Chapter 99
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 98
“Hey Artie, what’s up?” Gregory asks, chipper and happy like… like there isn’t a crisis on, and Arthur feels a hot flash of anger lash through him.
“Where the fuck’d you come from?!” is out of his mouth before he realizes: Wait, what, no, he should be relieved that Gregory is alright… shouldn’t he? The heat is still bubbling at the back of his throat. “Where did you go? There’s a crisis going on!”
“I went on patrol,” Gregory says, his tone suggesting that of course he did, Arthur should’ve known that. “To make sure everything was safe.”
“Oh, and did you by any chance happen to notice that Mrs Harker walked off and there’s a vampire lurking around?” Arthur snaps back, his tone so sharp and sarcastic in his ears that part of him is surprised by it. The rest of him is very satisfied with it.
“A vampire?” Gregory says, shifts to his demon form, bares his teeth.
“Or two,” Arthur retorts. “Now fucking move and stop blocking the aisle, I have reconnaissance to do!” And no time to explain every little thing to Gregory because he couldn’t be bothered to be there when the relevant discussions took place.
Gregory does move. Of course, he also joins Arthur as he canters down to the gate- on the grass, not the gravel, so it’s less likely for anyone in the castle to hear him. He tells Gregory they’re going to check out the abbey- from a distance. Carefully. Just to get an idea of what’s going on.
Gregory doesn’t ask why the abbey, or how Arthur knows, and that’s… well, that’s just typical, isn’t it? Not like Gregory ever inquires much into anything. That anger keeps bubbling along, and maybe it’s better than fear, but Arthur tries to push it away- he needs a clear head. He can’t afford to have his judgement compromised because he’s annoyed with Gregory.
But for whatever reason, the anger won’t budge. He can’t shunt it to the side, to the back of his mind. Can’t put it in that spot where he knows it’s there, but he can’t feel it, where he can get his mind still and clear and focused over whatever emotion wants to distract him.
That, of course, doesn’t help, because now he’s angry at being angry, and that’s ridiculous. Deep breaths. Hannibal’s reins in his hands, the bushes lining the driveway scraping against his boots as they push through, head out through the gate. (Gregory jumps over them. Show off.)
They’re not far down the road before Arthur hears two loud, sharp bangs from the direction of the abbey. Gunshots.
Gregory takes off. Because of course he does.
Cursing, Arthur rides after him. This is not how he wanted to approach this! This is not stealthy, this is not careful, and what part of “reconnaissance” doesn’t Gregory understand?! Why is Arthur forever running after reckless people with no sense of self-preservation?!
At least the night is clear, and the moon full. It means the landscape is all black shadows and silver light, but at least Arthur can see reasonably well. He’s still trusting Hannibal to figure out where to put his hooves in the confusing mosaic of heather and grass on the ground, but Gregory’s large form is easy to follow.
There’s another gunshot, and Arthur sees it flash against the ruins of the abbey across the field. And the shape of someone running, too fast for human speed, towards the cliff. Gregory hurtles towards that running shape. If things were up to Arthur, he would be approaching from behind the cover of some bushes and wind-twisted trees that are dotting the open landscape here and there, but it’s not up to him, so he has to ride here, exposed and vulnerable and visible to all and sundry for miles around.
Because Gregory can’t listen to simple instructions. Arthur growls under his breath, and grabs Hannibal’s neck strap in case of fast retreat.
Where the gunshot came from, a yellow, bouncing light emerges, and a voice drifts over to him on the night wind. Mrs Harker? Shouting something? Carrying a lantern?
Gregory collides with the running (fleeing?) figure- or should have, but suddenly he’s flailing at the edge of the cliff while the figure seems to melt into the ground. Hannibal is still cantering after him, and Arthur forces himself to not grit his teeth, to not clamp up, to keep his legs long. He can do this, he can stay in the wave-like rhythm of Hannibal’s strides. The figure reappears, behind Gregory, swipes at him.
