Sorry for the massive delay. Depression is a bitch.
I hope this chapter has all the anxiety and angst you were hoping for.
When I tried to shake my head to put the world back straight, the ground under my feet tilted. A crushing grip on my arm stopped me from stumbling back too far. My breaths started to feel too thin. I didn't like this, not being in control, not being able to see right. The world needed to stop moving so much, stop tilting. I wasn't having fun on this ride. I wanted off.
"I think you might have overdosed him a bit, sir. He doesn't look good."
I couldn't tell how long I'd been awake. My arms and legs felt so slow and heavy like I was trying to swim. Credo's voice was the first thing that seemed real. He was to my left, something solid that made sense.
"Honestly, he'll be fine," Sir said too close to me. He must have been the one holding my arm. "You worry too much, kiddo. Demons are tricksters. They'll take advantage of that weakness if you let them."
"Of course, Sir. I won't let that happen."
We must have been outside, somewhere colder than back home. Every breath showed up in front of my face like a cloud while I tried to squint my feet back into two instead of four. Under my feet was metal with big holes in it that showed the ground far, far below us. Gasping, I jerked my head back up just as Sir yanked me forward. My legs didn't want to work anymore.
We must have been on a bridge, railing closing us in and a long way down on the other side of it. There was only forward and back, but when I looked back over my shoulder, I saw high cliff walls. I really was trapped. Even if I did bite Sir's hand and break free, I had nowhere to go. The bridge led up to huge old doors and a giant stone building covered in spikes. It looked familiar like Credo and Sir had, like something I'd seen in a dream.
Being lost and trapped outside seemed better than whatever could be inside a castle. I tried digging my toes into the steps leading up to the door, but Sir just sighed and yanked me up by my arm so that my feet dangled in the air.
"Really, it's just easier on everyone if you just behave."
"I won't!" I kicked my feet, trying to hit him in the shins. "I'll never behave!"
"See, Credo? He's waking up." Sir dropped me back down to the top of the stairs, grinning like he had some reason to smile. "Maybe we should have kept the other kid as leverage."
I froze, and Credo gasped. "Sir, we couldn't-"
"Kidding! I'm kidding! You're so high-strung, kiddo. We need to bring you along next time we head to the bar so you can learn to loosen up."
Credo's cheeks turned pink while Sir laughed and rammed his shoulder into the big door. I hoped that hurt him because the door opened with a slow creak. It must have been heavy.
The inside looked like a church. I hadn't been in one in so long, but I remembered the chairs all in rows and having to sit for so long and just listen. I asked Evie once if I was going to have to go back to church again every week. She'd laughed when I told her that would be a long trip all the way back to Fortuna every single week.
"No, you don't have to go back," she said. "You never have to go back there."
I was little back then, so I didn't remember everything well, but I remembered that moment because I was so excited, so excited to not have to sit and listen to the man whose picture was staring me down across the room.
His Holiness.
Flashes of memories rushed back as my eyes shot around the room. They'd brought all the kids from the home here once. I'd tried to hide from the other kids under the chairs. I'd tried to hide there when everyone was leaving so maybe they'd never find me. I thought I could just live there alone in Fortuna castle.
I jerked myself back against Sir's grip. "No! I'm not supposed to be here! Take me back home! I need to go home right now!" I was never supposed to go back to Fortuna. Everyone promised. "If you don't let me go, my dad will come get you! He'll kill you!"
He would. Dad would come save me just like before.
Fighting did nothing. No matter how hard I tried to dig in my heels or pull at Sir's fingers, he kept walking forward. "You're not doing yourself any favors. I'll ask you one more time to stop and behave."
"No! Let go of me!"
Something cracked against my cheek. Just as Sir let go of my arm, my feet slipped out from under me. I put my hands out to catch myself, and the cold floor smacked into my palms. The side of my face throbbed with pain.
Sir sighed as he stood over me, flexing his hand in and out of a fist. "He's just as badly behaved as I'd heard, probably worse since he got taken."
"I'm not bad," I snarled. Talking made my jaw ache. "You're bad! You kidnapped me! You just hit me!"
"No crime in hitting a demon. Besides, I gave you multiple warnings." I wished he would have sounded angry instead of so calm. Something in the way he flashed another smile as he reached for me made me freeze up. If he'd been angry, I could have run away, but I was stuck there in fear, and I didn't know why.
"Sir."
