Chapter 115
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 114
Vlad really doesn’t like this pattern, now he has to slink back empty-handed a second time, and he is glad that he makes a point out of not intruding on anybody’s minds, tempted as he may get, but still, it is beyond him how Mr Cobb would just flat out refuse to come back with him. Stress about his wife being in danger should fuel his wish to help with the solution, not make him stubbornly and rather immaturely refuse to leave the pub he’s in.
And then Vlad finds himself walking in on a crying hunter and his son obviously doing heavy emotional support on Mr Silver, so what did he miss out on now? Luckily, his wife doesn’t seem too affected, so he steps up to her and inquires, finds himself unwillingly feeling for the hunter, because yes, the thought of giving his child the feeling of betraying them would hit him hard, too.
In a way, isn’t that exactly the feeling he has about how Quincy took the revelation of who Basarab really is?
Shoving that pain away, he still needs help with his own situation, so he gently clears his throat and asks who might know of a way to convince Mr Cobb to carry his own responsibility. The man seems paralysed by stress and refuses to stop drinking at the local pub.
~~~~
Arthur didn’t mean to, but he groans and drops his head on the table. Then sighs and pushes to his feet. “…I’ll get him…”
~~~~
“I’ll come with. Boyfriend management is kind of my thing, and if I fuss any more over Blondie he’ll punch me again,” Quincy offers and gets exactly the grunt he was aiming for, the one he knows full well means that John needed the support but is grateful for Quincy giving him the out of making it seem like Quincy’s the one who did.
And he suspects his mother is on to him because, with an overplayed sigh, she tells the two manly men that there’s some altar building involved in this, too, so how about the old softie cries because he keeps hitting his thumb with a hammer rather from being overly emotional.
That gets her a glare from Jack and a chuckle from Lucy, who takes the suggestion and herds John and Art, gentler, to yes, get to doing something with their hands rather than overthinking now.
“Um,” Arthur says, “there should be enough space for everyone and a view of the night sky- and, well, it’d also be good if it was a magically-charged location, but I’m not sure how to find one of those, yet…”
~~~~
Having relocated up to the mezzanine but definitely not missing the show with these adorable emotion dispensers even for a minute, Llew comments that please, he’s the landlord, (well, technically his sister is, but unnecessary details are unnecessary,) obviously he can show them. “Hop hop, after me!”
~~~~
Arthur supposes he’ll have to trust Llew that far, what with him being the one handing them the ritual in the first place. That probably means he wants it to succeed. But what does he get out of it?
Darcy’s good will or something, apparently. Arthur gives the fey another distrustful look, then turns to Quincy. “…Okay if we go by horse?”
He wants Hannibal with him, he decides, if he ventures outside the wards. In the dark. Mr Basarab would’ve mentioned if he had reason to expect Radu to be lurking anywhere nearby, right?
~~~~
“I have to bring my horse back to the rental stable anyway.” Quincy’s not going to add ‘before it gets so expensive that I have to ask Cobb for money after all,’ but he also gives the dark windows a look, together with the fact that Lucy and his father are up.
What’s bigger? His fear or his pride… oh who is he kidding, his pride, but he’s a coward and he knows it.
Luckily, his mother knows it, too, and gives his father a firm request to bring their son back safe but not to be in the sniping range of his insulted teenage pride. Silently he thanks her, out loud he huffs and just marches out, feeling a lot safer indeed for knowing he’ll have a voivode lurking around who will protect him. (Shut up, heart, on getting another idiotic pang at that thought.)
~~~~
Arthur certainly isn’t going to complain at having voivode oversight from the one who has sent Radu fleeing rather than risk a confrontation a few times now, so leads the way to the stables.
“Um… Do you know how to tack up the horse?” it occurs to him to ask while he’s opening the stall door for Hannibal and waving him into the aisle. “Yes, we’re going into town,” he tells him at the curious ear flip he’s getting, which gets him an excited snort and nose nudge to his shoulder in turn.
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“That’s what the people working at stables do, isn’t it?” Right, no stable boys here, so Quincy asks the house if it can help him with that, pretty please?
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The white horse in the stall jerks up its head and snorts, wide-eyed, as Arthur sees some patches of dirt disappear from its coat and some stalks of straw vanish from its mane.
“Um… I don’t think it would appreciate having the tack put on magically,” Arthur says. “I’ll do it once I’m finished with Hannibal, okay?”
There’s one large patch of mud on Hannibal’s side, and his feet are a bit caked, but other than that, he’s clean enough, so it should only take a few minutes to brush that out.
