[ If there's anything surprising about the idea that Haran wants to gloat, it's only that anybody bothered to say it out loud. From what Brandon can tell, that gets to the heart of it, of the layered yet simplistic desires of the demonling. Not only the greed or the satiation of it, but the celebration of his own dubious accomplishments; not only the violence or its bloody achievements, but Haran's sense of victory and mastery once achieved.
Brandon makes a polite gesture of lead on, which Tavor was presumably going to do anyway, and retrieves a flashlight from his coat pocket. It's perfectly mundane in its components, with only wards for stability and solidity to keep it working in the face of supernatural interference. He keeps the light low, playing over the freshly-hooked-fish movements of Tavor's tail. His interest is brief and scientific, with barely a tinge of ironic macabre, and then he pays more attention to the ground, which might be uneven or strewn with, for example, bones, which always make for annoying footing. ]
All Haran's cousins are so obliging.
[ His bland, pithy comment is not particularly loaded, as it could be from the little idiot Tavor thinks him to be, apart from the fact that either of them could straightforwardly add all two of them. ]
Is there anything you might like in return for your generosity, Tavor?
[ He has to ask. Maybe the answer will be interesting, if almost certainly not anything he can use for actual gift-giving. ]
[ Tavor is Haran's most vocal hater, for whatever that's worth. Down here with no one to talk to, no rebellion to enact. He has no one he mourns, no revenge to seek. At least Qetzi had a reason to be here rather than merely having nowhere else to go. Strangely though, the weight of his own squandered existence does not seem to bother Tavor. He is sardonic and rasping, aware of his own ugliness and pleased to inflict his cruel humor on anyone close enough to be scratched by it, but he moves at an easy if hunched gait, he responds when spoken to. He is not an utterly sullen beast skulking in the dark, there must be something here which keeps him hale. Perhaps there is something for him, deeper than any of the human members of the family will ever go. ]
The obliging ones are the ones who lived. [ There's that utterly unkind sense of humor. ] The other five were too unfriendly.
[ He crows an abrasive laugh, hissing between his teeth as he finishes on cigarette and lights another. Six, if you included Haran's elder brother: a chain reaction that had rippled through the House like a maelstrom. He glances over his shoulder with a smile that gleams in the dark, elongating the sharp flesh-rending points of his teeth ]
I don't want your favors, magus. I like to keep my hands clean of Haran's shit.
[ Though he wouldn't say it above ground, it's not a sentiment that should surprise anybody; perhaps Qetzi'ah hasn't read him right, as disinterested in any "friends" of Haran's that might come her way and concerned with her own problems, but treachery isn't exactly out of place in the Morrison House at this point. His role, dedicated as he is to it, is clearly a farce for Haran, simply one he's chosen to be entertained by. ]
Where do you get those?
[ The cigarettes. Hand rolled? Cartons moldering away in a cavern somewhere, carted here when the Morrisons still saw some trade? Mail order? Brandon will divert the both of them with such conversations as lay bare the politics of his presence while simultaneously stepping around them. Perhaps Tavor will be willing to tell him more about the family now gone. The topic seems too raw to broach with Qetzi'ah. ]
[ Aziza, to be precise, but she has already told Tavor she has not met the visitor personally yet so her name would mean nothing to him. She has had plenty else to say about what has been going on above. She was a good little spy, Sapphira had trained her well for the job. This was not the situation the pure-breed had envisioned... She had imagined herself sitting atop the smoldering ruins of this place, but the groundwork was laid all the same. ]
A few of them can act civilized enough to go into town.
[ That is the easy and immediate response, the rest takes him just a moment of consideration. Mostly to consider if he cares enough to respond. His tone is flat, ]
I assume you're here to circle the spoils, just like everyone else.
[ That's good information, though he suspects it was hardly exclusive, and given Hecate and Ivor, it makes perfect sense. It would be interesting to know if it were them specifically who bring Tavor his cigarettes, but he doesn't assume they're the only ones. Quite possibly, many of the hyenas like tailed Tavor with his animal stare.
As for the other thing, that Tavor cared enough to respond is unexpected but pleasant. If nothing else, he should be trying to get a feel for what Tavor will or won't do, if and when things start to change. ]
Do you really think any outsider wants to be petty king of this particular corpse mountain?
[ His tone is still very polite. It could be taken as a very obvious deflection, since plenty of creatures, monsters, witches, and other assorted entities are drawn here by its power, and Brandon is merely one more in the long line. It's also true, at least if he were speaking only for himself. What the masters want is more important than what he wants. ]
[ He flashes his teeth again, needling in the gloom, laughing in a different way this time, deeper in his throat. It still doesn't sound quite human, either way he does it. ]
Yes, I do.
