Chapter 27
Previously: Obsidian: Crystal Heart – Chapter 26
Too bad. There goes her theory of the aberration and mage working together on a very fine set of familiars that just so happen to have a blood relation to a died-out noble family. At least Harker just betrayed that it must be him with the sticking himself places he doesn’t belong, because he is preening, so clearly, somebody took the bait on ‘very fine set’.
Well, even if they aren’t made, they might still be found.
“No to one, philosophically hard to say yes or no to another. If they aren’t made, did either of you find them?”
Oh, damn, she should have asked if they were found together. They could still have been different animals found at different times and infused with Westenra blood. Actually, she should check in on that. There is a kind of similarity in their faces. Oh… oh! What if the blood relation comes from the original animals being carrion eaters? Maybe not a wolf, maybe a fox and a bird desperate in winter that wouldn’t otherwise resort to it?
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Well. As a matter of fact… “Yes.” Gregory and him did find Darcy in her room, pretty much. Hm. Philosophically hard to say? With how vague whatever power it is she seems to have, he’s inclined to think that that’s the philosophical quandary, her… sphere of influence. He blows out a breath.
“This is getting really tricky to narrow down.”
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“At least you are at narrowing down, sugar!” Mariam isn’t begrudging him that, she’s just happy to have gotten one step closer. Doesn’t even have to ask the question of found separately with the direct yes. And she still has time to mull her next question over. After all, Lancaster is still pondering. This is the most high-stakes and, at the same time, relaxed information gathering she’s done in a long time.
It’s a lovely afternoon, really. She’s gleeful that no, she has no interest in taking any trains back to Hartlepool. Her mother can scheme all she wants for the scandal and pressure. There is none here. She has a contract. She has a fiancé. And one who won’t run from her aberration. No, one who shares it. She’s set herself up well.
And that good mood should have tipped her off that something was likely to happen, because of course it would, when she’s actually daring to, gasp, be happy for once.
But there’s the click of a door above and what went for an excuse of decorum on the baroness vanishes in one quivering nose twitch. No fangs this time. Instead, she demonstrates the sensibility of a five-year-old as she jumps right off Harker’s and Silver’s laps and rushes up to the mezzanine with a long drawn out “Daddy!!” Well, that certainly is more information. Seeing the (supposed) father might help refine her hypothesis.
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Jolted from his thinking on what angle he could attack this problem from, Arthur is sure he looks rather startled and wide-eyed as his head jerks up to check that, yes, indeed- the London door is open and Art is stepping through, with rain droplets glittering on the shoulders of his great coat, too, to look extra unusual for coming through a door inside a house.
He’d only sort of remembered that Art was due later today, but really… Now?
~
Between culver’s complete lack of second thought, Arthur’s startled look and Quincy already starting to snicker, John just shrugs and chuckles along. “No idea what question that answers, but sorry, that’s the other big appointment we had today. Way too early. Arthur, how about you ask my fiancé if that’s somehow her doing. I’ll talk Godalming down from probably being worried to death.”
He gets up and only then realises that he just dropped a name. Oh well, Mariam signed the paperwork, she’s just as deep in now as they are. Also, she all but admitted out loud to being an aberration, she’s gone so far as to make racy comments while alone with them, no, he’s not too worried. If he’s worried about anything, it’s hunters and a certain demon, so he fucking hopes there’s at least one vampire along with Godalming.
Lucy. Okay, not the more powerful one, but definitely the easier-to-talk-to one.
He doesn’t even try to pull Darcy off Godalming’s middle, just tells him to lift her up, they have a lot to fill them in on. Study? They happen to have his brand-new fiancée downstairs. Oh fuck, he forgot that Lucy is a gossip enthusiast… Fine, Lucy going downstairs to cackle together with Quincy, seems like him and Darcy are going to fill in her daddy meanwhile.
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Even while Lucy bounces down the stairs and puts an enthusiastic double-set of kisses on Quincy’s cheeks, she’s asking both him and Arthur mentally how much that absolute vixen John seems to have caught there knows. “Who do I get to be tonight? I thought I was going to murder hunters and now I get to play chaperone. That’s the kind of surprises I like, sweethearts!”
Not that she can’t see on very first glance that the woman is bred and schooled to nobility. She’s pretending to not see her because, obviously, they haven’t been introduced yet. And they look to be of the same age, well, if Lucy was the age she looks, so that must be a mystery to her, she should know all noble women her age at least by reputation. Not that she also can’t see that there are lots of thoughts flitting about. That looks nearly a little bit like Jackie’s face when he’s sorting data.
Just as she sits down next to Quincy, ready to be just the airheaded best friend of the house’s artist, she has to assess if John decided to win against the hunters by marrying one, because what?!
