a/n: Disclaimer: I don't own the Musketeers and any zombie concerns.
Chapter includes (warning/spoilers): torture, human experimentation, cannibalism. [graphic].
Note: So, finally some Inseparables in this chapter, but first... d'Artagnan!
the M~U~S~K~E~T~E~E~R~S - S~R~E~E~T~E~K~S~U~M eht
Life is Death is Dead
Chapter 2: —
A soft moan left the teen's lips as he finally dragged himself back into a conscious state—his unconscious bout sudden and forcefully put. He did not move, and tried to gather his bearings about him through the radiating pain bouncing through the back of his skull. Eventually, he cracked open his stiff lids, but the room was too dim for him to distinguish anything. Soon, they slipped closed again. His breathing was the only noise he heard as he collected himself.
The creak of metal hinges made him twitch. He cracked open his eyes, but all he saw in the dimness was a blurry shadowed contour of a woman crouching in front of him.
"Hey," a soft feminine voice called to him. "Hey, wake up sweet boy."
It took his a moment to recognize the voice. "What 'appened?" he croaked. He wasn't immediately alert and suspicious of his circumstance, despite having grown up in a world where people were desperate or made cruel and turned against their own kind.
Alexandre had become cautious after he and his wife were driven out of their home by thugs whom they had offered help to, and after Ella died and he was left with an infant son to take care of in a ruined world—his fears and wariness were warranted. An old man and a baby were easy targets. Raising d'Artagnan had been the hardest and most rewarding thing that Alexandre had ever done. When d'Artagnan was ten, and Alexandre was able to find safety and protection in the community of Pinon, his outlook had changed, and therefore, so had d'Artagnan's. He always told his son that the strong were made strong for a reason, to help those who couldn't help themselves. To offer a hand, and a seek no reward. In a world of what it was today, it was integrity like that, that would save the human race.
It was what had made d'Artagnan race towards danger at a strange woman's fearful scream. And it was her own kindness returned onto him, that had him trusting her, even when he should have had some bit of caution at such a timely and fruitful encounter.
"I've brought you home." Milady murmured.
"Home?" d'Artagnan repeated, like the word was almost foreign to him. The only home he had ever known was his father—and Alexandre was dead now, and so was his home. Grief chocked up his throat and he made a small noise in the back of his throat.
Milady sighed and rolled her eyes. "I said: wake up!" and she grabbed the bucket beside her, and upturned the contents onto the dazed teen. Perhaps she had stuck him harder than necessary, or he simple couldn't take a hit like she had expected.
The freezing water electrified him. He gave a sharp gasp and a wracking cough, flailing. "Wha—! Why? Why?" he cried out, struggling to sit up. He swiped the soaked bangs from his dripping face, and heard an odd sound of clanking chains.
He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear his vision, water drops glistened on his long lashes at the sudden candle flame that appeared between them.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face and he gave a little jerk. "Are you focused now? Hm?" Her tone had changed from the soft lilt she had before, the tender tone. Now, her voice was haughty and harsh.
He looked at her through the warm glow of the candle flame. She was bathed, her skin clean and pale. Her dark hair was thick, combed, curled; pinned at the sides and loose down the back. Dress was clean and more elegant than the last. Through the unpleasant smell of what now was apparently a cell, he could smell the sickly sweet of her jasmine perfume.
"I don't understand." He confessed, his brown eyes darting from her to around the small circle of light that lit his cell.
"Of course you don't... just another sweet fool." She chucked him under the chin. "You... can survive a risen's bite! Do you realize what an amazing and impossible thing that is?"
His eyes widened as reality seemed the smack him. And that was when he noticed the shackles around each of his wrists, chaining him to the wall behind. He jumped to his feet and had a moment of pure panic as he pulled heedlessly and uselessly at the chains.
"Let me out of here! What are you doing?"
She stood and stepped back, watching him in mild amusement. "This is your home now... Charles Xavier d'Artagnan."
He suddenly stopped and spun to her. The only person who had ever know his full and true name, was his father. "How—?" Realization dawned on him in some sick, dreadful way—he didn't even know this woman's name as she seemed to know his.
She smiled and blew him a kiss as she backed from his cell, out the door, and turned on her heel to disappear down the dark hall, closing the door behind her.
"No! You can't do this to me!" he screamed after her, but the only response he got was a disconnected chuckle that floated back to his down the hall.
He stayed standing there, his chest heaving, looking out into the blackness beyond his barred cell door. His head was white with panic and fear, his body frozen in place.
He remembered the first time his father made him kill one of the dead, when he was finally old enough to comprehend what these bumbling things that looked like people, but acted like monsters, were. He'd been seven, his life had been as sheltered as Alexandre could make it in those days. He'd held a main gauche both his hands, them shaking so hard as his father restrained a zombie in front of him. It was a girl. She only looked to be a teenager. Her skin was rotten, her hair missing in clumps, she had no lips and her teeth were on a permanent show of a gnashing grin. He couldn't move. He was frozen, shaking with absolute fear and horror. His heart trembled and his mind was blank.
