SUE VS SUE
Jan. 18th, 2014 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_sporking_ratHey guys, did you see the previous SvS update? Because you won't understand this one if you didn't
http://a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com/53873.html
I ask because, well, comments are the only way I can tell people have read it, so when there are none I'm not sure...and I feel like a shit for saying this because it sounds like a passive-aggressive demand for comments and I SWEAR THAT'S NOT IT I just want to be sure people don't miss it so this one makes sense...although it might not make sense anyway. IT BARELY MAKES SENSE TO ME AT THIS POINT.
I've got to say, this has been an incredible experience so far in what I think LKH's writing process is. Because firstly, this is a first draft. I am posting this as I write it. And I have no idea where the shit I'm going. I know who is going to win and have some notes about things I want to happen, but I have no plans on when or how to pull it all together. Which is usually how my first drafts are, but then I straighten them out and clean them up in the following drafts. This? This has become such a clusterfuck. There will doubtless be dangling plot threads galore when I finish this (and so instead of actually wrapping them up in the story itself I'll just do one of LKH's un-satisfying sum-up epilogues!) But there's also the constant introduction of new stuff, forgetting old stuff, and having ALL THESE CHARACTERS to not only keep track of but also try to give attention to in general. But it's impossible to focus on them all and not bog down the action and pace, so I wind up with these great characters in my head not really getting any screen-time at all and me just TELLING you what they're like with no showing---case in point, the bit about Cleo in this update.
This is how LKH does it, guys. My fic is the most meta-authentic imitation of hers and that is why it is a MESS.
Of course, I wanted it that way on purpose for said LKH-experience and meta-level imitation, what's her excuse?
Nothing of real note had happened among Lucille's people ever since their deaths had been reversed. They had no memory of the event, since it had now never happened at all, and so they had no reason to behave any differently. They technically knew that Anita, Micah, Nathaniel, and Rafael were no longer prisoner here, and yet they didn't question how, why, or when. Everyone else just assume Lucille must have let them all go at some unspecified time for some reason of her own, and were all complacently fine with it in a manner that can only be described as sheep-like. Eva remembered herself freeing the wereleopards, but she didn't share that. Rafael was also now one of their allies, it seemed, and the wererat guards came freely to train and plan with them, and again, everyone just accepted this as something that Just Was.
Lucille had been right; with Anita away, her utter and effortless automatic control over their minds was back as it should be.
Since her current move was to simply wait for Maureen, everyone had a lot of free time on their hands, and since they couldn't leave the safety of the school grounds, mostly spent it with each other.
Eva and Odette made up beautifully. Eva had approached Odette while she was swapping skirts and shoes with Emily and Victoria, and called her away for a moment for a word in private. The second they were in a more secluded place, the little wererat burst, "Oh Detty! I'm so sorry over how thoughtless I was when I said those things! After what Anita did to you! I'm such a terrible friend, I met to apologize sooner but there was some stuff going on I had to do and I wanted to protect you from getting involved in it and then I didn't know how to start because I thought you were still mad at me and you should be, you have every right to--"
"Oh Eva!" Odette threw her arms around her friends' neck in a flurry of white ruffles, "Oh Eva, I already forgave you! You silly, I went up against Lucille for you, you think I'd do that if I was mad?"
"Well just because you wouldn't want to see me taken apart alive doesn't mean you're not mad at me," said Eva.
"Oh you! Always forgetting I'm a swanmane!" Detty squeezed her, "That's exactly what we do! No, Eva, I love you, it's all okay! I'm just glad you finally told me, I thought you were mad at me for getting mad at you!"
"No way!"
"So...what was it you wanted to protect me from?" Odette blinked her big blue dolly-eyes at her friend, but Eva shook her head.
"Uh uh. You could still probably get in trouble for it. But that reminds me, I gotta thank somebody else for keeping it secret for me. I'll be back, 'k?"
"You'd better! I'm doing a clothing swap with the mermaids and you totally need to grab some of this cute stuff for yourself!"
"Omigosh you know I will!" Eva waved as she bounced off in search of Sati, a weight lifted from her heart. She found Sati with Tallulah, and, not knowing how well the latter could keep a secret, was therefore very non-specific when she brought up the whole 'freeing Micah and Nathaniel' thing.
"Um, hey, Sati? Like, I just wanted to say...there was that thing, you know, and she found out anyway, but like, you didn't tell her and that could have gotten you in sooo much shit so like, that was really super good of you and I wanted to say thanks."
"Oh," said Sati, with a quick glance at Tallulah to show she understood why Eva didn't want her to be too specific with her response either, "You're welcome. But you should really thank Cornelius. I think I was about to tell--I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it, you know--and he stopped me."
"Oh," said Eva, surprised. She had no personal connection to Cornelius, so she didn't know if he was a kind person who would go out of his way to help someone he didn't know or not. Unlike the swanmanes, she had no beef against vampires as a whole, or even any particular opinions on them, so the idea that one could be kind to nigh-strangers like that wasn't at all odd to her. So she thanked Sati again, gave a friendly wave to Tallulah who had tactfully kept out of the conversation as she could tell it was about something just between the other two, and went looking for Cornelius.
Cornelius, as it happened, was talking to Richard. Rafael's words had reached the Wolf King, and he had decided the best way to save both his Pack and his own hide was to turn traitor to his triumvirate. Now he was holed up here, where his mental ties to both Anita and Jean-Claude were blocked by Lucille's power.
"...and if I didn't know better I'd say Klaus was into me!" said Richard.
"He is," Cornelius replied, "And you should definitely take it as a compliment, because he thinks I'm attractive to so you KNOW he must have some very high standards! Congratulations!"
"Wait, but," Richard was confused, "Isn't he with that Ghislaine girl?"
Eva reached them just in time to hear this, and she and Cornelius were cracking up together before she could even begin talking to him.
The fact that Richard was there, of course, was due not only to Rafael alone, but to Wander for telling Rafael what Shang-Da had told her, and she was pretty proud of this. Hank and Mikey Joe were listening to her for about the fifth time, dully but politely nodding their heads, while Tung and Fredo were bonding over blades every time the wererats clandestinely dropped by to discuss plans for what to do next. In other words, most everyone was up to something, keeping busy, and having at least an okay time of it.
The only one that could be said to be unhappy was Lucille herself.
Her stronghold and soldiers had been restored and revived, and her control over them was complete again, they questioned nothing anymore now that Anita was gone, but she was not happy for it. No, she was angry, a tight quiet simmering anger that did not erupt in one great burst but simply stayed constant, never ceasing for a moment as she went about through everything she did. This was because, though she no longer had any loss, she had made no gain either. She was back at square one, and Anita was stronger than ever. She had but one advantage left, and that was that Anita believed her and her servants--for that was how she thought of her little crew of would-be heroes--to be dead. She had too the newly-arrived Lucretia, but though she claimed to come from Mr. Oliver, Lucille did not necessarily believe her. She smelled no lie from the woman, but this was because she could detect period whether she was lying or not about anything, and nor could anyone among the rebels, be they vampire or therian. So she also did not necessarily believe the claims of Lucretia that Maureen had been a dormant necromancer all this time, until, shortly after Lucretia told her this, word from Mr. Oliver himself came confirming just this, as well as to ask if Lucretia had yet made contact with her.
“And what is Lucretia?” Lucille had asked him.
“Why, Lucille, she’s a vampire,” said Mr. Oliver, as if she had asked that about any normal vampire, and cut connection. Lucretia, however, was not normal, and Lucille knew that. It wasn’t just that she was never to be found most of the time, only appearing when it was on her terms and she had something to say or wished to observe, nor was it that they could never find her daytime hiding spot, or any matter of concrete physicality like scent. No, it was just…just a feeling. Not a psychic sense, but the good ol’ fashioned heebie-jeebies that Lucretia clearly gave everyone and not just Lucille; if anything, she affected the others more. They cleared before her path almost unconsciously, like a school of fish making way for a whale…or a shark. No one of any species wanted to be too close to her, and nobody could express why. Nobody wanted to talk about it either. But, Lucille figured, if this was how her own people reacted to the being, then surely those of Anita would do the same, be just as instinctually repulsed and chilled by her, and as long as they were, then Lucille didn’t care what Lucretia was so long as she was on her side. Nothing mattered to Lucille except what could be made to her advantage. So she set her mind to quash the instinctual squeamishness she had for the creature, and focused instead on immediate issues: Firstly, that Maureen would be arriving in St. Louis soon, and must reach their stronghold safely. Secondly, that their alliance with the werehyenas had been discovered, which Lucille found out the very night after Anita’s escape when Narcissus and what remained of his Cackle arrived on the school doorstep.
