Chapter 95
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 94
Good, could Arthur stop being an arse to his poor mother? Shit, Quincy didn’t know, and there he thought Harker was the worst part of her life… no, he himself is. She never made him feel unloved. His mother never let it slip that she must resent him. She never let it slip to Harker, either… He suspects Harker would have at the absolute very best kicked him out even earlier, but with how he was always talking about vampires… Quincy tenses, remembers the often, heroically retold story of how the men hacked Lucy’s head off and hammered a stake through her.
Would Harker really? Quincy hopes not, but he’s not sure. And his mother never gave Harker any reason to suspect, so clearly, she didn’t believe it was safe, either. She protected him, despite what he must be to her, a constant reminder of pain, of feeling helpless, used, and abused.
Now he wonders if he looks anything like… well, her rapist and for the first time in his life, he feels a twinge of discomfort at his looks, at the fact that he looks nothing like Harker. Now he’s suddenly the only man in the family. If Harker didn’t leave them enough to get by… he… he’ll have to give up on all his dreams and actually figure out a way to support his mother and sister. He can’t take all those years of protection and not give back. It wouldn’t be an equal exchange and that feels wrong.
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“So… I’ll do some research and, I suppose, try to find out if there’s any brothers mentioned anywhere,” Arthur offers. He considers mentioning his suspicions about Darcy’s vampire attacks, but… but he decides to keep that back for now, to discuss it with Darcy first.
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“It might be a crude clue, but it seems to be the only one we have.” Standing up, Mrs Harker tells them that she, meanwhile, shall get an appointment with her lawyer to check up on her will. Quincy immediately says that he’ll accompany her, she shouldn’t go alone!
About to jump and come along, too, so she can protect Quincy, Darcy notices the look on Arthur. It was only short but he seemed to… does he want to talk to her? Privately? He likes talking with less people around, she gets that. But she can’t just let Quincy go… So she tells them to take John along, he’ll protect them just as well as she would!
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Yes, with some unknown danger lurking around, it’s maybe better to go in larger groups… Though, remembering Dr Seward’s quick vampire lesson, Arthur doesn’t think any of them would stand much of a chance… He doesn’t say so, though.
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As the door in the mezzanine closes, Darcy whimpers. She doesn’t like letting Quincy out of her sight, at all, but then she turns back to Arthur. “Did I see that right? You seemed to motion me to stay.”
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He had? “Er… not on purpose, but, um, yeah, I wanted to talk without them… I mean, they seem nice, but… you never know?” He shrugs helplessly.
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That makes her blink in confusion, because why wouldn’t she say something in front of Quincy? His mother, okay, yes, maybe, but she’s friends with Lucy, so she can’t be so bad. “Uh, okay? If you think that’s best.” After all, he’s smarter than her, a man, too, and she promised to be good for him, so she’ll listen to him, always.
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“I don’t know, but, um… Mrs Harker was kind of evasive there. I know maybe those are terrible memories and she doesn’t want to think about them,” he adds hastily, “but… she didn’t clearly say or act like they were, so… I don’t know.” He gives another helpless shrug. This is so not what he’s good at.
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“Arthur-dear… You’re a man, you don’t understand. And it’s been a long time; she doesn’t want to dig it back up. Like… like Daddy doesn’t want to talk about what he thought he did to Lucy.” She tries to be gentle, but she really thinks that was very mean of him. Of course, she can’t say anything more either, he’s Gregory’s friend.
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Well, it’s never happened to him, so Arthur supposes probably he doesn’t understand, that’s true. “Probably,” he agrees, therefore. “I’m just… worried about this. And… and that it’s connected to those maybe-vampire attacks on you.” He instinctively leans in, lowers his voice, as if he had to keep this from the maybe-vampire in question.
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Darcy feels her drac snort and give a dismissive whine and it’s right, that just feels… unlikely? “But I felt fine, feel fine, I told you, since we’ve come back from London my drac is just… bouncy. Really. I don’t think they were attacks at all, and certainly not something that could have anything to do with Harker. There’s no connection there.”
