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.

 

Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Fourteen

 Notes: We're back! And maybe moving in a positive direction, for once. For now ;)

 Title: Lord of Unkindness, Chapter Fourteen

***

Chapter Fourteen

 

The feeling Ciro gets when he sees Angelo pull up in a plain black pickup sedan that’s seen better days is like when the sensation of being drunk hits you all at once. One second you’re wondering when your buzz is finally going to kick in, and the next you’re swimming in a slightly dizzy sea of pleasure. At least, that’s what drinking does to Ciro, not that he has in a long time. He pushes to his feet when Angelo gets out of the car and sighs with relief when his little bird comes to rest on his shoulder. It’s not enough magic to bring life back into all his limbs, but it warms him up a bit.

“Ciro…” Angelo reaches for him but Ciro shrinks back into the darkness, making Angelo follow him farther down the alley.

“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” he asks as Angelo glares half-heartedly at him.

“Absolutely sure. Are you all right? You look—”

“You need to be positive.”

Angelo looks at him and raises his hands. Golden light dances around them, spreading out like a bubble until they’re encased in its warm glow. It finally dissipates into thousands of sparkling twinkles, leaving Ciro dazzled and dazed in equal measure. “Those will disperse any magical detection that could possibly have followed me,” he says. “I did the spell three times on my way to you. There are no familiars within half a mile, and the only ones I can sense beyond that are a gibbon and two cats. Now come here, damn it.”

Ciro takes one tentative step forward, then another. He reaches out and the second their fingertips touch the drunk feeling is back, only now it’s positively euphoric. He’s too tired to fight the allure of Angelo’s magic, too drained not to let on how much he wants this. He’s too exhausted for anything except joy that Angelo is here, with him, holding him right now. For the first time in months, Ciro lets his defenses down and lays his head on Angelo’s shoulder. It’s a bit of a stretch, he’s got four inches on the shorter man, but Angelo just hums and pulls him in tighter.

“You’re okay,” Angelo murmurs, and Ciro isn’t sure which of them he’s reassuring. The strength with which he holds Ciro is almost enough to bruise. “Thank the gods you’re okay. When I heard what happened at your apartment I wanted to go back in time and beat myself for letting you leave me.”

“Didn’ give you a choi’,” Ciro slurs, his fatigue a fuzzy blanket over his senses.

“And now it’s time for me to turn the tables. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

Ciro wants to believe him. He desperately wants to believe that safety still exists, but after six months of exhausting work only to be discovered and hunted down by his family’s fixer, he just can’t muster that level of faith. He’s empty—of magic, of faith, of family, of friends. He’s got nothing left except a tiny bird and the man holding onto him, and Ciro knows the kind thing to do would be to let Angelo go.

He flinches as his bird pecks his forehead—hard. “Ow.”

“You deserve it for whatever you’re thinking,” Angelo says, but there’s no heat in his voice. There is warmth, though; warmth everywhere, all around them, cocooning them together. It almost feels like being back in bed together, and Ciro tries to say as much.

“It is, but we got to lie down whenever we were in bed together.” Angelo kisses the side of his head. “I feel like lying down would be good for you right now. You need rest, sweetheart. Rest and magic.”

It hurts to pry his head off Angelo’s shoulder, but Ciro does it because this is important. “They’ll find my magic if we stay in the city,” he insists. “They’ll find it, then they’ll find me. I can’t hide well enough from my own family, they—”

“All right, all right,” Angelo soothes. “We’ll leave your magic out of it. For now. But we’re past the point where acupuncture is going to do much for you, and you desperately need healing. Your nerves are screaming and you can’t even hear it, Ciro.”

Well, that’s not a pleasant metaphor. “How?” he asks, because it’s all well and good to put on a strong front but Ciro is so fucking tired, and Angelo is so caring and concerned, and he’s just so tired of turning care away. It was hard to leave him the last time; he’s not sure he could even muster the energy to take a single step backward right now.

