Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #96 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

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The house was quiet, when he let himself in. He knew where to walk, where to hide. He knew how to carry himself. There were no guards outside his study; there was nothing there anymore. When he let himself in, he locked the door behind himself and only when he was confronted by the bloodstain that was simply left on the floor did his composure waver.

When it did, Kieron raged to the surface, clawing for control, his eyes going wide. He turned himself around and ran for the door again, clawing at the handle, struggling to escape. Once in the hallway, however, not knowing where to go brought just enough hesitation that the dead man in his head came forward again, and Kieron promptly found himself back in the study. He screamed, but silently, only inside himself, maddened at being caught, at being a prisoner within himself.

“Silence,” Exosus said quietly, firmly. “I am dead, and have nothing to lose by cutting out your tongue or gouging out your eye.” Kieron stilled, furious, and faded further, shrinking from the man who so expertly hated. He realized in a way how wrong he’d been about his father — Ellison Brody was protective and arrogant, frightened of vulnerability and love, and demanded obedience in a way that wasn’t healthy — but he did not hate like Exosus did.

It made Kieron question enough that he disappeared within the recesses of his mind, of his heart, and left Exosus to do his own will.

When the young man left the study hours later, cleaned up, dressed and hooded like a servant to hide the shag of his blonde hair, he scuttled into the hallway, clinging to the sides and shadows, as though he knew precisely where he belonged.

He had, in a way, as little as days ago.

Exosus Aecus made his way through his home toward the wing where his wife had made her own home within a home. On his way, he did not bother to avoid anyone — he scurried like the rest of the rats in his vermin-infested house, and when he finally managed to slip into her bedchambers, he changed his gait entirely, and strode toward her, pulling off his hood.

Venustus stared down the youth who approached her; she was sitting at her mirror, braiding and rebraiding the long, thick waves of dark hair. Her eyes watched him, in the mirror. She looked wary, but unafraid. “How did you get in?” she asked, moving to stand, to step away from the mirror. She was a glory to see, a risen matriarch, with her kohl lined eyes and her jewels.

Exosus saw nothing of her beauty, only the vast and horrific misery he wished to inflict on her and everything that had ever been her issue. His children from her were nothing but failures or monsters or both.

“What do you want? she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Stultus cunnus,” he hissed. “I want my home. I’m taking back my home.” He drew the knife that had already been wet with Garrett’s blood, and closed the distance between them.

Her eyes flared wide. She stepped back, shocked. “What did you say to me?” she whispered, narrowing her eyes then, staring at the man before her. “What did you just call me?”

“Stultus. Cunnus,” he repeated, and stepped forward again, his eyes lighting up. “It’s what I’ve always called you, isn’t it?”

Venustus took a step forward, herself, gritting her teeth as she insisted “He is dead.”

“No,” he snarled, stepping forward, lifting the knife. “No, he is not.”

In an instant, he found himself on the ground, staring up at her, a booted foot on his wrist. Her booted foot, on his wrist.

Exosus stared up in shock.

“He is DEAD,” Venustus insisted, leaning down over him. “He is as dead as if I had killed him myself.” Her eyes were bright, and her voice a fierce whisper. “And I did, by raising a daughter and a son who refused to let him rule them.”

Furious, Exosus rolled to one side, then the other, yanking his hand out from under her. He stood, holding the knife, and tried to stare down the woman that had claimed his home out from under him. “He is not dead. He lives in this body. I am he. I am Exosus. The murderous filth you bore me couldn’t kill me. I am still here.”

Venustus stared at the young man before her, listening to his rasping, hate-filled voice, and found it easy to see her wretched husband’s face reflected in his furious expression. It wasn’t hard at all to believe that somehow, her husband had found a way to return, even if in the body of a Westlander. “That may be,” she said, refusing to give ground. “But no one will accept it. No one will bow to that milk skin. No one will fear you. I do not fear you. Your son and daughter do not fear you, any longer,” she pronounced, lifting her chin.

“If they will not fear me,” Exosus growled, “it matters not. They will not live to regret it. I will take back what is mine.”

