by Ian Thomas
“This is beneath you. Both of you.” Her eyes were fixed on Somerset as the man looked wild despite his age and gentle bearing. Still looking at him, she said firmly, “I’m just going to take Rowan for a walk. Mister Chase, Mister Mills, perhaps you should help Mister Somerset get some air.”
As she guided Rowan through the door, Mills whispered, “we’ll go out the front, you take the back.”
Rowan managed to make it the lake before anything happened. Nothing she could prove exactly, but the sudden lightning strike to a nearby elm was hardly a coincidence.
XII
The afternoon was spent in quiet study. Rebecca and Rowan sat opposite each other, the witch’s back to the door. Nearby, Chase was also reading. Occasionally he’d glance up, each time his eyes would settle on Rowan. After a moment or two, he’d return to the books on the table before him.
Mills was all but absent, appearing once to deliver a couple of books to Rowan. From the covers Rebecca saw they were on past lives and reincarnation. An olive branch, it would seem, from Somerset.
Not that it mattered. So upset from the argument, Rowan had stared at the same page for about twenty minutes, too stuck in her head to focus. The least Rebecca could do was confiscate the other woman’s phone in the hope that her anger didn’t spill over into some brutal message to McLachlan. Or worse, Matteo.
By dinner Rowan had recovered somewhat though prospect of seeing Somerset proved too daunting for her. Thankfully the chapter house was nestled in a picturesque sleepy little town with a few eateries to choose from. Rowan all but jumped at the chance to escape when Rebecca suggested it. Half-expecting Milton’s recommendation to end up being part-crack den, part-crime scene, they were pleasantly surprised.
“Guess he wasn’t always broken,” Rowan said.
“But that’s kinda what they are, huh?” Rebecca asked. “Broken? Most in their own little way.” With little more than what she’d heard, Rebecca had surmised that Somerset was indeed a werewolf, somehow suppressing the transformation and healing to age naturally. Wanting to pry but not about to, Rebecca figured she’d eventually find a time to ask Rowan. Especially as it didn’t seem common enough knowledge for McLachlan to know. Both Chase and Mills were shocked at the knowledge. Suspecting longer serving members of the Clan were aware, Rebecca tried putting it out of her mind.
“Aren’t we all?” Rowan returned the question as the wine arrived.
“Oh I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing. Broken builds character.” Realizing the conversational duties were going to fall to her for the whole evening, Rebecca settled on a safer topic. “Chase doesn’t seem that broken.”
“Oh he is, he just doesn’t like to admit to it.”
“Which leaves Mills.” But Rowan knew about as much as her and the conversation petered out.
Of course, it wasn’t long before Rebecca learned more about Mills.
When they returned, Rowan headed to bed, leaving Rebecca to return to the library. Despite the afternoon upset, she’d managed to develop quite a breadth of knowledge. Chase was still working away, this time on his laptop. He offered her a polite smile as she entered. Apparently a line had been crossed somewhere. One there seemed no coming back from.
“Right, that’s enough reading for one day,” she said, pushing back from the table. The sound caused Chase to look up. “You pulling an all-nighter?”
“Don’t think so,” he muttered. “My brain hurts. Oh, though, before you go…” he shuffled through some papers until he found what he was looking for. “And you may not know the answer to this, but at what point was contact made between Ben and the woman from the Cult? This Julie Dwyer?”
Rebecca looked at him silently. While he was only doing the job tasked of him without judgment or real investment other than connecting dots and clarifying the bigger picture, the question felt intrusive. Not to mention she felt stupid for not knowing the answer.
“Before McLachlan and I started…you know what, you should probably talk to Dylan.”
“McLachlan’s adopted brother?”
“Yeah, he’s kept a pretty tight record of most of this.” She remembered a fairly loose conversation in Matteo’s study when she found Dylan updating his files about a day or two after The Ordeal. Hardly about to tell Chase the extent of Dylan’s records but those probably shouldn’t go to waste.