[ If the last of the pests could be cleaned out of the House on the Hill it would be a magnificent dynamo of dark energy, a perfect place to perform black rituals under blood moons. It overflowed with suffering and vengeful spirits, in an incorporeal sense, and it overflowed with arcana and occult tools in the corporeal. Any stupid little magus would covet it, and with the pact of Lilach so long ago, it might even accept a clever man, start the blood debt anew with a king rather than a queen this time. ]
[ Brandon simply doesn't care for it. It's in the wrong land, it comes with too much baggage, and those he is beholden to, he loves with all his childish heart - the Hill, by contrast, would only be another friend-bully in arcane disguise, overly demanding, a hand too heavy on the back of the neck. He has tasted it in the first bite of Qetzi's dinner, heard it in the angry murmurs of the dead when he tends to his tools in his room. The power doesn't interest him personally, not at the price.
In any case, he calls himself magus and is competent enough in the areas that his own country's systems have determined define such an individual, but he only loves necromancy and demons are really quite beside the point for him.
It's good to know that they're here, though. The masters would probably find the information useful. ]
No accounting for taste.
[ In using that phrase, a tacit acknowledgment also of the possibility of Tavor's mixed up genetics. To be fair, you can get a tail without being a monstrous hybrid, but Brandon doesn't see any of the usual signs of fleshcrafting at such a scale, or of other forms of alteration. Tavor seems, if nothing else, entirely himself, secure in the inhuman aspects of his skin. ]
[ He thinks Brandon is an acceptable amount of funny, but knows that he's not nearly so funny in 'public', but it's all fair game beneath the House. Haran couldn't hear them, and most likely Tavor wouldn't mention it to him. It wasn't as though he and his sweet baby cousin had regular meetings. Haran didn't need a guide to where they were going.
It used to be that the menagerie was carefully organized and indexed, like kept with like, when able. Some species hated their own kind with such a violence that it was occasionally better to keep them at opposite ends of the entire maze, even then the smell of the other beast encroaching on their territory could drive them to batter themselves to death upon the bars of their cages. Bronze or iron or steel, it depended upon what kind of metal they were most allergic to. Tavor's mother, Helah, had been a great beast master, able to tame any creature she cooed at, but as the collection grew around her (much to her delight) she couldn't possibly have loved them all at once. It had created quite a problem when she was dead.
The creatures smart enough to do so had simply left, those not so smart were trapped beneath the House, a second ecosystem that very quickly established a bloody food chain. Everyone has settled in now. Those who are staying are staying. Those who are dead are dead.
And then there's Petre.
He's in a simple steel cage, the kind a circus would use, the floor of it covered with hay. Tavor goes right up to it, unfraid. He clicks his claws against the metal bars. ]
[ Some were smart enough to run, others had to die, and in the middle of the chaos of a fallen house, no one so much as thought of releasing the demon, because there would not have been anything left. Years of starvation meant that all the energy keeping Petre alive kept chipping away, eroded like stone, and the less he had left the more monstrous he became. Any creature, by intelligence or instinct, knew better than to come close to the cage of the thing that would immediately eat them alive.
A long time has passed since their escape. The house is almost empty and Petre remains the ghost that haunts the basement, kept in check by the careless, provocative hybrid. As they draw nearer, the incessant, mumbling chatter of a dissociated mind scratches like sandpaper against wood.
When Tavor clicks his claws, it comes to a sudden stop. Like a ticking clock interrupted with one last beat of inertia, he keeps his back turned to the visitors, crouched down on the farthest end. ]
Petre, you have a visitor.
[ his voice is awfully dry. He repeats the words like he's consciously training himself to remember how to speak, one claw scratching lightly at the metal. The clothes he wears are decades old, colors faded, dark with dirt, dull with age, ridiculous on him now. His hair looks like its been chopped off at the ends. He's far from the smug and vain devil that waltzed into these woods and was brought in by the hunters chanting religious songs to make him vomit and bleed. There's no need for that anymore. He barely even knows where to look when he turns his head and eyes that used to be light blue have turned all black. ]
[ He's tempted to take out a piece of chalk and start making marks, as if to guard against the possibility of Tavor abandoning him down here among the labyrinthine clusters of cages, and also to get some sense of numbers. Of all the beasts that he and his masters are purportedly interested in, and how many there aren't, anymore. It may not be the top priority, but Brandon is genuinely tormented by curiosity; he almost wishes he could have seen it back in the day.
