Chapter Twenty-Two
Sunday 22nd of August 2008
12:09 pm
"Fou!" The squirrel-dog said again. Giving my cheek another lick. I didn't move off of the ground. Everything hurt. My ribs, the dozens of bleeding cuts, my very definitely broken left arm, and my probably broken, and very badly burned right arm. I just wanted to stay here and rest. Fuck it. I'd done my part, right? Surely this was enough. Ciel could handle the rest, right?
"Fou!" My friend said seemingly in response to my thoughts. Nuzzling my face but still trying to force me to move.
"Fou I can barely talk let alone move." The words came out slurred but he seemed to understand them.
"Fou! Fou. Fou!"
"I am not being lazy."
"Fou."
"Dangerous?" My mind wasn't quite up to processing what he meant.
"Move!" Mordred's panicked yell made me flop away from my position on the floor. Once again setting every nerve on fire. There was the sound of tearing stone from behind me. Part of the house turned into an impromptu projectile by the fight going on inside.
The torso-sized chuck of masonry would probably have reduced my head to an unpleasant jelly if I'd remained still. As it was I still got treated to a shower of small chips of stone smacking into already open wounds. As if today hadn't sucked enough already.
"Thanks."
"No problem. How long are you gonna lay there?"
"Until I can feel something that isn't pain."
"May not have that long."
"Why?"
"Because the Nun and Vampire Bitch are tearing that place apart."
"And?"
"If there are any normal humans inside you really think they're gonna survive a collapsing building on top of that?" I groaned in pain and flopped over to the side so I could look at the unassuming home. It had seen better days. While I hadn't exactly been paying attention to it during my own fight. Ciel had certainly done a number on it. Parts of some walls were simply gone, other parts were on fire, and several holes looked suspiciously like something, or someone had been launched through them at high speed.
On the whole, the house didn't exactly look structurally sound right now. A small, dark, part of me just wished I could leave the people inside. It was promptly taken aside and shot for this treachery. My eyes slid down to my hand.
"By the power of my comman-"
"Don't!" I stopped Mordred yelled plenty but panic, outside of life or death situations, was rare. "I know you're kind of loopy right now but don't try to Install." My confusion must have resonated through our bond. "It uses your body as the template remember. Do you really think you could survive that kind of transformation in your state?"
I honestly wasn't sure if I could or not. At a rough, highly pain influenced, guess I gave it an eighty-twenty chance. Me living was not in the eighty. Which meant I was going to need to do this the hard way.
"If you'd contracted with Father then Avalon would have made up the difference. But instead, you had to get me." Mordred was fretting again. They did that sometimes. Usually when something that King Arthur could do unambiguously better than they could came up. After all, how could the Knight of Rebellion, the only knight to surpass Arthur Pendragon, be incapable in an area that their Father had talent. I have told them it was cute if I didn't value my life.
"You're more than enough," I assured my friend and called Clarent back to my hand. It was probably beneath the dignity of a Noble Phantasm to be used as a crutch. But right now I didn't trust myself to cast magic even if I knew a spell for this, which I didn't.
It took three tries to get back to my feet. I slipped on the first. My right leg gave out on the second. A good eighty to ninety percent of my weight on Clarent. Sinking the sword into the earth as I began a stumbling shuffle towards the back door of the house. Each step was not a pleasant experience.
"Don't suppose you know if there are any normal people in there?"
"Fou." A nod accompanied his confirmation.
"How do you know that."
"Fou."
"You can smell them?"
"Fou."
"Can you smell any more vampires?"
"Fou."
"Just one. Alright, that's probably Françoise. Gonna steer clear of that."
"Fou."
"Yeah, I agree it is smart. By the way..."
"Fou?"
"Why didn't you tell us you could do this when we were putting together our plan?" Mostly improvisational though it was.
"Fou."
"You weren't there?"
"Fou."
"Oh right, you teleported out in the bathroom."
"Fou."
"There's nothing wrong with my memory." I ignored the very real chance I was nursing a concussion. We finally made the back door and slipped inside. Studiously ignoring the sounds of breaking masonry, screams of rage, and occasional Black Key tearing through a nearby wall. Fou looked left to right and then trotted away, I stumbled after him. The mixture of mud, blood, and Clarent gouging holes in the floor completely ruined the tiles.
"Fou."
"Next time you're sitting in on the meeting."