“He was the one who was in a relationship with her at the time, right?”
“Something like that,” Rebecca replied. “Listen I get that there seems to be a real hands-off vibe to this place but you should really talk to the people involved.”
“I am,” he said with a faint smile.
“Nice try. I was Ordeal-adjacent. New to the group and kinda still on a first date,” she said. His ears seemed to prick up at that. “Well we never decided on what the end point of a date actually was.”
“Surely demonic possession counts.”
“It does, but there was a huge overlap of people that it just kept going. Kinda became a joke at this point.”
“A joke?” he queried, his tone curt.
She took a deep breath. The problem with people connecting dots and not invested in the events, they didn’t understand the nuances of the moments, the words, the exchanges or the emotions. Not even when they had the bigger picture mapped out.
“G’night Mister Chase,” she said warmly as she stood. “Get some rest.”
The chapter house was dark when she left the library, the hallways and stairs a labyrinth to her. Soon enough she found herself at the back stairs by the door to the patio. Outside she saw Mills finishing a smoke. From the brief flare of light as he took a drag, she saw his face screwed up in pain.
“Hey,” she said slowly, stepping out into the cold night.
He looked up, his face hard, yet no reply.
“Things got pretty rough today huh? You okay?”
“This!” he spat, gesturing to the large house behind him. “It’s just all…fucked!”
“Oh I hear that,” she replied, though not with the same bitterness he was projecting. Just after The Ordeal, Rebecca had made peace with how absurd and brutal the supernatural was. Still reeling from the veil torn away, she had seen two guys fight over a cab as if it were the most normal thing in the world, a kid steal a woman’s purse, a young girl pull a knife on a man in the subway, and the whole time no one did a thing. Alongside that she’d heard racist and sexist comments tossed around like breathing. Humanity was not a lot better than the supernaturals. Just without the very real apocalyptic undertones. Though at least some supernaturals were trying to right any imbalance.
For Mills though, this ran deeper.
“No, I don’t think you do. They get alongside you, share your life, fool you into trusting them. Then – just when you think things are on the up – they turn.”
“Really?” she challenged.
“Yes, really,” he replied, uncomfortable with her tone.
“So you’re making this thing with Somerset all about you?”
“Screw you. He lied to me.”
“He lied by omission.”
“Still. A lie.”
“We can argue this. Like a lot. But maybe you gotta see the man first and the…” there was no other word for it, she realized, “…monster second.”
“You’ve been here, what, less than a day and suddenly you’re an expert?” he raged. “Gimme a fucking break.”
Deciding he was in too dark a hole to listen to her, Rebecca headed toward the house.
“I-I’m,” he began. “I’m used to doing things. Being amongst it. On duty. I was a cop before coming here. Detective actually. Youngest in the department. Had a good life.” He faltered in the story. When his voice caught in his throat, Rebecca turned. She had a sense of what was coming, dreading each word. Stopping him would have been a mercy, she thought. “Was covering a string of murders in town. Real grisly ones. Traced them to a group of drifters. Never expected them to be vampires.” Struggling to speak
, he looked at the blue sky, his eyes glassy. “First arrest failed because of their coercion powers. So they played with me. Not that it was much of a game. They k-killed my folks. Then my sister and her family. Then my…wife.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, walking back to him.
His gaze snapped back at her, eyes blazing with furious tears. “So I don’t fucking understand how you could date one of these things!”
“You don’t need to answer that,” a woman said behind her. Rebecca hadn’t heard her approach. Mills didn’t respond. In fact he didn’t do anything. Just stared angrily at them. “I’m Siobhan,” the redhead said, extending a hand.
“Rebecca.” Unnerved by Mills’ frozen stare, she was forced to ask, “is he okay?”
“Not really. Still carries a lot of pain from what happened. Survivor guilt is just the tip of the PTSD iceberg.”
“I meant the frozen thing?”
“Oh, that’s me, sorry. A protective fugue spell. One of the more extreme strategies to come out of our counseling sessions.”
