Disclaimer: Everything you recognise from the film series isn't mine.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
AN: This chapter ended up being very dialogue-heavy, but I hope you find the results interesting.
The Lone Wolf
The more things came to light, the more Amelia had to resign herself to the idea that she was almost certainly not going to be getting any kind of rest for the next few decades at least. Once Viktor's true crimes had been exposed, it was basically required to execute him for everything he'd done to provoke this conflict, and while the peace treaty with the lycans was still being properly defined, she liked to think that everything was making progress. She had come to accept that Viktor was far from the noble warrior he had wanted to present himself as, but the discovery that Marcus had attacked Lucian and Selene raised further questions about whether she had ever truly known her fellow Elders.
"And this was all unprovoked?" she looked urgently at Lucian and Selene as they stood before her in the throne room. Michael Corvin, Raze and Kahn had joined Lucian and Selene once they had heard about the situation, as though acting on some unspoken request for support, but there was nothing wrong with having additional support.
"I was simply sitting in my room when he came in, asked me various questions, and then made every effort to bite me before moving on to attack Selene once she arrived to help," Lucian affirmed.
"This attack is a dangerous violation of our new truce-" Raze began.
"Which was not authorised by any of us," Kahn affirmed. "None of my Death Dealers had any part in Marcus's actions."
"And I believe you," Lucian nodded in acknowledgement at the Death Dealers' coordinator, before he turned back to Amelia. "In any case, Selene and I were able to subdue Marcus and move him to the cells, but I'm certain that was only because he was so focused on Selene when she arrived that he basically forgot about me in the moment."
"That would fit Marcus," Amelia mused with a slight smile. "He had a tendency to become so focused on the final goal that he didn't always think things through in terms of how he would get there."
"And this guy's one of your leaders?" Michael looked cautiously around the room. "I get that I'm new here, so maybe there's social things I'm missing…"
"But why is he in charge if he made such a stupid mistake?" Kahn guessed, giving Michael a slight smile of approval.
"Marcus was generally a good leader when he had time to plan for more general goals, but when it came to personal matters he could get… I believe the modern term is 'tunnel vision'," Amelia clarified. "Marcus could take care to make plans most of the time, but he made certain mistakes when focused on particular issues."
"What kind of issues?" Raze asked.
"That is something we shall have to talk about with him directly," Amelia said, stepping up from the throne. "Shall we deal with this now?"
The consenting nod from the group was all that was needed for Amelia to stand up and lead the group to the prison cells in the lower basement. The cells had been used only rarely over the centuries, since the nature of their war meant that neither side took prisoners on a regular basis, but they were still available if needed. Everyone present knew that the metal bars or secure transparent walls wouldn't seriously hold an immortal if a prisoner was really determined to escape, particularly one as strong as Marcus, but there was an understanding regarding prisons like this. Much like what Amelia understood of certain Japanese warriors, such as the samurai, in some ways prisoners in these situations were bound by a code of honour not to attempt escape, with the addition that they were aware that they would receive greater punishment if they did make such an effort.
Neither vampires or lycans had ever properly taken part in the Geneva convention, but there were still certain unspoken rules and expectations regarding prisoners. Everyone present knew that the cell wouldn't hold Marcus if he made a genuine effort to escape, but in his current situation, Amelia guessed that the last thing Marcus wanted was to make things worse for himself. His position in the coven had always been tenuous since Viktor had made it clear that he wouldn't tolerate Marcus's brother being allowed to roam freely after everything that had happened. Amelia doubted many were aware of that part of Marcus's history these days, but there was still an underling atmosphere where Marcus was essentially the least of the three Elders. Even with Viktor dead, Marcus couldn't afford to turn the coven against him too openly, particularly when they were working on something that, in Amelia's view, the other Elder should have been after from the beginning.
Which makes it all the more significant that he went this far when he already got his most obvious 'wish', Amelia mused to herself as she stood in front of her fellow Elder's cell. Her fellow Elder sat in the cell with as much dignity as possible in his situation, despite the dried blood from his ears that now stained his shirt and the new crooked angle of his nose.