“I’ve got a place we can go, okay? It’s protected, way better than a goddamn battery factory. I’ll shield us on the way there, and then we can take some time to figure things out for you, okay?”

That sounded good, except… “Too much for you.” Angelo seems like a never-ending font of magical energy, but no one can keep this sort of pace up forever. “You’ll exhaust yourself.”

Angelo winds his fingers into Ciro’s hair and tilts his head just enough so he can kiss his forehead. “It’s not new magic,” he promises. “This is somewhere I set up a long time ago for healing. You’re not the only one who’s needed extra help along the way, so there’s no need for you to feel any sort of guilt whatsoever.”

He would love for that to be true, but… “The clin’c?”

“Maria’s handling it. And before you ask, no, she doesn’t know where this place is but she can get in touch with me if anything goes wrong.” He kisses him again. “No one is being inconvenienced. No one is being bothered. Dig up your inner rich boy and lean into it for once, all right? You do, in fact, deserve nice things.”

Ciro chuckles and gives up. He gives up and gives in, and when he pulls back to look at Angelo he can tell the moment Angelo realizes it. The other man’s face lights up with a brilliant smile, and his eyes shine with relief. “Okay,” Ciro says. “I’ll go with you.”

“That’s my boy.” He kisses Ciro right beside his ear, which gives Ciro a convenient excuse for the shudder that works its way down his spine that has nothing to do with the touch, and everything to do with the words. “Come on, into the car. Let’s get this show on the road.” Angelo helps Ciro in, going so far as to recline his chair and fasten the seatbelt for him. Ciro loathes being managed, babied, but it’s different when Angelo does it. It’s not like his father, taking a responsibility away from him because he doesn’t trust Ciro to handle it. It’s not like with Nephele, trying to do things for him to lock him in close to her and make him dependent. Angelo’s just doing it because he wants to be nice to Ciro.

He’d thank him, but once his head is down it’s all Ciro can do to keep his eyes open. The hum of the car starting is the final straw; he goes from watching the blurry landscape go by to waking up when the hum abruptly stops. He opens his eyes, painfully; the lids scrape like knives, and his throat is dry enough that he immediately starts coughing.

A water bottle appears in front of him. “Drink, babe,” Angelo encourages, then gets out of the car. Ciro drains half the bottle and pours a little over his eyes as a stopgap measure to making his own moisture again. His bird, now sitting on the dash, squawks at him judgmentally.

“I’m doing my best,” Ciro mutters. The look in the tiny raven’s eyes indicates that it’s really not at all sure of that. “Thanks a lot.” He drinks the rest of the water, then slowly unbuckles himself and gets out of the car. The sedan is parked in front of a small, abandoned-looking building that reads Church of—oh. Um. Wait, what?

He stares at Angelo, who’s pulling bags out of the trunk. “You’re a scientologist?”

Angelo laughs. “No, the sign’s just to keep people from going in. Although we are close to Gilman Hot Springs, but just because I wanted access to the water, not because I want anything to do with the people. You can enter, though, I already unlocked the door.”

Ciro walks dubiously over to the ramshackle building. He turns the handle, opens the door, steps inside…

And blinks. And blinks again.

What the…

Lord of Unkindness Ch. 8

 Notes: A little more alone time, a little hurt/comfort, a little of the gentleness before it all goes FUBAR again...

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter 8

***

Chapter Eight

 

The good thing is, Ciro doesn’t have to move. He’s comfortable in the bed, and his body still aches—where he can feel it, where it isn’t numb to the touch—and it’s nice to settle in and let someone else do the work for once. It feels like Ciro has been on the move forever; he can’t remember the last time he actually let himself relax, really relax rather than exhaust himself into slumber before doing it all over again. And to have Angelo be the one puttering around him, turning the lights up and tilting the head of the bed so Ciro can drink water without spilling it all over himself and generally going out of his way to be nice…that feels extra special.

That’s what makes it so dangerous.