“It was never yours!” Venustus shouted back, leaning close. “I was never yours, and this home was never yours! That you think you could own something as glorious as my love,” she hissed.

Exosus moved to strike again, but Venustus was faster, older, more experienced. He found himself on the ground once more, dazed and addled, breathless. “No,” he growled, struggling to regain his feet. He slumped back down, blinking until things came back into focus, and he managed to find the world sharpening just about the time he could see her getting away.

Furious, he stood, managing a few quick steps after her, gnashing his teeth in frustration as he watched her back away into a further chamber, locking the door behind herself.

She could fight?

He had underestimated how much she had kept from him, in their estrangement.

He would not do so, again.

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This is Issue #95 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

Happy Reading!

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* * *

The crowd went quiet, shocked into silence.

Sha stared, her heart in her throat. He was what? He what?

“But before that inhuman, horrifying act, I had already been transformed. Because of Immanis, I had experienced my novo. Now I, too, bear the blood of an Ilonan. I fight for you. I end the lives of those who would harm you. I fought at the Prince’s side in the Hunt. I killed Westlanders. I will kill every last one of them associated with the Valley,” he shouted. “I will kill any who dare to come to our lands and touch even one of you! I am a Westlander no longer! Ilona is in my blood! I am Ilona!”

Then, he took the hand of the one closest to him, and pulled her close.

The crowd held its breath as he held her wrist; she looked almost terrified, but tried to hide it. “If I were a Westlander, would I die for you?” he asked her.

“W-what?”

“If I were your enemy, child, would I bleed for you?” Jet asked, holding her as she held the knife. He slid closer, moved to wrap himself around her as though he would lead her on a dance.

She stiffened in his arms, tense, but the knife remained high — up and out of the way as he watched her, waited for her answer. “…no?” She looked at the blade, and watched as he brought it slowly down, and guided her to cut into him with the glass knife, scoring a line above his heart.

She watched the line of red well, and then begin to spill.

“I bleed for you, child,” he said. “I bleed for you, and if you ask it of me, I will die for you, again and again.”

The woman lifted her chin, saying, “I am no child.” She pressed the knife against his flesh, let the point begin to dig into his chest.

A slow smile curved his painted lips, and the rest of the courtyard watched.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“It does. Would it not hurt you, if you were cut?”

“Are you so like me?”

Jet nodded. “I am exactly like you.”

“How many times will they do this?” Acer wondered of Lucida, having come down to stand near her.

Lucida watched her husband and the young woman who held a knife to his chest. “You did it, yourself, at our gates,” she said dryly. “He is making a point.”

“I think not. You are more powerful than I. But you bleed for me,” the woman said quietly. “You would die for me?”

Jet nodded, solemn.

The woman thrust the glass knife into his chest, and as his knees buckled, she dropped with him, astonished at herself, pulling the knife out, reaching to try to stop the blood.

Jet leaned into her, and then sat back, gasping briefly, his eyes opening wide, his wound searing closed. He panted, smiling up at her, and pressed his fingertips to the blood. He then drew a line with it, across her brow. “Meum est,” he said quietly, his golden eyes holding hers. “Tu es ad mea.” You’re mine. You’re with me.

The young woman stared up at him with wide, awestruck eyes. She nodded, and answered him in a voice that sounded earnest and hopeful and promising. “Ego sum apud te. Semper apud te.” I’m with you. Always with you.

He smiled and released her, and as she stepped back, the crowd cried out, seeing him as unmarked.

He painted the brows of each of the rest who had been given to him, drawing his blood over their skin — none of the rest sought to cut him, after they’d seen it happen; the first woman couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

Next to Acer, Gemma watched them all, half-trembling in jealous rage, furious and miserable to no longer be a part of those moments. A low-burning fire remained within her. She would have Lucida back, and she would make certain the Guardian fulfilled the fate she knew to be true. She would let the armies tear one another apart until Kriegsland was scattered and weak, and then she would command her shadow army up over the ridge — not to take back the lost children of Ilona who had spurned their advancements and achievements, but to eradicate them forever.

