Little Henwood

~1 week, 6 days remaining

The smell of the morning bonfire caused Robb to gradually drift awake the following day.

It was… taking some getting used to waking up naturally again, he found. Designated shifts had become their bread and butter for the past few weeks now, just long enough to form the habit. But, now that they were being sheltered in this reclusive vamp settlement, he'd suddenly found going back to a regular sleep routine was – ironically – rather tiring.

And damn, wasn't that a sentence that could take a whole day to unpack. Living comfortably inside vampire territory. It felt almost oxymoronic as he mulled the words over, and yet they were completely true. All things considered, they were actually in pretty decent shape all around.

Well… maybe not all around, he corrected himself. But things had every right to be far worse than they are.

He rolled out of bed and dispelled the shadows he'd cast over his doorframe with a wave of his hand. Loath as he was to admit it, that initial do-or-die pit fight he'd been thrown into a week back had done leaps and bounds for his fine control of his magic. And, considering Henry had been on an absolute artifact hunting tear in that time – often dragging himself or one of the other stragglers along for the ride – there'd been plenty of opportunities to improve that even further. As he let out a big stretch getting up, a bit of head rush left him dizzy for a moment as he got ready to greet the others.

Now, if only these lingering symptoms would clear up… he grumbled internally, as the dizziness lasted for far longer than was normal.

Henry'd certainly kept everyone busy. At the rate he was going, it was highly likely the man would work himself to an early grave. Which… might be his intention, somewhat.

I just wish there was something more I could do to convince him. He seems determined to not listen to anything any of us have to say…

Robb sighed. Maybe some breakfast would clear things up a bit. He needed to check in with everyone else, anyways.

Yawning as he left his small, one-room cabin, the bonfire that had become their unofficial gathering point was only a short walk away. Save for the obvious absentee, it would seem he was the last one to arrive. Claire was grumping off to the side again, nursing a cut she'd earned from a particularly nasty cursed hall of mirrors the other day. Dee was trying to figure out exactly which artifacts he'd been paid out with best matched his outfit, often asking for input from the other two. As for Giselle…

"Where on earth did you manage to find a whole chicken?" Robb asked her with curiosity.

She shrugged, mostly ignoring his surprise as she focused on turning the roasting spit to cook it evenly.

"Found it," was all the explanation she deigned to offer. "Nobody else seemed to know it was there, so I just… look, I just wanted something that wasn't a protein bar, okay?"

Dee and Claire nodded in silent agreement. Robb might have protested outwardly, had his stomach not growled loudly at the smell of freshly roasted bird.

"...It seems that the decision's been made for me," he said, feigning defeat.

"Sure has," Giselle replied. "Now, each of you call dibs on what piece you want now because this is just about ready."

The food split almost perfectly four ways. Robb silently thanked his lucky stars that Enrico was off keeping tabs on the recuperating mages, who were getting well on their way to proper disenthrallment.

"Sometimes… solutions just take time…"

"Sorry?" Dee noticed him speaking, but didn't quite make out the words.

"Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself, is all."

"Eh, no worries. Though, that's a nasty habit to get into I hear."

"You think everything is a nasty habit to get into, if it's not music," Giselle countered. "Which, by the way, you still owe me for the bag of perfectly good spliffs you tossed in the Thames."

"Hey, I was trying to be responsible! Didn't your dad ever tell you to say no to drugs?!"

"No. No he didn't."

"Wh-"

"Look," she cut him off. "The less said about my father… the better."

Giselle made a sour face, breaking down the chicken into equal portions with a bit more force than strictly necessary. "He said no to a lot of things. A joint every once in a while wasn't one of them. Besides, you said you'd make it up to me."

"...I did?"

"Yup. Something about 'the next artifact you found'…"

"Ah! Right!"

Dee reached inside one of his many jacket pockets, pulling from within what looked to be some sort of fancy necklace. A finely wrought gold chain, with a dazzling amber-like gemstone inlaid into a tastefully decorated gold plate.

"Ta-da! It's not quite the next one I found, but… once I found it, I realized this is the one."

Giselle's eyes looked like they were about ready to pop out of their sockets.

"Oh, uh… I thought it was just going to be, like… a pen or something. That's… are you sure you're okay with giving it up?"

"'Course I'm sure! I think it would look great on you!"

Robb sat down next to Claire, plate of freshly roasted chicken in hand as the two of them watched the drama unfold. It was pretty amusing to watch Giselle get flushed with embarrassment and try to hide it with a pout. From where they sat, Dee had no idea the two of them were smiling a bit at her discomfort, but the daggers Giselle was staring their way made it pretty clear that she knew that they knew.

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"Uhhhh… what do you mean by that?" She asked hesitantly, red as a fire truck.

"Your costume!" Dee beamed from ear to ear without missing a beat. "It complements it perfectly!"

"Ah… hah… right, yeah. It does do that, doesn't it…?"

Robb couldn't contain himself any longer. He burst out laughing, drawing a surprised look from Dee and a scornful one from Giselle.

"What? What's going on?" their resident wannabe rockstar asked, completely oblivious to what had just unfolded.

"I'm curious to know, too," someone interrupted. "Seems I might have missed a few things."

That… that was Henry's voice.

Robb spun around. Apparently, it was now his turn to have abject shock on his face. Sure enough, there was the man of the hour, a backpack slung over one shoulder, and a jumble of water pipes and gun parts that made the Gentleman's Club level of gunsmithing look professional. Just behind his left leg, he could make out the outline of that toy robot he seemed to wrangle with frequently trailing behind him.

He looked… well, not perfectly put together, but a lot less like a car crash in slow motion than he had been following Martin's abduction.

Robb flashed a tentative smile, waving at him.

