Black Angus – Chapter 9

This is a working draft and not a final product.

Content Warnings: Eating People, The Usual Blood and Gore, Anal Penetration [full], Xenophobia, Homophobia, Sexual Coersion, Under-Negotiated Kink, Face Mutliation [full], Attack by a Wild Animal

In which Angus hunts Edwina’s way.

Angus didn’t know where he was, but he knew it was too late for him. His mother and father, his home, his innocence —all gone. Whoever he had been and whoever he was meant to be were no more. That boy’s life was over. Angus was something different now.

He welcomed the cold touch. It was the only thing left that he knew anymore. Angus trembled as Friedolf’s fangs slid inside him, deeper into his flesh than it seemed they should; straddling him down so he could not fight it. Friedolf, who was there for him when there was nothing left. A scream caught in his throat. Nothing came out. Hot liquid poured down his neck. His world went black. His consciousness slipped away somewhere deep inside himself, and he surrendered.

Anatoliy drew back from kissing Angus’s neck. “Are you alright, lapochka? Did I startle you?”

Angus saw the feint, fractured light that glowed in their modest room. Relief swelled in his chest. He was with Anatoliy. He was comfortable. He was safe. Angus’s breathing steadied. He shifted his body closer to the larger one beside him, where he could feel the man’s heat pressing against his backside through bed clothes.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that when I woke and saw you were naked, I got a bit ahead of myself,” Anatoliy explained, pulling away.

Overly eager to forget his dark dreams, Angus arched his back into Anatoliy’s lap. “Carry on then,” Angus answered primly.

Anatoliy’s breath rumbled against the base of Angus’s neck as he groaned, “Gods, where did a creature like you even come from? I feel like every time I look at you I’m dreaming.” He placed his hands on Angus’s chest to toy with his nipples, then dragged his palms down to Angus’s hips, pressing the cleft of Angus’s rump over his erection. Angus’s head lulled back as Anatoliy buried his mouth into Angus’s collar.

“Do we have anything . . . for me?” Angus probed, gasping and too sheepish to finish his question properly. He mentally readied himself to endure. It wouldn’t be that much trouble.

“Mmm, in the bag with the food. —There’s oil,” Anatoliy responded between biting kisses on Angus’s shoulder blades. Angus had to wrestle himself free from the man’s grasp on his hips to reach past to the foot of the bed to do as he said. As he bent over, Anatoliy leaned forward to nip at his ass cheek, which Angus met with a look of indignance.

Anatoliy fervently grabbed the bottle from Angus’s hands. For several minutes, he coated his and Angus’s intimate parts, broadening Angus’s ring methodically as he worked with his hands.

Angus tried to stay present. He didn’t want to think about other people, but his head kept slipping away to grim, inconvenient places. When was the last time someone had showed him this much consideration? And then the guilt followed. Only because of his tense, stubborn body, did Anatoliy have to treat him with such care and patience. There was no sign of the man being bothered, but Angus feared he simply hid his frustrations well.

Anatoliy rolled Angus onto his belly and made love to him with mighty vigor. His hips bucked unevenly as he found his release. All the while, Angus’s mouth had turned filthy and whorish, his fangs tearing tiny holes into his pillowcase in between searing vulgarities.

When he was finished, Anatoliy pulled Angus into his arms, peppering his shoulders with soft kisses. He chuckled low into the base of Angus’s neck. “Forgive me, umnitsa, but I do not get ass like yours back at camp.”

Angus went rigid with embarrassment and promptly changed the subject. “What’s that one mean?”

“Umnitsa?” Anatoliy nuzzled his nose into Angus’s jaw. “It means you are a ‘good boy’.”

“Hm,” said Angus, “Let’s not use that one.”

“Whatever you say, dorogoy,” Anatoliy replied, “Anything to keep you a little longer. I know you’ll want someone your own age eventually. —Veles knows, I’m not getting any younger.”

Angus sat up in bed and combed the hair from Anatoliy’s face. “You know, I bet you’re not even as old as you say you are. What is your age anyway?”

Anatoliy gave him a meek smile. “I am thirty-four. My father was completely gray by the time he was forty.” He seemed to suppress a complex emotion at the mention.

Picking up the tin from the bedside table, Angus drew Anatoliy’s injured arm flat into his lap, loosened its bandage, and massaged the salve over the crusted pink wound.

