Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Six

 Notes: Oh, the party is getting started now! Yay, on to the chaos! 

**Please note--there are animal injuries in this. They're not real animals, they're magical manifestations, but still. It's going to be a theme for the next few chapters, so please don't read if it bothers you.

Title: Lord of Unkindness, Chapter Thirty-Six

***

Chapter Thirty-Six

 

 Photo by Nikolett Emmert

If there’s one thing about his father that Ciro knows, it’s that nothing keeps him down for long. He pivots from defense to offense almost immediately. “An interesting threat,” Victor says, narrowing his eyes at Angelo. “Almost inspired. I wonder what made you think about removing my ability to feel things. Is it what’s happening to Ciro? The numbness taking him over?”

Ciro startles; he can’t help it. He thought he’d hidden it so well. He’d barely used his magic at all once he got here, and the numbness had bothered him so much less in Angelo’s protective home.

“It’s only going to get worse for him, I’m afraid,” Victor goes on companionably, stretching his long legs out before him. “You might know this already, specialist in familiars that you are, but perhaps it will come as a surprise to you. Witches who have more than one familiar are different in more than just their manifestation of magic. They, like their familiars, have a pack mentality.” He nods toward Nephele. “Why else would I keep this one around, when all she’s done is make my life harder?”

“Uncle?” Nephele says uncertainly, glancing from him to Ciro and back again. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, my dear,” he says in a cloying, simplistic voice, “that my Tower houses so many of us not because I like a single one of you, but because our magic responds uniquely to the presence of our own kind. Ciro cut himself off from his magic while he was gone, and that led to him injuring himself, but pain would have caught up to him eventually no matter what. Our minds, and our magic,” and now he’s looking at Angelo again, his eyes shining, “are simply different from other witches. We need our own kind around, those with the capacity to connect to an entire pack of familiars, to provide us with the mental grounding we need to maintain our sanity.

“My brother Magnus is braindead now, but even his presence is better than nothing. It’s a matter of physiological proximity. Ciro’s mother didn’t lose her mind and decide to kill herself until she’d been isolated for months on end.”

The memory of his mother’s leap, her face barely recognizable beneath the damage she’d done with her nails, comes to his mind too easily. Ciro flinches and shuts his eyes for a moment. He’d been warned away from her, told to leave her alone until she’d calmed down, that she’d only try to hurt him again. She hadn’t meant to the first time, he knew that, but now…

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Angelo asks, calm but with a thread of concern underlying his voice.

Victor shrugs. “It’s provable. I’ve got MRI scans noting the anatomical differences in our brains that I can show you; reams of paperwork from tests done over the decades, if not centuries, to show that our kind are pack animals. The original Pied Piper of Hambly didn’t steal that town’s children simply to teach them a lesson. There was a girl in there like himself, the one who’d bonded with all the rats overwhelming her village in the first place. She was also losing her mind without more like her to stabilize her. He came for her, not the rats. She became his wife, and our lineage descended from them.”

Became his wife. The history sickens Ciro; what a polite way of saying a young woman was forced into a marriage with a violent man for the sake of preserving their sanity.

Angelo pauses, and Ciro can see that he’s thinking about calling Victor’s bluff. Do it. I’ll be fine, I will. Except Angelo’s safehouse had burned to the ground, and whatever healing spells had been laid on the land were undoubtedly gone, but—

“I need to see all the paperwork. You understand that I can’t simply take your word on this.”

Victor smiles. It’s the kind of smile that only shows up when he knows he’s got the edge in a negotiation. “Of course. I’ll have it brought in directly.”

“And we need to discuss the ramifications of this.”

“So we do.” Victor leans forward. “I propose that you move here, to the Tower.” Nephele gasps sharply, and Ciro is already shaking his head.

“Don’t let him do this,” he gets out before one of his father’s dogs bites sharply at his face, teeth leaving a bleeding nip on his cheekbone.

“The next one of your dogs that leaves Ciro in pain is dying,” Angelo says bluntly. Ciro watches as the golden threads press even harder against the barrier between them, trying to cut through and failing.