"Fou." The squirrel-dog said with a nod before looking back at me concerned forepaw pointing at a door. I waddled up to him and placed my hand on it. He didn't seem concerned about magic. I turned the handle, it wasn't locked, swinging open to reveal a steep staircase.
"Fuck." I did not relish the thought of descending those in my state.
"Fou-kyu." My head moved slowly to look at the squirrel-dog. I'd never heard him say anything except Fou before, and given what that sounded like...
"Did you just?"
"Fou?" He gave me a faux innocent look and I gave up thinking about it. I had stairs to climb, descend whatever. My first step almost made both my legs give out. While I'm sure that falling down the stairs probably would have been the fastest way to get to the bottom in my condition. I wasn't completely convinced that I'd survive the experience.
Also Mordred and Fou would laugh at me.
"You feeling anything?"
"Nah not really. But your senses are really fucked up right now."
"Joy." I refocused my efforts on getting down the staircase. What should have been a ten-second walk ended up taking almost two minutes. The basement was a small one, or at least I thought it was until I saw the iron door set into the far wall.
"Well, that doesn't look ominous at all." I groused to no one in particular. Fou was too busy staring at the door in what looked like annoyed exasperation if I was any judge. "Behind that?"
"Fou." He nodded as I got his attention.
"Right. Well then." Before I could touch the door a furry missile launched itself from the floor and smacked my hand away.
"Fou! Fou. Fou." I took his advice and looked at the stones around the door. Finding the problem. Runes etched into the stone of the basement. Some kind of Bounded Field. It could be down from what Ciel did earlier. But I wasn't about to take that bet. I was also way too tired to do this the long way. I moved Clarent and bent my knees so my armpit was resting on the pommel. A flick of my hand brought my wand out from its holster on my right forearm and into my hand.
I almost dropped it.
I'd deliberately avoided looking at my right arm since coming inside. I knew that constantly firing off Clarent's light would be painful and that I wouldn't be getting out unscathed. I had been right. I hadn't seen the damage done by Clarent Blood Arthur. But while a single massive attack, it was also directed and released in an instant. My use had been sustained and, unless I missed my guess, done substantially more damage.
The skin of my hand was blackened, burned, almost to charcoal. I could see some of the bones in my fingers through skin that had melted like wax. The bones of my forearm were visible through the partially melted muscle. If I wasn't Included to Mordred I probably wouldn't be able to move it at all.
There were advantages to being more, and less, than human.
I turned and looked at Fou. He wisely trotted to the other side of me. Then I proceeded to vomit over the floor. Some of it spilled down onto my ruined shirt and pants. I retched again, and again until only bile could force itself past my teeth and the sickly sweet smell of it clogged my nose. I took gulps of air like a man dying of thirst would drink water.
My arm.
My. Arm.
My. Arm.
MY. AR-
"Get a hold of yourself!" Mordred roared from inside my mind. Forcing me back from the brink of panic. "Listen and listen well. You survived getting your shit wrecked by the nun. You overcame that piece of shit Marcel. You got through that office building and talking with your father. You got through the ambush with the Aurors. And yes, while it has hurt you, you got through the Nightmares outside."
I let myself get carried back by Mordred's voice. My breaths became more even and less laboured. I gripped my wand in charcoal fingers and grit my teeth. I wasn't going to let this beat me. I wouldn't. I. Would. Not.
"There are people behind that door that need help. You can fall apart after you help them. Not before. If you break I'll help put the pieces back together. But right now you need to concentrate." I forced my breathing back to normal, my teeth ached as I grit them, I heard my wand give a groan from the pressure of my grip.
"Thanks."
"Anytime."
"Fou?"
"Yeah, I'll be okay." I forced my left arm to move and withdraw one of the two rune stones I'd prepared for just this kind of thing. I didn't have time and I was far too tired and angry for subtle. I waved my wand and drew in the ambient mana in the air. Not using my own power caused me little pain. Even if it offered less control. I pointed the wand at the rune stone and forced my will into it. My power was not all flash and pomp. A second later and the runes, while outwardly looking no different, seemed more real, more solid.
With a half-fumbling toss from my aching left arm, it tumbled through the air and skated across the ground and stopped a full foot before the door. Fou looked at me and I sighed before flicking my head at the stone. He, being the incredibly generous eldritch horror that he was, sauntered forward and slapped it into the door with his paw.