"My friends," he said, nodding with a surprising sense of dignity despite the slight whistling sound coming from his bent nose. "I… thank you for this opportunity to talk-"
"This is about William, isn't it?" Amelia cut him off, directing a critical glare at her fellow Elder.
"William?" the other vampires and lycans repeated in confusion.
"He is still alive," Marcus responded, his arms folded as he stared back at her.
"After this long in his transformed state?" Amelia countered, focused on this particular argument over answering the questions of the others. "You can't seriously believe that there's anything left in there that's worth saving."
"If he lives there is a chance-"
"Are you even aware of what we have learnt about the brain since the days when William was imprisoned? He has spent over a thousand years as a feral animal; what kind of guarantee can you offer that there's anything of his original identity left by now?"
"I have to try!" Marcus yelled, storming up to the cell bars only to step back as Selene and Kahn drew their weapons. The weapons wouldn't do much to a vampire as old as Marcus, but the fact that vampires were drawing their weapons on an Elder was enough to confirm that things had changed. Amelia and Marcus stared at each other for a few moments, but Marcus eventually chose to step back, leaving Amelia to glare at him.
"You are aware that such ideas are the reason you and Viktor clashed so often," she said.
"And I am also aware that Viktor is now dead-"
"Which doesn't change the fact that he was right to be concerned about your approach to everything," Amelia cut Marcus off. "I can respect your loyalty to William, but you cannot simply decide to go after him now and believe that everything will have changed."
"Uh… sorry if this is a stupid question, but who's William?" Michael asked, looking increasingly awkward as Amelia and others turned to look at him. "I mean, I get that it's maybe just one of those things nobody's told me about yet…"
"It is not," Selene said, giving him a brief smile of understanding before she turned back to the two Elders. "Michael makes a point; who is William?"
"The original werewolf," Amelia said.
"And my brother."
"Brother?" Kahn looked at Marcus in shock at that news.
"As in your direct brother?" Raze asked.
"He and I were twins, yes," Marcus nodded.
"Hold on…" Lucian looked at Marcus with a thoughtful smile. "If the original werewolf is your twin brother…"
"Werewolf?" Michael cut in. "I thought we referred to ourselves as lycans?"
"By the time we reached a point in our development when we had a degree of control over the change and remained in human form most of the time," Lucian clarified. "The term 'werewolf' refers to someone who is essentially trapped in their wolf state after the original infection; it took some time before the condition progressed to the point where the average lycan is like you or I."
"And William never had the chance to reach that level," Marcus put in. "He was bitten by a rabid wolf when he saved my life, and I ended up transforming into my current state after a similar encounter with a rabid bat, due to our… unique physiology."
"Which is where Michael fits in," Selene indicated Michael.
"Huh?"
"According to myth, the first true immortal was Hungarian warlord Alexander Corvinus, born over fifteen centuries ago," Amelia took up the explanation. "What few outside this room are aware of is that Marcus and William were his mortal sons before their transformations into the first vampire and werewolf… and, by process of elimination, Michael Corvin is the descendant of the younger mortal brother."
"…Oh," Michael said, his tone cautious but clearly intrigued at this new information. The gap between himself and Marcus was so great that Amelia doubted he was that bothered about any potential blood ties in terms of his relationship with Marcus, but it was still a point of possible interest.
"So Marcus was the original vampire?" Lucian put in, a thoughtful smile on his face. "Viktor wasn't the oldest?"
"He was the first person I intentionally turned into a vampire, but he wasn't a vampire before I was, if that's what you mean," Marcus clarified.
"I see…" Lucian said, his thoughtful smile developing into a mocking smirk. "Would that be why Viktor attempted to arrange a marriage between Sonja and Nicolae?"
"Those rumours were true?" Amelia looked at him in surprise.
