When the sun set on the next evening, Claire quickly moved to rise from their bed and Sean just as quickly pulled her back against him. “You don’t honestly think our conversation is over, do you?” he asked her pointedly.

“I’m not sure what else there is to say, Sean” Claire told him in a near whisper, though she didn’t try to pull away, nor look back to meet his concerned gaze.

That was when Sean sighed with discontent before finding an adequate response, “Just let me ask you one thing.”

“I didn’t realize I had to give you permission to ask me anything” Claire mumbled, still centering her gaze on some other part of the room rather than the man whose arms were holding her tightly back against his chest atop their bed.

Sean shook his head, but moved forward through the conversation, “now, I am not trying to add anything else to that ocean of guilt you seem to want to wade in for centuries on end, but I must ask you to just put yourself in my place for a moment.”

Claire narrowed her eyes skeptically at that statement, “regarding what?”

Sean let out another heavy sigh, “next time you’re drowning in that self-hatred, which you almost always seem to be doing; will you please first ask yourself how you would feel if you had to watch me hating and punishing myself nearly every second of my life. Honestly, how would that make you feel, Claire?” he asked her desperately.

Claire shut her eyes against his words as tension filled her body, “so now I’m hurting you just by being me?” she whispered.

Sean scoffed sadly, “how would you honestly feel if someone hated the man you love as much as you seem to hate the woman I love?” he asked, matching her whisper as he tried to rein in his emotions as best he could, difficult as that was when scolding Claire for anything; even if that thing happened to be the way she felt about herself.

“So, I’m just supposed to change everything I think and feel?” Claire whispered after a long moment.

“I just want you to try to see yourself a little more like I see you. I mean, I’ve loved you for nearly three hundred years; I’d say that’s a pretty good argument against you being so horrible and unworthy of any kind of happiness. And I just want you to remember that. Can you do that for me, please?” Sean asked, nearly begging her to stop hating herself at that point.

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As that month of September drew to a close, Claire’s ability to convince Sean that she wasn’t spending every moment continuing to wallow in self-hatred suffered another blow. On that final night of the month, Claire somberly made her way through the tavern doors to relieve the blood bound servants who had been running the place that day. Upon stepping through the doors, the two greeted her with expressions even more somber than Claire’s own. They then had the unpleasant task of informing Claire that sometime after closing and her tense meeting with Ilana, someone had returned before they opened the following day and suffocated Hallie with her own pillow there in her quarters mere feet away from Claire’s office, and the site of Sebastian’s death less than a decade earlier.

Claire knew it would be impossible for her to explain the woman’s death to Sean without sliding right back into that obvious guilt she felt any time any of the mortals she had grown close to, and had shared her blood with, were taken violently from the world. Because of this, she chose not to tell Sean of the death at all. After all, she didn’t even know who had murdered Hallie, or why; though she couldn’t help allowing in the thought that it could indeed be someone wanting to make Claire pay for the success granted to her by using her blood to maintain the peace there at Raven’s Loft. It was obvious that she had made at least one enemy in Tobin years earlier because of the use of her blood, and that time it had led to plenty of death.

Then there was her recent meeting with Ilana wherein the woman at least seemed to imply that her reasons for hating Claire and wanting to make her pay were somewhat similar to Tobin’s. Though until Claire found out more, she would keep the tragedy to herself. However her urge to know the truth of the crime did make her begin to entertain the thought of training her mind in Sean’s ability to garner information about happenings just by touching inanimate objects. So she spent most of her walk home after closing to debate on whether she wanted to allow herself to do something that was at least on some level so similar to the mind-reading ability that she hated so much.

By the time she had gone to bed to wait out the next day’s sun, Claire had convinced herself to try and find the answers through some other method besides that empathic ability that their clan referred to as The Spirit’s Touch. She did truly want to know how Hallie’s murder had come to pass, but she knew that asking Sean to tutor her in that ability would lead to him wanting to know what had suddenly convinced her to expand her own psychic powers. Considering his recent reprimanding of her for her overwhelming feelings of guilt, Claire did not want to have to tell him about yet another death of someone she cared about; at least not before exhausting any other methods of trying to discover the truth behind the latest loss of life surrounding her.

Claire spent nearly three weeks trying to solve the murder without giving in to asking Sean to teach her his own method of resolving other deaths that had occurred in years past. Then Claire had to rethink her previous stance once again; when less than three weeks after Hallie’s death, one of her other two remaining prostitutes, Janina, was found killed somewhere between the hours of 3 a.m. and 10 a.m. when The Loft was closed to the public. Janina was also found dead in her quarters on the top floor, strangled by one of her own stockings.

