Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #88 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!

PREVIOUS

* * *

“How are you finding married life, Plaga?” Jet wondered easily, pouring the man a glass of dark wine.

“Ridiculously pleasant,” Acer said, beaming. “You know, she’s one of the most brilliant women I’ve ever met. I gave her a seat on my high council.”

Jet choked on his own glass, setting it aside as he stared at Acer with wide-eyes.

“Don’t look so surprised, Guardian, is not your own wife on your high council?”

“No,” Jet said, laughing, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I’m on hers. We don’t, in general, like to mix politics in with our marriage.”

Acer said casually, “Your marriage is political, though, is it not? You and the princess did not marry out of love, after all.” He drank deeply from his goblet and looked at Jet over the rim, as if to gauge his reaction.

“Plaga,” Jet said, lifting his chin. “Why do I get the sense you are baiting me?”

“Did you marry Gemma off to keep her away from Lucida?”

Rage flared in Jet’s eyes. As his lips curled back in a furious snarl, Acer immediately moved to put his glass aside, his eyes widening. “Guardian, please, wait –”

“Your wife,” Jet growled. “Where is she?”

“No, wait,” Acer begged. He held his hands up as if to show he was no threat, was hiding nothing. “You are angry? What have I done? Guardian, please–”

Jet’s expression shifted to calm, but only barely. “Tell me, Plaga. Does she please you?”

“Please me?”

“On your council.”

“Yes?”

“At your breakfast table?”

“Yes.”

“At your side in your hall?”

“Yes.”

“In your bed?”

“…” Acer opened his mouth, and his throat worked, but no sound came out. His skin darkened with a heavy flush.

“Have you a sudden modesty, Plaga?” Jet wondered, looking at Acer over the rim of his goblet, now.

“Have you a sudden cruelty toward those who are loyal to you, my Guardian?” Acer’s voice was low and pleading.

“Why did you ask me my motives in marrying Gemma to you? Has she been anything but solicitous?” Jet set his wine down. “Answer me with openness. With honesty.”

Acer flushed, staring down at his cup. “I found diaries. In her rooms.”

“Diaries?”

“Written about the Queen,” Acer said, looking pained.

“…Recent… Entries?” Jet wondered, one brow lifted.

“No, Lord. No, none recent. But they were… They were love letters to her.”

“And? Is she otherwise loving to you, Acer?”

“There are no entries to me in her diaries, if that is what you’re asking.”

“It was an arranged marriage, Plaga. The girl’s swept away from her family and what she’s known. It’s obvious she wishes to make you happy, and will give you good counsel,” Jet said, trying hard not to roll his eyes. He felt a little more reassured that the diary entries were not recent. He resolved to keep a closer eye on Gemma. “Are you expecting her to woo you?”

“You think I’m being foolish?” Acer chewed his lower lip.

“Quite, Plaga. But it is understandable. You were quite smitten with her. It is reasonable on your part to want her to be as smitten,” Jet said, shrugging. “As for her relationship with the Queen… They were closer than any two sisters, but then had a falling out, as family often can. Lucida mourns her leaving, still, but will not see her. I imagine Gemma will be saddened for this for some time, as is my wife. Perhaps you may find a way into her heart by being compassionate about such a thing.”

Acer fell silent, mulling over this thought. Finally, he drained his cup and set it down for Jet to refill. “My Lord, I believe you are right. I am being foolish over such a thing, and if I must burn my thoughts about it, I will make up my mind to be the husband my wife needs.”

“Good man,” Jet affirmed, refilling Acer’s up. “Now, tell me about the soldiers you’ve brought me.”

“Tenebrae has had a rather remarkable army, but because of my family’s treacherous leanings, it was difficult to make certain our soldiers were following our cause due to loyalty to the nation, not to their ulterior motives. Gemma’s visions have been of remarkable help, however–”

“I was led to believe that Gemma’s visions were merely… That she watched Death? How would–”

“We were able to find out who had betrayed their oaths, some going so far as to kill fellow soldiers,” Acer said, not without pride.

“And?”