Arthur hears Gregory’s roar over the sound of the ocean and the wind in his ears, the pounding of his own heart. But it can’t have been a bad injury, because Gregory slashes with his own claws in return. Again, it’s like he’s fighting ink, or a shadow, simply flowing away from him.
Mrs Harker’s calls finally resolve into words: “Get out of here! …’s a trap!”
A trap? Arthur sits up, instinctively slows Hannibal- maybe a bit too harshly, because there’s a lash of tail and indignant snort while Hannibal’s stride falters, his back end dips under Arthur as he breaks. Arthur is jostled around, needs a moment to regain his balance, but stays in the saddle. “Sorry,” he mutters, but strains his ears for Mrs Harker’s voice.
“Children, leave!” she shouts, and sounds like she really means that.
Well. He’s here to check up on her, and she seems alright, and Arthur does not want to stay around for any traps. A swirl of wind eddies around him, and something catches his eye southwards- huge clouds tumbling across the sky, a massive black thunderhead that looks out of place in the otherwise clear night, moonlight shimmering on the edges and making it look only more ominous. Also, that is moving fast. Way too fast.
Whatever that is, Arthur doesn’t want to meet it. He probably shouldn’t, because what about Mrs Harker?, and also, drawing attention to his own position?, but he yells: “Gregory! Get the fuck over here! Come on!“
And then he whirls Hannibal around (well, as much of a whirl as he can manage yet, anyway), and asks him: “Get me out of here, please.”
Hannibal springs into motion, lengthens out under Arthur in a way he never has before, the heather turning into a blur of blacks and greys while his hooves thrum on the ground and Arthur holds on to his strap for dear life. Little wisps of fire dance at the base of Hannibal’s mane, Arthur can feel the heat of them against the backs of his hands together with the coarse whip of the strands.
But Hannibal keeps it at that, doesn’t go so fast his mane and tail burst into full fire so that he looks like a horse-shaped comet. Which is very cool, but Arthur hasn’t worked out yet how not to get burned.
And yes, he’s leaving Mrs Harker behind. But as Quincy said, she’s an adult, not a lost child. She can look after herself. She went out here by herself, presumably with a plan. And she clearly knows something she didn’t tell them. So… so Arthur’s sort of okay with letting her fend for herself. (If anything happens to her, he’ll feel awful and really very much regret this and possibly never forgive himself, he knows.)
And Gregory… well, Gregory shouldn’t have charged in in the first place, so he can damn well charge out again. At least that was the right choice, Arthur thinks when he notices a small shape appearing and disappearing in the heather alongside them: Gregory, teleporting along their course.
A course that isn’t headed for the gate, Arthur realizes. Oh no, Hannibal is making straight for the fence of the castle grounds. The very tall fence. The very tall fence made of what may as well be iron spears.
Arthur swallows hard, and leans further forward, lets the reins slide through his fingers to give Hannibal his head and plenty of slack, grabs tight to the chest strap low in front of Hannibal’s shoulders as he hunkers down.
He can feel Hannibal gathering himself, shortening his strides, can feel all that speed and power gathering in his haunches. And then the fence is right there in front of them, and Hannibal surges upwards, higher and higher while the wall of iron comes closer, falls away, swings past under them. That fence has to be ten feet or something high, but Hannibal clears it, and on the way down, Arthur has time to think: “Take that, Gregory!”
Then they land, and he bangs his shoulder (but at least not his nose) into the crest of Hannibal’s neck as the downward movement stops and turns into forward movement again, and he loses a stirrup, but Hannibal is running off the momentum and slowing down.
Arthur clings for a moment longer, and catches his breath. Then he straightens up, looks over his shoulder at the towering fence they just flew over, and giggles. He’d like to say it was a less silly noise than that, but with how his heart is pounding and his hands and knees are shaking, no, it comes out as a nervous giggle.
“That was amazing,” he tells Hannibal, who turns his head and flicks his ears to give Arthur a very pleased-with-himself look. “Yepp. Amazing,” Arthur confirms, and leans forward to hug him.