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“What about the scent?” Arthur asks. “And… the staging. And…” He bites his lip, meets her eyes. “Quincy can read thoughts. And he’s only just awoken as a dhampir. So probably vampires can do it, too. And probably some can do it really well. And you can’t remember. If a vampire could read your mind, they could tell you exactly what you want and need to hear to trust them, to like them. So if they say and do all the right things, because they know what you’re thinking at any moment, and then they take your memory away so you can’t even think about it later and… and properly make up your mind, and question things, and… and get someone else’s opinion, maybe, then… then how can you know it’s fine?”
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Her first reaction is to want to growl, but that seems mean, so, instead, she tries her hardest to think about it. And she can kind of see why he would say that, but just, no? Her drac’s bounciness is one of the best things she’s had. It makes her feel stronger and freer and like there’s more to her life still, as if her gothic fairy tale maybe still could have a redemption arc, and she can’t possibly give up on that wild hope, so all she can do is let Arthur see how desperate she is to cling to this and tell him: “Because I trust my drac. It’s the only thing I can trust.”
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“I don’t know what it’s like to have a drac,” he acknowledges. “Maybe it’s right… Just, you said you smelled perfume in the office, and Gregory said he smelled cologne at the townhouse- and cologne is perfume for men, right? You said ‘he’ at the office. If only Gregory’d been there, he could’ve told us if it was the same scent…” He huffs out a breath of annoyance.
“I just don’t like all of these… coincidences? Someone makes it look like you got attacked by a vampire. And then someone makes it look like Mr Harker gets killed by something or someone really strong. Who is possibly that vampire that turned Lucy and whom your father and Art hunted, and who’s Quincy’s father. And who we just got word isn’t dead. It all feels so connected. But if those maybe-attacks on you are connected to what happened today, then it’s a huge escalation, and it’s some kind of message, and it means there’s some kind of scheme going on. That someone has a plan, someone wants something. What if it’s that vampire and he’s back for revenge?”
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“But isn’t that why my parents are trying to find him?” Now her drac can’t decide, the thought of anybody maybe being dangerous for her fathers has her all scared and protective, but it still just doesn’t feel right. “I want to protect Quincy! And I don’t want anything to happen to my parents either… Just, I don’t know, maybe, if I really um, was seen by a vampire, maybe it’s not the same one? Maybe mine is a minstrel and the one that was mad at Harker was a knight? That looked like something a knight would do.”
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“Yeah,” Arthur agrees to that. “Not that I’m sure two vampires are better than one, I reeeeaaally don’t want to end up in the middle of some vampire spat or something…”
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Suddenly pouting, Darcy crosses her arms. “Well, if there is one on my side, he’s nice, so if there are two, then I want to help the nice one!”
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Arthur nods hesitantly- she is right that the attack on Harker looks more… knightly. And she is so convinced that whatever happened to her, it wasn’t bad. Or her drac is. Her drac, who also wagged her tail a lot when she smelled the perfume in Harker’s office, he now remembers. So maybe she didn’t smell Harker’s attacker? Arthur wishes he could have as much faith in her drac’s assessment of matters as she does. But does “it makes my drac feel good” really equal a nice vampire?
His stomach churns again at the memory of Harker’s suffering. Nobody who does that to a living person is nice. Arthur doesn’t care what Harker might have done, how angry he might’ve made someone. Short of Mr Harker secretly also torturing people for his own entertainment, he didn’t deserve having such cruelty visited on him. “I’ll do that research and see what I can find…” he allows, gives Darcy a pleading look. “But… please be careful? Let me know if anything else weird happens? Please?”
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He seems so worried for her and it just doesn’t compute, but Darcy cares about him, so she hugs him and promises she will. “Is there anything I can help with, or am I actually seeing to the barony for once rather than to everything else?” It’s meant as a joke to lighten the mood, she hopes she did that right, sometimes she thinks that humour works differently for other people.