Claire had only days to reconsider asking Sean for his help in solving the murders of both Hallie and Janina. She could have asked him to come to the tavern himself and find out the same way he had found out the truth behind the werewolf massacre there forty years earlier, or ask him to teach her The Spirit’s Touch so she could use it herself. However either option would lead to her having to tell him about the deaths. And telling him would ultimately lead to Claire’s inability to hide her feelings of being responsible for those deaths in some way. And hiding her feelings was something she had been trying very hard to do since Sean and she had had that discussion about how badly it was hurting him to see her hating herself so much. Though she did not have more than three days of that inner debate before her last remaining prostitute, Karice, was also found killed there in her quarters somewhere during the seven hours that no one else was in the tavern with her.

On her walk home after the night she had found out about her third and final whore’s death, she had the wry thought that she had finally gotten out of the prostitution business once and for all; though she never had wished it to end in quite the way it had. All she knew for sure is that the girls could not have been killed by any of her regular customers. After all, it was her very blood that had kept them safe from any of the regulars for nearly a decade. However, that did not narrow down the suspect pool all that much, as there was now nearly four thousand residents there in the city that was not quite so tiny anymore.

It was the very night after the last prostitute’s death that Claire was greeted at the door of the tavern with the news that now one of the five showgirls she still employed had also been stabbed to death on her way home from The Loft the previous night. Upon hearing this news, Claire had to force back tears as she made her way through the slowly dwindling crowd at the tavern to spend her shift in her office, leaving the running of the bar to the blood bound bartender and serving girl who usually helped her each night.

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Then three days later, on October 24th, a second showgirl was found drowned outside the tavern. Four days later, a third. Two days after that the fourth. By November 1st, just over a month after Hallie’s death, the fifth and final showgirl was also found dead in an alley behind the tavern as well; and there ended the lives of all the entertainers Claire had employed in recent years as well.

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The night following Claire hearing the news of the death of her last showgirl, she was all but broken. In only one month’s time, eight girls under her protection had been murdered either in or around the place where Claire had always managed to keep them safe; eight girls. At this point, it was near impossible for her to believe that those eight lives hadn’t been lost because someone had a very big ax to grind with Claire herself.

When Claire awoke from her slumber on the night of November 2nd, 1858, she simply rolled away from Sean and onto her side, burying her face in the pillows rather than getting up to dress and head to the tavern as usual. “Problem?” Sean couldn’t help asking, having been hyper-aware of what little communication they had had since the night he asked her to try and see herself the way he had always seen her.

“I just need a break” Claire answered in a whisper as Sean had only sat up in the bed, but hadn’t left it himself upon seeing her obvious upset.

“A break?” Sean asked softly as he leaned down to move some hair from her cheek where she still hid her face in the pillows, “a break from what?” he asked in the same gentle and concerned tone.

“The tavern” she stated simply, hoping upon hope that he wouldn’t press her for details that would make her fall apart to recount. Though she knew it was nearly impossible for Sean not to want those details any time he saw her in pain and then had the instinctive urge to try and fix whatever that pain was for her; that had always been his way for nearly three centuries now.

“Did something else happen?” Sean asked her that dreaded question.

Claire sighed into the pillows as she had to quickly try and find any answer that would keep her from breaking down whilst providing it. She finally chose “nothing to do with you.”

“Not exactly an answer” Sean chided, though there was an obvious worry in his tone.

“I think you have more important things to worry about than me wanting a break from serving drinks to drunks, don’t you?” Claire returned defensively.

“Nothing’s more important than you” Sean whispered against her ear before placing a gentle kiss upon her neck.

“And isn’t that very fact that same one that Thomas tried to use against you?” she couldn’t help retorting, resorting to anger to avoid crumbling with grief.

“And Thomas has been dead for almost forty years” Sean reminded, his wryness not able to cover that continued worry.

Claire sighed heavily once more as she tried in vain to keep from telling him of the tragedies she had been dealing with in silence for over a month now. She finally decided on “didn’t Daniel tell you once that you can’t expect to solve every problem yourself?”

Sean wrinkled his nose at her reminding him of that. Then, a moment later, he replied, “I could say the same thing to you. Now, what’s wrong?”

