Saithorthepyro
patreon
Chapter 19 - Nightmares I
🕑 Added 2025-02-19 16:00:09 +0000 UTCWhen I decided to visit Glee Street, it wasn’t to the casino I went to.
It tempted me, her pride and joy, an old disused warehouse transformed into a thriving operation. Brightly colored banners and colorful lights illuminated stone walls that resembled some of the older buildings in the city. New construction done when there'd been a Renaissance in initiating old Anglean architecture.
Disruption there would draw attention the quickest, but two problems. First, if she’d already circulated a description of me with the orders to not let me in? Well, I wouldn’t be able to get past any of the many entrances. Even hours ahead of the nightlife and the attractions it would bring out, and crowds, the entrances all had lines forming. Ether guards posted there were meticulous at checking each entrant even as they started to pile up.
Second, while disrupting Holmsteader’s biggest attraction would draw her attention the fastest, it could needle her enough to just shoot me.
Walking around was an option, but it was entirely possible my description hadn’t been circulated yet. Also whoever spotted me might try to handle me on their own and not bother the boss. And if I made a spectacle of myself on Glee Street, breaking that fragile illusion that it’s danger would never touch any Non-Infernal venturing into the Quarter?
Again, probably dead. The reasons why Holmsteader should keep me alive wouldn’t matter then. She’d have to just to save face.
Instead, I headed for one of the numerous tea parlors dotting the side of the street.
It might actually serve tea, but its main revenue was drugs of course. For the right fee, get whisked away underground to some secluded room where you could blow your mind away on all kinds of strange and exotic substances.
Even better, no visible guards at the entrance to stop me, and this early in the day not much clientele. I walked through the door, doorbell jingling as I did.
I paused in the doorway, momentarily thrown off by the interior decorating. Bright purple and green? Really? In stripes?
The clerk was a young, smartly dressed Infernal of androgynous build with a pleasant smile on their face. They looked up, a greeting on their lips that died as they saw me.
They were the only ones inside the lobby, the tufted chairs empty and no one hiding behind any of the decorative plants dotting the room. There were sounds from further inside, clients actually drinking tea in a private booth or probably being escorted through secret entrances to the underground.
The clerk’s smiles faltered as I walked further inside. As, perfect, she’d already told them. It wasn’t like my usual face blended into the crowds, and I hadn’t had time to do a convincing sculpt. Besides, attention was the point.
“Hello, good sir!” I said with a cheer that made their smile collapse even further as their hand disappeared under the table. It reappeared a second later, not with a weapon.
An alarm then. Perfect.
“I need to talk to Miss Holmsteader,” I told them. “I don’t suppose she’s available at this time?”
“She is not,” they replied swiftly. “She also had made it very clear you are not welcome on Glee Street. If you would, please leave?”
“Unfortunately,” I began and then ducked.
A club swung overhead, wielded by a tall, lean but well-muscled Infernal who swore as I ducked right underneath.
Striking right when I’d made it clear I wasn’t leaving? Sloppy.
I lashed out with a hoof, striking them in the knee to little effect. Reinforced. Shite.
I scrambled backward before the club could hit me. Instead, it slammed into the floor with a thud, boards shuddering as it impacted. Bits of wood flew up as I got onto the desk.
The clerk was reaching for a weapon now, the stock of a short illegally modified shotgun without sight. My tail grabbed their hand away, pulling them to the side while my left hand grabbed the weapon, pulling it free and pointing it at the larger Infernal.
My right hand yanked my revolver free of my coat, pulling the hammer back as I pressed the muzzle against the clerk’s head.
“Unfortunately,” I repeated as they both froze. “I cannot simply leave. So, can I speak to Holmsteader, or am I going to have to ask the one’s who come when I shoot the both of you?”
***
I’d originally thought that those garish colors in that drug den were a joke. A joke on the rich customers who came in to lose their money and their minds for a time.
As I considered the olive and magenta wallpaper around me, the horrifying thought that Holmsteader thought this was good decoration wormed its way further into my thoughts.
