Lord of Unkindness Ch. 23

 Notes: Happy reunion time! Let me give them this before we start shit again...

Title: Lord of Unkindness Ch. 23

***

Chapter Twenty-Three

 

Ciro isn’t entirely sure how it happens, but a second after Annette says “hi” her arms are around him, wrapping his waist in warmth and a vaguely familiar sense of support that he hasn’t had in…years now. That was what hugging Annette always felt like, to him—like hugging family. She had been his fiancée, but their love was purely platonic, a sweet side-effect of the necessity of their togetherness. They’d been prepared to be friends, to be partners, to be family before his fucking family had messed it all up.

Ciro slowly wraps his arms around her shoulders, looking past her at where Angelo is just getting out of the car. His lover looks tired, but when he sees the two of them together a pleased smile crosses his handsome face. Ciro manages to smile back before he sees his fucking magic alight on Angelo’s shoulder. “Get it!” he shouts, but the damn bird takes off again before Angelo has a chance to do more than turn his head.

Angelo watches the bird fly off and says, “Wait. Was that…”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you let it outside?”

“It was fine very other time I let it outside!”

“Call it back!”

“You think I haven’t tried that already?” Ciro blinks when he realizes his arms are shaking—not because of anything he’s doing, but because Annette, who he’s still holding onto, is giggling helplessly. As she looks up, a warm weight twines itself around Ciro’s ankles before vanishing into the house.

He barely has time to catch sight of the large orange cat before Annette says, “I think it’ll be okay. Your magic knows what it’s doing.” She pulls back and looks at Ciro, really looks at him for a long moment. “Honey, you look like shit.”

Ciro starts to laugh. He can’t help it. Everything that’s happened to him over the past year has been so awful, by and large, and yet here he is: in a safe place, with the man he adores and the woman he thought was dead and gone, and both of them are looking at him like he’s a little crazy.

“What’s so funny?” Angelo asks as he comes up next to them, a Starbucks in one hand and his sunglasses in the other.

“I was just thinking that I clearly have a type,” Ciro says, and that gets a smile out of them. “Annette…” The emotions that surge in the wake of his relief and pleasure are less enjoyable, but he has to get them out. “I’m so fucking sorry. I know I said it before, but I don’t think you really heard it back then.” He picks her hands up and brings them to his mouth, kissing the backs of them. “I’m so, so sorry for what happened to you. For what Nephele did, and for what my family let her do. I should have pushed back against them sooner, I should have done something, I—”

“Oh honey, no.” She pulls her hands free just to wrap him up again, and this time Ciro can’t stop the tears that start to fall. Angelo is easing them inside and closing the door but all Ciro can do it hold on to Annette and try to be there for her as they fall apart together. “It was never your fault,” she says wetly. “I  always knew that. We could have been smarter, I knew Nephele hated me, but my parents didn’t want to risk offending your family by showing any less than our full strength. They wanted me to marry you more than they wanted me to be safe, and…they still don’t know I’m alive.” She shakes her head. “Only Jocelyn and Angelo know, before now. I wanted to tell you eventually, but I couldn’t while you were still with your family, and then you vanished and I feared the worst.”

“They wouldn’t kill me.”

“They’d do so much worse.”

She’s not wrong. They could go on like this for hours, hash out old grievances and commiserate over how truly fucked up their parents are, but Ciro doesn’t have the heart for it right now. Not when the music is playing at a quicker, happier pace because Angelo is back in the house, not when he’s already in the kitchen making coffee and food, not when Annette is here and safe and seems happy enough, even though she’s only got one familiar left, and—

“Shit.”

“What?”

Ciro sighs and recounts the story of how his magic took off this morning as Annette pulls him over to the couch, where her orange cat curls up in her lap once they sit down. Angelo brings coffee over for all of them, and by the end of the tale Angelo is grinning and Annette is swatting him for it, and Ciro feels more like a regular person than he can ever remember.

“Well, I don’t know why your familiar decided to take off,” Annette says, “but we can make this work. It’ll be harder when you don’t have a well of external magic to draw on right in front of you—” she pets her cat, who purrs with satisfaction “—but that’s how I started too.”

“I can go outside and look for it,” Angelo adds. “It might come to me again.”

“I bet it will.” It’s very evident to Ciro that his familiars have a soft spot for Angelo. It’s hardly surprising, seeing as he did too, but being down to a single manifestation of his magic was illuminating in a lot of ways. The way his magic favored Angelo when given the chance, the way it wanted to be around him and on him and with him—that was just what Ciro wanted to do but didn’t have the same excuse for, wasn’t it? He had to act like an independent adult when the more visceral, vital part of himself really just wanted to graft on to Angelo and not let go.