That was when Claire’s grief and anger combined to allow her to shoot back, “you told me that you didn’t want to see me drowning in guilt and self-hatred; so how am I supposed to try and grant you your wish if you see that I’m obviously upset and you still insist on asking me what’s wrong?” she asked loudly as she pulled away from him and moved to slide to the edge of the bed, just out of his reach.

Caught more than a bit by that angry outburst, Sean needed a moment to process a response, “Claire I didn’t mean that I no longer wanted you to share your feelings with…”

“Didn’t you?” Claire shot back as she kept her angry gaze on the wall rather than looking back at Sean.

“I would never want you to stop sharing your feelings” Sean insisted as he sat up again, “feelings are the one thing that keeps us human, aren’t they?” he returned, trying to keep his voice gentle.

“Well, apparently my feelings are too human for you to want to deal with. You said you hated seeing me feeling that way; so I’m trying to keep you from seeing… just like you wanted!” she returned in the same angry tone, translating every bit of her grief and upset into anger as she lashed out at him for his attempts to make her admit to those feelings at all, and therefore let him down, which would just make her hate herself that much more. It was a vicious circle that she could not manage to find any way out of.

Sean was quiet for another long moment, his ice blue eyes downward as he took in her words, then feeling that guilt himself for making her feel like she could not be honest with him about all of those dark feelings she was obviously struggling terribly with. After several more long moments, he finally responded, though in a whisper, “I didn’t want you to hide your feelings. I just wanted you to try and see yourself through my eyes, and see that there is so much to love about you, Claire. I just want you to see that you’re not the monster you think you are. That’s all I ever wanted” he whispered, the words choked as he forced them out. And that was when she broke down into those tears at last.

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It was only another three weeks before Claire had no choice but to tell Sean that something was going on all around her. It was the third week of November when Sean rose from their bed and dressed before turning his eyes back to where Claire was still sitting quietly upon the mattress.

Sean thought a moment before choosing his words carefully to avoid Claire once again accusing him of not wanting her to share her feelings with him any longer, “taking the night off?”

Claire tried to stifle a sigh, hard as that was, “I’m closing the tavern.”

Sean was a bit caught by that as he finished buttoning his shirt and his hands paused a moment there on that last button, “mind if I ask what made you come to that decision?”

Claire swallowed a bit, knowing that she could hardly expect Sean not to ask why she was closing the business, considering the reasons behind her closing it originally forty years earlier. She finally chose to answer as simply and truthfully as possible, “I don’t have anyone to run it during the day or help out at night anymore.”

Sean paused another moment at her answer, “I thought you had a dozen employees now.”

“Well I don’t anymore” Claire stated simply, trying to keep emotion from her tone, though her words were obviously choked.

“That seems a bit odd that anyone would quit or need to be fired, considering” Sean stated, and then had to ask, “so, how many do you have now?”

That was when Claire’s voice shook even more, “not enough” she settled on.

Sean narrowed his eyes at such a deliberately evasive answer, “technically, can’t you run the place with just one other person working there? I’m sure it would be a bit chaotic ’til you hired more; but you did do that before, back before the rush started. Plus, you could always hire any of the people who had been drinking there regularly; they’d be loyal. And even if there are no candidates you’d want to hire; there’s always my servants who you could have help out ’til you did find replacements.”

“Are you telling me you don’t want me closing the place?” Claire asked defensively.

Sean shook his head at that response, “if you want to close it, then it’s your decision. I just haven’t heard you say anything about wanting to close it since the time Tobin originally came into the place eight years ago. I was only trying to remind you that you’ve kept it open when you had fewer employees before, and assure you that you probably still could if you wanted to.”

“Well, I guess I don’t want to” Claire muttered as she averted her eyes.

Sean gave her another questioning look as he waited for her to elaborate. Though she did not. So he allowed himself to ask, “so what changed your mind?”

That was when Claire let out another heavy sigh. She had kept all the recent deaths and her feelings about them locked up inside for nearly two months now; and every time she spoke to Sean it was that much harder to not just give in and tell him everything that had been happening. So, at last she had to give in and just tell him, “I guess it’s just hard for me to justify hiring anyone else just for the sake of making money we don’t even need; especially after what’s happened.”

“And what happening are you referring to?” Sean asked warily.

Another sigh passed her lips before she made herself give him that answer, “they’re dead.”

Sean looked more than a bit startled by that statement, and had to get further clarification, “who’s dead?”

At last she offered him that final piece of the puzzle, “my employees.”

Shocked further, he moved closer to the bed then, “wait, what employees are dead?”

One last defeated sigh before her answer, “all of them.”