Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Four

Notes: Angelo's almost here! Surely there's nothing to do but wait at this point...

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Four

***

Chapter Thirty-Four

 

 

Photo by Nikolett Emmert

The level of pomp and circumstance that goes into preparing for Angelo’s visit is, frankly, excessive even for Victor Hambly.

Ciro, woken up far too early after such a late night, sits on one of the couches in his father’s office and watches as the place is transformed from starkly intimidating into something far more sumptuous and, frankly, far more powerful. In fact, it seems like his father is pulling every expensive artifact in the entire Tower into this one room. His assistants have their hands full finding places for them all, especially given the fact that Victor has what must be his entire pack of familiars crammed into the room as well, and the result in the end is a combination of haphazard luxury and zoophilia.

“What’s the point?” he mutters into his coffee.

Richard smacks the back of his head. “Shut up.” Richard was the one to wake him up this morning, and he accompanied Ciro from his room to Victor’s office. Apparently he’s been given the job of babysitter, and equally obviously he’s not happy about it. His cougar growls and snaps at Ciro’s raven, who hops from the back of the couch to the top of his head. His bird’s feet dig through his hair for purchase, and Ciro winces inside. A coil of golden magic soothes the pain, and he fights the urge to smile.

Angelo is on his way, and Ciro is done lying to himself about how he feels about it. He’s not happy Angelo is going to be walking into this awful place, but he’s confident that the man will at least be able to get himself out again. Victor might be a master manipulator, but Angelo has standing of his own, and magic that will protect him. It’s possible that he’ll come out on top in the confrontation that’s coming. And if he doesn’t…

Ciro presses one hand lightly to his stomach. His nerves feel like butterfly wings beating against his ribcage…or a distant flock of ravens. Given enough time, he can augment Angelo’s magic with his own. He can’t pull them through quickly, but he’s not helpless.

A minute later Nephele bursts through the door, a wave of rats following in her wake. Half of them swarm the couch Ciro is on, crawling across his lap and up his arms, while the others stay with his cousin as she stalks over to Victor.

“Uncle!” she hisses, coming to a halt in front of him and putting her hands on her hips. “Why don’t any of my spells work in this room?”

Wait, what?

Victor sips his coffee. “Interesting. What kind of spell were you attempting?”

“That’s not the point!”

He tilted his head consideringly. “It is if you’ve been under the impression that it’s all right to use magic in my private suites.”

“It’s…I…” Momentarily stymied, Nephele rallies. “Ciro is my fiancé! I just want to know where he is! I’m allowed!”

“You don’t tell me what’s allowed and what’s not,” Victor says coldly. “Don’t forget that. As for the spells…I’ve simply pulled something out of storage that I thought might be useful in this meeting. It gives people access only to their inherent magic, none of the extrapolations that come from it. That means you, and I, and the others of our kind will have our familiars here, but none of the spells we can glean from them. Similarly, Angelo will be limited in what he can do. I expect to learn a great deal about what kinnara are capable of today.”

Ciro forgets the cup in his hand, forgets the rats, forgets everything except the surge of panic he feels for Angelo. He doesn’t know how his father learned what Angelo is, but—

“A what?” Nephele asks with a frown.

“A very special magical creature.” Victor looks over at Ciro and must see the fear inside of him, because he smirks. “He doesn’t hide it as well as he thinks, and a little investigation into the remains of his parents’ home in California confirmed it. A kinnara…and he’s made you into his mate. Just perfect.”

Nephele slams her hand down on the desk. “Ciro is mine! He’s not some random witch’s mate!”

Victor gets to his feet and stares her down. “If you don’t—” They’re arguing, but Ciro doesn’t hear any of it. He’s too busy reaching out to Angelo, trying to communicate with him the way he did yesterday. The golden thread loops around the raven he sent to the other man and then Ciro is there, looking through its eyes. He sees Angelo inside a car, dressed in a formal black barong embroidered with gold thread. He hops onto his knee, sees Angelo look down at him.

