Chapter 113
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 112
If Quincy wasn’t currently a bit hard-pressed to answer immediately, he doesn’t think Gregory would have even made it through all his complaining and whining about how Jack is just so weird and Lucy didn’t do what he wanted her to do and that he’s just so badly off. This is so hard.
Fine, that’s all eye-roll galore material, but Quincy can deal with that, make some ‘there, there’ sounds through the tooth powder, but then Gregory had to put the bloody cherry on top of the emotional BS pile. He had to suddenly switch track and go all apologetic and comforting that really, no, it actually must be Quincy who’s off worst. Poor confused and overwhelmed him.
Fuck Gregory with a hot sauce laced chimney brush! Quincy’s temper flares into full inferno in an instant. He’s not holding back on telling Gregory where he can shove that shit. He is not his damsel, or any damsel at all, and he refuses to be painted as one, and hasn’t he told him a dozen times now that he can take care of himself?
Then he notices the grin and that hungry look on Gregory’s face and somehow that feels just nothing short of creepy. Something is bloody wrong with the man and those hungry looks… Yes, they still tingle but no, something feels just off.
Quincy isn’t this prone to temper outbursts. He doesn’t like it, so rather than going on or taking the bait that no, Gregory didn’t mean it like that, just that it must all be so new for Quincy and that’s his father down there, Quincy decides to put his training towards his personal benefit.
He runs through a bunch of mental exercises he knows to calm himself. Sure, they are meant for stage fright, but they ought to work just fine on being angry. It’s both just different flavours of upset, isn’t it? So yes, in, two, three, four, hold, out, two, three, four. He is in control here. He can do it. He can calm down when he wants to.
Exhaling slowly, he gives Gregory a much more measured look and informs him that no, he is fine, he’s resilient and knows how to deal with sudden changes.
That puts such a sulking look on Gregory’s face that Quincy is about ready to go from self-management to boyfriend-management when Gregory decides to just vanish again… Really, if Quincy didn’t know it’s a self-snipe he’d be tempted to huff that running isn’t going to always work. Instead, he finishes with getting ready for bed and well, now he started with the exercises so he might just as well do a full round of meditation, it’ll help with falling asleep, he suspects.
~~~~
Arthur tries to keep his mind on the books as he and Mrs Harker go through what the library provided, but it’s all just myths and folklore and nothing concrete he can dig his mind into, and he finds his thoughts drifting, finds himself yawning, too, until Mrs Harker tells him that that’s enough, it’s late and he ought to get himself to bed, he’s no good to Darcy if he doesn’t sleep enough.
Given how short his previous night was, Arthur supposes that’s good advice. Still, he feels a jittery urge to do things, to figure something out. But Darcy’s parents are back and a lot has happened and… yes, he needs sleep. And he can hug the genet he got from Darcy in his bed, tuck his nose between its soft ears, and it isn’t really like an actual piece of Darcy, but… but they’ll get her back and she’ll be okay and they’ll figure out what to do about Radu.
Right? Right. They have to, so they will. Maybe he would’ve fretted more if he wasn’t quite so tired, but as it is, it’s at least good for sending him to sleep quickly and dreamlessly.
~~~~
John knew something was wrong when he drifted from sheer exhaustion into actual sleep. There was no Darcy anywhere close enough for him to pull into his dreamscape, and part of him was hammering at the walls of his own mind to wake up and find out what’s going on, but then he felt another by now familiar mind and he doesn’t really want to, but before he wakes up too early and is in no shape to help, he decides that it can’t be quite that acute a crisis if Molly is asleep.
So he pulls him over.
Can he ever tell that Quincy isn’t really willing to tell him but… fuck, Molly is through the wringer, too. A lot of shit happened that he has no clue about, eh? Fine, from the start then. And John doesn’t think he could have gotten through all of that if not at some point Molly had started to shake and cry and John just can’t stop himself from slapping him on the shoulder and telling him it’s okay, he’ll punch the new problems, too.
He has to, his girl is going to chew him out otherwise for not protecting this fucking sissy.
That has Quincy hiss at him, but it’s through a laugh and they keep talking and it’s the weirdest thing, the fucking molly hates being taken care of and John wouldn’t want to take care of him if somebody paid him for it, but… he likes that Quincy admits that he makes him feel a little bit safer, and yes, fine, John feels better with how adamant Quincy is that John is a total catch for Darcy and that he won’t hear another word about him having fucked up on not keeping her under.
Frankly, he needs that support. He’s still very glad to wake up and not find the molly right next to him. But the badger plushie is there and he can only imagine one person who probably figured out that he likes it. If Quincy tells on him, he’ll make him regret it, but while nobody is looking he hugs the badger close and allows himself one single sob before getting up. He has to do something!
