Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Twenty-Seven

 Notes: Oooh, we're not playing around now. Things are about to get very messy for Ciro.

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Twenty-Seven

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Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

 

Photo by Madelynn Woods

He comes back to himself in fits, his hearing resurfacing before anything else. Stupid, so stupid, I should have set up guardrails. Ciro knows how to defensively disengage from his magic; it’s almost an unconscious reaction to potential threats for him at this point. He was so flustered and so worried about Annette that he didn’t even think of it, though. Jesus Christ, Annette, what is she—

“—take to leave us alone?” That’s her, teary and fragile. Ciro vaguely registers arms around his body. Annette is holding him close, protective.

“More than you’ve got,” Nephele says in Maria’s voice. Everything about her is grating like this; Ciro can’t believe he didn’t realize the switch immediately. Then again, what could he have done even if he had? She had Annette at gunpoint. “I’m quite impressed you and your family managed to fake your death so well, and trust me, my uncle will be getting back to your parents about that, but you better than anyone should realize that there’s nothing that can keep me and Ciro apart. Nothing and no one.”

“He’s not going to be happy with you,” Annette tries.

Nephele just laughs. “Who cares about happiness? None of us are in this for happiness; happiness is a chemical trick of the brain. I can order him a dose of happiness in a syringe every morning if it means he’s mine.”

“Don’t you care that he doesn’t love you?”

Nephele’s voice drops to a growl, hard to force out of Maria’s petite frame. “What the fuck would you know about it, huh? Did you care that he didn’t love you? Did you care that he’d rather screw boys in bathrooms or go for joyrides on your friend Angelo’s cock in the back of a limo than give you his loyalty, huh? Did you care that he only ever thought of you as a friend, never a fuck?”

Ciro feels Annette tense. It’s a tension he recognizes, the kind that comes from holding the truth inside rather than spewing it like venom at your target. She sounds appropriately cowed when she murmurs, “I thought love would come over time, like it did between his parents.”

Nephele laughs. “Who’s been feeding you fairy tales, huh? One of the cousins? Maybe my dad? He loved to play pretend, but it’s all bullshit, Annie. Ciro’s parents married for the same reason mine did—to make powerful children who would help expand our family’s empire. But Aunt Mei’s family didn’t let on that she had a history of cystic endometriosis. She was lucky to get carry Ciro to term; she lost half a dozen pregnancies, I think.” She hums, and Ciro can hear the leer in it. “You know what would have been great? If good ol’ Uncle Victor had married you instead of promising you to Ciro. Then he and I could be together without worrying about making weird babies, while you and his dad pumped out a new generation of Hamblys.”

Annette pounces on that, but she seems a bit distracted too. Not physically—magically. She arrived at the house with just one familiar, but Ciro knows she has more. Where are they? “You just said it yourself, it’s not safe for you and Ciro to have children together. Surely his father won’t let you two marry.”

“Eh, I’ve had my eggs plucked out already and frozen. We can do IVF, test the little brats for abnormalities before putting them in a surrogate. We’ll get enough good ones that way. Besides, I’m not marrying Ciro because I want to have his babies.” Her voice sounds closer, like she’s leaning in. “I’m marrying him because he’s mine. From the second I saw him, I knew he was going to be mine. One single fucking thing in this world is going to be mine, and I decided it was going to be Ciro when I was five years old, so don’t even think about trying to screw me out of it now.”

Maria leans back again. “You’re just a bonus, bitch. A means of keeping Ciro in line. Maybe you’ll get lucky and Victor will let you become his concubine after all, instead of killing your whole family as punishment for your filthy lies, but I kind of doubt it.” She’s satisfied by that, Ciro can tell. “Now, be quiet until my actual body gets here and I might even let you travel in a seat on the plane instead of in a pet carrier in the hold.”

“I wondered why you looked like this,” Annette murmured. “Is she magical?”

“Nope,” Nephele says with a pop to the “p.” “Not that it matters, since bullets can kill a familiar just as well as a spell. Now how about you be a good little girl and guuuhhhhhh…” Her voice drops a full octave, going lower and lower until Ciro hears the thud of her hitting the ground.

“Ciro!” Annette pats his face, gently at first, then harder. “Ciro, c’mon, I can’t get you out of here without your help. We don’t have much time!”

