Lord of Unkindness Ch. 6

 Notes: Ooooh, a  mysterious meeting, and what's that? CHAOS? Excellent!

Title: Lord of Unkindness, Ch. 6

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Chapter Six

 

The ride is, not surprisingly, loud. Maria is chatty and seems to know something about everything they pass. “There’s a Russian family in the apartments over there that does this borscht that literally is the best thing I’ve ever tasted, and I don’t even like beets.” “My cousin’s ex-girlfriend runs an auto shop over on that corner, and he hates that she’s killing it in the street-racing scene.” “You see that big house? The guy who owns it was running a dog-fighting ring in his garage on the weekends. Long story short, Doc broke it up and now my older brother has the sweetest German Shepherd ever.”

“So Doc breaks up dog-fighting rings but doesn’t care about familiar fight clubs?” Ciro asks idly as Maria stops to take a breath.

“He says that since familiars are really just an external expression of an internal magic, it’s more like people beating up on people, so it’s not his place to get in the middle of that,” she replies with the air of someone who’s heard this more than once before. “He doesn’t like to see them, though, so he never goes to events like the one last night.”

“Hmm.” Lucky me. Or not, since this Doc guy had tracked him down anyway. Why? What does he know? What does he really want? Because Ciro wasn’t born yesterday; nobody would go to the trouble of hunting him down and bringing him onto their territory just to thank him. That’s not safe for anyone, least of all him. And yet, he can’t refuse. Maria’s right; she’s got his scent, so to speak. He could use some of his own magic to take it away, but he’s tired after last night, magically and otherwise. He really needs that week in the desert communing with his own power, because…and it’s not like he’s going to do something more drastic to Maria just for being a nosy punk.

That’s why you’re going to fail. Ciro hears his father’s voice in his ear as though the man is right there, breathing over his shoulder. You don’t know how to prioritize. You don’t understand how to maintain your own power.

He understands enough to know that marrying a psychopath so they can have mentally and physically damaged children wouldn’t be maintaining anyone’s power except his father’s. Ciro swallows hard. He’ll do anything to avoid that fate, literally, up to and including kill. But…

It’s just a meeting. Relax. He’ll tell you what he wants, you can tell him—politely—to fuck off, and that’ll be that.

They arrive all too soon outside a warehouse with an office front that has a sign on it reading PETS N’ PALS. It has a picture of an anime-eyed kitten above the words, with its paws perched on the N. It’s cute, and abjectly un-magical.

Maria follows his gaze as they get out of the car. “The front is for the regular veterinary practice,” she says. “He’s got staff for that. He handles the special stuff in the back. C’mon.” She leads the way around the side of the building past beds of blooming Matilija poppies, fuchsia, and hummingbird sage, all of them buzzing with pollinators. There’s a sage plant as tall as he is nestled in amongst the lilacs, and a sagebrush that’s alive with a flock of cheeping chickadees. It’s verdant and healthy in a way Ciro doesn’t expect to see in such an urban environment, and after a moment he calls his raven down to his shoulder so it can bask in the warm, healthy glow the plants seem to exude.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Maria says with a grin. “Doc believes hardcore that your environment impacts your health, and he wants the best for all the animals in his care, so he makes this place as nice as he can. There.” She points to a garage-style door that’s rolled up three-quarters of the way in the back of the warehouse. “Just head right in and Doc will meet you.”

“You’re not coming with me?” That seems suspicious.

Maria pouts. “I asked, but he said it wasn’t my business. Not my business! Like him thanking you for saving me isn’t my business, mierda, but whatever.” She pauses. “Are you scared?”

He kind of is, but he can’t show it. “Bye now.”

She rolls her eyes. “Bye, bird boy.” Then she trips back down the path, leaving Ciro alone a few yards away from a door that doesn’t look like the kind of thing that will bring dark and terrible magic down on him the second he steps through it, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t have any reason to trust. He could leave right now, just keep walking and get a ride somewhere else, hop on a bus and leave this whole stupid town behind…

Or he could see what Doc wants and not torch the few bridges he’s built here quite yet. “Fuck,” he mutters, and his raven fluffs his hair soothingly. Ciro takes his hands out of his pockets, just in case, waits for the roach on the paver ahead of him to scuttle out of the way, then steps forward into the building.

