Disclaimer: Everything you recognise from the film series isn't mine.

Feedback: Always appreciated.

The Lone Wolf

Their current plan was probably more of a desperate hope than anything else, but Kahn knew just as well as Selene that it was their best chance. Even if he could tell that Selene wasn't ready to admit to herself just how attached she was to Michael, Kraven's own ego would never allow him to let the young lycan live, but fortunately they had an alternative, higher authority to appeal to on his behalf. Amelia was scheduled to arrive in a couple of nights for the Awakening ceremony to pass power on to Marcus, so it should be easy enough to keep Michael in hiding for that amount of time. The lycans might be actively hunting for him, but they generally didn't like going out during the day any more than the vampires, which would give Kahn and Selene more time to make plans. Their enemies might not be completely confined during the day like the vampires were, but it was generally considered to be similar to the reasons most nocturnal animals didn't get out much, as the lycans wouldn't be operating quite at their peak and would find it harder to transform without exposing their existence.

When Michael had expressed concern about how his work would react to his absence, Selene had called the hospital and explained that Michael's side project with Ziodex had reached a critical stage that would require his full attention for the next few days. Kahn had been privately impressed that Selene had come up with such a cover story herself, but had decided not to bring the issue up with her when there were other matters to focus on for the moment.

Privately, Kahn would also admit to wondering if it would have been kinder to advise Michael to cut himself off from his human life before it became too difficult to hide his lack of aging, but he appreciated that such a thing had to be Michael's choice. He was used to new vampires who chose to abandon their lives after lycans killed someone close to them, so the very notion of an immortal who might still want to maintain a life outside of their new existence was… well, it was a novel one, in its way.

In any case, with Michael secure in his current safehouse and his secret safe for the moment, Kahn had accessed the networks to delete any record that this building was in use, leaving Michael to get some rest as he and Selene returned to the mansion before sunrise. There was no obvious reason why anyone would need that particular safehouse before Amelia's arrival, and it had some food there in case one of their human contacts ever needed a place to hide, so Michael should be safe enough there until they were ready to take the next step.

Kahn had considered whether they should tell Kraven about the lycan attack at least, but Selene had reminded him that Kraven hadn't believed her earlier and had even less reason to do so now, particularly when she couldn't risk telling him about Michael to provide further evidence of her claim. While Kahn felt guilty about keeping a secret from the coven's leader on one level, he couldn't ignore Selene's point about their lack of evidence, and it wasn't like he seriously thought Kraven would do anything with the information anyway. Once they had returned to the mansion, Selene had passed off her night out as following up on a few leads that hadn't panned out, and had required Kahn to collect her after her car ran out of fuel.

The lie was a bit embarrassing, but Selene had accepted it as the better option if it meant keeping Michael Corvin secret. Kraven had been so focused on appreciating the chance to criticise Selene about something that he hadn't stopped to consider the idea that she might be lying, and Kahn's long history of loyalty worked in his favour this time around. Once their cover story had been resolved, the two had spent the morning resting, but they'd each planned to wake up earlier than their usual routine. Selene had voiced some plans to do additional research for reasons she'd declined to share at the time, which left Kahn to do additional work on his own new projects.

Strangely, when he started working on the silver nitrate gun he'd been working on the previous night, he suddenly felt a sense of apprehension as he looked at the weapon. He was still as committed to ending the war as he had been last night, but after spending time with a lycan who genuinely didn't want to be part of this conflict… and when Selene was clearly suspicious of other parties in the mansion…

"Look at this."

Kahn was so taken aback at the idea that someone would interrupt him in his lab that he only confirmed that Selene was the one who had spoken when she placed a book on the table in front of him. Looking at the text, Kahn was initially struck by the sheer size of the leather-bound volume, but the firm expression on Selene's face made it clear that she had a reason for this. Opening the book, Kahn began to scan through the pages, trusting that Selene would let him know if he missed what had attracted her attention.

It didn't take long for him to conclude that some of the history recorded here would have been disturbing even if he could believe it wasn't real. The battles between horse-mounted Death Dealers and transforming lycans was the kind of brutality he could understand, but when the pictures seemed to show the old Death Dealers actually branding lycans, Kahn definitely didn't like the look of that. Even before meeting Michael he had preferred to keep his kills clean and simple; the idea that any of his forebears might have enjoyed treating sentient beings like that…

There was killing enemies in war and depriving them of their dignity, and Kahn liked to believe that vampires had moved beyond that kind of attitude when they stopped drinking from humans.

"Where did you find this?" he looked up at Selene.

"In the historical archives."

"The archives?" Kahn couldn't conceal his anxiety at that news. "Selene, that's-!"

"I'm starting to feel that many things that were forbidden were done for more personal motives than we might have been led to believe," Selene replied, even as she indicated the book once again. "Keep reading; you haven't found the most… interesting part yet."

