A/N: I don't own Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Lord Vile, Darquesse, Springheeled Jack, or anyone else you may recognize.
Melody let out a roar of frustration so loud that I looked at her in surprise, catching the fleeting instant when her eyes turned then went back to normal. It clicked then. I'd heard stories about a a young woman roughly my age during the war that had been experimented on. Experimented on so much that she was no longer fully human and fated to be forever trapped just as she had been. I felt a tender pity for her then and as Melody's eyes widened in a silent plea as they met mine I gave an imperceptible shake of my head. She was safe.
Cain would never find out, at least not from me. But from my quick glance around I realized everyone else had figured out her secret except Cain, who held her tightly in his arms speaking soothing words. "Sweetheart, it's all right. We'll get him next time." Skulduggery cleared his throat and we all looked to him.
"We won't track him down today and if we press he'll go into town and spread mayhem. Let's retreat for now. We have time yet." We all nodded and I fell behind the others to speak to him in whispers. "Territorial, an interesting response don't you think?" He murmured, inclining his head towards Melody. I nodded, knowing full well what he meant. Vampire.
Back at the cabin I could hear Cain's hurt voice as he and Melody talked in the guest bedroom. He abruptly opened the door and fled outside the cabin, clearly hurt. I followed him. "How couldn't you tell me mother, you knew, didn't you?" He asked me, clearly needing me to comfort him.
"I figured out just now. I know her story, Cain, but it is up to her to tell you." He looked ready to cry and I sighed. As a woman I wanted to hit him for abandoning Melody when she needed him most. But as his mother I knew how he felt. I hadn't handled finding out about Lord Vile all that well and my heart broke for him and for poor Skulduggery who had to be reliving the same memories at that moment.
"Cain, if Melody hadn't known you were a skeleton, would you have been frightened to tell her?" I asked gently. His jaw worked weakly and I knew his answer was yes. "She loves you, Cain. She came to me for permission to see you. I knew she was older, about my age, but that didn't matter to me as long as she loved you and you loved her." He sagged, and I took him into my arms, feeling sorry that I'd witnessed the last bit of his childhood being snatched away.
He shook his head sadly. "I don't know what to think. She lied to me!"
I rubbed his back soothingly in response. "No, she didn't tell you. Do you think I'd have found out about Lord Vile if the bad guy hadn't told me? I love you, Cain. But you are a lot like your father. You want the world to be perfect, for people to be perfect with no shadows in them. I think we both know that isn't possible."
"I want to go home. I need to be alone, to think." He said brokenly. And I knew then how serious he was about Melody. She wasn't just his first romance and a woman good enough to marry. He wasn't settling. She was his One as Skulduggery was mine and I felt a lump form in my throat as tears misted my eyes.
"No, you don't want to go home, Cain. I know you better than that. What you really want is to go back into that cabin and tell the woman you're madly in love with that you are frightened and wish you'd found out differently. I don't blame you sweetheart; there were a lot of things about your father that made me want to run away and never see him again. In fact, I tried to on the day he needed me most, only your uncle Gordon stopped me." I paused blinking back happy tears. I'd never shown Gordon the appreciation he deserved and I made a mental note to do just that.
I continued, rocking Cain gently. "Your father and I got lucky, Cain. For as many times as we both ran away fate kept reuniting us and it doesn't always happen that way, sweetie. I don't want you loosing a wonderful girl like Melody. I'm going back in, you come in when you're ready, OK?"
"But I said terrible things to her, I called her a monster." He sniffed and buried his skull in my neck as he had when he was little. "And she didn't even call me anything back. I love her." He wept and I held him a while, then gently let go. He was a man now and as hard as it was for me to face as a mother, he had to solve this problem on his own. I could only hope Melody loved him enough to forgive him.
Cain didn't follow me and Melody looked depressed when I returned to the cabin. I waved her into the kitchen. "I'm so sorry, Mel. I look at you like another daughter, kind of weird since we're about the same age, so maybe sister friend is a better word." She smiled shyly.
"I thought he loved me." She said softly as we started to make coffee. "He called me- He called me a monster."
"I know. My son is about as tactful as his father, and a living skeleton. It was kind of you not to return hurt for hurt." I said gently, knowing she was too warm-hearted to, then hugged her tightly. "This doesn't change anything, you're still family, Mel. Cain is a spoiled price in a lot of ways. We thought we did a good job but we were way too easy on him, on them both. I saw his arrogance, his vanity, he has a lot of our worst traits. But despite that, he's man enough to admit when he's wrong. He loves you, he'll come in, you watch." I gave her a reassuring smile, it was the best I could do.
Melody was going to reply when a frightened Cain joined us, twisting his hat in his hands. "I'm so sorry, Mel. Mom." He said miserably, head bowed and tears streaming from his hollow eye sockets. Mel to her credit, stood her ground.
