Lance Gressang

**Lance Gressang** is a drug dealer from New Haven, Connecticut. He was boyfriend of Tara Hutchins. When she is found dead with drugs in her system, Lance is taken into custody as the main suspect of her murder.

## Biography

At some point, Lance met Tara Hutchins and the pair began a romantic relationship. They both picked up arrests and charges over the years for dealing and possession. The pair lived together on the second floor of an apartment on Woodland St., New Haven.

### Drug Dealing

Two years before the events of *Ninth House*, Tara met graduate student Sveta Myers at the forestry school attending a plant sale. The pair got on well and Tara and Lance pair began sell weed to her for a while before partnering with her to grow their product in a small greenhouse. Sveta would tell her colleagues that Tara was her cousin.The trio sold their illicitly-grown weed to university students and people across New Haven.

### Dealing to the Societies

Eventually, Kate Masters of Manuscript approached them with a deal—monetary compensation in exchange for growing Merity in their greenhouse. She warned them that while Merity was medicinal, it was poisonous, in an attempt to warn them off from touching it. To aid them, Manuscript glamoured the small greenhouse they used. Although it took awhile, Tara and Sveta had Merity thriving in the greenhouse. At some point, Lance tried Merity, and felt annoyed when he didn't even get high. Lance would sell Merity to Blake Keely, happily thinking that Lance was cheating Blake out of his money for bad weed.

Figuring out the Merity Keely used had to be grown illicitly, Colin Khatri of Scroll & Key would approach Tara and Lance to grow mushrooms. Because the mushrooms need to be purified in a crucible, Colin gifts Tara a small golden crucible. She hid the crucible with her jewelry making equipment. Tara found success where Colin couldn't, distilling the mushrooms with other unknown ingredients and creating working portal tabs.

When Tara demanded to know why Colin wanted the tabs, Lance was more hesitant, trying to warn Tara to just keep taking the money. However, Tara threatened to stop growing for Colin. Lance could sense that Colin was annoyed he wasn't able to recreate Tara's portal tabs. As a result, Colin revealed the society's secrets to Tara and Lance. He and other Locksmiths frequently brought Lance and Tara to the Scroll & Key tomb, and bolstered by Tara's portal tabs, the pair were able to successfully portal throughout the world. They would realize that without the power of the Scroll and Key tomb, the portal tabs were limited to New Haven. Although their drug operations were doing okay, Lance and Tara were having relationship problems. Although both claimed to love each other, Tara felt some reservations in the weeks before her death. The couple was heard arguing loudly by their neighbors.

### After Tara's Murder

In the winter, one Thursday night, Tara was stabbed to death in front of the Payne Whitney gymnasium. Although innocent, Lance was picked up near the scene that night by the New Haven Police for questioning. He was later arrested and charged with Tara's murder as evidence was piled against him. Lance was found with powerful, unknown hallucinogens in his system, there was some blood evidence linking him to the crime scene, and their neighbors in their apartment reported having heard loud and ugly arguments in the last couple of weeks. At some point, Lance and Tara's apartment on Woodland St. was searched and photographed by the police.

Lance was kept in police custody in jail. However, he was able to sneak in one of Tara's portal tablets. He was able to use the portal tab that Tuesday to get back to his apartment, but there, he ran into Alex Stern. Assuming that she was involved in Tara's murder, he immediately began attacking her, questioning her as to murdered Tara and getting angry when she accused him. When faced with her sudden supernatural strength and still under the effects of the portal tab, Lance began using portal magic against her. Although his hand and leg were hit by a golf club, Lance was winning the fight. Detective Turner intervened, ordering Lance to put his hands up in the air, only for Lance to portal away. Lance portaled back into the jail and checked himself into the infirmary for his busted hand.

The next afternoon, Lance was brought to a meeting room, believing he was being summoned to talk to his lawyer. He instead found himself talking to Alex and Turner. Lance immediately protested to being interrogated without his lawyer, but turned sheepish when Turner mentioned his use of portal magic. Turner informs him that he knows Lance is innocent, at least on Tara's murder, and that the only way he and Alex could help him is if he talked. So when Alex questioned Lance, Lance reluctantly depicted the series of events that led to him, Tara and Sveta Myers dealing to some of the Ancient Eight delegates. At the end of the interrogation, Turner asks Lance why didn't he use the portal tab to escape out of the country. Lance told them that one couldn't portal big distances from anywhere but Scroll and Key's nexus.

After Blake Keely was arrested after he attacked Alex in Il Bastone, the murder charge against Lance was dropped. However, he is still facing charges on dealing and possession due to the 'psychotropics' he and Tara dealt to Scroll and Key and Manuscript.

## Personal Attributes

### Physical Description

Lance was very tall and muscular; he was described as filling the frame of a doorway with his presence. His arms were described as 'covered in ink,' suggesting he had tattoo sleeves.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *Ninth House* Chapter 3 (Winter)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 *Ninth House* Chapter 17 (Winter)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 *Ninth House* Chapter 24 (Winter)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 *Ninth House* Chapter 8 (Winter)
5. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 20 (Winter)
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 *Ninth House* Chapter 22 (Winter)
7. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 27 (Winter)