The first thing that strikes him is the animal scent. Not a shitty smell, just—animal. A little musky, a little heavy. It’s a smell that reminds Ciro a little bit of home, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. The main hallway is wide and high, and there are stalls along either side. It’s like stepping into a barn instead of a warehouse. He heads toward the center, where the hallway opens up into a large space that looks like it could double as a less-than-sterile operating theater if necessary, given the horse-lift by the table there.

Despite the smell, Ciro can’t see any animals, but the whole place has a soothing feeling. He finds his shoulders releasing tension he didn’t even clock he was carrying as he takes a few more steps toward the guy facing away from him, wiping down the table. “Excuse me,” he says. “You Doc?”

The figure ahead of him stops wiping and sets the rag aside. He sets both hands on the table for a moment, then slowly turns around and—

A hundred different impressions hit Ciro’s brain all at once. The easiest ones are the purely physical ones—a man, maybe five-foot-eight or nine, with thick black hair with golden highlights and warm brown skin, wearing a loose black cotton tank top, reddish-brown jeans, and bright blue sneakers that look out of place in a barn. He’s got a strangely ageless look to his heart-shaped face, no facial hair, and honey-brown eyes that invite staring. He’s wearing a gold chain around his neck with a what looks like a peacock amulet hanging from it and a rugged watch with a black band on his left wrist. The hair on his arms has the faintest golden gleam to it, and his eyebrows wing high, making him look a little bit surprised to see Ciro.

But he’s not surprised. Doc isn’t surprised because Doc isn’t some random magical do-gooder who wants to thank Ciro for saving his peon. There’s nothing random about this.

“Ciro…we need to talk.”

That’s all Doc has time to say before reality smashes back into Ciro’s brain, shorting out all his observational skills in favor if fight or flight. He immediately sends his bird winging straight at the man, who calmly raises a hand and—

It can’t reach him. Ciro’s magic can’t reach Doc in its familiar form. He’s going to have to do something more elemental.

I’m sorry he thinks before dissolving the bird into a pool of magical energy. Fire, and a spray of sparks flies at the man, who runs toward him through the blazing inferno like it’s nothing.

“Ciro, stop!”

Wind! The whirlwind that kicks up sends sawdust and dirt swirling into a tornado that engulfs the man, but he has an aura of imperturbability that doesn’t let anything through.

Ciro’s heart is about to beat out of his chest. His arms feel like lead and his head is spinning—there’s almost no magic left for him to draw on. What there is, he forms into a dark-matter blade the length of his hand and the breadth of a strand of hair. He lunges forward, aiming for the man’s throat.

He’s blocked, easily. No, no, I can’t…I can’t… He’s panting, blood is pouring from his nose, the man is saying something desperately but Ciro can’t hear him, he can’t hear anything but he knows he can’t be taken now, it will be the end of everything.

So he might as well end everything on his own fucking terms. He turns the blade on himself instead, and—

“No!” A golden feather appears between his face and the blade, which cuts through it…and then dissipates, all energy gone. The heavy feather falls to the ground, and Ciro falls with it. Failed. He’s failed, he’s failed, he’s going to be sent home and they’ll never let him go again, it’s over, it’s—

“No, no,” the man says, pulling Ciro against him as they both go down. He cradles Ciro’s head in his lap and kisses his forehead. “God, I’m so sorry, you must have thought this was an ambush. I swear, I’m not working with your family. I swear, Ciro. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Ciro can’t feel his hands, or his arms, or his feet from the ankles down. He’s out of magic and almost out of consciousness, but he lasts long enough to stare up at the man who caused him to question everything about himself a decade ago. “Please,” he manages to say as his vision goes dark. “Please…please…”

He’s unconscious before he can hear any sort of reply.