29 December 2014 - Updated descriptions and dialogue throughout the chapter.

Chapter LI: A Meddling of Lycans

22nd of April 1900.

It was past dusk when they arrived at the London den. The sound of wet cobblestones causing him to wake on his side of the carriage, giving some audible relief to the two grunts Raze had saddled him with. The one trying to mask the fact that two of his ribs were cracked—and the other wasting little time informing him that they had arrived. Both of them keeping a safe distance, perhaps convinced now that searching his person was neither wise nor sanctioned under any circumstances.

As the carriage stopped, he considered pulling himself up from his slouch—making an effort to walk towards this bright light they kept pushing him towards on a centennial basis—but soon thought better of it. Another round of cannabis after Reinette had passed out and he was still riding high on the winds. His yawn taking in the world before he allowed himself to be 'helped' from the back by the only one who deserved to lose a finger on the back of these shenanigans.

Raze.

He almost tripped over the carriage step, trying to extricate himself from the iron grip. "Is this what it feels like to be under house arrest," he muttered, attempting to settle himself down beside the drainage channel before Raze again 'helped' him up. The man was actually being quite rough, to be honest. The two grunts had disappeared already and the stables were empty, the horses being the only ones 'high-ranking' enough to witness the master in such a state.

Oh and Singe.

He couldn't forget Singe. The old boy was perching on one of the stools in the kitchen. His spectacles glistening as though he had spent the afternoon cleaning them just for that moment. Despite the hour, the fire was cold, the entire grounds in an apparent lock-down in preparation for the master's homecoming. And as luck would have it, they had brought Reinette too. Or her box rather. The top removed, the box on its side, and the unconscious woman left to rot beside an overturned coal scuttle. As for his secret cargo of laudanum…

…lined up on the kitchen table.

Empty.

He finally managed to shove Raze's help off his shoulder. Using a hand to steady himself against the door frame, and then taking a breather before he removed his morning coat, allowing it to drop into the same heap of discarded rubbish that was Reinette. "Has anyone ever…" He inhaled before finishing the sentence. "…told you not to go through my personal belongings?"

Singe was looking as though he'd rather be dusting his pocket microscope. "Yes," he said with the blank expression of one who had been through this before. Only then, it had been alcohol. The scientist considered and then shifted one of the empty vials an inch closer to the edge, the words weighing more than the glass. "…but cracking someone's ribs will not change the fact that there is no more laudanum in this household."

"Well then it's a good thing I'm not a laudanum addict," he shrugged, managing to lower himself onto one of the stools without incident. Hard to tell if his decision to mix cannabis and alcohol was helping the situation. His words and his boot about the only thing capable of pointing at Reinette in his current state. "Are you confiscating that as well or do I get to keep one ally?"

Singe lacked the grace to look awkward. "Oh, I am sure she had less choice in this matter than yourself, Lucian…" He hesitated and then took another moment to clean his glasses. "…and of course, I am of the belief that you will forgive this…" There was a pause. "…'inconvenience', once you are cleansed of the substance of course."

Cleansed.

Well 'that' was new. Forty years ago, and it seemed like only yesterday that Singe was prescribing the tincture to help him sleep. Help him relax. Help him pass through the night without lashing out. One minute a simple prescription…and the next, an inconvenience to them all. Best to 'cleanse' it.

Unwilling to comment on the irony that was his existence, he placed his pocket-watch on the table and turned to look over his shoulder. "And what about you, Raze…" It was a rhetorical question meant to coincide with the disdainful removal of his waistcoat. Something which took far longer than necessary considering there were only seven buttons on the damn thing with only two of them fastened. "Any passing words of wisdom before you stab me in the back?"

Raze neither smiled in return nor spoke. But his arms were crossed. His reasons as plain as ever, the lycan forever holding onto his belief that one's life and one's duty must coincide at some point. His life dedicated to protecting the den, the horde, and the head of that horde. Even from himself.

Neither did it escape his notice that there were seven…no…eight different scents coming from multiple directions. Two of them were siblings. Three of them were women. And if the rest were as self-righteous as Raze, the whole lot of them would pounce if he did anything rash. He could take six under the influence, but not eight…especially if one of them was Raze.