Seen it and stayed alive and sane to tell the tale, anyway. The specimen Tavor takes him to is nothing impressive, physically. Honestly, Brandon has no idea what this muttering creature, parroting Tavor's words back at him is, at first - between the three of them, it's like a meeting of the sickly and deformed.
There have been some hints, though. That this is someone Haran wants to gloat about. That there are still demons down here, and that the cage looks like it's only steel, with almost a sense of circus staging to it. Brandon directs his flashlight at Petre, the beam playing over first the turned back and then the black eyes.
He courteously directs the light lower after a moment, though he's not sure this Petre can see it, or has the capacity to appreciate such a small gesture, set against such vast cruelty, if he can. ]
What a bizarre form to be bound up in.
[ His terminology is understandably magi-centered, and does not accurately describe Petre's unique situation, though he would argue that it has the important bits right. No demon would manifest itself like this by choice, as far as he knows, therefore it was put into this pathetic body, made more pathetic by (he supposes) years of deprivation and torment. Who put the demon in this body isn't all that important, he mistakenly believes. ]
[ He used to kind of like Petre, as much as a half-man and a tortured demon could like one another. They were treated similarly. Used and abused as toys rather than beings of any sentience. Well, the demon's sentience was rather suspect now, and Tavor's mother is gone no longer able to coo at him demand things of him, but once they'd smoked cigarettes together and acted like caged animals in the dark.
Tavor stares silently at the demon for a long moment of silence before he turns his body to face Brandon. ]
Adina decided she wanted one, and what Adina wanted, Adina got. If her brothers didn't do it for her, she would just get up and go do it herself. That's how she got her first son, stalked a stud with the kind of power she liked and stuck her hand in his chest, threatened to fill him with acid if he didn't let her have her way.
[ Another cigarette finished and flicked away. Another just as deftly lit. ]
She wasn't going to have another one, already had her sweet little prince that she was so proud of and everyone else hated. But then her brothers actually caught her a demon. She was supposed to use him for parts. But you know, [ A vague shrug. ] then she got greedy.
[ she got greedy, which should have been perfect for a demon, hadn't she tortured him endlessly, leaving him in the dark to rot instead of sticking around long enough for him to attempt to control her mind. He did that to several of the Morrisons, reaching out to their sins, but they reached right back into his chest and head with very meticulous and effective methods of keeping him controlled, weak and alive.
Many years have passed since. He doesn't try to manipulate anymore. He's more direct about what he wants and tries to get. He doesn't bargain with Tavor for cigarettes and meat (and freedom), he just mutters in the dark and comes to the light when someone approaches.
He knows the hybrid well enough that he's grown bored with him, and that's why his gaze doesn't linger for very long. There is so much more interest in the newcomer, alive, fresh. A different smell that he can contemplate about in his animal-like brain. He wants him, lips parting hungrily to show fangs. Tavor has not been this generous in a very long time.
He hasn't mentioned Adina's name, either. It makes his claws clang against the bars violently, like a trigger and a warning not to say it. Only the names of Gods used to get such a reaction from him, which is a testament to all the atrocities she managed to put him through. He might have forgotten that she's dead.
And like a skip over to better topics, fingers wrap around the bars, forehead pressed against them, staring once again at Brandon with a keen shine in his eyes. They look like oil, blind and aware. ]
[ His attention is split between Petre's unnerving attention and Tavor's unexpected forthcomingness. He isn't obvious about it; since one aspect of who he is here is playing the civilized Englishman (... Welsh, but whatever), Brandon's gaze remains unwaveringly on Tavor, attentive bordering on rapt. At the same time, he has kept Petre within his line of vision and his fingers, partially hidden by his coat sleeves, are already set into a position that can activate the wards in the lining.
Only when Tavor concludes his quasi-morality tale does Brandon allow his attention to visibly shift, deliberately slowly, to the demon staring blackly at him. Practically drooling. ]
So this is what Haran wishes me to see. His father.
[ Tavor shrugs, his favored gesture for his utter ennui for the things that Haran wishes. He shuffles over to a moldering barrel once filled with water and sits down, his tail coiling in the shadows, keeping carefully away from where it might attract Petre's hunger. ]
[ However obvious their conversation is... Petre doesn't look like he's listening. He's much too focused on a single thought, and that thought is directed straight at Brandon, who is finally looking back. Someone trying to explain to him that he has fathered anyone would just not reach any concept of understanding, so there is never a reaction. Their language might as well be foreign.
