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| Sebastien |
The streets were empty when Sebastien left his. He still found himself looking over his shoulder at the few people he saw, but as far as he could tell, they weren't infected.
He felt like he needed to get over himself; Lord Caedis had already begun setting up security measures to ensure no one brought the virus into the city. But his lingering worry for Clementine made it hard for him to stop panicking.
With a quiet sigh, he hurried into the Venaticus building. He nodded at the security guards on his way to the elevator. While he waited to reach his floor, he tapped his foot and stared at the pin pad. He wasn't sure if Caedis was back yet, but he knew Lucian was still here. That kid spent more time in this building than anyone else.
When the elevator doors opened, he walked to the office space. He saw Lucian in his corner office, but there was no sign of Caedis.
This conversation wasn't going to go as smoothly as it would if Caedis was here to keep his nephew in line...but Sebastien couldn't avoid it. Clementine came up with a good point, and he needed to share it.
He knocked on Lucian's door.
Lucian didn't look up from his laptop. "What?"
Sebastien stepped into his office. "Heir Lucian, I have something that Lord Caedis might want to hear."
He still didn't look at Sebastien. "Might?"
"I was thinking about what the reason for this virus being created might be. What if it's supposed to draw Greymore out? We have no idea where he is, right? And neither do the Diabolus. So, what if slaughtering wolf walkers is the Diabolus attempting to bait Greymore? They already took out the asmodi, so it would make sense for them to go after another of the Nosferatu's strongest allies...right?"
"What's the likelihood of Greymore even knowing that this isn't a normal disease that's just floating around?" he mumbled, but he didn't sound very interested.
Sebastien frowned. "A normal disease doesn't turn wolf walkers into undead monsters...sir."
"Okay, well how is he supposed to know that? Is he a scientist?"
Sebastien tried his best to keep calm, but this arrogant kid was pissing him off. Where was Caedis? This would be a whole lot easier if he was here to tell Lucian to stop being an annoying little.... No, no...this was Heir Lucian. He couldn't disrespect him, not even in his thoughts.
He exhaled quietly. "I don't know. Do you know where Lord Caedis is?"
Lucian finally took his eyes off his laptop and looked Sebastien up and down. "Maybe."
"Where is he?"
"I'll tell him. You don't have to worry about it." Then, he spun his laptop around to show Sebastien his notes.
Sebastien moved closer so that he could read them, and he saw that Lucian had already come to the same conclusion Sebastien just pitched.
"Are you emailing Lord Caedis?" Sebastien asked.
Lucian adorned an irritated glare. "No. These are my personal notes." He turned the laptop back around. "He probably doesn't even know how to use email; he's like a million years old."
Amused, Sebastien smirked. "He knows how to use a phone, and if you don't send this to him right now, he's gonna flip a table at both of us."
"I haven't had a chance yet because you keep talking," Lucian muttered, rolling his eyes as he typed on his laptop.
As his irritancy returned, Sebastien turned around and headed for the door. "Just send it."
But he wasn't done. His anxiety started overpowering his annoyance, and the thought of Clementine being in danger because this mission was going to take too long urged him to try and speed things up.
He sighed when he reached the door and turned to face Lucian. "What should we do with Wilson? He won't tell Jackson where the lab is until his Alpha wakes up and decides whether Wilson can travel with them. This whole thing is a ticking time bomb; we can't afford to wait. And...I think Wilson has ulterior motives. He seems a little too desperate for simply wanting to uncover evidence to write a story and expose some shady companies."
Lucian looked at him again. "That depends. If I read his mind, are you gonna go running back to Daddy Alucard to tell him I'm being bad again?"
Sebastien scoffed, but Lucian had a point. He did tell Caedis when Lucian was acting up and doing things he shouldn't be...but that was one of his jobs. However, he wouldn't tell Caedis this time because someone had to make this call. He had to make this call to try and save Clementine from the dangers that might flood into Silverlake. "Okay, A: he's not my daddy, and B: I wanna get this shit done as much as anyone else. So, I don't care how we get the answers."
"Oh, really? Because that wasn't the attitude you expressed previously."
He sighed and crossed his arms. "I'm not going to tell anyone, okay? I just think we should get the answers ourselves in case their Alpha doesn't wake up or whoever's next in charge decides that Wilson can't go with them, which is incredibly likely because Wilson's a muto tigris."