"Fine," he concurred, turning his back on the one man's beliefs and looking with unabashed scorn at the other. He had never promised to be perfect. The empty vials giving him several reasons to stage a violent protest, but the unfiltered haze in his blood giving him license to relax, knowing full-well their actions would be pointless in a decade. "So how do we do this?"

How indeed.

He could smell the distrust emanating from both of them. Rare the occasion when he agreed to an intervention without doing a touch more than cracking someone's ribs. But then they had been doing this for four hundred years. Perhaps not a full cleansing, but certainly an intervention. The possibility of success seeming to crop up in Raze's brain around the same moment that Singe began to intone his speech. Practiced, no doubt.

"You will submit to…"

He chucked the waistcoat onto the floor. "Nothing—unless you rethink that wording."

The retort earned him a withering look from Singe."'Agree' then." He sounded impatient. Eager now to get back to his laboratory, but still waiting for the obliging grunt before he continued. "You will agree to random searches of both your quarters—and your person—over the next eight months. In addition, you will be monitored for signs of withdrawal on a daily basis."

One would think forty years of observing his habits might have filled the man in on his situation. At the very least, he could have asked Raze. Successful in his endeavours with the waistcoat, he now started picking at the complicated affair that was his necktie. "I do not 'withdraw', Singe. I control. So you might want to keep that in mind before you start asking me to sweat for your pleasure."

"Sweating is merely one of the initial signs, old friend." Again, the scientist had the nerve to sound as though he were talking to an idiot. A misinformed idiot who deserved every ounce of misfortune he was about to receive. "…and however 'in control' you think you are…when the worst comes, I would counsel you to embrace all your symptoms rather than hide them. Work through them as you need."

"And then what?"

Singe did not flinch from the question. "Then we keep you in line." Despite being a spineless runt, he had very little patience for anyone lacking the strength to hold a path, whether it be physical or mental. "All correspondence will be approved by Raze, and at all times, you will be accompanied by a new manservant…"

He started clawing at the silk. "And what the devil is the matter with Langley?"

"He's a runt," said Singe. A blunt word coming from someone of his size, and yet lycans were not known to flinch from their pack-ranking. It also went without saying that Langley was not so much a manservant as a charity case. "Even if he wanted, he could not deny you a substance request…"

"At least he doesn't prescribe them," he said acerbically, forced to be satisfied with merely loosening his necktie.

"Yes." There was a long silence as Singe continued to eye him as though he were less a lycan than a failed experiment. "You are right…and for that I apologise." He failed to look or smell apologetic. "I should have taken your history into account before prescribing an opiate."

And what the hell do you know about my history, he thought with a disgruntled scoff. The look he was giving Singe rapidly descending into a kind of treacherous miasma. If he could only count all the ways everyone knew his history.

They had scrolls about his history, books about his history…even a blood-forsaken penny dreadful about his history. The kind of sentimental nonsense that ended up being passed from skirt to skirt until someone inevitably gave him a look that said he ought to quarter himself and die for daring to fuck someone other than his dead wife.

His aversion to the topic finally causing him to stab the table with his index finger, steering the conversation towards safer grounds. "Can we define manservant," he asked. "…because I feel like that was important…"

"Aron."

Piss-drinker, he thought. "Is Weylan not on duty?"

Singe squinted. "Weylan will be taking on Raze's duties for the next month."

"Why?"

"Because..." For the first time, their smells became guarded. "...when the withdrawal begins, Lucian, Raze will be taking over some of your duties…" The one glanced at the other. "…at least until you are...recovered."

Right.

In other words, they wanted him off the Horde shift. Not the worst predicament in which to find himself. His gaze moving from one to the other. His brain too tired to even think about beating around the bush.

"I assume I still have some choice in the matter," he said, rolling three of the empty vials over to his side of the table. "…so let's say Langley continues with his duties…" He lined them all up, one by one. "…I continue with my duties and…" He abruptly flung one of the vials at the wall, hearing it smash. "…if a withdrawal starts, you get to make it Weylan."