Luckily, Holmsteader herself was there to draw my attention away with a blindingly light green, bordering on yellow dress. Glossy black stripes too.
I suppose when you had this much money, you could wear literally whatever you wanted.
Outside of the blatant attempt to blind me, I was being treated fairly well, having been hustled up here after nearly killing two employees. Since then, Holmsteader had remained silent, probably giving the decor more time to ruin my eyesight.
“You know,” Holmsteader said politely. “I’m somewhat at a loss. People have disobeyed me telling them to stay off of Glee Street before. Frequently in fact. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone do it the same day I warned them. Death wish?”
“I wish,” I said. “I know people who would be much more painless about doing it. No, unfortunately, I’m here on behalf of others who don’t tend to listen to the lower end of the totem pole when it talks about reality?”
“Really?” She asked with that porcelain smile. “Is that what they think of you over at that little operation Voltar runs?”
“What do your non-Infernal customers and partners think of you when you deal with them?”
I’d like to imagine I heard a crack as that porcelain shattered just a little.
Holmsteader sighed, leaning back in her chair. “What do you want, Harrow? I actually want to hear what the hells made you pull this foolish stunt before I decide if it’s a bullet or the clubs first.”
“Do that, and I doubt the people who sent me would be happy,” I said in mock singsong. She gritted her teeth, the mock friendliness from before having fully evaporated. “Tyler had a disc in his basement, the one he was pumping souls into. We want it.”
“You want it,” she repeated flatly. “You want me to just give you a diabolic artifact, probably transport it, for Hells knows why.”
“I don’t want it,” I said, lying a little. “Frankly, not only do I not know how to dispose of it, it’s probably a ticking time bomb if not properly disposed of. A little bit of damage on it could release every single soul he shoved into it, and I doubt they would be happy. However, potential connections between your former employee and the murders going on have grown to the point that they want it examined.”
“Murders,” she said. “You mean that priest who got turned into a devil and killed in the process?”
“Three now,” I said, and her eyes narrowed. “Yep, so get ready for another wave of sentiment against us soon.”
“Brilliant,” she grated. “You have been such a bearer of good news Ms. Harrow.”
“I don’t make the news, I just carry it today,” I replied. “Same as the last time. You blame the survivor of a shipwreck for being caught in disaster?”
“I do if they bring it to my doorstep,” she said. “Especially when she’s involved with someone likely behind them.”
“Versalicci?” I guessed, and her face tightened in response. “I’m going to be blunt. He cares about personal gain only. He can talk a big game about the Hells and our heritage, or lifting us up, or even his own diabolic descent. End of the day? He wants power, he wants money, but he doesn’t want to be the most hated man in the world. Not without a guarantee he can slip out an escape hatch when everything goes south. This? So soon after the last event almost implicating the Flame? No.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for it,” she said.
“You can take Voltar’s word for it,” I told her. “If you want to escalate this. I don’t think you want to meet any of the people I work with.”
“Oh really?” She asked bitterly.
“I’m the nice one,” I told a disbelieving Holmsteader with a grin. “The people I’m working with? They don’t want to make a fuss with the Quarter. They realize how tense things are on the best of days. Also how many people who frequent Glee Street might be less willing to do so if say, two squads full of Watch descend on some house right next to the buildings they are busy indulging their appetites in.”
People came to Glee Street for the illusion of danger while indulging in less-than-legal activities. Not to be in actual danger. If you didn’t mess around with Holmsteader’s people too much, the worst you had to worry about was maybe some random, lowborn Infernal maybe trying to pick your pocket or stumbling into you. And if they did? Lowborn and Infernal, you could kill them on the spot, and no one would particularly care as long as you kept it discreet enough.
Now, the Watch suddenly having a presence? Maybe raising some of the places in the area? Sure, you’re rich and powerful and there’s no way the Watch would dare arrest you. But that niggling little doubt, that the coppers might bust down the door while you’re halfway through a puff of Eastern Tiania or with your nose sucking up a line of Ol’ Scratch?
Sure, the chances of charges sticking might be small, but not nothing. And even if you got out, there was the scandal of course.