As intriguing as the book was academically, Kahn knew Selene well enough to know that she wouldn't have brought this to his attention if it was just a matter of historical interest. As he returned his attention to the text, he paused for a moment at the curious sight of a half-torn page in one of the books, leaving only the body of an apparent lycan with the face on the missing part of the page. He pondered the mystery for a moment, but followed Selene's cue and kept turning the pages until he stopped on a page with an elaborate battle on it, accompanied by a paragraph headed 'The Fall of Lucian and his Army'.

Of the scores of brave souls who entered Lucian's fortress a single Vampire survived: Kraven, who was richly rewarded for not only setting the great blaze but for returning with evidence of the Lycan master's demise; the branded skin, cut from Lucian's very arm.

The sight of the branded skin just over the next page felt like overkill, but Kahn could have put that aside as just a particularly gory trophy if it wasn't for Selene's next act. Before Kahn could say anything, Selene took the skin out of the book, flicked back a few pages, and laid it next to the sketch on the torn page, indicating a similar brand on the shoulder of the lycan in the picture.

"So you think that this page depicted Lucian?" Kahn looked at his friend, curious to confirm where Selene was going with this.

"More than that," Selene observed, taking the skin away to indicate a distinctive pendant lying against the lycan's chest in the picture. "I saw that pendant on a lycan that attacked Michael last night, and from what I recall the body shape was very similar to the one in this picture."

"…Hold on," Kahn looked at Selene with a new sense of uncertainty after he took a moment to confirm he was following her train of thought correctly. "Selene, I'm prepared to help you find a way to guarantee Michael's safety, but if you're looking for-"

"I'm not saying I'm right, and I appreciate that I don't have hard evidence of it, but the facts aren't looking good," Selene cut Kahn off. "Branded skin doesn't guarantee that it was taken from a dead body, and when you think about it, aside from this skin we only have Kraven's word that he did it."

"Viktor believed him."

"…And how much of that could have just been because he didn't like Lucian?"

"You think-?"

"I think we need to be cautious," Selene said. "An appeal to Amelia is still our best chance; I'd rather not entrust something this significant to a newly-awakened Elder, and… well, I think we're both in enough trouble."

Kahn was relieved that at least Selene wasn't desperate enough to consider trying to wake up Viktor herself yet. He'd concede that the evidence they'd found so far raised some worrying possibilities, but he wasn't prepared to go that far when Amelia was still an option.

Even after hearing Selene's theory, a part of Kahn had still wanted to dismiss her suspicions of Kraven as nothing more than her known dislike of Viktor's chosen regent, until the following evening. Kahn and his men had been preparing for their departure to collect Amelia from the station, only for Kraven to walk into the armoury as Kahn's own team were checking their weapons. Kraven was accompanied by his usual security forces, Soren close behind him as always, but Kahn saw nothing wrong with that particular scenario at first.

"Change of plans," the regent said, as though there was nothing wrong with what he was about to propose. "Amelia will be picked up by Soren and his team."

"That's our job," Kahn said, a part of him hoping that Kraven would at least provide some justification for this change of established routine.

"Not any more," Kraven replied.

It was the simplicity of that statement that suddenly got on Kahn's nerves. He'd always told himself to tolerate Kraven's arrogance by reminding himself that Viktor must have seen something in the other vampire worth respecting to give him this kind of authority, telling himself to respect the chain of command even if he didn't understand it. With that simple statement, it suddenly struck Kahn that Kraven hadn't actually done anything worthwhile since he killed Lucian centuries ago.

Kahn wouldn't deny that killing Lucian had been a great victory, but even if Selene's theory about the lycan leader's continued survival was wrong, it wasn't the kind of thing anyone should rely on to maintain a reputation for the rest of potentially forever.

Like he'd told Michael earlier, the vampires needed to put some effort into keeping up with the modern world just so they wouldn't stand out too much outside of their hunts for lycans. Kraven had been coasting on that one significant victory for centuries and as far as Kahn could recall, he had done nothing to truly deserve it since then. At best he had enforced Viktor's policies when acting as regent, but Kahn couldn't think of anything Kraven had done that Viktor hadn't ultimately inspired or outright approved of first.

Biting back the urge to retort out loud, Kahn put his weapon down and walked back to his lab in a corner of the armoury, nodding briefly at the other Death Dealers to instruct them to disperse. He wasn't ready to openly act against Kraven when he didn't have anything more to go on than the simple fact that he didn't like this order, but at least he knew where to go to find someone who would share his concerns. Selene had been waiting in her room since yesterday, reading over further books to try and find additional evidence to help her support or dismiss her theory about Lucian's survival. Kraven might be obsessed with her, but the one thing he got right in his pursuit was that he didn't seek out Selene's company for no reason, and right now he had no such motive…