“Of course, my apologies.” Victor is apologizing to Angelo. He doesn’t even care that his own son is being hurt by his familiars; he’s focused on the perceived power in the room. And he’s not wrong to, precisely, but Ciro feels anger rising up in his chest. Both his birds are flapping their wings madly, but where Angelo raises a gentle hand to the raven on his shoulder, Victor just ignores them. “I’m fine with you continuing your work from here, of course. On the contrary, your expertise puts a shine on our own services that will appeal to a great number of people in power.”

The couch is literally shaking. It takes Ciro a moment to realize that the quivering sensation is coming from the hundreds of rats crushed onto it. He looks at Nephele and sees her flexing her hands, tears rolling down her cheeks as she stares at Victor.

“And you and Ciro would live together—in the family suites. Privacy, but not distance, if you understand me correctly.”

“Uncle, no!” Nephele wails before Angelo can speak a word. “You promised that Ciro would be mine! You gave him to me, he’s mine, not his!” The look she throws Angelo is so venomous that if it could kill, he’d be dead in seconds.

Victor looks at her like she’s dog shit he stepped in. “I need you alive,” he snaps. “I don’t need you here. Go to your father.”

“Uncle—”

“Go, you useless thing!”

And that’s when it happens. Ciro watches it, sees the break from reality in his cousin’s eyes. Her sanity, already on a thin tether thanks to what he did to her father, unravels completely. A sane person wouldn’t do what she does next; they would understand that it’s futile and will hurt them worse than anyone else.

But Nephele isn’t sane. She is enraged.

And her rats respond in kind, leaping from where they’re huddled against the walls and surging forward like a brown, living carpet…

Straight for Victor and Angelo.

The dogs respond in kind, and a second later—

Blood.

Everywhere.

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 Notes: Oof. Just oof. Poor Kieron, is all I've got to say.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 Photo by Pavel Anoshin

 

When Kieron woke, it was to the chill of rain-kissed wind against the skin of his face. He blinked blearily, groaning as the pain from the rocky surface he was lying on seeped into his consciousness. It felt like he had shards of rock lodged under the skin of his back, but when he tried to roll over the sharp pain in his left arm and shoulder stopped him cold. A gentle bump to his stomach, followed by a mechanical purr, was enough to let him know that Blobby was with him, at least.

His surroundings slowly came into focus. It was dark out, and clouds roiled across the sky, spitting rain and droplets of icy hail down on them. The occasional flash of lightning illuminated a strange landscape, and it took Kieron a moment to realize that they were on top of the plateau. The ground was split into vast seams, their tops as little as a foot wide. The one they were on right now was more like five feet, large enough for him, Carlisle, and—

That bastard. The hover chair was no longer hovering, resting firmly on the ground instead, and in its embrace lay the General, seemingly asleep but coughing fitfully despite that. Carlisle was beside him, rigging a tarp over his head to keep the wet off. She seemed to be moving all right, at least. Kieron must have made some sort of noise, because Carlisle looked over at him just as another bolt of lightning struck, this one close enough to make nearby pebbles buzz and clatter. The relief on her face was heartening, though. “You’re awake!” She knotted the end of the tarp so that it stretched flat from the top of the chair to the arm, then came over to Kieron. “Thank the stars. I wasn’t sure if you’d taken more head trauma or not.”

“I think I did,” Kieron mumbled as he tried to sit up. Oh, bad idea, bad idea—he immediately rolled over and retched what little liquid remained in his stomach out onto the ground. Carlisle crouched beside him, supporting his shoulders with firm hands until he was finished, then helped him carefully straighten up. After a moment of uncomfortable roiling, Kieron settled into the position. “Where…ship?” he managed.

“Down there,” Carlisle said, nodding her head stiffly toward the chasm to the left. “I was able to balance it enough to get us all out, but the tunneler knocked it back down pretty quick.”

Fuck. Those things were still around? Carlisle must have read his face, because she nodded. “Yeah, we haven’t shaken them, but they can’t climb all the way up and out without a huge expenditure of energy. I don’t think it’s worth it to them unless they know they’re getting food out of it. But they know we’re here. I’ve heard them moving around down there.”

Well, that was…horrifying. “What else?” he said through gritted teeth.

“I did manage to salvage some supplies,” she said, which was good news. “Food, tarps, a few potable-water straws.” Given all the rain that was falling, drinking through those was a better deal than carrying actual water. They could make almost anything drinkable…for a while, until they got clogged and needed cleaning. “Plus some painkillers.” She smiled at him. “You want some?”