Letting go the first few times had been so fucking hard. Now that he’s let himself have this level of closeness, of intimacy, he isn’t sure he’s going to be able to give it up again.

Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe Ciro is right and we can make this all work out somehow in the end. Oh shit, speaking of things working out…

“Maria came by yesterday,” Ciro says, flushing with exasperation at himself for only now remembering her frantic visit.

Angelo blinks in surprise. “Really? She didn’t call me…what did she want?”

“I don’t know,” Ciro confesses. “I…didn’t actually open the door for her. I didn’t say anything, in fact. I’m sorry, I probably should have, but—”

“No.” Angelo is firm on that. “You did the right thing. She knows she’s supposed to call before coming here.”

“Maybe she tried and couldn’t get through,” Annette suggests.

“Maybe…” Angelo gets up and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll try her now.” He heads for the bedroom and closes it behind him. Ciro keeps watching the door until a gentle touch on his arm brings him out of his reverie.

Annette smiles sympathetically. “We don’t have a lot of time,” she says with a bit of regret. “I can’t stay away from home for long.”

“I’m sorry Angelo dragged you out here just to help me with magic problems,” Ciro says.

“I’m not sorry.” Her grip on him strengthens for a moment before she finally lets go. “Not at all. I’m grateful for the chance to be with you again, Ciro. More than I can say. Now.” She lets go and sits back. “Let’s talk about magic.”

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eleven, Part One

 Notes: We've arrived at base! Time to start fucking some shit up :)

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eleven, Part one

***

Chapter Eleven, Part One

 

It was dark out when they disembarked from the rackety ship after landing. Kieron couldn’t see much—he didn’t have advanced implants and wouldn’t have wanted them if he could have them, since his early training was enough to make him paranoid more than he wanted to be—but he lifted Blobby slightly out of the pack so he could get a recording as they walked across the gritty landing field toward low, flat buildings in the distance that were entirely blacked out except for faint reflective markers along the base of them.

No one had come to meet them, but Kieron knew that didn’t mean they weren’t being watched. On the contrary; if this operation was run by his mother, then they were definitely being watched. Monitored in person, via video surveillance, and probably via low satellite as well. “Three sets of eyes,” he remembered learning as a child. “Always have at least three ways of monitoring your target before you strike.” Good thing they hadn’t carried that lesson into the field, or Elanus and Catie might not have gotten away.

Trapper was the first to disengage from the group once they got to the main building. “I’m gonna go talk to the boss,” he said gruffly, not quite meeting Carlisle’s eye. “Give him an update on the situation.”

Wait. Carlisle isn’t the boss? That was news to Kieron. She certainly acted like the boss.

“Fine,” Carlisle replied, not sounding put-off or surprised by that. Instead, she disregarded Trapper immediately after and looked over at Alissa and Doubles. “You ought to check in with the medic just in case,” she advised Doubles. “The extra color’s mostly gone, but a little Regen would help mend the broken blood vessels faster.”

“Doc’s not gonna give me Regen for a little thing like that,” Doubles said with a sigh.

“He might, we’ve got a bit of a surplus after the last job,” Lis said unexpectedly. “Worth a try.”

“Tell him I authorized it,” Carlisle added.

“Boss won’t like that.”

“The boss can talk to me about it.” Lis took her at her word and shuffled Doubles away as fast as she could, and Carlisle finally turned to Kieron. “So.” She folded her arms over her chest in the dark hallway, as grimy and gritty as the rest of this world. “That leaves you.”

Kieron smiled. “Where’s my cell?”

“You don’t necessarily have to go to a cell.”

Bullshit. “I doubt whoever your boss is would agree with you. Trapper is already reporting me as a hostile to them.”

“If you’re willing to put yourself in my hands, I can put you under personal house arrest. You’ll be confined to my quarters and won’t be able to leave without an escort, but it’s better than being in the cells, trust me.”

He didn’t trust her at all, but that was okay. She clearly didn’t trust him either, and thought keeping a close eye on him was safer than handing him over into someone else’s watch. “Sounds good.”

“You have the hand over the gear, though.”

Kieron pulled his pack a little closer to his chest. “No.”

Carlisle raised an eyebrow. Since it was the eyebrow over her missing eye, the effect was pretty strange, but the intent still came across okay. “You’re going to have to hand it over either way. I can put it into a secure storage locker where no one can get it out except for me, or I can throw it into general supplies. Our quartermaster will have it taken apart and repurpose its battery in under a day if that’s what you want.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck— Blobby wasn’t the same as Catie and Lizzie. At least, not yet. But he was more than just a machine, more than an AI-powered automaton. He was an eager, obedient, bumbling little kid of a bot, and the thought of letting go of him was painful. But if someone tried to disassemble him…Blobby wouldn’t let that happen if it wasn’t Elanus, and that would cause trouble for both of them that Kieron wasn’t ready for. “Fine,” he said at last.

