Chapter 109
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 108
For a moment, Jack wonders if it’s wrong of him to maybe not pray for that, the lack of running into a problem vampire, he means.
~~~~
“I hadn’t even considered the missing baroness problem…” Arthur admits. (And at least no one is accusing him of failing to prevent the entire situation in the first place…) “The problem we have with that one is… how do we do it? Radu already called her to him once, and she attacked Quincy and John to get to him. That’s why John has been keeping her asleep, but he can’t do that all the time. But if she’s awake, Radu can spy on us through her, and… I’m not sure how we can contain her without hurting her while also not giving her the chance of hurting us? Like… she can turn into fog,” he remembers. “And we didn’t like the option of letting Llew take her to the nexus. Though I suppose that point’s moot now?”
~~~~
“Is John alright? Are you alright?” Art refocuses his attention, he can trust Jack to do the thinking, maybe he should find his own strength again, and that would be as the one who’s better with the caring side.
~~~~
“Yes,” Arthur confirms. “John’s asleep now, we’re okay.” He almost says, “I healed him,” but then remembers that he’s not only among people who know everything.
~~~~
Nodding and getting up, slowly to show that he’s not being aggressive, Art walks over and ruffles Arthur’s hair. “Well done, and if you could have, you would have figured it out. But now you can help figure out how to fix it. Because yeah, you’re right, keeping sugar doll in when she doesn’t want to could be nearly impossible.” Giving Mina side-eye, he preens. “My dhampir is an accomplished knight.”
He regrets that a moment later when Mina fires back: “Like her grandsire, you mean?”
~~~~
“Calm it, you two,” Jack interjects, still looking at the black board, taking more time to assess each option, but they are endangering Darcy’s life at best and just changing who she is enslaved to at worst, so no, he does not like any of them. “Do we have anything to make sure that the fey are not abusing the fact that they have Darcy? She has a contract with them. They likely would want her to still be able to do her part of it.”
~~~~
Arthur can only shrug to that, admit he doesn’t know enough about fey to tell. But he relays how oddly eager Llew was about offering this ‘favour’, and how Mr Basarab asked about what price it would come at, and how Llew was kind of evasive about it. He decides not to mention the mutual antipathy and name-calling between him and Mrs Harker and Quincy. Their being fey isn’t really his secret to tell. Or at least not at this point, it’s not necessary right now.
He notices the looks he is getting from both of them for that omission, the slight nod from Mina, and Quincy’s wink, but they don’t comment further.
With a sigh that sounds a bit frustrated, Dr Seward thanks him and then asks him to tell them what happened from the beginning- he only has bits and pieces so far, and he would like as complete a set of data as possible before they evaluate any further actions.
That, Arthur can do. Well, with the help of his notebook, to remind him of the chronology of things, but he sums up, as succinct as possible, how they ended up where they are. Well, with continued omissions of feyness and any of his own magic casting. (Funnily enough, nobody has asked him how exactly he did call them back, though he’s sure it’ll occur to them to wonder at some point. For now, he just skips over that bit and focuses on what happened during the day leading up to Art’s arrival in the library.)
~~~~
Mina certainly notices the omission, and she has looked into the people Lucy’s daughter hangs around, and of course has chatted and exchanged letters with Lucy for weeks now. She’s well aware young Arthur is a mage, at least at the level of his father, likely better. But if he doesn’t address her own fey background, she shall keep that knowledge to herself.
~~~~
Quincy is pretty sure that Arthur’s one more part of Darcy’s aberration collection. That woman is good at collecting: books, stuffed animals, rocks, pressed flowers (and that after only a few months outside!), she got it all, so why not aberrations. And if he doesn’t want to talk about that in exchange for not talking about his mother’s, and his own, fey heritage, (he’ll reserve a full session bitching at the Divine about that for later,) that’s a fair deal as far as he’s concerned.
~~~~
Vlad is at the point of sitting on the roof of his wife’s house and massaging his temples, and that is to keep himself from looking up to the sky with a raised eyebrow if that was truly necessary. But he knows he is not going to get an answer, the powers that be don’t see any reason to explain themselves to him, and really, he is back to wondering if this is karma, bad luck, or punishment.