"Henry! Come to join us, or… is this goodbye?"

"Nah, not goodbye. Changed my mind on that one, after I got my ears boxed by an old friend once I told them about everything. Said I needed to not be so hard on myself."

Robb gave him his most nonplussed, 'are you serious right now' look.

"That's exactly what I've been telling you for a week straight."

Henry laughed, for probably the first time since the warehouse. "I know, I know… sorry for being an ass. Like I said, it took some very strong wording to get the point across. As well as knocking sense into me in the more literal sense."

Dee snorted in the background. "Remind us to skip past the wishy-washy business and just hit you next time, then."

Despite the crass wording, Henry still gave it a thumbs-up. "Will do," he announced. "But for right now… I think it's about time we made an actual bloody move to fix this."

A variety of reactions came from the rest of them, but all of them were pretty positive. Even Claire, frosty as their usual conversations were, seemed to be curious to see what he had in mind.

"Now, if any of you want to back out now, that's perfectly fine. What I've got in mind right now is basically going to boil down to throwing sand in eyes and kicking people while they're down. Naturally, those on the receiving end are going to take great offense to that, and will pretty much universally be stronger than us. So, speak now, or forever hold your peace."

Nobody said a word.

"Good. Now, first things first." He unslung his backpack onto the ground with a heavy thud, a tide of artifacts practically overflowing over the brim as he fished around inside.

"Let's start by getting everyone ready for war," he announced, pulling the 8-Ball from the pile and casually playing catch with it. "After that, we can bring Grace and Cecil over and start talking grand strategy."

< -|- -|- >

Elsewhere in Walworth, an entirely different meeting was going on.

Up on a high balcony, Noapte, Carte Mare and their… esteemed guest watched on as old Măcel bellowed in excitement down in the pit below. The din of battle made its way all the way up to the top of the vaulted ceilings, more than enough for the onlookers to make out every word and guttural cry from where they stood.

"Now this is how you make a thrall, you cowards!" he roared up to them, drunk on adrenaline. "Can any of your bloodbags put on a show like this?! I think not!"

A rather pale looking boy – barely a man, by their standards – charged headfirst towards the arch-vampire as if he were possessed, carrying nothing but two plain daggers and with the tattered remains of his shirt fluttering behind him as he sprinted.

"The son of the sun grinds his axe against the hallowed halls, uncaring for that which he overturns, for that which holds up his tower to heaven. Like Ikaros before him, pride comes before the fall, and we lament that which crumbled in his footsteps. Splittings upon splittings upon splittings-"

Măcel laughed again. "He doesn't make a lick of sense, but I daresay he's getting better with those toothpicks of his!"

The thrall continued to rush in close, countering thrusts and parries from the old warrior with fluid ease as they clashed. Carte Mare wasn't sure who was crazier, the boy for keeping up this aggression for days on end now, or their fellow arch-vampire for entertaining it and even allowing him to get a free hit in every so often.

Gaudy baubles clattered as he sighed in mock disappointment. "I'm terribly sorry about the state of these accommodations. I assure you, I have much finer rooms prepared within my own territory, worthy of a servant of the True Master, but… this was the only way we could get him to agree to this meeting." He motioned towards the two combatants below, and Noapte nodded to back up his statement. "If it weren't for his prowess dealing with the Remnant, I doubt he'd even be here."

"It is, heh, q-q-quite alright," the hunched and much shorter guest stuttered out with some placating gestures. "A-as the aide to his Lordship, I've become used to much more a-a-ascetic ways of subsisting."

"Oh!" the merchant exclaimed. "What a pity. Truly, being so close to such power must be a heavy burden. Perhaps I might be able to gift your worthy self with something to ease that? I have quite a few thralls in stock that I keep around for their more… appealing qualities, if you would be so interested."

"N-no. I can't… thank you- no! Master w-w-would put me in the-"

"Enough," Brother Noapte muscled in. "We are here to discuss the Grand Design, not squabble over your concubines." He turned to the hunched, hooded figure, kneeling low so as to meet him at eye level.

"Tell us, great messenger. What would He have us do today?"

From within the folds of his moldy robe, a trembling, emaciated hand withdrew a marked map with several points outlined in red.

"H-he wishes to slit the throats of those remnants of the old order w-who have stolen control of one of the Hearts… p-p-permanently," he explained. "That task f-falls to you three. You are to pursue them to the l-last man a-and flush them out of any grounds they might th-think to run to."

Noapte took the yellowed parchment from his hands, studying the markings and comparing it with his own mental map of the area.

"So that's where those vagabonds have been hiding…" he muttered aloud. "They're crazier than I thought."

Carte Mare, impatient as ever, tried to sidle up and peer over his shoulder without actually stooping so low as to do so.

"What? What does the map say?"

"It would appear that High Adjutant Quincy has just given us the exact locations of the last scraps of humans left in Kensington."

"What?!" Carte Mare boggled, abandoning decorum altogether to snatch the paper from his hands. The merchant read it over once, then twice, then upside down just to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Are you KIDDING me?! I thought we already checked these spots! I swear, that was one of the first places we looked when we realized there were unexplained losses on the balance sheet!"

"Evidently, you missed a spot. And they've been taking advantage ever since. Măcel!"

"Yeah?"

"Ready for another moonlit walk?"

The battle-hungry vampire stopped holding back immediately, swatting aside his thrall with the flat of his palm like one might do to a mosquito. The boy hit the wall with a sickening crunch, green crystal embedded into his chest flashing an amber yellow briefly as he rolled onto his stomach, groaning in pain.

"I'm always ready to give out a humbling," Măcel grinned hungrily through sharklike teeth. "Who's on the receiving end this time?"

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