Chapter 100
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 99
It still takes Quincy several attempts to manage to get up. His legs never seemed too long before, but now he feels like he’s trying to balance on stilts. But that bloody brute better not think he’s unaware of what he’s doing.
Yes, he can use the help, the challenge, the excuse, and he could hug him for it about as much as he wants to slap him. Blondie better not think he owes him now. “I’m not paralysed anymore, you’ll get your bloody tea! Just a moment!”
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While Quincy looks like what Arthur assumes foals are supposed to look like when they first walk, all staggering, (and where did that comparison come from? Whatever,) Arthur decides that’s better than him only sitting on the floor, so he goes help with picking up books and putting them back. He tries to sort them, but the house can always fix it if he gets it wrong. Come to think of it, the house could clean this up in a snap, but… but doing it by hand feels better.
He doesn’t know what to think about what Quincy told him. It sounds like Darcy made very sure to stake him the right way, but… but why would she stake him at all? That’s a horrible thing to do to someone. And also, hurting John- she’d never risk killing him out of her own volition, he can’t believe that.
“Oi, I can see you overthinking. More problem solving, less worrying.” John tells him as they stand next to each other, putting books back in place, and reaches over to pat him on the shoulder, too. “What’s our smart guy saying? How do we best get my girl back?”
Arthur blinks at John in surprise, jolted out of his thoughts- which, yes, weren’t going anywhere useful. “First, we have to figure out a way to track her,” Arthur says, even if that’s stating the obvious. “We need to find out where she is and what the circumstances are so we can make a plan… Wait, she can tell where Gregory is… Does that mean Gregory can tell where she is? Can he track her?”
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“Probably can.” And then another thought pops up in John’s mind and Arthur’s going to be squeamish about it, but seriously, if John can use some of his own shitty upbringing to keep this bunch of dolts working, then Arthur can fucking use some of his upbringing for their good, too. “And if he can’t, what about all those necromancy books you ignore? We have hair and such from Darcy, nothing you can track her with?”
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“Uh,” Arthur says, and admits: “…Probably. I’ve never done anything like that, but I could probably figure it out.” He knows there’s tracking spells in there, mostly for the purpose of targeting curses at people.
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“There we go. We got two plans. How did your side go?” Finished with the books, John walks over to where the house has already replaced the broken window (that’s okay, it is fucking December after all) and checks if any shards flew inwards. He didn’t see the window breaking, his eyes didn’t like him much after he hit the shelf, but he can only guess his girl jumped right through.
‘Come to me, beloved.’ He wonders if that was the extent of it. Darcy shoved him, she knows he has to touch her to put her under. She doesn’t know what Quincy can or can’t do with those minstrel powers of his. Did she stake him because she didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be able to stop her at a distance? It would be exactly the kind of pragmatic but harsh decision his girl makes. Pain doesn’t compute to her. Now he wonders, crosses his arms: What is that vampire guy to her? The obvious bite, the calling her ‘beloved’, the villain secrecy, this is starting to sound far too much like a story and he knows how his girl is about those.
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“Right,” Arthur remembers, also glances out the window. It doesn’t quite point the right direction, but if that storm cloud was doing what storm clouds are supposed to do (not that it did in the first place,) he should at least see wind and rain or lightning or something, but the night is quiet outside. He tells John about meeting Gregory in the stables, and setting out, and the gun shots, and Gregory running off, and what he saw happening over the field, what Mrs Harker said.
And yes, also how he took her at her word and got back as fast as Hannibal could carry him, and that Gregory was there with him. Though, come to think of it, Arthur hasn’t seen him since he approached that fence, and where has he gotten to again?
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“Huh, Darcy is normally the one to go out. Think it was supposed to get her outside? Clearly, that vampire wanted her. Think we’re just in the way?” Since there’s nothing he can do here, John walks back over to the sitting area, then shakes his head and says he’ll be right back, he wants to check on Lucy Jr.
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“Mrs Harker did say it was a trap… Vampire didn’t expect us to notice the eye thing and the thoughts, she’d go investigate, then he calls her?” Arthur offers. That could’ve been the plan, he supposes. He takes a seat himself, pulls out his notebook to sort his thoughts while John does his checking- and he really very much hopes he didn’t make a mistake in leaving Mrs Harker out there by herself, that she’ll be back for her daughter. And Quincy.
But going out again when she told him to get back in would be counter-productive, so instead, he turns his thoughts back to Darcy. Surely the vampire would’ve known that she was still inside, if he was listening in? Maybe he figured that at least there was some distraction happening? Not that Arthur thinks he figures much in the vampire’s calculations.