There was an echo of invisible power and the stone crumbled to dust. If it had worked, and by the looks of things it had, then the door should be safe now. Assuming no more magical traps. But I really didn't know how to check for those. So I was just going to have to hope there was nothing that would instagib me. Because I wasn't leaving people here.
I waddled to the door and forced it open. Mostly by leaning on it for a moment before Fou helpfully pointed out it was a pull door. Which had made an already shitty day worse. But eventually, I had gotten the door open. I don't know what I was expecting. A dungeon of some kind perhaps? Maybe a sick and twisted pseudo-medical facility?
It was a small-ish room. Clearly made and expanded by magic. Five meters by three at most. The ceiling was low enough that if I was claustrophobic I'd been feeling it. Three beds were arranged at the far end of the room, chamber pots at the foot of each one. The smell indicated they had been used, recently. A table sat in the middle of the room likely for feeding. A window was set into the far wall. A starry night sky free of clouds showed through it. Quite clearly magical in nature given we were underground.
It was mundane and that made it so much worse.
The people inside looked more like hollowed-out husks than people. They were thin, though not gaunt, and looked around at everything with unseeing misted eyes. I'd read about what the Imperius curse could do to a person if overly relied on and this looked like almost a textbook case. Humans unable to do anything except what they were told. I felt teeth bite into my lip and I had to relax before I added another injury to my extensive list, this one self-inflicted.
I raised my wand and then stopped. I really didn't know how to overcome the Imperius curse. As I understood it there were outside ways to break people out of being controlled but I didn't know them. Okay, okay, I couldn't physically carry them out. I could barely stand. I looked down at Fou.
"I don't suppose you could?" I looked at the people and purple eyes stared back at me before with a theatrical sigh my friend, and squirrel-dog companion, rolled his eyes at me.
"Fou." He huffed out and sauntered forward. As though saying 'What would you do without me?' Which was frankly a really good question. He leaped atop the shoulders of the middle victim and looked at her sorrowfully. "Fou."
"Yeah me too buddy." He rolled his shoulders and I felt power build for but a moment. Winding blue streamers of light rolled away from Fou's small body. Each one wrapped around the body of one of the three people. Purple eyes looked into mine and I got the distinct feeling I was being ordered to kill the person who did this.
Well, I was gonna try.
"Foooou!" With a cry, the shadows around the room roiled and swallowed the group. A bit more theatrical than his usual methods. But maybe he needed it for more people? I still didn't understand how he did that. I let out a breath.
"Useful little bastard isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"I don't hear any more walls being torn down and I don't think there's been an explosion since you got into the room."
"Yeah."
"I think if she won then the Nun would have called for you."
"Yeah."
"Got a plan?"
"Not really. See what the hell's going on. Install if we don't have any other choices. If we can find the time."
"That could kill you."
"If Ciel lost then I'm dead anyway."
"Fair point." I forced my body to turn and made my way back up the stairs. It took more time on the way up than on the way down. Damn you gravity. The house was quiet. A small part of me wondered where Fou had taken the victims, a bigger part noted that I had other things to worry about. I moved over the ground floor heading in the direction of the foyer. That's where I'd last heard the sounds of combat from.
The house was silent. Like the world was holding its breath. A bone-chilling silence. The kind you found in graveyards at midnight on moonless nights. A reminder that humans had fled into the light for a reason. Because there really were things out there in the dark that wanted to eat us. That loathed us. Hated us. Played with our lives before discarding us and one of the names given to those monsters was vampire.
I'd have tried calling out for Ciel if that didn't sound like an idea taken from a bad teen slasher movie. I'd seen Jason and I was nowhere near unconventionally attractive enough to pull plot armour in a situation like this. Instead, I alternatively limped, waddled, and stumbled my way through the ground floor. Which to be fair was making marginally less noise than if I'd shouted my location to all and sundry.
The foyer itself was larger than I had been expecting. Though it may not have been that way originally. There had seemingly been enough things moving at high speed to demolish a few walls, significantly extending the openness of the space. In the corner of the foyer, near a destroyed wall, was a sight that made my heart jump into my throat and my stomach drop into my shoes.
Ciel. She stood a half her face a blackened ruin. Skin melted and fused much like my arm. She was missing a chunk of her stomach, and most of her left arm. Her right arm clutched three Black Keys and was pulled back as though about to throw. An expression of pure, unrelenting, rage was etched onto her features. I saw all this clearly as she stood behind a barrier of shimmering air. A glowing circle on the floor around her.