“I see that I need to revise my theory on Lady Rossmore and Mr Harker being blood-related to you due to carrion. It appears that death in childbed when one elopes leaves a lady with an unnaturally young complexion. I’d like to know your trick, Ms Westenra, or is that, the real Lady Rossmore?”
This is one sharp woman. John has taste. But she’s waiting on Quincy and Arthur to react before she reacts herself. Any little bit of facial expression is an answer in this game, and clearly, she’s playing against a mistress of the art.
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Bitch please. Heavy cannons are out, it seems. Carrion. Ew. As if he’d ever even get close to that. But it’s for the best that Cycy is out of the room, or Quincy suspects Mariam would get more than flashed fangs for that statement. Masterfully done, though. Provocative, too. In every possible direction. No matter how any of them react, there’s info in that.
Still, they have more important things to do than watch Lucy and Mariam have a cat fight. Much as it pains him to admit to that. So he sighs, knowing that he won’t get to have the fun.
Waste. Such a waste.
But there’s a demon on the loose, and he’d rather play it safe than play politics in this case. “Not quite on either of those names, honey. And I take offence to carrion, so there’s your answer on that. Lucy, John’s future help for making Darcy have a litter over there is an aberration and signed a contract with us. Much as I’d love nothing more than watch the fireworks at us three having a go at it, needs must on other topics. You are allowed to move your face. Not as if you’d get wrinkles anyway.”
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“We were just getting to know each other by way of playing questions,” Arthur adds in agreement. “A bunch of which on Miss Powlett’s side you dropping in answered, or at least gives massive hints for, so…” He narrows his eyes at her a little in calculation, “anything to John’s question whether your power has anything to do with that?”
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If nothing else, Mariam can respect Lancaster’s dedication to the game, if she wasn’t busy thinking him adorable again, and yes, some massive hints for her, including that, while it is neither Westenra nor Rossmore, that is indeed the supposedly dead Lucy, mother of the current baroness. Looking like she should have gone to school with her.
All portraits she’s ever seen, including the ones in the hall here, showed a pale, petite woman, but the colour on her cheeks is porcelain, her limbs so slim that one could worry about her constitution, and yet, she didn’t show anything but vigour. Magic for sure, maybe another hint towards necromancy.
And that is definitely where her thoughts should be, not on Lucy’s low neckline and the equally porcelain-perfect skin on the hint of breasts.
In any case, she can get her thoughts back to Arthur’s question, because, well, it’s true, they were getting to know each other, and the man who only just walked past is supposedly Lord Godalming. That Godalming? Only more hints. Wait, backtrack, she was on Arthur’s question. Just, this is so much information and her head is spinning with possibilities, to the point where all she can do is exhale and try to get her composure back.
“I can only suspect that yes, I am just as involved in bringing these people here as the appointment they had later.”
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“How does that work?” Arthur wonders. “I admit I’m really very curious now, so I suppose we could call the game quits and just come out with it… It’s probably been 20 questions, anyway? I didn’t keep track,” he admits sheepishly.
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“Neither did I!” Now she’s sure her power is involved, she’s sure, because she actually catches herself laughing, a sound of delight for once free of obligation or strategy. “Thank you for making me enjoy myself so much. Before I come right out with it… How close did I come? I suspect that you are a mage. My fiancé is an aberration. And the baroness and Harker are two different kind of weres, I’m thinking wolf or fox for her and some kind of bird for him.”
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“Oooh!” Arthur says in delight, grinning at her. “That’s why you asked about them being infectious! More than halfway, you’re right on me and John, and Darcy can turn into a wolf, but they’re dhampirs, not weres. Half-vampires,” he adds for clarification because he doesn’t expect her to know that term, he certainly hadn’t before.
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“Half-vampires?” Yes, that’s a cold prickle going down Mariam’s back. She already had deduced that Lady Rossmore certainly enjoys biting Silver. And her supposed mother is sitting in front of her. A supposedly middle-aged woman looking no older than maybe twenty, if that, looking young and pale and that chest… She’s normally better than staring at breasts like that.
Stupid bit of inattentiveness!
It wasn’t the breasts. It was the lack of movement. Her power was nudging her to notice that, to get lucky in spotting something. She didn’t, not in time.
Her priest might finally find something to be proud of. Mariam crosses herself with more intent than she’s ever done before and while her hand is up there anyway, where is that little cross around her neck?
~
Oh dear, the poor thing is going to ruin her ladylike impression if she starts sweating any more obviously. And no, Lucy isn’t fond of seeing that cross around her neck. She needs no reminder of her damnation. She can be stoic about it, but she is not fond of it.
