Author's notes:
VE: Todger65. Much love! You give the magic form and the dreams substance.
Thank you dear readers for reading! It's why I bother to transform electrons to words instead of keeping them in my synapses to be lost.
Yes this is a cluster fuck of incomprehensibility. Yes it's all based on stuff I've been working through my brain for years now. Yes, it will make more sense, but it might not for quite some time. Yes, I'm an asshole for not posting this chapter sooner. This book is at about the half-way point, but who knows, maybe I'll drag it out a bit longer. Once it wraps up, we'll move on to another group of characters that will be interacting with these ones, sort of like how the Avenger movies work.
Now, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!
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He gathered up Lavinia. Together they stumbled back through the room to the grand foyer and went outside. He yawned. Lavinia's tears had dried up to just a few occasional sniffles and hiccups. He found her car without needing to try. He just walked up to a car. It was her Tesla, and because neither of them felt like driving, he had the car do it.
Lavinia rested her head on Gideon's shoulder as they walked arm-in-arm up the driveway towards the door. Gideon had lost track of time, but the sun wasn't up yet. He wasn't surprised that all the lights were off in the house. He fished around in his pocket, wondering what his mom would think about brining a second girl to the house in less than a day. He was an adult and paid his way, but that thought wouldn't dislodge itself from his head. It was still there when he stuck the key into the door.
"I'm sorry all this happened," Lavinia said again, sighing and closing her eyes tight.
Gideon shrugged. "The kindred are a bunch of assholes. Don't blame yourself for their assholery." He pushed the door open.
His eyes adjusted fast to the darkness. His vision switched to gray scale, tinged with reds and purples. He saw the muzzle of the shotgun as lines of grey and the tip dripping red. Jake was holding it.
"Fuck you!" Jake roared, squeezing the trigger of the shotgun. A barrage of iron flechettes burst from the muzzle like a swarm of angry killer bees. The air buzzed with their explosive dive towards Gideon's face.
Jake?! Blinding light enveloped him. Gideon flinched. He should have grabbed Lavinia and pulled her in front of him. His greater self demanded it. He dove into Lavinia, knocking her out of the way.
A barrage of iron flechettes peppered the left half of his face, neck, and shoulder. His eyes and ears were saved by his arms, but the rest of his face was festooned with them. He could feel them poking through his cheek with his tongue.
"You want more you fucking bitch?" Jake cocked the shotgun. Someone moaned loud but muffled. There were some muttered whispers that Gideon couldn't make out.
Another flash of light, and he was pushed back by the impact of the iron darts riddling his chest and neck. Breathing hurt. Air escaped from holes in his neck. His skin sizzled around the iron like batter in a frying pan. The cold darkness had abandoned him. He felt static when he reached out for his dark essence. Not that there was anything left to use anyway.
"Alive, Jake. He needs to be alive." It was Bill's voice, Angie's uncle.
"Yeah fuck that. You saw what he's done."
Bill said, "Use the bats boys."
More people rushed forward. The bats were made of cold iron. They crushed bone and melted skin. He crumpled upon the ground, unable to even curl into a fetal position. The darkness came and swallowed him. He was back in that room. The walls were infinite planes of nothingness. He rested in the space between breaths. He sat, waiting in the time between waking and dreaming. He could hear nothing. The stillness extended to his other senses. There was nothing to smell or taste. Neither texture nor temperature disturbed his skin. He waited in that infinity of absence.
He waited.
And waited.
Again the place receded like dirt washed from a wall. Instead of the room, there was just the normal fuzzy static behind his closed eyes. A thousand pinpricks of burning acid where the iron flechettes still clung to his skin. Added to that, his wrists and ankles were bound tight in what had to be cold iron. His appendages were pulled in all opposite directions like he was about to be drawn and quartered. He was laying on something hard, which would have to be his oak dining table. It was the only real furniture in the house. New needles of pain were blossoming over his body. Someone was taking their time sticking more stuff into his body. His eyes were crusted closed with blood. His nose and mouth were filled with it.
"You killed him," Bill said.
"Mister Gideon do not be looking good, no sir," Manas said.
"Oh shut it," Jake said.
"Hush," an old crone said. "It be fine."
Someone shuffled around the room, and it must have been the old crone sticking more needles into his body. She stopped several minutes later. It gave Gideon some time to plan out his next steps. His lesser self was a mess of depression and despair. First two girls were killed in front of him, and now he was being tortured. He was going to die in his house. He didn't even want to know what they'd done to his mother or Lavinia.
Of course they'd use holy water to clean the blood from his eyes. It was like bathing in battery acid. He could smell his skin burning. Layers of skin sloughed off.