This is temporary. It has to be; no matter what’s going on here, whether Angelo is earnest about helping him or not, Ciro can’t stay for long. Angelo Fabroa is a name of note in the magical world; apart from his insight and care in treating familiars, which is what’s made him famous, he’s literally the only person out there who can treat witches with magic like Ciro’s. Multi-familiar magic, some call it, but those people don’t really understand it.

Familiars are magical pieces of their masters given fleshy forms. Hambly magic is that; so is Jin magic, and Ratatosk magic, Agafonov magic—all families that specialize in having multiple familiars. Ratatosk witches tend to have familiars in pairs; Jins will have between five and ten.

The Hamblys are the only ones out there who can handle hundreds. It both sets them apart and makes them particularly vulnerable to mental breakdowns, especially since they’ve interbred too much over the years in an effort to keep their magical bloodline strong.

Ciro’s father is one of two children from his parents, twin boys: Vincent and Magnus. Not identical, more’s the pity for Magnus. Their parents were second cousins; Magnus was born with a cleft palate and a lazy eye, and developed scoliosis in his early childhood. Vincent, luckier physically, found his bride outside the family, whereas Magnus married one of their second cousins.

Vincent and his wife Cheng Mei had Ciro. Magnus and Vivian had Nephele. Ciro knows he doesn’t have the same raw power as Nephele, but he’s a hell of a lot more sound of mind and body. At least, he was before he took matters into his own hands and forcibly separated himself from his magic.

He misses it. He’s cold without it, cold all the time. It’s worse not having any of his ravens with him, but even one or two isn’t enough to make him feel normal. Shit, can he even remember what normal feels like?

“You’re drifting, honey.”

“Mm.” He knows. It’s easier that way. But now isn’t a time for easy, he’s got to remember that; now is a time for reckoning. He’s fucked himself up. Might as well see what Angelo has to say about it. Angelo, pretty, smiling Angelo, looking all hot while he sets the scene.

Ambiance seems to be a big component of Angelo’s method of magic, whatever-the-hell it really is; Ciro’s not sure. Healing? Kind of. Diagnostic? For sure, but more. Animal powers? Absolutely, but again…he always sets the scene before getting started.

In this case, that means lighting a stick of incense in a jade holder shaped like a dragon that sends a tendril of smoke into the air, passing Ciro a cup of tea to drink that’s so strong it curls his tongue, and a set of acupuncture needles that Ciro’s not looking forward to experiencing. There’s also a—

“Where do you get those?” It’s another golden feather, this one smaller than the one that deflected his blade, small and downy and soft. It glitters in the soft light, and Ciro is struck by the sudden urge to touch it.

“One of the creatures I work with drops them on a regular basis,” Angelo replies as he wafts the feather over Ciro’s body. It twists and turns in an invisible breeze, going flat and fluffing out again for no reason that Ciro can tell. Angelo seems to get something out of it, though, judging by the pensive look on his face. “You’ve got major blockages in almost every meridian. I’m going to do what I can to release them, but it would be a lot easier with your magic active and able to help me.”

Ciro just stares at Angelo, who sighs a moment later. “I figured as much. Let’s see what good old acupuncture can do first.” He gets out his needles, then pauses. “You’ll need to get undressed. Just the shirt for now,” he adds when Ciro doesn’t move. “Please.”

The thought of being bare in front of Angelo, even though it wouldn’t be the first time, makes Ciro feel like his skin is crawling. He’s defenseless right now, with no magic and no weapon on his person. He already knows Angelo could kick his ass without a second thought, but the idea of deliberately removing a, however flimsy, shield between them makes him so nervous his stomach roils uncomfortably.

“Okay, no.” Angelo drops the needles on the bedside table and goes to sit on the bed. After a second thought, he kneels on the floor beside Ciro instead, so that his head is lower down. It’s an artificial sop to Ciro’s comfort, but it helps that he even thought to do it. He crosses his arms on the edge of the bed but doesn’t touch Ciro, another point in his favor. “This is never going to do anything but make things worse if you can’t trust me.”