"Not good enough, Cain. You can have your ring back, I deserve better." She didn't say it hatefully, just a statement of fact. She removed the ring and curled his gloved hand around it. This was it. When Cain would prove he was mature enough to be married or crumble.
"I deserved that." He said, raising his skull to look at her. "I did. I was childish and stupid. I love you, Mel, you know that. But I'm terrified out of my mind that I can't take care of you or give you a family. Don't you realize that? It has nothing to do with you- You're perfect, I swear. Please forgive me?" He'd drifted closer to her as he talked and took her in his arms, when they kissed I left the room to give them privacy.
All eyes were on me as I entered the living room and I smiled at my family. Mel joined us, Cain trailing behind her, holding her hand. She was wearing her ring again and I said a silent prayer of thanks. Melody held up a hand before anyone could speak. "I want to tell you all the truth, the absolute truth, even though I know when I'm finished Cain might want his ring back." She glanced at Cain who looked at her beseechingly. I knew he wanted the truth and was proud of him for facing it.
"Melody, you don't have to do this in front of all of us if you don't want to." I protested, but she shook her head.
"I do want to. During the war I was experimented on. I've- I've always had trouble with my weight, I was the size you see me at now back then. A lot of my Adept magic might be connected to my weight, or at least the American Sanctuary scientists thought so. They had me volunteer for tests, promising me a cure and to keep my powers. I wanted to be beautiful, I never realized they meant to keep me this way forever." She said, tears streaming down her face and right then I wanted to kill them for lying to her.
"I guess a small part of me knew better, but I consented. It didn't take long before I realized they wanted to make a super-soldier out of me and release me on Irish soil." She sounded disgusted. "I wanted to fight them, but they kept me bound in a cell much like in your jails, my powers were useless. But they had a back up plan for when the experiments failed." She sounded bitter. Cain stroked her hair and back slowly, reverently, she shivered, then continued.
"There was a vampire on our side, so ancient he predated all modern vampires. It turns out what we call vampires are really the unstable mutations from a vampire and human mating. So they wanted to see what would happen if the blood of a pure vampire could be injected into an Adept with just the right abilities. It didn't work, so they decided to lock us in one cell." She hung her head in shame and Cain growled protectively.
Mel laughed sadly. "He was the one decent vampire I've ever met. And he pitied me. He knew they would kill us both in the end so he gave me all of his powers and abilities to be able to avenge him and myself."
"Did you love him, my dear?" Loquacious asked softly.
"No." Melody said. "I wanted to because he was the first man ever to see me as a woman and not an animal. He didn't treat me like I belonged in a freak show. I did love him, in a way and I'll never forget him, but no, I wasn't in love with him. You know the stupid thing? I never knew his real name. They called him Count Orlock after the horror movie and he was fine with that." She shrugged sadly and we all looked at Cain.
"What aren't you telling us?" Cain asked gently.
"He- He kissed me before he gave over his powers. He said I was his bride as I was the only woman he'd ever met who didn't fear him." Tears shone in her eyes. "I'm so sorry Cain."
"One kiss, that's it?" Cain asked and she nodded. "Mel, I wouldn't have cared if you'd have married him and had his baby. What makes you think I'd turn you away for that?" Mel glanced furtively at me and I sighed.
"That would be my fault, Cain." I said grimly. "Apparently even people in America knew I "dated" a vampire while I was supposedly seeing Fetcher. One kiss, one lousy kiss and I became the bad girlfriend." I growled and Loquacious looked delighted.
"Oh. I heard about that too. I thought 'Good for her! Who wouldn't want a dreamy vampire instead of a dippy boy with stupid hair?'" We all laughed and the tension and misery in the room evaporated. Loquacious was proving to be invaluable and I only hoped we'd keep in contact when the case was over.
Early the next morning we were out in the woods again, awaiting the arrival of a member of the American Sanctuary. He was arriving via teleporter and I wondered why only one agent was coming. The pair suddenly appeared, the teleporter instantly jumping away from the huge man in the black robe and teleporting out of sight. The hooded figure raised it's head to look at us, the face hidden in shadows I couldn't see into, even when I let my armour flow over me.
I dimly sensed that the children and had as well and Skulduggery had his gun pointed at the figure before us. I didn't blame the teleporter for running. There was something menacing about the figure. A Necromancer perhaps, but it was more like standing in the presence of evil incarnate. I couldn't be sure, but the gaze from within the black hood seemed to be fixed intently on Melody.