“What’s wro—”

A scream of his name pulls him back to the office. In the midst of the argument between Victor and Nephele, Richard has left and returned—and he’s got Maria by the arm.

“Ciro!”

He shoots to his feet, then staggers and falls as Richard’s cougar leaps at him, forcing him down and sitting on his back to keep him from getting up. His raven flutters up near the ceiling, as desperate and confused as he is.

Maria looks awful—bruised, bloodied, and exhausted. And yet—“Are you okay?” she demands as she struggles against Richard’s grip. She glares at his father. “What the hell is wrong with you, treating your son like this? Do you really not care if he hates you?”

“Emotion is cheap,” Victor deigns to reply. “Ciro can feel whatever he likes. I own him, and you as well.”

Maria bares her teeth. “No one owns me.”

“Yet here you are, bound against your will.” He shrugs. “A little witch who doesn’t even have the power to manifest her own familiar is no threat to me. I’d honestly prefer to simplify my life and get rid of you right now, but if Mr. [name] is as sentimental as my son seems to think, you might have some use as a bargaining chip. So.” He looks at Richard. “I want her visible as he comes out of the elevator. He’s already been warned about what will happen to Ciro if he tries anything here, but let’s test his resolve. Stay with her after that, and if I send one of my familiars to you…” Victor looks at Maria again. “Push her over the rail. We’ll see if she’s lucky enough to survive a thirty-story drop.”

“Don’t!” Ciro shouts—tries to, but the cougar’s weight presses him hard into the floor, and her claws are sharp against his skin. “You don’t have to threaten her!”

“I know,” Victor replies. “But I want to.”

“Hey, fuck you, dude,” Maria snaps, her bound hands clenched into fists. “I hope you choke on your own fucking tie, you douchebag!”

Victor’s expression sours. “Get her out of here,” he says, and Richard drags Maria back out the door, kicking and shouting the whole way. Ciro wishes he had half of her fire; this shouldn’t be happening. If he only fought harder, if he only…

The cougar finally gets up and follows Victor out. Ciro scrambles to his feet to follow, but four snarling Dobermans block the door, snapping at his arms and legs and backing him up until he’s on the couch again. Nephele’s rats immediately cover him protectively, as thick as a blanket, and Ciro closes his eyes and struggles to breathe under the press of animal, rank and scrabbling and far too much.

“Your softness for him does you no favors, Nephele.”

“He’s mine!”

Victor snorts. “You’re going to learn some important things here today, my girl. Be mindful that you learn the right lesson.” A phone chimes, and Ciro cracks an eyelid open just in time to see his father smile. “Ah. Our guest of honor is here at last.”

No….

“Let’s find out just how much he values you after all, Ciro.”

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Fifteen, Part Two

 Notes: Nothing. Is. Ever. Easy. For. Kieron!

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

***

Chapter Fifteen, Part Two

 

Photo by Maximilian Jaenicke

Carlisle’s ship was heavy with fuel fumes. It was almost enough to make Kieron’s eyes water, and he was wondered for a moment how Carlisle had managed to spend a full hour in this thing without getting sick before he remembered her EV suit. “Is there another one of those?” he asked.

“No,” she said, taking the helmet off. She winced as she realized why he’d asked. “Shit. I didn’t know it was going to be that strong.” She reopened the back hatch of her ship, and the smell dissipated a bit. It was colder, but that was preferable to marinating in that stench. “I had to refill the tank from the inside of the ship,” she explained as they moved a bit closer to the door. They left the General where he was, still unconscious. “I couldn’t hook it up to the refilling station directly without someone noticing, so I used bottles from the reserve stores instead. It got a little messy.”

Clearly. Kieron bit back the urge to snap at her—what was done was done, and he was lucky she’d waited for him back there. “The skimmer is as good as dead,” he said instead.

“I figured. That’s why I led us in here.” For all the lines of strain in her face, Kieron could see she felt a little proud of herself. “This deep in the canyons, we’re untraceable. The rock has too many minerals in it that interfere with signals of all sorts. Even from above, unless it’s letting off nuclear levels of radiation, it’s not going to be visible.” She nodded at Blobby. “I assume that thing doesn’t really have a nuclear battery in it.”