“I made this for you. It will suppress the infection,” Angus said. He placed the tin back on the table, retied the cloth around Anatoliy’s wrist, and added, “I like your hair. I think it looks handsome on you.”

Hiding his face, Anatoliy smiled into his pillow, shaking his head as he let out a flattered scoff. He lifted himself by both palms to sit up, then touched Angus’s jaw to lift his face.

“Has anyone ever said to you that when the light catches your brown eyes, they reflect back green like an animal?”

Angus’s breath hitched. “No.”

Anatoliy pulled in to peck him on the lips. “Then we are even,” he smiled.

With an exaggerated strain, Anatoliy lifted himself from their small bed and started to dress. He paused when he saw his boots. Bewildered, Anatoliy sat to examine them, but pulled them onto his feet nonetheless. He didn’t look as pleased as Angus had hoped, but Angus couldn’t blame him for his uneasy expression. Anatoliy kneaded his neck and shoulders and wiped his face with a damp cloth. Then he saw the offering bowl.

With his back turned to Angus, Anatoliy planted a firm fist onto the table, rattling the objects sitting atop.

“Pizdets,” he hissed. The air around them seemed to run cold. Angus watched silently.

After a moment of tension passed, Anatoliy spoke. “I had been hoping to abandon my job to explore this thing between you and me further, but my spit and your semya are still wet, and my gold coin is gone. The message is clear. Khors-Dazhbog is telling me to take the money.”

“But—,” Angus sputtered, scrambling his lean limbs out of the bed, “We’ve only just started. You can’t do this to me.” Pressure was building on the sides of his nose, his throat felt dry, and his eyes started to sting.

Anatoliy pursed his lips as he watched the limp, naked creature. Clearing his throat, he simply replied, “I have much to prepare for. I suggest you do the same, instead of wasting the day in bed.” He squeezed Angus’s shoulder, then left the room.

Angus hastily dressed and rushed out to the stair landing. The floor below, where the dining tables and bar were, was drenched in sunlight streaming through the wide windows, highlighting the minuscule dust particles that drifted from the heavy rafters. Angus couldn’t see where Anatoliy had gone. He was alone. Unsure of what to do, he hid back inside the room, pulling his knees close to his chest and the bedsheets over his head. At the far end across the room, sitting on the table beside the offering bowl with the carved disk resting in its hands, the idol of Khors-Dazhbog stared at Angus accusingly.

It was still bright out when Angus was startled awake for the second time that day. The door had flung open, and Anatoliy entered looking distressed. His eyes hung on Angus, analyzing the drowsy creature in their bed uncertainly. Angus rose and pressed his arms to the man’s chest. Perhaps Anatoliy had realized his mistake and come back to apologize. Long heavy breaths rose from Anatoliy as Angus gazed up at him expectantly.

Anatoliy searched Angus’s face. “There was a robbery in the town last night. People missing. Guards are checking every room.” He waited for Angus to respond. His eyes creased, doubt creeping over his face. “Angus. You didn’t, did you—?”

Angus shook his head.

The door swung open again behind them, and a lieutenant accompanied by two armed men entered, crowding the small room. The lieutenant was a tall, lean man who held his posture straight with the aid of an ivory hilted cane.

“Pull those rags down, will you? Get some light in here,” the lieutenant commanded, waving his long hand at the window. Angus ducked behind Anatoliy as the two lower men tore down the weathered blankets, filling the room with sunlight. He backed away to stand in the open doorway, watching the men empty their packs onto the unkempt bed. His heart stilled as the lieutenant lifted the collection of ghost stories to flip through the pages, only to dismissively toss it back on the bed. The Hand of Glory was kept close on Angus’s person, he couldn’t imagine how any of the four other men might have reacted to seeing it.

The lieutenant tapped Anatoliy’s repaired boots with the end of his cane. “Have that done recently? My understanding was that the Parsons ‘deferred’ you barbarians.”

Anatoliy nodded stiffly. “I’ve been working in Blithe-Rock for years. I’m practically a local now.”

The lieutenant sneered and drifted to the table where Anatoliy kept his altar. “What’s this, then? Witchcraft? Wasn’t there just a witch situation over in Midgate? They still haven’t found the missing corpse that was stolen off the gallows. Heard the poor bastard was only a wee lad. Makes you sick to think what might have been done to his body.” Instinctively, Angus half obscured himself behind the door frame.