~~~~
Oops, Quincy didn’t mean to upset the horse like that, so he tells it sorry, voice soft and gentle as he knows works on animals and come to think of it, his father isn’t in the stables. Vampires and horses don’t get along or what?
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Arthur smiles at seeing Quincy soothe the horse, which seems to appreciate it, ears tipping towards him. Probably nothing else strange happening also helps it relax again.
Of course, then Hannibal decides to stretch out his neck, take a step over, and sniff at Quincy, experimentally bumps his shoulder with his nose. Arthur grumbles at him as he has to move with him to keep scrubbing the dirt out of his coat.
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Internally sighing, because what is it with today and him getting covered in hair, Quincy turns his horse voice on Arthur’s horse, still such a bloody nice drama prop, and steps closer so he can take a proper sniff at him.
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Arthur swears Hannibal is amused by Quincy’s soothing tones and trying to look innocent. He has that confirmed when Hannibal sniffs Quincy’s pockets, finds no treats… and yawns in his face.
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That’s not horse teeth… and that means that thing is magical and not an animal, so oh no, you overgrown plushie! Making himself tall, Quincy huffs right back at the yawn. “I’m the reward-obsessed diva here, just so we’re clear, horse face.”
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“Hannibal!” Arthur chides, glad that Quincy isn’t freaked out by a faceful of creepy nightmare dentition. “You are awful!”
Hannibal makes a sound that’s definitely more snicker than whicker, turns his head to give Arthur a mischievous look.
Arthur puts his hands on his hips and tries to look stern. “Awful!” he repeats.
Hannibal grins, and then gives Quincy’s chest another good-natured nudge, which makes Arthur sigh.
“Okay, he likes you,” he tells Quincy. “Sorry about that. And you are not getting any treats until we’re back,” he adds to Hannibal. “Nope, not even if you’re trying to look sorry, I know you’re not.”
Hannibal gives up on the attempt, and instead settles down while looking satisfied with himself and his little prank.
~~~~
“Well, at least that proves your naughty, bitey horse has taste.” With a huff, Quincy shrugs, then waits until Arthur turns his back to give Hannibal a chin scritch with a wink. “Just keep your fur off of my nicer clothes and we’ll get along, you oversized drama prop.”
~~~~
Quincy’s comments make Arthur chuckle, and, okay… maybe Hannibal was trying to cheer him up? He did definitely get him into a better mood.
“He’s very dramatic,” Arthur agrees. “He even catches on fire if he runs fast enough. It’s very cool.”
He kneels to give Hannibal’s feet a quick scrub and clean out his hooves, then starts putting on his tack.
And he catches Quincy giving Hannibal some chin scratches out of the corner of his eye, much to Hannibal’s satisfaction.
A few minutes later, they’re on their way into town. Quincy’s horse keeps giving Hannibal uncertain looks and keeps noticeably out of range of teeth or hooves, but Hannibal behaves and it follows along well enough. They stop first at the rental stable by the train station for Quincy to return it, then walk over to the pub. Well, Whitby has more than one pub, but one of the most central and liveliest ones is along the harbour, which is just down the road from the train station.
And it definitely is lively- they can hear the ruckus in the Black Lion for yards before they ever get there. It’s not the friendly kind of ruckus, either, that’s the distinct sounds of a bar fight, shouts and crashes.
Arthur halts, exchanges a look with Quincy, who’s looking a bit pale, even for a dhampir at night. And Arthur feels a sudden, big surge of annoyance.
“Here,” he says, and hands Quincy Hannibal’s reins. Not that Hannibal needs watching, but Quincy looks like he wouldn’t mind having something to do with his hands, like maybe give Hannibal some more pets.
Then he takes a deep breath, and pushes the doors open, and marches into the heat and noise and chaos of the pub. He ducks some flailing elbows and steps over fallen bottles, locates Gregory at the bar.
He’s leaning back against the bar with a beer in his hand and watching the brawl in the tap room, where three guys are fighting with two others and what’s probably the landlord is trying to get them to stop and a vague ring of other patrons are cheering them on. And he looks kind of… satisfied? Like this is fun, or something.
Arthur scowls, and walks up to him, and grabs him by the arm, and drags him off of his stool and out of the pub, ignores all flailing and squawking and calls of his name.
Once he has Gregory outside, he rounds on him, puts his hands on his hips (meaning it a lot more than he did with Hannibal earlier), narrows his eyes, and demands what the fuck he thinks he’s doing? They need him at the castle. His wife needs him at the castle. Does he remember her? Darcy? Currently in trouble? Ring any bells?
