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When Lancaster woke up in the morgue, he did not call for help.

Clambering out of the cold, metal drawer was an effort; his limbs ached, and his mind was in overdrive. He imagined this was what it must feel like to have woken up from a nightmare, only to realise that it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real. Although he had spent time in the Shadow Realm before, this time it was worse. This time, he really did lose his mind. Even as he pulled the crisp air into his lungs, even as he felt the hardness of the floor beneath his feet, the metal table cold and sharp against the palm of his hand as he stumbled to regain his balance, he struggled to comprehend where he was or how he had got there.

It took him a few minutes to realise that he was alone; that the sobbing, ragged, tormented voice that he heard did not belong to anyone else. It belonged to him. If he’d had the foresight, if he’d had the focus and the concentration he might have tried contacting Cytherea or Skylar. One of them could have met him here. They could have brought him clothes. They could have helped.

Looking back, now, he was glad that he hadn’t. He was glad that they didn’t have to witness him like that, so lost and confused, so completely out of his wits. He already assumed they could not think much of him, their seemingly pacifist sire who suffered bouts of tempestuous violence. Their conflicted sire, who wanted to keep them safe. But he couldn’t, could he? They had found men who they felt safer beside. No, he did not believe that they didn’t care about him. But he did not believe that they needed him.

In one of the cupboards he’d found some scrubs. With every last ounce of his wits, of his barely-together sanity, he’d made it back to Lancaster’s; Allurists have a way about them. It had not been hard to convince a kindly soul to give him a lift back to the pub; he’d gone through the back door and straight upstairs. Pi, Skylar, and Cytherea were alerted as to his return, but only after he’d had an hour-long shower, the water set to boil, and he was dressed.

Curled up in the armchair, he hadn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t known how to proceed. He hadn’t wanted to sleep anymore, but he couldn’t resist the sun’s pull.

When he woke up, he dressed; the usual jeans, and plaid, button-up t-shirt. Tonight's variety was blue and white, the top two buttons undone, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He moved like an automaton; work. If all else failed, he could work. He could do that. It would be a distraction, and the crowd would help. That’s how he found himself down in the bar; behind it, he continued to work like an automaton, doing things by habit. He even smiled by habit, greeting the customers and pouring their drinks like every good owner should. He collected glasses. He washed them. He served. Around and around it went.

Until he felt the strong grip of a hand on his wrist; he blinked, finally looking. Finally actually seeing the customer in front of him; a woman. Young. And so sad. So, ******* sad. He could feel it, thrumming through her fingers. Could feel it, as if it entered his own bones. He nodded, slowly, and put the bottle down on the counter. He glanced at the bottle he’d picked; inadvertently, he had picked his favourite. His drink of choice.

”That’s the best in the house,” he said, his Australian accent contrasting with the Canadian twang around them.

”You should enjoy it slowly…” he said, almost inquisitive. Hoping, maybe, that the woman might open up. He had to remind himself that he couldn’t fix everyone. Even if he tried.

Intrigue held Lancaster steadfast. The staff were used to this; their boss was often snagged by one particular person at the bar. He often stopped to talk to people for hours at a time. They thought it was just a quirk; part of his normally buoyant personality. They did not know that sometimes, the customers liked talking to him because of his honesty. Lancaster had a way with words; his honesty was never brutal, never blunt. Not if it didn’t need to be. He wove intricacies into his sentences, philosophies that he’d picked up from random books, or from history. He was a reader, Lancaster; although he had never studied further than high school, he was a man of the world. He’d never really picked up technology, often scolded for his inability to reply to text or emails, or often check the family forum. He didn’t see why he should live his life through technological gadgets when he could just as easily talk to people face to face.

When on a plane or a boat, on a bus or a train, it was always so easy to just pick up a book and read. Or write his music. The music had fallen by the wayside, recently; something that he would have to try to seek to remedy. It had helped, in the past. Where some people wrote journals to vent, Lancaster played. His emotions were flung into the void via song.

Besides which, with his empathic abilities, he tried to help as many people as he could. He tried to embody the cliche bartender; the one whose shoulder a stranger could always cry on. People were drawn to him, sometimes, like flies to honey. He didn’t mind. He quite liked it.