“You’re a therapist? You’re his therapist?”
“Therapist first, witch second. He gave me permission to shut him down whenever he’s close to losing it.”
“Can you teach me that?” Rebecca asked, eagerly.
“Sorry, comes with wiccan blood,” Siobhan smiled. “But there’re other things I can teach you.”
“S’what I’m here for,” Rebecca replied. “Well actually no it’s more the library.”
“And I heard that’s been going well,” Siobhan said. She was elegant and well-kept, more professional in her coat and scarf than Rebecca expected. Measuring all witches against Rowan seemed narrow-minded.
“That all you heard?” Rebecca asked brusquely. “Sorry, we’ve just met and here I am being a bitch.”
“Oh no I heard it all, that’s why I came back. Knew it would have an impact on Mills.”
“And Somerset for that matter,” Rebecca said thoughtfully.
“Very true. But he’s lived that same lie for sixty years. He was on borrowed time in all honesty.”
“That is pretty damn honest. Will he be alright?”
Siobhan smiled. “For Somerset it’s more his age will make the admission difficult.”
“And Mills?”
“Therein lies the rub. What he told you – about his family and the vampires – well, he omitted something.” Siobhan looked at the frozen man deciding if it were her place to fill in the blank. “It’s common knowledge if you look for it but just so you know, the vampires turned his best friend, making him part of the killing crew.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah practically brothers.”
“So Somerset firstly lying and then turning out to be a supernatural himself dredged up a lot of pain.”
“Exactly. There’s a brutality to us that is often inescapable.”
“Will he be okay?” Rebecca asked. Looking at Mills she was more unsettled now. The rawness of his anger and loss exposed to the world.
“You should probably leave.”
“No, I’d like to stay,” Rebecca replied. “He told me about his – himself. Walking away from that would be wrong.”
With a gentle smile, Siobhan looked at Mills. Suddenly he drew a long shuddering breath, the rage flooding out of him. He looked from one woman to the other. Wondering if he’d been aware the whole time just frozen from speech or action, Rebecca saw him soften towards Siobhan.
“Because it was done to him,” Rebecca said after a moment. “It’s not who he is.”
“You don’t need to explain,” Siobhan replied.
“I-I’m sorry,” Mills said.
“For which part? Being the world’s lousiest tour guide or sounding a lot like how my parents will when they find out?”
“Both,” he replied, an embarrassed smile warming his features.
“Good answer,” Rebecca said. “Now can we go in please? It’s freezing out here.”
They headed indoors but a mutual restlessness suggested sleep wasn’t likely. Siobhan suggested tea and a chat. Mills went for a beer but soon enough the three were sitting in the empty dining room talking lightly to keep the dark at bay.
XIII
Standing in the foyer of Hotel Guimard, McLachlan felt his stain react intensely to the vampires around him.
“Weapons?”
“What’re the options?” McLachlan asked, thinking it was weird for them to arm him.
“No,” Seth sighed. “Are you carrying any?”
“Nope, unless you count these?” he replied, putting to his extended fangs.
“Maybe don’t bite anyone okay?”
“Done,” McLachlan replied.
His face had stopped aching which meant he’d gone full-vamp on them. Thankfully he’d eaten on the way uptown, two Five Guys burgers ‘all-the-way’ had quelled the hunger he knew would come. Didn’t stop the physical change though, he thought, running his tongue over the extended fangs. When he arrived at the hotel, his face and mouth burned as the change took hold with so many vampires in residence for the court. He glanced at a mirror, startled to see his reflection was translucent.
Sadly, despite eating, the hunger was still there. Just…more manageable.
“Vamp looks good on you,” Rufus said as Seth patted McLachlan down.
“Don’t get any ideas,” McLachlan said.
“They’re ready for you,” Seth said formally.
“Should hope so,” McLachlan muttered to himself, “been almost a month.”
“Maybe don’t lead with that,” Rufus said. “Also…excellent hearing remember.”
