Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

5 - Chapter V: Lies and Confession

Eight hours later.

The door crashed open.

Tanis squeaked, scuttling back into the corner. Before he could scale the wall, two hands had seized his robes, forcefully hauling him back to the ground. Garbed in only breeches with blood dripping down his chest, Lucian was a fearsome sight to behold, his teeth at a point, the growl rising from the depths of rage.

"You lied to me, Tanis..." he said, his teeth grinding against the words.

"I...I didn't lie. I...forgot."

"You forgot..." Lucian repeated in grim condescension, tightening his hold on Tanis' neck. "...rather convenient."

"She...I...I may have got the date wrong." Speaking in a constrained rasp thanks to the neck-hold, he unsuccessfully tried to unwrap the fingers. They tightened. Wonderful. It was daylight outside and if the door hadn't shut with its own momentum, he would have been frying. After another attempt at the fingers, he decided to hang. Maybe Lucian would let go of him with the extra weight...though he barely weighed anything anymore. "Is she...alive?"

"She looks dead, Tanis. Give me a year? An event, a circumstance..."

Curse it, the man wanted the date again...1878...what happened then? The death of the pope. Raising of Cleopatra's Needle. No, something more obscure. Something Lucian wouldn't remember...how to word it...

"...the...the fourth battle of Shipka Pass?"

"Shipka Pass..." Lucian muttered, dropping Tanis suddenly, letting the vampire fall with a sharp thump onto the stone. Apparently deep in thought, the lycan bounded onto the old cask in the corner, his legs folding underneath, back against the wall, eyes closed as he worked it out. "Shipka Pass...a dispute. A battle. Sounds like Bulgaria. Russia moving against the Ottoman Empire. The Russo-Turkish War in 1877, however, the fourth battle would be the next year. Winter...probably around January...1878, if that sounds right." He opened his eyes, silver staring arrogantly from above. "Which by your face, it does. She's been asleep for two decades...on the mark."

It was so annoying when people knew as much as you did.

Glaring up at the lycan master, Tanis reached back to massage the bruise on his tail-bone. Everyone was mishandling him. Burns on his cheek, holes in his robe, bruises on his back. He raised his arms, looking at the sad mess his sleeves were in. He swore, if he ever got out of here, he'd wear silk and velvet for an entire century. Though wait a minute... He stilled, realising the obvious. If the woman was dead, then that meant...

"Alright," the lycan master said, leaping off the cask. "...I'll give it three days."

"I thought you said she was dead," Tanis sputtered.

"I said she looked dead," said Lucian, shaking his head in annoyance as if Tanis should keep up. He began to walk around the storage room, apparently exploring...or perhaps searching. There was not much to see. Twelve empty casks. A few old chests. The shelves only had dust on them. Still the lycan master crouched by one of the chests, opening the cover by a crack and peering inside.

"So you woke her?"

"Hmmph?" Frowning, Lucian looked up from the chest. He seemed annoyed by the interruption, but surprisingly conversational considering how bloody he was. "Woke her?...oh yes, a few complications, but nothing to worry on." His attention returned to the chest, his hand flipping the cover fully open with a loud bang.

"Complications?"

"Yes." Apparently unsatisfied with the contents, the lycan-master had moved onto another chest, flipping that open with a bang as well. Tanis flinched at the sound, his glower taking in the newest dent along the chest cover. Did he have to do everything with a bang? The man was going to break something.