“It doesn’t.” Kieron wasn’t exactly sure what Blobby ran on, but he was pretty sure of that much.

“Good.” She nodded. “Naturally the canyons are one of the first spots the others will look for us, and even without a functioning tracking device we don’t want to risk being spotted. As soon as the smell has cleared out a bit more, I’ll lift us out of here and we’ll head to a secondary location where we have a better chance of lasting until your other ship makes it down to pick us up.” She patted the ceiling above them. “This one’s good on planet, but it’s not space safe.”

“Ah.” Was now the right time to tell her that they didn’t actually have another ship in orbit? “What about the weather? I thought ships couldn’t get through these storms.”

“There’s a pattern to them that we ought to be able to take advantage of,” she replied, her lips twisting with a bitter smile. “I’d know. This is the third of these meta-seasons I’ve lived through, and I could have gotten a meteorology degree at any Alliance university after all the research I did on them. With a little bit of work, I’ll be able to tell when a lull is coming. You’ll send up your distress signal, and then it’ll be a race to see who gets to us first—your people or mine.”

“His,” Kieron clarified. Carlisle tilted her head in question. “His people, not yours. I think it’s safe to say that they’re not going to take you back at this point.”

Carlisle was silent for a moment. “True,” she said at last. “That’s…true.” She wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s for the best, though.”

He wasn’t sure she really believed that, but he’d take it. “All right. I guess we should—”

Blobby chirped. Kieron stared down at him. “What?” Blobby chirped more urgently, then rolled out of his arms and over to where they’d left the General sitting. He still appeared to be unconscious, and yet one of his arms was stretched out over the control panel. Before Kieron or Blobby could get to him, he jammed his finger down on one of the buttons.

There was a faint “clunk” beneath their feet, and then a new and differently foul scent began to waft through the air. “Did he just empty the sanitation system?” Kieron choked out.

Carlisle was way less sanguine, stalking over to her father in a second. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she shouted in his face. “You know what that’s going to do!”

“Oh, daughter,” the old man wheezed, opening his eyes to gaze at both of them. “I’m…counting on it.”

“What will it do?” Kieron asked. Neither of them answered him, too busy staring each other down to bother. “What will it do?” he repeated, more loudly.

“It’s a fucking target on our backs,” she said, finally looking over at him. “Fuck. We need to get out of here right now.”

“What’s going to target us based on the smell of our…” The answer came to him before he even finished the sentence. “Predators? Reptilians?”

“There’s more than those little lizards hunting people on my planet,” the General said proudly. “These canyons are the home of something far worse. These beasts need good, hard soil to make their tunnels, not the crumbling stuff out on the plains, not the solid rock where my station is built.” He managed to lift his head a bit. “They’re already on the way, no doubt.”

Kieron didn’t remember any animal larger than the reptilians from his childhood, but the look on Carlisle’s face indicated that she was taking this very seriously. “Go move the skimmer,” she snapped. “We need to back out of here right now.”

“Just go up and over,” Kieron said.

“It’s too narrow at the top of the canyon, just do what I say!”

Fucking…fine. He turned around to run back over to the skimmer and move it as far as its low battery would allow, but Kieron didn’t make it more than a few steps out the hatch when the emergency lights on the skimmer suddenly flared as the ground beneath it seemed to punch it. The skimmer flipped up and over, landing on its back. Kieron stared, transfixed, as out from the ground emerged something like…they could have been a dozen black, shining shovels criss-crossing each other like antique scissor blades, except they were far sharper than any shovel he’d ever seen. There was something hungry about the way they sought out the edges of the skimmer’s roof, then crunched down on it like it was no harder to break apart than the shell of a nut.

What…the hell…were those things?

“Kieron!”

“Coming!” He ran back into the ship and Carlisle shut the door behind him, then shoved the General’s chair into the hold, away from the controls.