“Uh, honey, not that you’re not always welcome here, especially if you brought shoe offerings, but you know this is gonna be the first place she looks, right?” said Lucille, leading in the doorway in a manner that was both very casual and utterly blocking any entrance.
“But they think you’re dead, darling!” protested Narcissus in his black nightgown maribou-trim and with fuzzy high-heeled slippers to match, “The few guards that got out say that before Anita went berserk on them, she was bragging to high heaven about how she burned this place to the ground and everyone in it, especially you?”
“Well, she kind of did,” said Lucille, lowering her voice a bit, “But keep that under your fabulous hat collection, alright? I don’t think everyone here needs to know I pulled a mass resurrection on them, they might start treating death too cheap and making me Lazarus their worthless asses all the time.”
Of course, Lucille had not resurrected them, because she had changed reality so that they had never died at all, and the whole event now did not exist except in the memory of Anita, but she didn’t want to even begin the task of explaining that to Narcissus, or anyone else for that matter. As for Narcissus, he could tell there was a lie in here somewhere but he didn’t know what, because it was always hard to scent them with Lucille, as she didn’t experience the same physiological changes that psychologically normal people did when lying. He figured that Anita just hadn’t done as much as she thought (Anita overestimating herself, oh what a surprise!) and Lucille had pulled the wool over her eyes with a false death, and now claiming she had literal God-tier abilities to seem that much more powerful to him so he wouldn’t get any ideas about who was the real queen around here. He found that to be sneaky, manipulative, and vain, and he respected that.
Just then, Nan came up from behind Lucille and, after apologizing for the interruption, asked, "Lucille, I had a dream...do you know a guy with blue, no, purple eyes?"
***
Night meant that Jean-Claude was awake, and Micah told him of how Hiero had tried to escape, and been herded back to his room instead. Jean-Claude decided to pay their guest a little visit, since he would now be staying…indefinitely.
Jean-Claude greeted him in French as he entered the room, shutting the door behind him, and though Hiero looked at him in apprehensive fear at first, this changed to a sort of quizzical confusion after the words left the vampire’s lips. Hiero’s maternal grandparents were directly from France, and his mother had spoken it frequently throughout his entire life, and Jean-Claude’s way of saying it sounded…off. Like someone who had picked it up from soppy movies instead of from actual French people. Hiero chalked it up to Jean-Claude being from a France of a very different time and then having been in America so long, but in fact it was just that Jean-Claude assumed that the soppy romance movie French that worked so good on the naïve, sex-obsessed Anita would work equally well on the naïve, sex-obsessed Hiero.
“You helped me and mine before, Hieronymus,” said Jean-Claude, sitting on a corner of the bed opposite the one that Hiero was cowering on, trying to shove himself against the headboard so as to be as far away from the vampire as he could. Being a gracious host, Jean-Claude acted as if he did not notice this rudeness, and continued with the smooth intonations that Anita always likened to fur and silk, “Help us again.”
“I don’t know anything!” Hiero blurted desperately, “I don’t know how Lucille survived or how the school is back or anything at all, I’m not with her, you can smell lies, you know I’m not!”
“Oh, oui, I do, I do,” Jean Claude soothed, “And I do so apologize for the way ma petite Anita misunderstood you, Monsieur van Pelt, it was most unfortunate. She is not so, how you say, attuned to her supernatural senses as of yet, and makes mistakes. And in so desperate a time as this little war is, she overreacted, but all is well now, no?”
“If all is well, then you can let me go now,” pleaded Hiero, his voice pathetic with hope.
“I’m afraid not,” Jean-Claude purred slyly, “For you say, as I said, we still require aid from you, and so for your own protection you cannot be allowed to leave, lest your dear cousin Lucille kill you so as to disadvantage us.”
“How can you be disadvantaged by losing me when Anita has all this new power?” Hiero tried to reason his way out, “You saw what she can do now, my magic is nothing to that!”
“You do yourself a disservice with such words, mon ami. Ma petite can now control the elements as the tiger clans did of old, yes, but your powers are more subtle, and that is what I have a need for. Before, you helped me by linking me to ma petite mentally, even when whatever foul powers Lucille possesses were keeping me out, cutting me off from the psychic bond shared between Master and Servant. Clearly, you can use your witchcraft to tap into that bond, yes? I want you to do it again, but in a different way. I want you to manipulate it so that it is as other bonds between Humans Servants and their Vampire Masters are, so that it is normal.”
Hiero looked as if he did not understand, and so Jean-Claude explained, “Ma petite, as you have witnessed, is a most exceptional being, and thus a most exceptional Servant. Never before has there been one such as her, and so the binding of her to me is also unusual. I simply want you to fix this abnormality; I shall provide anything you need for it, but remember, if you ask for anything that is in fact for escape or resistance instead, I will know. I have been inside your mind, mon sorciere, and I can go there again easily.”
He did not wait for Hiero to agree or dissent, but merely got up and, as he went to the door, said very casually, “Being a witch has given you some natural resistance to being rolled, yes, but I am Master enough that I believe I could do so easily should I try. However, I will not. Because I do not need to do that to get what I want from you. You are a foolish boy, Hiero, but even you can see that until you do as I say, you shall not leave this place, and that means that every time ma petite sets loose the ardeur in the Circus, you will once more be its victim as you have been once already. So the sooner you do this for me, the better for you, no?”
Hiero’s horrified whimper was more than enough for an answer.
***
Maureen, Mr. Oliver, and Gideon had taken a private jet to St. Louis, leaving Padma and Thomas Carswell in New York to continue overseeing things. Gideon had specifically been taken with them so that Padma didn’t get any ideas about double-crossing them for his own gain, but it was also nice to have a therian along for the ride, Maureen felt, because she had no super-strength and Mr. Oliver’s would be as incapacitated as the rest of him in daylight.
They had taken no one else with them, no bodyguards or escorts. They wanted to make their entrance as under the radar as possible, and they knew that, given certain recent activity, Jean-Claude would doubtlessly have his guards and spies keeping an eye on all entryways into St. Louis. The airport was, alas, one of the places he was most likely to have an eye on now, particularly concerning any flights coming in from New York, but there had been no time to arrange anything more subtle, as Tom Sallow, Maureen’s were lion friend, had only just begun his project of trying to make a safe and secret route out of St. Louis for the refugees in this war that would surely result on both sides.
So when their car was trailed from the airport and then attacked on the road, it was not a surprise. In fact, it was what they were counting on.
It had started with the enemy car pulling up beside them and someone within shooting their tires, sending them off the road. It had clearly been planned in advance to do this at this exact spot, because not far away from where their car ended up, a gaggle of St. Louis guards, vampires and therians armed to the teeth, exploded from the trees and bushes that lined the lonely highway.
Maureen, having not been doing her makeup when the crash happened and thus had not smeared or mussed or messed up anything, was barely even irritated, let alone terrified, and waited demurely as Mr. Oliver got out of the back and came up to open the passenger door up for her, while Gideon stayed in the driver’s seat, knowing his services would not be needed.
There Maureen and Mr. Oliver stood. A woman in high heels and glamorous designer business wear, a more demurely but no less well-dressed man with dwarfism, in the grass on the side of a deserted road, with big monster men all around pointing guns at them.
You almost had to feel sorry for the latter.
“Just as you expected, Mr. Oliver,” said Maureen in an almost tut-tut sort of tone, “What brutish method of ambush, no finesse at all. Utterly elementary to anticipate.”