~~~~
The kitchen is empty when Arthur pokes his head in the next morning. It’s still dark, of course, and now that Llew said something about midwinter for the ritual, that takes on a whole different significance. Suddenly, it’s not just an ordinary December thing that’ll just pass- if he survives long enough.
It… kind of really sucks, he thinks while he gives Katharina her breakfast and asks the house for his own, pokes at a mushroom. Here he is, having food and a warm place to sleep for the first time in years, doesn’t have to worry about how to make it to spring, doesn’t have to dread how cold the coming months will be. January and February are always the worst, but now he wouldn’t even need to worry about it.
And instead, he has to worry about how they’ll get Darcy back, and whether there’s a scary vampire after them. He feels the urge to be immature and pout at the unfairness of it all, but thankfully, Katharina comes to jump on his lap as always and so he has the distraction of petting her instead, and eating, and shortly thereafter, Quincy arrives, too.
~~~~
Oh dear, Arthur looks about like Quincy feels, so he scoots in right next to him and hugs him. “Yeah, to put that crudely, it all sucks. Let me know if you want to talk, honey.” Letting go again, he gets himself breakfast but doesn’t have plans to stay long, he doesn’t know how long John’s going to sleep, and he doesn’t want to leave him alone for too long… or be alone without him and nobody point that out.
Arthur startles a little, at the unexpected hug and the words. “Um… could you hear me thinking that?”
With a chuckle Quincy shakes his head and gently pokes Arthur against the chin. “I didn’t need to. Your face is so long that I could get worried your chin might hit the table.”
“Oh.” Arthur blushes a little. “I guess I’m being a bit childish…”
“Oh please, then every last person in the house is. Be glad I don’t have the time to lecture you on it being valid to feel bad about the world being its usual grey self and throwing stones at us, but I don’t really want to leave John on his own for too long.” Shoving his half a sandwich into his mouth in one go, Quincy is just about to get up to walk upstairs when John appears in the doorway, and hell, he looks physically better than he did before he got sleep but the emotional pain is sitting so deep that Quincy again has the urge to wrap himself around the man.
The dear idiot of a loveable man. Cycy is so bloody lucky to have that one and Quincy refuses not to help making her happier once they have her back. Keep her husband off her and find out if there isn’t anything to be done to make the household dynamics better. Nobody deserves to be such a stubbornly and loyally in-love idiot and not get it back, so fine, he’ll try to help John, too. For right now, though, that just means going over there to let himself be punched at for fussing too much and pretending not to hear the grateful tone.
~~~~
Arthur supposes Quincy isn’t wrong about the world throwing stones at them. They never get too long of a spell of peace before the next crisis knocks on their door. He gives John a wave and a good morning, gets a half-grunted one back. And apparently John reads his insecurity of what to say or whether to say something in his face, because he adds a: “Molly filled me in. Dreamscape.”
Well, that’s pretty handy, Arthur has to admit, and it means he can eat his breakfast rather than having to talk to all the things that have happened in just the span of the last day.
Mrs Harker is next to arrive, though Arthur is pretty much finished with his breakfast by then. She suggests that she and Arthur get back to the research on rituals, and John volunteers to have a look at the barony work after he’s checked on the animal hospital. Quincy says he’ll help with it- the barony work, that is.
Arthur lets John know that the animals in the hospital are fine- checking in on them is part of his morning routine, after all- but he didn’t really have time to play with them, he only got around to saying hello for a few minutes. John thanks him and says he’ll make sure to take the puppies for a run at least, and ropes in Quincy, who’s a bit more reluctant for that than he is for letter writing and paperwork. And that’s just weird, as far as Arthur’s concerned.
But he himself is more than happy for a reasonably busy schedule, so agrees he’ll meet Mrs Harker in the library once he’s looked in on Hannibal.
In the stables, he just wraps his arms around Hannibal’s neck and rests his face against the coarse hair of Hannibal’s mane for a few long minutes. Hannibal is so big and warm. He doesn’t really smell like a horse- less sweet hay and more the biting scent of a carnivore, he supposes. And the texture of his mane is a bit different, too. Silkier, actually. But well, it can catch on fire and not burn, normal horses can’t do that. Arthur squeezes Hannibal a little, and tells him he’s the best horse ever.
The fact that he was a gift from Darcy just makes him even more special, and just being with him reminds Arthur of why he really wants her back to her old self. He feels a little better after indulging in cuddling Hannibal for a little while, and is ready to get to work when he returns to the library.
