Guardian Angels

A gift fic for pinkypirate

"Lady Kalique," Malidictus' owlish eyes blinked, reflecting the amber light of Cerise's treacle-tinted sunset, "All you requested of us for your celebration this evening is in readiness."

Kalique's eyebrow twitched, wrinkling her immaculate alabaster brow, as she noticed the subtle caveat in her attendant's announcement. Nothing else budged; she refused to put a curl out of place over news wholly expected. "He has refused me, hasn't he?"

"He has, mistress," it was a testament to Kalique's restraint that he didn't tremble where he stood at the thought of having, by word or deed left undone, failed to fulfill her every whim.

This was not to say Kalique was not seething with irritation. Decades had passed, time enough even for an immortal to feel some relief from the stinging ache of the most painful humiliation. Yet he insisted on brooding in secrecy, stalking the darkened halls of the wing she'd allotted him like some golem of portentous vengeance.

It was all becoming rather tiresome.

Malidictus gently intruded on her thoughts. "Shall I order his dinner delivered?"

"No," she said, rising gracefully, conscious ever of the bend of her neck, the angle of her eye, the gracious falls of her gown. Though she enjoyed the gravitas that came with age, she took keen pleasure in how well her youth suited her, especially when she had only that day emerged from the RegenX bath.

"No," she said again, smile a knife's edge, "I shall fetch him."

There was no hint of surprise in Malidictus' flat face, but she could feel him shaking her head as she swept down the corridor.

He had grown into the shadows, merging with them, soft black robes blending with darkness. He wore nothing else anymore; not gold, not jewels, not the soft burnished brilliance of his bare skin. As Kalique stepped into his territory, her silver gown became the only light in the abattoir Balem now called home.

Her nose wrinkled. The place was...well, filthy would be generous. If a bilgwold had moved in, it could hardly have done more damage. Furniture was in ruins, priceless tapestries shredded, sculpture and art fragmented like so much detritus. The expense meant little, but Kalique resented the waste of her beautiful gallery to her brother's rages.

He had destroyed the automated maintenance bots with the same fury with which he'd skinned the first live servant she'd sent to him. Now, only the first room of his territory was ever seen by foreign eyes. Kalique herself had only been further in six months before, and she wasn't anxious to revisit the experience.

Time might heal all wounds, but the wounds Balem had endured were severe.

Still, when Kalique had a goal in mind, she used every resource at her disposal to achieve it. So she forged ahead, fastidiously avoiding dubious piles of flotsam and kicking aside chunks of stone that rang musically against the floor. The cheerful notes were discordant in the hushed, frightened air.

She heard him before she saw him. At first, the patch of white against the wall seemed like just a spot of starlight, or a trick of her eyes. But there was no light in the room; certainly none that might move, turning to track her as she crossed the room.

"I sent you RegenX," she said, "Why haven't you used it?"

Balem's voice, hoarse and rusted at the best of times, was positively glacial with disuse. "I need none of your favors."

"Evidently," her sneer had never been as refined as his, but she managed some impressive distaste nonetheless. "I see you are rebuilding your empire as we speak. How gracious you have been, to sacrifice your valuable time to keep me company all these years. What a kind brother you are."

He lunged forward, stopping dead when Kalique's hand flashed and the prod crackled in her hand. Electricity arced between them, casting his face in ghoulish shadows. Beneath his shag of white hair, he seemed like a beast, raging just beyond the circle of her weapon. Reason, even the mad, disconnected reason Balem had relied on for so long, left no mark on his trembling lips and crazed eyes.

She had never seen him look so old.

"Jupiter is dead, brother," Kalique whispered, "Dead and gone. Why do you torture yourself like this?"

"Don't," he ground out, "Speak her name."

Kalique took a firmer grasp on the prod and swallowed through a raw, dry throat. "Jupiter Jones," she spat out the name as he had, "is dead. What safeguards she left on Earth can be undone, with time. Time we have; time she refused to use. And with time, all she did and meant to us, to you, will be forgotten."

Balem shrank back, features blurring once again as they left the circle of uncertain light. She didn't lower the prod any more than she'd lower it in the face of a retreating wildcat.

"I know you wanted your revenge on her," Kalique let her voice soften, not enough for sympathy, just enough not to provoke, "I wanted you to have it. It's true that she's dead, and we cannot reach her. But we can reach Earth."

Now she stepped forward, chasing him. She heard him back against the wall, saw his white head shaking. She pursued.

"She has children. Half-splice children, it is true, still protected by their father, it is true, but we can still reach them."

"How?"

Her heart lightened. Once, he would have seen the possibilities the instant she mentioned the children. Once, he would have been the first to suggest kidnapping, ransom, a strategic assassination or two. Still, she would take atrophied curiosity over bestial fury.

"I will not discuss this in these...surroundings," she let the sneer creep back onto her lips, in order to hide her smile, "We can discuss plans over dinner. After," she stressed, "you bathe. Now, shall I help you?"

It may be another decade before she can stand to touch him again—at least, as they had once touched—but when he let her draw his hand into her own, she felt the inevitability of time was once again on her side.

"This is ridiculous."

"Oh, I don't know," Kalique hid her smile in the folds of her scarf, "The red suits you."

It was a testament to how the centuries had mellowed him that all he did was scowl. "The green does not suit you."

"I'm well aware," it was her turn to scowl; her pale skin looked dead against a green found nowhere in nature. "Still. It's a family tradition. A family we have worked many years to become part of, may I remind you. Surely we can endure for a few more Christmases?"

"Uncle Balem! Aunt Kalique!"

The chipper voice of Jupiter Jones' great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Astrid Wise, shrilled from the porch.

"Come on!" she screeched, "Mom says it's time for the picture! Then we're gonna vote on the ugliest sweater, and I'm gonna vote for you!" She sang out the word, laughing at Kalique's ruffled, blinking monstrosity that shagged from her thin shoulders like a sad Christmas bush.

She sighed, ignoring Balem's harsh chuckle.

"We'll be right there, my darling!" Kalique waved her wrinkled hand, smiling a benign, matriarchal smile, perfected by decades of practice in a mirror. Astrid noticed nothing in Balem's frown, but then again, she was used to his aloofness.

The whole family was. Their immortal relatives, protectors of their interests in the vastness of the intergalactic business community, were beyond suspicion or reproach. Kalique and Balem were their guardian angels, almost in the Biblical sense. They acted mysteriously, coming and going on a whim, but always somehow doing the family good. Acting on their behalf to safeguard them and the people of Earth.

So they thought.

"One year at a time, darling," Kalique whispered, kissing her brother's cheek as she slid past him, heading towards the house. She felt him following her, her faithful shadow as he had been since the day she'd descended into shadows to pull him out.

In moments like that, Kalique forgot all the indignities she'd been forced to endure in the sheer pleasure of feeling everyone dancing to her silent tune.