Ciro forced his body to remember he’s got eyes. They blink, scratchy and painful, but a few more and he can see well enough to catch sight of Annette’s fearful but determined face. To the right, he sees Maria lying on her front, face blank, as one of Annette’s cats sits heavily on her back, teeth buried in her neck.

“I can’t keep her down for long,” Annette warns as she gets up, three more cats happily curling around her feet. Ciro has a raven perched on either side of the couch, unnaturally still, but they begin to stir as he does. “We’ve got to leave, now.”

He shakes his head with a wince. “I can’t go without Maria,” he says.

“She’s working with Nephele!”

“No, she’s being compelled. She’s important to Angelo, I can’t…” He can’t believe he’s about to say this, but he’s still reeling from magical aftershock and there’s no Angelo to talk him out of it right now. “I have to stay.”

“With Nephele?” Annette couldn’t sound more horrified. “Are you crazy? Did you hear any of what she just said? She’ll destroy you! She wants to marry you, she wants to leash you. She’ll never let you go once she gets her claws into you.”

Ciro knows all that. He also knows that he can’t let someone else pay for the mistake he made in making himself known in the first place. Maria doesn’t deserve that; if he goes along, he might be able to bargain for her release, or to force his family to leave Angelo and Annette alone. If he runs, though…if he runs again, if he runs with her, there will never be any chance of reconciliation. Just death. Given the resources the Hamblys can bring to the table, probably the deaths of the people he loves instead of the ones he loathes. He won’t do it. He can’t.

“Leave,” he insists. “You can make it. Leave now, go to…go to Angelo, or…”

“I’m not leaving you!” Annette insists, her chin trembling even as her voice firms.

“You have to. Please, you have to.” He grips her hand as tight as he’s able. “You’ve got to warn Angelo. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him I’m…I’m working on getting back to him.”

Maria stirs. Annette’s familiar bites down harder, but it’s clear the spell is losing its potency.

“Go now,” he says, pointing at the door that leads to the garden. “Over the wall. Hide yourself however you have to, just go, and don’t stop until you’re with someone safe.”

Annette shakes her head, tears falling now, but she knows he’s right. “I want you to come.”

“I wish I could.” But you know them as well as I do. They found me. They’ll never let me live any other way. Go while you can.

She helps him up onto the couch, stifling sobs, then kisses his forehead before recalling her familiar. One of Ciro’s ravens takes its place and he bears down, down, down with it, until Maria  has a hard time breathing. “I’ll find a way to help you,” Annette promises.

“Be safe,” Ciro says. “That will help me most of all.”

“What do I tell Angelo?”

Tell him that I love him more than I ought to, and I’m so grateful for him, and I’m so sorry that I ruined everything. “Tell him I need him to be safe too.” God, he’s going to be so mad. Hopefully Annette can quell the worst of it. “Now run for it.”

She runs. Ciro watches her go until he can’t anymore, and finally the potency of her spell vanishes as her familiar is called back to her, evaporating like mist. Maria sits up with a groan, looks around, and settles on Ciro. When she smiles at him, it’s pure Nephele—huge and toothy. “And here I thought you were dumb.”

“And here I thought you were smart,” Ciro parrots back. Maria chuckles.

“Smart enough to make you stay. You’re all levers, baby.” She crawls over so that she’s practically in his lap. “I look forward to pushing them,” she murmurs. “One by one.”

“You can try.”

“Oh, I will. It’ll be a lot easier once I convince your daddy to let me go ahead with the operation this time.”

Ciro suppresses a shudder. “One of us needs to be mobile.”

She laughs. “Oh Ciro, you’re underestimating just how furious your father is. You’ll be lucky if he lets you keep both your legs after this shit.” She grabs him by the arm and stands. “Time to go, baby. I can’t wait to see you again…in the flesh.”

This time the shudder breaks through. Maria just laughs and hauls him toward the door. “Hope you didn’t leave anything you like in here,” she says as they leave. “Because I’m going to burn this place to the ground.”

Ciro pulls back against her grip. “No! You can’t do that, it’s—”

Maria pulls him in close and shoves the muzzle of her gun against his gut. “You don’t dictate terms anymore,” she growls. “I do. So you can sit and watch, or you can sit and watch while bleeding from the stomach, your choice.” Ciro doesn’t so much as twitch. “That’s what I thought. Now be a good boy for me and get the gasoline out of the trunk.”