And then suddenly, with a grim expression, Alexandre released his hold on the zombie, and it lurched towards his young son. The scream was a strangled sound in the boy's throat. Its groans sounded horrible, the clicking of its snapping jaw as it drew closer, fast. He'd pissed his pants, and the knife fell to the ground from his trembling fingers. Alexandre screamed his son's name and rushed forward, his sword drawn as the zombie fell upon his son. And he'd feared it too late, that he had just killed his only son, the last piece of his wife—until suddenly, the zombie stilled. Alexandre shoved the body aside, to find his son tremble beneath, eyes wide but dry, the knife sticking out from the zombie's skull through the corner of its eye. Alexandre grabbed his son up and held him in his lap, clutching him close, his own breath trembling. d'Artagnan's next encounter was entirely different.
When his teeth started to chatter and shivers wracked his body, d'Artagnan kicked himself into motion and the plan of free himself. For the next several hours, as the wick and wax of the candle slowly burned away, he tried to do just that.
He fingered the bolts driven into the brick that anchored the chains in thought. And then, for a long time, he scraped at the brick around the bolts with the sharp corner to the shackles on the outside of his wrist where the chain was attached. The cell filled with the sound of scraping, as the brick sprinkled away like grains of sand. He worked one bolt and them the next, ignoring the ache the sound caused to his thumping head.
He looped the chain around his arms and grasped hold of the links before he planted one foot, and then the next on the wall. He leveraged himself onto the wall, then pushed his feet and pulled with the rest of the body. But the only movement was that of his shoulder sockets. He'd hardly made a dent in the brick. It was no use...
With a sound of despair, he thumped his forehead against the wall in defeat before he slumped down to the floor. Minutes later, the candle's flame sputtered and extinguished as it reached the end of the wick and it cast d'Artagnan back into the darkness.
"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" he screamed at the top of his voice. It echoed sharp around the cell and down the hall. And then there was a beat of silence filled with his breathing—and then the creak of metal hinges.
His breath seized in his throat and his body tensed as he rose to his feet in anticipation of whomever was coming his way. Through the darkened hall, he could see the faint glow of a torch that slowly appeared to be coming closer. He knew he wasn't just expecting Milady, not by the echo of several foot-sets.
He had nothing to defend himself with. All he had ever owned was stripped from him but the clothes on his back. The last things in the world that Alexandre had touched, were gone. He forced back the tears that suddenly pricked his eyes—he would not let them see him cry, even at the loss of his father.
Finally, the group halted at his cell door, and he blinked into the returned light as the door was open—and he realized it hadn't been locked in the first place. Two Guards stepped in and stationed themselves on either side of the door, putting their torches in the brackets next to them. A tall, gray-haired man with sharp gray eyes entered after them wearing black and red robes with a heavy crucifix around his neck. Milady stepped in next to him.
The man inspected him with calculating, piercing, and cold eyes. "You're sure he's the one?" he asked the woman. "He doesn't look like much."
"Oh, he's the one, Cardinal." Milady said. "I've seen it with my own eyes."
"Let me out of here!" d'Artagnan shouted. "You have no right to lock me in here. No right!"
"It's my right as I please!" Richelieu returned and back-handed the boy. d'Artagnan hissed as his rings cut open his cheek. "You are nothing. The only value you hold, is the blood in your veins—and soon that will be mine." The Gascon glared at him through his bangs. "Lemay!" he barked out the open cell door. "What's the delay?"
There was clattering and a huffing breath as a man rushed down the hall and into the cell. Over his shoulder was a bag, and in his arms was a small crate. He was a plain looking man, standing thin, with a trimmed beard covering his chin.
Lemay locked eyes with d'Artagnan and the man's eyes widened at the sight of the teen. He gulped and turned his gaze away. "Apologies, Your Eminence."
"Do what you must." The Cardinal commanded, with a flick of his wrist. "Report if he survives the bite."
"Yes, Your Eminence." Lemay bowed his head lightly over his full arms and stepped from the doorway. Richelieu swept front the dank cell with a sweep of his robes.
"Have fun," Milady sing-songed as she followed after her Master. Leaving the Gascon in the company of Lemay and the two Red Guards.
d'Artagnan watched as Lemay set down the crate in the middle of the room and knelt down beside it, setting his bag down as well. He steadily focused on sorting through the hidden contest and refused to meet the teen's gaze.
"You don't have to do this." d'Artagnan tried to reason with the man. He cleared his throat for the fearful tremble. "You can just let me go—I won't cause trouble. I promise! Please!"
The doctor took a deep breath and evened his shoulders. "You've been bitten before."
"You're wrong!" d'Artagnan denied. "It was just a simple fever."
"Cut his shirts away." Lemay ordered and the two Guards stepped forward, one pulling out a dagger from his belt.
"No. No!" the teen was only able to back up a step before he hit the wall behind him. His tensed, his fists clenched as they approached. He struck out with fists and feet, but he was restricted by his chains. He managed a glancing kick, but was quickly remanded with a punch.
