Bloodsong Ch. 01

Valerie fought and lost against the urge to roll her eyes.

"You spent decades pretending you were someone you are not, have a track record of lies, deceit, willful misrepresentation of facts and oath breaking the size of a continent, and it surprises you that I won't take you at your word? Look. I'll go with you." He brightened at that, made to move forward. She stuck him back in place with a glare. "On the condition that you free everyone, destroy every record of how that gate was made, and don't whine when I fail to be impressed with the gilded cage you intend to lock me in."

Jack's expression soured, whether at the conditions set, the implication that she expected him to whine unless she specified otherwise, her assertion that she wouldn't enjoy being captive in his care, or the fact that attempting to defend himself would only make her more convinced that he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes.

"What do you think I'm planning to do to you that's that bad?"

"Kiss me, at the very least." The promptness of her response notwithstanding, she was certain that her face had shifted to a shade between milk white and green. His silence, the blend of bashfulness and annoyance he displayed, the lack of contradiction . . . 

"You didn't mind it the first time."

"The first time—" The only way Valerie could prevent herself from giving in and shouting was to talk laboriously slowly, as if explaining to a child. "—you caught me by surprise. You were someone I liked and cared about, because I was an idiot who failed to see through your mask and swallowed your lies. That won't happen again."

Again, that disquieting silence. Except . . . 

Jack's song was still the loudest sound in her mind, but no longer the only one.

"I accept your conditions," he was saying, as she adjusted her stance and solidified her grip on the dagger. "I'll free them, and you'll surrender. No fighting, no fuss, no trying to run, and soon enough you'll see how senseless it was to worry."

"Everyone means everyone," she told him, ignoring the taunt. Jack waved a hand with a touch of irritation at her insistence on a point which was, insofar as it concerned him, already settled. "Including Mrs. Drakma. I know that you want revenge, but if you want me, you'll abstain. Because if you harm her, I won't forgive you for as long as I live."

He nodded, dispassionate, lips barely twitching.

"Of course."

Ah. 

There it was.

Valerie smiled, stretching her lips wide. There was relief filling her, selfish relief, because she'd never need to know what he'd held in store for her. There was also disappointment, because despite the heavy price, everything would have been simpler if Jack had proposed the deal in earnest.

"You could have pretended to hesitate," she commented, already stepping back from his narrowing gaze. He didn't stop her from retreating until her feet were inches away from the ledge. "Mrs. Drakma killed the person you care about the most in the entire universe. I know that you'd never answer readily if asked to forsake revenge. You never placed my wishes above hers, I'd be a moron if I expected otherwise just because she's dead."

Although Jack didn't refute her, he still managed to look personally attacked. Valerie turned, craning her neck to look down the side of the building. She saw the expected: a mass of coral tentacles with a face, pinched in concentration, at their center. They were halfway up, still some distance away, but she could see the red cheeks lose color as the man realized he'd been spotted. There were others, hanging out of sight. So many blood songs, muted but growing louder.

Too many.

"Val," Jack started, careful, expecting her to be upset at the discovery that it had all been a ploy to buy his men time to arrive and set siege. As if these things weren't her only expectation when it came to him. As though talking might fix it.

"Is that Axis?" Keeping one eye on Jack, she darted a grin at the sheepish climber. "Yep. HI AXIS! HOW IS YOUR DAY GOING, AXIS? IS THAT A NEW HAIRCUT?"

Behind her, Jack made a noise between a sigh and a snort.

"Why are you like this?"

"Like what?" she shot back, finally surrendering to the urge to scream. "Did you even — if I had bargained for the humans and left Mrs. Drakma out of it, would you have honored the deal then? Was any part of what you were offering sincere?"

"I didn't lie about anything I said I'd do for you if you agreed to come with me. But the company was my aunt's work of a lifetime. I can't let it go under within a week of inheriting it." There was a plea in there, an attempt to cajole her into understanding.

At least she wasn't the only one making wasteful efforts.

"Right. To Darkness with your sorry ass, then."

Valerie spun around, launching herself sideways at an angle that would have sent her diving off the edge if a tentacle, thick and gray, hadn't snaked around her ankle. The moment she took to bend over and stab herself free, Jack was upon her. He was fast, but the more he shifted himself the slower he'd be, and she'd always beat him at speed either way. She evaded his attempt to grab her, grabbed at him instead and pulled him against her.