“As we should be glad for,” said Mr. Oliver while the guards yelled at them to get down on the ground, “After all, it’s so kind of them to provide you an opportunity for practice.”
And then the first shots were fired, but they were not at Maureen and Mr. Oliver, nor at Gideon, nor at the car. The vampire guards, suddenly under the control of Maureen’s necromancy, had begun to fire on the therian guards. In addition to controlling their bodies, Maureen also took command of their mental powers, and forced them to use their psychic vampire wiles to make the therians all stay still for it. A few therians were too strong for this, but Mr. Oliver dealt with them. He had the talent of empathic voice manipulation, not unlike Jean-Claude did, and he ensnared these unfortunate werebeasts with it for just long enough to draw a little pistol from his breast pocket and eliminate them with a headshot. Once all the wereanimal guards were killed, Maureen made the vampires turn on each other until only one remained. It really was satisfying for her vampire phobia, she found, to make this final one pull the trigger on himself. So much control.
“You see?” said Mr. Oliver, looking as casually as anything at the multiple scattered bodies around and before them, “Just because you hate vampires, my dear Maureen, is no reason why you should not be the one to rule them. In fact, I think that’s exactly what our kind needs these days.”
***
Maureen and her escorts were not the only new arrivals in St. Louis; after Jean-Claude had finished his discussion with Hiero, he went to another room in the Circus, one where balls and parties were typically held (as they were such a frequent part of his regime) to greet the White Weretiger Clan of Las Vegas, who had been graciously lent in their entirety by Maximilian Bellici and Chang Bibiana. Anita was a bit late as it took a total of five hours for her to be 'forced' to try on multiple different outfits she'd had Nathaniel pick out for her to pretend to be scandalized by, and to describe each aspect of down to the last stitch as she put them on, then having to be steered and coaxed out of demanding sex every time she took one off to put on another, to say nothing of the effort of her getting her hair and makeup down and claiming loudly the whole time how she hated it and knew nothing about it...but routinely noting things like wanting a better quality mascara or how this red lip-liner had cooler undertones that worked best for her complexion. All that effort so she could just stand in the center of the room mentally cataloguing the appearances and outfits of everyone else in it, and be convinced that all the women were jealous of her and all the men entranced by her, which the white weretigers, on Bibi's orders, went along with encouraging.
All the white weretigers, that is, except Julia. She just couldn't bear to get near Anita after how the woman had assaulted and raped her last time. Yes, rape, that was what it had been and she was damn well calling it that, she didn't care what Victor or anyone else said! And Victor had actually thought she'd like to stay together after that, after he'd stood by and let Anita do it to her! She hadn't even wanted to come, had been ready to fight or hide to avoid it, but Bibiana's damned husband had turned on his little calling-tigers trick and made her especially be here, since Victor, the spiteful bastard, had noted to him that Anita would especially like to see her again to gloat about how she had 'been the better tiger' in the 'fight' that Anita claimed Julia had initiated just by shaking her hand! He was right too; she'd felt Anita's smug gaze on her when she came in, and overheard her recounting the event (or her version of it, anyway) aloud to no one in particular.
Julia's pained brooding attracted a kindred sufferer; Envy had come to join her as soon as she thought they wouldn't be noticed, for Envy had been here the night that Anita had assaulted Julia. They went off to a corner of the room together, and Envy shared with her how her own sufferings had gone since. It was not exactly a mood-lifter for either of them, but it meant a lot for each to have what she'd gone through recognized for what it was rather than brushed aside as benign and inconsequential.
Dev had been hanging with Envy until the latter had seen Julia, and now that he was alone, he found himself approached by the werewolf Graham, who was one of the guards for this little shindig to celebrate the White Clan joining the fight. Graham greeted him casually, but then said, " You were the one on the date with the wererat spy, right?"
Dev just gave a sort of non-committal snort as a reply. He'd gotten a lot of ribbing about this already and he didn't want more.
"How'd you get on with her?" Graham asked, not taking the hint.
Dev raised a brow, "Why do you want to know?"
"Well, first time you've ever been on a date, wasn't it? Just curious how it went before she got busted and went down a sewer grate."
"Why're you curious?" Dev and Graham were both guards, but they weren't friends and did not know each other well. Graham made some vague non-answer, but the reality was that he was in fact fishing on Shang-Da's orders for further malcontents. Since Dev had gone out with the same rebel rat that Shang-Da had talked to about converting Richard, Graham had thought maybe the golden weretiger was a good place to start, since likely enough she probably had put a few thoughts of it in his head about it herself. The idea that it might have just really been a date did not occur to him, but when Dev did tell him a little more about Wander, he thought she sounded alright.
Meanwhile, Envy was telling Julia how Yiyu had left, and Julia said she would too, and almost begun to weep a she said, "I don't even want to be here now, it's Bibi's orders. I bet this wouldn't have happened back when she was a real Chang. They say before Max got her, she ruled for us, not for him."
Envy asked what she meant, and Julia relayed a grand story of how before she herself was even born, Bibi become the wife and Therian Servant of the Master of Las Vegas in order to save the White Clan from extinction with his protection, but in doing so she had trapping herself and her clan forever with him, "And now we're the largest clan in the nation...oh, but at what cost! Now look at us, kissing up to that, to that..."
Julia had no word awful enough to describe Anita.
"That's just like what's happening here," said Envy, "They're building a huge empire out of the supernatural community but it's awful for everyone who isn't at the very top."
"It is indeed," said a male voice, and both women jumped a bit, turning to see that a guard, Jamil, had stepped up to join the conversation. He continued, looking to Envy and saying, "You weren't here for this, but it was around the same time you came in..."
And he told them the story of what Anita had done to him and Shang-Da when they had offered their life-forces to help save Richard.
"And your Ulfric lets that happen?" Envy asked in horror, "Then you have enough reason to hate him as I do! He is like Bibiana, pimping his people out to the whims of vampires and worse, to whatever she is!"
Julia asked her why she hated Richard, and Envy told her how she was promised a better life here but instead Richard and Jean-Claude just treated her as a bed toy, not even on the level of a proper concubine or mistress, just something warm to stick it in when it's not their night with Anita. That was when Pride came over, and told all three of them that they'd better stop talking like that out here, even with the crowd covering the noise, because if someone important hears then "You might end up like Damian."
At this, they all shuddered. When she had found out from Nathaniel that Damian had secretly switched his loyalties...well, Anita had taken his energies to repair Nathaniel and Micah, and he had yet to recover. What remained of him was moaning away somewhere shut deep in the depths of the Circus where the cross-bound coffins were kept, and no one dared to do a thing.
Just as Jean-Claude was saying to Bibi & Co how sorry he was about Richard not being here (with Anita making unkind commentary without ever bothering to have intelligent notion to be suspicious like JC was, especially since he hadn't been able to get into his Werewolf Servant's head since last night) the guard Dino interrupted him to say that they'd lost contact for the last half-hour with a guard squad that had been going after some suspicious persons who had entered the city via airport. He did not mention, however, how it just so happened that this was a squad of leopards and lions loyal to Anita and JC, who benefited from their reign...no rats or wolves among them. He did mention though that Jean-Claude had a call...from Lucille, or at least a woman who claimed she was. Understandably, Jean-Claude excused himself from the festivities.
***
Mr. Oliver didn't need to tell Maureen where they were going, where Lucille was. She knew. She just knew. And when they got to the abandoned school and she met Lucille there, she didn't need to tell Lucille what had happened with Belle Morte in the body of Asher, or what Mr. Oliver had told her about being a necromancer and SUEs. Because Lucille knew, just from looking at Maureen, all that Maureen knew, and vice versa. It was an instant simpatico. They had experienced something like it the first time they had met, but now it was stronger, deeper, more intense. It was more than wordless communication, because a communication was an exchange...this was more of a melding.
For whatever reason, this brief melding of minds and experiences caused them to meld their mouths as well, and they instantly engaged into a lesbian lip-lock that made all the girls and guys there stare and want them because it was so hot and they're so hot and everyone thinks they're hot and wants them because hot. Hot hot hot. But no wet and tight just yet.