Singe was unmoved, staring at where the vial had smashed. "Those are not the terms we discussed, Lucian."

He stretched his arms out on the table. "Then think of it as an order, old friend."

There was no need to elaborate. No need to threaten when patience would do, the seconds ticking away as Raze, Singe, and the eight pieces of muscle considered his offer. Technically he was out of cards, but they all assumed he was unpredictable enough to cause more trouble than he was worth. Singe looking less than pleased with the negotiations, but whether by the hand signals going on behind his back or by the change in his scent, they both eventually conceded with a nod.

Excellent.

Home free without a scratch. Relieved of his troubles, he made a grand, albeit grappling, attempt at getting off the stool, picked up his watch…and then aimed haphazardly towards the left, seeking his way past the copper pots, past the wooden shelves and the side-table, now intent on finding his way to his bed. Meeting over, fate decided, and a pox on everyone standing in his way. He was done here.

Or mostly done.

The problem being that he could not cross the threshold of the door without stepping over Reinette. Also known as that pile of dejected vampire that had been hastily dropped beside the coal scuttle. In theory, it was not the most complicated of scenarios.

He ought to just step over her. Walk on. Be on his way. He had seen war, rage, brutality, atrocities beyond that which any sane individual ought to see in one lifetime. All of which communicated that what he was seeing was hardly worth his time. Something which ought to be tolerable to a man of his standing…

…and yet…

"Incidentally…" Even under the influence, he could feel his eyes narrow. His teeth drawing back. "…the next time you open a box containing that, can you make an effort to place it on the floor rather than tossing it?" He was drugged. He was tired, and yet even he could get this right. "It's very simple. You pick her up…" He mimed the motion with both arms. "…and you put her down again. How simple is that?"

Raze appeared to grow in size. "Very."

"And yet I get the sense you're not agreeing with me," he said with a grim exhale. Catching the side of the door and leaning against the frame. "Speaking of which, do we both have to go back to prison this evening or can mine start in the morning?" he asked. Wary that this would perhaps be his last occasion for wearing anything resembling outdoor clothing for a very long time.

Singe indicated the ceiling with his glasses. "It could start in a month for all I know." He sounded fed up with the evening; and there was no sign of jest in his voice. "But I must warn you, Lucian; when the withdrawal begins, it will be severe. You may control the symptoms for a time, but the system will fail eventually." By his expression, all systems failed eventually. "…at which point in time, I would recommend that you confine yourself to the Change quarters."

And miss all this, he thought sarcastically. He was starting to wonder why they all still bothered. Weylan and Singe would take on Line duties, Raze would take on Horde duties. Between the three of them and Allegra, all their intervention had done was confirm that the ship would keep sailing without his hand on the fucking tiller.

Unfortunately, before he could express this astute observation out loud, he felt his eyes roll up into his head. The concoction in his blood sweeping him into a dreamlike fog, the likes of which he'd not experienced in several years. His last sight that of Reinette lying among the coals. Trying to reason with himself, even in that moment, trying to understand why he had saved her. Twenty years ago, he would have torn off her skin and staked her to the ground himself. And yet here she was. The answer more elusive than his drugged mind could comprehend.

The rest of his journey passing through sound rather than sight. The thud as he slid to the floor. The wavering scrape of claws dragged across tiles. The whisper of voices carrying him down a passageway, eventually lifting him up and over their shoulders. He heard the groan of steps sounding from below as they climbed a staircase to the empty servant's corridor. The silence making him wonder how many servants had been restricted to their rooms until the lycan-master was safely in his quarters.

Finally, the familiar sound of his bedroom door swinging open. His boots coming off, and his shirt undone. Those around him seeming to be taking it in turns to get him out of the majority of his clothes without accidentally cutting themselves. His head suddenly dunked in water, forcing him to wake and open his eyes again. Only to see the mirror across from his bath showing a less than decent sight. His skin pale and shivering, his weapons confiscated, and a pint of blood practically forced down his throat so they could all congratulate each other on how loyal they all were.