The only, the one and only, little shimmer of positivity is that his wife outsmarted him. Of course he has the address of her house, they may have been apart for all these years but there was a trickle of letters going between them, everything else would have been purgatory. But the address alone would not have made him rush to this place at the speed required, so she tested if he did stalk her, asking him only to go check her house with no further directions.
No, he is proud to say, he did not (much as he had the urge to check on her). He merely had escorted Quincy once, and by escorted he means followed like a shadow, because he had heard the whispered plans to attack him out on the streets by two supposed theatre patrons. He is glad to report that Quincy made it back to his mother unharmed that night, and yes, now it comes in handy to have a more visceral idea of where he had to rush.
Although, as per usual, his brother has also long outsmarted him. Especially if he is working with one of the people of House Osman he has brought over to their own House. Vlad does not like the thought of there potentially being a silent onlooker in any of the shadows around, even at this very moment. Invitations of course still hold power over Osmans even in their shade form, but that is little consolation, given that he does not have an invitation either and he could only enter for long enough to find no Lucy, but a ransom note.
Naturally, he commanded all manner of children of the night to search the area, search the city if need be, but unless Radu had to improvise a hiding spot, he doubts his efforts will lead to actually finding her. And after Vlad was able to find Darcy the very same way only a few days prior, he would honestly be surprised and nearly disappointed in his brother if he made that mistake.
Another dog howl is going up in the distance, another report of nothing, and while it doesn’t surprise him, Vlad still sighs and looks the ransom note over.
It makes him wonder. Radu has a voivode in his hands, an unsanctioned one. Vlad never obtained permission at the Court for turning Lucy. He may be Principe, but he is not above the rules he himself instated. He did not have a quota slot for her, so she is a superb political weapon. One much harder to deny than a dhampir another generation removed.
Not that his drac isn’t immediately barking at him for the mere strategic acknowledgement that he could wash his hands of his granddaughter. So he calms his oldest friend and ally, no, he would never again sell out family. He wants to care for her as much as he does for his own son. As he should for his daughter Lucy. But he failed there already, with the younger ones, he can cling to a little bit of hope. Not that it is going well with Quincy.
But he meant to try to find the thoughts behind the ransom note, because frankly, it baffles him. Lucy would, in many ways, be the more valuable hostage, but Radu offers a trade, safe return of her in exchange for Darcy. Worse, he had given not her name, but ‘my beloved’.
This entire episode feels very unlike his brother. Although, maybe, just maybe, and Vlad finds the thought deeply distasteful, but his brother is insane and therefore ridden by his drac, which of course scoffs at morals. What if his brother, equally lonely as insane, clung to the dhampir family attraction?
He only had a short glimpse of Darcy’s mind, of her drac, when he kept her asleep in his own arms, but combined with the report of her fierceness and knightly prowess… She couldn’t possibly remind him of Virág? Would her likely direct approach, drawn to him, have given Radu the impression that she is, or even more distasteful, could replace Virág?
Enthrallments would have been a powerful tool in his brother’s arsenal, with his level of mind craft he likely could have convinced more people into it, and yet, this is the first time Vlad ever heard of him using it, and he has made it a point of trying to know what his brother gets up to.
Is this a desperate plea for love rather than a political game? He honestly does not know. He could see it.
But would Radu go so far? His own grand-niece? Then the thought makes him snort and shake his head at himself, it appears he has indeed kept up with the times. Which proper noble of his time would blink twice at the thought? And with it being through vampire relations, not human succession, there really is only so much relatedness.
No. No, he doubts that this truly would be a complete deal breaker, if it ever was a consideration.
Groaning, he runs a hand over his face. Who is he kidding? This is his brother. Of course it would be a consideration. Radu’s dhampir grand-niece, if ever there was a perfect piece for scandalising the Court while at the same time attacking Vlad, oh yes, she would be the perfect bride.
“Brother, I can see your motivation too clearly, but dare I hope there is emotional longing mixed in?”
After another howl, Vlad finally gives up. If not a single child of the night has found so much as a hint of Lucy, then no, his brother has not gotten sloppy. She is long outside the city and Vlad may well have to actually use the Cavendish-infested meeting point Radu left on the ransom note.
For now, he has to slink back to his wife empty-handed, and that stings more than any lost battle.