"They were never more than rumours, particularly when Nicolae was absent when the first plans were being made. Viktor was working to make arrangements for their marriage, but Sonja affirmed to me that she would never have been interested in Nicolae-"
"Hold on; Nicolae?" Kahn repeated curiously. "Who was that?"
"Marcus's son," Amelia gave Kahn a teasing smile. "He was discussed during Viktor's trial, remember?"
"But- oh, right," Kahn nodded in new understanding, even as he looked apologetically at Marcus. "Sorry if that… seemed offensive; nobody mentioned your son's name at the time…"
"An easy thing to overlook," Marcus responded with a dismissive smile. "I admit that I was never that comfortable in my role as a father anyway… frankly, when I look back, I don't think I was ever much good in any kind of authoritative role."
"Which was one of the reasons you agreed to the Chain in the first place, as I recall," Amelia noted with a slight smile.
"Hold on," Kahn looked between the two Elders with a renewed air of apprehension about him. "If Marcus was the original vampire…"
He groaned in frustration. "Did Viktor just enjoy rewriting history? Was anything he told us about our history even remotely true?"
"To be fair to Viktor, he was actually older than Marcus; he just let you all assume that meant he was a vampire first," Amelia observed.
"He was older than you?" Raze looked over at Marcus.
"He was a warlord dying of a terminal illness when I originally turned him," Marcus explained. "I needed his army to help contain William's contagion, so I received his assistance and tactical expertise in exchange for essentially saving his life."
"And I actually sought them out to seek escape from a terminal disease in my own family bloodline," Amelia added. "I also had an army of some repute at the time, and once Marcus had turned Viktor and I, we turned others to create an army that could contain the spread of the werewolf infection until William was contained."
"Contained?" Lucian asked. "Not killed?"
"I believe you may have been born towards the end of that particular campaign, which led to Viktor using you to create his own group of lycan guardians," Marcus put in. "I allowed that in the hope that it would encourage further leniency towards William, but I had also planted the idea that killing William or myself would have eliminated all of our progeny."
"And he believed that?" Michael looked at Marcus in surprise.
"This was the sixth century, boy; what we had become was more easy to regard as a kind of magic than an elaborate virus," Marcus pointed out. "It ensured that Viktor would not openly move against me in open warfare, and meant that he would work to keep William contained to avoid losing his servants, but didn't stop him from… working to undermine my influence."
"Is that why Viktor set up the Chain?" Kahn looked critically between Amelia and Marcus.
"The initial suggestion was mainly successful because Marcus had been active for so long by that point," Amelia said with a slight smile. "He was grateful for the chance at a break and didn't realise the wider side-effects of such an arrangement."
"I had a lot of responsibility-!" Marcus protested.
"And I am not denying that you did good work," Amelia pointed out. "Creating an entire species and culture is not a task that just anyone could achieve; you simply lacked the training and experience to ensure that you maintained control afterwards."
"Which I assume is how Lucian and I defeated you so quickly," Selene observed as she gave a critical glance at Marcus. "You got sloppy; you were so focused on one target you basically forgot that there was still another party available to fight."
"…True," Marcus conceded with an awkward smile, before his expression became grimmer. "But if you had learned that the secret to your brother's freedom was potentially under your nose after centuries… wouldn't you be eager to get it?"
"Huh?" Michael said, a glance at the others confirming that he wasn't the only one confused at Marcus's word choice.
"You… aren't just talking about Viktor's death, are you?" Kahn looked thoughtfully at the imprisoned Elder. "Something else came up…"
"He makes a point," Amelia looked over at Marcus. "To be blunt, if retrieving William was as simple as killing Viktor, we both know you would have done it long before. Regardless of Viktor's own beliefs, you would have only gone this far if something had changed beyond Viktor's death; what was it?"
"I… became aware of a clue about the location of William's prison."
"Just now?" Lucian looked sceptically at Marcus. "What was that clue?"
"The timing of when Viktor targeted Selene's family."
"My family?" Selene looked at Marcus in shock. "What do they have to do with this?"