“You can have it until after we get to my place,” Carlisle said graciously, then set off down the corridor, confident that Kieron was following her. And why wouldn’t she be confident, he acknowledged with a silent huff. She’d dug inside of him and hollowed out the things that mattered in record time. Not even Elanus could match her skill at information gathering, not that he’d ever tried to be subtle.

Kieron fell in behind her, dipping one hand inside the bag as he went to tap out a message to Blobby. Morse code…it was such a tedious way of communicating, but Catie had gone through a phase for a few weeks where it was the only way she wanted to talk, and she’d refused to translate. Kieron had learned out of sheer self-defense, and then once he was finally starting to feel confident Catie had decided to speak in binary instead.

He wasn’t even sure Blobby knew Morse code, but it was worth a shot.

Going…to…be…apart. Be…safe. Be…careful. Be…quiet. I’ll…find…you. He wanted to add more, to tell Blobby he didn’t have to be afraid, that he should be sure not to let anyone figure out what he really was, but then Carlisle was opening a door with a palm print and a twist of a key around her neck. The lights flickered on as she walked in, then motioned for Kieron to follow her. “Kitchen,” she said as they entered. “Sitting room. Bedroom. Bathroom.” She pointed to the couch. “You’ll be sleeping there.”

“Homey,” Kieron said dryly as he looked around at the distinct lack of personal touch. The walls were a dirty beige, the floor was the color of mud with no carpet in sight, the furniture was all scarred, repurposed military stock.

“The communication devices are here and here.” She pointed to a spot on the wall by the door, and then toward her bedroom. “They’re set to shock anyone who isn’t me, so I wouldn’t try using them if I were you. The door locks at my touch and can’t be reprogrammed by anyone else, so don’t try. There are no windows, so you won’t be able to climb out, and the ventilation system is too small for you to crawl through.”

“You’ve thought a lot about how I might try to escape from here.”

“I’ve thought a lot about how anyone might try to escape,” Carlisle replied. “Part of my job.” Her comm beeped, and she listened to whatever message was coming through with a frown. “I’ve got a meeting.” Probably with her boss. “I’ll put your things in storage on the way.”

Kieron uneasily handed over his pack. “Be careful with it.”

“I will be. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Of course not.” Mutual distrust in place, Carlisle let herself out again. Kieron was a little surprised by how much the sight of her leaving with Blobby hurt even as he tucked a small, singular piece of the bot into his pocket. Just a sensor…but he might be able to use it to help him find Blobby later on. If he couldn’t, Elanus sure as hell could.

Next up…figuring out how to get the hell out of here. Kieron was under no illusion that he’d be allowed this sort of freedom for long, so he needed to make the most of it.

New release!

 Hi Darlins!

Just an FYI, Paradise is out today! Book Two in my "space dads getting their shit together so they can be a family while the rest of the universe is prepping for war" series is here! Yeah, this is the wedding book, yay!

https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Liminal-Space-Book-Two-ebook/dp/B0DFVH3Y2F

 

Lord of Unkindness Ch. 22

 Notes: Let's introspect a bit more, shall we? Back to action soon!

Title: Lord of Unkindness Ch. 22

***

Chapter Twenty-Two

 

Ciro dreams about magic.

Well, not exactly. He dreams about flying, but flying to him has always represented his magic. When he manifested his first familiar as a child, only seven at the time, his mother had taken one look at the pair of birds on his shoulders as he’d walked proudly into the dining room that morning and come over to him, kneeling down and hugging him around the waist so that she didn’t disrupt his birds.

“Look at you, Le Le,” she’d said, pressing her lips close to his ear as she whispered. “Look at your beautiful magic. You can go anywhere with magic like this, Ciro. Absolutely anywhere.”

“Like your fish, mama?” He’d always loved her koi, such powerful swimmers for all that it was hard for them to get around inside the Tower.

“Yes, Le Le, like my—”

“Mei, for god’s sake, stop coddling him,” his father had snapped, and heavy hands had come down on both their shoulders to pull them apart, scattering Ciro’s birds into the air.

The dream scatters with them, and a moment later he’s looking out of the eyes of his familiar as they fly over a landscape delineated in shades of grey, roads and bridges giving way to trees, then rocky desert. In the center of this barren landscape is a single great tree, its branches bare of leaves but moving with the rustle and preen of a great unkindness of ravens.