And yet, he still has some moments of apparent lucidity. They're no different than an animal who can mimic human speech, though: just a collection of sounds and behaviors that will supposedly get him something if he does and repeats them just right.
So he closes his mouth. Hands still clawing around the metal bars, he leans away and straightens himself up to be at eye level with Brandon, even though the blackness of his eyes never goes away. Instead his eyebrows knit, his lips press uncomfortably and his voice builds on a little melody, words still scratching at his throat. ]
[ The way Brandon stares at Petre, it seems he instinctively understands that the plea for help is fashioned out of animal mimicry. For a moment he has the definite air of a scientist observing animals learning to use tools.
Then he turns to look back at Tavor, not fully ignoring Petre - he really can't, not even if he wanted to - but certainly dismissing him from immediate concern. ]
Astonishing.
[ From the dry tone, he must mean Haran as much as he means Haran's maddened demon father. The whole situation. The Morrisons in general. ]
Might I ask you more questions, Tavor? About down here, your family... whatever you feel like answering.
[ Wheels turning in every word, a mind that curls up while extending in several directions. Brandon is only a magus, and a young one at that, he's under a nightmare house with a monster and a demon, he has no trustworthy allies and his so-called masters have never once shown themselves or sent a single message... yet he's confident and composed, mind going a mile a minute, focused on Tavor in a way that perhaps few people have before. ]
[ Stooped over on the barrel, hunched into his cigarette, Tavor looks particularly inhuman, especially when his eyes flicker up at Brandon. He doesn't care. To him, the family gossip is utterly uninteresting. A morality tale with an obvious ending. That's how it went with witches, even the members of the family proper knew that, but. You got a little power in the world before you spent eternity in Hell. It was an okay bargain. ]
Sure.
[ The only questions he won't answer are the ones about himself.
His tail uncurls, creeping over to rattle the bars of the cage. ]
Don't waste your energy, he's not going to do anything for you.
[ Petre maintains the pathetic little whimpering look, gaze incisive in hopes that Brandon will turn back to him and be moved, if he just sticks with the mimicry long enough. No such thing happens, though. He remains focused on Petre's jail keeper, and so he shifts his breathing until he goes incredibly quiet, readies his limbs until he's incredibly still. Tavor warns him just in time.
His hand and arm, thin and swift, reach right between two bars to grab Brandon by his jacket, yanking him against the metal to claw at his neck with his other hand. His intention is clearly to dig his teeth into that throat, get a taste of fresh blood for the first time in years, but his head can't possibly fit. Instead he clenches clawed fingers around his neck to choke and puncture, too blinded in his focus to eat the magus to prepare or defend himself against any measures to make him stop. ]
[ Like all areas of study, magic has its share of trends that come and go, recurring in cycles, pushed forward or falling out of favor with the major personalities who support or deride them. Some things, like necromancy and demonology, have been passé for a long time, for similar reasons: a sparse, exclusive, or obscured base of knowledge, technology outpacing magical solutions in terms of effectiveness and cost, a certain tastelessness to the controversial aspects...
Brandon of all people knows the value of not underestimating the old bad arts, though, and while he's clearly expressed his disinterest in demons, there's no denying how interesting the Solomonic system is, how its seals are beautiful examples of historical warding.
And, fortunately, easy to call to mind. The biggest struggle Brandon has once Petre has yanked him close enough to claw at his neck is twisting enough to get his own arm through the bars, and his own hand flat on Petre's chest. He's clumsy from the sudden adrenaline surge, too, which is no help, and panic is on the horizon but under control for the moment - Brandon is touched with cold to the very heart, the very quality that kept him calm before Haran and sedate following Tavor into a slaughterhouse-smelling darkness. (He does not look for a second to Tavor for help.)
The reason he has to call the seal to mind rather than use the gesture he had ready is because Brandon does not incorporate such symbols into his personal items. The whole system is, after all, looted wholesale from Jewish religious texts, and he isn't Jewish. Hopefully, that won't matter; hopefully, it's the icy-burning glyph that emerges from his mind and out of his palm to fill Petre's chest with a couple thousand volts of freezing, muscle-juddering pain that matters. ]
[ Well, it's a good thing Brandon isn't looking to him for help, because Tavor is under no particular obligation to give it. He's even being pretty slow about even contemplating it, wondering how much he would actually care if for some reason this would bother Haran. Which he's not really convinced it would. He sits back, head tilted, cigarette at his lips. That's the most energy he's seen out of Petre for a while. It's novel.
