Chapter 1: Sisterhood (Invite)

[Lancaster]

Elliot took to the sewers every now and again. It helped him to vent; and he felt justified, at least, in slaughtering these humans that only meant him ill. Sure, every single time that they fell to their knees, dead – every single time he was splattered with their warm blood or their heads landed, thunk, splash on the floor the sewers, he felt his heart twitch. Maybe they had families. Maybe they just had ill-founded beliefs that he could not persuade them out of between the moments when they engaged him in battle, and then were dead on the ground. Defending himself, that’s all he was doing. They’d kill him otherwise, and if he didn’t help to keep them at bay, they could kill someone he cared about. One of the new d’Artois. Hell, they could kill some innocent fledging who’d never asked for this life and who would do nothing to harm a fly. Elliot could fight. He could win. So why not do it for the good of the many?

At least, that’s how he justified it to himself. That’s how he soothed away the guilt and the shame, and while his heart might twitch at each death, it was only a small twitch. It was overwhelmed by the enjoyment. The fact of the matter was – and this was something Elliot had come to terms with, by now – was the fact that whatever had been done to him, whatever magic was in that blood fed to him by Pi, it changed him, fundamentally. Maybe it was some human nature thing, latent until awoken. Maybe there’s this kind of darkness in everyone, and they just don’t know it, or they don’t act upon it because society had beaten it out of them. Whatever the case, a bloodthirsty killer was awoken and if Elliot didn’t feed the beast every once in a while, he’d be prone to wild temper outbursts. Lack of control. He couldn’t have that. He couldn’t make any more mistakes. And so he would come down here, and he would vent – and he would do it in the sewers rather than in the Quarantine Zone or the Catacombs because at least the enemies down here provided a slightly better challenge.

Maybe Elliot hoped one of them would best him one day. That thought, too, he didn’t care to dwell on.

The musician had reached a quieter part of the sewers. He could see all the way down the hall on either side of him, and there was no one. He was all alone. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He sheathed his sword and took a deep breath to ground himself in the here and now; to reach back and summon the Lancaster that everyone knew. He checked the screen – Asteria. He frowned and swiped the screen to answer, smearing it with blood.

“Ast,” he answered, as was his custom to do.

What he heard was not what he expected. Asteria’s voice was normally so light and easy. Teasing, even, but there was none of that. Instead, it was as if she didn’t realise she had called. He could crying, shouting – and then a curdling scream that had him blanching and leaning back against the grimy wall. He couldn’t see anything. He had no idea what was going on – all he had were the noises coming through the phone’s speakers, and he had the device pressed hard up against his ear. Painfully so.

“Asteria,” he mumbled into the phone. There was no answer. There was more shouting, sobbing, crashing.

“ASTERIA,” he shouted, long and loud, his own voice booming and echoing around the sewer system that he stood in. No doubt alerting any enemy in the area to where he was, but he didn’t care. His childe was in pain on the other end of the phone, and he needed to know where she was.

“ASTERIA – WHERE THE **** ARE YOU?” he shouted, pushing away from the wall, preparing to leave immediately. He would find a way to track her if she didn’t pick up. Already his brain was working in overdrive – who could he call? Who could he go to?