Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

38 - Chapter XXXVIII: Smell the Mouse

The London Den. Two hours later.

The clock chimed the hour. Ten o'clock. Langley was in the main hall, keeping busy despite fatigue, as ever listening for the master's bell to ring. Three days since he'd heard it; three days since he'd pressed a suit, mended a button, or made a bed. Instead, he dusted, swept, crawled, mopped—anything to keep Mrs. Fulligan from throwing him downstairs. She smelled mould; he cleaned mould. She smelled mice; he hunted mice. Through the kitchens, down the hallway, round the bend, following his nose until instinct told him it was cowering in the left-hand corner of the main hall, directly beneath the hat rack. He could get used to this job. Spending his days in the hallway, ceilings higher than a lamppost, the carpet warm, bits of light coming down from the stained glass, the kitchen smells coming from the right.

Only problem was the company.

Fanny.

She kept following him. She and that girl, Grace's daughter, always trailing after him round the hall, giggling whenever he had to bend over and check the corners. How was he supposed to get work done? Couldn't they see he was busy? Night and day, young ladies, old ladies...even the occasional love-sick boy, all trying to get into the master's quarters. Well he'd had it. No more. No one else. He knew how things were...and if Fanny wanted a piece of the master, she'd have to go run after him herself.

He was just bending over again when he heard the door-knocker, a great rap, rap, rap echoing down the front hall, faster than the mouse skittering out of reach, Fanny and the little one making themselves scarce. No footsteps. No butler running from the kitchens. It was not his job to open the door, but it was snowing. Practically a blizzard. Whoever was out there was probably hankering to get in here and if security had let them pass...well then, they couldn't be that bad could they?

Holding his breath, he stepped forward, took hold of the great handle and opened the door. His hair flat in an instant, a great gust of wind pushing him off his feet as the whole of winter hit him in the gut. And then, though he had nothing to do with it, the door closed. The snow out of his face and above him, a hooded figure dusting the white from her shoulders. Perfume wafting with her every move and he lost in the scent. So clearly, the sweetest thing he'd ever smelled, not too strong, not too faint.

Just right...

o...o...o

The Lycan Prisons. The Downstairs Office.

"Sir!"

"Blood almighty, soldier, what is it?" Arlington was bending over a mirror, examining his moustache with more care than he did his wife. Americans. Always so hasty, his wife included. "Don't you know how to knock?"

"Yes, sir." Taylor knocked his fist thrice against his superior's desk, his other hand shifting a small wooden box onto the table. "Permission to speak, sir?"

"Yes, yes, go on." Arlington waved a hand, picking up the trimmers and taking a snip off the right side. Almost a crime to trim the thing.

"I was... " He looked back through the door he had just come from. "...doing my rounds, sir." He swallowed. "You arranged for me to go to Poplar High Street this morning. Told me to get a more reliable description from Mrs. Grimsby..."

"I know what I said, soldier. Go on."

"Thing is, sir, I may have found something more..." For the first time in his life, no doubt, the boy seemed to weigh his words. "...more concrete "

"Of course, boy...we already know about the bone-shavings. You did a claw-rubbing?" Arlington trimmed the left side. Youth. Always running. Always trying to shock him. Three hundred years and he'd seen it all. They'd learn. Urgency was a way of life.