“Are you insane?” she demanded. “If a borer takes out my ship, we’re all going to die! You won’t be spared!”

“I won’t be made into a bargaining chip with my own damn people,” he spat at her, sweat pouring down his forehead. For all that he looked ill, the General appeared satisfied. “If this is how I die, then at least I die a martyr for the glory of my cause and the—”

Kieron punched him. Hard. The old man’s head snapped back and he fell unconscious. A second later Kieron envied him, because the ship jolted so hard from a hit to the bottom of it that he flew up into the ceiling, barely saving himself from a concussion by blocking with his already damaged arm.

Ow, fuck!

“Hang on to something,” Carlisle yelled as she threw herself into the pilot’s seat. “This is going to get rough!”

 

Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Three

 Notes: The final breath before the storm!

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Thirty-Three

***

Chapter Thirty-Three

 

Photo by BUB graphics

It’s late, but not too late for a family dinner.

Getting out into the world for the first time on his own, Ciro was surprised to find out just how troublesome familiars could be to their witches, especially at mealtimes. Begging for food, leaving hairs or feathers on the table, even nipping their witches as an admonishment to share—it had stunned him to see such bad manners. In Hambly Tower, a familiar who wasn’t completely under the control of their witch, especially during a meal or a meeting, was a familiar who wasn’t long for this world. After all, the Hamblys had more. What did it hurt?

Ciro’d had a lead familiar from his birth all the way up to the age of thirteen. He’d never used them up in his magic, never changed their form in any way. They had been his dearest companion as a child, much dearer than his clingy, angry cousin or the fiancée he saw only twice a year. He’d even named them, much to the disdain of his father.

“They are our own magic, not creatures to be cozened,” he’d snapped when Ciro first told him his raven’s name. “Ridiculous. Get rid of it.”

“Let him keep them,” Ciro’s mother had protested. “It doesn’t hurt anything to have a dedicated familiar.”

“It’s a weakness, and one that could be taken advantage of,” Victor had replied with a vicious light in his eyes. “As you well know.”

Ciro’s mother had just waved a hand dismissively and turned to Ciro, smiling gently at him while one hand gently stroked down his raven’s back. “I think Joy is a lovely name.”

Needless to say, no familiars show up at the dinner table. Even Nephele’s rats are hidden as she, Ciro, and Victor sit down to eat in the formal dining room on Victor’s level. Richard’s there for a moment, silent by the wall, but his cougar is  nowhere to be seen. Ciro compromised by directing his raven to perch on a bust of his great-great-grandfather by the door.

The first course is brought out by a silent member of the staff. Ciro, who hadn’t eaten all day and was close to falling over from hunger, reaches for the salad.

“Ah-ah,” Victor chides him. “Wait for the last member of our family to join us.”

Ciro raises an eyebrow. “You, me, Nephele. What, have you invited some of the extended family to join us?” They had a number of second and third cousins and several great aunts in residence as well, but Ciro almost never saw them. They had fewer than ten familiars apiece, which made them decidedly lower tier in the Hambly hierarchy.

“Your Uncle Magnus, of course.”

Nephele starts. “Daddy is in bed,” she says in a small voice.

“I had him brought to dinner.”

“He needs to rest.”

“That’s all he does no matter what room he’s in now,” Victor says coldly. “This is Cyrus’s welcome-home dinner. You wouldn’t want your father to miss it, would you?”

Nephele bites her crooked lower lip but stays silent. A moment later, Richard escorts Magnus in. He’s in a reclining wheelchair, practically smothered in blankets, and his expression is blank. His eyes are open, but there’s no indication that  he can see anything.

And every inch of his bare skin is the shining brown color of a cockroach.

All the breath leaves Ciro, and he can’t help but stare as his father gets up and comes around to his brother’s side, then flicks one finger against the skin of his…cheek? Carapace? Ciro doesn’t even know anymore.

