Daniel LaCroix moved noiselessly through the darkened hallways of Eilean Donan. He had managed to slip away during the last hellacious hours of the Devil's Ball, by pretending to have succumbed to the myriad of drugs and enchanted drinks available to the Abbot's guests. The young vampire shuddered slightly as he remembered the scenes of depravity he had witnessed that evening, including the presentation of a severed head swathed in white silk and covered by a large bell jar. It was the head of a young woman, her eyes closed as though in sleep. Her eyebrows shaved off and replaced by two crossed stitches. In an eerie way, it reminded Daniel of the stitches that closed the mouths of the Silent Brothers.
Perhaps the worst memories, however involved seeing shadowhunters and downworlders coupling with demons. One of his fellow novitiates had even tried to participate and ended up screaming as he was torn limb, from limb. Daniel knew he would have nightmares for years about some of the things he'd witnessed this night.
On another, more personal level, his temper had been tried to the breaking-point, one of the club members was making crude comments concerning the engagement of Gerard McKenzie, the Abbot, to a much younger shadowhunter, Shivaun McRae. It had been all Daniel could do not to attack the man and make him retract the hateful words. His Shivvy would never agree to marry the leader of this depraved organization! It didn't really surprise him, in some ways, that McKenzie was head of the Hellfire Club, after all, they would hardly be meeting at Eilean Donan unless he was heavily involved, but Shivvy his fiancé, that Daniel would never accept. He had to find her and plan their escape before meeting Aidan Briosag back at the manor. Daniel knew he did not have much time if he didn't want his absence to be noticed by the Hellfire Club.
Lady Luck favoured Daniel in that desperate hour, and as he continued on, he heard what sounded like an argument coming from a room farther down the hallway.
"You shouldn't have been wandering around miss, master wouldn't like it!"
"I'm your master's guest, not his PRISONER!" Said the loud, unmistakable voice of a very angry Shivvy McRae. She couldn't bring herself to say fiancé. "I suggest you go about your own business and leave me to mine."
"As you wish miss;" The servant replied, adding; "But I will have to tell master about this;"
"Get Out!" Shivvy snarled at the woman before turning her back and walking over to the window.
The woman left and a few seconds later, Daniel slipped into the room.
"I thought I told you to get out!" Shivvy snapped keeping her eyes trained on the dark garden outside her window.
The whispered sound of her name had the girl whipping around, cold fury dancing in her dark brown eyes. "What are you doing here?" She demanded, contempt written in every line of her body.
"S-Shivvy;" Daniel said startled by the fierce, hostile look he was getting. "I-I'm here to help get you away. It's not safe. The Hellfire Club is using Eilean Donan for their meetings, and you shouldn't be here!" He stepped closer to the girl as he answered her question, only to stop short when she drew a seraph blade on him.
"Don't you take another step, and don't pretend you're not part of whatever is going on here!" Shivvy glared angrily at Daniel, hurt and betrayal etched on her pretty face. "I saw you with those degenerates and demons! You played me Daniel LaCroix, you let me believe you were the same, sweet, gentle boy Lucia stole, but you're not!
Daniel stood there, seraph blade at his throat and stared at the girl he loved more than life itself. "I would not be in this cursed place unless it was to save you my Shivvy!" He tore at the collar of his shirt exposing the livid brand of the Hellfire Club on his breast. "T-this cursed mark I bare for you, the cost of getting close enough to try and help you escape." His voice broke as he relived the horror of his initiation. He could not accept the idea that she believed he would willingly be part of the Hellfire Club.
Shivvy lowered her blade allowing the angelic fire to fade away. "Oh Daniel... she breathed letting her eyes tell him how sorry she was for not trusting him. As she lifted her left hand to gently stroke his cheek, Shivvy saw a strange, painful expression flit across the young vampire handsome face and he grabbed her wrist preventing her from touching him. There glinting innocently on her finger was the McKenzie family ring she'd accepted from Gerrard, the symbol of her promise to marry him.
The look of anger and betrayal was now worn on his face, and Shivvy couldn't hold back a sob, because unlike him, she felt she deserved his contempt. How could she ever make Daniel understand why she had betrayed his love, and her own heart? Yes Gerrard had blackmailed her by threatening to expose her brother's love for his parabatai, but it was more than that. Neither Josh nor Ian would be condemned to death for loving each other, but they would have their marks stripped and that for a shadowhunter was a fate worse than death. It went to the very essence of who and what they were.
"In that cursed ballroom, I heard them link your name with his, and I thought, no, not my Shivvy, she would not turn away from what we were to each other. She would see past the vampire, to the man underneath, she wouldn't think he was damned, and even if he was, my Shivvy would love him in spite of it." The last bit was said very quietly, almost to himself, and Shivvy's heart bled to hear it. How could she ever explain, why would he even try to understand the forces that tore her in two, when she wasn't sure she understood them herself?
"D-Daniel, it's not what you think..." Shivvy cried, stopping only when she realized that nothing she could possibly say would be adequate to this awful situation. Taking a deep breath, she called on all her strength to address him; "I can't leave, and there is nothing to be done about this devil's bargain I've made;" Daniel looked as though her words had stabbed him through the heart, and was about to argue, beg, plead anything that would alter this intolerable situation.
Shivvy placed the tip of her fingers against his lips saying; "No...don't say a word, just listen because there isn't much time. These people, the Hellfire Club, have kidnapped Aiden Lightwood. You have to get him out of here!" With those words, the girl turned toward a writing table and scribbled a hasty map of Eilean Donan. "This will help you get to him with a minimum of delay. Tell Aidan Briosag, he will be able to contact Magnus and Alec."
"S-Shivvy! You can't stay here, I won't..." Daniel began, shocked both by the girl's determination to remain, and the news of Aiden's imprisonment. He didn't know what McKenzie's hold over Shivvy was, but he knew that he would do whatever was required to break it.
"Don't, just don't! Help Aiden, that is all you can do for me now." She turned her back on the young vampire and waited until she heard the soft click of the door closing, before she sank to her knees and sobbed.