And this woman… she was so proper. She spoke as if she’s stepped out of the 1800s, her words so formal in comparison to today’s lingo. And despite her admission to being not much of a talker, she certainly had a lot to say. She had asked him a question, only to move on, to talk about her own sorrows. Leave to grieve. Someone had died, then. That wasn’t too hard to guess.

”Australia,” he said, in answer to her question.

”Call me the pied piper of travellers. I used to be one. Now I run a haven through which they can find reprieve,” he said with a small smile. Normally, he’d have tried to infuse the conversation with his own good humour. He’d have tried to lift her spirits. It was hard to do, when his own spirits were severely lacking.

”Elliot Lancaster,” he said, straightening as he offered his hand in greeting. ”I’m sorry to hear that you’re grieving. The scotch is on the house,” he said. Whether or not it was wise to give a bottle of alcohol to someone who was grieving was questionable. But Lancaster was a generous person, and he knew that if he were in this woman’s place, he’d want to drink himself into a stupor, too. In fact, he was already half considering taking a bottle up with him once the bar was closed. It might be nice to be completely drunk, before sleep took him again.

Literally, he wanted to say. Sometimes when he got up on that stage, when he sang to the crowd of humans, they gathered at the foot of the stage like rats ready to bend to his will. Most of the time they came to their senses, afterwards. Every now and again he had people follow him around, back to the bar; ask him questions, and become far too interested in his life. With his inability to lie, Lancaster had grown accustomed to new and adventurous ways of escape.

Except, he hadn’t the chance to expand upon anything that he had said, nor question Shadis’s response. He’d wanted to ask where she was from; what was the origin of the name? With her tan complexion, her dark eyes, dark hair, she looked exotic. Indian? Middle-Eastern? She had said she was a traveller. Half the reason Lancaster had opened Bunk Backpackers was so that he could talk to the travellers. He could live vicariously through them.

He wanted to know her story. Who had died, and why here? Why did she not live here, with the person who had died? Where was she going now, and what would she do? Questions that could be asked delicately, answers that could be lured without having asked any questions at all.

Instead, Lancaster was forced to not an accept Shadis’s departure. He couldn’t force people to stay and drink at the bar and nor could he force them to share their woes and allow him to try to help them. He watched as she weaved through the crowd, before he took the money from the bar and deposited it in the til. People always came and went. When they left, he would get back to work. He would find someone else to talk to. And though Lancaster did get back to work - though he did clear away some empty glasses and pour another couple of drinks, he couldn’t get the woman’s last words out of his head. They kept repeating themselves, over and over, the bad feeling in his gut churning until it was unbearable.

Keep the change. I won’t be grieving for long.

It was an odd time to think about it, but Lancaster remembered Stryge; the last man that Pi had turned. He had tried to kill himself with a shotgun that she had sold to him. Oh, how he wished Pi were beside him tonight. The bar was empty without her. Something was missing.

But then he saw Shadis’s dark eyes again. He felt her hand on his wrist and he remembered how sad she’d felt. How it had, somehow, spoken to a grief that lived so freshly inside of him. It was perhaps twenty minutes later that he dropped the cloth and weaved his way through the crowd. He made his way to the stairs and bounded up them, two at a time. Six foot six in height, it wasn’t hard for his lanky body to scale the floor. It took only a second to find the check-in book. To find her name, and the room she occupied.

At the door, he knocked. The keys jangled in his hand, that bad feeling spreading throughout his limbs. He didn’t even remember grabbing the keys, but he had them. And for good reason. When he got no answer, he knocked again. He called out her name. He tried the door, but it was locked. Cursing under his breath, he found the right key and slid it into the lock. He pushed the door open.

When he saw her lying there, with the empty pill bottle nearby, he blamed himself.

It was what Lancaster was good at, blaming himself. He should not have given her that bottle of scotch. He should have told her she wasn’t allowed to take it away; she had to drink it at the bar. Why hadn’t he seen this coming?!

”No, no. Shadis! What have you done?!” he all but wailed, voice deep with frenzied concern; as if he’d known this woman all his life, and her actions had cut him to the core.