And the stupid magus kind of looks like he's on top of it? Tavor's not so sure, he's going to go it a 70/30 spread because there's nothing quite like a starving demon to beat the odds. ]
[ Petre's scream is a mix of a monster and a child, starting with the heaviness of something dark and hoarse and ending with something wailing and pathetic. Claws, arms and body recoils away from the bars as he lets go and falls backwards. He curls on himself, still on his feet, to heave with a stream of blood and saliva hanging from his mouth.
His anger, however present, doesn't show in his twisted features. Instead he displays the despair of a creature that just really wants to eat, eyes blindly set on the ground.
Brandon is safe again, and Tavor is still bored. ]
[ Staggering back from the bars, Brandon runs a shaky yet thorough hand over his throat. It might become clear after a moment, if Tavor cares enough to notice, that he's not comforting himself or in shock, but rather checking how deep those claws got into him. Never mind any concerns about demonic infection, he'll settle for concern about regular old mundane infection. It's filthy down here.
And he's annoyed with Tavor, of course, though he doesn't bother to express it. He doesn't even change his initial assessment of the situation. He couldn't chart out the math for the calculation of his next move, either. His instincts are always rationalized after the fact. ]
You're wrong, you know. [ Not about standing too close. That is indisputably correct. ] I'll do something for him, all right.
[ It could be a threat, except that makes no sense whatsoever: Petre can't understand him and Tavor wouldn't care. So it's just a bit of raspy conversation, then.
Brandon points the hand he used to hurt Petre with at the ground right outside the bars. The gesture is technically not necessary, it just helps him focus, and he could use a little right now. A glyph sullenly coalesces on the ground, nothing more arcane or mysterious than a symbol which simply indicates "here," and fades.
The messengers aren't especially smart and may not like flying underground, but they'll find the glyph easily enough. ]
Anyway. Where were we. Right: what does Qetzi'ah want most in the world. Besides Haran dead and her family back.
[ Brandon's request startles a cawing laugh out of Tavor that lowers to a hissing snicker. ]
Can't figure out how to flatter her? Probably can't, she's not who she was. [ Tavor espouses no sorrow for the transformation his little cousin has been forced to go through. ] She was never very important. Two sisters and two brothers, and she's the least ambitious one. She liked being out of the squabbling, she was always out on the mountain playing with the flowers.
[ His shoulders go up in that bored shrug of his. ]
That's why she's alive. She'll wrap up that scratch for you too.
[ Stubbing out the cigarette he gets up to peer at the place where the glyph had briefly flared, contemplating idly, ]
I'd feed him myself, but the hyenas have picked our villagers clean.
[ And like Hell is Tavor putting extra effort into dragging anyone down here.... ]
[ Perhaps he's grasping at loose straws, distracted and irritated and yet also intrigued by what Tavor tells him, yet something in the description gets to him. The flowers. She brings them into the house. She brought them into the kitchen when they first met. He's wondered since then why she comes into the house at all, other than sheer bloody-mindedness, the rejection of Haran as master of the house that belongs to her family.
Brandon keeps his eyes on Petre the way one might converse while watching a stream. Tavor didn't really answer his question, but he won't nag about it. ]
What does she do out there, in the flowers.
[ It really is mercenary interest, of course, it's only the thoughtfulness of the question that might make it sound like anything else, such as, god forbid, even vaguely romantic. ]
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Brandon makes a polite gesture of lead on, which Tavor was presumably going to do anyway, and retrieves a flashlight from his coat pocket. It's perfectly mundane in its components, with only wards for stability and solidity to keep it working in the face of supernatural interference. He keeps the light low, playing over the freshly-hooked-fish movements of Tavor's tail. His interest is brief and scientific, with barely a tinge of ironic macabre, and then he pays more attention to the ground, which might be uneven or strewn with, for example, bones, which always make for annoying footing. ]
All Haran's cousins are so obliging.
[ His bland, pithy comment is not particularly loaded, as it could be from the little idiot Tavor thinks him to be, apart from the fact that either of them could straightforwardly add all two of them. ]
Is there anything you might like in return for your generosity, Tavor?
[ He has to ask. Maybe the answer will be interesting, if almost certainly not anything he can use for actual gift-giving. ]
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The obliging ones are the ones who lived. [ There's that utterly unkind sense of humor. ] The other five were too unfriendly.
[ He crows an abrasive laugh, hissing between his teeth as he finishes on cigarette and lights another. Six, if you included Haran's elder brother: a chain reaction that had rippled through the House like a maelstrom. He glances over his shoulder with a smile that gleams in the dark, elongating the sharp flesh-rending points of his teeth ]
I don't want your favors, magus. I like to keep my hands clean of Haran's shit.