~~~~
Art had just started to relax marginally. The kids might not have had everything under control, how could they with being assaulted by a voivode, but they worked well together. Even Mina’s brat. The dhampir, not the little girl, she did react a little bit to him catching her eye at one point and engaged back in his grimace game until she caught him out that he’d already used that one. That distraction sadly shatters when Dracula (and damn anybody trying to correct him on that name!) returns.
Alone.
He looks defeated, and Art thought he would love nothing more than seeing that expression on his old enemy, but this time he was supposed to get Lucy back and he clearly didn’t.
“My brother demands an exchange. My childer returned safely for handing him…”
Why is the arse hesitating? What’s up there? Does he have to keep himself from saying something rude about their dhampir? He got no right to judge, he got one himself! About ready to go back to snarling at him, (also so he doesn’t end up a sobbing sack of useless worry,) Art instead finds himself expelling the inhaled air in a startled ‘Wha?’ when Dracula continues with “my granddaughter.”
Did the bastard just dare to fucking claim both Lucy and Darcy in one damn sentence?! Who the hell does he think he is?! That’s his wife and his little girl! He doesn’t get to be close to them! He doesn’t! No! And… and they’re both missing and… and he is trying so hard not to feel like he did standing at the side of the damned vault twenty years ago when he thought he had just killed the love of his life. He is trying so hard not to let his mind run rampant with all the worries bubbling up.
Lucy, his Lucy, the woman he thought he had lost before, in the hands of a voivode. All his long years as a hunter are screaming at him that she’s lost. That there is nothing they can possibly do. You don’t attack a voivode, it’s suicide… but, suicide is better than losing her again.
Luckily, Jack’s voice rips him free of that emotional bog he feels himself sinking into helplessly. Jack is still at his side and his Jack went up against their own group, his Jack defied the odds before, he can hold on to him as his lifeline. Especially because he knows that tone, and yes, Jack’s hand is back on his arm, and there is a slight pinch to it, Jack is holding on to him, too.
They’ve been brothers in arms so often, they helped each other survive the horror of the war down in Africa, they stood together against countless other vampires, and sure, they might not have been voivodes, but Jack is never, never going to give up on Lucy.
And if they die fighting, they’ll die fighting arm in arm!
“Even if we were willing to accept that exchange, we do not have Darcy. So the mere consideration is mute.”
~~~~
Arthur tells himself not to groan in… well, exasperation. And worry. He really, really hates being tangled up in a vampire feud. Yes, he does. And yes, they can’t even come up with some kind of pretend exchange involving Darcy… Not that he can think of a way they could do that anyway. “So, since that’s out, we’ll have to find where Lucy is and get her back.”
Which… feels like a very déjà vu situation from when Radu had Darcy. Speaking of, Mr Basarab mentioned blood connections, didn’t he?, so: “Can you tell where she is? Which direction?” he asks Dr Seward and Art.
~~~~
After a quick look at Draculya, Jack nods, there is little value in keeping the details vague, the man downright asked him if he could contact her, he knows. “I can. It is no exact science but it might be the best indicator we have.”
Mina speaks up. “Even though I was faking it when Van Helsing tried the hypnosis on me, I could sense Vlad with some accuracy. If all else fails, you men will have to overcome your reluctance towards each other and Jack moves around the country with my husband to hone in on Lucy. I don’t care what your pride says. I want my best friend back!”
~~~~
“If you can sense the direction, we can narrow it down, at least,” Arthur muses. This shouldn’t be too difficult, right? Worth a try, anyway? “Can you point towards where you can sense her? And do you have a sense of the distance?” Darcy can tell if Gregory is close or far away, after all.
~~~~
Closing his eyes and focusing on the feeling he never could pinpoint as well as Lucy could, (he hypothesises that he lacks the required drac,) Jack concentrates for long moments before extending his arm to point. “This direction, I am sure of it. And far, I would say, but I couldn’t give you an estimate in miles.”
~~~~
Finally something Quincy can actually help with! He was about ready to chew a hole into his lip from feeling utterly not part of the conversation. So instead, he asks the house for a compass and gets right next to Cycy’s papa after a huff at Godalming for glaring at him. “Oh hush, you brute, I’m helping.”
