Chapter 83: Molly and Onyx learn the Truth...

He remembered walking to Opilio's house, feeling cheated, feeling bitter, knowing, just knowing that this would somehow tear away any chance at garnering for himself a decent life again. He'd been right, too. He realized that as the abrupt end to his memories became clear. It was the same feeling he'd had when the slavers clubbed him over the head, too, only after this second blackout, there was nothing else there.

He remembered sitting in the recruiter's office in Detroit, giving his name, rank and serial number and requesting to go back into that stinking bush, and trying all the while not to weep. The tears didn't flow then, but they flowed now.

He remembered Marie in the rearview mirror of the truck as he returned to the front, back to where 2nd Armored would go right back into the thick of it with the Germans. She waved, then hung her head and turned away. It was the last he ever saw of her.

He remembered all the awful, thoughtless, stupid things he had said to Siobhan. He hadn't meant any of it, hadn't meant to say anything but "I'm hurt" and "this is so hard for me" and "I love you." The hurtful things came out of his mouth and crushed her feelings like so many slaps in her beautiful, wounded face. He remembered desperately wanting to take them all back, and he remembered the moment where he found out that it was too late.

He remembered building Halla's funeral pyre and lighting it, the morning after he had spent all night cradling her bloodied body in his arms.

He remembered dying alone and afraid in a dirty street in a Holy Land that seemed less and less holy every day he and his fellow Crusaders had been there.

He remembered all that, and so much more: finding his wife slain by Shaka's warriors for failing to show proper grief for Nandi's passing. Finding his wife bent over his own table by the very priest who had officiated the wedding, and her snarling demand that he leave her alone despite the flowers in his hand and the horror in his eyes. All that, and so much more.

It was too much to bear all alone. Alex screamed in despair.

************

"I'm here. I'm gonna help you. You're not alone."

"Molly," Mr. Woods asked, "what are you doing?"

"Helping him," Molly said. She knelt at the side of the young, mostly-naked man on the short couch. He was pale and hardly conscious. Molly pulled from one of her many pockets a blue periwinkle leaf, crushed it in her hand and rubbed it on his neck where the two puncture wounds were still somewhat bloody. She murmured words of healing and comfort.

"No, I mean why would you do that?" Woods pressed.

Molly looked over her shoulder in something of a glare. Standing over her were Onyx, Mr. Woods, and a pair of heavyset vampires in dresses that were the height of fashion in the antebellum South. She ignored Woods. "He needs water," the redheaded goth said to Onyx, who promptly stepped away to a table of refreshments nearby.

"Oh," said one of the vampires in a sweet voice, "do you plan on revivin' him? That's ever so kind of you. He's just delicious. Ah'd hate to think that ah got the last bit of him all mahself. He should be shared around more."

"Shared?" Molly blinked. "He's wiped out. Even once I'm done with him, he's not up for more of this. He needs to go home."

"Home?" The vampires chuckled, looking at one another. "Why, aren't you just the sweetest thing?" one of them declared.

Onyx was there with a glass of water at that moment, which she put in the delirious young man's hand. Mr. Woods laid a hand on Molly's shoulder. "Molly," he urged, "we need to move on. You've done what you can here."

"I can get him to a car."

"You can't," Woods said firmly.

"Not unless you're willin' to pay Lord Blackthorne for him," the other of the undead ladies put in. "All these refreshments are his property, after all."

Molly's eyes flared. Onyx grabbed her arm and helped Mr. Woods pull her away.

"You've been warned already," Mr. Woods reminded her in a hushed voice. "Live and let live."

"Like they're letting these drones live?" Molly hissed.

"Would you be so tolerant of a guest in your home disrupting your lifestyle?" Woods asked. "This has gone on for centuries. You're not going to change anything."

"This goes beyond lifestyle," Molly argued quietly. "Do you really think all these people here walking around as hors d'ourves are knowing volunteers?"

