Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

Washington D.C. Summer, 1863.

I returned home from working the luncheon service at Saint Patrick’s around two o’clock to find Richards, our butler, holding open the front door of our house. He seemed anxious as if he had urgent news, but his words seemed to catch in his throat when Vivian, my maid, followed behind me.

Samuel Richards disapproved of servants using the front door. It sincerely bothered the poor man when any protocol of form was disregarded.

I was quite indifferent to the customs of the bourgeoisie, especially in America, or how long Richards had tolerated my indifference.

“Mistress.”

“Good afternoon, Richards. Is everything all right?”

“There has been trouble with young Henry, but I’m sure now that Vivian is home, she will see to it.”

One of the many eccentricities Richards had grown to tolerate during his employment with us was my penchant for bringing my charitable work home with me. He thought it respectable that I supported charities with coin. He even accepted that I spent time soiling my hands in soup kitchens to feed those in need. But Richards found it perfectly ghastly that I should employ a woman with an immoral background, much less allow her to live in my house. I could only muse what he might think of my prowling the streets at night in search of evildoers to slaughter.

Vivian Whitehall had sailed from South Hampton to Washington D.C. on her fiancee’s arm ten years ago. The man had come seeking work and the tangible opportunity for prosperity America promised. Within a month of their arrival, he found himself killed in one of the dangerous “Foggy Bottom” factories. Devastated and alone, it only compounded Vivian’s heartache when she discovered that she was with his child.

Though I’d brought her home while she was the size of a house, Richards had seen only an unwed mother come to loiter under his roof. He presumed her story was a lie, and that every imagined and despicable assumption about how she’d lowered herself must be true. Naturally, I not only sheltered the woman through the rest of her pregnancy, but I also allowed her and her child to remain living in my house, eventually taking her into my employ.

“If you would,” Richards added under his breath to Vivian and pointed her down to the kitchen stairs.

I heard him silently berate her with the details of her son’s misbehavior, but the sight of Maximo smoking in the front drawing-room pulled my attention away. He was lying back on the sofa, just as I’d left him after breakfast.

“What did Henry do?”

Maximo shrugged.

“Made too much noise or broke something, I expect. Whatever ten-year-olds are prone to do. I didn’t take notice.”

My husband had spent the sultry August morning quietly reading the newspapers in the front parlor of our home on 8th Street. Now that I was back from my volunteer work, he wasted no time in rehashing the news of the day. Most pressing was how garrisons continued to fill the city in anticipation of a Confederate push to seize the capital.

Lincoln’s Proclamation 95, initially considered a bold move by my husband’s estimation, had inflamed the president’s opponents into further battle. The result was a city even more oppressive in its over-crowdedness than the stench, mosquitos, and swarms of black summer flies guaranteed.

“But if war will arrive on our doorstep in the next months, why don’t we leave now?” I eventually pressed.

“If we leave now, I must account for it, both to the White House and back home. They’ll dismiss me. So, I’ve no intention of moving unless it becomes necessary.”

Maximo’s attitude incensed me. While I understood his commitment to his liaison role, he sounded like he would wait until cannons leveled the city before considering what it might mean to me.

“Can’t you request reassignment to a post in Canada?”

“It’s in Napoleon’s interest that the American’s distract themselves with civil war. His government won’t transfer me now. Besides, I’ve no interest in Canada. I’m not looking for boredom. Even if they recalled me to Paris, I would remain here still. This is the perfect time for us to become Americans.”

I sighed loudly at his passion for the modern world’s politics, though he didn’t indulge me with any notice.

“I cannot allow anything to happen to our library,” I insisted.

“You’ve more than ensured his works will live forever. The odds of its destruction now are astronomical.”

In the years since Sempronio’s writings were delivered to me in Paris, I had transcribed three sets of copies of every document. I placed these in a secured vault with my agent in London, in the Forteresse de Roussade in Burgundy, and in our home’s cellar here in Washington, D.C. My copies, made on the finest materials I could secure, included duplicates of the original Latin and their translations into modern Italian, French, and English. There were only a handful of originals in other languages; the master’s attempts to articulate his mind in whatever tongue consumed him during his travels. Some were still in the glyphs of the far east. Some were the dialects of the ancient Americas, written phonetically in Latin and impossible to decipher yet. Thankfully, none had been, as the master once suggested, too frail for me to recover.

“But the originals are here, and those are sacred to me. I won’t leave it to chance if we’re in danger. This city already burned to the ground once. Was it even forty years ago?”

Maximo shrugged, seeming to lose interest in the debate.

“This is important to me,” I raised my voice.

“This is important to me, as well.”

I stared at him with growing anger, averting my agitated eyes when I could stand no more.

“I will look for another location at once. If you won’t join me while this all plays out, I’ll be fine on my own.”

Maximo didn’t answer; an infuriating tactic he had long ago learned was the worse thing he could do to settle an argument. Unwilling to dredge up the same grievance for the umpteenth time, I too let it sit and walked silently out of the room.

“We need not attend the opening tonight if you’re not in the mood,” he limply called after me.

Hours later, without notice, I emerged from my room dressed and ready to attend the theatre. I thought my promptness a testament to how desperate I was for entertainment in this dreary city. I was not typically willing to venture anywhere with Maximo during the middle of a disagreement. In truth, I’d already chosen my course and moved on from our row. However, I arrived on the main floor to find him still lying on the sofa, reading a new book, and not dressed to leave.

“You’re going?” he asked, looking up from behind the pages in confusion.

“Don’t wait up for me,” I smiled sardonically.

He answered only with a sigh.

Richards hesitated to open the front door for me alone, but after an impatient look, he pulled it wide, and I left the house without another word.