"Don't hurt him!" Lemay snapped. "I need him in top condition."
The punch made him senseless enough that they had time to cut up both his sleeves and his clothes fluttered to the floor. He yelped as they shoved him face first on floor. A hand at the back of his head forced his face into the floor, and a pressure across his back shoulders.
"Let's see those wounds, eh?" Lemay approached.
d'Artagnan writhed in their hold, and they just pressed his face harder into the dirty stone. Lemay knelt at his hip and took away the soiled bandage from around his waist. He inspected the wound closely. It was very distinctly a bite mark. He could see each individual groove of the teeth, gouged deep into the flesh. It seemed to be healing nicely like any other wound, with no abnormalities made by the saliva had seemed to carry the virus and spread it through the blood stream.
"And what of the other one?" he asked. d'Artagnan wasn't forthcoming with its location and Lemay was forced to search for himself. "Ah. You've been bitten more than this round I see. The scaring is faint but unmistakable." Lemay murmured. And then he found it, hidden at the nape of the boy's neck by his long, entangled hair. "Cut away the hair so that I can see."
"No!" d'Artagnan bucked as they shifted their hold on him to heed the doctor's command and for a brief instant, he was made free. But only for an instant, before he felt the full weight of a man on his back and shoulders, and the other gripping either side of his head to keep it still. The one on his back, cut away his raven locks with a dagger.
Lemay inspected this wound as well, whish seemed more ragged than the last, but healing just as nice. "Alright." He stood up and back. "Get him up on the hook."
d'Artagnan put up a knew fight at the sound of whatever this 'hook' was, and again found himself backhanded. One Red Guard held him as the other took a metal pole about five feet long, and ran it through a wider link on both of his chains before fingering a screw in place to hold them. Then his poled hands were raised high above his head and the rod was secured to a pair of hooks that had hung, bolted to the ceiling the entire time.
d'Artagnan was a tall boy. Only fifteen and malnourished from never living in a steady life, he hit his growth spurt young and seemed gangly. And while, yes, he was a young awkward teenager, he was forced to grow up fast, and he fought like an experienced swordsman, if somewhat raw. Despite his tall height, he was forced onto his toes.
"Hold him." Lemay turned to his box.
"Aargh!" d'Artagnan managed to kick one Guard in the shoulder before one man grabbed his legs and knelt their on the floor, anchoring him. He gritted his teeth as he felt the strained in his wrists and shoulders. The other man held him from behind, an arm thrown over his shoulder and across his chest, the other around his middle.
Lemay came back with a small knife and a couple of jars. d'Artagnan was forced to watch as the doctor cut a diagonal cut on the side of the his arm and held the jar underneath the dribbling blood, filling up. And then moved to the teen's other arm and he carefully drew the tip of the dagger across the prominent vein just before the crease of his elbow, and held a new jar under that, collecting the blood straight from the source.
He sealed the jars and put them back in the crate, and when he turned back to the teen, it was with bandages in his hands. He treated the wounds he had caused. Lemay looked at him for a long moment and the Gascon glared back, before the doctor turned away.
"Get him some food." Lemay said to the two Guards who finally released the teen. "If he refuses—force him. I'll return within the hour." And he picked up his bag and crate and left through the open grate.
One Guard left and came back soon after with a cup of water and a bowl of gruel. d'Artagnan steadfast refused the offered food, and as Lemay ordered, they forced the food and drink down his throat. It was a messy affair, that left them all soiled and d'Artagnan unsettled. But, he'd eaten more than half the bowl in the end. He'd clamped his mouth shut, but they'd plugged his nose. He'd bee forced to gasp for much needed breath, wherein he opened his mouth and they forced the gruel in his mouth before clamping a hand over his mouth. This was how each meal would go.
Afterward, they left him hanging hooked, but not before one literally spat on him.
d'Artagnan used the time left to him before Lemay's return, to try and free himself. It was useless, but he didn't care. His position like this was even more secure than how he had woken up. But he knew what was going to be coming next and he wanted no part in it.
Lemay returned once again with his crate and bag, with the two Red Guards who were also carrying sealed crates themselves. d'Artagnan gulped as he watched them. In the silence, he could hear the faint and muffled groans and grinding teeth coming from the two sealed crates that the Guards had carried in and set down.
One of the Red Guards opened his crate and Lemay handed him a large metal clamp from his bag. The Guard took it, and reached into the crate, securing the clamp. When he rose it, holding the handles with both hands, the clamp was secured around the brow. It was a man's head, severed neatly at the neck, its brainstem in intact, the hole ragged. It continued to groan, its jaw working.
The Red Guard handed the head over to Lemay, who approached the boy.
"Stay away from me!" d'Artagnan pushed back on his toes as far as he could to retreat away from the biting head, but moment's later his soft grip on the floor broke and he swung back gently forward and into the seeking mouth.
He stifled a cry as it clamped down onto the flesh about his right ribs. Lemay held it there, making sure it got a good bit, nice and deep, before he pulled the head away. The teen watched the grotesque sight of his flesh fall out the end of the zombie's chopped throat. It was something that he would never be able to un-see.
