“You should be fine. I am going to sit here and drink the rest of the wine in that cabinet, thusly, I am far too busy to see you out,” Aldrious mumbled. His head was on the table with the wine glass in his bloody hand.
“Aye, there was what, twelve bottles in there? That should chase away a good chunk o’ misery and a good chunk o’ yer liver. Tomorrow, then, cousin, and ya best be alone,” Connor called out, but he was already halfway down the hall. He wanted no business with the royal family and even less to do with the MortiAegis church. His cousin had drug him deep within the affairs of both.
“I am sure I will be, completely…,” Aldrious mumbled into his robe, and mostly to himself.
Apparently Aldrious needed much less poison than he thought. After finishing that first bottle he had fallen into a deep sleep, face to table with his back fully craned.
“Pitiful,” boomed an all too familiar, condescending but refined voice.
It half woke Aldrious, but it did not provide him with any sense of where he was or what was happening. He sat straight up, though drool had attached his sleeve to his mouth, leaving one hand hanging limp below his chin. “Good evening…,” he muttered, blinking a few times before recognizing my mother and continuing, “Senator Ellekós. To what do I owe the historic pleasure?”
He was undoubtedly referring to my mother’s age; she was eighty-five years old at this time. My birth was considered somewhat of a miracle, as she was sixty when I was conceived. Having done it once, my brother coming two years later felt old hat to her.
“You have been avoiding us, Aldrious. Is vine really the reason for it?” she berated him, gaining a few laughs from the other two senators beside her, Misters Allen and Kinsmith.
Since Casperland’s conversion forty years ago under the rule of Quincey II, the nation had become practically theocratic, leaving the parliament with very little real power. My mother, despite her advanced age, was never a member of the senate in its glory days. She was still living in Casper then and felt little duty to the kingdom or crown. The legal body was made up of ten elected officials known as the senate, and a prime minister chosen by that ten. It seemed that when we stole the prince, he was not the only thing to be awoken; the parliament was emerging from their decades-long nap at last.
“What time is it?” was all Aldrious mumbled out, after which he proceeded to remove his sleeve and wrist from his face. It was quite stuck and pulled at his stubble as he removed it, akin to ripping a bandage.
“Four in the afternoon, it’s a little early, is it not?” Senator Allen answered, scrunching his pudgy face in disapproval.
Aldrious had not slept at all since the prince’s extraction five days prior, so he was relieved to learn he slumbered so well. “The opposite, actually. Apparently, one bottle gave me twenty-two hours of straight sleep. That is fabulous; however, I am late on drowning my anxiety for this new day.” He was on his way to uncorking the bottle he had ready from the night prior when my mother struck her walking stick hard on the table, right beside his hand. He jumped, dropping the corkscrew onto the cobalt carpet below him.
“Where is Prince Micah?” she growled to him.
“In his room, asleep like a baby!” Aldrious answered happily, grinning wide. He wanted to run out of there so badly that he instinctively readied his nail in his palm.
“Try again. We went there first,” Senator Kinsmith informed him with a feigned confidence. He was the youngest of the current lineup of senators, only thirty years old, a few years younger than even Aldrious. He was quite nervous and shuffled about on his feet. My mother found him disgusting.
“Oh? Ask your progeny, then, Estrix. They will know better than I,” Aldrious taunted her, revealing none of the anxiety that was boiling him alive.
My mother sighed and moved her cane from the table to just below his chin. She stared coldly in his eyes before hissing out to him, “My child is the reason I insisted I be present while we sought your counsel. That radio call you made yesterday morning, whom did you speak to? Who on earth are you selling my daughter to? Whether she has the prince or not, you do not have dominion over the fate of her!”
“You eavesdropping hag!” Aldrious shouted playfully, leaning into the tip of her cane so that it jabbed into the soft skin of his neck. Giving her an equally unflinching gaze, he continued, “I mentioned both your children. I wasn’t sure which one was the apple of my friend’s eye, so I just said either could be in her territory. You heard that, of course, but still no thought for poor Zan. I don’t even have a bounty out for him. I guess he isn’t important to either of us.”
