THREE WEEKS PRIOR
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Elliot Lancaster d’Artois woke up and didn’t know where he was. The room was unfamiliar. The woman beside him was unfamiliar, though the arm she had thrown over his chest was a comfort and the scent of her hair inspired affection. He might have sprung out of the bed if it were not the case; instead, he lay there for a good five minutes staring at her. Was this what it felt like to wake from a coma? Had he been in a coma? Why was he here? What was the last thing he had been doing? Had he got drunk and gone home with a stranger? Was it possible for him to get that drunk? Deep at his core remained unutterable sadness and despair, a darkness waiting to swallow him up. If this woman was a stranger, why did he feel the need to lean down and press a kiss to her crown? Was it loneliness, getting the better of him?
A one night stand, surely. Surely, he should leave. Lightly, he tried to ease himself out of the bed without disturbing the woman he was with. His foot got tangled in the blanket, however, and he lost his balance. On his way down to the floor he hit his head on the drawer of the bedside table, which had been left open. Stars danced before his eyes -- as well as his last memory before tonight.
Sewers. Blood. An unrivalled craving for blood. Vampire’s blood. Wild blood. Rage and sadness so pure, so basic, so instinctive and it was as strong as that darkness.
Until it was gone again.
Freddie assumed that it was the fall out of bed that had woken him up, his fingers touching at the tender bruise on his skull that would no doubt heal within minutes. He’d laugh about it later, none the wiser.
TWO WEEKS PRIOR
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Elliot Lancaster d’Artois woke up to a stumble. Or, it was because he woke up that he stumbled. In his hand was one of those cheap white styrofoam eskies. In his pocket was a wallet. In his other pocket a phone. If he squinted his eyes and paid close attention to the street signs and the buildings, he eventually realised he was somewhere in Bullwood. What was he doing in Bullwood? Though that wasn’t the post pressing question.
HOW had he ended up in Bullwood? Upon inspection, he realised the esky was full of blood packs -- both human and vampire. He knew that he was taking them home to someone. He knew that he was going home. How did he know that? Home. He was confused. Where was home? A headache formed in the front of his skull as he turned on the spot. Home wasn’t in Bullwood. It was in Swansdale. Home was his apartment above the pub, and the pub was not in Bullwood. Why would he come this far for blood packs? And why the **** did he not remember?!
It was there again, that darkness, but it was threaded through with hope. He took a step off the curb to head toward the bridge that would take him across to the other side of the river but deep down he knew it was wrong. There was something inherently wrong with his perception of home. Because when he thought of home he did not see Pi. No, instead there was another woman. Dark-haired, piercing blue eyes, a softness to her features that Pi’s often lacked. When he thought of Pi now there was guilt and despair but there was acceptance, too. And he did not want to go to her, to her memory. But…
...it was the horn that yanked Freddie from his reverie. Bright lights forced him to bring his hand to his eyes as a car swerved around him, a partly balding man leaning out of the window to tell him, rather loudly and uncouthly, to get the **** off the road. Freddie stepped back onto the curb; he didn’t remember stepping out onto the road, though he must have. What had he been thinking about? Why …? He pushed away the doubt and concern for his own well being, and continued on his way home to Hannah.
ONE WEEK PRIOR
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It was just a regular nighttime meandering. Every night (though not as often lately as he used to) Freddie would go for a walk. Sometimes Hannah would come. Tonight, Hannah was not with him. It helped with restlessness. He meandered without thinking, without looking, turning corners and crossing bridges without any second thought. He pondered random things; about Hannah, about he recent turn, about her past and what her ‘death’ meant for her future. Their future. Because they would be spending it together.
He wondered about his past and why it was still so uncannily absent. He wondered about the man he’d met and the information he’d tried to give that Freddie refused. He wondered about the curious blackouts he’d had -- quite a few of them since the incident on the road. And the dreams, all of them the same, with the same faces, the same places. And he always woke up confused, like he didn’t quite know where or who he was until he regained his senses and everything went back to normal. These were things he did not yet discuss with Hannah. He did not want to worry her. He wondered, until he wandered right into the hornet’s nest.
“Elliot!” someone called. Freddie kept walking. There were footsteps behind him, and a repeated shout. “Elliot!” Still, Freddie was completely oblivious, hands shoved into his pockets and eyes unseeingly staring ahead. “For ****’s sake. Elliot Lancaster, you tall lanky ****. Are you ignoring me?!”