"Those things aren't the monsters in this world!" d'Artagnan spat at Lemay. "It's men like you!"
Lemay flinched but said nothing. He might have even looked apologetic as he turned and handed back the head to the Guard, before he retrieved another head from the other Guard. This one was distinctly a woman.
d'Artagnan kicked at him, and the Red Guards instantly rushed forward to hold him still. The Gascon threw his head away and made a moan as Lemay brought the head to his shoulder, so close to his face. He could smell its dead flesh. He gagged, his head turned away, even as he flinched as the teeth sunk into the flesh.
Those were just the first bites in a line of many.
Lemay took the zombie away, and handed it back to the Red Guard, before going back to his supplies and the zombie crates were sealed again. He returned with some wine and bandages. He cleaned the bite on d'Artagnan's shoulder immediately, but he let the one on his ribs feaster for a while longer, to let the saliva soak into his flesh.
Then Lemay settled himself down, his notebook and quill in his lap. It was the waiting game now.
Lemay was sickened with himself by what he was doing and going to be made to do to the teenager. He was just a kid, unlucky that Milady had finally found him after about three years of following the rumour that had circulated from the survived community in Pinon. But the Cardinal would kill him if he didn't comply, and it was for the boy's sake as well.
He would be hard-pressed to make a meeting with Captain Treville. Now that after all these years with the virus rampaging through France and the rest of the world, the Cardinal would not let him leave when there was so much to do and learn of the Gascon. What was so special about him that let him survive the bite that was fatal to everyone else? Could such a thing be transferred to another person, or did they have to be born with the immunity?
The scientist in him was fascinated and excited at such a subject and all that could be learned. The physician in him was sickened and appalled. The father in him...
Lemay watched d'Artagnan closely, noting down the symptoms that presented themselves and at what time intervals by his timepiece. But it wasn't until d'Artagnan couldn't even hold himself up, as the fever ravaged his body, did Lemay order the Guards to release him from the hook.
He bathed the boy's head with a cool cloth, he checked the bite wounds, kept him covered and warm with a blanket, made him drink tea and herbs. But the fever seemed to get worse and worse. His breath turned rapid and ragged. Lemay repeatedly lifted his eyelids and checked his irises; but the continued to stay dark brown.
Lemay's own heart paused in beat as d'Artagnan finally exhaled and didn't inhale afterward. He checked the boy's pulse but there was none. He was dead. Panic filled the doctor for a brief blinding moment, before he remembered Milady's report on the matter and that she had thought the exact same thing. But then, moment's later, he was alive again.
When d'Artagnan gasped for breath, coming alive again, Lemay jerked back, wide-eyed. He stared at the dazed and blinking boy in utter amazement. It was true, the boy could survive the bite! He felt excitement in his chest.
"Report to the Cardinal," he ordered one of the Guards, "Tell him the boy survived the bite!" one of the men rushed away to do just that, as shocked as the rest of them. "You truly are an amazing boy, do you know that? Special indeed."
d'Artagnan silently looked over at him from where he lay, sweat still clinging to his brow, his hair cut in uneven tufts—hatred consumed his brown eyes. Eyes that used to be filled with love and honour and humour and hope.
Lemay's expression dropped as he remembered exactly what he had just done to the boy. If he could only tell him... but it wouldn't be possible, the risk of him being found out was too great. He was a trusted man in Richelieu's court, privy to his darkest secrets—just like this one—a spy for Captain Treville and the Musketeers, and Queen Anne. He couldn't be caught or suspected.
The three Inseparables rode in a small spaced cluster along the main road back to Paris. Their journey had been halted for the lightning storm some two weeks beforehand. Now, they couldn't be more than two days from the city.
They were forced to rein in as they came across a block on the road consisting of six deaders.
"Alright," Athos, the blue-eyed Musketeer Lieutenant (the true one, not the Red Guards impersonator) sighed as he surveyed the scene. "Looks like we're going to have to clear a path."
Porthos, a tall and broad man groaned from behind his left shoulder in complaint. "Do we 'ave to? Can't we just ride over 'em?"
"As well-trained as these horses are," he said dryly, "They would only run over these bodies if in a panicked frenzy."
"A little labour never hurt anyone, Porthos." Their third companion Aramis said, a young Spaniard. A grin tugged his lips as he looked over at the dark-skinned man, "With your arse so padded, you could clearly use it."
"The only thing I choose to hear from that, is that you stare at my arse!" Porthos rose his chin. "I'm flattered!"
Aramis chuckled and shook his head. It was a distasteful task, but these day's not an uncommon one. He kicked his leg over the saddle horn to the other side and slid smoothly from the saddle and to the ground. It had been quiet for the last couple hours, so off course something like this had to of come across their path. Porthos and Athos joined him on the ground. The horses stayed their place, without being tethered.
There were nine bodies in total, all in various states of decomposition and decapitation. They slowly walked through the carnage and what must have been a fearful and fast fight.
"Some bugger was angry." Porthos commented, looking down upon a body whose head was smashed into something unrecognizable.
