Chapter 28
Previously: Obsidian: Crystal Heart – Chapter 27
Arthur wouldn’t have thought so, but the idea of having Art here to help them out makes him feel like everything is a bit easier, like he can relax more, like he can drop his feet back to the floor. “Thank you! That’s a big help already.”
~
“He’s a big help to me, too. You’re getting a good one.” The way Art’s agitated in her mind is proof of that, but after just a little bit of back and forth, yes, it’s ruthless and Art hates being ruthless, but he is too smart to not know when he has to, so yes, they agree. Lucy nods before turning her attention back to Arthur. “Sounds like I’m off to cut one thread for further hunter attacks. Take care of each other and take care of my Art, will you?”
This was a shorter stay than she thought, but well, she has to make a tour around town and then get back to London. At least it can be her, not Art, who has to do the necessary terrible deed. She didn’t grow up with the man. She doesn’t like killing Art’s butler, but it has to be done before any more information spreads.
First, she gets herself the information for where to start in town, though. She knows her own city, well, not as well as she would if she hadn’t grown up frail, but with being able to check in with Art and let him see where she is, yes, she can get around.
Not that she finds anything. Anything new, at least. The place their dhampirs had the fight clearly got found and at least somewhat cleaned up. The floor is still a bloody mess. But that’s not the smell that stands out to her. There’s something here, something that isn’t human, and there’s more than one. Trouble is, she can follow the scent that reminds her of fur, but the other one, the one she would really like to track down only pops up here and there. As if the person, if she doesn’t go so far as to suspect a vampire directly, didn’t walk but jumped from shadow to shadow. If there’s an Osman here, that could spell deep trouble indeed. And she’s not even sure if it would be worse if it’s one from the House, or if it’s one that stuck with Radu when he switched House.
No matter how many rounds she’s making, though, the best she can say is that whichever kind of vampire it is, they ran the hunters out of town. Even that furry smell is leaving with the hunters. Maybe another dhampir? She’s not sure, but she is pretty sure that if they hear back from the hunters, it’s going to be a lot more of them. But from everything Art is saying, if that one vampire could run them out of town like that, they are dealing at least with a knight or minstrel. The hunters are more likely to tuck tail and declare this too difficult a target rather than to come back guns blazing.
So she comes back to the castle, but doesn’t stay. With the fear of another vampire around, it seems as if her Art has taken to testing the powers they have in the house better. Well, everybody but Miss Powlett. Seems her Art is slow to warm for once, or just him still needing to be talked into so much as letting ‘Mina’s brat’ be part of the training.
In either case, no, she’s not saying goodbye, she’s taking the door back to London to be the killer she has to be.
She might not be the big bad that Miss Powlett clearly thinks she is, but she never said that she hasn’t done terrible things, far worse things than kill a man who endangers those she cares about. No, she’s damned. Has been for two decades. She’s not Quincy, she doesn’t count and compare sins. She just accepts them. That’s what she’s tried for so long to learn, and she’s still not always good at stoicism, but it’s the best way she found after waking up to the worst nightmares of her life.
She’s still here. Life goes on.
Even when sometimes she has to stop somebody else’s for hers to go on.
~
Daddy has a blood bond now! That’s so romantic! But much, much more importantly: He’s staying! He’s not going back to the silly, far-away Court! With Daddy here, Darcy thinks she might even be able to handle having that Ms Powlett in the house. She doesn’t want to, but she’ll get two puppies and… and, well, her sang du coeur can handle her!
She just doesn’t want to lose John. And Darcy knows there’s nothing she can do about it. She’s just helpless… no, she can’t think like that! But not thinking like that makes her so angry! And none of that is probably her fault. It’s all Gregory’s fault! It always is! Unless it’s Llew’s fault. But she doesn’t think so this specific time.
Still, she feels like her head is cool, but not in the way that saying goes. No, as in, it’s a bit crystalline. Still. But she has trust in her borne, sang du coeur, Arthur-dear, and Daddy. She’ll be alright again. Even if it’s not today.