…orange and white scales on her skin, a fin erupting from her back as she falls into the pool…

“A startling transformation, isn’t it?” his father muses. “Very rare among witches, but far more common with those who have multiple familiars. Our bond with our magic is basic, elemental even. The more walls we strip away from ourselves, the closer to our animal natures we get.” Victor smiles. “Have you ever read Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Ciro?”

“No,” he says through stiff lips.

“A startling level of ignorance. I should have had more education beaten into you. It’s the story of a man who turns into a cockroach, and all the ways in which his family grows to hate and neglect him until he finally dies, alone and unloved.” He looks back at his brother. “It was one of my favorite books when I was younger. I used to visit your uncle in the clinic and read passages to him while he was getting treatments for his scoliosis, just…to entertain him.”

“Just let him go back to bed,” Nephele whines. “Daddy can’t eat solid food anymore, you know that!”

“He can’t do much of anything anymore, thanks to Ciro.”

He didn’t know this was going to be the result of his attack back in Vernon. If he had, Ciro would have tried harder to kill his uncle outright. Magnus, like Nephele, had fought hard for physical independence, and to see him driven so deeply into his own magical nature now that he even looked like a cockroach, it was cruel. Ciro feels the weight of his actions like never before, and it must show on his face, because a moment later Victor nods to Richard, who takes Magnus away again.

“Eat,” Victor orders. Ciro doesn’t feel hungry anymore, despite his body’s needs, and picks his way through three courses and a small slice of sacher torte while his father checks in with Nephele on jobs and prepares them both for meeting with Angelo tomorrow. The thought of seeing Angelo is both warming and warning, and before long Ciro is pushing back his chair.

“I’d like to go to visit Mom’s shrine before I turn in.”

Victor stares down his nose at him, even though Ciro is standing. “I took the shrine down. It was a waste of a room.”

Ciro can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Obviously he knew his parents had never really loved each other, but they’d still been partners for nearly two decades before her death. To destroy a piece of her culture, their family history…

“Her tablet is in the atrium,” Victor goes on with a little smirk. “You can visit it there. I’m sure you’ll be able to find it.”

Of course he will. He knows exactly where it will be…right where she fell over the rail and to her death, thirty-three stories below. Nephele gives him a sympathetic look as he walks away, and Ciro almost returns it before he realizes what he’s doing.

Fuck this! He marches out into the hallway and through the double doors that signal the entrance to his father’s quarters. The rest of this level is mostly office space—half of it empty, bastard, there was no reason to get rid of the shrine—and the very top of the atrium, a square space vaguely illuminated through skylights during the day but as black as night now. Lights set in the floor provide an orange glow as Ciro walks to the far side of the atrium, where sure enough he finds his mother’s funeral tablet actually set within the wall itself, both a hideous mockery of her customs and a testament to his father’s inability to let go.

Ciro gets on his knees before it. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I have no incense, but…” He reaches for his raven and removes one feather, then lights the tip of it on fire. The smoke curls up, blue and scented like ylang ylang, his mother’s favorite top note when it came to perfumes. “There.” He sets it down in the dirt of the flower pot beside the tablet, and a curious sense of comfort fills him.

“I know you’re disappointed that I’m back,” he says quietly. “I’m disappointed in myself.” The air almost tightens around him, like a hug. Ciro isn’t sure if its his magic pretending to be her or a remnant of his mother, but either way he’s got to smile. “I know, I’ll stop. But I promise I won’t be here long.” His raven flaps its wings a few times in agreement. Just as Ciro begins to bow, he sees a rat scurrying toward him out of the corner of his eye. Can he get no privacy whatso-fucking-ever in this damn tower? He turns to shout at Nephele, but—

The rat is there one minute, airborne the next. It lets out a pathetic squeak as it flies over the banister and down, down, down until there’s a distant splash into the fountain below.

Ciro bows and stays down for a long moment. “Thank you, Mom.” He bites his lip before he whispers, “I’ll bring you with me if I can. I love you.” Then he straightens up and presses his fingers to the inscription of her name. “Say hi to Joy for me.”