"Can you blame them?" Aramis asked softly. The two other men looked over to him standing at the side of the road—and the marked grave that couldn't be more than a fortnight old. The Spaniard crossed himself and said a prayer for the poorly departed.
"It must of happened in the storm," Athos noted, turned towards the downed tree over a bed of broken shed. The trunk was splintered and blackened where the lightning had struck it. He knelt next to it and inspected the broken and sawed branches, fingering them, and the burrow that was dug beneath the fallen tree. "They clearly dug for something."
Aramis said a prayer for the biters as well, because though whatever the bite had turned them into, they were people once; with families and lovers and lives. Before he tightened his gloves and took a hold on one of the deader's with Athos and moved him from the path, then returned to another.
Porthos grabbed the ankles of the one with the pulped head and started to drag it aside. Its cloak bunched up and dragged back behind its head.
"Porthos?" Athos dusted his gloved hands. "What's wrong?"
"That ain't right." Porthos muttered and dropped its ankles. The two gathered on either side of the large man.
"What is it?" Athos repeated. "Use your words, it might help."
"'E's got a Musketeer pauldron!" Porthos exclaimed. "Look!" he knelt at the man's right shoulder and flipped aside the cloak tail to reveal the entirety of the scarred leather shoulder guard.
"It must be one of Cornet's men." Athos noted.
Brows furrowed, Aramis knelt on the other side of the body, taking off his hat. Though nature and the weather had taken its course in decomposing the dead body, he had already marked some suspicious abnormalities upon the body. With a cursory inspection, he noted that the man had no mark of the bite and only a stab wound in the stomach, his shirt bloody and torn through the mud.
"He was not bitten, but stabbed." Aramis declared, gesturing to his torso.
"Someone killed 'im, and then 'e must have turned." Porthos nodded.
"What are the initials?" Athos asked from where he stood at the body's feet.
Porthos leaned over and with gloved fingers, traced the seam of the pauldron until he found the faint, carved initials that every Musketeer guard bore of its wielder. "P.L."
Athos thought for a moment. "It's... Paul Laudin, if I'm correct."
"You shan't be." Aramis said and Athos raised a brow at him. "To name the true man, yes, that is his name. But not this man."
"'Ow can you know?" Porthos asked. "'E 'as the pauldron and the travel cloak. 'Is face his smashed beyond recognition."
"His face has been destroyed, yes." Aramis agreed. "But if I recall correctly—Laudin had short blond hair. This man, whomever he is, had long red hair. I do not believe he is a Musketeer."
"Are you sayin' 'e killed a Musketeer and stole 'is uniform?" Porthos demanded indignantly, jumping to his feet. "What bastards—!"
Aramis stood as well, returning his hat to his head. "He was Cornet's man."
Athos sighed sadly. "I had hoped that the rumours that we have been hearing this last month about a rampaging group of Musketeers was just a tale—but now, perhaps the pieces slowly start to fall into place." He paced away. "Cornet's unit has been missing for little over that time. They must have been ambushed, their uniforms stolen and them impersonated. By why?" he carded his fingers through his brown hair in confusion as he came back to them. "What would be the point?"
"People ain't right nowadays," Porthos muttered. "They were 'ardly right before all this 'appened."
Aramis crossed himself and pressed his rosary to his lips for their slain brothers. Before he came around and stood between Porthos and Athos, a hand grasping a shoulder each in camaraderie.
"It's time we leave." Athos commented after a moment of silence. "Treville should know, after all this time spent in search and wondering." He bent and unbuckled the pauldron from the thief's shoulder.
The others nodded and the three men went to their respective horses and mounted, in advance spurring the beasts into motion down the road and back to Paris again.
Days passed, d'Artagnan didn't know. He didn't know anything anymore, other than that he was trapped inside Hell. His flesh burned and hurt and throbbed after time and again, he was bitten and cut.
No one was coming for him, no one knew that he even existed but for the people who had taken him. No one cared or would. He was alone in the world with his father dead and buried.
He thought of killing himself. While he was alone, he would find a way to kill himself. Then, when next they came for him, they would find a zombie instead. He would be of no use to them like that, what good was dead-blood? And then this sick game would be over, and he would be in the arms of his father again and the mother that he had never been able to meet.
As if sensing his intentions anyways, they moved him from being chained onto a wall, to chaining and strapping him immobile to a table they had brought in.
But his father's voice forever echoed in his head—Survive. He didn't see the point, but he followed his father's last request of him, and he stayed alive.
Even, when the day came, when his gruel wasn't so much as gruel, as it was the diced flesh of a zombie. It started as just lumps in the gruel that he didn't even realize they were forcing him to eat, even after the foul after-taste. But then, one meal would be gruel, and then the next meal was a bowl of the plain dead flesh, undisguised. He didn't understand the point of it. He'd put up the fight of his life. Kicking, screaming, punching, scrambling, grabbing, clawing.
But he was weak, after fighting fever after fever, being bitten over and over again, his bloodletting and taken. And soon, they would have him pinned on his back, forcing his mouth open…
They were turning him into a monster—an animal.