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Quincy walks slowly, not spilling the tea has never been harder, and he can’t help the chuckle, that bloody brute really knew how to get him sorted out. Cycy has a good eye for affairs, that one’s a keeper. Just that he has the audacity not to be in the library when he finally manages to make it back! Huffing, he puts the tray down and nudges a cup towards Arthur. “Hey, honey, made you one, too.”
Arthur gives Quincy a smile. “Thank you, I can use one. Um, John went to check on your sister,” he explains.
Grabbing a pillow to hold, Quincy chuckles. “That one is trying so hard to act like a dad that I’m starting to wonder if I need to congratulate Cycy.” The thought of her makes him shiver again and he forces himself not to pull his knees up. “I hope she’s alright. And I hope I can ever be in a room with her again without mistrusting her.”
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“Apparently, he likes kids,” Arthur tells Quincy. “And… I hope so, too. She… she wouldn’t hurt someone she cares about,” he says, and wonders if he’s trying to convince himself. If he’d been in the room, would Darcy have hurt him, too?
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“Weirdo.” Now that would be a nice, easy topic, just a guy liking kids. It’s way too easy for Quincy to imagine John whittling a wooden toy for one of those screeching, loud brat things some people like to have.
But no, he has to sit in a castle after having been staked… And come to think of it, that went better for him than Harker, and that thought should disturb him way, way more. Instead, he tries to reassure Arthur: “I could hear somebody else’s thoughts from her, she’s… not herself. She’s protective, right?”
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Somehow, Arthur finds himself smiling at Quincy’s unapologetic judgement of John despite everything. To Quincy’s question, he nods, strongly. “Yes. She always wants to protect people. Or, me, at least. And her parents.” (He almost said “fathers”, because he’s not sure about Lucy, but… well, that constellation isn’t his business to share.)
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“She didn’t hesitate for a second to jump after me.” Chewing on his lip, Quincy hugs the pillow closer. How has it only been hours since he was sitting on the roof kissing her? Hours since he felt on top of the world and her around his little finger and completely under his wish and will? Her eyes were purple then, he knows that, so maybe that really still was her.
He had felt so close to her, right from that first discussion they had after she nearly killed him… the first time? He doesn’t mean to, but he’s pushing the pillow tight on his chest, as if that would do anything, as if that could stop the memory of the hole there. He startles with all but a squeak when, suddenly, the doorbell chimes.
Arthur jumps, too, splashes tea over his fingers and swallows half the sip he just took wrong, ends up with a coughing fit while he puts his cup down. Yay, a problem Quincy can help with! Clapping Arthur on the back and handing him a napkin, he smiles. “That can’t possibly be the vampire. How about I take the door?”
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Arthur’s heart is still beating fast while he wipes the spilled tea from his hands and takes a few deep breaths. He nods, embarrassed. “Okay. But if it’s a stranger, don’t invite them in! Just in case… And I’ll just… be back here and awkwardly peek into the hall. Also just in case.”
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“You do that.” Making sure to keep his smile open and non-judgemental, (Arthur really needs some help with how easily he gets embarrassed,) Quincy gets up, and realises that he might want to hide that hole in his clothes. (Don’t think about the one in your chest, just don’t!) So he asks the house if he may have a nice scarf. It’ll do for the moment, and he is starting to rather very much like this built-in butler system.
Trying his best to stroll to the door, he cracks it first cautiously, then rips it open with a relieved sigh, hugs his mother tight, and tries very, very hard not to start rambling about how upset he is. She hugs him back, but shoves him inside even while she does so. “Nobody breached this place? Are the wards still intact?”
Of course she is in charge of the situation. Of course she knows more than he does. Why is he even in the slightest surprised? While he tells her that nobody got in but Darcy ran off, he brings her over to the library.
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Arthur realizes the flaw in his “lurk in the background just in case” plan when it turns out that Quincy blocks his sight of the visitor. This time, it turns out to be Mrs Harker, but he makes a note to keep that in mind for next time. He steps back into the library as Quincy and Mrs Harker approach, and then isn’t sure what to do with himself- sitting down would be impolite, right?
After a quick look around, Mrs Harker steps up to him, gives him a once over, then sighs. “You don’t seem hurt, child. Good. Please don’t leave the safety of these wards again. The vampire we are up against is far too powerful for any of us. The wards are our only protection, and it sounds as if he got Darcy despite of this. Sit down, the only thing we can do now is to wait on my husband.”