Given that I knew her regeneration messed with time in some way. It had to be some kind of time dilation Bounded Field.
A woman stood before her. Her clothing looked pristine. You'd expect a vampire to dress appropriately. Black and red. Clothes of only the finest silks and gold adorning each finger. Françoise Maria Valade did not look like that. Her hair was rust-red and fell to the middle of her back in a French braid. Her clothing consisted of bare feet, cream trousers, and a blue blouse. Not an inch of silk, or an ounce of gold anywhere in sight.
"You can come closer you know." Her voice was low and melodious. Deeper than I had been expecting but in no way unpleasant. "No point in hiding now. I can hear your heartbeat from here. I take it my Nightmares are dead?" I didn't answer the question for a moment weighing my options. "If my guest was to be so rude as to not converse with the host, perhaps I should find other ways of engaging my time?" I'd heard few innocuous sentences sound so threatening. I wet very dry lips.
"Yes." The answer was monosyllabic. But that had more to do with fear than anything. I gave a few tottering steps forward. Clarent clanking with each step. Still being used as a crutch. I measured my chances of striking. With my speed, it was close to zero. Even assuming I was in my best condition she had to be faster than the Nightmares outside and they would have had little problem in dodging me in this state.
"I see. Unfortunate I was quite fond of Kevin." A small part of my brain recorded the words Kevin the vampire. Then took a moment to wonder about where I'd gone wrong in life. She turned to face me. Françoise was a beauty. Her wine-red eyes seemed to set off everything else about her face. She looked into me. Red gazed into green and gave an enchanting smile.
"Come closer, let me get a good look at you." I stepped forward. "While I will admit you are a little plain." That was fair. "I can see why Elesia took a liking to you. Have you shared her bed?"
"No."
"Unfortunate. I had been told she was quite a wonderful partner." I continued to gaze into her eyes. They seemed to swallow everything.
"O-"
"Would you like to enjoy her?"
"Yes." The answer was automatic. I blinked. There was something wr-
"Ohhh, how wonderful. You could you know. All you have to do is one thing."
"Name it." What was I doing?
"Drink." A nail lengthened to a claw and she cut her own wrist. Blood welled and then wept to the floor below. "It is difficult to keep the curse at bay. But not too hard. Now come here." I walked forward the aches and pains I had been feeling fell away.
"Har-" A voice carried from somewhere distant. I knelt before Françoise and blinked slowly. What was that?
"Good. Now drink and I'll allow you to enjoy her. I promise it will be unforgettable." Her words were like a purr as her red eyes continued to consume everything. My eyes began to burn. Small pinpricks of pain rolled in from the back of my skull and into them.
"Oi! Dickhead!" Mordred's roar snapped me out of it. Every ache and pain rolled back into me and I bit back a scream. I drew in quick short gasps as I looked into wine-red eyes that crinkled in confusion.
"Oh!" Françoise exclaimed and began laughing. "To think you'd manage it! You really are quite the delight are you not?"
"What did you do?" I barely managed to force the words out.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to look a vampire in the eyes?" It came back in a rush. True vampires. Fully fledged monsters. Quite often they gained Mystic Eyes of Enchantment. The revelation must have shown on my face. "A little less immediately powerful than the Imperius but far harder to detect. Few people break out once under control, however. I must praise you for that."
"So, what now." I was within a few feet of Ciel. This could either be very good or very bad. I slipped a hand into my pocket. The ground around the field looked cracked. As though someone had attempted to reinforce the ground incorrectly. But hadn't quite made it in time. Light from the edge of the barrier leaked and ebbed into the spiderweb of cracks.
"Now is up to you." The vampire said looking at me. "You can drink and have her." She turned to face Ciel and I withdrew my hand placing both of them on the ground to steady me as I stood up, almost falling twice.
"Or I can break you. Physically first, then mentally. I will inflict every agony upon you. Then I will heal you. Again, and again, and again. Until you thank me for the pain and the pleasure. Until you wish to serve me with all your heart and soul. My ever-loyal hound." She spoke with such certainty as though everything was a forgone conclusion.
