Chapter Text
Geoffrey made himself read the names of the dead. Twice. Two were those of a young couple, refugees from the war. Ana and Sergiu Mihai. The assailants— ‘thugs in bandannas,’ ‘wielding torches,’ believed to be the gang known for barricading streets and attacking passersby believed to be afflicted with the Spanish Flu.’
This was it. This was the final fucking straw. He gave Howells a second chance, then a third one and this—
He let the newspaper fall onto the coffee table. He sat heavily, the cushions sagging threateningly below his weight. He pressed his face into his hands.
This was his fault too. Howells had always been a loose cannon, worse since the Great Hunt, but in the midst of all that chaos Geoffrey had been letting him off with slaps on the wrist.
But the Great Hunt was over, and its smoking ruins taught Geoffrey a hard lesson. He had to contain this shite, get the Guard back on track, find the problems, lay low. That meant dealing with Howells first, and the Great Hunt itself.
There was a knock at his door. He stood. “Come in.”
Highwood entered first, her face grim, lips set in a line. She still hid her deep feelings well, below layers of restraint, but there was an angry light in her dark eyes; she knew all too well why Geoffrey had called a meeting of all the Hunt-Masters on such short notice and so urgently.
She sat down. Jameson was right behind her like a tall shadow, his anger filling the room like a cloud and his expression a steam exhaust. Sitting down he was twitchy, full of righteous rage that he had not been cleared to vent.
Howells was last, right behind Carr, who was grim and serene as ever, with his blond hair being overtaken by light grey so slowly it was hard to distinguish them. Howells filled the room as soon as he stepped into it; the tall man of the hour for all the worst reasons. His grey eyes were steely on Geoffrey’s. He did not sit.
“May I ask why you called this meeting, sir?” Politeness and tact had never suited Howells; his voice boomed, his tone bristled, the even words sounded wrong.
‘Why do you think?’ Geoffrey was tempted to snap. Instead he picked up the newspaper, and smoothed it out, angling the headline towards Howells on the table that sat at the center of the half-circle of their scavenged seats, worn upholstery taking counsel around a scratched-to-hell coffee table.
Jameson leaned forward, furrowed brow and breathed anger out through his teeth despite his bird-cocked head as he read sideways.
“This was in the morning paper.” Geoffrey heard his voice rising as he spoke, sharpening. “Your raid the other night.”
Howells frowned, chin dipping the faintest bit. At least, Geoffrey was glad to see guilt there. “I know, sir,” he said, with care, weight. “The information was bad—we were in a tenement without any leeches and guns had gone off before we realized it.”
Rage returned like a deep headache. “You and your men shot half a dozen humans.”
Howells looked up at him. Outraged.
“We fully expected leeches and so we went in firing, McCullum. That’s the way you do things in clearances. We had bad information. It was a mistake. They happen.”
“They happen?” Jameson spat. “You didn’t think to so much as tend to your victims?”
“What do you suggest we have done Jameson?” Howells whirled, broad face red. “Turn around to the people we shot and bandage them? You think they would have allowed that?”
“It would have been better than letting them die!”
“The bobbies were already on their way—"
“I must agree with Jameson,” Carr’s smooth voice drew away the din. They all looked at him, his pondering, well-crafted words set to an unexpected side. “While accidental casualties cannot always be avoided, it was inexcusable to leave those poor souls behind.”
Howell’s flush extended down his neck. He seemed chastised again. “It was a mistake,” he said, unusually soft. “I fully admit it. It was my fault, not my mens’.”
“This wasn’t the first one.” Geoffrey’s own voice sounded strange to him. It seemed far away and detached.
Howells looked at him, challengingly, despite the guilt still written there. “Dr. Swansea.” Said Geoffrey.
This time the redness in Howells’ face was pure anger. “You yourself ordered his interrogation!”
“Exactly—I ordered you to interrogate him, not to kill him!” Geoffrey shouted. He stood before realizing he’d done it. “Now there’s another bloody leech in the Pembroke, and the Brotherhood is against us totally. They’ve demanded compensation, a guarantee of our nonviolence against its members, and they want us to meet with them for further details. And we have to comply.”
“Why the hell do we have to comply with those cowards?” Howells had spittle on his lips. “Especially with him going leech?”
“Because the alternative is losing access to the hospital and the Brotherhood declaring war on us! And this!” bellowed Geoffrey. He threw down another piece of paper, this one fine, textured stationary, the lines on it written in a fine hand. “Because with the letter the Primate sent me that, right there. A list of locations and names. Our bases’ locations, and our names. And he outright said in his letter that he if we refused, all of this information would go to the police.”