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Arthur gives her a small smile for her obvious attempt at a joke. “I mean, I guess you can help me look through whatever historical accounts we can get about any ‘Vlad the Impaler’s. Or…” He tilts his head. “Um, do you know anything about what happened back then? Did Lucy or your father tell you more? Because… I don’t really know anything, and I doubt there’s much in the newspaper about it, either?”
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“Not much in the papers, but there were… um, Mrs Harker compiled different diary entries and letters and such together, and I found that in my room. Oh, the house must have put it there, and yes, it felt a bit naughty to read it, but well, it’s about my parents!” While Darcy finds herself mumbling and blushing, she still tells Arthur what she learned about what happened before her birth, or what seemed to happen before her birth.
How Harker was trapped in the castle and escaped by throwing himself into the river far, far below. How her mother was wandering the cemetery and the vampire started hunting her until she was dead. How her papa had called in a specialist, or back then he thought so, she doesn’t think he still believes that. And about how the man, together with Harker’s hysteria, got her daddy to believe that Lucy’s soul was damned and the best thing he could do for the woman he loved was to murder her. (Darcy is pouting very hard at that part.) But her papa must have switched Lucy out or did something else, because obviously, she isn’t really dead. And then the vampire went for Mrs Harker next, and the men were hunting him all over London and finally back to Romania, where they thought they had killed him and the three other vampires at his castle.
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Arthur nods along as he takes notes, then reads them over with a critical eye. “Sounds scary… Um, also kind of convoluted. What’d the vampire want with Mr Harker in the first place? Like, if he lured him to his castle to eat him, he didn’t do a good job of it? And also, killing four vampires? Either they weren’t very strong, or that specialist was really, really good?”
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“He wanted Harker as a lawyer. He was buying property in London, one right next to Papa’s asylum even.” She knows it’s really mean to speak ill of the dead, but she still wonders: “Why do you think, though, did he leave him there? Did he get annoyed with him? I mean, if he’s Quincy’s father… um, maybe Harker said something really mean and boring about something artsy he did, and Quincy’s father started huffing about it?”
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“Who left who where?” Arthur asks, confused. “You mean, the vampire leaving Mr Harker at his castle?” He can’t help but chuckle. “You think he annoyed the vampire into just leaving without him, but not enough to kill him?” That… wouldn’t make for the fearsome kind of vampire who’d then go and murder people horrifically, would it?
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“Yes, I mean, um…” How does she say this without Arthur going green? “Harker wrote some very, um, questionable things, about the other vampires there. Three women. Maybe Quincy’s father left the decision up to them? I know you think I’m always biased, but what if… I mean, Quincy said that Harker always was fear-mongering and it was him and that Van Helsing who talked Daddy into trying to murder my mother. I just don’t really want to trust anything they said! Oh… Papa never checked… maybe that Van Helsing lied about having managed to kill the lady vampires, too. What… what if my nice vampire is Quincy’s father and the one that got to Harker was one of the women?”
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“Maybe?” Arthur agrees. “I mean, clearly we’re missing parts of the story, and, uh, everyone’s biased one way or another? Like, supposedly this vampire is really bad and scary… but then he doesn’t kill anyone? Not Mr Harker back then, and he turned Lucy, I’m assuming if you’re a vampire, you don’t consider that as doing something bad- why would you? Though, well, maybe he did something bad to Mrs Harker…” Death isn’t the only bad thing you can do to people, after all.
He wrinkles his nose. “I hate not having proper information… But vampire hunters are so biased. They always act like it’s wrong for vampires to exist. Sure, they’re scary, and I wouldn’t want to be killed by one, but… Like, just because something’s scary doesn’t mean it’s… morally bad?”
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“I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be killed by anyone, vampire or otherwise.” It comes out a bit too flippant and Darcy immediately takes Arthur’s hands to give him an apologetic look. “And if vampires are morally bad then so am I, I’m half of one and I love my drac.”
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Arthur squeezes her hands a little and gives her a smile. “Very true, I don’t. And you’re not bad, morally or otherwise!” he adds, strongly, nods to make his point. “Anyone who says so is an ass and doesn’t know you!”
