Chapter Text
The night is moonless when James Bond reappears on English soil, a dark, anonymous shape on the edge of the Thames. Blood has dried into black crescent moons beneath his fingernails.
Grief always makes the Hunter more dangerous.
“This is what you have,” M tells him, preparing to ship him off. She gestures to a modest arsenal of slender stakes and cunning explosives primed with silver shrapnel and accelerant. The Quartermaster sensed his time was running short, but he did not leave Bond empty-handed.
“Until we find a new Quartermaster, you’ll have to make do."
And Bond did. He always did.
Midnight has come and gone when Bond reaches the dock. A damned soul on Charon’s ferry, the outboard motor only hums as Bond steers the boat, low speed, along the Thames, through a maw of arching stone. It swallows him into its black gullet.
Bond moors the boat by feel and the smooth workings of muscle memory. Calm water laps at the stairwell, and he feels rather akin to the bats nestled high up in the shadows here, sensing his way by the echolocation of the current. The rusted façade of the access door flecks beneath his fingertips. He makes short work of the complicated lock that jams it from outside intrusion.
The Six bunker stands in perpetuity, unchanged. Exposed raw stone stretches for miles, these bleak tunnels the dark intestines of London, where The Six headquarters sits in its low, secret belly. No windows to the outside world give it presumption toward day or night, but further in, electrical wires bolted to the ceiling hum their bright, modern song and orange bulbs overhead light the way. The buzz carries through mazes of ancient tunnels carved out long before such a concept was invented.
The distinction between the past and the present, between beginnings and endings—they’re all flimsy and thin here.
Statues of their ancient namesakes stand watch, pensive sentinels of the main corridor. Three to each side, they have been sheltered from centuries of weather, pollution, and war. Their empty eyes watch Bond as he passes: The Mother. The Guardian. The Prophetess. The Statesman. The Quartermaster. His namesake, The Hunter, glares more peculiarly than the other carvings. Bond has never been able to name the emotion in the statue’s face, but his Quartermaster held a preoccupied love for all the senseless lore of Old, and he had called it conflict.
Memorial offerings and flowers sit at the Quartermaster’s stone feet. Bond avoids inspecting them too closely and quickens his pace.
Habit takes him to the workshop. There is no white-haired eccentric to hand off his equipment to, nor is there very much equipment to hand back in the first place. He goes regardless, ignoring the grief that clings to him like so many soft cobwebs.
The water pools here, running alongside Bond’s footsteps in trenches, where it spills into a long basin that surrounds the workshop floor, glossy and dark, reflecting all the bright neon lights of the station.
The familiar sound of tinkering issues from the lair. Senseless hope punches Bond’s stomach. He half-expects to round the corner and find the old man grinning at him, eager to gesture him over to showcase his latest mad invention— impossible.
What he finds is just the opposite: a slight, young figure leans over the table, methodically swaging bullets with a reloading press. He concentrates on his work, eyes downcast, a crown of dark, abundant hair hiding his face from view.
Bond’s heart kicks into his stomach, sick and sour.
“Welcome back, Hunter,” says the pleasant, faceless voice, as if they have known each other for years. “We weren’t expecting you so soon.”
“I was about to say the same.” The tension in Bond’s voice scrapes, a noose of resentment pulled taut around his throat. He scowls as his late Quartermaster’s belongings are appropriated.
Instinctively, Bond does not like him. “Where did she find you, then? Primary school for the occult?”
The boy sniffs, amused. “Given the company I kept at Cambridge, you might not be entirely off the mark.”
“Cambridge,” Bond echoes, not impressed by scholarly achievements. “They have undergrad internships for secret societies now, do they?”
“Postgrad, actually,” the boy corrects, with a jerk of the press lever. “Exactly what schooling did you have that qualified you to be here?”
“Let’s call it world experience.”
“Dark world,” the boy remarks, as Bond rolls a belt of unused stakes across the armory table. He gets only a look at the stranger’s soft profile, with slender and pale features obscured behind machinery. “M mentioned you would be difficult, you know. Seemed rather sure of it. As I understand it, there is a necessary bond between Hunter and Quartermaster," he hesitates, rolling his words delicately on his tongue, “You have my condolences that you’ve lost yours.”
Bond says nothing, lets the silence mount between them, until the placid pool of water stretching out around the workstation seems louder than either of them.
