Make It, Take It

Ingrid would have given the beast at the door a run for his money. Small and fragile looking, she’d taken on bigger before and had left them crawling. He’d been happy to let her to too. For a time he’d believed his fighting days were over, Hector’s pirate crew left behind, thought likely slaughtered at the time, his own ship slicing through the waves. Then violence had spilled up to cut that ship from under him again and it had been Ingrid storming in like a Valkyrie. Luc clucked his tongue lightly as he slid through the crowd in search of the surprisingly alive Hector. That intimidating visage had been at full effect when he’d crawled back to Ingrid’s door in search of shelter under her sweeping wings again.

He grunted lightly, smoothing a hand over his chest as he felt the beat of the music thump in it. She was going to make him pay for that, badly enough that maybe he’d regret his decision to crawl back. Scratch that, Luc thought as he gave up on trying to talk Hector’s staff into revealing his location, he certainly would, but perhaps, eventually, this town and his connections in it would pay some dividends.

Rum glass in his hand Luc had slipped among the crowds again. The glass itself was hitched a half dozen times before he popped free of them, the cost of the liquor alone leaving him protective of it. Relief rushed in, amusement following it. Once upon a time he would’ve been glad to see Hector Dacre dead, his own sword buried in the man’s chest, but time and exposure had ground down that need for retribution. Now there was a genuine gratitude for the man’s slippery nature. Hector had gotten away from the hunters just as he had and now he was sitting on his own throne here again.

Luc clucked his tongue, slipping into a seat as Hector nodded towards it. He set his glass down on the table, kicking back to study the men working the bar – the bouncers were still hidden out of sight beyond that crowd, likely still trying to work out what it was he’d said in friendly farewell to them. ”The bigger they are, the harder they’ll fall?” he questioned with a chuckle. Luc sighed contentedly and shook his head. ”It would be cruel to embarrass them in front of a crowd like this.” And a bloody mess if he did try and demonstrate to the neckless wonder just which one of the two of them would come out on top in this.

Reaching for his glass, Luc tipped it towards Hector and took a sip. This could’ve been another watering hole centuries before and thousands of miles away from him. The basics rarely changed, only the faces, and plenty of them had slid by while the two of them hadn’t aged. ”I’d say it’s a darn sight warmer, and less problematic. It always was hard to leave her behind though.” It had taken centuries for both of them to leave the salty mistress behind though, it seemed. ”It’s busier than I thought, considering how … quiet the town is.” A chuckle rolled from him. ”Seems as though you have quite the little empire here. Any room for expansion?” Ingrid likely wouldn’t be best pleased with his involvement in some other venture on top of his occupying the lowest rung of her company’s ladder – playing assistant to the assistant who was likely to be blowing his phone up by the end of the night. This was him covering his own ass though, just in case she grew tired enough of him to kick him off the ladder.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 617

Hector might have left the sea behind but he’d still surrounded him with a crew – bruisers lurking at the edge of it. Now he was well trained enough, strong enough, to take something like the gorilla at the door down with a single swing, when Hector had first dragged him aboard his ship it had been a different matter. The blade was stripped from one small grubby first then, his temper and protests ignored, rolling away like water from a duck’s back. For years Luc had snarled at the backs of those beasts, imagining that blade back in his fist, slipping between their ribs to the only vulnerable spot they had left. It was a hatred that had taken decades to truly fade. If it hadn’t there wouldn’t have been an ounce of regret in leaving them all behind when the hunters had descended upon them.

Or an ounce of almost paternal affection left for the man after all this time. There was no jealousy there about the new crew – amusement, a little wrinkle of irritation, an interest perhaps. Luc sucked in a breath as he spotted Hector in pride of place in his booth, almost as though he were about to hold court here, surrounded by those who would be too drunk to cause those bouncers much trouble at the end of the night. If Ingrid were to catch a whiff of this – a partnership of a different sort – she’d have crossed his name off her books for good. Not so much out of jealousy, but spite.

Luc gave a little shiver, settling down into the offered seat. Pale eyes looked back over his shoulder to try and pick the great apes out of the crowd, amusement wreathed in that chuckle. Trouble? No. Luc shook his head at Hector as he looked back, the wry look on his face showing that really it had been anything but. ”I will but they’re nothing more than hissy little kittens. I guess you get enough people in here who draw back from that.” Most didn’t want the sort of trouble that would raze the place to the ground. There were plenty in this town who could do of course, fire in their chest, like in his own, fangs, claws, the sort of strength that would give Hercules a start. It was no wonder really that Hector and Ingrid had both found their way here.