Once they'd parted their lovely faces, neither said a word about it but simply got right to business.
"My seer says that Jean-Claude is holding a witch captive," Lucille told her, "My stupid lump of a cousin, Hiero, as it turns out. But she says he can't do what Jean-Claude is that he wants him to."
"But I can," finished Maureen, knowing it instantly, "And she says that I should."
"But she can't tell me what it is. Only that you can and should."
"Will we?" Maureen did not even realize she had said 'we' instead of a singular pronoun.
"Yes," both women said, "Let's call him."
And they did. His number was in the public phone book, after all, as owner of Guilty Pleasures. When they called the club, they were informed that Jean-Claude was not there tonight. Not one to simply leave a message, Lucille demanded her call be rerouted, and when it looked as if she might not get her way, told them exactly who she was. She knew they'd trace the call but that didn't matter, they all already knew about the school being the headquarters. In a moment, she was on the line with him.
"Bonjour, Mademoiselle," Yup, it was him alright, she could practically feel the slime dripping off his voice. Ugh, it made her want a shower, and NOT in the sexy way!
"I know you have my cousin," Lucille was blunt, wasting no time. She didn't want to talk to this sleazy schmuck any longer than she had to. "Do what you like with him, but you should know--that thing you want him to do? He can't. Way outside his jurisdiction. Me, on the other hand, I employ a higher-quality caliber of magic-user. One who can give you what I want."
"And why would you do this?" Jean-Claude sounded almost amused.
"It's something we both will benefit from," said Lucille with absolute certainty. It was not faked, either, she truly felt this even though she actually had no idea what it was he desired done. But she knew how the universe liked her, and the hunches it gave her were thus always true. It was sort of like being psychic except that instead of just predicting the future, it was more like it got handed to you.
"And how do you know your own sorciere shall be able to do it?"
"Oh please," purred Lucille with comfortable disdain, "She's no sorcerer...she's a necromancer."
Lucille guessed that a necromancer was what he really needed to do the job, since that was what Maureen was and Hiero was not...which begged the very interesting question of why he didn't have Anita do it.
There was a long pause. Then, Jean-Claude, his tone now low and serious, said, "Let us arrange a meeting. Just you, moi, and this woman. No one else."
***
Cleo Wilson, Regina of the NYC Werelions, was stately and imposing in both looks and reign. A beautiful African-American woman with skin like caramel and hair like bronze, she stood at a full 6'1 and had an amazing-plus size figure that was both strong and sturdy while also curvy and voluptuous. She was a fair and powerful ruler, kinder than most but nowhere near soft, and her number one concern was the welfare of her people. That was why, despite her disgust at the situation in St. Louis, she had held off on helping out until now, which Tom Sallow, her top enforcer and second-in-command in the Pride, had respected despite his wish that she would. Now, however, Lucille and her people were said to have survived an onslaught from Anita herself, and wielding new powers no less, without having lost a single person, and that convinced Cleo that, as long as it was kept covert, it could be safe enough to give aid to Lucille and those in St.Louis she was trying to free. Especially since now Mr. Oliver himself and the newly-turned-necromancer Maureen were joining the fight as well.
Rather than sending forces to help this Lucille person, however, Cleo and Tom were focusing their efforts on getting the innocents on both sides of the conflict out of harm's way. Jean-Claude indeed had guards stationed around all the major ways in and out of the city, as they'd learned when Maureen called Tom after having dispatched a gang of them when they'd tried to ambush her upon entering St. Louis, so funneling out the refugees was going to be a bit harder than just buying plane and train tickets for everyone. Taking inspiration from both the Underground Railroad and more modern ways of smuggling people illegally, they had begun to plan a system centered around transporting therians and vampires out of St. Louis and to NYC via trucks under the guise of transporting goods, making several stops on the way to switch vehicles, change routes to confuse possible trackers, let the passengers rest and refresh from being stuck in a freaking truck, etc. Tom had sent word of this idea via Maureen, who had brought it up to Rafael, Richard, and Narcissus. The werewolves were still pretending to be allied to Jean-Claude, and the werehyenas had no experience with this kind of thing, but Rafael's Rodere, being curiously made up almost entirely of mercenaries and other criminals, had the perfect experience and expertise to help with the operation as both drivers and guards for the trucks.
Lucille didn't really get the point of helping people, but she also didn't mind them taking away those who didn't want to fight and would be useless. According to Maureen, it would also help build her image as being a better option than Anita, and Lucille trusted Maureen to know what she was talking about when it came to the PR department. She also found it interesting when Tom sent word that Cho Chun, Queen of the Red Clan, had expressed a wish to help, having found out about it from Sandhya, the Little Queen of NYC's Clan, whom Cleo and Tom had told because of her interest in Anita's tigers, and who knew that her Chang held the same interest.
Cleo and Tom building safe passage for refugees, Red Clan collaborating with them for getting tigers
***
After having set up their clandestine, notably-not-including-Anita meeting with Jean-Claude, Lucille began to show Maureen around.
"So, where is your whipped puppy the Rat King persuaded?" asked Maureen.
Rafael and Shang-Da had made Richard see sense, and he had recently decided to hole up here, the one place he knew that Jean-Claude and Anita could not mentally reach him. This not only hid him, it hid his involvement, so that they would not retaliate by slaughtering all of his people in the Circus as they had the werehyenas. Speaking of the werehyenas, however, things had been tense between he and Narcissus. Richard hated him, considered him as bad as Anita for the things he had done to Jean-Claude, which he had tasted through the vampire's memories, and Narcissus now had no reason to hold back and play nice with the Wolf King like he had when they were both in JC's power structure with Richard squarely above him. They were currently having a row when Lucille led Maureen to them; Narcissus had finally gotten fed up with Richard misgendering him. Everything else, everything about the things he had done and liked to do, he could take with a smile, for unlike Anita he knew what he was, but this was another matter.
"I'm a trans man that likes to crossdress!" he shouted at Richard as he kicked the werewolf in the chest and sent him toppling over the desk without, it must be noted, getting the long silver stiletto heel of his black platform pumps caught in his victim, ""Not a hermaphrodite! That's not even the right word! It's a good thing you're here, Mr. Biology Teacher, because you clearly need to go back to school!"
"So there really is a man leading the werehyenas," said Maureen as she and Lucille stood in the classroom doorway watching, "Dreadful, no wonder the poor things were at the bottom of Blake's food chain."
Narcissus whirled, with a very dramatic fluttering of his skirt, to answer back at this newcomer with some sharp remark, but before he could, his eyes alighted upon her shoes, and instead of snark coming out his mouth, it was a shriek of approval that penetrated the ears of everyone in the building. Clearly, Maureen was going to fit in just fine here.
Rowan, Edgar, and Odette all shared Narcissus' opinion, and despite the woman being old enough to be her mother Odette flirted shamelessly with Maureen to boot. Max almost did too until Odette stepped pointedly on her foot. Victoria and Emily found themselves pretty twitterpated as well, and Armel and Hank were respectfully scared shitless of her as they should be. Ufa fussed over her flawless black hair, Astrid and Cefyn and Tung all offered to give her lessons in combat, Klaus commended her fashion style as flawless, and Sig commented she was very like a swan, meaning quite pretty but also a vicious fucking murder machine. In other words, absolutely everyone among Lucille's little crew liked, lusted for, respected, envied, and/or feared Maureen immediately and for no particular reason, just as they had when they had first met Lucille. Indeed, each individual's reaction to Maureen, whether it was love or jealousy or what, was more or less the same as it had been when they met Lucille. They instantly felt the same loyalty to her as well, also for no discernible reason, and, just as with Lucille, they did not realize anything was odd about it.
