Something Dangerous: Part 4

It was times like these that Spade could get a really good look at her without getting on her less than desirable side- her temper. Deceit was wearing one of his old dress shirts, though he couldn’t fathom where she’d found it. It fell half way down her thigh, and Spade felt that maroon really did suit her. Or maybe that was just the alcohol talking. She’d left the first three buttons undone, leaving him with a tantalizing view of her tanned collarbone, marred only by Knut’s mark and the various scars that signaled years of Guardian work.

Yea, it was definitely the alcohol. He sighed and shifted his position in his kitchen floor, looking for a cooler spot to lie. Deceit was busy with something involving food, and she passed by him every so often to raid his fridge. Each time he passed he damned the existence of her opaque fireproof leggings. Sure, he knew that she had to wear them beneath most clothing to keep her body temperature in check, but right now he wanted them to vanish, and for her to be wearing so little because of him and not an ill timed rain storm that left his favorite green eyed girl soaked to the skin when she’d arrived. Perhaps if he hadn’t been six fifths into his Friday night, something might have happened, if she wasn’t in one of the worst messes he’d ever seen her in. Instead, he offered his company and she took it. He sat with her through her silence and less deafening moments. He’d made her smile with a bowl of her favorite ice cream, and [god] did that smile make his knees weak. It wasn’t the usual small smile of questionable authenticity that she’d adopted in the past half dozen years, but the genuine, blossoming smile he hadn’t seen since they were kids. It was meant just for him, and he coveted the feelings it had inspired as the night wore on. He knew that Deceit was running herself ragged, and not the thinnest clue as to why. So when she finally succumbed to Hypnos’s temptation, he did not wake her. No, he’d covered her sleeping form with the same thick quilt she’d gotten him when he first moved into the apartment, and tried to bury his attention in a novel.

It became a shitty novel when the lead died of an asp bite and his assistant of a medication induced heart attack, and he gave it up with a flourish. Instead, he watched her for awhile, ignoring the oncoming physical effects of alcohol consumption that Natives were not immune to. He distracted himself with the slow rise and fall of her chest, the slightest fluttering of her lashes. But the angelic picture never really suited her to begin with, even asleep. Her frame as too taunt with subconscious stress, and any exposed skin was marred with scars, godly marks and body art. Such a picture could only last so long, and he watched her tense up, her breathing becoming sporadic and irregular. Spade was on his feet in an instant, remembering those signs. She awoke suddenly at his touch, gasping and sputtering though there wasn’t any water within several square miles from his apartment. Visibly shaken and confused, she didn’t fight back as Spade wrapped his arms around her. He held her as the shock passed, her nails gradually leaving the dents they’d created in his back. He held her until her breathing calmed and slowed back into Hypnos’s pace; he held her as she fell asleep and after. She would have no memory of the outburst, or of dreaming- and remembering the situation her second affinity had been born from wasn’t recommended. Strangely, he found he was strangely comforted by that knowledge, and allowed himself to be lulled to sleep by her steady breathing. Outside, the storm only increased its destructive vengeance and the winds carried Héh’s shrieks of anger to assault every fixture and every wire around Spade’s apartment. Inside, they remained undisturbed guests of Hypnos for the remainder of the night and well into the morning.

Spade was the one to rise first, and then promptly almost fell flat on his face. He had forgotten most of the night- definitely the part about falling asleep with his childhood friend safely in his arms. She was so light that he hadn’t even realized Deciet was curled up against his side until he’d almost dropped her. That wouldn’t have been a very good idea, in any case. She could be worse than an angry fire dragon in the morning, and he would know. Spade laid her back down on the couch and recovered her with a throw before disappearing into the bathroom with a shower on his mind.

Perhaps three hours later, he was lying on the kitchen floor in sweats, cursing the effects of alcohol while admiring Deciet’s hips. When her bustling around the kitchen ceased, she joined him on the floor with a plate full of one of his favorite foods ever: a hot ham and cheese sandwich with jalapenos.

“Have I ever told you how amazing you are?” Deceit didn’t answer as Spade sat up and inhaled the sandwiches. She was preoccupied by her thoughts and a mug of piping hot tea, bitter and without sugar if Spade’s memory was correct. She was the same as she had been as a child when it came to sweets. Deceit hated them; she’d even torched a crate full after some forgotten holiday, he recalled.

