Devil of Vienna.'
Speaking of devils…
The cobblestones were wet when they reached outside, the thunder decrying their presence before the rain. The driver was not standing by the carriage. It took Lucian less than a second to stop in his path, already steering Jacqueline back towards the door they had just exited. It was the backend of what looked like a milliners' shop, the front for the lycan prisons. She began to fuss, but as her nose began to speak, she silenced, following his lead. The scent of blood was in the air. The cobblestones were red. Back inside, the guards on duty were given very quiet orders, twelve of them already sprinting out the back-end, scoping the empty alley for whatever culprit had left the blood. The body was to be left where it was, the dead woman lying beneath the carriage, the scent-card pinned to her breast. Her name was embroidered on her shirt-collar in tiny red stitches. Sarah Henderson.
It seemed they would be taking a cab home.
A/N: Apologies for the two-month hiatus! (Hopefully, I haven't lost too many readers...) As a tiny reference note, 'cab' was indeed a term used in the 19th century, short for cabriolet, sometimes called a 'hansom cab'. Anyway, a few landmarks... First chapter with Xristo in it (a.k.a. Christian O'Riley.) First chapter with a dead body that can be dragged back to the den...which in theory is good because now there are at least two leads for Lucian to follow, plus Singe will have a cadaver to examine this time. Lots of fun. Allegra's coming for a visit...something Reinette and Sabine will both enjoy. Maybe not Lucian. Probably not Jacqueline since she'll be moping. (In the words of Allegra "poor girl.") Kolya...we'll talk about later. Anyway, thanks to keili77, Sheen, mas, Bellicose, Mackenzie, Executrix, jjbroadway, Celtic_Aurora, LaughingThroughTears, and rosepetals914 for the reviews, favourites, and alerts!
keili77: Glad you're enjoying the politics of the story (and that you agree that lycans can develop as a society.)
Sheen: More Sabine to come (and Allegra. :))
mas: Alas, I did not update soon, but rest assured, the story continues, details and all.
Bellicose: I agree...the Golden Tart is quite a mouthful (oh the metaphor), yet I adore writing her. Perhaps one day, I'll put down that first meeting between Lucian and Jacqueline. (He, an extremely cynical lycan-master getting tired of some political dinner, she, bold, bored on the balcony and far too seductive for her youth. He hasn't the faintest idea whose daughter she is until about a week later. Alas, it's in my head, but not on paper.) Anyway, always pleased when you enjoy the chapter.
Mackenzie: Ha ha...I knew someone would notice. (For some reason, once a chapter's posted, I have this terrible urge to revise the wording, no matter how many times I've proofread beforehand. On one or two occasions, this develops into whole paragraphs.) Anyway, glad you enjoyed both the chapter and its name. (I had a "rubbing hands together with glee" moment after I finished "Spare the Devil" and realised I could do "Spoil the Child.")
Executrix: Rest assured, this story will continue for quite a while. (After thinking constantly about it for two years, it's become one of my permanent hobbies.) And it's definitely okay to like Rena (she's one of my favourites...constant, yet more to her calm than meets the eye.) Reinette is indeed stubborn (Lucian already knows, but I think it will really hit home over the next while.) As to the surprise you speak of, I can think of a few, but I won't hesitate to guess in case I'm wrong...in closing, many thanks for the review!
jjbroadway: Yay! You finally reached the last chapter! (I'm genuinely glad because it really is a long read.) Thank you for all the kind words (every one helps)...and as to Reinette being young again...soon, but not too soon! :)
Celtic_Aurora: Glad you found it addictive. Lovely review, thanks, and indeed, that is exactly how I see Lucian, so I'm very pleased those characteristics came out in the writing. Hope the attention to detail and accuracy does not fail as the story continues, and once more, thanks for the review!