Lucille ordinarily would have loathed this, in the same way she loathed the existence of Anita. But she didn't. She was neither surprised nor displeased by it. It seemed right, and it didn't seem like their own feelings for her had changed, just...extended to another part of her, which was what Maureen now felt like. Yes, there could only be one when it came to SUEs...but what no one had realized, and that Maureen and Lucille now instinctively knew, was that the two of them *were* one.
http://a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com/53873.html
I ask because, well, comments are the only way I can tell people have read it, so when there are none I'm not sure...and I feel like a shit for saying this because it sounds like a passive-aggressive demand for comments and I SWEAR THAT'S NOT IT I just want to be sure people don't miss it so this one makes sense...although it might not make sense anyway. IT BARELY MAKES SENSE TO ME AT THIS POINT.
I've got to say, this has been an incredible experience so far in what I think LKH's writing process is. Because firstly, this is a first draft. I am posting this as I write it. And I have no idea where the shit I'm going. I know who is going to win and have some notes about things I want to happen, but I have no plans on when or how to pull it all together. Which is usually how my first drafts are, but then I straighten them out and clean them up in the following drafts. This? This has become such a clusterfuck. There will doubtless be dangling plot threads galore when I finish this (and so instead of actually wrapping them up in the story itself I'll just do one of LKH's un-satisfying sum-up epilogues!) But there's also the constant introduction of new stuff, forgetting old stuff, and having ALL THESE CHARACTERS to not only keep track of but also try to give attention to in general. But it's impossible to focus on them all and not bog down the action and pace, so I wind up with these great characters in my head not really getting any screen-time at all and me just TELLING you what they're like with no showing---case in point, the bit about Cleo in this update.
This is how LKH does it, guys. My fic is the most meta-authentic imitation of hers and that is why it is a MESS.
Of course, I wanted it that way on purpose for said LKH-experience and meta-level imitation, what's her excuse?
Nothing of real note had happened among Lucille's people ever since their deaths had been reversed. They had no memory of the event, since it had now never happened at all, and so they had no reason to behave any differently. They technically knew that Anita, Micah, Nathaniel, and Rafael were no longer prisoner here, and yet they didn't question how, why, or when. Everyone else just assume Lucille must have let them all go at some unspecified time for some reason of her own, and were all complacently fine with it in a manner that can only be described as sheep-like. Eva remembered herself freeing the wereleopards, but she didn't share that. Rafael was also now one of their allies, it seemed, and the wererat guards came freely to train and plan with them, and again, everyone just accepted this as something that Just Was.
Lucille had been right; with Anita away, her utter and effortless automatic control over their minds was back as it should be.
Since her current move was to simply wait for Maureen, everyone had a lot of free time on their hands, and since they couldn't leave the safety of the school grounds, mostly spent it with each other.
Eva and Odette made up beautifully. Eva had approached Odette while she was swapping skirts and shoes with Emily and Victoria, and called her away for a moment for a word in private. The second they were in a more secluded place, the little wererat burst, "Oh Detty! I'm so sorry over how thoughtless I was when I said those things! After what Anita did to you! I'm such a terrible friend, I met to apologize sooner but there was some stuff going on I had to do and I wanted to protect you from getting involved in it and then I didn't know how to start because I thought you were still mad at me and you should be, you have every right to--"
"Oh Eva!" Odette threw her arms around her friends' neck in a flurry of white ruffles, "Oh Eva, I already forgave you! You silly, I went up against Lucille for you, you think I'd do that if I was mad?"
"Well just because you wouldn't want to see me taken apart alive doesn't mean you're not mad at me," said Eva.
"Oh you! Always forgetting I'm a swanmane!" Detty squeezed her, "That's exactly what we do! No, Eva, I love you, it's all okay! I'm just glad you finally told me, I thought you were mad at me for getting mad at you!"
"No way!"
"So...what was it you wanted to protect me from?" Odette blinked her big blue dolly-eyes at her friend, but Eva shook her head.
"Uh uh. You could still probably get in trouble for it. But that reminds me, I gotta thank somebody else for keeping it secret for me. I'll be back, 'k?"
"You'd better! I'm doing a clothing swap with the mermaids and you totally need to grab some of this cute stuff for yourself!"
"Omigosh you know I will!" Eva waved as she bounced off in search of Sati, a weight lifted from her heart. She found Sati with Tallulah, and, not knowing how well the latter could keep a secret, was therefore very non-specific when she brought up the whole 'freeing Micah and Nathaniel' thing.
"Um, hey, Sati? Like, I just wanted to say...there was that thing, you know, and she found out anyway, but like, you didn't tell her and that could have gotten you in sooo much shit so like, that was really super good of you and I wanted to say thanks."
"Oh," said Sati, with a quick glance at Tallulah to show she understood why Eva didn't want her to be too specific with her response either, "You're welcome. But you should really thank Cornelius. I think I was about to tell--I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it, you know--and he stopped me."
"Oh," said Eva, surprised. She had no personal connection to Cornelius, so she didn't know if he was a kind person who would go out of his way to help someone he didn't know or not. Unlike the swanmanes, she had no beef against vampires as a whole, or even any particular opinions on them, so the idea that one could be kind to nigh-strangers like that wasn't at all odd to her. So she thanked Sati again, gave a friendly wave to Tallulah who had tactfully kept out of the conversation as she could tell it was about something just between the other two, and went looking for Cornelius.
Cornelius, as it happened, was talking to Richard. Rafael's words had reached the Wolf King, and he had decided the best way to save both his Pack and his own hide was to turn traitor to his triumvirate. Now he was holed up here, where his mental ties to both Anita and Jean-Claude were blocked by Lucille's power.
"...and if I didn't know better I'd say Klaus was into me!" said Richard.
"He is," Cornelius replied, "And you should definitely take it as a compliment, because he thinks I'm attractive to so you KNOW he must have some very high standards! Congratulations!"
"Wait, but," Richard was confused, "Isn't he with that Ghislaine girl?"
Eva reached them just in time to hear this, and she and Cornelius were cracking up together before she could even begin talking to him.
The fact that Richard was there, of course, was due not only to Rafael alone, but to Wander for telling Rafael what Shang-Da had told her, and she was pretty proud of this. Hank and Mikey Joe were listening to her for about the fifth time, dully but politely nodding their heads, while Tung and Fredo were bonding over blades every time the wererats clandestinely dropped by to discuss plans for what to do next. In other words, most everyone was up to something, keeping busy, and having at least an okay time of it.
The only one that could be said to be unhappy was Lucille herself.
Her stronghold and soldiers had been restored and revived, and her control over them was complete again, they questioned nothing anymore now that Anita was gone, but she was not happy for it. No, she was angry, a tight quiet simmering anger that did not erupt in one great burst but simply stayed constant, never ceasing for a moment as she went about through everything she did. This was because, though she no longer had any loss, she had made no gain either. She was back at square one, and Anita was stronger than ever. She had but one advantage left, and that was that Anita believed her and her servants--for that was how she thought of her little crew of would-be heroes--to be dead. She had too the newly-arrived Lucretia, but though she claimed to come from Mr. Oliver, Lucille did not necessarily believe her. She smelled no lie from the woman, but this was because she could detect period whether she was lying or not about anything, and nor could anyone among the rebels, be they vampire or therian. So she also did not necessarily believe the claims of Lucretia that Maureen had been a dormant necromancer all this time, until, shortly after Lucretia told her this, word from Mr. Oliver himself came confirming just this, as well as to ask if Lucretia had yet made contact with her.
“And what is Lucretia?” Lucille had asked him.
“Why, Lucille, she’s a vampire,” said Mr. Oliver, as if she had asked that about any normal vampire, and cut connection. Lucretia, however, was not normal, and Lucille knew that. It wasn’t just that she was never to be found most of the time, only appearing when it was on her terms and she had something to say or wished to observe, nor was it that they could never find her daytime hiding spot, or any matter of concrete physicality like scent. No, it was just…just a feeling. Not a psychic sense, but the good ol’ fashioned heebie-jeebies that Lucretia clearly gave everyone and not just Lucille; if anything, she affected the others more. They cleared before her path almost unconsciously, like a school of fish making way for a whale…or a shark. No one of any species wanted to be too close to her, and nobody could express why. Nobody wanted to talk about it either. But, Lucille figured, if this was how her own people reacted to the being, then surely those of Anita would do the same, be just as instinctually repulsed and chilled by her, and as long as they were, then Lucille didn’t care what Lucretia was so long as she was on her side. Nothing mattered to Lucille except what could be made to her advantage. So she set her mind to quash the instinctual squeamishness she had for the creature, and focused instead on immediate issues: Firstly, that Maureen would be arriving in St. Louis soon, and must reach their stronghold safely. Secondly, that their alliance with the werehyenas had been discovered, which Lucille found out the very night after Anita’s escape when Narcissus and what remained of his Cackle arrived on the school doorstep.