“Zan is weak willed, not so much as my firstborn, but nonetheless of no concern to me. You are a disgrace and very much of my concern; you have no right to continue as ruler of the realm. Your replacement, the Bishop Carol of the Southern Quarter Church, is already in the throne room. He can conduct his business without needing to be inebriated, unlike you, you weak fool. You will call off your bounty, radio your whore, and abandon your title immediately!”
“No, no, and fine,” replied Aldrious calmly, unpinning his cardinal’s signet. He swatted Estrix’s cane from his neck and stood up all too quickly. The blood rushing to his head caused him to stumble and allowed my mother to grab his right hand, pulling the thumb from his palm.
“It is over, Aldrious. You shall make a mockery of this nation no longer. You will correct your mistakes, or I shall eviscerate you myself. Enox officials are on their way, but if Leke is unsafe, they will find no shred of you.”
Her two fellow senators looked a bit shocked to see this elder acting so aggressively, but my mother was faelock through and through. She had become hunched with age, barely reaching to seven foot four. Her dark purple hair had faded to a lavender-gray, and her skin was completely yellowed by that point, but her strength would never be diminished.
Aldrious, however, had his own substantial power. He saw little more than a very tall old bird trying to poof out her feathers. He clenched his fingers around the hand holding his, slicing into Estrix’s paper skin easily. She did not scream, did not panic; she just looked at him with seething rage. He held up both their hands and shook them wildly, creating a veritable tornado of tiny shards of hardened blood. He let them loose throughout the room, terrifying and blinding the three senators enough that he could run out the door.
It just so happened that a shard pierced Senator Allen’s aorta, giving Aldrious an ample supply of crimson. My mother was able to grab his ankle before he could flee completely; however, it was at the cost of her hand. He had created a circle of blades around himself out of Allen’s blood, one of which deftly took care of her attempt.
Despite dismembering my mother, he was not interested in a fight or with further sullying the palace. The more removed from his seat of power he became, the greater his respect for it grew. It was peculiar, but it seemed his humanity returned with each ounce of control lost; in that vein it made some sense.
As he moved through the halls he passed five guards, all of whom ignored him walking past. He was half-awake, covered in blood, and surrounded by seven levitating onyx blades. It’s unlikely many would want to interrupt such a man without orders.
Some such orders must have finally been given by the time he neared the royal bedchambers, his residence since the demise of the king and queen. Most members of the Mortanion Brotherhood possessed the art of blood magic, so this fight he walked into would be much less pleasant for him. Aldrious had an innate talent for it, one passed through his family line, but not such a great gift to be able to take on the two-dozen young monks who stood in front of him.
“Yes, yes, the guest of honor has arrived. What are we planning, where are the festivities to be held? Such a privilege, all this attention just for me!” he taunted coyly, though he released his control on Allen’s blood. The circle of blades fell but turned to ash before they could impact with the marble floor.
“Dear brother, you have made quite a mess, haven’t you? You
planned on leaving it all for me? That is rather unfair; however, if you tell us where the prince is and whether or not he is alive, I’ll happily clean it up myself,” Bishop Carol chided as he positioned himself in the middle of his row of young monks. He was a weak and tiny man, middle-aged and clad in burgundy. He stuck out horribly amongst the predominantly teenaged monks who were all dressed in brick red with their blood swords drawn.
“Dead, stolen by the Logos, headed to Khur,” Aldrious gasped out quickly before running himself into Carol as fast as he could. Just as he suspected, at least four blades pierced through his flesh and deep into his abdomen. He fell to the floor, prompting the others to stand down. Although it brought him within inches of his life and he was on the verge of shock, the ruse worked perfectly.
Lying on the floor beside Carol’s sandaled feet, he drew the energy from all the blood he spilt. A single reaper started to grow behind them, but the monks were preoccupied with mocking the dying cardinal. As soon as his spell was at full strength he lifted his hand up, the first and last clue they were to have of Aldrious’s scheme. The reaper knocked Carol clear over as it grasped its master’s wrist within its talon. It flew up, straight through the glass ceiling. Shards from the blue lotus design of the stained window rained down all over his brethren.