“Okay.” Arthur takes another deep breath, picks up his stirrup again, and nudges them towards the castle. “Right, some kind of trap, got to warn the others.” Hannibal makes sure he’s safely seated again, and then falls back into a brisk canter across the grounds, gets Arthur to the kitchen door in mere minutes.
Arthur leaps off of him there, gives him another hug, and promises he’ll be right back to get the tack off. “…Also, please don’t eat anything with the bridle on.” Hannibal gives him a cheeky maybe-I-will look, but then nudges Arthur towards the door with his nose, and, really- warning people first, cleaning gross stuff from bridles second.
How is he going to present this? He’s flushed and wind-blown and out of breath, and Arthur hasn’t quite figured out how he’s going to explain things when he bursts into the dining room.
The dining room is empty.
Dread starts chewing on Arthur’s insides, while he tries to tell himself he’s overreacting, just because the others were planning to have dinner and should be here and aren’t doesn’t mean… But he’s already running down the hallway, calling their names. His feet carry him to the last place he’s seen them, and he rips open the library doors.
Everything jumps at him all at once.
A shattered window. A bookcase toppled to the floor.
A splash of red hair, a pale face staring upwards- Quincy, prone.
A groan, a slurred mumble, and a blond head, broad shoulders, John crawling over shiny floorboards, batting at fallen books in his way.
Arthur doesn’t remember crossing the room, but then he’s next to John, on his knees, his hands hovering over him.
There’s blood in his hair. Blood in blond hair, and John’s blue eyes are glassy, and for a moment, just a moment, Arthur is back on a London street with sun warm on his neck and shoulders and looking down at blood in brown hair and glassy, unseeing green eyes, and he’s all alone and nobody’s going to help him and his only friend is going to die.
And then John gives a stubborn, if woozy grunt, and lurches forward another inch, towards Quincy, and Arthur’s back, here and now, and he doesn’t have time to freak out or be upset, and this time, this time, goddammit, this time this isn’t Gregory or Harker and he can fix this.
He puts his hands on John’s shoulder, and concentration and magic and spell and shove, and there it is, the feeling of his magic running into the waiting space for it, and fixing it.
~~~~
“Get the stake out.” John repeats, but this time it comes out, he can hear himself properly again. Can feel himself again, see the world around him more clearly. There’s somebody kneeling next to him. Arthur! Arthur’s back and he must have healed him. Fuck. How long has it been? “I’m fine! Help our molly!”
~~~~
Quincy, yes! Arthur whirls to him and… and there’s… there’s a piece of chair leg sticking out of his chest, and for one, terrible moment, Arthur’s sure he’s dead. It looks like he has to be dead.
Then he remembers that thing he read, about how staking and drowning doesn’t kill dhampirs even though that makes no logical sense, and he scrambles over the foot of floor between them and… does he just pull it out?
If it going in (he shudders) or being in hasn’t killed Quincy, probably pulling it out won’t, either. Out, then heal for all he’s worth, Arthur figures. Takes a deep breath, and takes the wood where it’s still smooth and lacquered and carved above the pale, splintered cut. And pulls.
There’s more resistance than he expects, and he has to put his other hand on Quincy’s chest, and pull. And then he tosses the wood aside and doesn’t think about the blood staining it, or the hole in Quincy’s clothes, or his chest, no, he’s not thinking about any of that, he’s concentrating and magic and spell and into Quincy it goes, even as, the moment the stake fully leaves Quincy’s chest, he surges up with a shriek, hands coming up to shield himself, to clutch at his chest, and starts to whimper. “Cycy… she… she…”
~~~~
Quincy’s entire body is shaking, nothing wants to obey, he can’t get up, he can’t run away, he can hardly breathe, every inhale a laboured wheeze, but they still come faster. The best he can do is hug himself, protect his chest, and try to stop seeing Cycy come at him in his mind.