“…and what?” Acer’s expression was slightly wary.

“And what did you do once you found them out?”

“Gave them quick public trials,” Acer explains, his expression dark. “Very quick. They were offered the chance to beg for my mercy. Those who did were given quick executions and their families were spared dishonor.”

“And those who did not beg?” Jet wondered.

Acer lifted his chin, his expression brooking neither pity nor judgment. “Those who did not were publicly hanged.”

“Hanged.” Jet said the word quietly, tasting it, his brows knitting in a brief furrow.

“Yes, Lord. They were hanged at the gates of my estate, thrown from the wall,” Acer said. “Their families were given the option of cutting their bodies down and leaving with them, or leaving them there as a sign of betrayal, and begging my forgiveness.”

Jet’s brows lifted, then, and he said, “You have a brutal streak not unlike your father.”

“It is not brutality. It’s practicality,” Acer explained. “Tenebrae will follow you into the light, Guardian, I swear it. I’m nothing if not forgiving. I’ve made sure to offer compensation to those who are willing to kneel. Would you do something different?”

Jet nodded, slowly and solemnly.

Acer’s face paled, and he swallowed past an entire desert of sudden doubt. “What… what would you do?”

Jet’s lips curved in a dangerous smile, his teeth shining sharp. “Put my swords through them. If they would not serve me with their hearts, they will serve with their hearts’ blood.”

* * *

NEXT

This is Issue #87 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!

PREVIOUS

* * *

Garrett didn’t relish the feeling of going back to the place he’d managed to escape from, especially not dragging Kieron along with him.

Sha touched the ground where Djara had been killed. She put her hands to the soil where Kieron told her Nathan went over the edge, and stared for longer than she meant to, wondering what it would feel like if she leapt out over the inland sea, and let herself fall.

“Would be shorter,” Danival said to her, putting a hand on her shoulder, answering aloud her unspoken wondering.

“Don’t mind him,” Garrett said, walking by. He pulled off his face mask in time for Sha to see him roll his eyes. His expression was oddly warm as he looked at Dani, shaking his head. “He thinks suggesting suicide is a sign of affection.”

“Is thinking he is funny,” Danival snorted, shaking his head.

She looked up at him, chuckling darkly. “Yeah.” She didn’t know how else to signify her acceptance without signifying her acquiescence. I believe all of this happened. I accept that it all happened. I do not condone it. I am not happy with it. I do not like it. I do not want it.

Once their feet touched the city streets, once their boots hit the cobblestones, Kieron gestured, “Palace is that way. She was there, when I was taken away. But she might be with the Legatus, since Garrett says he went back. He carried me over the wall. He kept saying her name.”

Sha looked half-disgusted by the idea, her lips curling in a faint sneer. “He’s an Ilonan.”

“He helped get us up over the wall,” Garrett said. “And he had someone on the other side who got us up North. Just as we wish not to be lumped in with all other Westlanders — I imagine there are singular Ilonans who–”

“Have some measure of dignity,” Kieron said lowly, his eyes burning.

Garrett looked at him, uncertain as to whether he should be concerned.

“We’ll split up,” Sha said, wanting to get moving. “You have comms. We have comms. Whoever finds her, shout, and we get back out, over the wall, any way possible. Head north. They’ll have dropped supplies and or a bike or three. We can get north if we can’t get back on a ship right away.”

“You want to take the Palace?” Kieron offered her. “Garrett and I can go south?”

“Done,” Sha said, nodding. “It took us a long time to get into the city proper. You’ve got less than an hour before sunrise. Once that happens, we’re gonna have trouble staying as hidden as we want.” She looked at Kieron, grave. “Be safe. We’re getting her back, but not at the cost of losing anyone else without cause.”

Kieron nodded, solemn.

* * *

Garrett followed Kieron as he moved with unerring ease toward the place in the south where Jules might be; Kieron clung to shadows, hurrying with such speed, Garrett began to worry the boy’s singular focus would land him in the arms of patrolling watchmen.

Instead, they ended up in the back garden as the sun began to come up, the sky turning a vivid blue along one horizon that was quickly swallowed by thick, roiling clouds.