“Fuck yes.”

“I thought so.” She handed over two pills, then pulled out a stim shot. “Where is it worst?”

Kieron dry-swallowed the pills to give himself a moment to think. Layering painkillers wasn’t usually a good idea, especially the ones that came in these old stim shots, but he didn’t have the luxury of being all that worried about his kidneys right now. He considered his body for a moment, shifting this way and that on the ground. “Left arm,” he said finally. “And my head.”

“All right.” She put the tip of the stim shot against the left side of the base of his neck and triggered it. An icy coldness flooded through his veins from the site, and Kieron shivered violently for a moment before…

Bliss. Holy shit. There was nothing quite as delicious as the sudden end of pain. Kieron grinned—he couldn’t even feel his arm anymore.

“Look at you, you lightweight,” Carlisle murmured. “Come on, let me bind that.”

“It doesn’t bother me now.”

“It will in a few hours,” she predicted. “So let me bind it now to make things easier for you later.” She didn’t have to set the bone, thankfully, but still wrapped it firmly in a cut-up tarp, then rigged a sling to keep it close to his chest. “There’s nothing more I can do about the concussion, I’m afraid,” Carlisle said regretfully as she passed Kieron a ration bar. He took it and ate as fast as he could without risking his stomach, then used the straw to drink from the cupped edge of the tarp they were sheltering under. It was amazing how much better he felt now; with Blobby warm in his lap and the gnawing pains of hunger, thirst, and his own brokenness gone, he was almost temped to go back to sleep. It seemed like it had been so long since he’d actually slept…but no.

“We should get going.” If the tunnelers were still tracking them, then they needed to get off the plateau as soon as possible.

“A fine idea,” Carlisle agreed. “You should get started tonight. I salvaged a few emergency lights—they don’t project very far, but they should help you make your way as safely as is realistic. You should go—”

Kieron held up his good hand. “No. We should go.” What was this “you” bullshit?

Carlisle firmed her mouth up as she shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t.”

“Fuck that.”

She pointed to the General. “The hoverchair isn’t working anymore. I won’t be able to bring him along.”

That was a feature as far as Kieron was concerned. “So you leave him here! Or push him down into the canyon!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Kieron was aware that his volume was going up, and not entirely with his consent, but he couldn’t help it. “He’s a mass murderer! He supported the idea of you being raped for disobedience! He just got through trying to kill both of us! He—”

“He’s my father.”

Kieron saw red. “What the hell does that have to do with anything? Since when has the parent-child relationship been anything other than a burden to you and anyone else in this entire fucking colony? You didn’t want anything to do with me!” He was slipping, he knew he was slipping, but he was too loopy to care. “And he clearly has never cared about you except insofar as you obeyed his every order like a good little soldier. He’s a terrible person.”

“I know,” Carlisle said, her voice flat. “I know that. But I can’t do it. He’s…” She shut her eyes. “For a long time, he was all I had. Obedience to him was my…it was my entire life. I can’t just leave him to die alone. I certainly can’t murder him.”

“Then let me do it.” Kieron began to get to his feet, but Carlisle pulled him down again. He glared at her fiercely, but was shocked out of his anger when he saw tears rise up in her eyes.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “You don’t know what it was like being his child. You—I did wrong by you, I admit that. I should have been a better mother, but I tried my best when the chance came to get you free of this awful world. That’s—that’s never been an option for me. This proves it. This whole exercise, everything about you coming back, it’s showed me that I can never be free. The most I can do is try to make sure that you are.” She swiped a hand over her eyes. “I’m not leaving him. That’s not negotiable, either, so don’t ask me again.”

Kieron gritted his teeth so hard he felt his jaw pop. “Then I’ll stay too.”

“You can’t. You need to get off this plateau as soon as you can and set up some sort of signal for your friend.”

“Carlisle—”

“You can’t stay here!” she screamed. “They’re looking for us, don’t you understand? If they find you, you’ll be killed immediately. I can’t watch that, I can’t. You need to escape, right now, while I’m still around to be a distraction for you.”

“I don’t want you to be my distraction,” Kieron yelled right back. “I want you to be my mother!”

“I never will be!”