The news dropped like searchlights on them. The Hunt-Masters froze. Their eyes even seemed to flash in the gloomy room like cats caught in a light. Howells recovered first: “Those cowards, those damned cowards…leaving it to the damn bobbies…”
“Our name is in the papers, Howells,” Geoffrey stabbed the paper with a finger. “Police get their hands on us, we’ll hang. Our men will hang, or they’ll be locked up and the key thrown away. They’ll use what they find in our bases to look for other bases in the cities. That’ll be it for Priwen. At this point, they see us as just another gang.”
His words settled. More worked their way up into his throat. Awful words. Guilt burned like bile in his stomach.
“And we’ve given them reason.”
They all looked at him, stunned. Even Carr rose a graying eyebrow. Geoffrey stood up, pacing.
“How many people died like those in that raid during the Great Hunt? What about that medical dispensary in Whitechapel? Those actually sick with just the Spanish Flu? One of our first rules, ‘protect humanity and do not endanger it,’ and how many times have we broken it this last year?”
Jameson spoke up, hesitantly, “Needs must, sir. We were dealing with a Disaster. All we did was to protect humanity.”
Geoffrey whirled around to face them. He’d told himself that. How hollow it echoed now. A page full of names owned by no-one but the dead. “That doesn’t excuse how far we’ve slipped. We’ve lowered our recruiting standards so much that we’re getting common thugs little better than Wet Boot Boys in our ranks. Remember that patrol in the west docks who were robbing the locals?”
“Not all of our recruits have been thugs, sir,” Howells said with narrowed eyes.
“I know that. Not all the blame lies with them.” He met their eyes, unblinking. “It lies with us too.”
Geoffrey took a seat again, wishing he had something to drink. “I wrote those guidelines for the Hunt, and they were too broad, dangerously broad. They invited attacks on sick humans as well as plague-carrying leeches. That fault is mine.”
He glared at Howells. “We need to exercise prudence from now on. I’m amending our guidelines for hunts, I’m meeting with Talltree as he demanded and restoring some peace there; I expect all of you to ensure we never have a massacre like this again. Not. One. More. Do you understand?”
He looked Howells dead in the eye. “To that end, we are voting now on whether or not to restart the Great Hunt, as you asked for in this meeting, Howells. And I will say for my part that it’s a goddamn awful idea right now.”
He spoke, projecting his voice as though to a much bigger audience. “All in favor of not restarting the hunt…”
He rose his own hand. Highwood rose hers too, with no hesitation.
Howells and Carr made no move. Jameson looked to Highwood, who was looking at him fiercely. Howells glared at him, ugly. His lips twisted as his thoughts visibly writhed. He clenched his fists, scrunched up his face. He looked at the article on the table for a moment.
Then he raised his hand.
Howells stood braced with his fists clenched. Carr’s vivid blue eyes had narrowed; that was his only change in expression.
“All in favor of restarting the Great Hunt…”
Howells’ arm punched the air. Carr rose his slowly with his deliberate sureness.
Geoffrey let out a sigh he hadn’t realized he was holding. “It’s settled. The Great Hunt is over and it will stay over.” Howells’ anger was a dark aura in the room, a sharp smell. “Tomorrow night, I’m meeting with the Legate that Talltree appointed on neutral ground.”
“Which one?” Howells growled.
That was exactly the question Geoffrey didn’t want to answer. He met Howells’ glare for venom. “Legate Cyrus. At the Pembroke.”
“What?”
“I’m to meet him at five-thirty the next night on the south side. Talltree’s way of making sure I can’t pull anything with so many witnesses around, probably.” And shoving the guilt of the matter right into his face too, no doubt.
“It’s a trap,” Howells spat, “we can’t trust him.”
“Swansea will be nearby, as will Reid,” Highwood said with a grimace.
“Talltree has made clear that Swansea has no part in the negotiations, and Reid is no member of the Brotherhood,” Geoffrey just managed to part his gritted teeth to say.
“So the Brotherhood is giving up no concessions then?”
“That’s likely.”
“Doubtless because of the forcible taking of Dr. Swansea,” Carr said, tone calm but unyielding as iron. “but the Brotherhood cannot be given so much leverage over us.”
“I agree,” Geoffrey said, realizing that before, and now after, the Great Hunt, the number of things he agreed with Michael Carr on could be counted on his two hands, “but there’s no choice.”
“There is a choice,” Howells pounded his fist on the table. “We go to his bloody hideout and tell him to keep his damn mouth shut and his nose out of our business or we’ll stake him like the leech he probably is.”
Geoffrey set his hands on the table, hunched and tense like a bristling dog directly across from Howells. “No.”
Howells’ eyes narrowed. “No? So you’ll just let those bastards leash us?”