“Uh, honey, not that you’re not always welcome here, especially if you brought shoe offerings, but you know this is gonna be the first place she looks, right?” said Lucille, leading in the doorway in a manner that was both very casual and utterly blocking any entrance.
“But they think you’re dead, darling!” protested Narcissus in his black nightgown maribou-trim and with fuzzy high-heeled slippers to match, “The few guards that got out say that before Anita went berserk on them, she was bragging to high heaven about how she burned this place to the ground and everyone in it, especially you?”
“Well, she kind of did,” said Lucille, lowering her voice a bit, “But keep that under your fabulous hat collection, alright? I don’t think everyone here needs to know I pulled a mass resurrection on them, they might start treating death too cheap and making me Lazarus their worthless asses all the time.”
Of course, Lucille had not resurrected them, because she had changed reality so that they had never died at all, and the whole event now did not exist except in the memory of Anita, but she didn’t want to even begin the task of explaining that to Narcissus, or anyone else for that matter. As for Narcissus, he could tell there was a lie in here somewhere but he didn’t know what, because it was always hard to scent them with Lucille, as she didn’t experience the same physiological changes that psychologically normal people did when lying. He figured that Anita just hadn’t done as much as she thought (Anita overestimating herself, oh what a surprise!) and Lucille had pulled the wool over her eyes with a false death, and now claiming she had literal God-tier abilities to seem that much more powerful to him so he wouldn’t get any ideas about who was the real queen around here. He found that to be sneaky, manipulative, and vain, and he respected that.
Just then, Nan came up from behind Lucille and, after apologizing for the interruption, asked, "Lucille, I had a dream...do you know a guy with blue, no, purple eyes?"
***
Night meant that Jean-Claude was awake, and Micah told him of how Hiero had tried to escape, and been herded back to his room instead. Jean-Claude decided to pay their guest a little visit, since he would now be staying…indefinitely.
Jean-Claude greeted him in French as he entered the room, shutting the door behind him, and though Hiero looked at him in apprehensive fear at first, this changed to a sort of quizzical confusion after the words left the vampire’s lips. Hiero’s maternal grandparents were directly from France, and his mother had spoken it frequently throughout his entire life, and Jean-Claude’s way of saying it sounded…off. Like someone who had picked it up from soppy movies instead of from actual French people. Hiero chalked it up to Jean-Claude being from a France of a very different time and then having been in America so long, but in fact it was just that Jean-Claude assumed that the soppy romance movie French that worked so good on the naïve, sex-obsessed Anita would work equally well on the naïve, sex-obsessed Hiero.
“You helped me and mine before, Hieronymus,” said Jean-Claude, sitting on a corner of the bed opposite the one that Hiero was cowering on, trying to shove himself against the headboard so as to be as far away from the vampire as he could. Being a gracious host, Jean-Claude acted as if he did not notice this rudeness, and continued with the smooth intonations that Anita always likened to fur and silk, “Help us again.”
“I don’t know anything!” Hiero blurted desperately, “I don’t know how Lucille survived or how the school is back or anything at all, I’m not with her, you can smell lies, you know I’m not!”
“Oh, oui, I do, I do,” Jean Claude soothed, “And I do so apologize for the way ma petite Anita misunderstood you, Monsieur van Pelt, it was most unfortunate. She is not so, how you say, attuned to her supernatural senses as of yet, and makes mistakes. And in so desperate a time as this little war is, she overreacted, but all is well now, no?”
“If all is well, then you can let me go now,” pleaded Hiero, his voice pathetic with hope.
“I’m afraid not,” Jean-Claude purred slyly, “For you say, as I said, we still require aid from you, and so for your own protection you cannot be allowed to leave, lest your dear cousin Lucille kill you so as to disadvantage us.”
“How can you be disadvantaged by losing me when Anita has all this new power?” Hiero tried to reason his way out, “You saw what she can do now, my magic is nothing to that!”
“You do yourself a disservice with such words, mon ami. Ma petite can now control the elements as the tiger clans did of old, yes, but your powers are more subtle, and that is what I have a need for. Before, you helped me by linking me to ma petite mentally, even when whatever foul powers Lucille possesses were keeping me out, cutting me off from the psychic bond shared between Master and Servant. Clearly, you can use your witchcraft to tap into that bond, yes? I want you to do it again, but in a different way. I want you to manipulate it so that it is as other bonds between Humans Servants and their Vampire Masters are, so that it is normal.”
Hiero looked as if he did not understand, and so Jean-Claude explained, “Ma petite, as you have witnessed, is a most exceptional being, and thus a most exceptional Servant. Never before has there been one such as her, and so the binding of her to me is also unusual. I simply want you to fix this abnormality; I shall provide anything you need for it, but remember, if you ask for anything that is in fact for escape or resistance instead, I will know. I have been inside your mind, mon sorciere, and I can go there again easily.”
He did not wait for Hiero to agree or dissent, but merely got up and, as he went to the door, said very casually, “Being a witch has given you some natural resistance to being rolled, yes, but I am Master enough that I believe I could do so easily should I try. However, I will not. Because I do not need to do that to get what I want from you. You are a foolish boy, Hiero, but even you can see that until you do as I say, you shall not leave this place, and that means that every time ma petite sets loose the ardeur in the Circus, you will once more be its victim as you have been once already. So the sooner you do this for me, the better for you, no?”
Hiero’s horrified whimper was more than enough for an answer.
***
Maureen, Mr. Oliver, and Gideon had taken a private jet to St. Louis, leaving Padma and Thomas Carswell in New York to continue overseeing things. Gideon had specifically been taken with them so that Padma didn’t get any ideas about double-crossing them for his own gain, but it was also nice to have a therian along for the ride, Maureen felt, because she had no super-strength and Mr. Oliver’s would be as incapacitated as the rest of him in daylight.
They had taken no one else with them, no bodyguards or escorts. They wanted to make their entrance as under the radar as possible, and they knew that, given certain recent activity, Jean-Claude would doubtlessly have his guards and spies keeping an eye on all entryways into St. Louis. The airport was, alas, one of the places he was most likely to have an eye on now, particularly concerning any flights coming in from New York, but there had been no time to arrange anything more subtle, as Tom Sallow, Maureen’s were lion friend, had only just begun his project of trying to make a safe and secret route out of St. Louis for the refugees in this war that would surely result on both sides.
So when their car was trailed from the airport and then attacked on the road, it was not a surprise. In fact, it was what they were counting on.
It had started with the enemy car pulling up beside them and someone within shooting their tires, sending them off the road. It had clearly been planned in advance to do this at this exact spot, because not far away from where their car ended up, a gaggle of St. Louis guards, vampires and therians armed to the teeth, exploded from the trees and bushes that lined the lonely highway.
Maureen, having not been doing her makeup when the crash happened and thus had not smeared or mussed or messed up anything, was barely even irritated, let alone terrified, and waited demurely as Mr. Oliver got out of the back and came up to open the passenger door up for her, while Gideon stayed in the driver’s seat, knowing his services would not be needed.
There Maureen and Mr. Oliver stood. A woman in high heels and glamorous designer business wear, a more demurely but no less well-dressed man with dwarfism, in the grass on the side of a deserted road, with big monster men all around pointing guns at them.
You almost had to feel sorry for the latter.
“Just as you expected, Mr. Oliver,” said Maureen in an almost tut-tut sort of tone, “What brutish method of ambush, no finesse at all. Utterly elementary to anticipate.”