Finally, the boy breaks the silence, tries for something more conversational and chooses the mission instead of sentiment.
“And the coven in Toulouse?”
“Dead,” Bond says, without inflection, “and yours?”
The metallic tinkering of casings falls silent.
“Pardon?”
Beneath his jacket, Bond’s fingers coil around the Walther, the deadly barrel aimed behind the veil of fabric. The Hunter searches his instincts. They do not second-guess. His finger twitches toward the trigger. The shot rings, echoes through the cavernous space and off the water’s surface, deafening. The so-called Quartermaster becomes a blur which jumps no less than 12 feet and lands like a spider among the stone archways overhead, skittering as Bond pulls the gun free are fires up into the shadowy ceiling, six shots.
Sparks rain. Lights sway. The vampire bounds from one wall to the next, but Bond’s aim is all instinct and experience, and he catches the tick in the shoulder. The boy lets out a pitched yelp, like a kicked animal. He flails, mid-air, grabbing the set of black wires to keep himself up—but the screws rend free of the stone, and the support system groans like a falling titan, collapsing, lights and all, into a crashing, strobing splash into the water below.
The vampire barely jumps free of the catastrophe before he can be electrocuted. Pity, Bond thinks, and takes aim again. Wounded, the vampire will be less trouble now.
A gun cocks in the doorway.
“Drop it, or so help me, I’ll shoot you myself,” M says. The pistol in the old woman’s hand does not waver. Center-mass, safety off. The threat is not dissipated by her arriving in a bathrobe whiter than her hair, with slippers that soak up the damp from the stone floors.
“You’re a sorry shot,” Bond growls.
“At this distance? Try me.”
The hard lines at the edges of her eyes and mouth betray no bluff whatsoever.
That thing on the ceiling moves. Bond’s muscles ripple with tension as it skitters about—all weightless ease and grotesque elegance.
In the water, fallen electrical wires crackle and spark. The lights strobe like the last beats of a heaving, frantic pulse. The bunker has become an organism of its own. Its lungs hiss and sputter and sigh as the backup generator struggles to kick to life. Shadow and light war for their right to fill the space.
If the lights go out, Bond knows, they will be plunged into darkness with its most well-adapted predator. That same predator peers down at him from the bend of shadowy arches overhead, a gothic gargoyle in a hideous jumper. Bond seethes.
A flicker of light flashes in the vampire’s glimmering eyes. Bond is sure he sees amusement there.
The hunter bares his teeth in a snarl and corrects his aim.
“I’m not letting that thing run wild in here—”
“That thing outranks you,” M interrupts. “I’m counting to three, but believe me, you won’t like it if I get to two. One—”
Bond’s heart pounds. His hands sweat. The breath of the next number is on M’s lips.
The Walther clatters to the floor.
Even with Bond disarmed, the vampire keeps to his roost high above the ground.
“You’ve lost your mind,” he accuses, his fury turning on M now. She does not take so much as a backstep. She stands as rigid as the Mother statue itself.
“Your appalling prejudices aside, Bond, you’re acting far above your clearance. Alliances have always been a part of The Six’s history, even alliances you might find unsavory—”
“Unsavory. Funny way to pronounce treasonous,” Bond accuses. “You took the vote without me because you knew I would oppose.”
“Oh, spare yourself the embarrassment, Bond. We took the vote without you because it’s a majority vote, and yours didn’t matter,” she surmises, in her brusque, no-nonsense way that makes Bond’s anger rile like a caged animal.
Bond’s world is made of hierarchies. There are humans. There are animals. There are insects, all the teeming filth that crawls in the ground and eats off the dead. And then there are vampires, somewhere beneath that, monsters with human faces that eat off the living instead.
The generator finds its stride. The remaining lights in the workshop remain on, the computers whirr and flicker as they reboot. A tentative peace settles everywhere except Bond’s chest.
“Come down, Q.”
The tension in Bond’s shoulders stiffens. “Already ‘Q,’ is he?” he asks, through gritted teeth, as if the vampire’s keen hearing will not pick up on the words, but M only ignores him.
The vampire tries and fails to hide a stumble as he drops back to the ground, feet soundless on the stone. The silver is still weakening him, and he cradles his shoulder in one hand; if his fingers could get paler, the white-knuckled tension in his grip would be visible.