Again. Very unlikely. But it would keep people away. Certainly enough to impact Holmsteader’s bottom line.
“You are making yourself very annoying in a very short time Miss Harrow,” she told me with a strained grin. “Very annoying to me indeed.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I can offer little in way of apology because it wasn’t my employee caught practicing diabolism and sacrificing people in large numbers to their basement summoning circle. Which is something I am deliberately not mentioning to the Watch. So the question now is, is it more annoying enduring that or just moving the circle from his basement.”
Holmsteader didn’t bother suggesting her problems might go away if I simply disappeared from this world. We both knew the game too well for her to think I had no contingency for that.
“It’s a very precarious position,” she said slowly. “I have no guarantee even if I do what you say that the leverage you have goes away.”
“Time will handle that,” I said. “A week from now? I’m sure you’ll have the man’s house thoroughly cleaned of evidence by then. My accusations of Diabolism? Cleared out with them. Anything to do with the current case? I already have the relevant papers, and the disc and the creatures are the only things left of interest to it. They get transported, the Watch has no reason to get involved. So my leverage evaporates completely.”
Holmsteader mulled that over for a while.
“Fine,” she said reluctantly. “But if I ever catch you here again, I’m feeding you to that damn gallows.”
I didn’t make a comment. I had what I wanted, now I just needed to make it to tea with Uncle Liu.
I stifled a yawn. Been up too long, and too little sleep between the nonsense here and with Skall. Hopefully, I didn’t fall asleep in the carriage.
***
I stumbled into my brother’s room a wreck.
Aches and pains ran all across my body. It didn’t matter how much Biosculpting you did on the spot, a knife wound to the side wasn’t something you painlessly healed. Not a musket’s stock hitting you in the back of the head.
My horn hung limply from a bit of bone, snapped in half. I’d cut the nerves, searing the ends with sculpting so I’d stop screaming and crying and could scurry underground. Half an hour wasted curled up on myself wailing like an infant.
I’ll fix it later. If it could be fixed.
Blood still leaked from a few spots despite my best efforts, and my brother’s assorted advisors considered me skeptically as I bled on some stolen carpet.
“Me and Alice made it back,” I said, stumbling towards a chair at the end of the table. “Got our report. You aren’t going to like it.”
At the other end, Versalicci cleared his throat. “Everyone, a little privacy, please. Daver, if you could please tell Corron she’ll have another patient soon?”
My old Diabolism teacher nodded, stumbling a little as he walked out. He looked like he’d just finished diving to the bottom of a bottle.
I used to hate that about him. These days I could relate.
“Malvia,” my brother said, looking at me in horrified fascination. “You should have gone to the-“
“After,” I snapped as everyone else cleared out. “I’m repeating this while it’s still burned in my mind and not a moment later.”
He came to my side of the table, pouring a glass of wine for me, then after a second’s worth of thought, leaving the bottle.
“It can wait,” he repeated firmly. “You didn’t need to come in here while you’re still beat up from an encounter with Her Majesty’s troops.”
“Watch this time,” I said bluntly. “Almost nostalgic.”
“They must be running low on regulars, to send in the-“
“They aren’t,” I said, and tired as I was I almost didn’t care about that flash of irritation in his eyes. Care, damn you, unless you want him questioning things. “I had to cross the Nover to escape. They were on the other side, along with ships. Ships unloading marines.”
That irritation died as he chewed on that little tidbit of information. I didn’t let that interrupt me.
“The Nover freezes in two weeks,” I started.
“I’m well aware of when winter comes sister,” Versalicci said, still thinking. Hopefully choking on the conundrum we’d been given.
“Good, then you realize things will go when what little territory we have above ground now is being attacked from all sides,” I said.
It already shrank fast enough they didn’t even need the marines. Maybe they just wanted this over. Or at least out of sight. What would even do for the next assault? Two years of effort spent into summoning demons, so much fucking smoke.