Dimly I was aware that mist was starting to roll in and the sky was darkening rapidly. What in God's name had the American Sanctuary sent us? Was this a trap? The start of a new war? At long last the hooded figure spoke. He addressed us all but the deceptively soothing voice was clearly meant only for Melody. "I apologize if I startled anyone. That wasn't my intent." He rose bone white hands that ended in long sharp nails and pushed back his hood. The face he revealed was so unearthly in its beauty yet held such cruelty that I knew instantly that he was a vampire. "My bride." He said to Melody and I could see she was already entranced as he held out his hand to her in a elegant gesture.
As she approached I studied him. The vampire looked like what you'd expect from older movies. He was pale, his eyes locked on Melody intently and as he smiled he revealed razor-sharp fangs. I realized he meant to take Melody as his bride, but this wasn't my battle. Still, I knew vampires were only capable of obsession, not love and I readied myself to attack. "But you're dead. I saw you die." She whispered, closing the gap and he took her hands in his.
I'm sure the vampire had a wonderful answer, but at that moment the was a sound like a thunder clap and I turned to watch Cain's armour morph from Lord Vile's plain black armour into something far worse. This was far larger and much more skeletal then even mine and evil emanated off him in his writhing shadows. Another crack and Val had changed as well. My sweet little babies had more of Lord Vile and Darquesse in them than I ever expected and I was proud of them.
"Let go of my wife." Cain ordered and the vampire, clearly not used to orders looked up, he flashed his fangs in challenge and the children started to circle him like winter-starved wolves. They were going to kill him, the quite possibly go on a blood-soaked rampage and as my own darkness settled over me I really didn't care. I started to rise off the ground, preparing to attack from above.
"Enough!" I looked over at Skulduggery, not really surprised that he was now Lord Vile. The voice that gave the order sounded like it came from beyond the grave and it instantly froze all of us. Only Loquacious and Tesseract seemed unfazed. Melody, her trance broken, looked ready to have a heart attack. She looked at me and screamed.
I blinked in surprise and Val, now back to normal cleared her throat. "Mom, your eyes. You lost the armour and went Darquesse." I blinked again, felt myself sliding back into normalcy.
"Sorry, but you two were in danger. You know how I get." I said with a shrug. Lord Vile stayed as he was, even with everyone else backing down and reverting to normal. That wasn't good.
"Who do you choose?" He asked, staring at Melody like he'd kill her no matter what she answered and I knew he most likely would. Hurting his family never brought out the best in him. She could only point to Cain and I moved, putting myself into Lord Vile's direct line of attack.
"Vile, it's over. Cain's more of a man than that vampire ever will be. She chooses him. We need the vampire to get rid of the wendigo. After that you can do whatever you want with him." I offered and he nodded then turned to address the vampire.
"If you so much as look at my wife I'll rip out your still-beating heart and feed it to you, understood?" He asked and the vampire nodded. The sun came back out the mist retreated, he was clearly done with trying to take Melody back or intimidate anyone. Then Lord Vile was Skulduggery again. But it was there in his hollow eye sockets. The reminder that he was still Lord Vile and I wondered if he could contain himself long enough to finish the case.
The vampire had made arrangements to stay in town and he left after agreeing to return that evening to help begin the hunt anew. Skulduggery watched him steadily as he left down the wooded trail, clearly not trusting him, but then his hatred for vampires was legendary. The only thing that had saved Melody's life was the fact that she wasn't actually a vampire, powers or no powers.
Vampires after all didn't have to eat or sleep and she did both. Though as she helped me look in the cupboards for something for dinner I wondered if she could eat after her fright. I was used to Lord Vile's level of rage and my own. I'd forgotten how badly it could frighten people. But I thought that what had really scared her was Cain. "Are you all right?" I asked and she shrugged and smiled wanly.
"Cain would never hurt you, you know that." I said gently.
"I know, but he's always so sweet and gentle with me. I didn't know he had that side to him."
"He's Lord Vile's son, and the son of Darquesse. I'm surprised he didn't go on a rampage." Skulduggery said from the doorway. I mouthed the words 'shut up, Skulduggery' at him behind Melody's turned back and he waved a hand at me dismissively. Sometimes I wanted to kill that man.
Seeing he had a captive audience when Melody turned, Skulduggery continued. "You have to realize that about him, Melody. He'd never hurt you, but that armour is as much a part of him as the temper he got from Darquesse. I say from her because she learned to control herself a lot faster than Lord Vile ever did. Vile would have killed everyone instantly in the old days." He sounded fondly nostalgic and I sighed. I wouldn't blame Melody for running away screaming.
But instead she surprised me. She went into the living room with me trailing after, and we found a doting uncle trying to soothe Cain's frayed nerves. "You were truly magnificent, every inch a warrior in those woods." Loquacious said proudly a wistful note in his voice. I realized then that lunacy ran on both sides of his family. We were all praising him for finding his inner Lord Vile when someone should have been cautioning him. I looked at Tesseract who just shrugged and Val giggled.