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[ Though he wouldn't say it above ground, it's not a sentiment that should surprise anybody; perhaps Qetzi'ah hasn't read him right, as disinterested in any "friends" of Haran's that might come her way and concerned with her own problems, but treachery isn't exactly out of place in the Morrison House at this point. His role, dedicated as he is to it, is clearly a farce for Haran, simply one he's chosen to be entertained by. ]
Where do you get those?
[ The cigarettes. Hand rolled? Cartons moldering away in a cavern somewhere, carted here when the Morrisons still saw some trade? Mail order? Brandon will divert the both of them with such conversations as lay bare the politics of his presence while simultaneously stepping around them. Perhaps Tavor will be willing to tell him more about the family now gone. The topic seems too raw to broach with Qetzi'ah. ]
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[ Aziza, to be precise, but she has already told Tavor she has not met the visitor personally yet so her name would mean nothing to him. She has had plenty else to say about what has been going on above. She was a good little spy, Sapphira had trained her well for the job. This was not the situation the pure-breed had envisioned... She had imagined herself sitting atop the smoldering ruins of this place, but the groundwork was laid all the same. ]
A few of them can act civilized enough to go into town.
[ That is the easy and immediate response, the rest takes him just a moment of consideration. Mostly to consider if he cares enough to respond. His tone is flat, ]
I assume you're here to circle the spoils, just like everyone else.
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As for the other thing, that Tavor cared enough to respond is unexpected but pleasant. If nothing else, he should be trying to get a feel for what Tavor will or won't do, if and when things start to change. ]
Do you really think any outsider wants to be petty king of this particular corpse mountain?
[ His tone is still very polite. It could be taken as a very obvious deflection, since plenty of creatures, monsters, witches, and other assorted entities are drawn here by its power, and Brandon is merely one more in the long line. It's also true, at least if he were speaking only for himself. What the masters want is more important than what he wants. ]
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Yes, I do.
[ If the last of the pests could be cleaned out of the House on the Hill it would be a magnificent dynamo of dark energy, a perfect place to perform black rituals under blood moons. It overflowed with suffering and vengeful spirits, in an incorporeal sense, and it overflowed with arcana and occult tools in the corporeal. Any stupid little magus would covet it, and with the pact of Lilach so long ago, it might even accept a clever man, start the blood debt anew with a king rather than a queen this time. ]
If not the Hill itself, then for the demons.
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In any case, he calls himself magus and is competent enough in the areas that his own country's systems have determined define such an individual, but he only loves necromancy and demons are really quite beside the point for him.
It's good to know that they're here, though. The masters would probably find the information useful. ]
No accounting for taste.
[ In using that phrase, a tacit acknowledgment also of the possibility of Tavor's mixed up genetics. To be fair, you can get a tail without being a monstrous hybrid, but Brandon doesn't see any of the usual signs of fleshcrafting at such a scale, or of other forms of alteration. Tavor seems, if nothing else, entirely himself, secure in the inhuman aspects of his skin. ]
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It used to be that the menagerie was carefully organized and indexed, like kept with like, when able. Some species hated their own kind with such a violence that it was occasionally better to keep them at opposite ends of the entire maze, even then the smell of the other beast encroaching on their territory could drive them to batter themselves to death upon the bars of their cages. Bronze or iron or steel, it depended upon what kind of metal they were most allergic to. Tavor's mother, Helah, had been a great beast master, able to tame any creature she cooed at, but as the collection grew around her (much to her delight) she couldn't possibly have loved them all at once. It had created quite a problem when she was dead.
The creatures smart enough to do so had simply left, those not so smart were trapped beneath the House, a second ecosystem that very quickly established a bloody food chain. Everyone has settled in now. Those who are staying are staying. Those who are dead are dead.
And then there's Petre.
He's in a simple steel cage, the kind a circus would use, the floor of it covered with hay. Tavor goes right up to it, unfraid. He clicks his claws against the metal bars. ]
Petre. You have a visitor.
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A long time has passed since their escape. The house is almost empty and Petre remains the ghost that haunts the basement, kept in check by the careless, provocative hybrid. As they draw nearer, the incessant, mumbling chatter of a dissociated mind scratches like sandpaper against wood.
When Tavor clicks his claws, it comes to a sudden stop. Like a ticking clock interrupted with one last beat of inertia, he keeps his back turned to the visitors, crouched down on the farthest end. ]
Petre, you have a visitor.