He was riding high above the castle, barely awake as he whispered to the beast pathetically, “Hold me tight….” He needn’t give it verbal commands; it was a manifestation of his own consciousness and could interpret them, yet it still felt comforting to ask.
Aldrious was, frankly, rather fucked at this point. Wherever he went there would be trouble, as this hated creature was his only transport. It held him up to its chest with both talons, supporting his jagged torso. He was busy coercing his blood to repair itself and fuse his flesh, while the creature flew as high as possible toward Westend.
After ten minutes of flying up and west, all the holes in his flesh were sealed, although the muscles were sliced apart beneath them. The organs were mostly spared, but he was still sending energy to his spleen and right kidney when his flight needed to be over. He swatted out his hand, breaking the spell’s epicenter and starting his plummeting descent toward the roof of Connor’s print shop.
The only reason he survived such a stupid stunt was that he landed in the compost pile of the florist next door. Instead of dying, he broke three ribs, both ankles, his left wrist, and ripped open one of the stab wounds. The noise was sufficient in prompting Connor to run out of his shop at full speed. He lifted his stinking, bleeding cousin up and into his shop before anyone else could figure out what had happened. The residents of Westend would have been highly amused to know Aldrious the Wicked fell from the sky into a pile of rotting waste in their own backyard, but it sadly remained secret.
“So this be what neck-deep looks like, Aldy?” Connor asked kindly. He held the awful mess in his arms like a child before setting him in one of the large sinks in the back of his shop.
Aldrious tried to create a witty response but instead just coughed up more blood, pissed himself, and passed out in the metal tub.
It was completely dark out when he woke again. The shop was lit only with candles, and they were all surrounding Connor at his press. Aldrious had been sleeping on a ratty tartan couch in the dormitory part of the building. He craned his neck to see the large sinks used for equipment, and now cardinal washing, across the room from him.
He wanted to get up but knew it was not going to happen. His entire body was on fire with pain; his skin was covered in a sticky sweat, and he was trembling from to toe to chin. The nap was necessary, but it prevented him from encouraging his body to heal itself, and it grew to be as damaged as an average human’s would be. He fidgeted his fingers under the fur he had been covered with, using more than just his mind this time to rebuild his body. It would still likely be an hour or so before he could walk.
He didn’t have long to ponder getting up before his youngest cousin bounded through the room holding a candle. Annalise DuBois sat herself on the edge of the couch, barely fitting her small body next to him. “Dun go movin’ now, idiot,” she scolded him, before turning to pour some water into his open mouth.
“I bet you are little Annalise! Don’t tell me you speak like that too? I do not understand. You are all educated and wealthy, not a herd of bloody yokels. It gives me a headache,” Aldrious whispered to her after gulping the cold liquid down. It felt as if it were extinguishing the sparks of agony as it passed through him. He was thankful to not be drinking wine for the first time in years.
“We speaks like our people. We ain’t no ninnies o’ the church or the crown,” yelled Connor from the other room.
“Oh, I can speak properly if you’d like, cousin. When I am with my siblings, they drag me along with that nonsense. It has been ages, Aldrious; I could barely speak in any form when I last saw you. I have grown quite a bit since my diaper days, I am sure you can tell.” Annalise spoke kindly, with some soft laughter.
Aldrious barely knew her, but he could tell she took after the mother of the current brood. In that family, one looked completely like one parent or the other. The father’s half, like Connor and Aldrious’s favorite cousin, Lucille, were all tall and broad, with pale skin and fiery orange hair. The other half of them looked more like the mother, thus more Dalgarie, with tan skin and petite bodies. Shemmy and Annalise were definitely of the maternal side. Annalise had her dark brown hair cut quite short around her ears and had perfectly smooth skin besides a large scar under her left eye. She was quite beautiful, prettier than Shemmy, but that could have just been due to the lack of dirt and eight-year age difference.