It was after King Louis ordered the Court of Miracle's razed, and closed the gates of Paris. A curfew was put in place, the patrols of Red Guards stronger than ever, every person living in the city was documented. Food was rationed and guarded. A thorough examination for any bites and weapons was done onto any person who approached the gate and wanted entry to either stay or visit in the city. If infected with a bite, they were killed immediately. If with a grievous wound, they were turned away. And then, only after having papers that stated identity, was admittance—or they were turned away.
Louvre was still a picture perfect place, even after 16 years of the sickness. It's grand and expansive grounds were patrolled daily for any intrusion, whether by the walking dead or people known to scale the wall and attempt shelter on the wooded lands.
The Red Guards tended to patrol the city and guard the city walls and gates. But it was the King's Musketeers who patrolled outside the city. For people, supplies, news. And it was the Musketeers who guarded the King when he decided he wanted to play and go for a hunt.
In the olden days, back when the world was not turned upside-down by sickness, Louis hunted buck and boar. But now, the game was far more fun and far more dangerous—when you hunted the zombies. Queen Anne greatly disapproved, and always tried to dissuade her husband the King, but Louis was King and would have his way. So each year, 'hunting season' would come around and Louis would announce a hunting excursion. Captain Treville, and a full Musketeer escort would always accompany His Majesty, with his hounds. Treville had seen many of his good men lost because of this trip over the years, for the protection of their King from the immense dangers of the walkers.
Treville and an escort of Musketeers were on such duty when the three Inseparables returned to Paris, after showing their papers that showed them a registered citizens in the city and Musketeers to the Red Guards at the gate, and being inspected for bites, they were let in.
They always found it a relief to be back inside the walls of the garrison. It was their home. Aramis and Porthos had been the first to call it that, but it wasn't until they found Athos that it truly became so.
Aramis had become a gypsy for a few years after he left his village and lost family behind. He never stayed in one place longer than he had to.
The entire time, without realizing it, he had been working his way towards Paris. And it was on his way there, that he came across a large hoard of the eaters. And amidst them, was a group of Musketeers and their Captain. Aramis immediately went to assist. It was fate, that afterwards, Treville offered him a spot amongst his men. And Aramis found the path that God had sent him.
It was a week later that he met Porthos, whom he and Treville had encountered on the street, defending a woman and her two children from a group of thugs. Porthos hadn't known the woman, but he couldn't just stand by and let them kill the children and rape the woman, stealing their belongings afterward. And that was how he found his place amongst the Musketeers.
The two men had met Athos almost two-years later, when they were out of the city, on patrol. He'd been drunk off his gourd, Lord knows where he got it. It was the days when people were hoarding and territorial. He was surrounded by a group of five thugs. They must have thought him an easy target: alone, drunk. But he appeared to be far from it. In fact, it wasn't until Aramis and Porthos stepped in, killing two of the remaining five men for which they had originally been seven, and the remaining two fled, did they realize this fact. Athos had turned to face them, in a jostled manoeuvre, his sword cutting a wide ark in front of him. Wadd'ya want? His blue eyes seemed to go cross-eyed as he saw six of them instead of two, and then, as if in a physical comedy, went fwomp backwards, his feet kicked up in the air. Aramis and Porthos shared a look, before they went around the circle of dead thugs and made sure they didn't become deaders, their silent decision made. They would have company back to Paris. They and Treville hadn't look back on the man since.
Just like the rest of the world, he'd lost people he'd loved.
They dismounted and handed the reins over to the garrison stable boy. The garrison was virtually empty. But there numbers weren't as big as they were in the days before the sickness. Captain Treville wanted men of conscious and honour stapled with the name King's Musketeer, and in this day and age, it was hard to find a man with firm moral in a world that sought to be ruled by the fittest, leaving the weak as sacrifices. But today, it was more sparse than usual.
"Serge!" Aramis called a greeting to the hobbling man as he came from the kitchens with a sparse tray that fed three hearty men such as themselves these days.
Serge had a peg leg. About hardly two years into the zombie plague, while people were still trying to understand and the city gates were still free and open, the dead and infected were almost completely unchecked. Serge got bit by a deader and in a desperate attempt to save him life, the Captain ordered the infected limb excess. The Musketeers chopped his leg off and saved his life. It wasn't an uncommon reality these days, if an extremity was bitten and the infection was caught early on, the limb would be cut off in hopes of saving the host. Just as if a wound became gangrene, surgeons would take the limb in hopes of saving the rest of the body from the poisoned blood and flesh.
It was never a pretty scene, and it was almost always never done in the best of circumstance—but if proper care was tended afterwards, the survival rate was higher than letting the bite fester and kill.
"Your return's passed-due, Monsieur's! What kept you late?" Serge had heard their horses, and knew that it had to be one of the detachments finally returning from a long journey outside the city. He set a platter on the table of cold cuts, cheese, and bread. It wasn't as filled as it was back in the days before the plague, but it kept the men fed. Meat was a rare commodities these days. They were warm-blood like men, so the biters went after them as well.
