Lucian Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The forged birth record sat in Lucian's coat, useless without a lawyer to file it. He had knocked on six doors since dusk. Each lawyer studied his cold hand, felt no pulse, and refused. No court clerk would open a case for a client who did not breathe. His claim to the estate died in every waiting room. By the seventh night he stopped at a small office where a lamp still burned. A woman worked at the desk inside. She was mortal, warm-cheeked, her long brown hair tied back over a plain white shirt. She was sorting papers into stacks, not a lawyer, but a clerk finishing late. She looked up when he entered. Something in Lucian stopped. He had walked among the living for a century and never felt this. He wanted, absurdly, for her to keep looking at him. "We're closed," she said. Then she saw the sealed document in his hand and softened. "Inheritance?" "Yes. Elena Thornwood?" He read the name from the placard on her desk. "That's me." She waved him to a chair. "Every lawyer here turned you away. Let me guess why." Lucian sat. He set the record on the desk. Then he laid his hand beside it, palm up, and let her decide. She reached out and pressed two fingers to his wrist. Her skin was hot against his. She held them there a long moment, feeling for a beat that never came. She did not pull back. "You're pulseless," she said quietly. "That's why they refused. A birth record can't explain a man who should be dust." She lifted the seal to the lamp and read the registrar's hand. "But this doesn't claim a recent birth. It claims a missing heir. Presumed lost, never declared dead." "The court can argue whether I am him," Lucian said. "That's their fight, not mine." Elena smiled, and it undid him further. "The other lawyers only saw the vampire. They missed the loophole." She pulled a fresh sheet toward her. "A missing person's claim doesn't require proof of a pulse. It requires proof the heir existed and never renounced the estate. Your document does both." She dipped her pen and began to write. Lucian watched her hand move across the page, filing the claim no one else would touch. "There," she said at last. "Filed at dawn, it enters the docket. The current owners will be summoned to answer." She looked up. "They won't give up the house easily. They'll fight you, and they'll dig." "Let them," Lucian said. Elena held out the copy for him to sign. As his cold fingers took the pen, hers brushed his and did not flinch away. His case was alive now. So was something he had thought long dead. But her warning stayed with him. The owners would dig. And a man with no true birth had much that could be dug up.