Her statement echoed between them, and Kieron watched in detached awe as a dozen different emotions crossed her face before she finally turned away and began stuffing supplies into a pack.

Carlisle wasn’t his mother. She didn’t want to be his mother. She would rather stay with a dying murderer than try to escape with him. He was nothing but a burden to her; he’d always been a burden to her. Coming back here was the worst thing he could have done to her.

The results of his selfishness made him want to cry, but Kieron bit it back. Fine. He’d leave.

Getting to his feet was a challenge, but Blobby helped, elongating himself into something like a walking stick for Kieron to hold onto. He stood still as Carlisle looped the bag over his good shoulder, then wrapped a tarp around him. “Go due west,” she said, firmly in control of herself again as she pointed along the rocky ridge. “It’s the quickest way off the plateau. Once you’re down, find a way to contact your friend as soon as possible. Stay away from any structures you might find, and avoid all the transmission wavelengths you’ve used with your little bot so far, they’ll be monitored.” The last thing she did was tuck the stim shot into the top of his sling. “There are two more doses in there,” she said. “Space them out, otherwise you might have a heart attack.”

Kieron nodded dully. They stared at each other for a long moment, then Carlisle nodded. “Be safe.”

He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He did neither, just turned and began to make his way along the crumbling ridge.

Kieron didn’t look back.

 

Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Five

 Notes: Let's get this party started!

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Five

***

Chapter Thirty-Five

 

Photo by Mariola Grobleska

Ciro would give almost anything for the numbness that used to come to readily to him. Ever since he let Angelo take him in, the lack of feeling that was starting to overwhelm him has pulled back. Even when he uses his magic, it’s like having a protective golden blanket covering his body, protecting him from himself. But now, back on the couch and weighed down with rats covering his legs and a Doberman to either side of his torso, Ciro is uncomfortably aware of his own form. He feels every touch—the scritch of claws sinking into his clothes and the thud of stubby tails knocking against his thighs. The only space for his raven is on top of his own head.

Ciro’s sure he looks like an idiot. The important thing, though, is not to look like a victim. If Angelo walks in here and sees Ciro in tears or worse, he won’t react well. If all Ciro can do at this point is keep blood from being shed the moment his father and his lover are in the same room together, then that’s what he’ll do.

The distant power he’s learned to feel through his chest roils in response to his own sense of indignation at being sidelined. It’s here to be used, so use it! The temptation is strong, but Ciro knows he can’t give into it. He’s not as strong as his father; he’s just not. That’s a lesson he’s had beaten into him over and over throughout his childhood, and he’s learned it like second nature by now. His father and Nephele combined…well, that’s so impossible it doesn’t even bear thinking about. No, the best thing he can do is protect Angelo by being an obedient little captive until he figures out his lover’s plan.

Because Angelo has to have a plan. He must. Otherwise he’s walking straight into a trap, and Ciro can’t bear to even think about that. It’s impossible, it’s infuriating.

He’s smarter than that. Angelo will know what to do.

The intercom on Victor’s desk sounds. “He’s coming up,” Richard says.

“Good. Make sure he catches a glimpse of the girl, but don’t engage. If he comes your way, kill her and make your escape.”

“Understood.”

“You can’t kill her,” Ciro insists. “Maria is important to Angelo. If you kill her, he’ll never negotiate with you.”

Victor looks at him with an odd expression Ciro can’t quite understand. “I might have been too hard on you after all,” he says  finally, and Ciro wonders when he slipped into an alternate dimension where his father admits to potential wrongdoing. Even Nephele is taken aback. “I believe in instilling a reasonable amount of humility in those around me, but you take it to lengths that verge on stupidity.

“You’re the mate of a kinnara, my son. I could have that useless girl cut into pieces and tossed along his path, and he would still come to me if it meant getting his hands on you again.”

“But he won’t,” Nephele asserts from where she’s standing in a corner, no fewer than five dogs penning her there so she can’t come back to hunch over Ciro like a vulture. “Because he’s mine, Uncle. Remember, you promised me Ciro would be mine.”

Victor doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at her. Ciro can feel Nephele’s tension rise through her link to her familiars, who are twining around each other and chittering angrily, but not quite biting yet. He focuses on his own familiar instead—the comforting weight, the warmth, the feeling of love and protection—and then realizes that he can feel another bird.