Unfortunately, his readiness makes no difference to the lack of proper information in the books they can find. There’s just nothing solid, no proper overview of what rituals fey do or how they work or what the practises are. There’s mentions of sacrifices at equinoxes, and Arthur isn’t at all reassured that those aren’t full-on human sacrifices, but vague mentions and hearsay is all it amounts to.
It’s past lunch and into early afternoon when he puts another book down with a frustrated sigh after going over it half a dozen times, trying to tease out any details or bits he’s missed. But there’s nothing more than he already has more notes on than is entirely reasonable.
Then there’s a flurry of glitter, and there’s Llew. “Here you go, you should try this one!” he says, like he hasn’t left them hanging with only the vaguest hints the day before. “You’ll have to figure out how to put it together, I even marked the page for you!”
Arthur leaps to his feet, yells: “Wait…!” but his reaching hand only trails through a cloud of dissipating glitter. This time, he plops back into his seat and puts his forehead onto the table with a frustrated groan.
“Now, now, child,” Mrs Harker chides him, but not in a mean way. “Let’s find out if the poison moth was good for something after all before we concede defeat.”
Which is a very sensible suggestion, and Arthur pulls himself back out of his self-pity. And this book is better- there’s not much context for the rituals in it, no explanations of overarching themes or methods. More like a cookbook with a bunch of recipes all jumbled together without rhyme or reason, but at least Llew did indeed mark a page and there is indeed a detailed description of what they’ll need and how to do the ritual.
And Arthur doesn’t like it one bit.
~~~~
Quincy’s well aware that there’s a meeting set. His mother and Arthur apparently got new information from the poison moth, and the vampires and vampire scheduled humans are up and awake again. But no, they can all wait a little bit longer on him, or worst case, start without him because ugh, the things he does for Blondie!
There weren’t even leashes! Blondie really expected him to just deal with all those furry things that would ruin his clothes! And then he has the audacity to call him a wuss for it. He’s a proud wuss, thank you very much, he cares about his looks.
But it’s not as if it’s not easy enough to get back at the idiot. All he had to do was call him a big, burly, outdoorsy cave man, exactly Cycy’s type, and that got him nice and flustered and willing to let Quincy try leash training some of those noisy flea bags.
Quincy just about survived throughout the day being covered in fur and smell of dog, but no, enough, he’s not letting anybody else see him like that, he needs to wash up properly!
When he does walk into the meeting, it’s not really surprising to him to find the women at the head of the table, each of them managing their part of the assembled men. Arthur and John are a bit more to the side, one with his notes, one just obviously grumping at having to wait, ready to do something, finally.
All in all, better than yesterday. This making-Lucy-Principe clearly wasn’t the worst idea. Still, he picks the seat next to John, (and half expects John to have kept it empty just for him, anyway.)
~~~~
Arthur shifts his weight a little when Quincy finally arrives and everyone’s attention turns to him and Mrs Harker- and Mrs Harker gives him a raised eyebrow to go ahead and explain. Yes, he’s pretty sure the whole him-being-a-mage thing is now obvious to her, what with him having ended up putting what he has of magical base knowledge to use on that ritual… including some necromancy stuff.
He doesn’t like it, and he never wanted to touch any of it again after what happened with Gregory, but… but, well, yes, he does know the theory of how to build a necromantic ritual, and the meanings of the symbols and all that.
And… and for Darcy… For Darcy, he said he’d do anything, and he meant it, so he’s even going to do another necromantic ritual, even if the whole thing and what it requires them to do to her leaves him queasy and unhappy.
So, well, he kind of hopes he didn’t give too much of the necromancy bend of his education away… Mrs Harker only raised an eyebrow when he started mapping out the ritual, in a kind of satisfied way, like maybe she’d had a suspicion that he was confirming, and he supposes that wasn’t avoidable. He just hopes the necromantic bend isn’t as obvious… But then, at one point of putting the schematic of the ritual circle together, Mrs Harker tapped on one line of symbols and told him that wasn’t quite right.
She rubbed her temple, and said she couldn’t remember why or how, but on a second look, yes, Arthur agreed. He put in what would go into a standard ritual to channel power between the sacrifice and a caster, but this is a… fey-flavoured ritual. Checking the text again, he realised it needed to be emotion channelled between the sacrifice and caster, not magic.
Well, still also kind of magic, and, going by the book, still power, but apparently, for fey, magic and power and emotion are all kind of facets of the same thing. But in a regular ritual, he would use the symbols for “spirit” and “power” in that place to denote magical power- power from the mind, and controlled by the mind, and outside the realm of the physical. But after some thought, he swapped “spirit” for “heart”, and Mrs Harker nodded her approval for that- even though he doesn’t think she can actually read the symbols.
