darker_london | Badness (Peter, Abby, Rolf, Lucian)

Peter half-listened as they explained what poison he and his family had had inflicted upon them, but the name escaped his mind the second it was said. It wasn't something he had heard before and then Lucian had gone on to explain that it wasn't a substance, it was a mixture of substances. This was the reason it had taken so long to pinpoint exactly what it was. For some reason, that got Peter's intention. "You mean...someone had to mix it up?"

Lucian nodded, leaning against Peter's desk so he could rest. Peter himself turned to Abby and he glowered. She responded with a sympathetic look which didn't much abate his horror. "It was in powdered form, we believe it was crushed from a pill and added to your food, though I can't wager a guess as to when."

"Who the fuck cares when?!" Peter threw his arms up in the air and then he leaned back in his chair to try to relax. The chair creaked slightly with the motion, the springs bouncing Peter up and down in the air. "What would have been in his...pill thing!?"

"It's called Veninum Lupinum. It's a mixture of caustic lime, arsenic, shards of glass-"

"Shards of...fucking hell!" Peter hissed, leaning up in his chair again because bouncing could not properly convey his shock.

"It's a mixture detailed in the book Neopoliani Magioe Naturalis. I remember my mother speaking about it-"

"The Templar are students of said tome," a wizened voice sounded from behind Lucian. Peter didn't have to look to recognise the speaker. It was Rolf, who would certainly know after nearly three centuries of fighting the Templar. "They have often used it in their more underhanded actions. The ones they don't want you to know about. Regicide, for example. Or attempted regicide. It was much less reliable than the burning of a heretic. Especially with annointed leaders who are expecting danger to come from every direction. If the Templar had their way, Henry the eighth's protestant daughter Elizabeth would have eaten the very concoction you happened to ingest. And it was probably simply by luck and vigilance that she did not."

Peter stared warily at Rolf and then he swallowed roughly. He had assumed they were done with him. "So you're telling me the Templar tried to kill my family because of me?" Peter knew it couldn't really have been meant for him. They would know poison wouldn't end him, not that it had been pleasant at all even if it was true. And without Rolf's unsolicited action making him immortal once again, it wouldn't have been true at all.

"I'm saying it's possible," Rolf said, nodding as he stepped more fully into Peter's office.

"Why!?" Peter's voice squeaked as he expressed his confusion. "Why would anyone want to...I don't understand."

"I'll look into it, Peter." Rolf extended a hand and he patted Peter on his shoulder. "I'll let you know what I find."

"Thank you." Peter slumped in his chair again, his hands over his face. If the Templar were a threat again, it was definitely something to take very seriously. One threat, in the shape of Patrick Ravensdale, abated. And yet another one resurfacing.

Peter wondered if it would ever end.