Could that silly compass needle focus in faster? Ugh! But there, he got it, and while he isn’t the one with a thing for numbers, he can manage to read them off a compass just fine. “South-south-west, about 210 degrees.”
~~~~
Quincy’s clearly thinking along the same lines as he is. Arthur asks the house for a map of England, a ruler and a protractor. He draws a north-south line through Whitby- well, nudges it just a little sideways to go through their location at the castle best as he can estimate. It won’t be a hundred percent accurate, but it should do. Then he measures out the angle Quincy indicated, takes a peek at the compass himself to make sure he’s getting it right, and draws a long line to the edge of the map.
~~~~
Finished, he offers it to Mr Basarab. “Is there anything along there that stands out to you as a likely location? Or… do we need a bigger map? This is just England, do we need one for the Continent, too?”
~~~~
Looking over the map, Vlad puts his steepled fingers to his chin again, then frowns. “I am not terribly familiar with the politics of your region. I am not seeing a place named Cavendish on the map, but I am seeing Exeter, which is mentioned on the ransom note.” He places the note on the table for everybody to see.
~~~~
“Exeter? That’s in Devonshire, that is the traditional territory of the noble Cavendish. The human ones, so probably the vampire ones, too,” Art jumps in because he doubts anybody else in the room has the familiarity with British nobility.
~~~~
Both Jack and Vlad start to comment. Vlad assumes the long moment of silence is both of them trying to figure out if their politeness dictates they should defer, or if the deferral would be an admission of backing down from the unresolved tension.
~~~~
Finally Jack sighs, he has no time for this cock fight, so he lets Vlad speak first.
~~~~
“My brother would not keep her in the same city as he sets the meeting point to be. If I am seeing this right, it is the largest settlement, he would use that to his advantage. However, he is more likely to keep her at a more secluded holding; if he could arrange it, even a Cavendish holding itself because it would be politically highly inadvisable for me to storm that by force.” Exhaling slowly, Vlad takes a moment to consider his principles. They are what he will not ever again break. He set them in stone because he learned that he cannot follow a merely moral compass. But no, this does not break any of them. In fact, it follows directly from one of his principles, ‘protect family’, so he looks back up. “But Lucy’s safety comes before my political standing.”
“So… our working theory is that he is holding her in a place of the local vampires?” the young scholar asks, likely to confirm what sort of Cavendish they are talking about. “And is counting on you not wanting to anger them for political reasons?”
Internally, Vlad pets his drac down so that it doesn’t make him quite as inclined to snicker, because yes, the assessment is correct, but what are the Cavendish going to do to him? Not vote for him in the upcoming election that he doesn’t want to win in the first place? As long as it’s him they have a fight with, he feels rather untouchable. It is his son and granddaughter he needs to keep invisible to them. But that is unlikely to be directly linked to him being unruly with the locals.
No, he has his pride, he will stride in there and let them be shocked. He is a proud Wallachian. He is a proud voivode in its truest sense. He conquers his problems.
So on the outside, he allows himself to show a fang in a smile. “Yes, but he miscalculated on that. Let us see if we can pinpoint it more. Do we not have access to a second geographic location that we could triangulate from?” He sweeps his arm up to the mezzanine door.
~~~~
Art is grumbling to himself, he doesn’t want to agree, let alone root for, Dracula, but he couldn’t agree more with, and respect, a statement like putting Lucy before politics.
~~~~
“Oh, very true!” Arthur says- he hadn’t thought of triangulating from a second position, but that is a great idea, and he gets up to gather map and pen and rulers.
~~~~
Quincy is right along and uses his long legs to overtake Arthur on the stairs. If nothing else, he can hold doors and compasses; although as soon as Jack is up and over there, too, he feels the urge to look back down at where his mother and the double set of grumpier brutes kept waiting.
He is starting to very much prefer his own brute, the one upstairs, and it’s itching at him to go check on him. It’s become such a routine. But seeing the bed without Darcy would hurt, too, and he has seldom hated somebody as much as that bloody fairy.
Even if he is maybe helping, he shouldn’t have that power over Darcy!
So no, he’ll keep playing social watch dog, stays in the library, the two scholarly guys can manage on their own.