“As we should be glad for,” said Mr. Oliver while the guards yelled at them to get down on the ground, “After all, it’s so kind of them to provide you an opportunity for practice.”
And then the first shots were fired, but they were not at Maureen and Mr. Oliver, nor at Gideon, nor at the car. The vampire guards, suddenly under the control of Maureen’s necromancy, had begun to fire on the therian guards. In addition to controlling their bodies, Maureen also took command of their mental powers, and forced them to use their psychic vampire wiles to make the therians all stay still for it. A few therians were too strong for this, but Mr. Oliver dealt with them. He had the talent of empathic voice manipulation, not unlike Jean-Claude did, and he ensnared these unfortunate werebeasts with it for just long enough to draw a little pistol from his breast pocket and eliminate them with a headshot. Once all the wereanimal guards were killed, Maureen made the vampires turn on each other until only one remained. It really was satisfying for her vampire phobia, she found, to make this final one pull the trigger on himself. So much control.
“You see?” said Mr. Oliver, looking as casually as anything at the multiple scattered bodies around and before them, “Just because you hate vampires, my dear Maureen, is no reason why you should not be the one to rule them. In fact, I think that’s exactly what our kind needs these days.”
***
Maureen and her escorts were not the only new arrivals in St. Louis; after Jean-Claude had finished his discussion with Hiero, he went to another room in the Circus, one where balls and parties were typically held (as they were such a frequent part of his regime) to greet the White Weretiger Clan of Las Vegas, who had been graciously lent in their entirety by Maximilian Bellici and Chang Bibiana. Anita was a bit late as it took a total of five hours for her to be 'forced' to try on multiple different outfits she'd had Nathaniel pick out for her to pretend to be scandalized by, and to describe each aspect of down to the last stitch as she put them on, then having to be steered and coaxed out of demanding sex every time she took one off to put on another, to say nothing of the effort of her getting her hair and makeup down and claiming loudly the whole time how she hated it and knew nothing about it...but routinely noting things like wanting a better quality mascara or how this red lip-liner had cooler undertones that worked best for her complexion. All that effort so she could just stand in the center of the room mentally cataloguing the appearances and outfits of everyone else in it, and be convinced that all the women were jealous of her and all the men entranced by her, which the white weretigers, on Bibi's orders, went along with encouraging.
All the white weretigers, that is, except Julia. She just couldn't bear to get near Anita after how the woman had assaulted and raped her last time. Yes, rape, that was what it had been and she was damn well calling it that, she didn't care what Victor or anyone else said! And Victor had actually thought she'd like to stay together after that, after he'd stood by and let Anita do it to her! She hadn't even wanted to come, had been ready to fight or hide to avoid it, but Bibiana's damned husband had turned on his little calling-tigers trick and made her especially be here, since Victor, the spiteful bastard, had noted to him that Anita would especially like to see her again to gloat about how she had 'been the better tiger' in the 'fight' that Anita claimed Julia had initiated just by shaking her hand! He was right too; she'd felt Anita's smug gaze on her when she came in, and overheard her recounting the event (or her version of it, anyway) aloud to no one in particular.
Julia's pained brooding attracted a kindred sufferer; Envy had come to join her as soon as she thought they wouldn't be noticed, for Envy had been here the night that Anita had assaulted Julia. They went off to a corner of the room together, and Envy shared with her how her own sufferings had gone since. It was not exactly a mood-lifter for either of them, but it meant a lot for each to have what she'd gone through recognized for what it was rather than brushed aside as benign and inconsequential.
Dev had been hanging with Envy until the latter had seen Julia, and now that he was alone, he found himself approached by the werewolf Graham, who was one of the guards for this little shindig to celebrate the White Clan joining the fight. Graham greeted him casually, but then said, " You were the one on the date with the wererat spy, right?"
Dev just gave a sort of non-committal snort as a reply. He'd gotten a lot of ribbing about this already and he didn't want more.
"How'd you get on with her?" Graham asked, not taking the hint.
Dev raised a brow, "Why do you want to know?"
"Well, first time you've ever been on a date, wasn't it? Just curious how it went before she got busted and went down a sewer grate."
"Why're you curious?" Dev and Graham were both guards, but they weren't friends and did not know each other well. Graham made some vague non-answer, but the reality was that he was in fact fishing on Shang-Da's orders for further malcontents. Since Dev had gone out with the same rebel rat that Shang-Da had talked to about converting Richard, Graham had thought maybe the golden weretiger was a good place to start, since likely enough she probably had put a few thoughts of it in his head about it herself. The idea that it might have just really been a date did not occur to him, but when Dev did tell him a little more about Wander, he thought she sounded alright.
Meanwhile, Envy was telling Julia how Yiyu had left, and Julia said she would too, and almost begun to weep a she said, "I don't even want to be here now, it's Bibi's orders. I bet this wouldn't have happened back when she was a real Chang. They say before Max got her, she ruled for us, not for him."
Envy asked what she meant, and Julia relayed a grand story of how before she herself was even born, Bibi become the wife and Therian Servant of the Master of Las Vegas in order to save the White Clan from extinction with his protection, but in doing so she had trapping herself and her clan forever with him, "And now we're the largest clan in the nation...oh, but at what cost! Now look at us, kissing up to that, to that..."
Julia had no word awful enough to describe Anita.
"That's just like what's happening here," said Envy, "They're building a huge empire out of the supernatural community but it's awful for everyone who isn't at the very top."
"It is indeed," said a male voice, and both women jumped a bit, turning to see that a guard, Jamil, had stepped up to join the conversation. He continued, looking to Envy and saying, "You weren't here for this, but it was around the same time you came in..."
And he told them the story of what Anita had done to him and Shang-Da when they had offered their life-forces to help save Richard.
"And your Ulfric lets that happen?" Envy asked in horror, "Then you have enough reason to hate him as I do! He is like Bibiana, pimping his people out to the whims of vampires and worse, to whatever she is!"
Julia asked her why she hated Richard, and Envy told her how she was promised a better life here but instead Richard and Jean-Claude just treated her as a bed toy, not even on the level of a proper concubine or mistress, just something warm to stick it in when it's not their night with Anita. That was when Pride came over, and told all three of them that they'd better stop talking like that out here, even with the crowd covering the noise, because if someone important hears then "You might end up like Damian."
At this, they all shuddered. When she had found out from Nathaniel that Damian had secretly switched his loyalties...well, Anita had taken his energies to repair Nathaniel and Micah, and he had yet to recover. What remained of him was moaning away somewhere shut deep in the depths of the Circus where the cross-bound coffins were kept, and no one dared to do a thing.
Just as Jean-Claude was saying to Bibi & Co how sorry he was about Richard not being here (with Anita making unkind commentary without ever bothering to have intelligent notion to be suspicious like JC was, especially since he hadn't been able to get into his Werewolf Servant's head since last night) the guard Dino interrupted him to say that they'd lost contact for the last half-hour with a guard squad that had been going after some suspicious persons who had entered the city via airport. He did not mention, however, how it just so happened that this was a squad of leopards and lions loyal to Anita and JC, who benefited from their reign...no rats or wolves among them. He did mention though that Jean-Claude had a call...from Lucille, or at least a woman who claimed she was. Understandably, Jean-Claude excused himself from the festivities.
***
Mr. Oliver didn't need to tell Maureen where they were going, where Lucille was. She knew. She just knew. And when they got to the abandoned school and she met Lucille there, she didn't need to tell Lucille what had happened with Belle Morte in the body of Asher, or what Mr. Oliver had told her about being a necromancer and SUEs. Because Lucille knew, just from looking at Maureen, all that Maureen knew, and vice versa. It was an instant simpatico. They had experienced something like it the first time they had met, but now it was stronger, deeper, more intense. It was more than wordless communication, because a communication was an exchange...this was more of a melding.
For whatever reason, this brief melding of minds and experiences caused them to meld their mouths as well, and they instantly engaged into a lesbian lip-lock that made all the girls and guys there stare and want them because it was so hot and they're so hot and everyone thinks they're hot and wants them because hot. Hot hot hot. But no wet and tight just yet.