With Seth in front and Rufus behind, McLachlan was processed up the stairs and into the vampire court. The room was crowded. Seated around the room on plush antique furniture sat older vampires with their younger kin standing at their backs. At the head of the room, Gracchus sat on a raised dais, his expression unreadable.
They stopped in the middle of the room, Seth stepping to McLachlan’s left, Seth to his right. Together they genuflected before Gracchus, left arm across left knee and head bowed.
“Nailed it,” McLachlan grunted.
“Shut up!” Seth hissed.
“Next stop Vegas,” Rufus muttered with a smile.
“Not you too.”
“Rise,” Gracchus said after a moment of them being supplicant.
“Gracious Lord Gracchus,” McLachlan said, thankful for the quick protocol refresher Rufus had given him on the subway uptown. “I am honored to be welcomed into your hallowed court. And to bask in your venerable presence.” He’d forgotten just how douchey vampires could be. “It is with the utmost respect and protective interests for your court that I sought an audience.”
“We welcome you, vessel, and await your words.”
“Two bodies have been found in the city. After many tests it has been deemed that both were victims of vampire attacks.” The room exploded in uproar. He expected this though. Next up he’d have to break down the tests that were run, who was involved, and how they were selected. It’d be methodical and pointless but he understood that they would feel marginalized if they weren’t heard. He’d wondered if he should’ve made a PowerPoint.
“Do you blame them?!” a voice demanded.
“These accords’re starving us!” another yelled.
“Blood is life.”
Whoa, McLachlan thought. While not unexpected he never considered the vampires would be so vocal. Especially in their own court. And in flagrant violation of their own decorum. Slurs were thrown at him ranging from fascist to bastard to ones he wouldn’t be repeating in polite company. A few he had to wonder if they were directed at him or Gracchus.
Studying the vampire regent, he looked older than he had last seen him. Of course that had been a couple of weeks back when he ran into Gracchus and Sabine. The regent had seemed happy, almost young, or at least every bit as his 30-something countenance portrayed him to be. No mean feat considering hi
s two millennia age. What he felt for Sabine stripped time and pressure from him. Where was she now, McLachlan wondered.
“More mongrel bullshit!”
“Damon!” Gracchus shouted. “You don’t have the floor.”
“Neither, would it seem, do you.”
Nervous excitement rippled through the assembled vampires. Some disdainful of the young vampire as he strode onto the main floor, others keen for the confrontation. McLachlan felt Seth tense beside him. From what he knew Damon was an underling, young in vampire terms with only a decade or two under his belt since having been turned. He was young. Like most of his supporters around the room. Scanning their expressions, McLachlan surmised there were more vampires of his ilk than older vampires.
“Your grace,” McLachlan said, hoping to head Damon off before their politics overshadowed his mission. “I am shamed by the toll these accords have taken–”
“And you should be,” Damon interrupted, enjoying the audience. “We already lived in shadows like crawling things. But at least we were true to ourselves. Your accords erased who we were, who we are. I don’t see limits imposed on the hounds. Nor the witchfolk. And it was their war that brought the accords to bear. A group of rabid dogs intent on world domination who used our kind, subverted our wills, enslaved us to shape their war. And yet we’re the ones to suffer.” He turned to the room, arms wide open. “Where’s the justice in that?”
A cheer of approval went up.
“Damon!” Gracchus roared, but his voice sounded hollow.
“No, there is no justice. There is only pain, oppression, starvation, and the truth.”
The room hushed.
“The truth that our vaunted leader would rather lie down with dogs than drink with his kind.”
McLachlan broke the silence as only he could and started clapping.
“Nice speech, how long you spend on that? Couple of days? A week? A-minus all the way there, bud. But you lose marks for lack of research and objectivity.”
“Why should we listen to you?”
“Well, thanks for asking,” McLachlan said, stepping forward. If Damon was gonna grandstand and have a floor show, then so was he. Protocol be damned. “Because I’m not one of you. Nor am I wolf or witch. I am me.”