“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” He earned a light smack to the back of the head.

“Don’t call me sweetheart.” She glared at him, but it didn’t have as much of a bite as she usually did.

“That was a little lackluster, ‘Ciet. What’s bothering you?” He was completely sincere, and that sent a tinge of guilt through her. Knowing that she could not get him involved was almost worse than not wanting to get him involved but still having the option.

“I can’t…” She sighed, defeated. Osiris’s orders or not, Spade was someone she could count on and that list was getting shorter and shorter every day. “I’m not supposed to get anyone involved.” She whispered, her hand going directly to her opposite wrist. Spade, taking it as an invitation, carefully pulled up her sleeve and removed the offending glove in his way. Sure enough, beneath the damning layers of cloth, was a rather powerful magical seal that Spade was no stranger to.

“You certainly got yourself into something big to have a seal of silence that strong.” He sighed and leaned against the cabinets, his sandwiches all but forgotten. “How long has this been going on?”

“The past two weeks or so,” Again, it was only a whisper as the seal sent shocks of hot pain up her arm. Spade retrieved an ice pack from the refrigerator and wrapped it in a thin cloth before handing it to her.

“It helps, I promise,” He assured her. They sat there in silence for awhile, both of them wrapped up in their own respective thoughts. One thing they could both agree on, however, was that the seal needed to go. “I have an idea, but you’re gonna have to trust me.”

“Okay,” Deceit really didn’t have any other choices at the moment, and she knew that Spade was not the kind of guy to get her killed on a whim.

♠

“I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation, Deceit.” Osiris slammed the blue haired girl into the nearest wall and pinned her there, much to the latter’s surprise and annoyance.

“Then explain it to me, why don’t you.” She growled, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and how likely it would spawn a bruise. Osiris was beginning to annoy her, and it was starting to look like she’d rather Heh’s company to the god in front of her. Deceit suppressed a shudder. That would be very, very bad.

“You-” He added more pressure to get her full attention, and the shadow of pain that crossed her face was not lost to him. “-have multiple Fate strings where others have only one.”

Well, that was unexpected. Fate strings were things of myth, something that was accepted but not fully understood. It was assumed that every being had only one, tying the death they were supposed to have to their every move, but nothing was proven as of yet. Gods and their actions were a mystery in general, and there was none more mysterious than the two that had created the world as it was: Rožanica and Pramżimas, otherwise known as Rožanica and Fate.

“So?” She didn’t see the problem immediately, but after a few moments it set in. Osiris’s explanation only mirrored her internal realization.

“Threads of Fate are meant to be your end; it isn’t possible to have more than one. Or it wasn’t, until you, your sister and your cousin came into existence. No one knows what demise takes precedence over another, or how they could possibly mesh. With the vast differences between each thread, it could cause some serious problems, and break ancient laws that were enacted for a reason.”

Well, fuck. This was not what she needed. There was already a hell of a lot for her to deal with, and potentially breaking the foundation of the world was a little much, even for her.

“This is why you need to be contained, by either joining an Eden of a god, or becoming someone’s familiar.” Osiris lost his nerve. He couldn’t tell her the final way they would be forced to deal with her. She didn’t have to know everything, he decided. “The choice is up to you, but if you don’t choose before you have lived through twenty one of your years, then the choice will be made for you.”

“Fine,” Deceit's glare finally got through to Osiris and he unpinned her, ignoring the sliver of dread worming its way up his spine. She was gone before he could get a word out, and it bothered him.

Lying to her shouldn’t have bothered him so much, especially not a little white lie that was closer to the size of some countries than a tooth pick.

♠

“What has you all bent out of shape?” A familiar green haired genie asked, narrowly avoiding Deceit's newest projectile, a javelin, from being embedded in her forehead. Deceit recounted the incident with Osiris that had happened only four hours before hand while digging the javelin out of its new home in a post- only to throw it back and having it create a deeper crevice than before.

“Wait. He only gave you two of the options?” Deceit gave her best friend an unreadable look.

“There’s more?”

“Well, yea.” Reyna’s tone made it sound like Deceit should have already known this information, and the glare she received made it known that the tone in question was not very appreciated. She huffed; Deceit was always such a pain to be around sometimes. “If you don’t make a decision to a problem brought to you by more than one godly being by the deadline given- usually the end of the soul’s prime and ultimate fall into the cycle of decay- then the final option is chosen. The fabric of your being, and by proxy your soul, will be unwound.” She recited, as if Reyna had said this a thousand of times before. In reality, Deceit realized she had. It was a part of Godly Studies, a mandatory course she’d always skipped in favor of breaking things.