"The fact that such lengths were taken to conceal the event from the rest of us… intrigued me," Marcus observed with a cool shrug. "Amelia and I were both aware that Viktor had William relocated to a new prison once he found a suitable architect, but we were never aware of the identity of that architect or the location of that prison…until now."
"Until…" Selene began, before her eyes widened in realisation. "The island…"
"Island?" the others repeated.
"My father… he made a castle on an island…" Selene said, her gaze shifting to the locket around Lucian's neck. "And that… the locket… I held it when I was there…"
"This locket?" Lucian looked at the item in question in surprise. "You… you held this? When you were human?"
"There was something…" Selene said, her expression cautious as she reached over to take hold of the locket without removing it from Lucian's neck. The lycan leader seemed uncertain of the motion, but held the locket out to her for a moment, allowing the Death Dealer to take it in her hands. Cautiously placing her thumb on the central green gem, Selene pressed down, and four small, jagged pieces sprang out from the edges.
"What in the world?" Raze looked at it in surprise.
"What is this?" Lucian looked at the locket in surprise.
"It's half of a key," Marcus explained. "Viktor kept the other half on him, and he trusted the second part to Sonja without her knowledge. I was able to see enough of Viktor's blood memories to perceive where he kept both parts of the key, but I think he only revealed that much to taunt me with the knowledge that it would be impossible to assemble the key even if I could find where he had imprisoned my brother in the first place."
"And when he believed I had died with the locket in my possession, he had every reason to believe that the key was lost for good," Lucian observed, even as he took the locket back from Selene and 'locked' it again before he looked back at Marcus. "So you believed that you could take my half of the key and then use Selene's memories to find your brother's prison?"
"I had already retrieved the other half of the key from Viktor's body," Marcus shrugged, indicating one pocket of his coat. "Once I had your pieces of the puzzle, finding William is a matter of time."
"From memories from that long ago?" Michael asked.
"Blood memories can be particularly potent," Amelia observed with a shrug. "If you know what you're looking for, and- if I may be blunt- given Selene's lack of mental training… it could be possible…"
"Possible?" Marcus looked at Amelia with a hopeful smile. "Are you saying-?"
"I am saying," Amelia interjected firmly, "that when you consider that we are already intending to forgive Lucian and the lycan breed for a centuries-long campaign against us… operating on the premise that William has never done anything to hurt anyone with deliberate intent…"
She paused to look at her fellow Elder with a cool glare. "If you are willing to work with us… under specific conditions… it may be possible to at least look into William's situation."
"My lady?" Kahn looked at Amelia incredulously. "With all due respect, if half the tales of the werewolf rampages are true-"
"Many of them are," Amelia cut him off. "But if we are willing to forgive Lucian for his acts, it sets a precedent where we must at least work to give William Corvinus a chance. Ultimately… Marcus's actions can be traced back to a desire to help his brother cope with a terrible illness; if there is a chance to help him now… we must explore the possibility of doing so."
"You really-?" Marcus looked at her with a grin.
"On the understanding that we shall give this one significant effort," Amelia cut her fellow Elder off, holding up a warning finger. "William will be kept under constant observation while lycan and vampire doctors analyse his condition to determine if there is any way to make him better… but if we cannot find a way to help him, he will be dealt with."
"Dealt with?" Marcus repeated, a new edge to his voice.
"We no longer believe that the deaths of William or yourself will automatically kill the rest of us," Amelia pointed out, the same edge to her own voice as she looked at Marcus. "I accept your desire to help your family, but you must also recognise that William is too powerful and too dangerous to be simply allowed to go around unchecked. I will give you access to every resource necessary to try and help William, but you must be prepared for the idea that he cannot be helped."
Marcus simply sat in silence as he looked at the group of vampires and lycans assembled in front of his cell, but the slight nod he gave them was enough for them all to recognise that he accepted the decision.
Amelia just had to hope that her decision to establish a more benevolent authority presence wasn't about to backfire on her with her first and most significant decision in the post-Viktor political climate…