Ichabod sat at his desk, chin propped up in his hands.

Waiting.

He’d developed a routine over the past weeks. He’d seclude himself in his torpor room to pass some hours. Then he’d pace the halls throughout the night. Finally, he’d sulk at his desk until madness took him. Then he would repeat the cycle.

The regular operations of Gnosis held little interest for the elder vampire. Even the experiments and analysis surrounding Subject LH’s had stalled. They were no closer to understanding Lachlan’s changes. Dr. Carter reassured them that a breakthrough could come at any time.

Footsteps outside the office door brought Ichabod back to the moment. He recognized Enola by the cadence and weight of her footfalls. Her suit jacket ruffled slightly as she raised an arm to knock on the door.

Usually Ichabod heard her well before that…

“Come in,” the elder said, before her knuckles hit the door. He didn’t bother to move from his desk.

She came in and shut the door carefully behind her, then stood with her hands folded patiently. His eyes lingered on her cherry red lipstick, and Ichabod finally felt the pang of hunger that he’d ignored for far too long.

Ichabod reached down to the lower drawer of the desk. His muscles and joints creaked like ancient wood as he pressed a button to open the refrigerated drawer. He pulled out a decanter and a lowball glass, then poured the blood substitute.

He swirled the blue liquid around the glass before taking half of it in one swig. The finest Gnosis had to offer. Aside from the color, it tasted exactly like blood from the vein—

Except that it needed to be refrigerated to keep.

Ichabod could’ve drunk it warm, could’ve let the rest of the bottle go bad. He had more money than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes, but he’d lived through too many famines to waste a drop.

He drained the rest of the glass, slaking part of his thirst, before turning to Enola.

“What is it?”

“You’re brooding, sire.”

He studied her. “Is that it?”

Enola regarded him. “I’ve served you faithfully for seven hundred years. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you this… preoccupied.”

Ichabod allowed himself a small smile. “Does it concern you?”

“It… puzzles me.”

The elder leaned back so that he sat upright and at attention. “You’re choosing your words. Speak plainly.”

Ichabod meant what he said. He wanted her to be at ease. What was the point in having a confidant such as Enola if she could not speak her mind? But it was a testament to his conundrum that his words came out sharper than he meant, and Enola did not relax.

She shifted uneasily on her feet. “It’s not your safety or your health that I worry about. I don’t worry about an elder who cannot die. But even now, your words are… forced. As I said, I cannot remember seeing you so. Dr. Carter is the only other one I can remember seeing so enraptured lately. Is that it? Are you contemplating Subject LH?”

Ichabod’s gaze had drifted away from Enola and settled on the one of the four paintings that hung in his office.

This painting was a whirlpool of red, with leaf-like smudges of scab-black. A family tree of sires. Enola was too young, too new a sire in Ichabod’s life to have her own dedicated painting. She was one of the last additions to this piece—a small smudge on the whirlpool. A small drop in the ocean of time.

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Enola, Dr. Carter, and others wrongly assumed the reason for the elder’s apathy.

Ichabod was accustomed to waiting. He could wait for weeks completely still while he waited for prey. Wait decades for political movements and scientific breakthroughs. And he could wait centuries for sires to grow.

He was accustomed to waiting for those things.

Patience was a muscle built over millennia, and Ichabod thought himself stronger than most.

But since his meeting with Dr. Venture’s protégés some three weeks ago, Ichabod found himself restless. Which was something he hadn’t been in truly too long.

Ichabod tried to keep his tone more measured. “Do you work for the Menagerie now?”

“No, sire.”

“I didn’t think so. Don’t presume to know my thoughts.” After a moment, he added, “I have a feeling that Lachlan Harris is going to be inconsequential.”

Enola straightened slightly. “I hope you don’t mind me saying—I hope you’re wrong, sire.”

“Your mind is your own. You are allowed to doubt, just as you are allowed to hope.”

“Thank you, sire.” Enola tilted her head. “If you’re not worried about Subject LH… Is there something else on your mind?”

Ichabod tried his best to conjure a reassuring smile. “Nothing that need concern you.”

Enola nodded curtly. “Then I’ll leave you to your musings. Sorry for the intrusion—”

A noise from the wall made them both pause.

Beside Ichabod’s hidden chamber were a series of small microphones and levers. Acoustic channels ran from each microphone to different sublevels. Levers could manually switch these tubes, further connecting the Gnosis compound. Even in the event of a power loss, different sections of the compound could talk to one another.

“Intruder alert. This is sublevel 10. Three guards down. Repeat. Intruder alert in sublevel 10.”

Enola was across the room in a blink and speaking into the microphone.

“Sublevel 10. Issue a general alert. What are we dealing with?”

“A competent small group of supers. They ambushed the guards by the sublevel 10 elevators. They’re incapacitated with some kind of magic. We’re trying to identify it—”

“Check the cameras. We need to know their capabilities.”

“We can’t. The security system is bugged. There’s nothing on the cameras.”

“What do you mean there’s nothing on the cameras?”

“We think they’re using illusion magic—”

Ichabod stepped forward, his voice placid. “Have our mages verify. In the meantime, ready a response team for mages and artificers.”

“...Say again. Artificers, sir?”

Ichabod smiled. “Have you tried locking down the elevators or any of the rooms?”

There was a pause as security officers talked amongst themselves. As the pause drew on, Ichabod tried not to let his smile grow any wider.

“We—we can’t lock them down.” More talking. “We’ll have to cut power.”

Enola added, “Have the engineers figure out what sections we can cut the power to without compromising subject storage.”

“Affirmative.”

Enola glanced at Ichabod, but kept her expression unreadable. “How did you know?”

The elder shrugged. “It’s best to cover one’s bases.”

The voices on the other side of the acoustic channels became jumbled and discordant. Ichabod took his seat again. He’d contemplated going to the security station on this floor, but decided against it. With the possibility of losing camera feeds, staying near the acoustic channels was his best option for staying updated on the intruders’ progress.

Enola hadn’t moved from her spot. She looked at him expectantly.

“Permission to engage, sire?”

“Not yet.”

Before she could reply, Ichabod held up a hand to stay her.

“If they’re going deeper, they’ll be near our testing grounds… I want you to wake every subject that is combat ready.”

Enola tilted her head curiously. “Combat ready or deployment ready?”

Ichabod considered for a moment. “Start with the ones that will cause the least amount of damage to the facility. If they exhaust our subjects, then you have my permission to engage.”

Disappointment flickered across her face before she turned to leave. It wasn’t often that a vampire like her got to indulge in violence. She was restless herself and itching for a fight. Clearly, she didn’t think the intruders would survive a gauntlet like that.

Ichabod was curious just how far Venture’s protégés would make it.

~ ~ ~