Daddy is already doing so much! Seeing him smile when he’s clearly talking to her mother is so sweet. She wants that so badly, too, she wants to smile like that when she’s talking to Quincy. When he’s in here! When she doesn’t have to be alone in here anymore, and he can hold her drac and make sure it’s warm. All soft and not crystalline at all. Yes, it will be good.
He makes her laugh. Daddy said that Mother thinks there might be a vampire in town, he says an Osman. She doesn’t know what that means but Daddy explains that they have a shadow form, so when she hears that, she gets extra happy. That’s why she didn’t notice any shadows moving at all the last two times she went to switch the flowers on Arthur’s mother’s and sister’s grave! She was whispering little hopes and hellos to Radu’s friend in the wrong shadows! Well, she’ll have to go into town and do it there, then. She’s so happy to know he’s still there. Radu hasn’t forgotten her.
But of course, the others just see that as dangerous, she could pout. But then Daddy says because of that, he wants to check what everybody can do. And that’s the best thing yet! She gets to play with everybody the way she gets to play with John.
All her family there, even though Quincy clearly doesn’t want to. He looks so green at the thought of Daddy and John running any tests on him. That makes her giggle. It’s just bullets and bolts! They are fun! But she knows her Quincy just has to yell at them to stop and they will. He’s good at shouting into people’s minds. He doesn’t even need to shout, but he always does when he wants to run. He does it in the dreamscape all the time, and John and her get to laugh at it.
He’s their coward and they love to protect him. And even better, with how much he’s huffing now, that means he’ll demand rewards later and then she gets to pamper him and they’ll have the most wonderful night together. With a night like that, she definitely will feel all right again. And maybe when she kisses him with bloody lips, they’ll have a bloodbond. And she so hopes with him in here, she’ll stop being silly, and see John the right way so she can love him the right way.
How can’t she love him the right way when she looks at his proud grin as he aims his gun at her? The rifle she gifted him. It’s their love language at a distance. Every bullet a little whispered ‘I love you’ from him, and she so loves to hear that, or feel it when he manages to graze her. His whoop of joy is music in her ears and she howls her own love back at him. Even if it’s not the right one, it’s so big it wants to pop out of her chest with all the dracial abandon he always gifts her. She’s played so much like this with him. It’s like dancing. Like fucking, too.
But of course, she can’t think like that about it when it’s Daddy next to aim his crossbow at her. He’s sexy but he’s mother’s, so no, no, just dancing and playing!
And… and then Arthur wants to play with her, too? She… doesn’t know what to think about that. It’s so sweet that she just has to run over to him and hug him. It shows her so much that he’s really her friend!
~
Arthur looks at Darcy, yes, down, just a little, for the hug. He’s not sure what he’s getting it for, but her enthusiasm is infectious, and making him feel all warm and touched, so he smiles back.
And he does want to test himself against her, how his defences would hold up. The hunter attack showed that he really needs to know that, and with Art and everyone else here, it’ll be as safe to test as it can be.
~
Putting a kiss on his cheek, Darcy turns and runs back down the shooting range. She’s so curious if she can make it down all the way to him. She’s won against John and Daddy, lost against Quincy. She has no idea how it’ll go with Arthur, and that makes her drac bounce with curious glee.
Maybe it’s silly, but she jumps and waves and blows him a kiss from the end of the hundred yard range. Rifle range, not pistol, is what Daddy decided. So Daddy must think Arthur is really good. She’s sure he is! Giving the kiss a moment to arrive down with him, she starts running. Weaving even though she can’t see anything, not like with the barrels where she has at least some kind of idea where they are aiming.
The ground next to her blooms in brilliant, hot red and she jumps sideways with a laugh. Nope, didn’t get her! She keeps running, and maybe it’s cheating, but she doesn’t want to discourage him, so she weaves a little bit less.
Ouch! Ooh, that burns! Her drac yowls and for a moment, she throws herself on the ground, rolls against the flames on her dress, then comes back up on all fours, grins through her wolf fangs and dashes on. He got her this time! But not the next one.