Another arm appeared over me, blocking Sir's hand. I'd stopped paying attention to Credo, forgot he was even there. Sir must have too. "Your shift is over now, you know," Sir said. "Job's done."
"Well, not exactly." Credo shifted between his feet. "Let me take him from here. I'll finish the mission properly. I'm pretty used to dealing with a kid, you know."
"We've been over this."
"Yes, sir, I know. He's not a kid, but he acts just like one."
"That's their trick, though. Their face is false. Their act is a lie." Crossing his arms, Sir sighed. "You're too soft, kiddo. You need to buck up some, make your dad proud."
Credo's back shot straight. "I will! I can handle this, sir, I swear. Let me prove it."
"Alright, we'll put it to the test then." I couldn't help but flinch back when Sir smiled again in a way that should have been nice. People weren't supposed to smile when they hurt other people. Only demons did that. "I'm putting you in charge of him."
"In charge?" Credo echoed, eyes blank as he stared at the card Sir placed in his hand.
"Yep. Take him to his cell. I'll fix your schedule. You'll be his guard."
"Oh." Under his furrowed brows, Credo's eyes darted back and forth until he forced himself to look back up. His face set to stone. "Yes, sir."
"Remember to get back in your uniform," Sir called with a wave as he started off toward the heavy doors and blocked me from my only exit. "Can't have you going around in casual clothes on the job. Oh, and forty points!"
"Forty?" Credo eyes brightened and dimmed in an instant like a firework. "Kyrie is going to kill me. I was supposed to be home tonight." He offered me a hand, but I picked myself up, watching the heavy door open and shut. Before I could look for another way out, Credo's hand wrapped around my arm. Sir's grip had been like teeth sinking down to my bone, but Credo's was just a hand. I could have broken free and run away if I'd had somewhere to go.
"Come on," Credo said. His voice was trying too hard to be harsh and commanding. "Just a little further and then you don't have to get dragged around anymore."
"Sir said a cell. Like a prison cell? Am I a prisoner?"
"Sir? His name isn't- Well, I guess it doesn't matter." He shook his head as we started further into the castle. "You're not a prisoner. You're just… a captive."
I wasn't sure what the difference was. "Why?"
His lips pressed into a tight line, and his eyebrows stayed so pinched that I started to wonder if they were stuck that way.
Credo led us to a room like the library back home. From the rows of shelves and books, he tilted three books out until they clicked. The shelf in front of us swung back like a door. "I've seen this in a cartoon once," I said.
Credo said nothing, but it was easy to see the way his eyes narrowed at the steps leading down into darkness. He didn't like this place. I didn't either. The stairs just kept going, down and down into the dark.
Darkness swallowed everything - lights, warmth, people. When the world was too dark around me, I went back to the deep, damp cold where my arms burned.
"We're almost to the bottom," Credo said. I jumped against his voice, my hand tugging on a scrap of fabric. I found myself holding onto his sleeve. "It's alright," he said. "Nothing down here will get you."
I stuck close to his side just in case. The thought of turning and running back up screamed at me, but the darkness had closed up at our backs too. I couldn't turn around. I couldn't.
"I'm not a demon, okay?" I said. Sir would never believe me, but maybe Credo would. "Please let me go home. You can tell I'm human, right? I'm not a demon. My family fights demons. They'll tell you. Let me call them, and they can tell you. I know the phone number."
Credo sighed as we reached the last step. The hallway was dim and gray. Every step we took rang with metal. Credo wouldn't look at me anymore. "Please?" I tried again. Evie said being polite was better than demanding something. "I don't want to be here. I just want to go home."
Nothing worked. The hallways were a maze, and after a couple turns, I lost the way back. Everything looked the same. Through some doorways we passed, I saw flashes of strange light and weird machines that could have been for science or magic. Maybe both, like Evie's alchemy.
We turned into a room where all the walls were bars. It looked an awful lot like a prison to me. When I tried to pull back, Credo held my arm tighter. "Why did you make me come here?" I asked. "What did I do?"
He still wouldn't look at me, but he looked like it hurt him to breathe. Pulling me to the first cell, he swiped the card. The door beeped and slid open. The only light in the cell came in through the gaps in the bars, showing a cold, tiny room the size of Evie and Nonno's bed back home.
I looked up at Credo again, and for once, he looked back. When he opened his mouth, all that left him was a sigh, and he turned away again before shoving me into the cell. Stumbling forward, I heard the door rattle and click shut before I even got my balance back on my feet.