“Is this the Legatus’s house?” Garrett wondered, looking around at the architecture, catching his breath.

“No,” Kieron said, standing tall. He still wore his mask, and his voice was muffled for a moment as he pulled it off. “This is the home of Dominus Aecus. Exosus,” he murmured. He was watching something around a corner, his words hushed, hidden.

“What?” Garrett reached out to touch Kieron’s shoulder. “Brody, listen to me. Is this about Jules?”

Kieron looked back over his shoulder, frowning slightly. “What? No.”

Exasperated, Garrett said, “Then what the fuck is your reasoning for dragging us over here?”

Kieron turned around, his expression half mischievous, almost excited. “Look, Professor–”

Garrett leaned in, his eyes widening. He wondered what could be so important. He didn’t see the knife until it was far, far too late.

The blade bit deep, drawn across his throat. He tried to drag in a breath, and then coughed, blood spraying against Kieron, who closed his eyes and let it bathe him as he pushed Garrett down to the grass.

Garrett stared up at Kieron in shock and betrayal, feeling a chill come over him, wash over him, quick and merciless. He lay, weltering, trying to gasp, to swallow, and could not help the panic that left his limbs trembling.

A life of quiet — that’s all he’d wanted. Was it too much to ask?

Perhaps instead, this is what he deserved?

There were too many questions unanswered, too many things left undone.

He thought of Danival, of the conversation they might’ve had, when all of this was over.

He felt delirious and stupid, for never having honestly imagined he would not have made it out alive.

Kieron simply knelt over him, taking a swath of Garrett’s sleeve and wiping his own face clean.

He moved with a deliberate care that marked him not at all as the innocent schoolboy he’d been, and not even as the hardened soldier he’d been becoming — but as something else entirely.

A monster.

Garrett stared up at Kieron’s face, even as the light in his eyes faded, as the blood surging from his throat finally slowed, pooling on the grass, turning to red from shadowed black in the growing dawn.

Kieron stared back down, waiting. “He’s in here, Westlander,” he said, tapping his temple. “Kieron, that is. I know what he knows. And he knows what you did. What you were trying to do. But I’m here to tell you you failed. The boy you tried to save is long gone, professor,” he said, spitting the word out as a mockery. “He was weak. He was filth. As were you. As is the vermin infesting my house.”

Exosus Aecus stood, wearing someone else’s body, someone else’s blood, and pulled his mask back on.

He tucked his knife away, and walked into his house, leaving Alec Garrett to stare, blindly up at the brightening sky.

* * *

NEXT

This is Issue #86 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!

PREVIOUS

* * *

The deck of the Hellebarde was cleared; once things had been set up, Danival was not of a mind to have any extra people scattered about. Very few were jumping; this particular part of the mission had less to do with an actual invasion of the Ilonan capital and more to do with the retrieval.

Garret watched as Kieron paced at the rail, wearing his gear, ready to go. He kept pawing at his oxygen mask, as though he were going to take it off, but Garrett knew he wouldn’t — it was necessary this high up, if he were going to remain on deck, and now that they were so close, he wouldn’t want to go back below.

“How is cadet?” Danival’s voice buzzed in Garrett’s ear with no warning; he tried not to flinch, and sighed as he glanced over at the Krieg who stood still, wearing his mask and looking out over the cloudscape.

“Fine?” Garrett said, pursing his lips. He looked over at Kieron, who looked like a caged animal, clenching his fists as he stomped back and forth, staring down over the rail. “Nervous, I think,” Garrett assessed.

Danival frowned behind his mask, but nodded to Garrett. The other man knew his former student better, but Danival was not convinced. There was a difference between the young man Danival had met when he’d picked up Alec, and the young man that tensely ranged up and down the deck like a caged animal that had already tested its bars, and was simply waiting for the right time.

Then again — Danival shook his head at himself, sighing. Of course he was waiting; he was still a new soldier, regardless of what had happened to him recently — they were about to drop down into enemy territory, and that definitely came with fear and excitement.