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She giggles and with a wink tells him: “Language, or you’ll get Mrs Harker to also give you a look.” Leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek, she also nuzzles her nose against him for a second. “Thank you for saying I’m not bad. You’re good, too. You’re the only brother-dear I have and you’re always there for me. Thank you.”
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Arthur blushes at the kiss and praise. “I try- You’re welcome. And, well, I wouldn’t say it if she was here, I don’t want to get a look… She has very intimidating looks,” he admits.
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“Maybe that’s what mothers do. I wouldn’t know any more than you would.” That reminds her that she needs to go change the flowers on Arthur’s mother’s and sister’s grave. She knows the house could, too, but she refuses to always just let it be automated. “We both should hit the books, you just get to take the more interesting ones. Vlad the Impaler sounds more fun to look up than what the regulation is on how often I have to finance the fixing on country roads.”
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“…True,” Arthur concedes. Even with horrific murder, it’s more interesting. He squeezes her hands once more before letting go. “Sorry you have to do it all on your own today. If I’m done early, I’ll come help.” After all, there’s usually a finite amount of historical records.
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She chuckles and shrugs. “I’m doing it alone because I could finally give John a chance to look after a child. I’ll never be able to do it the way he really wants, so I’m glad I could do at least this.” There’s a pang of pain over her not being a good enough woman for John, a little bit of jealousy of Mrs Harker, but she knows that she can’t change anything, so she just smiles and goes to run the barony that means she can at least provide for her little household, for Arthur and for John, and maybe for Quincy if he lets her.
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The research leaves Arthur, if anything, with more questions than answers.
At least there’s only one ‘Vlad the Impaler’, so that’s something.
He seems to have been born sometime between 1428 and 1431- and that’s really a very long time ago. After that, it gets really confusing. As far as Arthur can track, he was ruler of Wallachia a bunch of times- Voivode, which he remembers as a term from his vampire research, and the text explains is the term for a prince of territory threatened by war in the region.
Anyway, that monarchy certainly doesn’t work like Arthur is used to monarchies working, because it’s not like one person gets crowned and then that’s that until they die. No, there’s mentions of Hungarians and Ottomans and Transylvanian Saxons, (apparently those are Germans,) and Arthur’s impression is, though none of these things gives him a proper summary and timeline, that there was a lot of conquering back and forth.
Mostly, these stories are concerned with all the impaling Vlad the Impaler did, and how brutal and cruel he was.
On the one hand, that’s very worrying, if someone like that is really a vampire and still around and an enemy of them and all.
On the other hand… Maybe it’s all the biased vampire books written by hunters he’s read, but… he notices how all these stories are from those Germans, who Arthur doesn’t think he was on good terms with. And some of them seem a little far-fetched. Horribly murdering your enemies and their armies and even their civilians… okay. Arthur knows well enough that nobles can be cruel.
But monks? And a donkey? And having dinner surrounded by his victims?
It just seems a bit… excessive? Especially with the wood cut illustrations of it?
It has the feel of rumours and hear-say.
And he knows well enough how that goes. He doesn’t know the details of what the other children whispered and giggled over and pointed at him for, but the snatches he caught tell him he doesn’t want to, either. And being his father’s son was all it took for that. Of course, there’s also the rumours of what his father’s done, and those are a lot more justified. So it could also be a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” situation.
As to the question of a brother- yes, Vlad the Impaler (or Vlad III – there seem to be a lot of Vlads) had a brother, Mircea (however that’s pronounced.) But he was murdered together with their father in 1447, so when he was probably still pretty young.
But then there’s a mention of another brother, who flees together with the Ottoman sultan when Vlad III impales all their army. It doesn’t mention any name, which is really annoying, but, so… apparently, he has at least one surviving brother?
That doesn’t explain any of the vampire things, though. Also not where Vlad III himself is concerned, because according to what Arthur reads, he dies in battle and has his head chopped off and delivered to that same Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II. In honey, which is… gross? (And he’s certainly not thinking about the taste of honey in his own mouth while staring at Gregory’s mangled body.)