We were all fucking blind. None of us had ever served in the military, but it should have been clear what a fake hells-damned rout was. If not to us, then to the damn devils who’d fallen for it. Then again, unless a priest had personally cut them up, they’d just be back in the Hells, waiting for the next time to come around. What we got for focusing on summoning more of the dumb ones instead a few of the smarter ones.
“Salatch is dead,” I said. “Along with three others. No recoveries from the weapons they were hiding. I had three doors slammed in my face. Del Monte shot at me. Edwards brought me and Alice inside only to throw Alice out the goddam second story window. Varrow ran off shrieking for the army when he spotted me. You want to send someone else to see how much support we still have in the Quarter outside our little enclave? Send someone no one will recognize.”
“You’re not wearing your normal face,” Versalicci pointed out.
“I have the tattoo,” I hissed. “That’s enough. No one is going to risk dealing with one of us outside of what parts of the surface we hold. Doing raids from
the underground and leaving them to suffer the reprisals was a fool idea, and I wish you’d let me cut Govlar’s throat for suggesting it.”
“It worked in the past.”
“On Watch,” I hissed. “When no one cared about how lawless the Quarter was beyond them, and we worked half of their commanders. When the crime going outside the Quarter seems to be just a pinprick. Not when the Hells-damned army is camping up above trying to dig us out for the gallows!”
They’d put some of those up, and too many bodies hung from it. When it filled, that’s when people got creative. Nailing people up by their limbs should have stayed out of style.
“We’re running low on imps, unless you want to pluck one out of my head. Priests are being employed to consecrate the ground on the edges. It’s driving more of the Quarter inward, but anything Diabolic enough to be a devil enters and they know immediately. No idea how long they’ll keep doing it, it’s slowly closing in on the Nover.”
“Isn’t that a pleasant message to deliver to her subjects,” Versalicci snarled, staring down at the map. “Pick between death or the river?”
I kept my mouth shut. Truth be told, I’d dreaded this meeting, as much as I had any over the last month. Too afraid of what might slip out.
“It’s all gone sour,” I said. “Move faster, move slower, pointless after all. In the end, we were both wrong.”
“Do not try and put any of the blame on you, Malvia,” Versalicci said in a fatherly tone that made me want to bite through my tongue. “The end decision was mine, and who knows if faster or slower would have worked? Perhaps neither, in the end. Perhaps this was fated to happen.”
It was, though not for the reasons he pretended.
“Giving up so soon?” I asked.
Too tauntingly, from the brief bit of confusion on his face. Damnations fool, do not give anything away just because he was in the room with you.
“It’s just unlike you,” I said. “I imagine if you thought things were doomed, we’d be heading to the underground, trying to dig our way out of this mess.”
“Hrrm,” he smiled. “No, I don’t think we’re doomed. They like to pretend this is our doom, but I think in the end, if we must escape, we still can.”
“They called in the army,” I pointed out. “Back from fighting the dwarves just in time to put us down as well. It’s the Army, Gio. We aren’t out fighting that.”
“We don’t need to outfight them,” he said. “Just out wait them. Her Majesty just finished one costly campaign for little gain. Now employed on their second-“
“She won’t tolerate open rebellion,” I snapped. “It’s treason, and letting that slide is tantamount to throwing her crown down herself.”
Versalicci scowled, eyes tight, and for a second I feared I’d overstepped. Do not give him a reason to doubt!
He calmed down a second later.
“You raise good points,” he said. “But still, it’s the situation we find ourselves in, Malvia. I’ll send someone to help you out of here soon. Relax, and try to not be so dour. We’ll figure something out. We always do, don’t we?”
And he left, leaving me alone with nothing but the bottle and my thoughts. Shaking hands reached to refill my glass.
Calm. Calm. I gripped my wrist, hand tightening until I could feel my veins struggling to pump blood past my grip. The shaking stopped.
He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. If he did know I’d overheard that conversation, then I’d be dead. Simple as that. Breathe in. Breathe out. Hope if anyone was watching it got blamed on nerves and do not look where he had gone. At this point, I wouldn’t be able to hide the anger.
This room. When I’d been on my way to deliver a report on the latest patch of abducted Watch and others chopped up, the sigils ready for the fresh wave. I’d finished early because Alice was willing to take over my duties for a bit. Even after our…messy breakup, she’d remained approachable.