I was trapped again in another dark and empty place. But it would be fine. It had to be. Dad would find me again. He would.
Unless he didn't. He didn't know where I was. No one saw me get taken but Drew. Maybe Drew died out there alone, and it was my fault. Maybe I'd never go home.
"Breathe," Credo said. He stood just outside the door with his back turned. Though his face leaned toward me, his eyes were away. "You need to slow down and breathe."
"I'm trying. I'm trying." But I couldn't get enough air. It hurt to try, and I couldn't breathe fast enough, couldn't breathe deep enough. The air turned heavy and gray.
"Grab the blanket," Credo said. His tired brown eyes were on me now. "Put it around you and sit down with your head between your knees. And just slow down and breathe."
I tried it, curled up on the thin, creaky mattress with the even thinner, scratchy blanket pulled over my head. But it didn't take me out of the cell. I was still in Fortuna, and I couldn't breathe.
"You used to live here, right?" Credo asked.
"Yeah. Yeah. A long. Long time. Ago." Speaking made it harder to gasp in the pieces of air. My throat ached.
Credo started humming, his voice so low it sometimes faded to a whisper. I knew the song in an instant, even though I hadn't heard it in so long. We used to all sing it together in the big church. That was the only good part of church, everyone singing together and no one getting mad when I was off key. When Credo started to sing the words, I knew all of them, even though they were in a language I hadn't spoken in so long.
I just listened and tried to breathe until I was lying on my side, too tired to gasp for air anymore. My eyelids were so heavy, and the blanket was too thin. "Cold, cold," I felt myself mumbling.
"I'll see what I can do," Credo said. "I think I should find you some food first. You're probably starving. You know, some training would have been nice. I'm starting to think the captain just pushed this job off on me. That's just like him. Wait here. Er, well, I mean… I'll be back in just a few minutes."
A few minutes felt like such a long time. Without the song or my wheezing breaths, I could hear things through the walls - buzzing and tearing and screaming. I tried to cover my ears and shut it all out, but it just wasn't working.
I was going to die there.
I should have been able to do something. After all this time, I should have been able to do something . I was still such a failure, such a worthless father.
We should have gotten a ransom note, a phone call. Anything. That was the only reason I hadn't left the damn house to go looking like Dante. I was so useless. Surely an enemy of mine would have contacted me by now to gloat. Even one of the many demon bastards father had angered over the years could have no reason to just steal away my son without a word.
But demons didn't always follow reason and neither did humans. Not even twelve hours later and I felt as though I were hanging onto my last flimsy threads of sanity. I thought it had felt like an eternity before - running blind through the woods in search of him. That was nothing. At least we had a goal then. At least we had a reason for those hours of hell.
I couldn't say how long I'd spent pacing the living room. I'd tried to sit several times, but each time my eyes would fall to the boy who was still in our house for some unfathomable reason, safe and asleep against the source of his curse, and for that brief moment, I despised him. I wanted my son in his place. I would have traded them in an instant.
As soon as the vicious, black thoughts began, I would get back to my feet and pace once again until I lost all sense, all track of time. Everything blurred together, and then I would sit and start over again. By some miracle, I hadn't worn a hole in the floor yet.
The front door opened during another one of my endless circuits between the couch, kitchen, and dining room, the eyes of the boy's demon guard following me all the while. Dante promised to check in for news before sunrise, and I could see the touches of deep blue sky at his back through the trees. I knew he couldn't have found Nero, yet disappointment still bored into my chest at the sight of my brother standing there alone.
"Anything?" I asked even as I already saw the answer in his eyes. They held such guilt and exhaustion. He shouldn't have been the one feeling guilty when everything was my fault.
"Nothing," he said. "I checked with a few of my sources, and the most I got was that the crash that caused that jam was likely staged as you suspected, but the perpetrators did a good job sticking to the shadows. CCTV footage didn't offer more than a couple of grainy glimpses. The kid's descriptions were more helpful." Gesturing to Drew with one hand, he rubbed at his face with the other.
"We should get him home," I said. "It's late." He'd spent the same amount of time missing from his home, yet I knew no one felt a gnawing terror at his absence. No one combed the city for clues of his whereabouts. Regardless, children belonged at home.
"Yeah, we don't want to be another set of kidnappers. You got him?" Dante asked the demon. "Uh… Belphegor or something like that?"
"Thuban," I corrected, and Dante shrugged.
"I got a few letters right."