"Until the day you beg me to violate her. Not because I have told you to, but because you want to." Her claw-like hands gestured to my friend and I felt impotent anger well inside of me. I let the emotion fuel me and give me what strength it could. "Until the day you relish visiting every indignity upon dear Elesia." She smiled as though the very thought brought her nothing but joy.
"Until all you dream of is lacerating her flesh, breaking her spirit, and having her cry out in despair as you take everything you want to take from her. Can you see it?" She demanded face contorting and twisting into something as monstrous on the outside as she was on the inside. "Her writhing as you take her? I could make you love it you know." Considering she had literal mind control on her side, yeah I believed that.
"If it's all the same to you." I kept my voice carefully light. As I made, possibly, the most stupid decision of my life. "Go fuck yourself." I let the strength leave my legs and flopped to the floor in an undignified heap. Right next to the scattered rune stones I'd deposited there. Od, almost everything I had left to give flowed through my abused circuits in a flood of mind-searing pain.
Ansuz.
I didn't say the word. Only thought it. Reaching out to the runes through our bond at the carving. The God I thought of was not one of Fire, nor one of Light. Instead, I envisioned Thor. God of Thunder. The runes took my will, my image, and reacted. They exploded with a roar of lightning and the crash of thunder. A makeshift flash bang. That my undignified flop to the floor making sure the vampire was looking almost directly at it.
I hit the ground and everything went white. I felt myself almost pass out. I focused. On the anger, on the hate, on the fear, and fed my everything to them. Everything. Just so I could make my final gamble. I fed on my emotions using them to bolster my failing body with hate. Od the absolute bottom of the barrel. Fed into the rune stone in my hand. The one I'd palmed there when standing. I threw it at the Bounded Field keeping my friend contained.
"Wretch!" Françoise screamed and swung her leg at me. In, what for her, was probably a lazy kick. But was blindingly fast by human standards. I put what was left of my arms between my chest and the blow. It connected and I felt every bone break as the force of the kick sent me rolling back towards the wall at the far side of the room.
The world around me whited out. As pain ruled my mind. I couldn't think. I couldn't move. All I could do was gasp and scream as soon as I had air. I stopped rolling and my vision blackened at the corners. A sure sign that I was close to passing out.
"I will flay the skin from your bones boy and I will make you love me for it!" She hissed. Blinking her eyes to clear them of the after-effects of my makeshift flashbang. She stalked forward two steps, then three, I couldn't move anymore. Only lay in the corner and watch. Then, with a sound like glass shattering, the Bounded Field around Ciel fell and her wordless scream of rage echoed from within. I saw Françoise's face contort in fear. If I could have smiled I would have.
Ciel's eyes snapped to the vampire. The side of her face that had been a burnt ruin, her stomach, and her arm all seemed to reappear between one second and the next. The Black Keys were hurled forward and Françoise scrambled to dodge. Then Ciel saw me and her face turned apoplectic. A wordless roar escaped her throat as she threw herself forward.
It was like watching a video with two-thirds of the frames missing. One second Ciel was coming down from above like an avenging angel. Françoise twisting away. Then they were across the room Françoise slashing at Ciel with her claws. Again they moved next to me. Françoise missing half of her right arm and a good portion of her breasts.
They were gone again. I saw them on the balcony above. Françoise left arm through Ciel's stomach. Even as Black Keys sliced off her right leg. I saw them in mid-air above the foyer. Françoise was missing her left leg, half of her torso, and most of her face. But I could still see it locked in a rictus of hate. Ciel punched her weapons through the vampire's chest and into her heart.
Having seen my friend triumph over evil I did the only reasonable thing I had left to do and promptly passed out.
Chapter Twenty-Two- END.
And there is the end of the penultimate chapter.
All that's left now is the epilogue. Which is actually quite short.
In the end, Harry managed to win not by being stronger but by having a tool that matched what he needed. I also get to pay off my mentions of people playing around with stasis fields from earlier in the book.
For those confused Ciel attempted to do what Harry did near the beginning of the book. Overloading a reinforcement spell to crack the ground around her. She was trying to do it before the Bounded Field took effect but didn't quite make it. It was that damage and Harry attempting to break it from the outside that resulted in the field failing. Had it been against a Field that hadn't already been damaged it would have failed.
Finally thanks for being here this long. Lord knows this is a weird story and it's nice to know some people enjoyed it. Or thought it was entertaining enough of a trainwreck to stick around for.