“No. But I will face the Legate. I fucking hate to admit it, but Talltree isn’t entirely wrong about the principle of the thing. We fucked up, badly, repeatedly. I fucked up. But unlike them, I’m going to own up to it.”
“You say that like we’re in the wrong here!” said Jameson.
“We aren’t!” Geoffrey snapped at him. This was bad, and terribly familiar despite how long it had been since Eldritch died. The raised voices of the Hunt-Masters seemed to echo into a hall full of voices, fighting after the second inconclusive vote. Only Highwood was looking at him without any censure in her expression. Geoffrey drew up all the confidence he'd built over the years like a coat. “But like I said, we still made a mistake, so to the best of our abilities, we’ll fix it.”
“Say that, and Talltree has to listen,” Highwood said, tone neutral but Geoffrey was sure that he heard approval somewhere in it.
“Like hell!” Howells stood so suddenly that his chair tipped backwards. It landed with a shockingly loud bang.
“Since when does Priwen bow to those cowards in the Brotherhood? Since when do we negotiate with vampires? Since when do we let them roam free?”
“We are not negotiating with Swansea!” Geoffrey snapped. “And the answer is: since Legates became vampires because of your blunders!”
“So, this is all my fault then?” Howells breathed. His pale eyes were stark in his red face.
“It’s part your fault,” Geoffrey replied. “You just refuse and have refused, repeatedly, to take more care when a human gets hurt. So here we are.”
Howells clenched and unclenched his fists. “This ain’t diplomacy, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, McCullum,” he growled, “It’s war. It’s always been war, and the Brotherhood has always been our enemy’s ally. It’s an ugly business and bloody in every way. It’s fucking sad, but people die.”
Geoffrey leaned in with his teeth bared. “Tell yourself that if it helps you get to sleep without seeing those civvies’ faces, Howells. But I’m saying no.”
“What would Carl say, if he heard you talking like this?” Howells’ lips curled up in a snarl.
Geoffrey’s vision tunneled on Howells for a moment. He sucked in a breath through his teeth to cage his anger. It still vibrated up his bones, down to the ridges of his teeth. “Eldritch is dead, Howells.”
He heard himself say, “And do you really think you know exactly what he’d do?”
“It wouldn’t be this,” Howells leaned in, casting an angry shadow over the table, “He wouldn’t sit up and beg for Talltree. Or that leech doctor.”
Rage burned every muscle in Geoffrey, matches where they met bone. He rose slowly. “Watch what you imply, Robert Howells.”
“Did I hit a nerve, Geoffrey McCullum?” Something spiteful lit in Howells’ eyes. “Did you beg that leech to spare you, or did he find you so pathetic that you wouldn’t even be worth the meal?”
“Beg? Beg? You think I begged, you stupid bastard? You have any idea who I am? I dared that fucking toff to kill me, and he walked away.”
“I don’t buy it. Clearly, you’re still scared shitless of him. You handed him King Arthur’s blood and let him go.”
“And then the epidemic ended, in case you haven’t fucking NOTICED!” Geoffrey roared into his face.
“Of course, it did! You GAVE the bastard what he was after!” Howells roared back.
“Enough!”
Highwood stepped between them. Geoffrey clenched his fists as tight as he could, trying to breathe to a steady rhythm. Trying to regain control.
“Throwing blame wins us nothing. And if we do not make peace with the Brotherhood and try to stay clear of Scotland Yard, we will be crippled, if not destroyed.” Highwood said evenly. Then quieter, “McCullum is right: some of the unnecessary deaths were our fault. We must face that.”
“You’ve got a soft heart, Highwood,” Howells hissed at her.
She turned. Geoffrey could not see her glare at this angle, but he could feel its sharpness. “And you’ve always mistaken reason for irresoluteness. I may have a soft heart, but you have a bloody thick skull.”
“This will destroy us. We will lose who we are. Kendall Stone destroyed nearly every ancient vampire in England. Carl Eldritch forged the beginnings of a new Guard. Even you, Geoffrey, before you met the leech doctor, made Priwen the deadliest scourge to leeches since Stone himself. You struck hard and decisively, and then—you hesitated on the final blow.”
“I never hesitated.” Geoffrey lied.
“Prove it. Finish off that leech in the hospital, and tell Talltree and Swansea where they can stuff their demands.”
“No. I’ve made my decision, Howells. We’re fixing this shit with Talltree and stopping these raids that have done nothing but dig us into deeper shit. That is final.”
Howells’ eyes went cold as ice. He turned on his heel and wrenched open the door. “Then the consequences are entirely yours, McCullum.”
He slammed the door so hard it rattled in its frame.