“I should go, then,” Ciro says, because he doesn’t want to outright tell Angelo he doesn’t trust him after the other man has, genuinely, never been anything but good to him. The risk, though, is just too high.

“What if I swore a magical oath that I won’t do anything to hurt you?”

Ciro blinks in astonishment. That’s… “You can’t do that.”

Angelo smiles. “Why not?”

“Because you can’t possibly know that it won’t backfire on you someday! You—no, that’s not reasonable. You can’t bind yourself that way.”

“I can and will if it means you trusting me enough to at least let me try to help you, Ciro.” Angelo’s smile wavers. “You want to know why I want to do that? Think about it for a second, babe. Think about this from my perspective. A person I care about, deeply, no matter how impossible things are between us thanks to…everything, very dramatically went missing not long after the last time we were together. No one knew where he was or what happened to him. No one knew if he was alive, but his own family was hunting him and threatening everyone over whether they’d seen him or not and basically making assholes of themselves. They went quiet soon enough—it’s never good to advertise your weaknesses to the other families—but everyone knows they’re searching for him.

“And I would never, ever be able to forgive myself if I was the reason you were found,” Angelo finishes, a contented expression on his face despite the ridiculous thing he’s saying. “It would fuck me up forever, so that’s why I’m more than happy to promise you that I won’t be the one to give you up. Because it would wreck me, Ciro.”

“I.” Ciro swallows hard. “I didn’t know you cared that much.”

Angelo shrugs. “I didn’t feel like I should let you know. It would only have made things worse, right? Don’t worry about it,” he adds. “Whatever I feel, or why I feel this way, is nothing you have to bother with. Just—either let me swear an oath, or take your shirt off so I can try to treat you a little better, okay?”

Ciro takes a deep breath, then brushes his fingertips across the top of Angelo’s hand. “Don’t swear anything.” He brings his other hand to the bottom of his t-shirt and began to pull it up. Angelo helps him, and a minute later he’s laid flat again, and tiny, slender needles being pushed just beneath his skin. Some of them, Angelo attaches a tiny, burning white cone onto the tip of the needle, which sends heat down into Ciro’s skin and making the whole front of his body feel warm.

“Are you toasting marshmallows on me?” Ciro asks a bit groggily.

“Moxa, honey, just moxa. Mugwort,” Angelo clarifies. “It enhances the effect of the acupuncture. Let me know if it starts to hurt, okay? You shouldn’t feel any pain.”

I always feel pain. But actually, right now, he almost doesn’t. He feels tired and achy and numb, but the pain itself isn’t prominent. He feels like some old, dusty piece of himself is being picked up off the floor and put back on a shelf, somehow—magically brushed clean. Ciro relaxes and lets himself be…whatever this is, and an indeterminate amount of time later he hears a tap tap tap on the window.

He also feels a tap tap tap in his mind, and smiles as Chiffon starts to bark excitedly.

Huh. Looks like he can trust Angelo after all…at least enough for one bird.

It’s a start.

He opens his eyes just in time to see Angelo pull up the shade and let his raven in through the window. It flies right over to Ciro, and the second they touch he feels ten times better.

“It’s amazing,” Angelo murmurs. “How your meridians respond when you get your magic back.”

“Magical, you might even say,” Ciro replies. Angelo rolls his eyes, but before he can say anything Chiffon goes from an excited bark to furious, leaping toward the door and snarling while pawing viciously at the floor.

“Oh lord, it’s just a damn bug, sweetie,” Angelo calls over, but his dog doesn’t stop. “Well, that’s that moment packed in,” he says, then turns back to Ciro and begins to briskly take the needles out. “Let’s have some dinner and talk, shall we? You’re doing much better now, it seems.”

“I am.” Chiffon is still growling and running back and forth by the door, but whatever it is that caught her his interest seems to have escaped. “I can go…”

“Give me one meal to try and convince you to stay, please,” Angelo says.

It’s a bad idea, but…Ciro’s had a lot of them over the past hour. What’s one more?

“Okay.”