"Some of them, yes," Mr. Woods nodded. "But that's not for us to judge. Ladies, I know you are both new to all of this, but how different do you really think this is from how the Brotherhood handles its matters? We told you before, the vampires are doing this in part to remind one another – and us – of their natures. We shouldn't be shocked. In fact, they're entertained by the fact that you are bothered, and they'll only seek more entertainment from that. They feed on human blood. We are here to make sure once and for all that it won't ever be our blood. Don't tell me you've gotten all this way in your studies without spilling a little blood yourselves."

"Mr. Woods," Onyx broke in, her hand still on Molly's arm, "do you think you could give us a moment to talk this over? I think we're all just having a misunderstanding here."

He nodded, looking at Onyx imploringly. "Of course," he said. He stepped away.

Most of the conversation took place through a single exchange of nuanced glares. Onyx sympathized, but wanted to keep her eye on the ball. Molly didn't want to blow their mission, but was of the opinion that everyone present needed to be annihilated, here and now, immediately and without delay. This was not, after all, the first expired "blood toy" the pair had seen tonight. It was just the first that they could get to and offer aid. Moreover, it wasn't the first time they had witnessed the indifference of the Brotherhood.

Before the conversation went very far, though, there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere of the broad hall. Black-garbed partygoers parted graciously and bowed or knelt as a strange assortment of individuals walked by. At their front were Lord Blackthorne and Lady Anastacia, who had been described at length for Molly and Onyx by several gushing guests. They carried themselves like royalty.

Behind them, though, no one else put on such airs. They were imposing in their own right, though: a man in a suit with dark, smoky orbs instead of eyes, and a stunningly beautiful blonde woman in an elegant, slinky emerald dress. To Molly and Onyx's mystic vision, both of them had small black horns just below the scalp, large demon wings and thin devil's tails.

Those same demonic features where shared by the chained, muzzled, bloodied woman dragged behind them in chains. She wore a tattered black nightgown and an expression of overwhelming hatred for everything around her, but in particular for the demons she was forced to follow. The vampires that dragged her along by her chains offered no mercy or pity.

Onyx's grip on Molly's arm tightened noticeably. Were it not for the aid of the spell of deception they both wove before they began this escapade, her expression would have surely betrayed her alarm. Instead, her face was merely grim.

"Lord Stefan?" Mr. Woods asked as the group passed by. "A moment?"

The well-dressed leader of the Brotherhood peeled off from his accompaniment of the group without disrupting its ranks, having been behind the demons to begin with. A robed man who kept his face hidden behind a hood followed him.

"My time is short, Mr. Woods," Stefan warned him in hushed tones that Onyx only barely heard. "Still, it is good that you got my attention here. We need to speak."

"Oh?"

"How urgent is your business?"

"Not terribly, I suppose. I did want to make you aware of a couple of new guests if only to avoid a surprise. This is Molly and Onyx, whom we've been hoping to chat up for some time. Ms. Black managed to convince them to come to the party to meet with us."

Stefan glanced up at them, a glint of recognition in his eyes but without any real change in his demeanor. "Ah. Ladies, I apologize very sincerely. While I have been eager to make your acquaintance and hopefully sway you into joining our organization, I fear tonight may not be the night for such negotiations. Mr. Woods, I trust you are seeing to their safe conduct?"

Woods hesitated. His eyebrows rose at the loaded question. "I am," he answered finally.

"Good. I need you to let the others know that we may yet have further to go in smoothing things over with our hosts than initially anticipated." He glanced at Molly and Onyx again. "Ladies, I sincerely apologize, but I must speak with Mr. Woods here alone a moment. Would you be so kind as to give us some space?" His voice dripped with sincerity and polite tones, and he even bowed slightly to them.

"Of course," Onyx smiled. She drew Molly away, but not before reaching up to subtly scratch her ear. One of her smaller metallic earrings, duller than the rest, slipped off and fell to the floor. "Subaulscuto,," she murmured as they turned away.

Molly glanced at her. "You don't think they'll spot that?"

"They're worried about the vampires, not other Practitioners," Onyx whispered. "Cover for me." She glanced up at Molly, who then started talking about how much she wanted a cat. It was exactly the sort of thing that Onyx had learned to tune out.