They've had to resort to eating their steeds, dogs, cats and even rats when the times had become really dire one year during the winter, when there was an accident and the city stores had been partially destroyed.
The three men took around the table in the yard with relief. It was a nice reprieve to sit on something unmoving after having your backside being constantly chastised as if by a cross mother while on the road.
"That storm a bit ago attempted to strike fear into the Earth herself!" Aramis answered, tearing off a piece of bread. "The river flooded over our path, and we were forced to wait several days before we were able to cross."
"Twas a bad one!" Serge nodded.
Porthos nodded, his cheeks puffed with the thin cuts of meat from the platter. "Where is every'ne? It's as sparse in 'ere as my purse!"
"Ah. The King wanted to satisfy his blood-lust and went hunting. The Cap'n and most of the remaining regiment went along with him. He should be back by t'morrow."
The three nodded their thanks of the man and he went back to the kitchens and his chores.
"He'll be sour not to have our report immediately," Athos commented, drinking from his cup of wine. "But there's nothing we can do for it but wait on his return."
The other two nodded and the three brothers sat the rest of meal in silence, their thoughts all occupied with the same strain. The scene back on the main road two days ago. The stolen Musketeer uniforms, and the dead men laid waste to, never to be found.
Athos didn't like the uneasy feeling it gave him. One that was separate from Cornet, but for the masquerade behind it. The puppet master.
"S'pose we 'ave the rest of the night off?" Porthos questioned as he drained the rest of his cup, the food on the platter extinct down their gullets, and drew the back of his hand across his lips.
Athos nodded and stood. "Shall we meet at the usual place later?"
The pair nodded and their Lieutenant left through the garrison gate and into the streets, pulling the brim of his hat low, despite the lack sun.
"He seems peaked."
"You know why. We've been gone near two months thereabout, and all th' while she's been free to do as she 'as pleased without a constricted eye on 'er."
"Ah. The witch who shan't be named." Aramis nodded.
"Oh, I 'ave a bunch o' name for 'er!" Porthos disagreed.
"I bet you do," he smirked. "I could throw in some of my own as well."
"Not as vile an' creative as mine."
Aramis quirked a brow. "Wanna bet?"
The dark-skinned man grinned. "My favourite words!" he rubbed his hands eagerly.
Porthos and Aramis met Athos at there usual haunt, the one that stayed open, even after curfew. Though Musketeers, the King's men, they needn't worry about trouble from the Red Guards on at least that particular matter. Even after an apocalypse, it was comforting to find that even some things didn't change.
The older man sat at the booth in the darkened corner at the back of the floor. He'd already ordered the wine, and had three mugs set. He had his back to the wall so that he could have a full survey of the room. The candle in the center of the table, flickered warm light across his indifferent expression as the raucous noise of drunken men and pipe smoke filled the room. Porthos and Aramis sat around their friend.
"The best served in Paris!" Porthos said sarcastically as he drank from his full mug.
"Oh, if it were true." Aramis sighed as the weak and stale wine washed across his tongue. It, like all alcohol in the city, was watered down. All but the spirits at the Palace. Louis was the King, and even in a world shot to hell and dying, he deserved to live like a King. The dead rising and taking stake in the world didn't seem to strengthen and rise the King, but just seemed to make him more childish and petulant—handing even more control than before, to the Cardinal and his own agenda.
Athos' eyes trailed to the door, as it opened and permitted a man, draped in a large cloak with his hood up despite being inside. He paused, and surveyed the room, and then paused as he found what he was looking for. He was staring straight at Athos and his two companions.
"Expecting company?" he questioned. The pair verbalized their denials and turned their gazes to the approaching man. The cloaked man finally stopped upon their table. "Can we help you, Monsieur?"
"It's Lemay." He hissed quietly and he leaned forward slightly so that the candle light briefly illuminated the inside of his darkened cowl. "I tried to send a message to someone, but Captain Treville has been out hunting with His Majesty, and the three of you have been outside the city." Lemay tried to explain. "I couldn't risk leaving a message—"
"What is it that's so urgent to report, Lemay?" Athos questioned, stopping the barrage of nonsensical explanations. "It must have been urgent for you to find us instead of waiting for a response to your message."
"Take a seat," Aramis instructed. "Or you'll draw unwanted attention."
Lemay nodded and sat down in the empty chair next to Porthos. The hood still pulled up around his head, it completely cast his features in the shadows, but he leaned forward and spoke hushed in the clamour of the busy tavern anyways.
"Has something happened with the Cardinal?" Athos questioned. Though his slumped and aloof posture hadn't changed, he was nonetheless alert.
"As you are aware, Cardinal Richelieu has been on the search for persons who are immune to the risen's bites—"
Porthos snorted. "Just one more delusion that 'Is Eminence fosters."
Lemay shook his head. "But it is true!" the three Musketeers looked at him dubiously. "A young man was brought in—"
"Don't you mean kidnapped?" Porthos inserted.
"By whom?" Athos interceded.
