The Lamia Hunt

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Flight

17:42 09/03/2015

Lucy awoke slowly, confronted with blinding light above her, and with the barrel of a pistol pointed at her face.
She moved backwards, and, as her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she saw the form of a face gradually gaining definition. The features of this face were male, and wide, framed by straight, pale hair.
"Who're you," muttered Lucy, vaguely dazed.
"May I ask you the same question." His accent was French, his voice quiet and stretched. "What is a Praedatori doing in Société territory?"
"Praedatori?"
He glanced at her skeptically, and she followed his gaze to the black uniform she was still wearing. "Oh," she said. "I can explain."
"Explain to me why you are in Société territory." He was angry, and still pointing a gun at her.
Lucy paused, before saying,
"I'm sorry; I was just looking for a place to stay."
"And how do you know this place?"
It took her a moment before she could answer that. She couldn't tell the truth – doing so would be a one way ticket to the realm of the dead – but there weren't any particularly convenient lies she could concoct; if she said she was Praedatori, she wasn't supposed to be here, and she wasn't sure how that would go down. However, there wasn't much else she could say; there were few people who'd have any inkling of the existence of the hideout, and whatever she said, things weren't going to go well for her.
"I-"
As she spoke, his eyes widened, and she stopped mid-word. "What?"
He was smiling now, smiling widely.
"Susie? C'est vraiment toi?"
"Uh..." Lucy considered her options. There weren't many. It most likely wasn't the best of ideas to claim that she was Susie – whoever the hell she was – but that left her with very few options, none of them seemingly profitable.
"Mais alors," continued the hunter, "Ton visage..." He reached out to Lucy's face, touching the mark on her face with one finger.
She recoiled, standing up and moving away from him.
"Oi," she said, trying not to speak too fast. "I don't know who you think you are – or who you think I am – but could you please-"
The hunter's face was frozen in horror, the hand that had been holding the gun hanging limp at his side.
"Tu- You're not Susie?"
Lucy shook her head.
"I don't know who Susie is."
His face fell, and she continued, "It's really been a pleasure meeting you, but now I've got to-"
"Wait," he said, bending to pick up a piece of paper from the sofa. The photos. They must've fallen out of her pocket whilst she was asleep.
He turned the paper over, so that she could see it. It was the photo of Annabelle. In this light, it wasn't as unnerving as she'd remembered.
"Is this – is this of you?" His voice was strained, more so than before, as if he was going to burst if he spoke too fast.
She shook her head.
"No; that's-"
"It's her." He smiled, turning the picture back to himself. "It's Susie. I knew I'd find her."
He was so happy in that moment that, had she wanted to, Lucy could have left without him noticing. She felt it rude to, though, to let this person – who, yes, had threatened to kill her, but he hadn't been all that unreasonable about it – to believe that he had found something that he hadn't really found; it didn't seem right.
He turned back to her, still smiling, and Lucy thought she could see the beginnings of tears in his eyes.
"This... This girl in the picture..." He spoke slowly, carefully, and she couldn't tell whether it was because of the fact he was speaking English or because he didn't want to hear a reply. "She is-"
"She's dead." Lucy didn't think she could offer any more than that. But that, it turned out, was enough.
The hunter's face collapsed; he gasped, looking down at the photo and gulping loudly.
Again, Lucy could have run. At that moment, she could have left that place and never returned. Then, perhaps things would have been different. But she didn't leave. She couldn't leave, couldn't bring herself to turn her back on this stranger and his pain over a girl she didn't know.
He glanced up at her, truly crying now.
"This – how did she – was it a Lamia that did it?"
"Uh... No." Lucy regretted not having said that this wasn't Susie. Why had she dug herself into a hole like this? Now she was was stuck with someone she didn't know, who was crying because she'd told him that someone she knew was dead, and hadn't told him that it wasn't the person he thought it was.
"Then, did she-"
"Become a Lamia?" Fuck, this was going to be hard to explain. Lucy wished she'd left whilst it was still an option. There wasn't any way she could escape now.
The hunter nodded, slowly, as if the movement in itself was one that brought it closer to the truth, and that this truth was one that he could not bear. Lucy didn't reply, but something – she didn't know what - in her gaze must have told him the answer.
"No..." He sat down with a thud, looking away from her. "Susie-" His voice cracked, and his head fell hopeless into his hands. "Je suis désolé, Susie."
Lucy flicked her eyes across the room, attempting to ignore the sound of his breath, which tore ragged through the air in thick, heady sobs. Nothing she could say was going to improve things for him - especially not the fact that they weren't talking about the same person.
And, because there was nothing she could say, she sat down next to him, sighing.
Once again, she had missed a chance to run.