[ his voice is awfully dry. He repeats the words like he's consciously training himself to remember how to speak, one claw scratching lightly at the metal. The clothes he wears are decades old, colors faded, dark with dirt, dull with age, ridiculous on him now. His hair looks like its been chopped off at the ends. He's far from the smug and vain devil that waltzed into these woods and was brought in by the hunters chanting religious songs to make him vomit and bleed. There's no need for that anymore. He barely even knows where to look when he turns his head and eyes that used to be light blue have turned all black. ]
Petre. You have a visitor.
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Seen it and stayed alive and sane to tell the tale, anyway. The specimen Tavor takes him to is nothing impressive, physically. Honestly, Brandon has no idea what this muttering creature, parroting Tavor's words back at him is, at first - between the three of them, it's like a meeting of the sickly and deformed.
There have been some hints, though. That this is someone Haran wants to gloat about. That there are still demons down here, and that the cage looks like it's only steel, with almost a sense of circus staging to it. Brandon directs his flashlight at Petre, the beam playing over first the turned back and then the black eyes.
He courteously directs the light lower after a moment, though he's not sure this Petre can see it, or has the capacity to appreciate such a small gesture, set against such vast cruelty, if he can. ]
What a bizarre form to be bound up in.
[ His terminology is understandably magi-centered, and does not accurately describe Petre's unique situation, though he would argue that it has the important bits right. No demon would manifest itself like this by choice, as far as he knows, therefore it was put into this pathetic body, made more pathetic by (he supposes) years of deprivation and torment. Who put the demon in this body isn't all that important, he mistakenly believes. ]
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Tavor stares silently at the demon for a long moment of silence before he turns his body to face Brandon. ]
Adina decided she wanted one, and what Adina wanted, Adina got. If her brothers didn't do it for her, she would just get up and go do it herself. That's how she got her first son, stalked a stud with the kind of power she liked and stuck her hand in his chest, threatened to fill him with acid if he didn't let her have her way.
[ Another cigarette finished and flicked away. Another just as deftly lit. ]
She wasn't going to have another one, already had her sweet little prince that she was so proud of and everyone else hated. But then her brothers actually caught her a demon. She was supposed to use him for parts. But you know, [ A vague shrug. ] then she got greedy.
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Many years have passed since. He doesn't try to manipulate anymore. He's more direct about what he wants and tries to get. He doesn't bargain with Tavor for cigarettes and meat (and freedom), he just mutters in the dark and comes to the light when someone approaches.
He knows the hybrid well enough that he's grown bored with him, and that's why his gaze doesn't linger for very long. There is so much more interest in the newcomer, alive, fresh. A different smell that he can contemplate about in his animal-like brain. He wants him, lips parting hungrily to show fangs. Tavor has not been this generous in a very long time.
He hasn't mentioned Adina's name, either. It makes his claws clang against the bars violently, like a trigger and a warning not to say it. Only the names of Gods used to get such a reaction from him, which is a testament to all the atrocities she managed to put him through. He might have forgotten that she's dead.
And like a skip over to better topics, fingers wrap around the bars, forehead pressed against them, staring once again at Brandon with a keen shine in his eyes. They look like oil, blind and aware. ]
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Only when Tavor concludes his quasi-morality tale does Brandon allow his attention to visibly shift, deliberately slowly, to the demon staring blackly at him. Practically drooling. ]
So this is what Haran wishes me to see. His father.
[ Just. To clarify. ]
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He has a shitty sense of humor.
[ Haran, he means. ]
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And yet, he still has some moments of apparent lucidity. They're no different than an animal who can mimic human speech, though: just a collection of sounds and behaviors that will supposedly get him something if he does and repeats them just right.
So he closes his mouth. Hands still clawing around the metal bars, he leans away and straightens himself up to be at eye level with Brandon, even though the blackness of his eyes never goes away. Instead his eyebrows knit, his lips press uncomfortably and his voice builds on a little melody, words still scratching at his throat. ]
I'm so hungry. Help me. Please.
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Then he turns to look back at Tavor, not fully ignoring Petre - he really can't, not even if he wanted to - but certainly dismissing him from immediate concern. ]
Astonishing.
[ From the dry tone, he must mean Haran as much as he means Haran's maddened demon father. The whole situation. The Morrisons in general. ]
Might I ask you more questions, Tavor? About down here, your family... whatever you feel like answering.