“Sweetheart, it’s alright. Whatever you’ve signed in that contract, neither I, nor Darcy or Quincy, are going to hurt you or bite you. Between the two dhampirs, I really don’t know which of them would be more weirded out biting a woman, anyway.”
Good, Quincy is giving her the backup she needs here with a huff and waving a limp wrist her way in mock protest at the tease. Still, she can see the girl -and when has she started thinking of women looking her own age as girls?- is shaking and scared. So she looks over at Arthur. “Maybe you asking a few more questions can get the mood back? I really only came down here because I wanted to hear the gossip. After all, really, John getting a fiancée? That’s juicier than any blood.”
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“Well, there’s barony politics and all…” Arthur says by way of explanation before he turns back to Mariam, chagrined. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you? Since you didn’t seem very bothered by aberrations and mages and weres… Vampires really are just the same, you know- I mean, they’re people. Not bad just because they have powers. Which, speaking of, so, what does your power influence? What is a really great potential advantage, but all… vague and philosophically-debatable?”
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“Aberrations and mages are just another kind of human, weres might be dangerous when the bloodlust takes them, but… vampires? That’s… that’s my soul we’re talking about here. They feed off of people.”
Oh no, Quincy is not listening to this. The downsides of a Catholic, he supposes, but he’s heard this drivel all his life from Harker, he’s not getting a repeat of it, and he won’t let somebody like that marry his darling! If she doesn’t learn better, he’ll personally set her in front of the door and consequences be damned!
“Honey, you listen here! My soul is no better or worse than yours. I have my suspicions on your own level of sin, and not just because you can innuendo with the best of us. This is your sanctuary. You get to sin the way you want because neither of us gets to throw the first stone, but if you say a word about Cycy and make her unhappy about something she doesn’t and shouldn’t need to care about, you have quipped your last. I will verbally annihilate you!”
Yes, he’s up on his feet now and swipes a, for just a moment, balled fist wide, but opens his fingers to point through the dark windows. “Leave your church out there. We both get to have our personal sparring matches with the Divine, but you do not get to throw it at other people’s faces or feet. And not Lucy’s either! Lucy is a loving wife and best friend. Yes, we all drink blood. Let me tell you one thing, nobody complains. Not one of them! Where Lucy lives, there’s humans who sign up for it. We don’t kill. We eat.”
Seriously, how is that so hard to understand as a concept when humans are worse on average? “You people kill animals to eat, I don’t even do that, let alone humans. You don’t get to come in here riding your Christian high horse. Get down here with the rest of us into the mud of reality. Aberrations telling dhampirs who is more sinful! Go look in a mirror, bitch!”
Gesturing between her and him, he ends up pointing downwards empathically for a moment before crossing his arms. “You are on my turf and I happen to like you. I was the one who got you even a chance with loyal, sweet, steadfast John! You will use it well or you will crawl back to your scheming mother, you hear me? Now apologise and get your big girl bloomers back on. Nobody’s eating you unless you’re into that!”
With one more huff he lets himself fall back on the sofa. Done now!
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Arthur blinks at Quincy, because that seemed… harsher than necessary? He slides a look at Mariam to check how she’s taking that, because he really doesn’t want to be in the middle of an actual fight.
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Well, she’s been told. And told in a way that makes her think she hit a nerve. She… she has the worst feeling of empathy, because the way he exploded at her there is the same way she wanted to explode at so many other people. All the ones that cherry-picked their sins as better than hers.
Rather than clinging to the cross, she looks down at it. There was one in the room she wanted to explode in the most, too. She was powerless then to do anything. She’s powerless too often. But… she just was in good enough a mood for her power to pull something big. And that has been a while since that happened last.
She’s still scared, but that’s maybe just the same thing as how you’re scared when in the room with a snake. It’s something you can’t help even when you think about it. Obviously, Harker can’t help being a dhampir any more than she can help being an aberration. And if she just focuses on the power she has…
Actually… oh, the irony.
Dropping the cross back under her collar, Mariam swallows a nervous laugh. “Sorry that you got angry with me. My fault probably. You see, Mr Lancaster, this thing I influence is luck. It was unlucky of me to clearly have hurt Mr Harker’s feelings for him to school me. Had I not been scared, my luck wouldn’t have turned like that. Of course, he is right. I apologise for this undignified display.”
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Scared? Not judgy and accusing? Oh shit, Quincy was projecting, wasn’t he? “Honey! Oh, I’m so sorry. Bad memories. No, no, nothing undignified about it. There’s lots of scary things out there. I’m a big coward. Huge! Bigger than I’m tall. Ask John, he’ll laugh about me being a sissy. Promise, I’ll keep my fangs to myself and you keep those equally creepy woman lips far from me, too, deal?”