Leaving him alone in the dark…

…his mind and his conscience drifting into the same storm into which he'd thrown Reinette. The thunder euphoric at first, making him forget for a time that he existed. His torso wrapped in sheets and blankets, blending with objects that could not think or count. He slept until the sounds which so typically intruded upon his dreams began to pull him from his slumber. A slammed door. A whispered voice. A broken glass. His watch ticking on the far side of the room.

In his dreams, he began to see things that were not there. The floor turning into a pit of fiery coals. The walls turning into a prison cell. The sound of heavy rain falling on his head, pounding his eardrums like candle wax dripping onto the back of an ant. In such moments, he knew he was weak. Powerless. The great lycan-master cringing into his knees, too afraid to open his eyes lest he see more than just the shadows of his past.

For hours, he lay there…

….until hours later, he heard the clock strike midnight. His eyes opened wide, suddenly filled with clarity. The effects of the drug rapidly starting to dissipate with the alcohol in his blood.A great hunger then forcing him to sit up and reach for the blood at the side of his bed, the remains of what Raze and Singe had forced him to drink. In truth, it had always been a quick experience for him. Violent and cruel in the later hours...but quick.

He rose from the bed, his mind clear and clean as he slid open the glass panes of his bedroom. Climbing out and across the wall to a window on the far side of the house. Watching and listening until the coast was clear. His stride becoming quicker as he stole behind the back of a stairwell. Vaulting over the rail and dropping silent to the ground below. Pushing himself quickly against the wall, waiting for the sentries to pass before he ducked down another corridor. His ears plotting his path, taking him from corner to corner before any could see or smell. It was still raining…but it was quiet now. The thunder and lightning wrapped away in the dark. No longer filling his ears with doubt.

By the time he reached his destination, he was off the main grounds, his hair plastered to his face from the run through the rain. His path hidden by water. The sentries of the main household keeping an eye on everything, but the small cottage surrounded by lilies.

The one place no one ever remembered. The one name he had never written down in a journal. Still he waited, watching his surroundings, scenting out whoever might be lying in the dark. But there was no one. Even Raze had forgotten about her. An hour passing before he slipped through the backdoor, treading water across the stone floor of her hearth. The scent of the room empty save for one.

Elizabeth Fulligan.

The housekeeper. She was seated by the dying coals. A thick shawl wrapped around her shoulders and her husband fast asleep in the bedroom upstairs. Her eyes closed to the past. The thirty-seven years that had come and gone since their affair, the events sweeping beneath them like the banks of that German forest overlooking the Rhine.

But those years were gone. The affair was gone and she was old and he was young; and between them, there was nothing but the wooden crate beside her feet. The second of the two laudanum shipments he had sent from the Viennese docks and the only one he had expected to arrive this evening. Before he left for the Gathering, he had asked her to collect it from the London docks on the night of his return. Just this once. Just in case he needed it.

…and blood, did he need it.

The laudanum before him, his need rising, but his hand reaching instead for a brass box on the mantlepiece. It was not laudanum that drove him to this house. His fingers wet and stained with mud, taking up the box and seeking the latch on the bottom. A simple mechanism to open it. Three fingers on the siren and a thumb on the cliff. The box opening with a rusty click that spoke of decades, the inner fabric starting to fray around the weathered stone nestled in its centre. A stone once capable of stopping time.

Only the memories would not come unless he called them. Not unless he truly stopped...and hungered after them. Like a dog driven from its master, ten years after the rebellion, he'd found himself far from home in a province along the Rhine, tasked with the burden of rebuilding his own identity. It had been a small household nestled in the German country-side, its staff made up of mortals, those who would serve and ask little of a new master.

With little to no purpose in his daily life, he'd become a ghost to the dens, pondering his own existence while Raze carried the mantle from London. Eventually taking to walking through the forest. Speaking to no one but his valet, seeking no company but his own. Until a day when he stumbled upon someone more miserable than himself, a scullery maid who'd taken it into her head to run away from her duties. She whose task it was to wake at the break of dawn, scouring the pots and pans, heating the water, lighting the fires…working every day, every hour until there was no light.