Even as he lands among them, Ciro is awed by the sheer breadth of power these birds represent. He flits among them, stopping to touch every now and then, comforted and calmed even though he knows now, without a doubt, that this is the most wishful dream he’s ever had. No one since the Pied Piper of Hamelin has had so many familiars, and the way bloodlines are diminishing it’s not likely that anyone else ever will. He certainly won’t be contributing to that mess.

Nephele had been congratulated by his father for manifesting the beady-eyed, swarming little bastards she called her “squad”—big, fat rats that harkened back to the originator of their family name. His father liked it, both for its nod to tradition and because the rats weren’t as intimidating as his dogs. It had taken Ciro a long time to understand just how much of his father’s worth was tied up in his manifestations, the way they looked and behaved, how menacing they could be. Dogs were fierce, predatory; dogs were something he could take out in the street without getting stares. But birds?

“Strange. Somewhat cowardly. But useful,” he’d concluded after testing young Ciro’s abilities. Ciro still remembered how it felt to have his father grip one of his familiars in his hand while pulling its feathers out with the other, watching how they turned to smoke and returned to Ciro before touching the floor. It had hurt, even though the magic had come back to him. Hurting his familiars was as good as hurting him.

Now, though, managing that pain is second nature. Normal witches, with their single familiar, they have barriers between them to prevent spillover, but people like the Hamblys leave those connections wide open to help them manage their magical creatures, to guide them and guard them. And, occasionally, lose them.

No wonder Annette screamed so loud when hers were killed.

Unable to confront his own memories any longer, Ciro takes off from the tree and flies up into the sky. The rest of the flock goes with him, spiraling up into the air on a thermal like a group of vultures instead of what they are. There are so many of them that, when Ciro looks down at the ground, it’s nearly blotted out with black bodies, all of them swirling upward, higher and higher, delighting in flying with him. His own magic surrounds him, strengthens him, and Ciro caws with joy as he flies straight toward the sun, heat shimmering on his feathers and lifting him ever higher. It’s pure bliss, and when he finally wakes up, he’s got a smile on his face and grit in the corners of his eyes.

And his stomach is rumbling like a rockslide.

7:45 in the morning. Holy shit, he’d slept most of the day and night away since Angelo left. No wonder he’s so hungry. He reaches blearily for his phone and checks to see if he’s missed any messages. There’s only one, sent last night at 9.

See you tomorrow, babe. Nice and vague, but there was a limit to how specific Angelo could be under the circumstances. He must have been successful, must have found Annette and got her to agree to come back.

Shit. Ciro might as well eat before he wasn’t capable of keeping anything down anymore.

He got to his feet and his raven immediately flew to his shoulder. The bird felt weighty, solid in a way he hadn’t felt for some time. It was big, too—almost big enough to make two ravens. “That must mean we’re feeling better, huh?” Ciro says idly to his magic as he heads for the kitchen. Angelo stocked the fridge with all sorts of things, colorful and flavorful and healthy. It’s funny how decadent it feels to make a thick slice of toast, cover it with mashed avocado, and throw an egg on top. A few scallions and sliced tomatoes later, it and the coffee are ready.

Ciro eats slowly, savoring each bite he takes as he heads out to the little garden space at the back of the house. He opens the door and steps out into the cool morning air, breathes in the fresh, clean scent of plants and water—not so much fragrance with the blossoms shy in the darkness, but it’s still wonderfully relaxing. His raven flies over to the wall that separates their little slice of safety from the rest of the world, and Ciro thinks nothing of it. It’s fine, everything is fine, and then—

The raven flies off.

“Wha—” Ciro chokes on his last bite of toast and ends up coughing most of it into a hydrangea bush. He washes the crumbs down with coffee even as he reaches out for his magic.

Get back here!

There’s no response. He can—he can still feel it, it’s not like his magic is gone, perse. It feels like it does when it flies across a room without him, or when it’s working in another part of the city, but this is different. He doesn’t have any of the rest of his birds with him right now, and familiars are independent enough to be tricky on the best of days.

Ciro’s magic has just abandoned him, flown off into the morning sky, and he has no idea why. He does know it’s not safe out there, though. He tries again to command it back to his side, but he can’t because he has no magic to make the idiot bird listen to him. Shit, shit, shit… He runs back inside, dumps his mug into the sink, sprints to the front door, flings it open, and—

A familiar woman with curly red hair wearing a pale blue sundress is just pushing a pair of sunglasses up on top of her head. Ciro freezes, his breath solid in his lungs. Oh my god.

“Ciro.” Annette smiles tentatively. “Hi.”