"Obviously," Lucian grumbled. Then, he waved him off as he said, "I'll do it in a minute."
"I'm coming with you," Sebastien said firmly. Despite saying he wasn't going to tell Caedis about this, he was still going to do his job and supervise Lucian.
Lucian sighed as he closed his laptop. Then, he got up, headed over to the door, and passed Sebastien.
Sebastien followed him through the building. Once they reached the room Wilson was being held inside, however, he looked at Lucian and said, "Just don't hurt him."
But Lucian responded with a devious smile and headed into the room.
"Who the hell are you?" Wilson asked. "Where's Jackson?"
Sebastien watched as Lucian approached the table.
"Out of respect for my colleague," Lucian said, stopping beside Wilson, "I'm giving you one last chance to tell us what we want to know. Decline and things will get very uncomfortable very quickly."
Wilson scoffed. "I already made my deal with Jackson. Go and talk to him."
"Okay, decision made—"
Lucian snatched a fistful of Wilson's hair and forced his head down onto the table. Wilson tried to fight—he tried kicking and writhing around—but there wasn't anything he could do.
"Fighting is only gonna make this worse for you," Lucian muttered as he placed his free hand's middle and index fingers on Wilson's temple.
"Get off me, you demon scumbag!" Wilson growled.
"You knew what you were getting into," Lucian replied.
And then, Wilson stopped struggling. He fell still and silent, his eyes glazed over...and there wasn't anything he was going to be able to do to stop Lucian.
Sebastien started to feel a little guilty, though. Yes, they needed the information from Wilson sooner rather than later so they could start planning their trip to wherever the lab was, but this move was most likely going to compromise Wilson's friendship with Jackson. Sebastien was supposed to be keeping Jackson on his side...and this was going to prove to him that he couldn't trust him or the Venaticus to live up to their promises.
He sighed quietly and dragged his hand over his face as he leaned back against the door. Lucian let go of Wilson, who groaned and grimaced. He didn't make much of an effort to try and attack Lucian, either. He just sat there and moved both his hands over his head.
"Someone will come down with something for the headache," Lucian said, wiping his hands on his trousers as he made his way over to the door.
"So, what did you find?" Sebastien asked him as they stepped out into the hall.
"Well," he said with a smirk as they slowly walked up the hall. "It turns out that when this guy was a kid, his parents were taken by a couple of masked men. He saw the van his mother and father were tossed into." He paused and looked at Sebastien. "El'Vorian Industries. The pharmaceutical company acting as a front for Lyca Corp. We all know that Lyca Corp has been into some shady shit for a long time, experimenting on Caeleste, kidnapping rare and endangered Caeleste. Muto are both those things. Anyway, this guy has been looking into them so much because he thinks they still have his parents. He thinks he's going to go out to this lab and either find them or find something that might tell him where they are."
Sebastien nodded slowly he followed Lucian into the elevator and pressed the button to head back up to his office. "I mean, it all makes perfect sense. To be honest, I'm kinda glad that's what he's doing. I was a little scared he was going to turn on us or something. He kinda has the vibe."
"The only malicious thoughts in his head were towards Damon."
"The wolf walker Alpha?"
"Dude loathes him. Probably because he's mated to Jackson."
"Do you think it's gonna be a problem?"
"Probably. Muto and wolf walkers hate each other. But as long as they get the mission done, who gives a shit?"
Sebastien nodded. "Yeah, that's true. And the lab?" he asked as the elevator arrived.
Lucian led the way out and towards his office. "He suspects the lab is up in Greykin Valley."
"Suspects...so he's not a hundred percent sure that it's there?"
"That's what suspects implies, yes."
Sebastien held back a sigh and followed Lucian into his office. "All right, so do you want to pass this on to Lord Caedis, or should I? Shouldn't he be back by now?" he asked, looking around.
"I can do it," Lucian said as he sat behind his desk.
He nodded. "Okay. Well...I'm gonna go check on the wolf pack. That's where I'll be if I'm needed."
"Okay," he said, opening his laptop.