[ Wheels turning in every word, a mind that curls up while extending in several directions. Brandon is only a magus, and a young one at that, he's under a nightmare house with a monster and a demon, he has no trustworthy allies and his so-called masters have never once shown themselves or sent a single message... yet he's confident and composed, mind going a mile a minute, focused on Tavor in a way that perhaps few people have before. ]
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Sure.
[ The only questions he won't answer are the ones about himself.
His tail uncurls, creeping over to rattle the bars of the cage. ]
Don't waste your energy, he's not going to do anything for you.
[ He means that in the nicest way possible. ]
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His hand and arm, thin and swift, reach right between two bars to grab Brandon by his jacket, yanking him against the metal to claw at his neck with his other hand. His intention is clearly to dig his teeth into that throat, get a taste of fresh blood for the first time in years, but his head can't possibly fit. Instead he clenches clawed fingers around his neck to choke and puncture, too blinded in his focus to eat the magus to prepare or defend himself against any measures to make him stop. ]
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Brandon of all people knows the value of not underestimating the old bad arts, though, and while he's clearly expressed his disinterest in demons, there's no denying how interesting the Solomonic system is, how its seals are beautiful examples of historical warding.
And, fortunately, easy to call to mind. The biggest struggle Brandon has once Petre has yanked him close enough to claw at his neck is twisting enough to get his own arm through the bars, and his own hand flat on Petre's chest. He's clumsy from the sudden adrenaline surge, too, which is no help, and panic is on the horizon but under control for the moment - Brandon is touched with cold to the very heart, the very quality that kept him calm before Haran and sedate following Tavor into a slaughterhouse-smelling darkness. (He does not look for a second to Tavor for help.)
The reason he has to call the seal to mind rather than use the gesture he had ready is because Brandon does not incorporate such symbols into his personal items. The whole system is, after all, looted wholesale from Jewish religious texts, and he isn't Jewish. Hopefully, that won't matter; hopefully, it's the icy-burning glyph that emerges from his mind and out of his palm to fill Petre's chest with a couple thousand volts of freezing, muscle-juddering pain that matters. ]
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And the stupid magus kind of looks like he's on top of it? Tavor's not so sure, he's going to go it a 70/30 spread because there's nothing quite like a starving demon to beat the odds. ]
Huh.
[ The most apathetic commentary. ]
Shouldn't... stand too close.
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His anger, however present, doesn't show in his twisted features. Instead he displays the despair of a creature that just really wants to eat, eyes blindly set on the ground.
Brandon is safe again, and Tavor is still bored. ]
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And he's annoyed with Tavor, of course, though he doesn't bother to express it. He doesn't even change his initial assessment of the situation. He couldn't chart out the math for the calculation of his next move, either. His instincts are always rationalized after the fact. ]
You're wrong, you know. [ Not about standing too close. That is indisputably correct. ] I'll do something for him, all right.
[ It could be a threat, except that makes no sense whatsoever: Petre can't understand him and Tavor wouldn't care. So it's just a bit of raspy conversation, then.
Brandon points the hand he used to hurt Petre with at the ground right outside the bars. The gesture is technically not necessary, it just helps him focus, and he could use a little right now. A glyph sullenly coalesces on the ground, nothing more arcane or mysterious than a symbol which simply indicates "here," and fades.
The messengers aren't especially smart and may not like flying underground, but they'll find the glyph easily enough. ]
Anyway. Where were we. Right: what does Qetzi'ah want most in the world. Besides Haran dead and her family back.
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Can't figure out how to flatter her? Probably can't, she's not who she was. [ Tavor espouses no sorrow for the transformation his little cousin has been forced to go through. ] She was never very important. Two sisters and two brothers, and she's the least ambitious one. She liked being out of the squabbling, she was always out on the mountain playing with the flowers.
[ His shoulders go up in that bored shrug of his. ]
That's why she's alive. She'll wrap up that scratch for you too.
[ Stubbing out the cigarette he gets up to peer at the place where the glyph had briefly flared, contemplating idly, ]
I'd feed him myself, but the hyenas have picked our villagers clean.
[ And like Hell is Tavor putting extra effort into dragging anyone down here.... ]
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Brandon keeps his eyes on Petre the way one might converse while watching a stream. Tavor didn't really answer his question, but he won't nag about it. ]
What does she do out there, in the flowers.
[ It really is mercenary interest, of course, it's only the thoughtfulness of the question that might make it sound like anything else, such as, god forbid, even vaguely romantic. ]
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[ And his tone suggests how the fuck should he. ]
What do little girls do out there in the flowers?
[ Having mainly lived his life surrounded by dirt and meat and monsters, he really wouldn't have the foggiest. ]
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