The Lamia Hunt

Chapter Nine: Too Far

18:31 07/03/2015

Lucy rolled her eyes.
"Still on about Annabelle, are you? What is it about her-"
"Just tell me this: why wasn't she slain in the second raid against Fidèle?"
She shrugged.
"I'm guessing her scent, and her age."
"Go on," said Claire, one hand on the paper, her sandwich in the other. "Why would that have prevented them from slaying her?"
Lucy grinned.
"She smelt like a human. Praedatori can't kill humans; that would be wrong."
Claire ignored her.
"You said her age, too. What about it?"
Lucy stretched, yawning.
"Well, she was older than the rest of them."
Claire raised her eyebrows.
"How much older?"
"Not much. But older. At that point - I'm guessing here - she was thirteen, maybe. Perhaps older."
"Alright," said Claire, scribbling on the paper. "Why? Fidèle's targets were younger than that, so why-"
Lucy rolled her eyes.
"You're not getting the picture, are you? She wasn't a Consumptus; her status made her different, closer to a human, and it meant that she, unlike the rest of them, was able to age."
"Right," muttered Claire, not looking up from the notebook. "So she was... A Fierus?"
"Whatever you decide. She could have been."
"Could have been?"
She nodded.
"All I can say is that she wasn't a Consumptus. Anything else, I'm not sure. Actually, it's not likely that she was a Fierus; she transformed when she was about five."
"So she would have been too old then." Claire shoved the last of the sandwich into her mouth, licking her fingers, and swallowed, loudly. "So, was she... Was she looking after the other children, or..." She let her voice fade away, not sure what she was going to say.
Lucy nodded.
"I think so. She was the oldest, so she'd be the one in charge, I guess."
"But you don't know for sure?"
Lucy inhaled, loudly, and clapped her hands together, staring Claire straight in the eyes.
"Look, Lu." She smiled. "I was not there. I can only know a little of what went on, and the rest, I don't know. And, you know, it's not something that I wanted to know. Fidèle didn't like to talk about it-"
"Didn't he? Are you sure that-"
"Yes," she said, bitterly. "I'm sure that Fidèle disliked talking about how the Praedatori entered his home and killed the people he lived with; somehow, it wasn't light dinner conversation to him." Lucy was rising, and so was her voice. She jumped up, and stormed to the window, sobbing.
Claire could hear her, and craned her neck - not standing up - to see. She felt bad for her, to an extent, but there was nothing she could do to help her. Lucy was right: the children were dead, and the Praedatori had been the ones to slay them. If that was what had killed them in her eyes, then Claire couldn't change what she thought.
She stood up, and shuffled forward until she was next to Lucy, who glared to her. 
"What now?" she asked, staring back at the floor. "Are you going to ask me more about people you killed?"
Claire shook her head.
"I was just going to see if you could tell me about your part in this; it might be better luck for both of us."
Lucy huffed.
"You know where I came in. Taite must have made meticulous records."
"But that's only his perspective." Claire didn't much know where she was going with this, but she hoped to God it would work. "It would be better if we knew what you thought."
"Better still, if you knew what Fidèle thought, seeing as he actually knew what was going on, rather than the little kid who happened to not die."
"Still... Could you?"
Lucy shrugged.
"Will you leave me alone afterwards?"
"That depends."
She nodded.
"Fair enough. Should I start from the beginning?"
"Start from where it's relevant. Aside from that, I don't care."
She nodded, and began:
"Well, I could say that things started when I was seated in a place very similar to this one, being interrogated by a foetus Praedatori hunter, who appeared completely unaware of the fact that she was a Demi-Natus." She paused, and Claire rolled her eyes.
If this was how she was going to play it...
Lucy continued,
"Now, this hunter was extremely proud, and she did not like to be proven wrong. In fact, if she were proven wrong, she was likely to mope and sulk for days on end, and-"
"Is it your intention to make this sound like-"
"Be quiet; I'm not finished." A smug grin was painted across her face. "Another thing about this hunter was that she always interrupted people when they were speaking, which was very rude of her indeed."
Claire sighed. It was going as she'd expected. 
They couldn't afford to waste time if they wanted to be able to catch Fidèle with this information.
"Can you please take this seriously?"
Lucy pouted, crossing her arms.
"But you told me to-"
"I changed my mind. Start with your family - your pre-transformation family, I mean." 
As she spoke, Lucy's expression changed, and Claire regretted saying anything at all.
"What," Lucy hissed. "Tell you about the family that I knew for all of a year, who died before I knew them? I might as well ask you about your parents. What were they like, hey? Your mother... The madwoman, wasn't she? Or you father? The Lamia." Her lips curled over the word, a cruel smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
Claire gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to snap back.
"Oh, but that's all you know about them, isn't it," Lucy continued. She was evidently enjoying herself. "The cold, heartless information in their files, and the knowledge that, even though only one of them was considered a monster, they were neither of them-"
"If you are insinuating that my mother was a bad person because she hunted Lamiae, you're wrong." Claire didn't look at her as she said it, and her voice was just louder than a whisper.
"Really?" Lucy knocked down the pile of folders, rifling through them until she found Ling Lu's, which she opened, and flicked through, smiling.
"Give me that," said Claire, reaching for it.
Lucy pulled it out of her reach.
"No. It's interesting. Especially this bit, here, about how she ripped a Lamia to shreds in front of an entire town, and left their innards scattered over the rooftops. Anger Management wouldn't have been wasted on her." She paused, turning a page, and grinned. "Look," she said, turning the folder so that Claire could see its contents. "They even included pictures. Isn't that sweet?"
"Give it back," Claire replied, her voice rising. "Or you'll end up in a similar state."
"I doubt it. But it looks like your mother isn't the only one who needs Anger Management. Oh, sorry." She laughed. "I meant to say needed."
Claire felt her fists clench, and stared pointedly at the floor. Looking at Lucy would only make her angrier. She couldn't get angry.
Somehow, she was going to have to draw this back to the point, and she had to be able to think to do that.
Lucy continued,
"Here's what I was looking for: records of you." She snickered. "Funny, that; she was let out of Tabulae for less than a year, and-"
"Be careful what you say. I have every right in the world to kill you."
"No, you don't." Lucy smiled, shaking her head. "If you killed me, right this instant, do you know what would happen?"
"I'm prepared to find out."
Lucy ignored her.
"You'd be punished. I'm a valuable asset; this organisation needs me, even though it wishes it didn't. Just like this organisation needed your whore of a mother-"
"Shut up!" Claire felt herself spring upwards, and saw Lucy leap away from her, laughing.
There was no way she would be able to catch her.
Channeling her energy into a run, she turned on her heel, and stalked out, locking the lift behind her as she left.