How do you become a vampire if your head is cut off? As far as Arthur understands, you need to be alive to be turned. It’s being turned that kills you, or something? That seems difficult when your head isn’t attached to your body.
Maybe he became a vampire before that? The books do say that decapitation isn’t a sure-fire way to kill a powerful vampire.
But if he was a vampire before then, why would he even end up in the situation of having his head chopped off? He could just turn into a bat and fly away or something?
So, neither the “is it Vlad the Impaler?” nor the “does he have a brother?” question is really answered. Because… because even if he had brothers as a human, they would have to be turned into vampires to still be around four hundred years later. But, okay, if one of them was, well, it could be either Mircea or the other one, theoretically. Because if Vlad III can be a vampire despite having his head chopped off according to the sources, then surely the same goes for his murdered brother.
One thing, of course, does stand out rather glaringly: Wallachia.
Again, he’s running across things he’s never heard of before multiple times within days or weeks, and he doesn’t like it.
Mr Basarab said he was from Wallachia. Which is now part of Romania, and Darcy said that’s where the castle was that they hunted that vampire to.
Arthur shivers and swallows with the thought that… was he talking to the vampire stalking them? The one maybe having a history of horrifically murdering people?
But… but why would someone like that, a noble like that with such a cruel temper, sit in a corner of a slightly-shabby theatre and talk about languages and travel with some random kid? That really doesn’t seem to fit together. A man like he’s described in these stories Arthur’s reading wouldn’t talk to anyone unimportant. He’d be all demanding and aloof and… and in the middle of things, like the nobles at Prince James’ ball.
He wouldn’t act like that unless he wanted something, and even if he’s after Darcy, what would he want from Arthur? Arthur’s pretty sure if he’d been… hypnotized, or something, had been made to do something, someone would’ve noticed. The room was full of people.
And he doesn’t think there’s any gaps in his memories of the evening.
…Which also kind of means that that man was talking to him at the time Darcy was maybe-attacked. So if that was actually Vlad III, Vlad the Impaler, Arthur was talking to, then another vampire was with Darcy- the brother, maybe.
It’s possible, Arthur supposes. But is it plausible? If it was the ‘nice’ vampire who visited Darcy and Arthur was talking to the not-nice one… Well, okay, apparently he’s an actor, so maybe he could act nice?
This isn’t leading to anything, Arthur decides with a huff. His thoughts are just going in circles. He doesn’t have any proper information he can pin down and work from. All he has is mean-spirited stories, and tangential connections.
It’s very frustrating.
So he thanks the house for the books, and goes to help Darcy with the barony work.
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That’s where John finds them and with a grunt sits down on the chair in front of the desk. “Got a new puzzle piece for you. And I don’t mean the one that tells me Harker was a shit father. Molly didn’t even make it into the will. But, there was a secondary legal document. One signed C.B. and fuck, Mrs Harker is set for life.”
Arthur feels a small, icy shiver down his spine. “…C.B.? You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” John gives him a curious look and Darcy goes so far as putting a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong, Arthur-dear?”
“Just… Mr Basarab’s first name is Cyril. And he’s from Wallachia. Now Romania. Or so he said, anyway…” Why would he? Maybe it was a misdirection? But how? Make himself more suspicious to be less suspicious, or what?
Both Darcy and John give him uncomprehending looks and John asks ‘who?’.
Right… “The actor?” He looks to Darcy. “You know, the one who played Captain Hook?”
“The one who smells so nice?”
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Just about to snort because of course Darcy is thinking with her nose, John pauses. “Wait. What was the first thing you noticed about Molly again?”
“That he smelled delicious?” Darcy admits with a bit of a sheepish look.
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“Uh…” Arthur says, because… because all of those oddities and suspicions are rattling around in his brain, and… “…You don’t mean he smells nice in the family attraction way… right? Captain Hook, I mean?”