For a time, he held the stone in his hand and then sat in the chair to her left. Gently taking her hand up and watching the fingers as she slept. Knowing…and yet no longer knowing…the scent of her skin, that scent which had once called him like a kiss on the back of a neck. Letting him believe for a moment that age had not caught up with them. That she would not die in the next ten or twenty years.

His thoughts causing him to brood over the hand. Brood that he had not been stronger, that he could not have offered her more than the death she'd receive for being mortal.

Friend or lover, mortals always died in the end. And yet when she woke, it was to smile at him with light in her eye. The light already starting to grow dim, but before it could fail, she reached out…slow and old, touching his face with a tired laugh. Smoothing back the wet hair and chiding him as though he were a changeling from the forest. "Where did you come from," she asked. So soft that he could barely hear her.

"Just over the hill," he said with a quiet ease he'd not felt in years, holding up the weathered stone for her to see. Knowing she would remember their first meeting. A time when she had been young and auburn-haired, a siren named Elisabeth Hirsch who dared to throw a stone at his head before she realised who he was.

When he heard her laugh softly, he passed the stone to her hand, knowing her movements even before she knew them herself. Watching her study all that was left of their history and then asking his question before he stopped caring about the answer. "Bess, have you known me to be content?"

As always, she was patient. "What do you mean?"

"I mean when there was no den," he said, looking into the fire. Brooding on it in the same way that a traitor could brood on his exile. "When there were no others…when it was just you and me in the forest. Would you have stayed with that person if I had not gone back to it all?"

She looked at him with a familiar frown, and then nodded slowly. The reference causing her to remember their affair for a moment in sadness and then exhale. It was the sound of mortality. The sound of death creeping up on the only human he had ever cared for. An old woman now, soon falling asleep in her chair, hardly noticing as he shifted the laudanum aside and settled down in its place. His back against her feet and the flame starting to go out. Even thirty-seven years later, it still felt like home.

o…o…o

Twenty-six miles away.

Grace Marsden was screaming in her head. She could not understand. She was the leader of the Blackmarks. She was in charge. She had taken the train to Tilbury to meet with the madman and take his silver. She had set her wolves on him. But he had killed them.

All of her Blackmarks.

Dead.

She could see them all. The Flanagans. The Connollys. Even Caul and his sons. Anthony and Jacob. Their bodies were still bleeding against the side of the wall. Burned, bleeding and butchered. The smoke of the distillery covering the scent of paraffin oil and urine. The loud furnace covering their screams. Why had no one come? The question making her want to weep for she no longer cared if they caught her. She had wanted revenge for her father. She had wanted money. She had wanted power.

Now all she wanted was her Little One.

Her body strapped to the butcher's table and only her head capable of moving. She should never have tried to kill him. She knew that now. She was sorry. But Kolya did not understand sorry.

He was standing to the side of the table, sharpening his silver knives, speaking in Russian to the broken vampire he had brought with him. The vampire of Tilbury. The one married to Gwen, the lycan harbourmaster. His body so close to hers that she could smell his fear. The torment in his veins as he worked in the background, doing everything that Kolya had told him. The stubs of his fingers shaking as he dressed the old Blood they had tied in the corner.

They were like animals, creatures that had forgotten their humanity. Creatures that stared out of hollow eyes and no longer comprehended the bloodshed around them.

But she could see it. She saw the monster behind the mask. She saw his plan. Kolya. Andreev. Nikolai Proshkov Andreev. Hrafn. All of these names he used…and all of them hiding a monster. The worst kind of monster, the one that hid behind a smile.

"Please," Kolya said again, holding the knife to her neck so she could feel the burn. "You take us to den."

She shook her head. She could hear the knife sizzling through her flesh. She tried to back away but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. But she could not take them to the den.

She could not betray her Little One.

He seemed to hear her thoughts and for a brief moment, he took away the knife. His voice so pleasant to the ear and yet so frightening to the conscious. "Where is Little One?"

