Blessed be the Archons for Lucius' ability to pick locks.
Much like he'd expected, knocking had made no difference to the door at all, so he worked in silence, using his old Reapers pin to force the door open anyway.
The inside was seemingly void of life, with the only thing occurring to Lucius as he squinted through the darkness being a rush of nostalgia. There had been some redecorating of course and they had thrown out some of the older furniture, but the stuffy air and smell of damp wood had remained.
It turned out to be a lacklustre return though, didn't it? Having to pick a lock to enter a dark, lifeless room, with no one around to even greet him.
Within the next few seconds, Lucius was yanked backwards and found himself in a headlock with a knife grazing his throat.
He released a soft laugh, fighting through the pain in his shoulders.
"I've missed this." His laugh turned into a cough. "Though, I'm in a little bit of pain at the moment, so could you not do this right now?"
"Shouldn't have come here if you can't even defend yourself," Telmo said, releasing his throat to let him turn around. "Not that you haven't made some real poor choices before."
"I know," Lucius admitted through gritted teeth, begrudgingly, but excuses wouldn't work with Telmo. "I messed up, and let my emotions get the best of me."
"And yet you're uppity enough to return?"
"I could use your help with something." Lucius noticed the eclipse of Telmo's already dark eyes in time to take a step back.
"You want my help?" Telmo stepped forward to deny Lucius the space between them. "After everything that happened?"
"I actually need all of you." Lucius' voice lowered into a strained whisper. "But it's more of an offer than a favour."
Telmo scoffed, eyeing Lucius up and down.
"You don't look like you're in a position to bargain."
"Do you really think I'd come here if I didn't have some kind of assurance?" Lucius tilted his head to the side, and Telmo's eyes narrowed as she glanced over her shoulder at something by the door.
She sighed.
"How you manage to find people like this is beyond me."
"I cannot say I'm thrilled either," Ivan said, aiming a rifle at Telmo's head. "But he's a last chance for me, so I will make sure nothing gets in his way before he can do his part."
"He's a family oriented man." Lucius shrugged, as if that explained the rifle and shady dealings. "Quite impressive actually, so I decided to help him in exchange for some assistance."
He actually had no idea if his plan to bully Tom into tracking down those Larkspur bastards would work, but what harm could it do to at least try? If that was all Ivan required of him, Lucius was not above guilt-tripping a monster fanatic.
"I don't care about your chummy family talk." Telmo wrinkled her nose. "And I doubt the others would either."
While Lucius would object loudly to that, as he knew Lorenzo had his soft spots, he chose not to argue with Telmo further. Instead, he'd go straight for the killing blow.
"If I don't remember wrong, you're not so estranged from your family either, Yanagi." He dared a smirk as Telmo flinched. "To the point where you hide your family name to keep them out of trouble."
Telmo's glare was flooded with contempt.
"... What are you implying?"
"I actually ran into your mother the other day." Lucius wouldn't be interrupted. "She works at the BBT, as their cook. Unfortunately that is not going to be a safe place to be in a couple of days, so—"
"Do you have a fucking death wish?" Telmo leaned forward, with Lucius having no doubt that she'd stab him then and there had it not been for Ivan. "You think you can just waltz in here after everything and threaten me? Threaten my mother?"
"That's not what I'm doing." Lucius held up his good arm in defence. "I wanna give you the chance to keep her away from there. It's just that we need to be careful about it. She can't know about it, and you don't want her to find out about your occupation, do you?"
Telmo sucked in a furious breath.
"And what's stopping me from killing you right here to make sure you can't say another word to her?"
Lucius shook his head.
"Did you forget about him?" he nodded in Ivan's direction, but Telmo had the nerve to sneer.
"What about you? Did you forget where you are?"
As soon as her sentence was completed, a door burst open further away, with several of the Shallow Reapers entering the room surprisingly smoothly, and Lucius held back a grimace.
"Telmo, listen." He sighed instead, sending Ivan a brief glare as the man still chose to point his rifle in his and Telmo's direction. "I don't want us on bad terms. I want your assistance, and you'll be rewarded. Your mother's safety is something I never had to tell you, but I did. This is going to happen with or without me, so regardless of your feelings, it's in your best interest to hear me out."
"And in case you'd try anything," Ivan added, raising his voice to address the entire room. "His coat pockets are filled with gunpowder. If I shoot him, you'll all suffer."
It took all of Lucius' composure and some tension in his neck not to gasp at this. Ivan had stuffed his coat with explosives? When had that happened? He entertained the possibility that the man was bluffing, but knowing how far he could go for Milica, perhaps he shouldn't be so surprised.
"He's an intense one," he therefore said with a nonchalant smile, deciding in the end that playing along was all he could do.
"And you're insane." Telmo wrinkled her nose, while the rest of the Reapers had quietly retreated a few steps.
"There's a lot on the line," Lucius emphasised, adopting a grave expression. "There's nothing left for me to lose if this doesn't work. Same for Ivan, and with this new information, you as well."
Telmo's cold glare faltered for a second, but she quickly recovered before turning her head to look at the other Reapers, mainly at Lorenzo, who didn't seem to quite grasp the situation yet.
Then she turned back to Lucius.
"What's in it for us, then?"
"I'll pay you back all the money you lost because of Adrian... And me," Lucius said. "And I dare say there will be valuable spoils available for some time after."
Telmo folded her arms before leaning forward again.
"Twice the amount." The corner of her lips quirked. "And don't give me that look. Why would it be enough to pay what you already owe us?"
Lucius opened his mouth to protest, but he supposed she wasn't wrong. They would not have lost everything if it hadn't been for him, and it wasn't as though he couldn't get a hold of that much money.