It had been a game, just a little means of fun. Us trying to sneak up on him. I don’t think he ever expected one of us to succeed. I’d cheated. Borrowed stocks from the communal alchemical stores, and modified myself without him knowing.
We had plenty of stocks, and if a little went missing? We could get more. We owned a third of this city now, even if only from the shadows.
Silence on my hooves, my ears fine-tuned, I’d snuck closer hoping to give a pleasant surprise.
I’d been the one surprised, not my brother. And it was far from pleasant.
“We’re pleased with the efforts so far. You’re in the position to escalate this?”
“Two weeks time. I’m happy with the first payment. Make sure the rest will come on time, and it’ll happen right on schedule. The bolt hole?”
“Being arranged. Assuming you can guarantee the right number of deaths.”
“Not an issue. This group’s survival has been dependent on stealth. Once people start becoming aware of what’s been going on beneath their noses
I’d halted, then hurried away before I could hear anymore.
I’d gotten lucky. I’d pretended to be on my way there when I ran into Golvar heading the same way.
The first week, I just thought I’d misheard things. A misinterpretation, perhaps we were just running a scam on some Imperial official, someone Gio had tricked. Someone had found out about the plan, Gio was just pretending to sell it out for coin ‘til he could size this one up for a safely disposable knife.
Even if I had confronted him immediately, it wouldn’t have mattered. Voltar tracing the robbery of the warehouses storing army goods not just to us but also to Watch Captain Delvod.
Delvod wasn’t the most important piece of the puzzle, but he’d coughed up enough names to make clear what was going on. And the theft of military weapons brought regiments to the Quarter, there to dig out the Infernals who had infiltrated near half the city.
I could have stepped up then, but with what? I’d fucking planned that operation with him. Even now I wasn’t sure if Voltar tracing things was dumb luck or him actually arranging things!
I poured another glass of wine, while something in my head stirred.
Do you live? Disappointing.
“Shut up,” I hissed and downed the glass.
I would be impressed you were surviving if you actually did anything, The Imp complained in my head. Instead, you just play out the same role as always.
I downed another glass, letting the sweet taste of the wine take some of the bite out. I might need to get something harder to drown out the creature’s comments.
Blatantly untrue comments. I would find a way out of this mess. One was promising if I trusted those involved.
It could always be another loyalty test, but I wagered those days were gone. Or if they weren’t, they were busy with a hundred others trying to get out before all avenues of escape fully closed.
Are you just going to sit here and drink yourself to oblivion?
I downed another glass of wine, letting it burn down my throat.
“What are you going to do?” I asked. “Continue to complain and not tell him? You want me dead? It’s easy enough to do. Tell him.”
The Imp scoffed in my head. Him? Never. He doesn’t deserve any help in anything he does.
I suppose there was someone in the world I could share my frustrations with. Just ignore every other suggestion they sent into my head.
Besides, if I want you dead, you seem set on that path already.
I snarled and went to pour again only to find the bottle empty. How had that happened?
The door creaked open, and I looked up.
Ah. After one sibling left, the other two arrived.
They were both too young, was my first thought. How I hadn’t thought of it when they started? I didn’t know. Maybe the fact I started younger, but the teal-colored teenage boy and the orange-colored girl who had just walked in weren’t old enough for me to have ever brought them into this.
Yet I had because I’d believed a lie.
“Dylan, Laura,” I said, raising my empty glass of wine in salute.
“Malvia,” Dylan said, his voice as horrified as his expression. “Are you alright?”
“Of course she isn’t,” Laura hissed. “Her horn is hanging by a thread! Malvia, why aren’t you in the-“
“I was busy informing our brother of the doom coming upon us,” I said, my words a little slurred. How many cups had I poured before they’d come in? “Behold the date awaiting anyone who ventured outside our ever-shrinking territory!”
“Please tell me you weren’t drunk when you talked to brother,” Laura said, looking down her nose at me. “You stink almost as bad as Daver does.”