Sebastien left and started making his way to the hospital wing. It was going to take him a few minutes to get there, so at least he had time to work out how he was going to tell Jackson that he had Lucian look into Wilson's mind for the information they'd promised Jackson could get without harming his friend. The kid was probably going to freak out, but they needed to know. Now, they could begin planning the mission to get to Greykin Valley, which meant they could set out sooner.
All they had to do was wait to see if Damon would wake up.
| Jackson |
The beeping monitors echoed inside Jackson's head. He listened to the ticking clock, and as each minute passed, he sunk deeper into despair. He knew it would take longer than an hour for Damon to wake up...but there was a part of him that was beginning to actually believe that might never happen.
He lifted his head from Damon's arm and stared at his lifeless face. Was there nothing the doctors could do? They'd managed to remove a knife from his spine without killing him; Surely, waking him up couldn't be impossible?
No. He was letting his emotions get the better of him. If there was anything, those doctors would have tried it already.
He frowned and looked down at Damon's hand. "I don't know if you can hear me," he mumbled sullenly. "But you gotta wake up, Damon. I don't know what I'm supposed to do without you."
His heart ached. He couldn't picture the next hour of his life without Damon. He'd never felt this way about anyone, and he had no idea how to cope with the pain. Damon was a part of him now; he couldn't lose him. Nothing would be or feel the same.
But no amount of pleading would wake him.
He heard some commotion outside. With a confused frown, he peered out through the blinds. The pack were standing in the waiting area, but they were following someone with their eyes as they shot a volley of questions about Damon's progress in their direction.
And then the door to Damon's room opened.
Sebastien stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Jackson."
"Yeah?" he asked but almost choked on his response. Was he here to tell him something he didn't want to hear?
"Look, I understand if this makes you mad, but just...." He dragged his hand over his face. "All right, look. Heir Lucian looked into Wilson's mind and—"
"What?" he exclaimed. "You said that—"
"I had my suspicions that—"
Jackson stood up as his grief quickly transformed into rage. "You told me you'd leave it up to me!" he interjected. "And now Wilson's probably going to think he can't trust me!"
"Calm down!" Sebastien snapped.
"Calm down?!" he mocked, taking a step closer to him. "He said he was gonna give me the location!"
Sebastien held out his right hand. "You better stay where you are, kid."
Jackson stopped moving. His heart was racing, and anger was burning through him. It was getting harder and harder for him to contain—hell, he didn't want to contain it. He'd finally gotten Wilson back, and now he was probably never going to trust him again because of this.
And that was when he let his anger rule him. He snarled in frustration and dismay and lunged at Sebastien.
But Sebastien snatched hold of his throat and pinned him against the wall in the blink of an eye. "I said calm it!" he growled.
Jackson stared at him. He didn't try to break free—he was too stunned to do that. Why did he lunge at him like that? He wasn't entirely sure what came over him, but now that his rage was settling, he felt nothing but confusion and regret.
"I didn't...mean to do that, I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head.
With an irritated huff, Sebastien let go of him and stepped back. "You're lucky I'm not some other random demon, or your head would probably be on the floor."
"I'm sorry," he said again, hanging his head in shame.
"Forget it," Sebastien mumbled. "You gotta learn to control yourself, though. Others might not be so forgiving."
He nodded and took a deep breath. He didn't want to let himself become angry again. So, as he set his sights on Sebastien again, he did his best to keep calm and collected. But he was still pissed off. "You said you'd let me get the information from Wilson. He's gonna blame me for this."
"We'll smooth it over with him, all right? And if he doesn't come around, hell, we'll get someone to make him forget all about it—"
"Are you kidding me? No!"
"All right, all right. It was just a suggestion," he exclaimed. Then, he huffed again and crossed his arms. "Look, the whole reason I roped Heir Lucian into doing it was because I felt like your buddy Wilson was hiding something."
Jackson adorned a confused stare. "Why would you—"
"And it turned out that he was. He ever tell you about his parents...or mention anything about them?"
He thought to himself for a moment. "Only that they disappeared when he was a kid. It was actually one of the things we bonded over."
"Well, when Heir Lucian looked through his mind, he found that Wilson's parents were actually taken by Lyca Corp. He thinks—"
"He...thinks that he'll find them at the lab," Jackson realized. "That's why he's always been so into all this wolf walker Lyca Corp. stuff, isn't it?"