With a hiss, the beast showed its disapproval and roused the boy. Drew's head rose with the sluggish roll of a drunk. "Hm? Find Nero?"
"Not yet, but we will." Dante's smile was brittle and plastic. "For now, you need to get home, kid.
The boy snapped into wakefulness, his eyes ablaze. "No! Not until we find him!"
"I don't want more than one child away from his home tonight if we can help it," I said. "Thuban, please take him home. He should sleep in his own bed."
"It doesn't matter! No one cares if I'm not there!"
But the demon must have agreed as it curled one massive clawed foot around his back and dragged him off the couch. No matter Drew's screeching refusals, Thuban showed no hesitation in plucking him up by the back of his shirt and trotting toward the door like a mother cat with an unruly kitten.
"Don't worry, kid. We'll find him," Dante said, opening the door for the demon. As soon as it stepped into the open air, its massive wings flapped and sent a wave of dust into the house.
Within moments, Drew's cries of "Thuban, you bastard!" faded into the night sky. We both stared out into the darkness longer than necessary, lost in a silent, empty fragment of time. Dante was the one who managed to break it. "Forgot his trumpet," he said. "I'm sure he'll be back for it."
I nodded. They'd undoubtedly left it on purpose. Alongside the trumpet, my eyes fell to Nero's violin once again, and I crossed to where it lay on the coffee table. It was all they'd left behind of my son, the one thing he would have refused to leave. I found myself flicking open the latches on the case to take hold of the fragile instrument left inside. Despite the scuffs on the case, the violin remained as pristine as the day I'd picked it out with him. He'd always taken such good care of it.
The sight of it resting in my hands blurred. My eyes filled with burning tears that I could not stop from falling. I had to put the violin back in its case. I couldn't stand to look at it.
"We'll get him back," Dante hissed. His voice was trembling. "We'll find him. I don't care what it takes."
I nodded, wanting to believe him. "We should contact Father. He may be able to help, and at the very least he and Mom will want to know what's going on."
Dante winced against the idea. I had a feeling we shared the same memory of how excited our parents had been for their trip. They never took vacations, and Mom had spent months planning this one.
"Our enemies may have known they would be gone," I said. "Perhaps it has something to do with Father. If this is somehow connected to enemies of his, we may wish to keep this issue as quiet as possible."
"Can't you just call them? You got them cell phones, didn't you?"
"They are far out of service range. Besides, Father is as good at keeping up with his as you are."
He grumbled some lame excuse while rubbing at the back of his neck. His attachment to that old landline in his shop was beyond me. "So how are we going to tell them then?" he asked audibly.
Turning heel, I darted back toward the kitchen. Dante's boots followed after me. "We'll summon Modeus," I said. "He'll arrive shortly and should be able to track down Father without much trouble. He's always been loyal as a dog to Father, so I believe he'll carry this out for us."
On the kitchen counter lay a notepad Mom always used for grocery lists. She'd left a half-finished one for us so she wouldn't come home to an empty fridge. Under "oatmeal for Nero - he likes the dinosaur one," I wrote only "come home immediately."
"You're not going to explain what's going on?" Dante asked, his brows knit.
"I don't want this information getting out to any demons besides Father, not even Modeus. If one of them were to find him before us…" I set the pen down before I could snap it in two.
"We can trust Modeus, though."
"No. Someone already knew too much, and they took my son. Any stranger on the street or any demon could be involved, and I will not give out any further information until I've seen the life drain from their eyes and I know Nero is safe again."
Dante breathed a sigh, but he did not argue. "Alright, what weird summoning ritual do we need to use to get pretty-boy here?"
Dad always woke me up by patting my shoulder. Evie would brush my hair out of my face, and Nonno would just pick me up out of bed and say, "Good morning!"
None of them were with me this time. I woke up to a glass of water being pushed into my hands. "You'll have to eat quickly. They want you in the lab immediately." Credo's voice was thin, and he kept looking from me to the door. "Sorry I couldn't get you anything warm." He handed me some bread that looked kind of like a crescent roll and a lot like it had gotten squished. "Getting it in here didn't go as well as I'd hoped," Credo muttered.
My stomach was too sick to want any food, but I ate it anyway. It felt like rocks in my stomach. The water wasn't cold, and I didn't finish much of it before Credo's hand wrapped around mine and pulled me out of the cell.
"Where are we going?" I asked. My eyes were still heavy from crying, and I couldn't rub the sticky feeling away. "What's the lab?"