And then he was there, standing in front of Freddie. A guy who looked like he could be twelve, but his eyes looked weary. Old. He wasn’t twelve, of course he wasn’t. His voice had dropped and he was very obviously an adult. Eyes of a piercing blue were narrowed, thin lips twisted as the guy clicked his fingers in Freddie’s face.
“Oi. Are you actually deaf, mate?!” he said, mimicking Freddie’s accent. Freddie blinked. And then swayed, as his world spun. There was a stab of pain that came and went in an instant, that familiar ice-pick to the brain. But it faded, and didn’t come back.
“...Axl,” he said. “Jesus ******* …. Christ,” he said, hand reaching for his temple. Everything was there. Everything. Just for a moment, it wasn’t just Lancaster. Nor was it just Freddie. It was both. They were one man. A man who’d lived a gypsy-like existence only to be stuck, a vampire. Only to slowly fall deeply for the woman who was his sire, the woman who’d left, who was dead. A man who’d spiralled so far out of control that he’d completely lost himself, had opted to become someone else. Someone else who’d found actual happiness. The darkness and despair was quashed, eclipsed by recent history. Lancaster-come-Freddie slammed a hand down upon Axl’s shoulder, needing the anchor to keep him steady.
“What the hell is wrong with you man? You’re lucky I saw you before Roxxy. She’s going to rip your guts out,” he said. “Where the **** have you been…?”
Lancaster-come-Freddie laughed, somewhat delirious. Where had he been, indeed?!
All it took was that blast from the past, thrown in at the right time, and all the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. Those memories that had been so painstakingly locked away were now released, like a veritable Pandora’s chest. Except it wasn’t all bad. Freddie hadn’t known where he was going; that part of the city he’d subconsciously avoided for months had been entered, Swansdale spread out before him like an old friend. He and Axl went somewhere that wasn’t Lancaster’s -- Freddie wasn’t quite ready for that, yet -- and they talked. They talked for hours. The whole time, Freddie held his phone in his hands, twisting it back and forth, unlocking it before closing it again, eventually texting Hannah. How long would this lucidity last? He was coming home. And he had something to tell her.
CURRENT EVENTS
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It did not matter how the laboratory was found, nor why Freddie, formerly known as Lancaster d’Artois, found himself inside of it. Now more fully himself -- though still preferring to be called Freddie -- he knew what he wanted. He knew without a single doubt that he wanted a cure. All along, he wanted a cure. Although his memories still wept at a slow pace, that voice inside told him that he needed to at least try; he would forever regret it if he didn’t. What if his participation made the difference between a win or a loss?
Quietly, he entered the facility. Without getting in the way of anyone else, he joined the militia. He barely spoke to those on the ninth floor; he was barely there. He paced the floors above, lurking around the stairs and the elevators, acting as a guard for the vampires who tried to storm the building.
There were too many of them. Whoever had leaked the news that there was a cure ought to be fired. Whoever hadn’t built a better firewall should be… well, Freddie wouldn’t say they should be shot but what was he doing, now? He was shooting those he thought ought to be kept at bay. Fully aware he had not been made judge and jury, each bullet he loosed caused a pang of guilt. He kept backing up, hoping that he wouldn’t have to kill anyone. Hoping that they would just stop, that something would be done to secure the cure and scatter the attackers.
No such luck.
Freddie ended up down on the ninth floor with the small group who acted as the last barricade. Most of them were Paladins, hunters who’d have seen the vampire dead regardless of how much he hated what he was, how much he would turn back given the chance. He’d never asked for this.
The security console was blasted in the crossfire and it didn’t look hopeful. The scientists who thought they were safe beyond the blast doors were anything but. The last resort, the very last hope, was that they get the cure and leave. They had to get out of this building. They had to take it somewhere safe. The vampire copped a bullet to the gut. A bullet or ten were returned, the foe in front of him eventually dispersing into ash. The room spun with emergency lights, alarms deafening as the doors behind him heavily clacked. The locks were open. Freddie had no idea how, or why. Safety protocol? Whatever the case, the scientists and their cure were now free game.
“The cure!” he shouted to everyone and no one in particular. “It needs to be safe!” he said as he backed through the blast doors, hoping that the hint would be taken, and that none of those still upon the ninth floor would turn against them. Not now. Not in the hour of need.