When it was over, and the last young man was looking at the blood that remained on the woman’s knife from where it had bitten into the Guardian’s flesh, he announced “Pledge your lives, your hearts, your blood, to the Queen, my children.”

Those who had been painted by Jet knelt immediately, pressing their foreheads to the flagstones, the knives they held offered out toward Lucida, whose eyes gleamed.

“Citizens!” Jet cried out. “I have taken the children of your masters! I have marked them as mine! They kneel to me. They are mine, and now you are mine. There are no more shadows, no more city states, no more borders. We are one land — Ilona!”

A murmur of astonishment went through the crowd. Ilonan, Seplasian, Tenebrian, Chalybite, and all the rest — pilgrims and soldiers from armies all across the lands east of the Luminora.

Sha looked to Dani, angry and afraid. The Guardian stood there, bloody but entirely unwounded, surrounded by seas of adoring followers.

Her guns weren’t going to do a fucking thing — and even if they could? She was no longer certain she should. He’d been in the Corps? Who was he?

“We are wanting to find a quieter place than this. Important people are in the courtyard, Captain — perhaps that will mean the palace itself is being less secure,” Danival offered.

Was he on one of the other ships? Who was he? Sha couldn’t figure it out, and the puzzle of it settled a cold fist around her heart.

“We are one land!” Jet shouted, fire in his eyes. “We are Ilona!”

“Ilona!” Someone in the crowd cried, and others began to take up the cheer. “One land! Ilona!”

Jet laughed, pleased, and told them all “Serve the Queen, and Ilona will live forever.”

Caught up in the shock and revelry, the rest of the crowd, save for Gemma, who knew nothing could rid Ilona of its shadows, roared back “Vivat Ilona!”

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This is Issue #94 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

Happy Reading!

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* * *

After the few meetings with Acer and other leaders who had knelt before them, Jet and Lucida left the confines of the Palace to meet the people, and let the revelry continue — .

When Jet stepped out into the courtyard, wearing his braccae, his knives, his paint, his mask, the crowds roared in jubilation. Telescreens across the citystate showed him in all his glorious delight, and both he and the Queen stepped into the fray of the people who had come to join them, touching hands, giving blessings, walking unafraid through the crowds.

Dani didn’t surge forward with everyone else; he let the crowds pass him, as they moved to try to be closer to both the Queen and the Guardian. He turned, and saw that Sha had been lost in the surge. Alarmed, he watched her carried forward in the crowd, her face turned toward the Guardian.

She wasn’t in the crowd — she couldn’t see them at all.

What Sha saw was rain, muddy ground, and the Guardian, with Djara in his arms.

She could taste the rain on her lips, the blood in the air. Djara was not yet dead, not quite dead, mostly dead, dead with a sword of black glass run through the middle of her, punched out just under her ribs, through her belly, where she used to slap her hands, laughing when Nate teasingly complained of being airsick from her flying.

Djara, who had loved Penny.

Sha staggered in the rush of people, drowning in a cold rain that wasn’t falling. Her eyes were wild, whites showing like those of a spooked horse — she tossed her mane of bronze braids and curls, stamped her feet, tried to suck in calming breaths but could only smell blood.

The beast in front of her was painted in it.

He wore lines of Djara’s blood on his face, painted a red X on his body, let his skin steam with it as her life ended.

She reached for the pistols at her hips, the ever present deathbringers that had solved even the problem of her broken brother. She had not killed the savage animal in the Hunt, but she would, now.

She would, now.

Her fingers slid around the grips of her guns, and she felt hate rise in her throat — she readied herself to scream it at the monster that had taken so much from her. Tension filled and left her, filled and left her, as though it were her breath, or the blood that howled in her ears.

Before she could pull those guns free, a shadow crossed over her. The solid presence of Danival blocked her path, and she bared her teeth, looking up at him, wild-eyed, fury burning in her, with nowhere else to go. “Move,” she hissed. “You fucking move, you fucking behemoth.”