Suicide was not something that Lancaster had ever considered for himself, and nor would it be something he would ever consider after what he had just experienced. What would death be like for a human? Would they go to the same place the vampires did? Was that who the spirits were, that the vampires consumed for their own benefit? The lost souls. Wasn’t there a myth about those that committed suicide? They did not go to heaven, and they did not go to hell. They went to purgatory. It wasn’t a belief that Lancaster invested in. He didn’t believe in heaven or hell and, to him, the Shadow Realm was hell.

If he thought about it later, he’d know that was part of the reason why he saved her. It was part of the reason why he’d try. He’d just come back. from hell, and he would put anyone through that. Not even a stranger - someone he didn’t know.

What kind of person would allow another person to kill themselves? It wasn’t within Lancaster’s nature, anyway, regardless of where he’d just been and how much he had struggled to get back. He went immediately to the bedside table and picked up the phone; he dialled out, and called for an ambulance. The operator picked up and asked what the emergency was; Lancaster hesitated. He reached over, to grab Shadis’s wrist, fingers pressed tight to the pulse. It was fading. The ambulance would take too long.

”It’s… I made a mistake, sorry,” he said, before quickly hanging up the phone. He didn’t want to hear the lecture about prank calls; it hadn’t been a prank. It had been serious. But it was too late. Even Lancaster could tell, it was too late. Even if he stuck his fingers down her throat to try to get her to throw up whatever it was she had taken, it was too late. No, if he was going to get her to respond, it wouldn’t be to throw anything up. It would be to consume.

The phone now hung up, Lancaster clambered onto the bed and pulled the woman’s body onto his lap. Without thinking about it, he brought his wrist to his mouth; he summoned thirst, hunger. He thought of Pi. The canines lengthened until he could tear into his own wrist, the pain nothing in comparison to what he had suffered before.

He tried not to make a mess as he tilted Shadis’s chin, pushing his bleeding wrist over her mouth.

”C’mon, mate. Trust me. You do not want to die,” he said, almost begging. [/font][/size]

There was nothing to indicate that it had worked. Although Shadis had woken up, although Lancaster had seen and felt her take some of the blood he’d all but forced down her throat, he could not be certain. Her body went limp in his arms, the heart stopped beating. For all he knew, he could have been too late. The drugs might have counteracted the blood; they might have been too strong for whatever magic it was that thrummed through Lancaster’s veins.

For a couple of minutes, he didn’t move. His eyes squeezed shut and he rocked, with Shadis in his arms. He mourned not only for this unknown woman and her death, but because of his own proximity to it. Since he’d come back he’d tried to ignore it, the terror. The fact that he had struggled so much to get back. On top of which, Pi was gone. To Paris. Alone. He hadn’t grieved. Not until now.

But he didn’t let it hold him for long. He didn’t allow his emotions to overwhelm him; he pushed them to the edges of his consciousness. He had responsibilities. Always, with the responsibilities. Taking a deep breath, Lancaster slid off the bed and checked the Backpackers outside. No one was there. Stepping across the room he opened the door to the stairs that led up - to his own private quarters. It was where Skylar had been electrocuted. It was where he had taken Sia. It was now where he had decided to live, in Pi’s absence - but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have company. Did it?

He would think about that later. Back at the room, he bundled Shadis’s unconscious body into his arms. She still showed no signs of life, and Lancaster wanted to mourn all over again. But he kept it together. He carried her out of the room and up the stairs, making sure the door closed and locked behind him. Upstairs, he carried Shadis to the bed; the attic was enclosed, and there were no windows. No way for the sun to get in, whenever it chose to rise.

He laid her out on top of the blankets, a pillow under her head. He pulled the armchair up beside the bed, and he sat. He waited, his head in his hands. They’d probably all think he had a problem. Whenever he died, he’d come back and sire more people. But unlike Sia, this had not been a choice. This had been circumstance.

If he could save the whole world from dying, from going to that place, he would.

He tried to think. He tried to focus. Could he feel it? A bond? Was that such a thing? But he couldn’t focus. He couldn’t figure it out. Even when he laid a hand across the woman’s forehead, he couldn’t figure it out. So he waited.