2006, 25th January

Paris, France

Ciara ran her fingers through her hair in frustration.

“What do you mean, it’s dead?”

“Exactly what I said the first time,” Aaron replied, mirroring her irritation. “Pierre got too close to the thing, it attacked, and the android had to tear it apart.”

“Excellent. I should have gotten here sooner instead of allowing you two clowns to muck things up.”

“Maybe you should have, instead of wandering about at Michael’s heels like a lost puppy.”

“That’s enough.” Pierre barely raised his voice, but the threat in his tone was enough to subdue the two of them; for a time, at least.

“We have this-” Pierre turned a severed head on the table, “See what you can make of it.”

Ciara sighed. She was a life mage first and foremost, and forensic studies of dead tissue was mostly taught to Death mages, despite the seeming overlap.

She would have to blur boundaries between fields, pulling on more power than she was accustomed to- it was always an unpleasant situation.

“Let's see…. Circulatory systems have long degenerated even before death, pain receptors also seem to be functioning at… less than optimal conditions… What else? Lots of sensory networks around the lips and gums, poorly developed tapetum lucidum behind-”

“That’s enough. Cut off your power.”

Ciara let the power recede, blinking away tears she didn’t know had accumulated along with a splitting migraine that made her wince- blurring boundaries was hard work.

“There has to be more- if not here, then somewhere else.” Aaron said. “This can’t be a dead end.”

“Right. Should we take the head to a dimensional mage?” Ciara suggested. “They could have further leads for us to go on.”

“You two go on. I have something to take care of here.”

Aaron noticed Pierre’s tone was unusually subdued in a way he had rarely heard before, but he decided not to pry any further.

“Whatever it is, be careful.”

Pierre fixed him with a wry smile.

“Sure.”

As Aaron and Ciara left the premises, he took off for his own destination.

His father wanted to see him.

Nolan Walsh wasn’t a particularly powerful or dangerous or even resourceful man in the grand scheme of things; Pierre logically knew that ever since he had discovered the existence of Apotheosis, and monsters that could shatter the world beneath their feet.

But his flesh was too well trained ever since his childhood, to always react in the same way in the presence of his father; with bone chilling fear.

He made his way to the hotel where his father had called him over to, and the surly men in suits regarded him warily, and with good reason.

Pierre had been trained, honed for the singular purpose of murder, to advance his father’s goals, until he had been recruited by Apotheosis when he was 17.

He was fearsome to these men, the same way his father appeared fearsome to him.

He noticed several of the men in uniform, noticeable bulges where they had poorly concealed their weapons, were men he had never seen before.

These were probably the men of his associates; Ciara and Aaron’s families were closely tied to his own, and they often worked together under a single umbrella.

Ciara, too, seemed aware of how depraved a woman her mother was, although Aaron had been mostly distanced from this side of his family, maintaining only a passing awareness.

Pierre could not properly put in words how much he burned with jealousy just for that distance.

He pulled open the doors, and walked into the hallway where he had been summoned, where they had all gathered.

Nolan adjusted his spectacles as he watched his son approach, his cigarette slipping from between his teeth as he frowned.

“Well. Look who decided to show up at last. Had enough of hiding from your old man, eh?”

“Leave the boy be, Nolan. He looks dishevelled enough to have run a marathon.”

This from Maeve O’Brien, mother of Ciara.

Pierre often marvelled how well adjusted Ciara seemed to be, for having this woman as family.

“So he does,” Nolan said, running his fingers over Pierre’s cheek.

Pierre had to hold himself back from flinching.

“But if he was here in Paris all along, instead of wherever those spooks took him to work for them, he could have at least called to let me know.”

That was the extent of what Nolan knew about Apotheosis; some very secretive, extremely powerful people wanted Pierre to work for them, and Nolan was very well compensated in return, with the obvious implication of what fate further digging could bring upon him.

Pierre wished he could treat his father with an attitude half as cavalier as that.

Nolan’s fingers traveled to Pierre’s hair, then gripped a handful tightly.

“But I suppose you were too busy for your old man, eh? Too busy with what, exactly, I wonder?”

“He was working for me.”

The lights around the dimmed, and Pierre had the feeling of something at the back of his neck, poised to strike, and turned instantly on his heel, even as Nolan staggered backward, Maeve rose from her own chair so fast it nearly toppled onto its side, and Jack Sterling, Aaron’s father, quiet so far, nearly choked on his drink, coughing.

Lionel Bellone was here.

They hadn’t even noticed him enter, and now that he was here, there was no taking their eyes off him, akin to staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

He fixed eerily bright eyes on Nolan, who immediately broke eye contact.

“Ah- I didn’t realize it was you, who… that is to say-”

“Be seated. All of you.”

And seat themselves they did, Pierre seated between his father and the monster at the head of the table.

Pierre had known for a while of an invisible hand behind the criminal families of Europe, coordinating them to work in synergy- he had just not expected that hand to be a supernatural one, adamant as Apotheosis was about the enforcement of it’s No Interference policy.

The conversation washed by him, not pertaining to him anyway, and Lionel remained silent, and eerily motionless throughout, even as the others kept shooting him glances.

In time, they grey acclimated to his presence, or as acclimated as they could be to giant spider seated within their midst, the flow of the conversation carrying them away, Nolan now in loud disagreement with Maeve- when Lionel opened his mouth, his fangs showing to Pierre who expected to see them there.

But he did not speak, instead clamping his jaws shut with an audible click, and the rest of them fell silent once more, tense.

“You two are dissatisfied with the slices I have granted you?”

“No, Lionel,” Nolan said, “But Maeve’s people keep bustling in on my turf-”

“It’s not your turf, Nolan,” Maeve cut in, “We don’t even deal in the same things, for Chri-”

Lionel leaned forward, and both Nolan and Maeve went still.

“Nolan. Move your drugs in with the whores. Maeve. See to it you have a record of each one of your customers. We hook them in with their growing dependency. Nolan’s grip over his lands gets tighter when he’s their only lifeline. And increase your markups. Higher prices make even shit taste better. You’ll get the customers that matter that way, and keep out the riff raff. Now leave.”

All of them rose to leave, except Pierre, who caught Lionel’s eye, and remained seated.

Nolan would not even look him in the eye as he left.

Pierre yearned for that kind of power.

“You do not get along with your father.” Lionel stated.

“No.”

Lionel nodded, then moved on.

“How goes the work I gave you?”

“We found a live one- one of those mutants, in the abandoned penitentiary you mentioned. It’s destroyed now. But- we have a link, to track the rest of its kind, if there are any.”

“It took you this long just to get this far?”

“I-”

Pierre began to fidget under Lionel’s penetrating gaze.

“I could just as easily assign other resources to this, and not have them waste my time you have. I believed you would be better than this, seeing as you work with Apotheosis; but it seems to me they have sent me their incapable children.”

At this very moment, the communicator in Pierre’s pocket vibrated very audibly.

Lionel narrowed his eyes.

“What is that?”

“It’s- a communicator. I could… turn it off.”

“No.” The shadows around them seemed to grow deeper, more pronounced. “Answer it.”

Pierre fished out the communicator, putting it to his ear.

“Hello?”

If you’re with this vampire of yours right now, Michael’s voice spoke through the communicator, then hand the communicator to it. I would speak to it.