Once they'd parted their lovely faces, neither said a word about it but simply got right to business.
"My seer says that Jean-Claude is holding a witch captive," Lucille told her, "My stupid lump of a cousin, Hiero, as it turns out. But she says he can't do what Jean-Claude is that he wants him to."
"But I can," finished Maureen, knowing it instantly, "And she says that I should."
"But she can't tell me what it is. Only that you can and should."
"Will we?" Maureen did not even realize she had said 'we' instead of a singular pronoun.
"Yes," both women said, "Let's call him."
And they did. His number was in the public phone book, after all, as owner of Guilty Pleasures. When they called the club, they were informed that Jean-Claude was not there tonight. Not one to simply leave a message, Lucille demanded her call be rerouted, and when it looked as if she might not get her way, told them exactly who she was. She knew they'd trace the call but that didn't matter, they all already knew about the school being the headquarters. In a moment, she was on the line with him.
"Bonjour, Mademoiselle," Yup, it was him alright, she could practically feel the slime dripping off his voice. Ugh, it made her want a shower, and NOT in the sexy way!
"I know you have my cousin," Lucille was blunt, wasting no time. She didn't want to talk to this sleazy schmuck any longer than she had to. "Do what you like with him, but you should know--that thing you want him to do? He can't. Way outside his jurisdiction. Me, on the other hand, I employ a higher-quality caliber of magic-user. One who can give you what I want."
"And why would you do this?" Jean-Claude sounded almost amused.
"It's something we both will benefit from," said Lucille with absolute certainty. It was not faked, either, she truly felt this even though she actually had no idea what it was he desired done. But she knew how the universe liked her, and the hunches it gave her were thus always true. It was sort of like being psychic except that instead of just predicting the future, it was more like it got handed to you.
"And how do you know your own sorciere shall be able to do it?"
"Oh please," purred Lucille with comfortable disdain, "She's no sorcerer...she's a necromancer."
Lucille guessed that a necromancer was what he really needed to do the job, since that was what Maureen was and Hiero was not...which begged the very interesting question of why he didn't have Anita do it.
There was a long pause. Then, Jean-Claude, his tone now low and serious, said, "Let us arrange a meeting. Just you, moi, and this woman. No one else."
***
Cleo Wilson, Regina of the NYC Werelions, was stately and imposing in both looks and reign. A beautiful African-American woman with skin like caramel and hair like bronze, she stood at a full 6'1 and had an amazing-plus size figure that was both strong and sturdy while also curvy and voluptuous. She was a fair and powerful ruler, kinder than most but nowhere near soft, and her number one concern was the welfare of her people. That was why, despite her disgust at the situation in St. Louis, she had held off on helping out until now, which Tom Sallow, her top enforcer and second-in-command in the Pride, had respected despite his wish that she would. Now, however, Lucille and her people were said to have survived an onslaught from Anita herself, and wielding new powers no less, without having lost a single person, and that convinced Cleo that, as long as it was kept covert, it could be safe enough to give aid to Lucille and those in St.Louis she was trying to free. Especially since now Mr. Oliver himself and the newly-turned-necromancer Maureen were joining the fight as well.
Rather than sending forces to help this Lucille person, however, Cleo and Tom were focusing their efforts on getting the innocents on both sides of the conflict out of harm's way. Jean-Claude indeed had guards stationed around all the major ways in and out of the city, as they'd learned when Maureen called Tom after having dispatched a gang of them when they'd tried to ambush her upon entering St. Louis, so funneling out the refugees was going to be a bit harder than just buying plane and train tickets for everyone. Taking inspiration from both the Underground Railroad and more modern ways of smuggling people illegally, they had begun to plan a system centered around transporting therians and vampires out of St. Louis and to NYC via trucks under the guise of transporting goods, making several stops on the way to switch vehicles, change routes to confuse possible trackers, let the passengers rest and refresh from being stuck in a freaking truck, etc. Tom had sent word of this idea via Maureen, who had brought it up to Rafael, Richard, and Narcissus. The werewolves were still pretending to be allied to Jean-Claude, and the werehyenas had no experience with this kind of thing, but Rafael's Rodere, being curiously made up almost entirely of mercenaries and other criminals, had the perfect experience and expertise to help with the operation as both drivers and guards for the trucks.
Lucille didn't really get the point of helping people, but she also didn't mind them taking away those who didn't want to fight and would be useless. According to Maureen, it would also help build her image as being a better option than Anita, and Lucille trusted Maureen to know what she was talking about when it came to the PR department. She also found it interesting when Tom sent word that Cho Chun, Queen of the Red Clan, had expressed a wish to help, having found out about it from Sandhya, the Little Queen of NYC's Clan, whom Cleo and Tom had told because of her interest in Anita's tigers, and who knew that her Chang held the same interest.
Cleo and Tom building safe passage for refugees, Red Clan collaborating with them for getting tigers
***
After having set up their clandestine, notably-not-including-Anita meeting with Jean-Claude, Lucille began to show Maureen around.
"So, where is your whipped puppy the Rat King persuaded?" asked Maureen.
Rafael and Shang-Da had made Richard see sense, and he had recently decided to hole up here, the one place he knew that Jean-Claude and Anita could not mentally reach him. This not only hid him, it hid his involvement, so that they would not retaliate by slaughtering all of his people in the Circus as they had the werehyenas. Speaking of the werehyenas, however, things had been tense between he and Narcissus. Richard hated him, considered him as bad as Anita for the things he had done to Jean-Claude, which he had tasted through the vampire's memories, and Narcissus now had no reason to hold back and play nice with the Wolf King like he had when they were both in JC's power structure with Richard squarely above him. They were currently having a row when Lucille led Maureen to them; Narcissus had finally gotten fed up with Richard misgendering him. Everything else, everything about the things he had done and liked to do, he could take with a smile, for unlike Anita he knew what he was, but this was another matter.
"I'm a trans man that likes to crossdress!" he shouted at Richard as he kicked the werewolf in the chest and sent him toppling over the desk without, it must be noted, getting the long silver stiletto heel of his black platform pumps caught in his victim, ""Not a hermaphrodite! That's not even the right word! It's a good thing you're here, Mr. Biology Teacher, because you clearly need to go back to school!"
"So there really is a man leading the werehyenas," said Maureen as she and Lucille stood in the classroom doorway watching, "Dreadful, no wonder the poor things were at the bottom of Blake's food chain."
Narcissus whirled, with a very dramatic fluttering of his skirt, to answer back at this newcomer with some sharp remark, but before he could, his eyes alighted upon her shoes, and instead of snark coming out his mouth, it was a shriek of approval that penetrated the ears of everyone in the building. Clearly, Maureen was going to fit in just fine here.
Rowan, Edgar, and Odette all shared Narcissus' opinion, and despite the woman being old enough to be her mother Odette flirted shamelessly with Maureen to boot. Max almost did too until Odette stepped pointedly on her foot. Victoria and Emily found themselves pretty twitterpated as well, and Armel and Hank were respectfully scared shitless of her as they should be. Ufa fussed over her flawless black hair, Astrid and Cefyn and Tung all offered to give her lessons in combat, Klaus commended her fashion style as flawless, and Sig commented she was very like a swan, meaning quite pretty but also a vicious fucking murder machine. In other words, absolutely everyone among Lucille's little crew liked, lusted for, respected, envied, and/or feared Maureen immediately and for no particular reason, just as they had when they had first met Lucille. Indeed, each individual's reaction to Maureen, whether it was love or jealousy or what, was more or less the same as it had been when they met Lucille. They instantly felt the same loyalty to her as well, also for no discernible reason, and, just as with Lucille, they did not realize anything was odd about it.
Lucille ordinarily would have loathed this, in the same way she loathed the existence of Anita. But she didn't. She was neither surprised nor displeased by it. It seemed right, and it didn't seem like their own feelings for her had changed, just...extended to another part of her, which was what Maureen now felt like. Yes, there could only be one when it came to SUEs...but what no one had realized, and that Maureen and Lucille now instinctively knew, was that the two of them *were* one.