Nonsense. I hadn’t drunk more than an entire bottle yet at most.
“I think that’s the blood,” Dylan said. “And the gunpowder.”
“You are my favorite sibling,” I told him in response, and he gave me a nervous grin.
“Brother wanted to meet with us,” he said. “He didn’t mention you might be here?”
“A recent development,” I said. “Like I was explaining, I told him how doomed we are. It closes in from all sides, preparing to devour us all. He planning on feeding you two to it?”
They traded glances as I contemplated the bottom of the bottle.
“Brother would never do that,” Laura said. “Not deliberately.”
I laughed bitterly, making her stumble over her next words.
“He would not,” she repeated, a bit of fire in her voice as she glared down at me. “You think he wants us all to die, Malvia?”
“It’s a bad hand we’ve been dealt,” Dylan said sorrowfully. “He’s just trying to play it the best he can, and we need to help him and hope it’s enough.”
“That,” I said slowly, playing with my wineglass “isn’t necessarily true.”
The two watched me as I shakily put the glass back on the table.
“There-”
“No,” Dylan said firmly, and I glared at him.
“You will let me finish,” I snapped. “There-”
Fire came into being alongside Laura’s hands, black and baleful.
“No, Malvia,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking? Whatever you have planned? If you want to run, run. But I remember someone who talked to us about a dream, a chance free of this place, free of people who hate us for who we are. If that person could see you right now, she’d be disgusted by what you’ve become.”
Before I could come up with a reply, she spun on her feels and left, leaving me with my other brother. He looked at me pityingly, as I tried and failed to say something, and then he left as well.
I choked on a pathetic laugh. They weren’t wrong. Malvia Harrow hated the one who crafted her. Pitied at best, had contempt for at the worst whenever part of that resurfaced. A lot of that recently, although a lot still of the other.
I did my best to ignore that, and what had just happened.
It hadn’t been worse than the response when I hinted it to Alice. That had been…stupid. What, did I think she’d comfort me after how we’d broken up? Not the kind of people we were.
No one else. Everyone else who I could trust or knew was suspicious? Dead, mostly thanks to me. I’d fed them in the name of a cause that was fake fucking garbage, and the only reason this new batch trusted me is none of us had any other options.
I could vaguely hear a muttered discussion on the other side of the door. The two of them talking. I should be able to make out the words, but I couldn’t.
I don’t know which was worse, the fact they left or the little voice in my ear whispering to cut their throats before they repeated a word of what I said to Versalicci.
There was one throat here worth slitting. I could do it even. Did he suspect? Maybe, but I could still try, couldn’t I?
I laughed, laughed till my throat burned and my eyes were filled with tears. If I wanted him dead, it would have been when it was clear I hadn’t misunderstood that conversation. But every time I thought of it, the idea of what next struck me and left me unable to think of a way out. A way out of being a traitor to be hung if I made it to the surface. Or even surviving when the rest of the Flame killed me for killing him.
Coward. Useless, stupid fool of a coward who’d bought into a dream. Mother goes to sleep forever, you latch on to the first little piece of family that you can find? Just because you don’t think they’ll hate you for being what you are. Mold yourself to what they want, and find out in the end you’ve been played like a piano.
I kept looking at the door, wishing they would come back. Useless. Even if they did, what could I convince them with?
Evidence? I’d searched his room when he’d been out and checked every hiding spot I could think of. Nothing. What had I expected to find, a written confession?
What could I tell them? I hadn’t told any of the others who were already planning their escape for the same reason.
No one would believe Giovanni Versalicci had sold out the revolution he’d begun.
Comments
UnderwhelmingBird
Adding something after "hopefully..." before the memory sequence might help with the flow, something like "Should've known better than to think I'd be so lucky" Nonetheless thanks for the chapter, was nice seeing more insight as to why she's terrified of being around Gio. Even now, if she let slip she *knew* about the betrayal he'd absolutely kill her. I do wonder what sort of tricks he has up his sleeve that would prevent her from mounting a desperate assassination other than the obvious "the entire gang wants to kill you" side of things.
