The bleeding sun setting over London casts a sinister orange glow over the rapidly darkening alleyways and narrow streets. The city is still crawling in the aftermath of the Spanish Flu and its people have yet to recover from their grief. Their guilt. Death and hatred still linger in the dirty, dark corners of the buildings and market stands, cobblestone polished by boots and horseshoes still stained with blood that no rain shower washes away.

But day in and day out, workers going to their daily races fill up the filthy streets. People can say whatever they want about Londoners, but they are resilient little critters.

As the autumn day ends with cold cutting winds, people burrow inside their coats, breathing visible under the faint streetlights. And absolutely nothing in their weary faces could ever forecast the horrifying events about to unfold.

A young couple approaches the edge of the docks and peek into the dark waters as they talk. Their cheerful chattering quickly dies off as they come face to face with an image that will haunt their darkest dreams for the rest of their lives. The woman screams, clutching at her man, who can only stare, face twisted into confused horror.

The police officers take almost an hour to get there. With scrunched up faces and grunts of discomfort, deputies drag out of the canal the pruned and haunting figures of two women, their bodies tied together into an intimate embrace by thoroughly knotted ropes, thick enough to pull lorries.

They look young, it's the first thing Deputy Brannan, the only one who does not look about to pass out, says. That they look young and must have been in the water for at least half a day.

There is no untying those the knots that bind the bodies together, he also says, both because they are too tight, too carefully made, and because no one wants to get close enough to do it.

Victim number one is a petite girl, golden hair loose around her round face, while number two is taller, a lean figure with sharp features, dark brown hair still tied into a long braid that the officers have to push aside to be able to see the wooden stake stuck into her chest.

Brannan sighs, taking a step back. He is thinking about how he definitely does not get paid nearly enough for this as he calls out:

"Chief Tillman! Will you come here a second?"

Paul Tillman looks at where his deputy points and his face darkens.

"Get them covered up, Brannan. This is going to be one hell of a long night," he very simply states before signalling for the rest of his men to gather around. They are going to need reinforcements.

-x-

"What the ever-living fuck, Chief?" Geoffrey McCullum exclaims, glaring at Tillman. It's far too late in the night for the amount of people gathered around the docks, but no amount of intimidation from the police seems to make the onlookers go to their homes. Among the citizens, there are police officers and guards from Priwen, all of them too busy glaring daggers at each other to start figuring out what to do with the mess they encountered.

"I'll explain soon," Tillman cryptically says, casting an expectant look over his shoulder. Geoffrey grunts, impatient.

"What? Are we waiting for someone?" He demands.

"Yes, in fact…" Tillman waves to a point behind Geoffrey, who turns to look only to feel his stomach sink. "There he is. Dr. Reid! We're over here!"

Reid politely nods at the men before his gaze stops on one of them as if stuck.

Geoffrey McCullum.

Just his luck, the doctor thinks.

"Evening, gentlemen," he says. Geoffrey's hums a reply even as he feels unsettled by the Ekon's presence, unmoored. Jonathan's face, in turn, twists into an odd expression that Geoffrey can't quite place, but that he immediately understands.

He is not happy to be there either.

Jonathan quickly averts his eyes, clearing his throat.

"What have we here?" He inquires.

Chief Tillman lets out a long-suffering sigh and nods at a deputy to lift the tarp they set over the bodies. It takes both the doctor and the hunter a few seconds to understand exactly what they are looking at, but when they do, any memory of their prior discomfort quickly vanishes.

"Dear God!" Jonathan exclaims, covering his nose and mouth with a cupped hand. The smell at the docks is always quite terrible, but the bodies still drenched in filthy water are on a completely different level.

"Too much for your stomach, leech?" Geoffrey can't help but tease, a condescending smirk on the corner of his mouth even as he tries not to breathe through his nose.

"Don't be rude, hunter," Jonathan reprehends him the way he would a misbehaved child, but there is a glint of amusement in his eyes as he averts them from the bodies and calls in a strangled voice: "Chief?"

Tillman nods again and the tarp is lowered.

"Alright, then… a young couple found those two, earlier, as they were walking home. Deputy Brannan has their statements, if you want to check them later…" He points towards where a young-looking officer is talking to a group of fishermen. "To be perfectly clear, gentlemen, we are in way over our heads here. I am not even sure what we're looking at. It seems like the two girls were a… well, a couple of sorts. You see? They were… er…"

"Romantically involved. We get it, Chief, move on…" Geoffrey lets his impatience get the best of him. Next to him, Jonathan tries to cover a snort with a soft cough.

"Well, they were drowned," Tillman continues, stumbling over his words. "Actually, we're not even sure about that. The brown-haired one, as you probably saw… there's a stake through her chest and that probably happened before they were thrown into the canal."

"Probably," Jonathan muses. He trades a look with Geoffrey, whose lips tremble into an amused smirk before he shuts it down with a scowl. "A vampire, then?"

"We think so, yeah. And that's where you lot come in," Tillman says, gesturing in the general direction of Jonathan and Geoffrey. "We all know you have your connections with the Ascalon Club, Dr. Reid, and you might have some insight we, as mortals, do not share. We were hoping you could help… And you, McCullum."

"What about me?" McCullum says, defiant as he crosses his arms.

"Don't be difficult, hunter," Tillman groans, lips pressed tightly together. "We need your… expertise. The city needs…"

"Oh, now you want our help?" Geoffrey interrupts the policeman, taking a step forward as Tillman takes one back. Standing up tall as he is, Geoffrey is quite intimidating, even if Tillman is not a short man himself. Geoffrey raises a finger: "You must have really bad memory, huh? But I remember very well that whenever we needed your support, you disregarded us completely." His eyes narrow. He spits, "Fuck you, Tillman."