For the first time, Bond gets a good look at him: a face deceptively sculpted from youthful charm and innocence, and delicate skin so flawless, it resembles marble. Those clever eyes, nephrite jade in shade, watch Bond distrustfully and hide their pain well. The boy is unquestionably beautiful. They usually are—and in its own way, it repulses Bond as much as it attracts him.
“Bond, this is your new Quartermaster,” M says, more like a demand than an introduction. “The Six have agreed.”
“The four, actually,” Bond points out.
“Five,” she corrects, sharply, glaring at him, the way she does before she prepares to bury the knife. “Boothroyd recommended him.”
How is that possible? Bond turns a look to the vampire, searching him, wondering how his previous Quartermaster might have endorsed the next. A vampire, of all things.
While Bond tries making sense of it, M turns to leave, offering no elaboration. She cuts off Bond’s attempt to storm after her. “You aren’t done debriefing, Bond. Quartermaster, have that shoulder looked at. If I’m woken up again, I’ll stake the both of you.” Her slippers plip-plop against the stone. Bond does not understand how she makes that ridiculous sound turn into something menacing.
Vampire and hunter regard each other as they are returned to the silence of the ruined workshop, but Bond is no chastened schoolboy.
“Well now,” Bond says, palms open and his dangerous smile on, his gun on the floor too far away to be of use, “here’s your chance, tick.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” the Quartermaster asks. “An ideal opportunity to make use of that stake hidden in your boot. Or perhaps the silver knife still strapped in the holster beneath your jacket.”
Bond’s face is carefully neutral as they regard each other, distrustful. Finally, the boy puts his back to Bond. It’s a brave move, maybe even foolish, as he goes to survey the damage to the workshop. Bond follows with footsteps quieter than the dead.
“I’m not going to harm you, Hunter, or anyone for that matter. I’m simply here to do a job, the same as you.”
“And I’m meant to take your word on that,” Bond scoffs.
“Not mine, no.” The Quartermaster frowns as he takes in the scaffolding jutting up from the basin of water, like the ruins of some bygone civilization. The wires stretch like black snakes across its surface. The water has gone deceptively still again, giving no indication of the danger lurking therein. Rather like the slight frame of the vampire himself, full of untold power and danger. “He would be angry with you, you know, if he saw what a mess you made of his workshop. Not that his anger ever lasted long.” Bond does not want to know. He wants to make no allowance for the creature, but he is told regardless. “He was my mentor, you know.” The betrayed surprise must show on Bond’s face, because the Quartermaster adds, “Two years. He was very private about it. Only M knew.”
Bond cannot make sense of it. For two years, Boothroyd kept the acquaintance of a vampire? Not just an acquaintance, but a familiarity? A relationship? Did they talk shop and experiment and do mad science together, all while the Quartermaster sent Bond out to kill the tick’s kin? How could any of that be?
More importantly, how could he have been so blind to it happening right under his nose?
Bond’s suspicious thoughts quickly find and spit out an accusation: “Two years. Enough time to weaken him slowly, little by little, until he finally succumbed to it. And now here you are, taking his place in our ranks, with his stamp of approval. That’s not even a long-con as far as vampires are concerned.”
Dull, unimpressed disappointment dims those beautiful eyes as Q turns to stare at Bond. “He was 86,” the vampire observers flatly.
The cold opinion in Bond's gaze does not even sweat, ice-cold and sure of itself. The softness in the boy's features finally flashes to a sharp, bitter anger. "Bastard," he whispers. Those eyes scrub Bond over, as if peeling at skin, getting down deeper, into the blood and the bone. “You really are damaged, aren’t you? Do all Hunters end up this way, or is it just you?”
The space between them narrows, Bond surging toward the vampire, who paradoxically steps back, like the cornered prey animal he certainly is not.
“I trusted one of your kind once. In this profession, you don’t have the luxury of repeating mistakes.”
“And that’s what you think I am,” Q says. “A mistake. A misjudgment.”
“I don’t think it, I know it.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Don’t I?” Bond asks lowly, and draws his knife from the holster. The vampire takes a half-step back, mistrust flashing in those eyes. Bond does not lunge at him or make pretense to throw the weapon. Bond knows too much, knows more than this monster in a man's clothing would ever presume.
The vampire groans, soft and mortified, as the realization hits him.
Bond has drawn the blade across his own palm.