The Lamia Hunt

Chapter Fifty-Four: Preparation

19:38 21/03/2015

"You look like shit," said Jones, leaning back in a squat armchair as Claire glared at him.
The wardrobe of their room had contained plenty of clothing, and Jones had found his soon enough, before deciding that he would give her advice on her own choice.
As it was, he was being far from helpful.
"Really?" she said, walking backwards and forwards in the mauve gown, which she herself thought was relatively nice – mostly due to the fact that it came with a matching blazer, which had pockets.
Jones nodded.
"Sorry, Clairy-Fairy, but it's honestly not your colour."
"Don't call me Clairy-Fairy."
"Look, I'm just saying that maybe you shouldn't go with that particular look."
"Since when did you become an expert on what I should or shouldn't wear?"
He shrugged.
"I'm not saying that I'm an expert; I'm just saying that you look a bit like a potato that's been left out in the sun before being mushed into the pavement and spray-painted purple."
"Thanks."
"Anytime. And anyway," he said, standing up and making his way over to the wardrobe. "There has to be something better than that in this thing; there were tons of dresses in here-"
"Yeah, but-"
"No buts. If you can't dress yourself, then I'm going to have to step in. See, what about this?"
He wrenched out a slim, red dress, which had replaced its sleeves with an innumerable amount of purposeless beaded straps.
Claire shook her head.
"Never going to happen."
"But why? It'll look good."
"No."
Jones shrugged.
"Fine, okay, whatever. I tried. Oh hey, what about this?" As he said this, he drew another garment from the wardrobe.
Claire glared at him.
"You can't be serious."
"What do you mean? It'd suit you."
He pushed the dress towards her, and Claire stepped backwards.
"It's puce, Gilbert! And besides, it's-"
"Wait, what did you call me?"
"Does it matter? And anyway, I'm still not wearing that fucking thing."
Jones grinned.
"You called me by my first name, didn't you?" His smile widened, and he began, in mock joy, "I'm just so honoured to finally have come to this point, where we're both so open and comfortable with one another, and where-"
"Fucking hell, Gilbert, can you please not be such a..." She trailed off, and Jones glanced quizzically at her.
"Such a what?" He paused, and turned away from her. "Actually, don't answer. We've got to focus. You know as well as I do that this is our last chance to find Fidèle - to find Lucy. Our last chance. And I for one don't want to have to go back to Principia and tell our superiors that we missed our chance to slay either of them because you wouldn't put on a dress you didn't like the colour of. And anyway, it's too pale to be puce. And you're lying to yourself if you think it won't suit you."
"It's fucking vile, Gilbert! It wouldn't suit an armchair!"
She was being irrational, and she knew it. For once, Jones was making sense, and she wasn't. First time for everything.
Honestly, she didn't like him when he worked rationally. He was annoying otherwise, but it was a pathetic and stupid kind of annoying that she could tune out and dismiss. This was worse. Mostly, it was worse because she knew that he was right.
That didn't change the fact that the dress was ugly as shit, though, and she desperately wanted not to wear it.
But then, Jones was right. They didn't have much time, and right now, they were wasting it.
"Oh, fuck it!" she exclaimed, grabbing the dress from his hand, and storming into the bathroom.
She really didn't like him when he was being rational.

#

"Told you it'd suit you," Jones said, sitting in the armchair once more as Claire reentered the room. "Now, onto the plan."
"Fine," she responded, sitting on the edge of the bed – the room only had one, a double, and neither of them was going to mention it until it became unavoidable. "What is the plan?"
"Well, I think we should stick together. This place isn't safe, no matter what we try to tell ourselves, and it's not as if we have any real goal. All we can do at present is watch and see what we can find out."
"Fair enough." Claire paused, and laughed, faintly.
Jones narrowed his eyes at her.
"What?"
She shrugged.
"Dunno, really. I guess it's just that this is possibly the most surreal thing that's happened to either of us. I mean, you know. You always used to read books where these kinds of things happened, but they never happened in real life. It's almost like we're spies, or something. Fuck, that sounds stupid when I say it out loud."
Jones shrugged.
"Nah, don't say that. If you think this is surreal, you definitely aren't ready to hear about Lamiae."
"Fuck off, okay. That's really not necessary."
"Ugh!" Jones laughed. "I told you, off and I are just friends; there's nothing between us."
Claire sighed, and then laughed again.
"That wasn't funny."
"You laughed."
Claire shook her head.
"That's irrelevant. So, that's the plan?"
"Pretty much."
She nodded
"Well, it does have the great advantage of being totally unadaptable if we happen to come across any adverse situation, but aside from that-"
"Dude, what?" Jones was grinning now, and Claire narrowed her eyes.
"What?"
"Look at your dress."
"What?"
He shrugged.
"Look at it."
She looked at the dress. It was short, reaching only to her mid thigh, and just as ghastly as it had been before she put it on. Despite what Gilbert had said, it was puce, with no variation in colour at any point, made from some kind of thick material that looked a lot like a coat, and a trim around the edge of the skirt and the elbow-length sleeves, and the... The pockets.
"You son of a bitch," she said, more to herself than to Jones, "you clever little shit."
"Well?" he said, "What're you waiting for? Load up with weapons; I've already got mine."
Claire blinked at him. As a member of Tabulae, he technically shouldn't have any weapons, so far as she knew. But then, she hadn't ever really thought about the subject. Perhaps he did. Well, obviously he does, she thought, if he's got them now.
She bent down, hefting one of the briefcases off the floor, where she'd thrown it after entering the room. She opened it, and lifted out the box in which she held her weapons. Unused weapons, aside from in training. Hopefully, they'd go unused tonight as well.
It was all there, in the box, just as she'd put it, everything in its place. There were the cheap wooden stakes, stakes that she'd had to carve during training, that had caused her more splinters than she cared to remember. She picked them up – there were about six in total - and shoved them into one of her pockets. Then came the mallet. She shoved that into her pocket as well, not thinking about it. She'd learnt that it was best not to think about the mallet.
There were only three things left in the box: a battered crucifix, and her personal weapons. These last were by far the most peculiar things she owned - and, just in case she hadn't remembered that as she saw her own weapons, Jones served as a perfect reminder:
"The fuck are those," he said, somewhat inquisitively, as he peered over her shoulder.
She frowned, looping her crucifix over her head and tucking it under the dress.
Probably wouldn't be too considerate to wear it where anybody could see it.
Then she turned to her weapons, taking one in each hand before turning to Jones. No matter what you could say about them, they were darn good weapons, and they fitted her perfectly. On the outside, it was true, they looked like giant fishhooks, which was probably because that's what they were, but they weren't half as bad as you'd expect them to be. Like pretty much all Praedatori weapons, they were silver, or the actual hooks were, at least. Attached to each of the hooks was a thin, durable rope of about three metres long, according to Claire's estimations. She could tell why Jones found them odd. Of course, she wasn't going to let him know that.
"What do you mean?" she said, glancing between her hands. "They're my weapons."
Jones nodded, slowly.
"I can see that," he replied, "But I was just... I haven't actually seen a set of weapons like those before."
"Yeah, but you work in Tabulae; nobody has weapons there."
He sighed.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter; just put them in your pockets along with the rest. Don't forget, we've got a party to go to."