~~~~
John fights up to his feet and sways over, crashes back down and is about to clap his hand on Quincy’s shoulder, hesitates because touching a molly, but no, fuck this, he puts his hand down. “Hey, hey, molly, she’s gone. You’re good. Arthur got the stake out. You’re fine. Breathe.”
He’s trying to stop him from rocking back and forth but the look he gets back is panicked, pathetic, and John groans inwardly, because why does he have to be wired this way? He can all but feel the tattoo on his chest burn, he has to protect this dolt. Darcy loves this fucking dolt, so he better make sure he is getting better.
~~~~
Arthur nods along- a few times too many, makes himself stop. “You’re fine. Also I healed you. I healed both of you.” There’s another nervous giggle scratching at his throat, but a much less happy-nervous one, and he swallows it back down.
“Stakes don’t kill dhampirs. Even though that makes no sense. But they don’t. Also drowning doesn’t. Which is good, ’cause you can’t swim. Did anyone mention that you can’t swim?” He’s rambling, isn’t he? Arthur takes a deep breath, and makes himself stop. It’s okay. They’re alive. Everyone’s alive. Everyone, except… He looks around. “Where’s Darcy?”
A trap. Was it not a trap for Mrs Harker? Was it a trap for them? Did the vampire come and steal Darcy away while Arthur was outside?
~~~~
Right from where he’s still trying to hold Quincy steady, John puts his free hand on Arthur’s shoulder, then sighs long and hard. “Through the window after she made sure we couldn’t stop her.”
~~~~
“What?” Arthur looks at John, not comprehending. Then at the window. The window with no shards in front of it. Logically, the window something went out of, not came in through. “But… what?” That makes no sense. “Darcy wouldn’t!” he protests. Darcy would never hurt someone she cares about!
~~~~
John wants to believe that, too, but he also saw right into her red eyes when she shoved him… It’s not the first time she shoved him against a wall, just that this time it was a bookshelf, and he crashed into it hard enough to make it fall over, those fucking things are heavy… He’s trying not to think about how many broken bones Arthur just healed on him. “Under that vampire’s influence, she did.”
~~~~
That gets another wheezing whimper out of Quincy as he nods, too hard, too jagged and why does the shaking not want to stop? It’s over, it’s over now, why is he freaking out now?!
~~~~
Arthur shivers, and mimics Quincy in hugging himself. If that vampire can make Darcy attack them… what can’t he do?
~~~~
Great, now John has two people freaking out. He’s not the people person here! What is he supposed to do about it? He’s dealing with the fact that his girl is gone. He needs to get her back! He needs to make sure she’s safe. He needs to tell her that he still loves her because he knows that she’ll freak out, too, when she hears what she did.
And that thought gets him to chuckle and stand up. He better pick that bookshelf up. If Darcy sees it, she’ll give him those confused puppy eyes she sometimes pulls. Her drac can be a little bit of a dolt. Yeah… rubbing his shoulder, he walks over, she shoved him. That’s all she did.
Maybe she just again forgot how strong she is? Yeah, that must be it. That’s all she did.
He hopes that arse of a vampire underestimates her as much as she underestimates herself, and learns better than to try to use her. Putting his hands underneath the bookshelf, he heaves with a grunt, this fucking thing has no right to be this heavy and still actually fall over from him crashing into it.
~~~~
John standing up jolts Arthur out of his thoughts- this isn’t the time and place to freak out. He can do that once… once everything is over! For now, they need to get themselves back in order and figure out how to find Darcy and get her back! (From a scary, powerful vampire… No! There has to be a way!)
He takes a deep breath, gives his upper arms a quick rub, then focuses on Quincy. He doesn’t look like he’s dealing well with this- no wonder, this is probably the first time he’s encountered scary supernatural stuff. What can Arthur do? Quincy’s healed, it’s not physical, so, mental comfort. “Um, d’you… want a cup of tea? Or a blanket?” Or, wait, what does Quincy like- ah! “Cup of cocoa?”