His other bird. The familiar he sent to Angelo is still with him, and they’re both almost here. Ciro lets himself slip into his other bird’s eyes, and he sees the double doors of this office right ahead of them, turns and sees that he’s on Angelo’s shoulder. His lover seems to sense the change, because he turns and looks at Ciro’s familiar. He doesn’t say anything, though; his mouth is in a terse line, and a second later he bends over to set Chiffon on the floor. Ciro has to flap wildly to keep his perch, and not just because Angelo is bending over. He brought Chiffon? What was he thinking? He can’t help it—he pecks Angelo in the middle of his forehead.

“She’ll be fine,” Angelo says in a very measured tone. Then he steps forward and, without knocking, enters the room.

Ciro slips back into his own eyes to look at Angelo. He’s dressed in a suit of embroidered silk, his hair slicked back, gold around his neck and in his ears. He looks distant, powerful, and so beautiful Ciro’s heart aches to see him. The raven on his shoulder suits him somehow, and if Ciro didn’t know better he’d say Angelo was a witch himself.

But he does know better, and now that they’re together again he can see the gold threads emanating from Angelo’s body like waves, curling around and over him. Those threads reach for Ciro the second Angelo walks through the door, and Ciro braces himself for the rush he’ll feel the moment they touch him…

But the touch never comes. Something blocks them from reaching Ciro, a shield extending more than a foot in front of the couch, and it strikes Ciro that his father never does anything without a reason. The things he’s filled this room with, all his objects of power…one of them must be responsible for keeping Angelo’s power from touching him directly right now.

If Angelo realizes that, he doesn’t let on. He doesn’t even look at Ciro, just keeps his eyes on Victor, who sits behind his desk with the smug air of a man aware that he holds all the aces. “Mr. Hambly,” Angelo says evenly.

“Mr. Fabroa.” Victor nods his head. “I see you brought a guest.”

“I could hardly leave Chiffon behind,” Angelo says airily. “She pines without me. Don’t worry, she’s no threat to you.”

“I’m not talking about the dog.”

Angelo tilts his head at the raven, which leans over and preens gently at his hair. Nephele makes a furious noise, and when Angelo smiles at her, he goes from calm to vicious in an instant. “Everything that belongs to my mate belongs equally to me.”

Victor nods slowly. “You admit it, then.”

“Of course I do.”

“Then I hope you came ready to bargain.” Victor extends a hand toward the chair across from him, but Angelo shakes his head.

“I don’t bargain with thieves. I hope you came to this meeting ready to apologize for taking what’s mine.” His voice is cool and controlled, and Ciro’s heart is in his throat. He doesn’t know what kind of game Angelo is playing, but Victor hates being dictated to. “You’re going to relinquish my mate to me and give us your blessing, and a promise of distance from here on out. I also expect the return of my employee.”

“Oh, is that all?” Victor’s tone is mocking. “I think you’ll find that I’m the one holding all the advantage here, Mr. Fabroa. What can you possible do that would compel me to give my son to you for nothing?”

Angelo crosses his arms and looks around the room. “You’ve done a good job here,” he says almost absently. “Some of these artifacts are impressively powerful. You’ve even blocked the manifestation of my bond to Ciro, and you’ve limited the amount of power you and yours can do down to your familiars.”

“Your point?”

Angelo smiles. “My point is, you’ve cut off all spell power. What you didn’t cut off is internal manifestations, and that shows me that you know almost nothing of kinnara magic. You’ve left me my internal power, which is all I need to sing every last drop of emotion out of you.”

Victor looks a little puzzled. “What, you’re threatening to make me into some sort of automaton?”

“Oh no. You’ll stay a man…a man who is unable to feel a single thing, from anger to joy to pain. And before you start thinking that’s a good idea,” Angelo adds, “consider this—with no emotion to drive your actions, and no pain resulting from them, you’ll do…nothing. Nothing at all. You’ll sit there until you die of dehydration, in a puddle of your own filth, utterly unmotivated by anything and everything.

“You’ll lose your empire, and you won’t even notice.”

Victor looks aghast in a way Ciro has never seen before. He could cheer…but from the way the dogs are growling and the rats are seething against his skin, he knows it’s far too soon to take anything for granted.

Especially a win.