Jonathan feels like he is intruding somehow. As Geoffrey turns his back on Tillman and stalks towards the edge of the dock, their eyes meet briefly. The hunter looks older, somehow, Jonathan considers. More tired than before. He does not look as hostile, though. He hasn't really been hostile since their fight at the hospital. He even collaborated when Jonathan was trying to craft an antidote, right before…

Jonathan represses a shiver.

He has been working very hard on not dwelling on the tragic events that unfolded before his return to London. He is not about to go down that road now.

"So you're not going to collaborate?" Tillman insists. Geoffrey looks over at where the tarp is once again being lifted so that a Priwen cadet can have a closer look, a handkerchief pressed against his nose and mouth. Geoffrey does not look at the cadet but at the girls, long extravagant dresses stuck to their legs in odd shapes. They look so young, but who knows how old the brown-haired leech was? He makes a face and says:

"Of course I am." Tillman's face uncoils in relief, but McCullum warns him, "I want you to know, though, I'm not doing this for you, Tillman. And you'll owe us, you understand?"

"Yes. Of course," The Officer rushes to say. "Well, how do you want to proceed?"

Jonathan finally steps in, saying:

"Let me have a look at them before you ship them off to a mass grave, yes?" It's Geoffrey's turn to repress shiver then. He cannot imagine having to look at the bodies for any longer than he already has. "Can you get them to the Pembroke morgue?"

"I suppose. Is it open again?" Jonathan confirms with a nod, but Tillman does not look happy.

"Have you identified them at least?" Geoffrey asks, loud enough to be heard by the men standing the closest to them. The person who answers, however, is not only a citizen but one that both him and Jonathan are quite familiar with.

"That's… Gabrielle Arnaud. She… She ran away from her family's house. Last year, if I recall correctly…" Joe Peterson drawls, devoid of his usually aggressive persona. "There were still some posters with her face on across town until a couple of months ago. Someone took them down, I guess."

Jonathan wants to ask what he's doing there, but a deputy dreamily sighs:

"A damn shame, if you ask me."

"Nobody did. Keep your disgusting opinions to yourself," Geoffrey snaps at him. He does not like look on the man's face, the sleazy grin on his lips, the longing tone in his voice. The girls are dead, for Christ's sake. "What about the leech? Who is she?"

That word again. Jonathan purses his lips.

"That's…" He tries to jog his memory, frowning. "That was… Lady Morrison. Margaret, I think."

Geoffrey nods. He takes a step closer to Jonathan and, more quietly, asks, "Was she Ascalon?"

Jonathan shakes his head.

"No. Not at all."

Not that Jonathan is that well versed in the minutiae of the club. He knows one or two members, but he remembers hearing a lot of disdain for Morrison on the rare event that he was inside the club. He thought nothing of it at the time; after all, the Ascalon members seem to have a lot of disdain for many things. Geoffrey is still looking at him as though waiting for him to finish his thoughts, so Jonathan adds, "Friend of a friend."

"Of whom?" The hunter demands. Jonathan squares his jaw, staring intently into the man's dark eyes as if daring him to go down that road, and replies:

"Lady Ashbury."

"Hm." Geoffrey scratches his chin, eyes full of sorrow as he looks over the girls. He never was one to turn down a challenge. "Well, if they were friends, they have one more thing in common now…"

As far as bantering with sensitive topics goes, Geoffrey is not as harsh as he could have been, but his words still sting.

"Not the same," Jonathan bites back, his undead heart heavy and cold inside his chest. "This is not the same thing."

Elisabeth wanted death. Wanted it so much Jonathan could do nothing to stop her from leaving this world.

But these women…

"I'll send my men back to their patrols, then, gentlemen. Hopefully something will turn up eventually. The bodies will be in the morgue within the next few hours," Tillman says. He looks curiously at Jonathan, "You will assist us, right?"

"Of course." Jonathan replies as if he is not dying on the inside. As Tillman walks away, he turns to Geoffrey and adds so quietly it is almost as if he does not want to be heard, "I actually have an idea where to start."

Geoffrey's eyebrows shoot up in interest.

"I'll come with," he says in a rush. He is very much looking forward to getting the hell away from the docks, anyway. Jonathan raises an incredulous eyebrow. Geoffrey might be a valuable asset to the investigation, but Jonathan is not sure he should accompany him. And, because Geoffrey can read his hesitation so well, he warns him, "Don't you think for a second I trust you to deal with this alone, Reid."

Jonathan exhales an inelegant snort. Concedes:

"Never expected anything different."

He should not feel offended by the hunter's words. If their positions were reversed, he would not want the man wandering by himself either, but he still feels bad over his obvious distrust. Moreover, he really cannot understand where the hunter got the idea that they are meant to be enemies. Jonathan has certainly never felt that way towards him. He is a vampire, yes, and Geoffrey is not only a hunter, but the leader of his blast. But they are still adults who both know very little on this Earth is black and white.

In hopes of dissuading the man from tagging along, Jonathan elaborates:

"I'm going to the Ascalon club. I'll ask a few questions around, talk to Lord Redgrave. He might have something to share about what was happening with Miss Morrison prior to her death. You're more than welcome to join me, but I really don't believe you'll enjoy the experience."

For a long moment, Geoffrey just stands there and glares at Jonathan with an unreadable expression. It's unsettling, but Jonathan refuses to look away until, finally satisfied, he huffs, "Lead the way, leech."

"Call me Jonathan, please," Jonathan mutters as the hunter falls into step with him. "Since we're working together and all."

Geoffrey snorts, but it's almost fond. It is probably exhausting to be so serious all the time, Jonathan ponders.

"Whatever," The hunter eloquently responds. "Less talking, more walking... Jonathan."