“Say what?” Quincy half croaks, clears his throat. “I thought… I saw…”
“Not Jonathan. The man I was married to before him and now am again, and I would rather not explain everything several times over.” Despite that, she smirks as she must Arthur’s facial expression. (And that smirk looks really surprisingly comfortable on her face. Arthur’s not sure what to make of that.) “Oh very well, I appreciate your curiosity. One question, but only one.”
One? How is he only going to pick one question here? He wants to know how come she clearly didn’t tell them everything she knew, but also which vampire is it, and why is he her husband, like, did they just get married in the last few hours? And also, what does she mean “married to him before”, and… How’s he supposed to pick the most relevant question?
…Well. “So is that the one who killed Mr Harker or not?” he settles on. Because that seems very relevant. To him, at least.
Sitting down and availing herself of one of the tea cups, Mrs Harker gives him an amused look. “That question is vague enough to count as more than one. Which one, after all? To answer probably both underlying questions, the one we suspect of having killed Jonathan is not the one I am married to, much as he clearly was meant to be implicated. Now sit down, you, too, Quincy, while Arthur fills me in as to what happened here. I do not have all the answers either, only what I could quickly exchange with my husband, so I hope that between all of us, we have a more complete picture. And that it is only Darcy who is under his spell, or my secrecy won’t have bought us anything.”
Arthur does take a seat, and picks his own tea cup back up, if only to have something to do with his hands. He’s a bit mollified to hear that Mrs Harker was holding out on them for a reason, at least, tells her that he headed back with no trouble, but then found John freeing himself from a fallen book case (okay, so he’s fudging things a bit, omitting his magic, but some distrust goes both ways…) and Quincy… well, staked. He darts a look at Quincy at the reminder.
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His mother sets her tea cup down sharply and leans over to check on Quincy, who huffs that he’s fine now while trying to keep her from inspecting him. He’s anything but fine, but he doesn’t need his mother to fuss over him in front of Arthur. He’s not a small child and he doesn’t want to be reminded of being staked, preferably ever, and if he thinks about it, he worries that he’ll start shaking again and he’s so bloody done feeling like that!
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Seeing her son’s usual huffiness reassures Mina that, yes, he isn’t hiding a still healing wound, just a scratched ego. She has seen his father scoff at graver injuries, but she still worries for her child. Nevertheless, she focuses back on Arthur. “A fallen book case and my son not as safe as I was counting on. Please tell me that John is protecting my daughter, not that he is just as gone as Darcy.”
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“Oh, yes,” Arthur assures her, “he went to check on her! Your daughter, I mean. I assume he’ll be back soon?” It comes out as a question, because… because Arthur really doesn’t know how long checking up on children is supposed to take.
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“It’ll depend on whether she engages with him and then asks a million questions, or ignores him completely. She can be a bit unpredictable,” Mina allows as she settles back down, but looks out through one of the windows. She suspects that if she weren’t sitting in the library, never Lucy’s favourite room to hide out in, the strangeness of openly acknowledging that she is waiting for Vlad in these very halls would strike her harder. Or the realisation that had she just looked out the windows more so many years ago, she might have spotted him while he was seeing to Lucy and all of this would have gone very differently. None of this is any sensible kind of pondering so she turns back to Arthur and the present.
“I hope we don’t have to wait too long. I have no way of contacting him quickly and no good estimation for how dangerous to Darcy his brother may be.”
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His mother has got to be kidding him, right? Quincy still wants to refuse to believe it, but she sounds so terribly matter of fact, he knows that tone from her. And normally, he finds it reassuring. Right now, though, Quincy is just about ready to whimper that she can’t possibly really be stealing his only hope of having a crush… that Basarab is really… No, he won’t believe it until he sees it with his own eyes!
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“So,” Arthur starts, then remembers: “Right, no questions yet… Except, er, where did he go, then? What’s happening right now?”
“Hopefully chasing the distraction right to Radu and thereby Darcy.” As Ms Harker says it, the door on the mezzanine opens and John steps back into the library, much to Arthur’s relief.
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Sadly, this time looking after Lucy Jr didn’t really help his mood. John’s far too worried that he was blind with jealousy of Quincy when the real person he should be concerned about is some conniving vampire, because could he even really fault his girl for running off from this fucking barony and her abusive husband if she got a chance to do it?
Sloppy bites from making out enthusiastically and a penchant for violence sounds far too much like somebody he can see Darcy crushing on. He’s played a hundred and one versions of rake for her in their dreamscape, he knows his girl wants the villain of the story to go with her self-image as a monster. How the fuck is he supposed to compete against a vampire?