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There it is, her mood balancing out is turning the entire situation around already.
Fine, she wants to play along, she was so glad for the ally in the house just earlier, and now he admitted to it, so Mariam offers her hand for a hand kiss in reconciliation. “My lips and all those other creepy womanly things I’m sure you want nothing to do with. Say, sugar, I have so many questions, we need to have some girl time later where that, what did you call him? Ah yes, that ‘loyal, sweet, steadfast manly man’ can’t hear us or his ears might fall off.”
That clearly brings him all the way back to her side because yes, she gets that hand kiss, with a giggle at that. Although she suspects ‘bitch’ is going to be her nickname from now on, because that’s what he calls her again, with a wink this time, and yes, she’s glad for it. She certainly has things to bitch at and maybe finally somebody to do it with. Preferably a bit further away from the full vampire though.
Actually, perfect excuse! Even if it means pulling him up with her and winking back that certainly, he wouldn’t let a lady wait!
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Lucy manages to hold her laughter in until after Quincy has been, obviously willingly, dragged out of the room, before she looks back at Arthur even while snorting.
“Okay, I’m the big bad now, apparently. So, new scared-for-her-soul lady in the house that controls luck. Any other sudden new changes I should hear about before I figure out which hunters I am really going to be the big bad for?”
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Arthur’s still a bit stuck at ‘controlling luck with her emotions’- Ooooh, that could be so powerful! So useful! …So dangerous if it turns that quickly, but for now, everything appears well under control again, so he turns to Lucy, feeling a bit shy as per usual around her.
“Um… I don’t know? Quincy and John are friends now? I dunno if they already were, um… last week?” Has it really been only that short a time since everyone left for the Court?
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“I wouldn’t know about last week but two weeks ago when I saw them last, well, Quincy kept walking off to care for John during this entire damn affair of keeping Darcy asleep. Speaking of which, no sign of Radu since the election, but he better not think he can just vanish on me. So don’t you worry about that side. I’m taking care of it.”
Right, Arthur, she’s supposed to be nice to him, Art told her. Jack even diagnosed some issues with women as a basis for their misunderstandings, but how is she supposed to be anything but herself? She’s worked so hard on her own confidence through her womanly wiles. She can’t just shut that off. Okay, um, focus on the tasks, then, she supposes. “I’m glad they are friends, but I think I’m sadly here because you had some trouble, didn’t you?”
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That makes Arthur sigh, and tuck up his heels on the couch cushion so he can wrap his arms around his knees. It’s not very dignified, he knows, not good manners and probably makes him look like a child, but… it’s Lucy, and while he feels awkward around her, she’s still family and not a stranger, and also, a lot did happen and he doesn’t feel like being formal and dignified about it.
He tells her everything, as neatly as he can, from the hunter attack to trying to research at Art’s like Vlad said, which leads to what Gregory did and said to the butler, and how they’re suspecting him of being a demon.
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It really isn’t the first thought she should have, but Lucy still catches herself internally groaning that she doesn’t have the damn time for something this size right now! She has a whole court of socially brilliant people to manoeuvre!
But she can also see the way Arthur is hunkered into himself. No, she’s not his heroine, so she can’t and won’t try to solve everything, but she can, at least, be kind. Warming her hand so it’s not a cold discomfort rather than the warm comfort she wants to give, she places it on one of his knees and nudges his cheek with a finger.
“That’s a lot. I’ll see to, at least, reducing the number of things you are dealing with, and how about I tell Art to stay here? He’d love to look after all of you, and then you can talk to me, Jack, and Vlad fast. No more making Vlad’s ears twitch every few minutes because he gets jumpy about ‘hopefully the kids are alright, did I miss anything I should have heard?’”
That makes Arthur perk up and smile. “He did that? And, um, I’d appreciate it, certainly. The scrying spell makes my head hurt,” he admits.
Hah, seems she found a good in with Arthur, after all, so she tries for some more reassuring statements about family support. “Don’t tell him that I’m totally giving him away, but I swear there’s a loving man under the old knight facade. You should see how he dotes on Mina nonstop. She’ll forget how to walk with how often I see him carry her around because she had one of her episodes on the stairs and stumbled half a step before he immediately swooped in and held her for, I swear, five minutes.”
Smiling at the memory, Lucy nudges Arthur’s face again, maybe she can’t relate well to him but they’ve had fun together at his birthday party, and her men certainly have adopted him, no matter if he’s not their son-in-law, so she tries again to reassure him. “And Art is a big teddy bear, too. I’m sure he’ll be much better than me at helping you with everything. But even when I have to go back to the court, I’ll still hear any requests for maybe books or so. I’ll try to take care of the hunter problem tonight, so no need for you to do anything more there, at least.”
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