~~~~
Arthur hesitates on where to go- but the closest flat surface is his father’s desk. Dr Seward wouldn’t really fit into his attic room and his desk is much smaller, and, well, there’s the kitchen table, but the light is bad down there. So, reluctantly, he makes his way into the study.
It doesn’t take long to follow the line of Dr Seward’s pointing and put it on the map. It runs west, and a little south, and it works, Arthur thinks it works, because it intersects with the line he drew down from Whitby, and it intersects on land.
To be precise, it runs right through Exeter, but intersects the line down from Whitby further west. Right in the desolate middle of northern Dartmoor.
Arthur blinks at the map, and if he was trying to hide a vampire mansion or something… Well, that would be a good place for it. He looks up at Dr Seward. “I think we’ve got it.”
~~~~
Nodding after a look at the map, Jack tries to still do his duty as stand-in father figure and praises Arthur for the preciseness, but he has to admit, it feels a bit lackluster because of his worry and the mindset he’s trying to stick with. Focus on the solution to the problem, let Art deal with everything else.
At least, with how specific the location is, he might not have to suddenly find himself alone and traveling the vampire way with Draculya. He would, of course, do it for Lucy, but he cannot help but be relieved that he is safe from that.
Instead, he encourages Arthur to go ahead, he found it, he should present it to the others.
~~~~
Despite his general worry about this entire vampire (and fey) situation and far too much abducting of people going around, Arthur feels a little spark of… pride, maybe? at Dr Seward thinking he did a good job.
So he heads back through to the library, to find… Quincy having a conversation with everyone about what they’re going to get Darcy for Christmas. Which, apparently, did a good job of settling the atmosphere somewhat, at least until Arthur arrives and spreads the map on the coffee table. “Found it- or at least, this looks like a really good location for hiding.”
~~~~
“Well done, young scholar,” Vlad comments as he already rises, memorising the position on the map easily enough. It will be finding it while flying overhead that is most likely to slow him down. That and any potential defenses or wards that shield the place from being found or entered.
But he knows his brother’s strategies and his network, more likely than not it was a human who let him enter. If Vlad is lucky, there might not even be any bloodshed. No Cavendish present who would likely be as unwilling to host Radu as they would him. “I promise to not stop before I find Lucy. I shall deliver her back, or, as may be the case, escort her back if she is able to make the journey on her own.”
~~~~
Scoffing, Art gets up, too, just so he doesn’t have to look up at him. “She will. Just get that other voivode away from her.”
~~~~
Given that he wasn’t the only one with the idea, and it was Mr Basarab himself who suggested using the London location to triangulate, Arthur’s not sure how seriously to take the praise, so he just nods. “Um… good luck?” he offers. He has no idea what’s involved in getting in and getting Lucy out, and why it’s bad politically, so… that seems appropriate?
~~~~
“A bit of luck certainly never hurts, so let’s do that properly,” is Mina’s opinion, so she gets up as well to administer a good luck kiss that prompts her husband to vacate the premises about as fast (he really flusters adorably easy in front of others) as her son, with a sound that really only ever a teenager can make at seeing his parents be affectionate with each other.
Unfailingly unflustered in contrast, Lucy Jr just asks if she needs to make a Christmas gift for her new father, because she hasn’t seen old father in a few days and now mother kissed another man. Or is it okay to just use what she made for her old father?
Oh dear… Mina was hoping to not have that discussion with Jack and Art until after Lucy can back her up, so she uses the presence of the child to dodge, and answers that it would be best if she makes something new. That doesn’t stop her from feeling two sets of eyes bore into her, but Jack stops Art clearly ramping up to start growling again. He counsels priorities, Lucy first, and it reminds her why she had, all those years back, counselled Lucy to pick Jack. That one has a brain in that manly skull of his, not just a nice face and money like Art.
~~~~
Lucy Jr doesn’t know her father is dead? Arthur slants a glance at the girl, but she doesn’t seem particularly upset. She just said all matter-of-factly that she hasn’t seen him in a couple of days, she didn’t even ask where he was or when he’d be back. So he guesses she really doesn’t care too much?
Either way, it’s not his place to say something, and the atmosphere is tense and uncomfortable enough, so he just keeps himself scooted back in his seat and out of the way.