Of course, Gregory tries to calm him down, but there’s a hard, throbbing ball of anger in Arthur’s chest, and he hauls himself onto Hannibal, frees up a stirrup and holds out a hand to Quincy if he wants to get on behind him for the ride back, and tells Gregory he can fucking teleport along, and if he doesn’t, he’s going to fucking set him on fire. Understood?
He’s not sure where this mood is coming from all of a sudden, but he’s just so… annoyed, it’s hard to keep in. He can’t decide if he feels better for letting it out, though.
~~~~
Deeply relieved that he didn’t need to step into that pub and deal with the violence, Quincy takes Arthur’s hand and catches a glimpse of red eyes up on a nearby roof. Of course his father is still watching but… he didn’t try to fuss over him when he was standing out there, fidgeting, and half of him wants to huff that he could have dealt and the other half is hurting again that Basarab is so sweet to him. Shaking that away, he swings up onto Hannibal and just holds on.
Where did this sudden paralysis come from? He doesn’t quite feel like himself. But it’ll be fine, he’s sure.
Out on the road again, Quincy shakes off the weird mental state and realises that Arthur just totally bitched at Cobb. Belatedly, he chuckles and pats Arthur’s middle where he’s holding on. “You go, that was a lovely rant and he totally deserved it.”
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“Um, thanks?” Arthur says. He’s starting to feel a bit odd about it, takes a deep, cleansing breath of the night air. He can just about see the occasional shimmer of where Gregory is teleporting along ahead of them- like he’s goading them to keep up, but Arthur isn’t going to ride faster than a brisk walk with the two of them on Hannibal’s back, he doesn’t trust their riding skills that far.
And, wait, he doesn’t really have a reason, Gregory isn’t doing anything except what Arthur asked him to do- or told him to do, really.
“I’m, uh, not sure where that suddenly came from,” he admits. “But, well, Darcy needs us, so…”
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“Yes, she does, and clearly, it took that level of kicking his ass to get him to remember that his bloody wife is missing.” Not that Cobb said a word about her last night when he pestered Quincy, either, he realises. That’s a bad case of shitty marriage, isn’t it? The clues are kind of all over the place, not hard to see at all, but he supposes that will all have to wait until they have Cycy back, because he’s not going to run a social crisis parallel to the magic crisis. Instead, he just hugs Arthur for a moment and then focuses on getting back to the others.
~~~~
Arthur really isn’t sure what to make of Gregory’s behaviour- he would’ve expected him to be more upset. But then, he was upset at Lucy… Maybe he’s so upset that he doesn’t know how to deal with it and is trying to act like nothing is wrong now?
But whether Gregory can deal or not, he’ll just have to buckle up, because they need him for the ritual.
Once back at the castle, Arthur quickly puts Hannibal away, and yes, gives him his promised snack. Much to Quincy’s disgust, who wrinkles his nose and says: “Ewwww,” whether at the dried meat or the way Hannibal slobbers on Arthur’s hand as he takes it. Which he does absolutely on purpose, because he’s perfectly capable of just picking it up with his lips and no nightmare spit. So Arthur wipes his hand on Hannibal’s coat in return (and scratches his mane while he’s there, which maybe defeats the purpose of the revenge.)
Quincy tells Hannibal in no uncertain terms not to expect something like that from him when Hannibal gives him a hopeful look, but Arthur totally catches him give Hannibal another quick chin scratch on his way past when Arthur’s back is turned- it’s night, after all, which makes the stable windows reflective.
But any light-heartedness Hannibal managed to tease them into evaporates as they follow the sound of hammering and voices to the rose garden, where they find everyone else gathered. John appears to have ended up in charge of the adults as he directs Lucy to carry things, Dr Seward and Mrs Harker consult over plans Dr Seward seems to be drawing up, and Art is doing the actual physical building.
About the same time as they can just make out the others over the hedges, they run into Gregory, who’s sitting on a bench, cat-shaped still, tail neatly folded over his front paws- waiting for them, Arthur thinks.
Quincy rolls his eyes at him and scoffs: “Oh, will you get out of that idiotic form!” and Arthur finds himself scowling, too, anger rekindling in him.
Gregory does turn, with a grin at them like it’s a game, and it makes that anger flare in Arthur’s belly. Even more so when he goes to stalk along the gravel path into the gardens and Gregory now hangs back.
“Get your arse in gear, or I swear, I’ll have Basarab haul you over by the scruff of your neck!” he snaps.
The threat seems to work, because Gregory follows them to the others.
Once there, Arthur fills him in on the plan as concisely as he can.