He clicked his tongue.
"Only fair, I guess."
"Wait, what are we doing?" Lorenzo finally asked from the other side of the room, most of the other Reapers nodding with him in agreement, and Lucius supposed it was time to win over the rest.
"As many of you would remember, before my... Unconventional departure from this group, I came to associate some with the Hargreaves family, more specifically Lord Anthony Hargreaves."
"Weren't you fucking?" Vinh called out from the other side, and Lucius pursed his lips as he stared at the barely adolescent boy.
"I've missed you too by the way, Vinh, but no. No, we were not doing that."
Unconvinced mumbling ensued between the others, and Lucius' nose scrunched up.
"Either way." He raised his voice, moving to the middle of the room. "I tried to play nice with them. I tried using them to make some change in this town for once, but those blood sucking anglers have fucked with me too many times now—"
"I thought you said he didn't—"
"So what use are they to us?" Lucius raised his voice to drown out Vinh's. "They plan on keeping their wealth while we suffer, but why should we let them?"
"You want to kill a bunch of anglers?" Telmo raised an eyebrow, and Lucius laughed.
"No, not a bunch..." He brought out a large roll of paper and dropped it on the table in front of him. "... All of them."
Despite more faces beginning to share the same scepticism as Telmo's, the Shallow Reapers remained silent, reluctantly agreeing to listen to their former leader again.
"In a couple of days, the BBT will host an engagement party for one of the leaders... And my cousin." Lucius wrinkled his nose again while unfurling the paper. "All so-called important people of this town will have to be there, or face ostracisation."
The group finally moved closer to take a look at the map now stretched across the table.
"This is a drawing of the BBT mansion's structure," Lucius continued as he dragged his finger along the neatly drawn lines. "It shows all the rooms on every floor and all possible entrances. With some planning, we could use this to easily infiltrate the entire building."
"And take down an entire group of people, during a party?" Telmo's disbelief didn't let up. "That building may be huge, but if you need all of us it's gotta be a quick job to not be spotted."
"That's the best part, it will be quick!" Lucius beamed at her with sinister, childlike excitement. "Because we're going to blow it up!"
As if the room hadn't already been silent enough, it was as though everyone had stopped breathing, all of them staring at Lucius with a blend of terrified doubt and reluctant concern.
"You... Want to blow up an entire mansion?" Lorenzo finally asked as Lucius didn't elaborate further. "With our help?"
"You won't be near there once it actually happens," Lucius assured them. "I just need you for preparations... And maybe lighting the fuse."
"None of us would be lighting the fuse," Telmo sternly established. "But I doubt you could pull this off even with our help. How are you gonna find that amount of explosives to start with?"
"Him." Lucius pointed back at Ivan, who turned his gaze away to avoid entering the conversation. "Lieutenant whatshisname can—"
"Vieryshkin," Ivan had to cut in, sacrificing his disinvolvement in the conversation for the sake of his pride.
"He'll handle the explosives." Lucius ignored him. "What you need to do is get them inside without anyone noticing. If we start tomorrow, it should not be a problem."
"But that party won't just involve the BBT anglers," Lorenzo pointed out with a grimace. "You said all of the upper crust will be there. If you destroy the entire building... You'd be killing all of them."
"Oh, I know." Lucius laughed. "And good riddance."
"What about the servants?" Telmo's frown deepened. "My mother not being there is one thing, but you can't get them all out."
Lucius' smile persisted, but he gave her a dead stare before turning back to the map.
"Guess they can ruminate over their choices in life when they enter The Unity." He shrugged absentmindedly. "Or wherever."
The room went quiet again, and Lucius could feel the others' hesitation closing in again.
So he sighed, smile dying while still looking down at the layout.
"Listen," he said, voice dry and eyes narrowing. "I don't know how it escaped your knowledge, but those people —All of them— Are what's killing this town. Always have. They're the ones who created The Entrails to shove the 'undeserving' into it, hosting a selective slaughter whenever they see fit, and finding profit in doing so. Finding profit in others' misery."
He looked up to meet the others' gazes, one at a time.
"I, for one, am tired of it. I'm tired of seeing my friends hanged, or shot to death, bleeding out in my arms..." He looked over at Telmo and Lorenzo. "... I'm sick of having to justify my existence, and being deemed unworthy of breathing the same air as them, so why the Waste aren't all of you? What do you have to gain from saying no? Be the bigger person just to die a worm?"
Lorenzo still looked uneasy.
"It's still a lot of people. Some of them—"
"They're not people," Lucius hissed. "They're not even anglers. They're blights, and they'll be lucky if The Waste allows them back."
He turned to Telmo.
"I've gotten rid of scum before, with good results. Or do you miss Ravi?"
Telmo rolled her eyes.
"No."
"I'm good at what I do." Lucius reminded her before holding out his good hand. "I messed up once because I let my guard down, but I learned from it, so trust me."
Telmo looked at his hand with contempt, but then glanced around the room at the others before closing her eyes with a sigh.
"I swear, I should have just let Vaughan kill you that time." She grabbed his hand.
"And I shouldn't have been so quick to lose Apocalypse. We all make mistakes," Lucius retaliated, but gave her hand a firm shake.
"So, what now?" Telmo looked down at the paper. "What's the plan?"
"First of all, I'm going to find the load-bearing columns." Lucius reached inside one of his pockets to grab a piece of chalk, only to grasp a handful of powder instead.
His eye twitched as he raised his open palm, letting the gunpowder run through his fingers and onto the floor with a narrowed glare towards the door.
"Fuck's sake, Ivan!"
Ivan shrugged.
"As you said, I'm an intense man, Mr. Whatsyourname."