His brief, stunned pause at the move gave her the latitude needed to bring the dagger up under his chin, a hair's length away from slicing him open the same way she had Sykes. She'd have to find another way to impair him, however. Knock him unconscious, use him as a hostage — but then she'd need to drag him past the others.

Jack raised a hand. She pressed the dagger flush against his skin, because he'd failed to get the hint that he wasn't to move. He stared back unblinking, showing no fear or even unease, looking almost challenging, and then he was throwing himself back with enough force that she was left with the front of his trench coat in hand.

He was back on his feet, smiling, before she could toss the fabric aside.

Valerie made to hurtle towards him, hyper-aware of the need to be at close quarters. She hated, hated fighting other Tsikalayans. Enneads were almost as bad, but at least their species had a cap on the number of extraneous limbs they could manifest. Once you sliced off all eight, that was it, only regular arms left to contend with. Trying the same with one of her own would be akin to tackling a bonking medusa. She could take out as many tentacles as it took to flood the rooftop, and he'd keep shifting replacements unless she inflicted substantial damage to the main body.

Jack had fought her enough times to know that getting in his face was her preferred approach. As luck — or rather, his pathological need to touch her — would have it, it was also his.

A flash of red blocked her path, narrowly missing her shoulder as the blade swooped down. Valerie blinked, then swore under her breath. Of course the stupid coat had been hiding a weapon.

Jack's lips formed a thin, smug line as he brandished the sword, preventing her from coming near without getting slashed by what, even before she did a double take and recognized the weapon, Valerie knew to be red silver.

Her mouth opened, letting a disbelieving exhale escape.

"Where did you get that?" The sword was dual-edged, with a black hilt adorned with scarlet glyphs. Allegedly they spelled the Lazur family motto in one of the uncountable dead languages of Old Tsikala. Allegedly because her father claimed it was so, and how the man knew was a mystery, considering that this particular language was so thoroughly defunct that no one living remembered what it had been called. The last time Valerie had laid eyes on the blade she'd been seven, and gotten dragged to her room and locked in for a week as punishment for snooping.

"Your sack-of-shit father likes gambling." Wholly against her will, the corner of Valerie's mouth quirked up. Irrespective of her and Jack holding opposing opinions about everything, they'd never disagree on one point: both of them had been sired by waddling farts. "Don't look so disturbed, I have no intention of appropriating a family heirloom. You can have it later, provided that I trust you to not—"

It did disturb her to see the sword in Jack's hands, but that had more to do with how much it changed their game. He could kill or maim her in one stroke. Although he wouldn't, she was somewhat sure.

Somewhat.

She retreated, forcing down the frustration welling up inside her.

"Are you going to run?" Jack spoke softly, giving his words just the slightest chiding inflection. He ran his thumb over the flat side of the blade, almost lovingly, without taking his eyes off of her. "Why, I thought you'd hold yourself to higher standards than that."

Valerie didn't acknowledge the taunt, reached for her rifle so fast that the leather strap holding it ripped, shot Jack once in the knee and braced as she let herself fall back. It was a good thing she did, although she'd been doing it to prepare for a violent crash with the street rather than to have a wall of salmon pink limbs explode in her face.

She rolled away, seeking another opening, and blanched.

At least fifty tentacles of varying lengths rippled along the roof, extending and curling like aberrant cat tails. She made a slow veer left, and no sooner had she looked down than more emerged there, these pure black — that had to be Rem. True forms in black, white, any color you couldn't get by mixing up a rainbow, were rare. The tentacles closer to the roof corner sought the salmon ones, knotting with them until the two walls were one. The same was happening behind her. They were building a cage, a tapestry of cylindrical slabs of meat that she'd have to cut her way through without them seizing her.

"And now what?" Jack asked. To his credit, he appeared to betrying not to brim with arrogance. When she didn't reply, he sighed theatrically, shed the remains of the trench coat with a shudder and moved his left hand to his collar, commencing to unbutton it. "Let's not draw this out. You'll make yourself tired and cranky and wind up hurt, and then I'll be the one who has to hear it. For once in your life, Val, be sensi—"

Valerie rushed him, launched herself at his knees before he could shift and elbowed the sword out of his hand. She also landed a hit on his face and nicked his arm, but after that the advantage of surprise was gone.