“Well, fuck.” She threw the nearest sharp object- a letter opener- into the door frame in frustration. She was not going to become a pile of discarded mush in so unknown corner of Hell, nor was she going to become that creepy liquid-plasma like substance that other discarded souls swam through in the Pond of Lost Souls. Not only was the thought of something swimming through her metaphorical remains just disturbing, but being unraveled sounded rather painful.

“Deceit… ‘Ciet…?” Reyna waved her hand in front of Deceit a couple times before giving up and stabbing at her with the discarded javelin. Deceit caught it, inches from her face, on reflex.

“Yes dear?”

“You spaced out.”

“I was thinking of a way out of this mess.” Reyna smiled, which put Deceit on edge.

“I thought you were going to say that. You’ve got two years before you’re possibly ripped to threads, and a sudden massacre of those Albino humans. Sounds like you could use some less than orthodox help.”

“Why do I have a feeling that you’ve got the name of a possibly helpful criminal that I’m going to have to forge official papers to get a hold of?”

“Because that’s the way things always work.”

“Gimme the name,” Deceit sighed. Reyna was the adopted daughter of the Council Chairman, so it would be blown out of the water surprising to discover that she was involved in criminal activities, or at least it would be to anyone but Deceit. They were in most things together, after all.

“Maxwell Rylan.” And with those words, Maxwell’s fate would be forever changed.

♠

Oof. Maxwell groaned as his still mending shoulder connected with yet another solid surface. A soft solid surface, plush and almost like… carpet? This confused Maxwell slightly, having been shot and promptly captured in frozen tundra- trying to smuggle firearms across one of the physical plane overlaps, no less- and spent the time in between in a frigid time capsule of a steel plated room.

His blindfold was removed suddenly, the sudden change of light blinding him. His hands and feet remained bound, and his gag was still very much there, much to Maxwell’s dismay. He struggled against them anyway, his attempts remaining fruitless. Before him stood who he assumed to be his captors: the trigger happy redhead that was responsible for the ounce of lead in his shoulder and her very… dare he say pretty counterpart with blue hair. No, he was in a bit of a bind and could not afford to get distracted. She looked familiar to him, though he could not recall ever meeting either of them before being shot the second time.

“Who’s your friend?” Someone behind Maxwell asked, but he wasn’t exactly in the best position to discover exactly whom the question had originated from; however he could tell that whoever it was was definitely female. Or a very young boy, one of the two. He was a bit preoccupied by the pin-prick feelings traveling through his scalp to care very much about the details, in any case.

“That guy Merc put a bullet in Friday,” The blue haired one stated, looking rather bored if anything. Her voice was hoarse, he realized. She approached him, and he froze, for she seemed so much more menacing up close. But that could have been because he was currently bound and gagged on a very expensive Persian rug in a very expensive looking library, completely venerable. Yea, that was completely it.

“Your name is Maxwell Rylan, I believe.” She didn’t ask, but he nodded anyway and his gag was removed in return. “Why were you running firearms in the middle of the day?”

“Fuck you.” Maxwell sneered… and something yanked a small section of his hair suddenly, almost as a response, causing him to flinch. Captors or not, the women before him were perhaps two-thirds of his age at most, and they both wore the collar tattoos of power- the only real law in his home, the Hell District. A small head appeared upside down, only inches from his face.

“That’s not very nice, you know, Miss Deceit picked you up before the authorities. You could have been caught in an international incident.” The little face scolded him. He was too shocked at the fact that there was a pixie inches from his face to do anything more than nod.

“Cryil,” Deceit quietly spoke the name, but the pixie looked up in response. “Go help Merci attend to her garden, Mr. Rylan and I have business to discuss.” Cryil pouted for a moment before pulling Maxwell’s hair a final time.

“Come on, Miss Merci, let’s go garden.” Cryil pulled a reluctant Merci out of the room by her necklace. Once they were gone, Maxwell realized just how quiet the room was, it was almost suffocating.