~~~~
Why the hell can’t he stop shaking?! Quincy feels like an idiot, like a total idiot, and he doesn’t want to. He wants to stop shaking and he wants to stop feeling like he might throw up and he wants to feel like he is in any sort of control of himself.
But he can’t.
He feels trapped in a body that hasn’t bloody noticed that it’s not dead and not fighting and… fighting, he doesn’t want to fight! How often has he said it? He’s a lover, a healer, not a fighter! And then Arthur tries to take care of him and he hates that even more! But the best he can manage is to unclamp his hands from his own arms and instead clamp them onto Arthur, hug him, hold him, in the worst semblance of helping he has ever pretended to, but it’s all he can do.
~~~~
Arthur gives a surprised huff of breath when he suddenly finds himself hugged… and doesn’t know how to feel about it. On the one hand, hugs are nice. On the other hand, he doesn’t know Quincy particularly well. Also, it’s chewing at his own fragile composure. But if it helps Quincy to hold on for a bit… well, okay, he supposes he can stay put.
~~~~
Quincy wants to stop feeling so bloody useless! He wishes he could use how pissed off he is about that to stop shaking, but his limbs still don’t want to obey. All he can do is to cling tight onto Arthur, let his tears fall silently rather than be a sobbing mess, and follow John with his eyes. That bloody brute is up and doing things and he hates him for that… just about as much as he admires him.
~~~~
Quincy… doesn’t seem to be noticeably calming down? And Arthur’s starting to feel rather awkward. Maybe John has the right idea, move around, do something productive. Though with how Quincy is shivering still, he might have a hard time shelving books.
Well, if he’s stuck here as Quincy’s plushie, he might as well get to work on figuring things out. Even at the risk of making Quincy more upset. “Um… Can you tell me what exactly happened?” Arthur asks him. “Or is there any clue as to where she went?”
~~~~
Talking! Yes, he can bloody do that. Even though he sounds terrible! “It came out of nowhere. She was telling John not to feel bad about having overlooked my mother. Telling him that he’s always so protective and that she gets that. Cycy was all sweet. Trying to figure out if she should cook for us again. But… but then I caught another thought and then…”
Quincy has to focus on his breathing for a few moments before he can go on. “’Come to me, beloved.’ That was the thought and she… she only pushed John away. I could just about see him go flying before she was on me. I remember the sound of the splintering wood and her… She looked concentrated, you know… She does that thing when she tries to get something right, did it with us hanging out and doing makeup and well, her tongue sticks out a little bit, she was aiming really carefully, and I… I could actually… I could actually still hear things and see things, well, only the ceiling…”
~~~~
With a stack of books in his arms John comes over and pats Quincy’s shoulder again. “I would have gotten over to you eventually. Promise.”
Unless he died from a broken head, Arthur thinks- but then, this must’ve happened soon after he left, they didn’t even make it out of the library, so maybe the fact that John didn’t die before Arthur came back means he wouldn’t have? Arthur really doesn’t like thinking of John dying, or Quincy for that matter, and he shudders at how close that was. John just hitting something at a slightly worse angle, or a bit more speed or strength, and Arthur might’ve come back to…
He nods, though he doesn’t know whether talking about it is going to make Quincy feel better or worse, but he did seem to jump on the talking. “It’s only supposed to paralyze you. Which is bad enough, I’m sure, but at least, well, it could be worse…”
~~~~
“Exactly. Now, Molly, get up, I could use some tea.” Even as John grunts it over his shoulder, he can see the snarl on Quincy’s lips. Good, that worked. It didn’t pass him by that the molly jumped on doing something for them last time, or that he is hugging Arthur rather than wanting to be hugged. That one needs to make himself feel better by taking care of others. Pretty damn obvious from what he heard about him having hugged Arthur after Harker’s death.
But of course, Arthur isn’t really the one to notice patterns like that. As long as John can make himself just look like an arse, he’s okay with using a little bit of his own observational skills to help out.