“Is not the place for this, Captain,” Danival said.

“You don’t get to tell me–”

“I am not getting to order you, but I am telling you.” His voice was low, and he moved slowly, carefully, keeping himself between her and the royal retinue. “You are here for your friend. You will miss chance in getting friend if you are attempting to be killing Ilonan’s guardian.”

Sha stared up at him, hating that he assumed he was right, and let her shoulders slump as she looked away, fuming. “Fine,” she hissed. “Fine, we’ll do nothing. He’ll work the crowd and–”

“Is not nothing. Think hard and–”

“I’m sick of you telling me my own priorities, General.”

“And I am sick of many things, Captain, but I am doing them anyway, because I jump with you to find this woman, the wife of young man I knew lifetimes ago. If you throw yourself at Guardian now, what becomes of her?”

Sha’s eyes glittered, furious, undaunted. “Maybe I put her in your hands. Maybe I leave her to fend for herself. She’s strong. Maybe she doesn’t need to be rescued.”

Danival fell silent, glowering, and then simply stepped back, and out of the way. “Clearly I am not understanding motivations. Is not my place to be knowing your heart.”

She stepped past him, hesitant, now, her hands no longer on her guns, and moved to get closer to the Guardian, who had paused in his crowd-going.

She stood back, watching, as he was presented with a small troupe of young men and women, dressed in very simple, grey shifts and braccae. They held their chins up, as no prisoners might, and seemed definitely out of place.

“Who are these beautiful citizens?” Jet looked them over, curious as they stared at him, dressed in simple grey shifts and braccae.

“These are the eldest sons and daughters of the ruling houses from the citystates east of Ilona, my Lord,” Acer called, from back near the door. “As you requested?”

“Ah, yes.” Jet’s eyes lit up, and he nodded. He began to pull small knives of black glass from where they were carefully strapped to his skin. He gave each of the young men and women a knife, and then opened his arms and simply stood before them.

Many of the troupe looked almost frightened, but stood before the Guardian, ready, waiting — though they obviously didn’t know what for.

“I had heard there were some within our lands that doubted my love for my Queen, for this soil, for you, my people,” he called out. “Chosen by the Prince. Dead, and returned. There are those that believe me unworthy. Even as you have seen me confirmed as the Guardian, have seen me fall, and rise — there are those who believe I am little more than a staged trick, made of smoke and mirror.”

Acer felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. He wasn’t certain what Jet had taken from their earlier talks; he could only hope the Guardian did not have it in him to slit the throats of the children of those who knelt, but still spoke in threats and whispers.

Whatever it was Jet had taken from their earlier talks, he confessed to the people before him, “To you, I say — yes, I was a Westlander. Yes, I was born and raised as your enemy. Yes, I was a cadet in the very army that burned a scar through the Valley.”

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This is Issue #93 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

Happy Reading!

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* * *

“War is merciless,” Danival said quietly. “War is my job — and I am good at my job,” he told her. “Am not always enjoying job, Sha. But I am General because I am good at it. I wore the raptors for Centralis, and now the wolves for Kriegsland because I am making hard choices where no one else will.”

Sha remembered telling Kieron nearly the same thing, when she prepared her crew to fire on the Maxima. She bowed her head, briefly, grinding her teeth. This wasn’t the same. This couldn’t possibly be the same.

“I have made those choices, Dani,” Sha said, furious. “I have made the hard choices, and I have been responsible for more death than I care to think about, most days. But I am telling you, inviting an attack onto a civilian-occupied–”

“Is not civilians,” Danival interrupted.

“What?” Sha looked around again, her fists uncle china.

“I tell you of serpent? Looking at these civilians. Looking closely. They are wearing armor under traveling cloaks. More of them here are in armor than not,” he said, frowning slightly.

She’s eyes narrowed as she took a slow walk around their little area, noting the groupings, looking them over with feigned indifference.

“You seeing?” Danival asked quietly.

“Fine. They’re army. But you didn’t know. You didn’t know that before you and yours arranged all this,” Sha said softly.

