Lord of Unkindness Ch. 21

 Notes: Time for a personal reckoning. Sorry, Ciro, I don't make the rules (well, I do, but...)

Title: Lord of Unkindness Ch. 21

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Chapter Twenty-One

 

Angelo leaves the next morning after a night spent clinging to each other, and Ciro can tell that it takes everything Angelo has not to lecture him about being careful or staying inside or remembering to eat while he’s gone. Like Ciro hasn’t been successfully living on his own for months now…although, fine, “successfully” might be overselling it, but he hadn’t starved and there was a roof over his head. A dank, dirty, mildewed roof, but…

Come to think of it, Angelo was doing a better job leaving Ciro without oversight than Ciro himself would probably be able to reciprocate under the circumstances. He lets his lover know he appreciates him with a long kiss and a longer hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Maybe tonight, if I can convince her to pack quickly.”

“Don’t push Annette when it comes to packing,” Ciro advises. “She likes everything to be just so.” Or at least, she had. They’d once spent an entire afternoon together in her room, unsupervised. Ciro had thought they might get into making out, but instead Annette had showed him her system for packing a suitcase while making sure no cats weaseled their way into it. She was meticulous that way, like her familiars were—every curl twirled just right, whiskers washed until they were pristine.

Angelo smiles. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

You always are. Ciro can’t quite bring himself to say it, but he gives Angelo another hug, then shoos him toward the door. He leaves with a long backward glance, and Ciro watches out the window in the front as he gets into his sedan, then vanishes down the dirt road. Ciro is alone, just himself, his magic, and the power in this place for company.

It’s as good a time as any to see if he can figure some of this stuff out on his own, so he doesn’t frustrate the hell out of his ex-fiancee when she gets here.

Ciro makes a cup of tea—a strong black tea, but it’s got to be more calming than coffee, right?—and sits down on the rag rug in front of the couch. The music is back, chiming and plinking and generally blending into the ambiance of the place so well that Ciro might not even notice it if he wasn’t consciously trying to hear it. It’s way more calming than the tea, and he sets the cup aside and focuses on his own magic. His familiar helpfully flies down to the floor and settles in front of him, ruffling its feathers a bit as it gets ready for a nice preen.

Magical theory has never been Ciro’s strong suit. It didn’t have to be; he was powerful enough to make the things he wanted to happen without having to get too deep into the science of it all. It was one of the few places where he could actually tell his father took pride in him; Victor didn’t care to be challenged by his son in any way, but he appreciated that Ciro could do many magical tasks almost as well as he’d been able to at the same age. His father hadn’t brought him into the business side of things at all. Ciro had been made for two reasons: Victor needed an heir, and he wanted a loyal soldier who was capable of getting things done.

And now he has neither. Ciro smirks silently as he imagines how frustrated his father must be having to give Nephele delicate tasks like long-term surveillance and hacking. She’s a swarmer, a stormer, a hurricane made flesh. She’s never been good at the detailed work…which is probably why it was Magnus who found Ciro in the end. And then found his end as well, with a bird through the brain. Ciro wonders, with a pang of unwelcome guilt, if his uncle survived.

Focus, damn it. Actually, this is as good a place to consider magical theory as any. Ciro knows his familiars are physical expressions of his magic, beings who are capable of acting on their own in ways that are suited to their physical forms, but also capable of being used for raw power. Dissolving one of his familiars gives him a well of that raw power to draw on and turn into a spell of intention. That’s where things get tricky—Ciro has to be able to visualize exactly what he wants the power to do in order for it to make anything happen. Otherwise it simply reforms into a familiar.

It took a long time for him to learn how to wield it without the comforting form of a familiar as a conduit, and he still prefers to use magic one feather at a time, so to speak. But he can use that raw magic, once it’s there.

Good. Fine. So what happens when he can’t draw it directly from a familiar? What happens when he needs to fins another way to access it? Ideally, he’d do some experimenting right now, but Ciro’s down to one familiar. Just one. He’s not going to risk calling any more of the flock here, he’s not—he just can’t do it. It would put everything at risk. But he also doesn’t want to risk the single familiar he does have. So that leaves him with…shit, doing a bunch of nothing because he’s a coward sounds about right.

Ciro’s about to tip over into vicious self-recrimination when a distraction comes in the form of a knock on the door. He jostles the teacup as he reflexively leans forward, hunkering down just in case someone is looking in through the front window. No one should be, of course, and even if they do he’s pretty sure they won’t see this oasis of calm, but—

“Boss! Hey, boss, are you in there?”

Holy shit, that’s Maria. What’s she doing here?

“Boss! C’mon, Angelo, I need to talk to you!”

Ciro’s on his feet and crossing the floor on autopilot. It’s only once his hand is an inch away from the doorknob that he stops and actually considers what he’s about to do.

Angelo told him not to open this door. He mentioned it several times, in fact. Emphatically. Not for anyone, because no one else had any business being here. He didn’t call out Maria by name, and if anyone made sense as a visitor it was her, but again…Angelo hadn’t said she was an exception to the rule. Also, Angelo has a phone, so why has she driven all the way out here?

“Dude, come on, open up!”

He probably forgot to charge the battery. It was a reasonable explanation, one that Ciro could check if he wanted to when Angelo came back. In the meantime, though…despite the desperation in the young woman’s voice, despite how he truly wanted to open the door to her and see if he could help her, Ciro backs away instead.

“Angelo! I need your help!”

He goes to the bedroom and quietly closes the door behind him as soon as his familiar has flown inside.

“Angelo, please!” Her cry for help is muted now, but not muted enough. Ciro gets into bed and pulls the covers over his head like a child, and his raven perches on the backboard and caws gently, almost a croon, in time with the music. The music becomes louder, chiming and drumming and gentle strings enough to drown out the last remnants of Maria’s cry for help, and Ciro does the last thing he expected to do while Angelo was gone.

He falls asleep.