"We weren't able to handle things downstairs as subtly as we'd hoped," Onyx heard Stefan say. The words were carried to her ear as if she were still part of the men's conversation. "The corpses have been all over us."

"Unfortunate, but that was a gamble in the first place," Woods shrugged. "They're not all stupid."

"No, and Lydia still plays us off against one another. Ba'al will be leaving soon with the captured succubus. He wants her for himself. In the meantime, we have to make our move. Carlisle's knowledge is too valuable to share. There is more going on than we imagined."

"How so?"

Stefan inhaled sharply, glancing around. Only Woods and Warren were close enough to hear, aside from Onyx's enchanted earring. "Garrison appears to have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. We still need to study how and check his methods, but Carlisle stumbled into Garrison as he summoned the succubus – and an angel. Garrison died and Carlisle accidentally wound up invested with some degree of mastery over both subjects."

"None of them yet know of the angel," Warren added.

"You've got to be kidding," Woods murmured. "Why in the hell would he do that? It's madness."

"No, it's brilliant. They stood to counterbalance one another, and indeed they seem to have done so for Carlisle. It's amazing; the relationships seem genuinely affectionate. But the angel disappeared on him right before he was snatched, so there may well be another faction in play here. I fear Garrison may have shared his findings with another group like the Brotherhood before he died. We need to strike while we have this opportunity."

"What would you have me do?" Woods asked.

"Spread the word and have everyone ready to move," Stefan said. "Perhaps immediately after Anastacia holds her formal court. Perhaps even sooner. Warren here is going to go down below to grab Carlisle and sneak him out of here. I expect he'll have no problem there. The real challenge will be in extracting all of our people here without incident, but if a fight is necessary, we'll make a tactical withdrawal of it."

Woods cast a concerned gaze at Warren. "You sure you don't need help?"

"Mr. Woods, come now," Warren said softly. "I am a necromancer. Manipulating corpses is my specialty. But we have to move soon. The effects of the waters of Lethe will not last forever, even in the quantities that he was given. Retrieving more will be difficult at best."

"And the demons?"

"I hardly think Lydia or that monstrosity of hers give a damn what we mere mortals do in our power struggles," Stefan scowled. "Ba'al even less so. He gets what he wants by hauling that other succubus off to hell as his prisoner. Lydia wants to kill Carlisle herself, but I don't think Ba'al really cares that much."

"The rest of us are beneath him. In the end, this is still between Anastacia's side and ours. This could cost us, but the power we could attain for ourselves here is too great to pass up. I'll be damned if I am going to swear allegiance to that dress-wearing cadaver if we can help it!"

Warren and Stefan moved off, walking swiftly to catch up to the other VIPs of the evening. Woods turned to rejoin Molly and Onyx with his pleasant poker face still strong. "Ladies," he smiled charmingly, "it would appear that I've been appointed as something of a herder of cats tonight. I need to spend the next few moments of my time spreading a little bit of news among the Brotherhood. Would you care to join me? I think it would be in your best interests to stay close. This party would be dreadfully dull without someone like me to liven it up for you, wouldn't it?"

His self-deprecating wink was anything but. Molly and Onyx both played along, though, smiling at him shyly. "Sure," Onyx said.

"Sorry about before," Molly said. "I've just got a... thing about unnecessary roughness."

Woods waved it off. "Hardly a problem. Believe me, I sympathize. My first few months with the Brotherhood were similarly jarring, but you get over it. Shall we?" he asked, turning to lead them away.

As they walked, Molly looked down to see Onyx slip something off her wrist from under her sleeve. It was the small ring of vines and blonde hair used to summon and bind Rachel into the circle within their apartment. Onyx pointedly gripped it in both hands, walking closely behind Mr. Woods with her hands low to keep them unseen, and then pulled the circlet apart.

A glance from Onyx asked Molly to trust her, but there was no need. Onyx never really needed to ask that of her lover. Instead, Molly simply hoped that they'd be able to handle the rest of the night from here on out.