And whatever reaction he expected from Gregory (horror or discomfort at hurting Darcy, mostly,) it certainly wasn’t for Gregory to be silent for a moment, and then to declare that he has an idea! How about if they dress up in robes, make it look like they’re some sort of cultists, so Darcy doesn’t recognise them!
And again… he sounds like this is all just some kind of game, and all Arthur can feel is that hot, churning anger while he stares at him, wiping all words he could say from his mind- or sending too many tumbling through it, he can’t tell.
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“Which part of ‘it’s the betrayal of her loved ones that makes the ritual work’ didn’t you get, kitten?” The pet name is said with as much of a bite as Quincy could possibly put into it, and he is very sure that he formulated everybody’s thoughts nicer than the majority of them would have.
Blondie is a bit too obviously fantasising about putting those nails into something else than the board, keeping hammering through the exchange, grumbling under his breath.
Jack, ooh, now that level of paternal disappointment he’s familiar with from Harker, ouch, but really, more deserved than he ever got hit with that death glare.
The big guy seems to pretend he didn’t hear a thing while the two women are shades of ‘you got to be kidding me?’
And well, Quincy has to give Cobb one thing, he gets through Basarab’s stoic wall, the man’s striding over so purposefully slowly that even Quincy kind of wants to take a step back. His father is intimidating when he wants to be, (or is that when he actively isn’t suppressing it?) And maybe it’s the level of controlled strength he normally has that makes it extra noticeable that something is up when his voice is so perfectly calm that Quincy can’t help the mental image of a lake at night, covered over with a gossamer sheet of ice that he just knows you’ll break through and drown if you take one more step.
“Mr Cobb, I understand that the situation is very upsetting and stressful, but aside from your plan not working with the set parameters of the ritual, your wife is a knight. Mere disguises won’t do anything to fool her. Let alone that it would be highly disrespectful towards her to hide behind a mask rather than face the consequences of doing something so cruel to her. I will not stand for the mere suggestion of abusing her such, adding insult to the grave injury we must inflict. Are we clear, young man?”
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Right, yes, that about sums up Arthur’s thoughts on the matter, so he’s glad that Mr Basarab could put them into words. He narrows his eyes at Gregory, daring him to disagree, because if he does, Arthur believes he will genuinely and truly use him for fireball target practise.
But Gregory ducks his head a little, and says: “Okay.”
The rest of the evening is… well, busy, but not very long, because those of them who aren’t vampires or dhampirs with night vision can’t really contribute that much once the rough version of the altar is built. So Mrs Harker shoos them all to bed.
This time, Arthur has a much harder time falling asleep, because tomorrow… tomorrow is Midwinter and they’ll do the ritual, and he doesn’t want to hurt Darcy, and what if it doesn’t work, or what if it goes terribly wrong, or what if it’s some trap from Llew…?
He keeps in his bed, genet hugged to his middle, worry gnawing at him, until he finally, finally falls asleep.
Consequently, he’s fuzzy-headed the next morning, and really- he’s just fine with that. He’d rather be too tired to think too much about things. He tries to just focus on the thing in front of him: Eating breakfast.
Spending time with his animals and those at the hospital, looking after them.
Carving symbols into the wood (not thinking about the funnels for the blood and how the symbols are there to connect with the anchors and… Nope. Not thinking about any of that.)
In between, he gets to heal people after their turn at donating blood. Well, they might do a second round, depending on how much they’re getting stored up with this first one.
When it’s his own turn, he finds, to his surprise, Quincy and Dr Seward sitting next to each other, shoulders leaned together even, and sharing a cigarette. He looks between them, because… he’s not sure how to read the mood, but he’d say it’s maybe… dejected?
Quincy, though, smiles at him when he enters, and gets up to come over. He hands Arthur a small jar. “You’ve been rubbing your wrists,” he points out. “We thought this might help.”
Arthur startles- he has? But now that he thinks about it, his wrists feel tingly, like yes, he has been rubbing them. The scars feel prickly and itchy and tight, even though he knows they’re long healed, that he shouldn’t really be feeling them at all.
A reminder of the other sacrifice he made, and no, he doesn’t want to think about it, so he only nods and takes the jar with a thank you.
Thankfully, neither Quincy nor Dr Seward comment further on it, either, while Dr Seward sets up for the blood collection, indicates which chair Arthur should take for it.
Dr Seward’s room is full of lab and medical equipment and books, his bed only a narrow cot in a corner like an after-thought. Like Dr Seward himself, it’s… kind of intimidating but not unpleasant.