She started to shake. "No." The word was a gasp coming out of her throat. "She's just a child. You leave…her…alone," she said. Trying to make him afraid. Trying to make him see that she could still Change. That she was not weak. That the silver knives he had stabbed through her legs and arms were not the reason she could not Change. "You l-leave her alone."

"How can I leave her if I am not knowing where she is," he asked, as though he were surprised she had not thought this through. His hand reaching into his pocket, bringing out the thing she dreaded most.

The match.

"So," he said, holding up the match. "I have proposition…and though I think of killing you, Grace, instead, I am saying, yes, we do business."

She was already sobbing. There was blood streaming between her eyes, but all she could see was the match. Its small head about to be set alight. The tears coursing down her cheeks, not from the pain, but from the terror. She did not want to do business.

"Now," he said, holding the match to the side of its box. "All I am wanting is my lady," he explained. "I have no business with den. I have no business with coven. I am not of Blackmarks…I am like…" He seemed to search for the proper English word. "…bird passing through cave." He lit the match. "I am not landing. I am not killing. I am only taking what is already belonging to me. So," He made it so simple. "...you are taking me to den…and for this, I am sparing your Little One. Yes?"

She was sobbing. It was too much. The fear. The match. The smell of the paraffin oil he poured over her. She loved her Little One. But she did not want to die like this. Not like this. "Please," she cried out, barely recognising the sound of the animal she had become. Weak. A traitor to the horde. A traitor to her Little One. And then, "Please," she said. "I will take you."

I will take you.

That singular admission causing the nightmare to vanish. Kolya staring down at her as though she were a worm and then smiling as he blew out the match. "It is good," he said. Turning away from the butcher's table and starting to pack his things. Silver, blood, paraffin…and dynamite. Cradling everything as much as he cradled that picture. Practically shoving it in her face so she could see his dark lady of the blood. He was mad. And he was probably going to kill them all.

But Grace did not care anymore. Her life was finished. The Blackmarks were finished.

And now all she wanted was her Little One.

A/N: And we're back! Sorry about how long this has taken. Hopefully people are following what's going on, and if not...ask questions, and hopefully I can answer them.

Anyway, as always, many thanks to Mas, Naturally Nocturnal, Agagite Whispers, Kassandra203, Mackep, NeverEndingNights, LookAliveSunshine03, HelenElisabeth, Cardinala, angelsnowflakes, Chantelle Cullen, Csejthe, cutie2boot4u, and eddysfer for the reviews, favourites, and story alerts! Feel free to read and review.

Mas: YES! They totally are. Silly Lucian. Calling her Nette when she's not even lucid enough to tell him to 'stop calling her Nette.' ^_^

Naturally Nocturnal: No more bike accidents on the same day that I post a chapter! And yes, as Lucian mentioned, Reinette is totally not made for being high, but she is quite amusing. (Hopefully Lucian keeps her out of his stash.) And though it's true, Grace was plotting against Kolya last chapter...uhm...well...as you might have just read, she's not doing that anymore. So he's safe. A little crazy...very scary...but safe. (And on that note, I can't wait to see him and Lucian in a room together!)

Agagite Whispers: Thank you! I hope you're still reading and that you enjoy this one as well. :)

Kassandra203: I think Reinette being stoned was one of the highlights for Lucian as well. ;)

Mackep: Totally the perfect relationship-gateway drug for an opium addict and a long-recovered alcoholic.

NeverEndingNights: Excellent! I will keep at it (although I'm also looking forward to a misbehaving young child turning into a misbehaving young woman. ;))

LookAliveSunshine03: Ah, lovely reviews! Thank you for leaving them and yes, Raze totally has a mate. Although it does cause some friction between him and Lucian, but it's totally worth it. I also have to admit, I have never seen Howl's Moving Castle, but I will take the time to watch it this year. And yes, Reinette has a terrible mouth on her when she's displeased with something. In fact, I don't think Lucian has any clue what kind of woman he plucked out of that monastery, but he's going to be finding out within the next 72 hours I would think. (Hopefully he can say something stirring that can stop dynamite from exploding. ;))