She’s getting close!
Another fifty or so yards, half-way there.
Dodged it!
Didn’t dodge it!
The flames are harder on the fur, it doesn’t burn like her dress but it smoulders, the rolling doesn’t fully stop it, there’s prickles underneath her skin, she feels the heat stretching and popping into blisters. Got to run faster! Weave, weave, blast! Didn’t dodge again. Arthur’s fast now that she’s close.
She can smell him!
More fire… it crackles in her ears, crackles red… red like blood.
Smell him… smell his blood.
Blood…
It howls!
It is hungry!
~
Arthur’s heart is pounding, but nevertheless, he feels calm and cool and centred. Distantly pleased with how he’s managed to land his fireballs without instinctive gesturing to give himself away- he doesn’t need to, even though he has to aim these more than he would a plasma bolt, in a way he can’t explain. It’s just a difference in how the spell works, how he can’t just will it into existence in a spot of his choosing in an instant.
But still, his aim got better, there.
Of course, Darcy also got closer, which made it easier, maybe because he could see her better.
Now, John is shouting to tell him if he needs to stop her, and Arthur eyes the berserked dhampir charging at him and tells John to wait.
He’s got to know. He wants to know.
And he feels so steady and calm even while his body is keyed up.
Wall first. There, and Darcy runs into it, snarls, and scrabbles at it. Damages it, he can feel it, but not so much that he can’t keep boosting it back up, healing the fractures in his mental spell matrix with pulses of magic.
He can’t see her perfectly through the wall, it’s a little opaque, like wavy glass or heat shimmer rising on a road on a particularly hot summer day, but he can still make out the aggressive way her ears are pinned back, can hear her snarl.
She scrabbles along the wall, and he moves it. If she was in enough of a frame of mind to dash, he couldn’t keep up, he thinks, but she’s too focused on getting at him.
Then she takes a few snarling steps back, turns in an agitated circle… and jumps.
Her paws scrabble at the top edge, and over, and it’s not high enough, and then there’s red fur and snarling fangs coming down on him.
He whips his arm up in instinctive defence, and goes down under her, feels the sharp, searing pain and, more insubstantially, the magical echo of his defence bracelet shattering under the assault of her claws and fangs.
Oops. That wasn’t strong enough.
He yells, he thinks, he hopes, because things are getting dizzy and there’s spots dancing in his vision, eating it up.
~
Quincy can’t look!
This is too gruesome!
And he knows full well he’s a hypocrite, because the last time Cycy got at somebody, he saw the blood splatter around her in pink heart shape, but this is Arthur, for Divine’s sake!
How can John be so calm?! How can he just whistle, and when Darcy rips her head up to stare at him from red eyes not even shout at her, no, his voice is loving. “Down, girl. That’s enough. Stop.”
And she does?! How? What? He means, he’s seen it before, when his darling saved them from the hunters, but this time he’s so confident… Oh… Oh of course, that’s the night with Darcy’s arm having gone missing all over again. She must have been like this then, too. John knows she’ll listen to him. Seriously, how can John know something like this, do something like this, and Cycy isn’t absolutely head over heels for him?
Still, when John goes to feed her, Quincy is running right along. Also to check up on Arthur.
Getting a Cycy to the face, well, arm, ouch, yes, that is definitely broken. He hopes Arthur can concentrate enough to heal that. For right now, Quincy puts him safely on the side and makes him comfortable, then takes his turn on sticking his wrist between those wolf jaws. It doesn’t take long… and yes, that bloody brute of her daddy is timing them. Hunter that one. Ruffian. Arse. Or as Cycy would say, he’s being mean to him.
But typical Cycy, she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She gets up groggily, and he can hear her thought clearly before she manages to turn talking shape again. “Yes, you got to Arthur. He’s over there. You might have bitten him a bit hard.”
Of course she scrambles over right away, and he has to stop her from jostling Arthur too much, no, let him start to come to again before she puts his head on her lap and… Yupp, that’s Cycy for you. She’s singing him one of those songs she does in the morning so he can wake up better.
~