At least it seems like Lucy Jr’s mother is alright. Their molly, on the other hand, looks to be either still on the same drama, or already on to the next. That pillow is going to have claw marks any second now, John thinks as he lets himself fall into a free chair. “So, what’s the plan and who do I get to punch?’
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Arthur glances askance at Mrs Harker whether she’ll be sharing her information now that John is here.
Seeing his look, Mrs Harker chuckles. “Yes, child, now you may bombard me with your questions. I may not always have the full answers for them but I shall try to answer them best I can. My husband will likely be able to fill in some more when he arrives. Just one thing: Is there any way for us to ascertain that Darcy was the only one who might be under Radu’s influence? My children’s safety is still my foremost concern and if he is still capable of listening in, then every piece of information we talk about may be the one that brings about our or Darcy’s undoing.”
That has Arthur sit back a little, thinking, because that’s a very good point. “I don’t know… How would we go about that?” He looks at John and Quincy. “I mean, Darcy’s eyes went red, that’s what tipped you off. Can we count on that being a reliable indication? That he can’t avoid that happening? Then we’d be fine, since all our eyes are their normal colour…”
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“So that is my son’s normal eye colour now?” Even while she asks, Quincy huffs, then hesitates. “I was…” He isn’t sure if he’s going to upset Arthur or get decked by Blondie, but maybe it’s important. “Cycy and I did that dhampir thing, fangs, I mean, no idea if that’s enough.”
Lifting a hand to her mouth to hide it, his mother still chuckles. “The day that I see my boy talking coyly around a topic has finally come. Did you two exchange blood? Or at the least, has she given you any?”
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While Quincy shakes his head, John finds himself thinking about it, too, but no, she’s been biting him all over the place (no further comment,) but while he got her to bleed, he hasn’t licked at it, he’s not a dhampir and normally those wounds are bigger at first. So he ends up shaking his head, too. “Not here either.”
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Dhampir thing? Fangs? Arthur assumes Quincy means biting. And he supposes it’s a valid concern, maybe a powerful vampire could… follow the blood? Like, if he has a link with Darcy’s, and then someone else had Darcy’s blood in their system? “I don’t think anyone else has had contact with him, either?” he offers. “I mean, apparently he can erase memories, so we can’t be a hundred percent sure, but… there should still be inconsistencies? Not remembering falling asleep, like Darcy, or missing time or something?”
“I’ve never experienced it. There is much I don’t know so I can only go by logic and that, yes, would lead me to think that we should have some inconsistencies to go by.” Leaning back in her seat and folding her hands Mrs Harker nods. “We will have to hope that we took enough precautions and that my husband can find Darcy. He will try his best. I promise you that much. Family is important to him. Very important. More important than vampire prejudice. Because of that, I can promise you that he will never hurt either of the dhampirs. He didn’t know Lucy survived, no more than I did. He would have wanted to look after both Lucy and Darcy, I suspect, had he known.”
Arthur relaxes a little at hearing the dhampirs will be safe from at least one vampire. “So… how much do you know?” he asks Mrs Harker. “Like, er… have you been in contact with him the whole time? Did you know about Quincy being a dhampir? But, um, you didn’t seem very worried about hunters finding him…”
“I’m afraid it is all a little bit more complicated than that, also for myself. To answer the easier question first, no, I have not been in contact with him up until yesterday around dinner time, when I sent Darcy back over to you. I wondered from the start if she might be compromised. If any of you have been snooping through our old diaries, it was me who could tell the hunters which way my husband was, as I was the one linked by blood to him. When Darcy’s eyes turned red shortly yesterday, I knew my worry confirmed. I tried coming up with a way to contact my husband.”
At this point she looks over to Quincy with a smile. “It turns out he was concerned about his son and found a way to be close to him despite us having agreed that he would stay away as long as I was married to Jonathan. We knew that Jonathan would be the fastest way for hunters to find Quincy. It also turns out that the rumours of Jonathan’s fate had already made it to the theatre, and he was getting rather very worried.”
The smile turns chuckle. “I hardly put two steps outside the door before I had him apologize for the cheating, but he had to make sure that I and Quincy are safe. From there, we devised a plan in hopes to draw Radu out, using me as bait, to pull him away from you children. From what my husband tells me, Radu is quite insane.”
“So it is Mr Basarab,” Arthur says, feeling a bit satisfied that he figured that out correctly. Though he doesn’t like that news at all: “Uh… insane? An insane, powerful vampire? That… sounds bad…?”