Jack grabbed her from behind, looping a gray limb as thick as a can around her upper body. The pressure squeezed the air out of her lungs, but she wasted no time severing it off. Another tentacle sprouted from his shoulder and went for the discarded sword, kicking it from under her before she could reach out. Valerie groaned and dropped on all fours while he attempted to wrap a third tentacle around her neck.

She pulled herself away in time, wheezing. Jack was done shifting. Five dark-gray tentacles grew from his shoulders and back, hovering around him like the arms of a colorless sea anemone. One shot forward parallel to the ground, snagging her leg. Valerie stabbed it and it let go, but no sooner was she done, and already Jack was shooting another tentacle at her head. It missed the target, but this one finally got her by the neck and twisted around it, making way down her shoulder. It stabbed a pressure point in her inner elbow, triggering a quiver that made the dagger slip from her fingers.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Quit being a pest," Jack snarled, a hint out of breath, poise slipping into irritation as he squeezed, causing her to gasp out loud. "Please."

"Jump in a volcano and die!" Valerie spat, unhinging her jaw. A Tsikalayan's true form consisted of many parts beyond tentacles, which through some unknowable quirk of nature, she could not manifest. She could shift smaller things, though. Nails into claws. Blunt and square teeth into something more akin to shivs, strong enough to break through cartilage and bone. She lowered her chin and bit, thankful that tentacles bled little, and yanked herself free when the twitching limb slackened its grip.

The dagger — she caught sight of it lying near Jack's left boot, and though it vexed her, she wouldn't risk getting that close again. The sword, on the other hand, had ended up on the opposite side of the roof.

Reading her intent, Jack lunged. With the weight of his true form behind him, it felt like getting torpedoed by a race car. Her forehead banged against the concrete, providing the opening he had been waiting for. An arm went around her waist while a hand pressed against her nape, keeping her face down as he warped his tentacles into bindings — bad, bad, danger. She clawed at the arm caging her, but this time he didn't budge. She felt the warmth of his breath on her skin as he leveled his mouth to her ear.

"Look at the position you are in. Really, just stop and think this through for a second."

Stop? Stop resisting, quit fighting? He'd be asking for less if he demanded that she cease breathing. The fight, her contribution to the endless unwinnable war, was what gave her the right to be alive.

Jack didn't understand that, and therefore would never understand her.

She did make a show of sighing and going limp, causing him to still in shock. Then she jabbed an elbow under his rib cage, twisted around, eel-like, and aimed a boot at his crotch. She was on her feet and running at once, not stopping to look behind her, not even for the satisfaction of seeing how angry Jack was bound to look.

A tentacle, salmon colored, zoomed past Valerie's ear as she went for the sword. She grabbed it as it snaked back to attempt a strangler hold. On pulling it, she met a predictable amount of resistance, but persisted until she had the limb slimmed down to half its girth and as tense as a bowstring. Then, she let go. The tentacle snapped back with an elastic twang. The man it was attached to — was that Byron? Gods, so many familiar faces today! — exclaimed in surprise as he vanished down the side of the building. A tangled cloud of salmon, green and brown trailed after him as, in an unforeseen but convenient display of camaraderie, the others convened to pull him back up, leaving a spot in the net wide open.

Valerie ran for it. She ran, and then she flew. The closest building was too far away to reach in a single jump, but she'd counted on it; she landed on a protruding balcony some storeys below.

This building was an office block, empty and tidy as on an ordinary non-work day. She barreled past desks and cubicles, hesitating at the sight of computers before deciding that they weren't worth taking a chance on, then pausing again by the elevator.

Jack would have every rooftop in the vicinity covered. At this point, getting back on the road was preferable to high stakes parkour.

The garage, then.