“Define ‘business’,” He asked after awhile, shifting uncomfortably. He could see the unconscious mess of Vorce not too far away. His bonds, Maxwell realized, were also considerably less secure than his companion’s. While he was rendered useless by way of nylon, Vorce’s bonds consisted of copious amounts of steel chain and another, barely visible material that he could not conjure a name for.

“You are going to do a task for me,” Deceit informed him suddenly, killing his train of thought in the process. “And I am going to fund you in return.” Her words were almost music to his ears; hoarse, very harsh sounding music, but music none the less. The part about funds was a particular attention grabber for him, but that was to be expected with his upbringing. The Hell District wasn’t the best place to raise children, needless to say.

“Keep talking.” and so she told him.

♠

“But you’re her aunt; shouldn’t you know this kind of thing?” Spade was becoming impatient. Deceit hadn’t been heard from in three days, and any attempts to contact her had either failed or exploded, which was never a good sign.

“I haven’t the slightest clue where she’s been, Spade.” Etna took a violent swipe at a line of potatoes, thoughts of just how selfish her eldest niece could be swirling. “You act as if she tells me that sort of things.”

Spade didn’t take notice of Etna’s mock pouting. He was a bit preoccupied by the blue haired girl staggering through the door. Whatever Deceit had been embroiled in for the past few days, it was bad. Not even Merci had a smart remark at her sister’s unusually haggard appearance. Spade didn’t know what possessed him to cross the room, but before he knew it the linoleum gave way to harsh wooden floors, soaked from the rain Deceit wore. It hadn’t rained anywhere near them in over a week, but he pushed the thought aside and took her bag from her shoulders and proceeded to pass off the growling pile of drenched canvas to a speechless Jonathon.

“I assume you’re not going to tell us where you’ve been for the past three days?” Etna asked, disapproval bleeding from her expression to her voice. Deceit didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and the silence was almost deafening. Newt replaced his tea on its saucer and gave Etna a withered look.

“She’d like to correct you; it’s been four days.” He received a wooden spoon to the face in response as Etna’s temper flared.

“Everyone, out. Now.” Etna’s sudden take charge attitude left no room for questions, and a few moments later the kitchen was almost deserted.

Someone’s angry. The thought wormed its way into Merci’s mind, and she was unable to tell if it was her sister’s or Newt’s fault. Stupid telepaths.

“Fern, dear,” Etna addressed the vine hanging from the rafters. “Have Alice find something for ‘Ciet to change into.” Fern slithered off in response, as Etna busied herself with boiling a large pot of water, the potatoes almost completely forgotten. “Merci, there’s first aid kits in that cabinet over there, get me the red and blue one.” Merci wordlessly shoved Spade out of her way and moved to get the kit in question.

Spade, seeing the direction things were headed, tugged lightly at Deceit's trench coat. She shrugged it off, wincing in the process. He couldn’t really blame her after taking in the state of her back alone. It was covered in open wounds of various sizes, probably from a flock of angry gryphons. But that didn’t make any sense, Spade reminded himself. There weren’t any gryphons on this physical plane. They’d left with the majority of the fey.

“Stop staring and be useful or I’m kicking you out.” Etna did look up from the concoction she was crushing in a well worn mortar and pestle. He nodded slowly, and moved a boiling pot onto one of the shorter stools near Deceit. He now understood why most of the kitchen furniture was made of various types of metal, and watched as the stool twisted under the heat of the pot. That’s odd… He shook it off, most of the things in this place made little sense to him.

Etna took her freshly squished concoction and scraped it into a flask before handing it off to Merci. She then found her trusty scissors and began to cut the rest of Deceit's shirt off. Spade was removed by Cyanide before he could see anything, much to his dismay. Stupid underground vines. Stupid mutant, underground vines. Stupid little sisters with earth element affinities that create the stupid mutant underground vines. Something hard smashed him in the chest, and turning, he discovered it to be one of Merci’s infamous shush plants.

“Well, fuck.” Whack.

Back in the kitchen, Deceit's bloody corset was thrown to the side as Etna worked to remove the layers of blood and dirt from her niece’s back. Once that was accomplished, she added liberal amounts of her science experiment and covered everything with hot bandages. Deceit just sat there, doing her best not to move or make a sound. Everything hurt, and Etna was never known for her soft touch. Only moments after Etna finished, Mary slipped into the kitchen with Fern slithering behind her.

“Jesus Christ, what happened?” Mary asked, passing across a pair of draw-string pants and a button up shirt.