"That's the way it seems, yeah. The fact he didn't already tell you makes it look like he wanted to tell you himself...or maybe not. So, I'm sorry for exposing your pal like this, but I wasn't going to keep this from you and let him explode at you when you next see him."
Jackson shook his head as he sunk into his seat beside Damon's bed. "No, it's...I'd rather you tell me than not, to be honest. I just...this all makes so much sense now. I knew Wilson was like me with all this love for uncovering mysteries and exposing corruption, but I never thought his motivation for it all was to find his parents. And...yeah, muto were hunted for their fur, right? Is that why Lyca Corp. took them?"
"We don't know for sure, and I'm not sure that Wilson does, either. But...if he gets around to telling you, I suggest you don't act like you don't know. I, uh...might have been in a similar spot once or twice."
Taking his eyes off the floor, Jackson looked at him. "Really? I wouldn't have guessed," he mumbled sarcastically.
"Hey, no need to be a dick about it, all right?" he grumbled.
"Sorry," he said with a sigh. He didn't mean to be so rude; he was letting his emotions get to him again. "What did you do?"
Sebastien leaned against the wall by the door. "Well...it was a long time ago. When I was in school, actually. I met this kid—Clementine. I was into him the moment I saw him kill some other guy and hide his body in the library—"
"Wait," Jackson interjected, shaking his head. "What? He just killed some other kid?!" But then he remembered. "Oh. The academy where they all fought over the New World or something, right?"
He nodded. "Of course, Clementine had no idea I saw. He had no idea I was following him around until I showed myself," he said with a quiet laugh. "Anyway, I was a nosy piece of shit back then—still am, actually—so I snuck into his dorm room while he was at class. I found these little pills stuffed in the back of his nightstand. I didn't know what they were at first glance, but I kinda...pieced it together eventually."
"Pieced what together?"
"I'm not this like...snippy snappy detective like you, but I did find enough clues after a few days. The pills, and the fact he smelled this certain kinda way. Like how humans smell when they're dying."
Jackson grimaced. "I...can't say I know it."
Sebastien waved his hand dismissively. "I saw him out in the woods picking these little mushrooms—and I'll add that there was a leshen in those woods and no kid in their right mind would go out there." He laughed again and shook his head. "You know, that's another thing I loved about him. He led this group of other kids out there to distract the leshen while he got what he came for."
Where was this going? This guy was getting side-tracked like he had ADHD or something.
"Uh...anyway, yeah, the mushrooms. Those, the pills, the smell. He was sick. He had colligo-interitus."
"What's that?"
"Hmm. Terminal disease. You know about the one-hundred-year-long war that happened over two hundred years ago, right?"
He nodded.
"A lot of the history books say it ended in 1126, but it was still going on in smaller parts of the world for another fifty-ish years. Somewhere in those fifty years, someone unleashed this poisonous fog in some parts of DeiganLupus. Clementine's village was hit, and everyone got sick. He knew he was going to die, but he wasn't going to go out without avenging his sister, first. That's a whole other story. But my point is, I regretted snooping around and learning something about him before he told me himself. I had to act like I had no idea...and I wasn't sure if I convinced him, but I felt like total shit the entire time."
Jackson looked down at his lap. He wouldn't do that to Wilson. Not because he didn't want to feel like shit, but because his friend deserved to know that he now knew. "What happened?" he then asked, glancing at Sebastien.
"With what?"
"To Clementine."
"Oh, he's fine."
"What? But you said—"
"Oh, yeah. He died. In my arms actually.... I was broken. But then I hunted down Lord Caedis and made a deal. I became his little errand boy, and in exchange, he brought Clementine back to me. We're mated, actually. Well...I imprinted on him. I wish I could bond with him, but he's not a demon, so," he said with a shrug. "We're gonna get married, though."
That made Jackson smile. "When?"
"Sometime. I dunno. We're always too busy working to plan anything. Anyway, yeah. Sorry I had to tell you Wilson's motives."
Jackson shrugged. "Did you find out where the lab is?"
"We did. We'll keep you updated, all right?"
He nodded and stared at Damon. "Okay."
"I'll come by again later." Then, Sebastien left.
Jackson's dismay quickly returned. Sebastien's story about Clementine made him crave Damon's affection—he just wanted to kiss him and feel his arms around him. But he couldn't. And he had no idea when he would get to again.
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