When a light flickered on next to the dwindling floor numbers to signal that someone below had called down the elevator, Valerie adjusted her grip on the sword, swinging it experimentally. Already she missed her dagger. She was decent with swords, but they weren't her first pick, and this one sat uneasy in her hands. She had stopped using the Lazur name, at Mrs. Drakma's urging, years before learning that her father had disinherited her with prejudice. The sword was a tangible reminder of another life she'd lived, another facet of herself that she'd hated and discarded for all the pain it had brought her. Not unlike Jack, in a way.

Shaking herself, Valerie listened for voices hiding under the groaning of cables, trying to discern how many enemies she'd have to face. Nothing, until two floors before ground zero, a low tune slipped furtively inside her head. Only the one, and it was familiar in the way of shirts worn for an extended period of time and due a wash.

Alright, then. She bit her lip, not worried but thoughtful.

The elevator landed with a cheerful pling. The man standing outside had not counted on it being occupied. He'd been chewing on a cigarette while fingering an amusingly shaped pink and black lighter, and dropped both once the doors opened to reveal her. He was armed, but with a small handgun that he struggled to aim, and mostly he only spluttered while blood drained from his face, leaving it the shade of expired dairy.

Eventually, speech emerged.

"Fuck, not you!"

One of Valerie's hands was on the sword and the other poised to hit the button that shut the doors, but then the man darted forward to slam on the one that wouldclose them from the outside, and she switched gears and wedged a knee in the gap, because actually, she could use this.

"Hi, Nick! Been a while, hasn't it?" She narrowed her eyes to determine if they were alone. They were. Good. Great. Let there be something to salvage from the past ten minutes.

Nicolai Cicerny was Jack's best friend. There was no accounting for taste on either pole of that relationship, and who had gotten the short end of the stick was a riddle for the ages. He was a dark-haired, sharply dressed bag of douche who Valerie thought shared more than a passing resemblance with a mongoose. And he —

"Astara above, I'm not here for this nonsense. Go the fuck away!" — he absolutely didn't like her. Mayfly employees tended to not be her greatest fans by default, which, fair enough, considering how often they needed to get replaced on her account. Nick, however, was her only recurring enemy whose standard reaction was to haul ass in the opposite direction. As gutless as Sykes had been, but smarter about it. In addition, whereas Sykes had reached infamy for breaking one of the two cardinal rules — you don't murder family, you don't fuck family — Nick was renowned for having deserted the Barashi Armed Forces and avoided the usual gruesome consequences through an epic amount of bribery, and for a scandalous incident involving a giant octopus.

Usually people only recalled the octopus.

"Can't do, I'm afraid." Valerie looked him up and down, assessing. "I find myself in need of a hostage who can double as a source of information. I think you'll do. Also, and I know that this is neither here nor there, but. Why do you own a lighter with breasts?"

Nick backed away as she advanced, teeth bared, eye twitching.

"Kss! Shoo, you godsdamned fruitcake!"

He fired the handgun, missing every single shot whilst flipping her off with his free hand, and bolted. With a groan of frustration, Valerie rushed after him.

Hand on heart, she wasn't dying for Nick's company, but he could tell her more than a random henchman like Byron or Axis. Besides, if she had to lug around a hostage, Nick was the ideal candidate. If not because he was Jack's best friend — she'd held that position once, and therefore knew how much it wasn't worth — then because he was the shittiest fighter of the lot.

"Oh, no you don't!" Valerie propelled herself forward, colliding with the man and bringing him down. He twisted like a worm in a vat of butter and tried scratching out her eyes, forcing her to do away with the pleasantries and whack his head against the marble floor a good half dozen times.

She stopped just before he lost consciousness and hauled him to his feet. He looked fairly out of it as she tossed him into the elevator. When she neared him after the doors shut, it took him a moment to go from swaying on the balls of his feet to tripping as he tried to stagger away, the handgun aimed at a point three fingers above her shoulder.

"I'll shoot you, don't think I won't! You crazy fucking psycho."

"Do you think you'd still be holding that thing if it concerned me? If you plan to get out of this alive, you'll do your best not to annoy me. And annoying me is the most you'll manage if you shoot. You know I have silver im—" Valerie stopped turning the sword to make the yellow-orange lights bounce off the blade, narrowing her eyes at the firearm that still wasn't aimed properly, lifting a single eyebrow because really? Seriously?"It's not even loaded with silver, is it?"