“You have grown gorgeously. I do so like tomboys,” Aldrious whispered with a grin. He was desperately trying to remove one of his hands from under the fur so he might touch her soft skin; however, it was to no avail. She jumped away from him and across the room at first notice of his blanketed movements.
“You’re as awful as my brother said, then? I will be off now. If you are well enough to flirt with your baby cousin, you need no nurse,” she shouted and grimaced as she made her way into the front of the shop. “My lady is probably worried sick. I’m gonna get outta here, brother. Yer patient is awake; smack him for me when he’s well enough. Taking one of these too, you hadn’t shown me the new one yet,” she yelled to her brother, tucking one of the naughty magazines under her arm.
“The fuck he do?” Connor grunted, but allowed her to leave without answering. Instead he walked into the room with Aldrious, holding a large piece of parchment against his chest. “Get my little sister out of yer sick mind and treat your loins to thoughts of this beaut!” He was guffawing as he drew closer, allowing the reproduced image of a three-breasted woman to become visible to his cousin.
“Wait, is she real?” That sight was encouragement enough to move. Aldrious drew his hand from the blanket and grazed a fingernail against the central nipple.
“Aye, I have the real photograph somewhere in here. She was some mutant from Khur, a bloody gorgeous one. I hear she has since passed. Had I believed in Aegis, I woulda cursed him after hearing the awful news.”
Aldrious frowned and dropped his hand to hang beside the couch. “He’s real…. He is a greedy, evil asshole who cares nothing for this planet or his children, but he exists,” he muttered bitterly, shutting his eyes.
“No wonder you got along with him for so long. Movin’ on, yer bounty posters are done, distributed ’um myself and gave Annalise one. My money is on her winnin’, as long as her missus lets her off leash.” Connor had rolled up Triple Tit and grabbed the stack of parchment from under his arm. He placed it atop Aldrious’s chest before turning back to his workroom. “Another fing I want ya to see,” he called back.
“I probably don’t need these copies anymore. I am a fugitive myself. Perhaps I will drop one in the castle gates so Carol knows why mercenaries are bringing him bodies. I am sorry to have wasted your time, to make you do so much for me�
��.” Aldrious trailed off, trying to think of that poster and distract himself from his pain and misery.
“Does’nae matter, the papers and whatnot. You juss best make sure Shemmy gets her place back, no matter what state you be in. I dun care who you gotta speak to, be it parliament, the dead prince, or even bloody Aegis for that matter. That little bitch sister o’ mine is gonna change the world; she’s a damn miracle. I cannae abide her talent being wasted in the woods no longer.”
Connor had returned with a two-foot-tall leather folder under his broad arm. He swung his empty hand out, knocking the bounties off Aldrious’s chest and replacing them with the bundle. He opened it up, showing the cardinal a menagerie of written accounts, drawings, and even photographs of Shemmy’s achievements in enchanting. Most of it was regarding the first man she revived.
“She really is your favorite sister, hmm? I always preferred Lucille.” Aldrious was laughing but curious enough to begin digging through the file. The first photograph was a bit blurry, but what it contained was astonishing. Shemmy was being cradled in the arms of a man whose head was obviously sewn back on. She was laughing, and it was clear the dead man alone was supporting her.
“You only like her cos she’s a slut. The two o’ you could’nae have been in double digits when ya started fuckin’.”
“We weren’t,” Aldrious replied with a wicked grin while looking at the before picture. It showed Shemmy with the man while he was still alive, shaking hands happily in front of the rest of her group.
“Bloody disgustin’,” chuckled Connor, kneeling beside the couch to look over the file as well. “Members o’ her enchanting clan gave me this stuff. They knew how I like to keep tabs. See that sod, his name was Reginald Erewald, a rich prat from south Drummond. Joined their troupe, was obsessed wif the dead. He volunteered himself, was damn near giddy to get his head sawed off.” He picked up the last of the photographs and held it out. Reginald was lying on the ground, his head on a rock and his neck out. Shemmy had the ax propped over her shoulder. You could see every single tooth in that man’s head as he smiled wide for the camera.
Defiant Revival Page 15