"Bad children, bad. Attacking the poor vampire, bad." I said playfully, then we were all laughing, the stress of the day making us giddy. Melody took one look at Cain and I knew she had chosen him. I sighed in relief, the possibility of my son going on a killing spree at least temporarily averted.
"I'm so sorry, Cain. I don't love him, I swear! But he had this strange power-" She trailed off and he nodded.
"Vampires can enthrall their victims, Melody. I saw the rage in his eyes when he noticed your ring and his fangs grew ever so slightly. Whatever he was going to do to you was going to be bloody and violent. You said he was kind?" He asked skeptically.
"He's changed." She said with a shiver. "If it even was him. It could be a Remnant inside a vampire's body, couldn't it?" That was a good question. Vampires were both dead yet alive, the undead as some called them. They required or at least lusted after blood yet were immortal which should have meant a need for no sustenance. It was all rather confusing. Skulduggery emerged from the kitchen.
"How about we all go out to eat, hmm?" He asked.
"I know a great steakhouse." Loquacious offered and we turned and looked at him. "You all need your regular diet, and well, this is one of those rare emergencies where I'll join you. I'm not giving up on my principles, but it reminds me of when my big brother would bring game home." He said, looking at Skulduggery in utter awe. He was, I realized even more loving towards his brother having seen Lord Vile than ever before.
The children definitely got lunacy from both sides of the family and I liked it just fine.
The steakhouse seemed wonderful when we arrived, the aroma of cooked meat making my mouth water. I was never going to be much of a vegetarian, but at least we'd go back to trying after tonight for Loquacious's sake, I promised myself.
He seemed content to settle in the huge booth and I realized our family had expanded yet again to include him. There was no question of him living alone, ever again. I just wondered if he'd end up with one of the children or with us. Of course, he did have Skulduggery's independent streak and might want to back to his solitude but I didn't think he did. No now, not with children to fuss over, even if they were grown.
We gave our orders and Cain sighed then shivered. He'd never been in war, much less killed anyone and I think he was frightened having come so close and so easily over Melody. "You did fine." Skulduggery said gently. "Your first time that close? You did fine." We all knew what he meant and nodded supportively.
Val made one of her happy squeaks. "We both did good, didn't we?" She asked happily and I nodded.
"Yes, you did, sweetie. You saw a threat and you responded, yet you kept in control. As much as we dislike our new ally we're stuck with him until the case is finished. Though I don't see how he will be much use either."
"He can track the wendigo, connect their minds, even control it." Melody answered. "Whatever that thing was, it was not the man, well vampire I knew." I was thankful at that point that Loquacious had picked a safe haven for mages. "He might be here to use it, hopefully to take it away with him."
"But they multiply. I don't like the idea of a vampire with a possible army." Tesseract mused.
As if to prove his point a man ran into the steakhouse, clearly in the final stages of turning wendigo. He was skeletal, with his too tight skin stretched almost to bursting over his bones and his eyes were feral. The wendigo leapt at a huge man at the bar with his back to us. I couldn't make out the potential victim from the shadowy gloom but as he tilted his head towards his attacker I swore I recognized him. The man turned, his hardened nails catching the creature in the throat and it went down mortally wounded. The man stepped into the light, knelt down and grabbed the wendigo by the head and twisted savagely after his nails did some rather nasty cutting work.
The head came off, and the light flickered out of its eyes. The man grinned and giggled manically, then rose smoothly to doff his top hat to us all after slamming the head on the bar as his idea of a tip. I looked at him in surprise. It was Springheeled Jack but he looked centuries younger. Marriage was agreeing with him. He picked up his coffee and strolled over to us and we made room.
"Evenin', poppet, Cain." Jack said to the children, settling in with a weary sigh and placing his order. "I knew somethin' was up, didn't know what when you two went missin' then on a case. The other's will be here soon." I was about to ask what others when the doors opened again. Erskine entered with Charles and Cleavers followed, taking the body away swiftly. The barman cleaned up the mess without comment and I got the idea the bar's patron's were used to that level of violence.
Chairs were brought and we all managed to find space for he plates that started to arrive. Loquacious had changed his mind at the last moment and got his usual vegetarian platter, but nobody pointed it out. For a while nobody spoke, everyone was eating, hungry from the day's events, and enough food was diverted to the newest members of our group that we all ordered more.
Erskine looked terrible. I could tell the trip had worn on him. He drank his coffee and ate the food that had been happily placed before him, then ordered enough for ten men and I wondered when he'd eaten last. Then the door opened again and I saw why. The Dead Men had arrived.
A bit short, I know, but I wanted to give you a cliff hanger. And no, I never plan on having the Dead Men in a story, they just sort of happen to wander in and take over. I obviously don't own them or Erskine either. As always, reviews are welcome.