"Milady de Winter was the one that brought him in," Lemay explained and Athos' expression tightened imperceptivity at the mention of his wife's changed name. "There's been a rumour over the last few years from the small community Pinon of a Gascon boy who was bitten and survived and short thereafter, disappeared."
Athos would always think of her as Anne, but it was easier to refer to her as Milady, especially in regards to Queen Anne, who was of the same name. For the longest time, Athos had believed her dead. But she was not the personality with whom he had fallen in love with, and therefore, she was survivable in a world like this one.
After Aramis and Porthos rescued him from his drunken and deadly state those years ago, had sobered him up a bit, breathed some life and will into him from the makings of their own, and brought him back to Paris—it had been seven months before he saw her like a ghost to haunt him. Being the Cardinal's man as she was, as soon as Athos became a Musketeer, she knew he was in Paris—like Richelieu, she made it her business to know the enemy from within.
The target of her revenge had come to her. She had tried, time and again, to kill him, but he was like a cat with a hundred lives. Instead, she'd only made him suffer instead. Not that there had been any relief in thinking her dead in the first place. She and his brother would haunt him forever.
"Disappeared because 'e died." Porthos agreed, drinking.
Aramis cocked his head at his friend as Lemay sighed in frustration and irritation at the big man's constant interruptions and denials of what he had seen with his own eyes.
"Why is it so hard to believe, brother?" Aramis murmured. "If God struck this disease upon us, that he would not also put such blessed people who could survive its rigours?"
"Not this again." Porthos rolled his eyes. "God has nothin' to do with it!"
"Enough." Athos brought the old and circling argument between the two to a halt; if not, they could go on for hours and shortly, it would turn into a shouting match. "Continue," he commanded the royal's physician.
Lemay took a deep breath and nodded. "As I was saying... I have seen the boy survive the bite. It's not unlike when a normal person is bitten. The virus ravages their system and they're taken with a fever as the natural defences in their bodies try to fight off the intrusion (and fail). But instead of dying—he simply does not. It does not seem to matter the biter or where. He survives them all, after taking on a fever. It's a remarkable thing to watch. It—That's not the point!" Lemay stopped himself and shook his head. "He is surviving the infectious virus from the bites of the creatures. It is a cruel torture, I do not know how much longer he may last. He is no more older than what my son would have been..." He trailed off for a moment as the old grief took him—It had been shortly after the epidemic of sickness had spread through Paris. His wife had been a woman who fell to sickness easily, her mind weak and easily traumatised. She was not meant for a world where the dead walked the earth. So when she fell pregnant, the slim tether that she had on the world, snapped. She could not handle or bear the thought of bringing a child into this ruined world. She broke into Lemay's medicines and took everything on-hand, poisoning herself. When Lemay returned to their home later that night, it was to find his wife a zombie.
"Torture done by you, you mean." Aramis narrowed his eyes, his fist clenched upon the tabletop.
Lemay briefly closed his eyes. "Yes. It is myself who has done these things to him. The Cardinal has finally found someone who can withstand the bite, and he wants desperately to have that himself. The mean's for discovering such a thing, is not a welcoming sight. I regret what I have done... but it is only because Richelieu holds trust in me that I am in this position. The existence of this special boy would not have otherwise been known. It is no excuse, but that is simply the root of it. It does not matter now, but the issue of the boy."
Aramis did not appear pleased with his words. And he looked between his two silent friends in disbelief that they didn't immediately verbalize the right and obvious thing to do. Whether this boy was immune or not, he was a innocent prisoner being tortured and didn't deserve to be languished as so. "We're going to rescue him, aren't we," he looked to his friend, "Athos?"
"We cannot make a move like this against the Cardinal, without Captain Treville's sanction." Athos dictated after a moment more of silence. "We will have to wait for his return from hunting."
"By then it could be too late!" Aramis protested. "This boy is being tortured, Athos. Tortured." He turned a hard and harsh glare onto the doctor, who shrunk back from the thunderous look. "We cannot just leave him there, not when he can be saved!"
"From what Lemay say's of this boy," Porthos said slowly, looking across at Aramis evenly. "Wouldn't it be better if we put 'im out of 'is misery."
"You can't be serious," Aramis shook his head in denial. "This boy is a gift from God and needs to be saved!"
Porthos opened his mouth to cut across at the mention of God again.
"Whether the boy should live or die, is not up to us." Athos inserted between the pair. "It's the Captain's decision."
[tbc]
the M~U~S~K~E~T~E~E~R~S - S~R~E~E~T~E~K~S~U~M eht
So, there's some more incomprehension for your pleassure, as well as more insight into the state of Paris. \
Anyhow, halfway through this chapter, it suddenly came to me—the entire premise for this story! I know, I've been agonizing since the first chapter of where I actually wanted to take this story and what I was going to do with it. Well, it hit me! Now... all I have to do, is drag in from my head and make it legiable here in the next how many ever chapters that will come after this one. Still not sure how sane I am, but... we'll just have to see! :)
Please review? Thank yooooou!
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