A/N: Heed the genre, luvlies.


[PART SEVEN]

-if-God-has-a-master-plan-/-that-only-He-understands—/

-I-hope-it's-your-eyes-He's-seeing-through…-

He followed her about for maybe three months total. Only a few weeks more after the Patriarch took her to Della Rae's. And then it could wait no longer. It consumed him, her beauty, her fire…and his own desire to hold it, to see it in his hands.

To extinguish it.

He could wait no longer.

So one evening when he knew she'd be off from work, he took the three flights of stairs up to her room. Stood before the door, as he had so many times before. 3C glittered in chipped plated-gold at him from a dingy navy door. He followed the curves of her apartment number with his eyes, as he had done so many nights, so many days, so many times before. Followed the curves of the doorknocker.

But, unlike all those times before – this time…this time, he knocked.

And moments later, with her riotous auburn waves, jewel-tone eyes and angelic, open face, she answered…

…and he pushed his way in.


Jean-Luc LeBeau had thought about it long and hard for the past month and a half. Was he really going to be the one to take this poor girl's child just to secure his own pursuits? Would he really be such a cruel person?

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, as they say.

It was true – a harsh, but vital truth. This child could ensure the future of the Thieves Guild, according to the Antiquary. The one with the red eyes would destroy the Guilds if left unchecked. If presented to the Antiquary, that couldn't happen, and the Antiquary would take care of the tithe to the External on behalf of whatever Guild presented him with the prize.

Too many Thieves had been lost to Chandra's disdain of the Thieves Guild's tithe. Too many Thieves had been lost to the Assassins because of her favour aiding them.

It was an opportunity he could not overlook.

As much as it galled him, he would do this. He would take the child, regardless of what he felt, of what the child's mother would feel and say and do – he would take the child, and he would secure his Guild's fate by presenting the boy to the Antiquary.

"I gotta awful feelin' 'bout alla dis, Luc," Mattie Baptiste cautioned as he donned his duster and had his hand on the door. The seer and healer hadn't been told of his plans, but as she did often, she voiced her sage opinion nonetheless.

Jean-Luc sighed as he pulled down his goggles. "Got an awful feelin' 'bout doin' this m'self, Mattie."

His awful feeling was met and overwhelmed: Jean-Luc never anticipated what met him after he picked and opened the balcony door to Roxanne Delacroix's third floor room.

"Mère de Dieu," he gasped, taking an involuntary step back, one hand immediately coming up to cross himself as he bowed his head briefly. He regained his composure after murmuring a prayer and, reluctant but dutiful, brought himself back to the moment – and his eyes to the grisly scene before him.

Roxanne lay limp and debauchedly dishevelled across the bed, blouse ripped open and skirt half-slipped down from where it had been hiked up. Her flaming hair was fanned out round her head like a fiery halo. A spray of blood across the wall and headboard was slowly drying.

Stepping lightly, Jean-Luc silently approached the young woman's cooling body upon the bed. Those fierce hazel eyes gazed blindly above. D'ya see Heaven, chère? he wondered absently. Poor thing probably wouldn't get a pass with her life, but if there was forgiveness to be had, he believed she merited it. Her blood stained the bedclothes a deep crimson and ruby and stiffened some of the waves of her hair and folds of her ruined shirt. The thick slash across her throat was black with blood, and her lips – as milk-white pale as her freckled skin had become – were starting to tinge blue.

"Je desole, chère," he whispered softly, reaching out to close her eyes. As he crossed the air above her, a sudden cry startled him.

The boy.

The reason why he was even here. He had come to steal the boy away and present him to the Antiquary. And consideration of Roxanne's attachment to her son had been what had given him pause. Well, reckon dat don' matter now, he thought morbidly. Ignoring his heavy heart, Jean-Luc LeBeau followed the cries. They led him to a cabinet in the kitchen. Crouched in the back corner inside was the boy, those prophesised eyes glowing in the shadows.

"Maman!" he screamed in terror. Almost before Jean-Luc could react, the boy darted out; Jean-Luc's nimble thief's fingers just barely caught the boy by the neck of his T-shirt.

"Wan' my mère! Maman! Maman!" the boy was hollering as Jean-Luc scooped him up.

"Hush – hush, now, fils. Y'r maman—" He swallowed, not at all at ease with himself at what he had to do. Have t' do it, Jean-Luc reminded himself. Have to do it. Big red orbs stared at the Cajun Guildmaster, lips quivering, hovering on a holler. "Y' maman's gone, chile…" Jean-Luc was at a loss. He wasn't even sure the child would understand. Even if he did, it would take a while for it to fully register. It had been that way when he had had to explain it to his son Henri that his mother was gone. But Clare had died months after Henri was born, and Henri had not thought much on it until he was about four or five.

The little boy wasn't listening, though. "NO! Wan' Maman! Mama—Mama—Mama! Maman!"

"Look, chile!" Evidently Jean-Luc hit the right pitch with the sharp rap of what he considered his "listen here, now" voice. Remy stilled.

"Wan'…" His quiet plea trailed off, lost in a fit of sniffles. The cherub lips pouted, tears welling and spilling from those big, unnerving red-on-black eyes. Jean-Luc watched, mesmerised for a moment, half-convinced that the boy's tears would be blood. Yet, in spite of the devilish eyes, very human tears brimmed russet eyelashes before staining the boy's cheeks. No demon blood, here; just a fallen angel's rainy tears of sorrow.

"Now, bébét, chu listenin'? Y' maman's gone, fils. And I' come t' getcha – take ya somewhere new, d'accord?"

There was a loud sniffle and a sigh. With that sigh, it seemed all the fight and fire left the boy. He laid his head slowly, heavily on Jean-Luc's shoulder. "Cold," he murmured, barely audible, distracted. "Gone."

"What's y'r name again, fils? René?"

"I Remy," came the quiet, automatic answer.

"Remy, Remy. Listen, Remy – we're goin' now, alrigh'? Don' look back."

"Oui…." Remy understood. The man was taking him somewhere – this man he'd seen about and knew Maman had talked to, so he wasn't exactly a stranger. He also understood his mother was gone. He felt it, even if he couldn't express it. And with the reassuring warmth his mother had always imbued him with gone, Remy wasn't much up to going against anything.

His maman was gone.


(The lyrics in page break are from "Precious" by Depeche Mode.)