"Enough, enough." The old crone hacked something up and swallowed it back down. "It be all done."
"Okay," Bill said.
Gideon didn't see much point in pretending to be passed out. He didn't think he could last long in this state. Pulling his raw eyelids open hurt. His eyes burned from the holy water. He swallowed some of the blood in his mouth.
It was the old crone who spoke. He recognized her as the lady behind the counter at Le Coffre Au Tresor, the pawn shop Angie had taken him to. Of course that made sense. He'd been unable to enter the shop. Someone had placed a seal against his kind. He wasn't sure if the old crone was a free agent or a member of the troupe. He suspected she was a free agent. It cast Angie's time in the shop in a whole new light. Manas was there, but he shrunk back when Gideon's dark eyes fell on him. The rest of Angie's troupe was there including Bill the leader and shotgun wielding Jake. The two girls Angie had been with weren't present, so maybe they had been "props" after all. Jake had the shotgun leveled at his head. Several of the other troupe members held iron pipes at the ready.
"Ye be thrice bound. Iron. Salt. Blood." The old crone said, shambling around the table like the walking dead. He heard her hunched over body creak with each movement. Bones popped and cracked. Maybe she was a spirit bound into dead flesh. She looked like a witch, if a witch dressed in a black moo moo with a tattered shawl tied over her deflated breasts.
"How clever of you," Gideon said. His greater self came forward. His lesser self was curled in some corner of his being, shaking and crying. His voice sounded bored. He yawned, not letting the pain show in his eyes. He strangled a groan before it could escape. "I advise against hurting Lavinia, wherever she is."
"Shut your fucking mouth!" Jake said, rushing forward and jabbing the barrel of his shotgun deep into Gideon's cheek.
"Hush child," the old crone said.
Gideon had liked Manas. He smiled when he caught sight of Manas again, pacing back and forth shaking his head. "There's more of my mom's cooking in the fridge. Why don't you help yourself to it Manas?"
"None of that dearie." The old crone placed one crooked finger beneath his jaw and tilted it back towards her withered face. It was like her skin was melted over her skull. She looked way worse up close than through the window of Le Coffre.
"You aren't powerful enough." Gideon thought for a second. "So that would mean you are acting via proxy. That'd be Isabella." Gideon rolled his eyes. "Bill, I don't advise going through with it."
"What?" Bill had been looking up the stairs, wiping his brow.
"Shhh," the crone said, "Move those lips again, and I be sticking this lovely through 'em. Mhmmm." The crone produced a knitting needle. "Don't want none of that lovie. Naw no." She shook her head.
Gideon nodded. He could see his body was outlined in salt the color of dried blood. Something in the blood baked into the salt made him think it was a virgin's. In addition to the flechettes still riddling his body, he saw acupuncture needles placed along his meridian points. The needles traced the 12 main pathways and most of the inner ones too. She'd missed a few spots but not enough. So Gideon did what he did best. He waited and looked for cracks. There were always cracks. Plus he could bluff with the best of them.
"Ask him already." Bill leaned over the banister and peered upstairs. He put a hand up to his throat, started, and then put his hand back down.
The moaning was coming from upstairs. He hadn't seen any sign of his mom, but there was no reason to give them that leverage. So he didn't mention it. She went to visit a neighbor down the street sometimes when the neighbor's wife was out of town. It would explain why she'd had such a grand meal ready for him, because it hadn't been meant for him after all.
The old crone bent over him, inspecting the iron chains binding his wrists. She nodded to herself. "Yer done to Angie a thing, eh? She's a good lass. So she is. Mmmm."
Gideon nodded.
"Good, yes dearie. That there need'n ta be stopped. That's the first." She peered at him. Patches of hair were missing. The remaining clumps of gray hair hung limp from her skull. "Speak."
Gideon smiled, not letting the pain touch his eyes or lips. "It can't be stopped without killing her at this point. She willingly let it into her womb."
Jake howled, smacking the butt of the shotgun over and over into Gideon's face. Gideon felt his cheek bone crack.
The old crone raised her hand. "Sleep child." Jake's eyes blinked a few times, his head slumped forward, and his body collapsed to the ground. He curled up into a ball around the shotgun. He was snoring within a minute.
The crone sucked in a breath. Her lips outlined the gaps in her mouth. She only had a handful of teeth left. "Not sure as all that." She grunted. "I seen her. Some'tin in that there belly. Swollen and a hunger."
"She...it needs to feed. I don't advise going into that room. I'm afraid what she'll do if she isn't fed proper and soon."
The crone nodded. "Chap be a hunger, ol'right." She sucked her lips against her teeth again. "But mayhap the chap won't bother if pa be gone, eh? Hee hee." She poked several of his broken ribs.