That’s what Garrett was trying to convince himself, as well, as he watched Kieron pace.

Sha, too, watched Kieron, but was consumed by thoughts of her brother; after Nate washed Kieron clean of the ether dust, he’d no longer been ravaged by the visions as her brother had been, before his death.

Before she’d killed him.

Had it been something as simple as getting washed free of the dust? Could his life have been saved from something as simple as that?

She had tried to put it out of her mind, but she kept returning to it, worrying at it, but refused to talk to Kieron about it — every time she nearly had, she realized she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

What if she could’ve saved Jacob from the thing that destroyed him?

What if, what if, what if?

It’s what kept her from watching him closely, kept her from noticing just how different Kieron Brody had really become.

* * *

The Hellebarde scudded through the sky, pulling ever closer to the walled Ilonan capital — in the nighttime stormy skies, the ship was nearly invisible. It cut all audible motors and visible lights, and the aether engine’s faint glow was hidden by actual lightning strikes in the clouds, and glimpses of the moon.

“Are you ready?” Garrett’s voice was sudden, a burst of static and then sharp words.

It tore Kieron from his reverie. For a moment, he was dizzy, and his eyes widened behind his mask as he turned and looked back at his former professor. Even knowing him, it was hard to recognize him; he’d cut his hair nearly to the scalp, was dressed in something that looked halfway like an airman’s uniform, and without his glasses, he looked harder, angrier, as though every time he opened his mouth, it was merely to show off the sharpness of his teeth.

For a moment, he was himself, but he was too startled by Garrett to make use of it. Instead, he drew himself up a little taller, lifted his chin, and answered back, his words crisp. A proper soldier. “Yes, sir. I’ve double checked my chute. Had two others double check my chute. Weapons, comms.”

“You ever jumped?”

Kieron paused.

Garrett thought it odd that he’d have to think about it.

“Only once on purpose.”

“Well, you’re alive, so you’re doing something right,” Garrett sighed. “Soon.”

“I am ready. I have been ready,” Kieron assured him. “All I have to do is get on the ground.”

Garrett clapped him on the back and said, “Well, once you go over the rail, that’s pretty much definitely going to happen.”

* * *

“Ready, Captain?”

Sha looked up at Danival, and wondered if any of the rest of them would make it out alive of all this, and if Nate was somewhere, somehow, looking on, and laughing at them. So many dead. So many gone. Her heart hurt. “Aye,” Sha said, nodding. “Good to go.”

When Danival gave the signal, they leapt, wearing their O2 masks, wind screaming in their ears. They would have to drop for nearly two entire minutes before their chutes opened. Training exercises conducted in Kriegic airspace should have been done for the occupants of the TS Jacob within its second year, before the ship went back to offload its scouts. Any that had planned to stay would’ve taken the necessary dives.

Only it never happened, because so much else had.

Sha knew Kieron had fallen from the ruined Jacob, and by some ridiculous providence had landed on a ship.

Sha knew she and Nathan had ridden the Jacob down into the dirt; how they’d survived was a mystery to her.

She wondered if they had any kind of luck left that wasn’t terrible.

“Probably not,” she sighed to herself aloud, chuckling. Oh well. It would be divine to see Jules’s face, and get her back on board the Hellebarde. They would mourn together. They would, the three of them, Sha, Jules, and Kieron, make their way back to Centralis, to face whatever it was the Allied government planned on doing — that’s simply how it had to be, right?

“Shit, or we could join the Kriegs,” Sha told herself. “Or I could steal a damn pirate ship and we could go further southwest, see what else is out there.”

She let her thoughts wander; there was an altitude gauge — it beeped when she had to pull her cord, so until then, she simply let the air scream around her ears as she plummeted out of the clouds and saw the city, lit up, below.

Someone spoke over the comms, but it was a burst of static, and Sha didn’t know which one of them it was. “It is beautiful.”

She pulled the cord when the time was right, and carefully steered her parachute into a small clearing, where the others would touch down, waiting.

Then it was up, over the wall, into the city’s jungle.

* * *

NEXT