"It's, uh, it's like going to the doctor. They're going to run some tests, and hopefully it won't take too long."
He wouldn't look at me again.
We went past all the strange noises and doors and corners until I was lost and everything was cold metal. Our steps were loud like when Yamato and Rebellion crashed together. The room we stopped in had a big glass window, but it didn't show outside. The floor hummed like a cello, deep and low.
"You're late," a man barked as he stepped out from behind some cabinet doors. When he tried to talk again, he had trouble with the words. They didn't want to leave his mouth for some reason, but Credo didn't look surprised, so maybe that was normal. "Why isn't he restrained? Put him on the table."
"Come here," Credo said too quiet for the other man to hear. He picked me up under my arms and sat me on a metal table that was so cold that I shivered. "Try to stay calm and hold still."
With a click, a rough belt tightened around my right ankle. Before I could pull my left leg away, Credo grabbed it and locked it in place too. "Hey! What are you doing!?" I tried to reach down and grab the belts, but the man whose words didn't like him grabbed my wrist.
"Honestly, are you even trying? It can't be hard to tie down a child." Up close, the man looked like he needed to take a bath. He was kind of greasy, but that wasn't going to stop me from leaning over to bite him.
Credo did stop me. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked me back. "Nero, don't!" He sounded stressed instead of angry. Before he even let go of my shirt, the greasy man's hand closed around my throat and slammed me down onto the table. It hurt. It hurt so much. It felt like being hit by Sir again and again, and I couldn't breathe.
"Behave yourself," the man spat. "I have no patience for children."
"Enough, Angus! I will not let you harm him."
"I am your superior, boy. You don't give me orders." He sounded scared, his words falling apart more. The hand around my neck let go, and I gasped for air. My wrists were both tied like my ankles. Pulling against them did nothing. Above me, a sword as big as Rebellion stood between Credo's hand and Agnus's throat.
"I was assigned as his guard," Credo said. For the first time, he looked angry instead of sorry. His eyes were dark. "That includes keeping him in one piece. Sanctus said he was important, so do your tests, but you will not hurt him. I've heard of what you do, and I'm not going to take my eyes off you for even a moment. Don't you dare try anything."
Agnus smiled like a dog snarling and raised his hands up by his shoulders. "Very well. No harm will come to the child. You have my word. I'll just be taking some blood and doing a basic exam."
"Do not take my blood." I tried to yell, but my voice was all scratchy. Agnus didn't pay any attention to me.
"You, however," he said, "are proving yourself quite an impressive Knight. Just like your father."
Credo had looked so happy when Sir said it, but fire filled his eyes when Agnus did. The sword shook as he put it back on his side.
"You deserve a reward." Agnus's smile was worse than Sir's somehow. Scarier. "Why don't we go ahead and see how you fare against the Ascension Ceremony? I'll have you bumped up in line. It's quite an honor for a Knight as new as yourself."
Credo took a deep breath, his eyes wide and his face all white. "Yes… that would be… It would be an honor." He swallowed, and his eyes turned dark again. "But do watch yourself around the child. I will offer you no favors in return."
Clicking his tongue, Agnus turned away as his smile fell. "Fine." He grabbed something from a table, but before I could see what it was, Credo put his hand over my eyes.
"Deep breaths," he said. "This will be over soon."
"Don't let him take my blood," I whispered. "He's weird and gross. Why does he want to take my blood?"
"He's just going to do a blood test. Doctors do it all the time."
"He's a doctor?"
Credo didn't answer, and something stabbed into my arm again. I tried to fight. I didn't want to be dizzy and sick like yesterday, but the pain stayed. My arm felt fuzzy after a while.
"I think that's enough," Credo said. His hand stayed over my eyes. "He's hardly had much to eat. Move on to whatever else you feel you must do."
Agnus did a lot of grumbling through all the tests. He had a lot of them. He tested my eyes, my ears, my teeth, and made me solve some puzzles that were easier than the ones I did with Dad. Credo watched him the whole time.
When Agnus said something about "advanced healing," Credo started unlocking the belts.
"It's time to get him lunch," Credo said. "He's still pale from having blood drawn. I think you have everything you need."
"Quite eager for your ceremony, aren't you?" Agnus snarled.
Credo's glare was the scarier one this time. "Very. Schedule it as you wish. Come on, Nero."
He let me reach out and take his hand as I stepped down from the table. The world tilted a little, but I held tight to Credo's hand. He made sure I didn't fall.