“If you are being angry to me for arranging attack, you are being angry to me for being part of overall machinations of war machine. Machine in which you are also being lever.” Danival watched the crowd without really moving — he had the look of a man who stared ahead blankly because the world around him mattered very little, compared to the task at hand, or perhaps one who had already been broken.

“I’m allowed to hate what you’re doing. I hate what I’ve done. I don’t love Centralis; I love flying. I don’t love the Allied army, I love my crew. I love exploring. I love the sky,” Sha said, sourly staring down at where she stood on the flagstones.

“Why am I not allowed to be loving the same thing?” Danival asked quietly.

“You’re not railing against the idea of acceptable losses. You’re not–”

“Not standing here grieving, knowing I cannot be saving little children? Knowing they are dying soon because of war they are not even knowing?” Danival said, his low voice pitched just for her. “Because I am following orders, as you follow orders, but I am not speaking of my heart conflicted, I am more monster?”

There was that word again.

Sha hung her head, angry. More and more she felt like an idiot child who didn’t understand what it was grown ups were all so concerned and busy about. Things had been clearer before, hadn’t they? The last clear thing she remembered was clinging to the wall as she watched the masked Guardian of Ilona open Djara’s throat to the rain.

That was a monster, wasn’t it? She remembered hearing it howl. She remembered the way it challenged them, painting itself in Djara’s blood and opening its arms. The storm had been screaming around them, and she had answered the monster’s beckoning, deciding then and there that she would fight that thing until she couldn’t. She would fight it until it died, or she did.

“I’m sorry, Dani,” Sha said. “I don’t know what any of us are, anymore. Monster, man, Westlander, Blacklander. The whole thing made sense at one point, didn’t it?”

“This is why I am no having bleeding heart discussion,” he said. “Is not that heart is not bleeding. Is that heart will always bleed. Fearing and sadness — they come, they go, they wash the heart and keep it feeling, keep it being heart and not stone. Must always let the feeling come, or you run risk of having no heart, having stone heart. That is thing that laughs at blood and fire and dying children. That is thing that sees only in terms of victory,” Danival explained. He shrugged to her, looking faintly apologetic.

“So, what,” Sha laughed darkly, “you don’t talk about it anymore, because that way you can keep your duty clear in your mind?”

“Yes.” Dani nodded soberly. “Orders must still be followed. What happens if we do not attack? What happens if we get signal to ship to retreat?”

“The Ilonans are already mobilized — we might not get them to stand down. Instead, we would have heavy losses because we were trying to get back North while they were attacking us from behind,” Sha said. “But that doesn’t justify the fact that you’re sending your army in the first place. What if you hadn’t sent them at all?”

“You and remaining crewman? Dead. With Alec. In wilderness,” Dani said. “There would be no changing of political climate between Centralis and Blacklands. Kriegsland being isolationist. Slow war of no goals would continue for years. Do you know what certain Ilonan ships are doing? Why Kriegsland refuses to stand down?”

Sha sighed, watching the crowd. She nodded. “The hands. The ears.”

“Is the serpent,” Danival said. “Is not all of Blacklands, but prince would not condemn soldiers for being too bloodthirsty. Would not punish them for behaving outside bounds of proper war.”

“Proper war,” Sha said, laughing harshly.

“Yes, proper,” Danival said. “You are knowing what it is, but you are shaming it because it is inelegant solution to inelegant problems.”

“I hate it.” Sha looked up at him, her eyes fierce, furious. “This land is full of brilliant people, scholars, linguists, chemists. We demonize the lot of them because of actions of the few and we discount everything we were given unless we can think of some thieves’ way of saying their advances were actually ours.”

“They doing the same to you, to us.” Danival’s voice was gruff, angry. “They torturing soldiers. Not just killing. War is killing. Soldiers knowing this. But torturing — inhumane. It is inhumane, what they do.”

“War is inhumane,” Sha said. “We, as a species, would do well to remember that we want to survive. All of us want to survive.”

“Are you Captain, or are you philosopher?”

“Can’t I be both?”

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