Hector, it seemed, was prepared for it all. Fully aware of what he was walking into and still, in this day and age of fast cars and planes, comparing the place to their former mistress. Luc clucked his tongue, frowning lightly as he took a bigger gulp from his glass. ”Nature always was a bitch,” he agreed, mock shuddering. It wasn’t like he hadn’t wanted to rush straight out into her arms as a child though. How to get on board the boats working in and out of the harbour had occupied his mind day and night before they’d actually had to run. ”I’m sure your clientele could put on a good try if you wanted to feel like your bones were being shook free of your body,” Luc joked lightly. The ship under them pitching and yawing violently, the boat feeling like it would come apart at the seams, waves crashing like brick walls onto the deck. More than one hand had been lost to them over the years. Luc muttered a Huguenot prayer to them under his breath now, the French antiquated.

None of the kids in here now would have a clue about how that felt. The closest they got to the ferocity of nature was a pissed off parent picking them up from the police station after a little drink driving or misadventure. One brow rose at the mention of the weird boarding school. ”Seems like most of this town is weird. I guess you can’t question it when it’s filling the coffers though.” And they weren’t yet full. Ingrid certainly wouldn’t want in on this but the part of him that had left her for greener pastures felt a little kick at expansion. Luc leaned forward, humming lightly as he shoved his empty glass aside. ”What sort of money? I could perhaps see myself dipping a hand into a pocket. I’ve … found something to occupy myself here but she’s just as wild as the waves and there’s a chance I’ll be out on my ear and looking for work. Another club? Something a little … spicier.” Luc’s nose wrinkled slightly at the idea. Mystic Falls was too classy for a lot of the sort of places they’d once frequented.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 777

Ingrid had asked if he’d come back to beg for his job, the place he’d once held in her team but Luc knew there was no recapturing your former glory. He had tried with his own ship after his escape from the hunters who had slaughtered his crew mates – and seemingly their captain alongside them – but that had sunk almost without a trace. Sometimes he still woke from dreams with the feel of a deck sloping beneath him and yells that they were going down ringing in his ears. He’d wake, his hands hauling at the sheets like they were sails, trying to reign a floundering ship in. Ingrid had been gracious enough to take him on board then but had soon cut off talk of raiding, of weeks spent in ports, drinking the place dry while they decided which to plunder next.

Eyes that almost gleamed with an inner fire – like the opals they had once stripped out of a rich merchant’s pockets just off the Cape of Good Hope – swept the crowd. They were already well into the bottle, the place reeking of sweet liquor, sweat and the gripping hope that they weren’t going to slip out of the doors at closing time alone. Nope, Luc thought, clucking his tongue as he looked back at his former captain with his eyes narrowing doubtfully, this was truly unlike those times. Pirates no longer sailed the seven seas, ready to charge down on their targets with the fury of the sea following behind them. Times had changed and even if Ingrid allowed him to crawl close back to his former spot at her side, they would never be the same again.

Luc’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he chuckled. He settled back in his seat, stretching an arm along the back of the booth to tap fingers lightly against the easy clean vinyl upholstery. ”As good as that winter in Tortuga?” he asked, his mouth already twisting in doubt. ”I don’t think the truly good kind exists anymore.” Not only had the world changed so thoroughly that spots like Tortuga had been rebuilt from the ground up, but, sadly, they had too. Time might not have come knocking on the door with Death at his back but it had left its marks.

Unfortunately.

Lifting his glass, Luc half drained it. The dregs in the bottom would water down to the point of being barely spiked with liquor at all. He shook his head, a huff of breath rolling out. People now had no clue of the true hardships some amongst them had lived through. This wasn’t a place where people starved on the street or were persecuted merely for who they chose to worship. They hadn’t fled time and time again for those who would have seen them burned to death on a pyre. Those were nightmares that happened a world away while they drank cheap liquor and crawled home to comfortable apartments. He’d have called them soft but some would show there was perhaps a measure of iron beneath when the things they shared this town with decided to draw them over an invisible line. There were shadows here, even with the neon lights of the club flickering over them.

Having pushed his empty glass aside, Luc lifted his hands, spread both in the air like the explanation was simple. He sighed after a moment, letting them drop. Spicier didn’t seem to have existed in this town in the way he was hinting at but Hector was a dark horse. Those pale eyes narrowed again, Luc’s elbow finding the edge of the table as he swivelled towards his former captain. There was something sharp in them now, amused. ”So it’s not just a mundane party palace. You dog.” The insult rolled out on a chuckle, his gaze sweeping behind Hector for some sign of it. ”I take my invite to there got lost in the mail?” Or perhaps that omission had been for his own good.

The sigh seemed to roll up from Luc’s gut as he eyed Hector wryly. In a town like this a strip club would go down about as well as the pox on a woman of the night. Puritanism hadn’t left the new world, it had merely been covered in a thin veneer of ‘civility’. ”Since when have you ever followed the rules? Would your little …” He tapped a finger in the air to indicate the floor and the club within a club hidden beneath. ”….not be the perfect place for such things. How many sets of eyes ever get to see the place and how many who visit would want their own dirty secrets aired here?” He hadn’t put himself in the path of any of them but Luc knew there would be just as many ‘peacemakers’ here as there were ‘monsters’.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 811