In any case, here he is, having to lay out and explain the thing to everyone else. And yes, it is a sacrifice. In the form it is in the book, it’s kind of a standard necromantic sacrifice, release someone’s power through killing them and giving that power to a recipient, but mashed up with some fey stuff to instead make it so it’s emotion you’re getting out of the person.
And the purpose of it is, as far as he can make out, to break a fey contract. From what he understands, fey usually buy emotion, and this ritual is meant to draw out that emotion, including the part that got sold to some other fey, and then you isolate that sold part and sacrifice it to the Wild Hunt.
Which means it’s gone for the person who sold it, it’s not like they get it back, but also the fey who bought it doesn’t have it anymore.
The tricky bit is that you need seven people to draw out the respective emotion, and anchor down the parts of it that you don’t want to sacrifice.
And, well, the other tricky bit is how you have to bleed out the person who’s the sacrifice and keeping them from dying from it.
That part, Arthur is a bit more confident about with Darcy being a dhampir. What he’s a bit less confident about is the fact that it’s an enthrallment, not a fey contract they’re trying to sacrifice. But if Llew thinks it would work as an equivalent…
He explains all of this to the others, haltingly at first, but once he gets into the details of it it gets easier.
~~~~
“Neat-o! You think that combination of magic can work. Now that’s good to know,” Llew comments from up above and Vlad is very sure he wasn’t there a moment ago, he trusts his ears to tell him about intruders. To drag the attention away from the fey, because really, that is the best way to punish them, he nods and makes a spectacle of himself by way of wilfully dropping his glamour.
Even as he can see everybody’s eyes hone in on the massive scar circling his neck, the orange hue of his eyes, and the soft points on his ears, Vlad speaks up.
“It can indeed, if wielded by a competent-enough caster.”
He takes Mina’s hand, but while he can feel that she enjoys the flattery, she cautions: “I lack the memories from the last time I cast, let alone that specific ritual. However, I was able to look over Arthur’s spell charts and I trust him to be capable. Oh, and hold your huffing, Art, yes, there is more to me than you know, ask your wife, I don’t have time for you. This ritual is difficult enough and while my husband is right, the magic itself can be combined, we don’t know how it might affect a dhampir.”
~~~~
“I think I do,” John speaks up, ripping his gaze away from that wicked scar on Basarab, and looking at Arthur instead. “Darcy has a contract about… something physical with Eluned and was told that there are limits to how well the fey magic takes to her because of her drac. Arthur, necromancy should work, right?”
~~~~
While Mr Basarab’s changed appearance is startling, what Arthur really wants to know is how he’s hidden that so far- is it a glamour? Does that mean he has magic? Is it a vampire thing? But all of that is neither on topic nor, maybe, a welcome thing to ask- maybe it’d remind him of bad stuff happening? Anything that leaves a scar like that is probably not a pleasant memory. Arthur doesn’t want to be offensive by being curious…
But anyway… He makes himself focus on John’s question. “Well, vampires are kind of… death-aspected as it is?” he offers, with an apologetic look at Mr Basarab and Lucy, in case they mind.
“So, uh, if anything, I’d worry whether a necromantic ritual might work better than intended on a dhampir. But we’re not pulling on her dhampir magic, so I don’t think there’s any chance of us accidentally turning her into a vampire somehow or something. We’re pulling on emotions, that’s the fey thing about it, and we’re doing it through the fey artefacts. Her emotions shouldn’t be fundamentally different, in a magical way, to a human’s emotions, so yes, I think it’ll still work as intended. As long as the enthrallment acts in a similar-enough way to a fey contract for the Wild Hunt to take a hold of, that’s really the point where I think we’re taking a chance.”
~~~~
Reinstating his glamour because he definitely does not like to share this with many people, let alone the hunter across from him who is taking notes; that one is dangerous, much more dangerous than the bigger man at his side. But never mind those two. They are here to help his granddaughter, so Vlad comments:
“We vampires are rather very dead indeed, which is why necromancy is a common part of our culture. My granddaughter has a drac, therefore I have to assume that it will be susceptible to necromancy. It is also where a vampire’s emotions come from. I cannot say how similar in magical terms a fey contract and an enthrallment are, but both, in a lot of ways, are signed in power, blood to vampires, emotions to fey. That may be enough overlap.”
~~~~
Jack had focused on the logistics of this entire thing and brings up something he noticed: “I am hearing the part of emotions over and over here. How do we isolate the enthrallment based ones?”