“I use those to pray. There is no witchcraft here,” Anatoliy explained, keeping his eyes to the ground.

“Mm. Dispose of it.” The lieutenant gestured his men to the altar with his cane. “Take a tithing from their purses, too. Make sure they aren’t carrying a suspicious amount of coin.”

Anatoliy’s throat hitched as one of the men swept his religious belongings into a bag. The arrowhead -the first object Anatoliy had placed in the bowl- missed the opening of the bag and clinked to the wooden floor. The other guard spilled the contents of Angus’s aumônière onto the bed, removed the single gold coin, and took significantly more from Anatoliy’s war wages.

“Where were you last night?” the lieutenant inquired sharply, looking Anatoliy up and down, very much unimpressed with what he saw.

“In this room. I was with him all night,” Angus cut in.

The lieutenant snorted. “And for what duration of your ‘eyewitness account’ were you asleep?” he asked with vile mockery.

Angus prissily rolled his eyes. “Far less than I would have liked. This one is insatiable. I can’t believe I’m still standing.” He spun his wrist at Anatoliy. “You can check with our neighbors if you like. The walls here are thin.”

“That’s enough filth out of you,” the lieutenant snapped. Anatoliy’s nostrils flared as the officer jabbed Angus in the chest with his cane. The lieutenant paused. His eyes narrowed, trailing across Angus’s sour face. “You. I’ve seen you somewhere before. —Where?”

Angus caught an odd shift in Anatoliy’s form, straightening his posture as if he might reach for his sword. With his mouth hanging slightly open, Angus’s eyes shifted from the lieutenant to Anatoliy standing behind him. He wasn’t sure where the man could have seen him, especially not in any way that mattered. It was like there was some conversation going on around him that he wasn’t a part of. After a moment though, the lieutenant snapped out of it, turning his head to the two men who’d come with him.

“—Anything?” the lieutenant asked the guards. The pair shook their heads.

Turning to face to Anatoliy, the lieutenant sibilated, “Fortunately for you barbarians, degeneracy isn’t illegal here as it is on the mainland —though not for much longer, so I hear. You’re free men, for yet another day. Don’t push your luck.” The three servicemen exited the room, leaving it in disarray. A heavy silence lingered behind them. Anatoliy looked down, inspecting his boots. Angus stayed by the door.

“Come back inside,” Anatoliy asked wearily. Angus stayed where he was.

Anatoliy sat on their cluttered bed, the mattress sinking in at either side of him where he slouched over. A radiant beam of light fell across him, illuminating him on one side, his mature hairs glowing like thin silver strings. He picked the arrowhead off the floor and toyed with it between his fingers, casting his eyes down at the object, and through it to the uneven wooden floor and beyond. A long, foreboding sigh snaked out of him, making it seem like the only air in the entire room was that which passed between his lips.

“You know, just because I practice ritual and believe in things like honor and balance, it doesn’t make me an irrational fool. It doesn’t mean I don’t ask questions. Why don’t you just come back inside and talk to me?”

Angus cleared his throat. “Will you just . . .” He awkwardly gestured at the window’s curtains. Anatoliy closed his eyes and released a sharp, spent breath. His movement was solemn as he stood and pulled the undersized curtains over the glass, dimming the room, but inevitably leaving sharp strips of light that cut around the fabric. Angus entered, choosing his steps carefully.

“Angus, do you know what happened to my boots?”

“They look the same to me as yesterday,” Angus said. It was not his best lie.

“I—,” Anatoliy started. “When we met, I had a fever. I thought nothing of how your touch felt, because I thought it was me who was too warm. But we’ve touched quite a lot since then. Even when I was inside you, I don’t think I’ve ever felt you produce heat.”

Angus hung in the corner. “I’m sorry. You’re not making any sense.”

“I know I’m not,” Anatoliy’s voice cracked, “I feel unwell. It’s like there’s a pattern that should connect these surreal trails, but I can’t understand. It’s like I’m going mad. And now, these people are gone —perhaps dead, and it feels like it’s somehow my fault.”

“I’d like to help. I want to take care of you. I can’t do that if you leave me, Anatoliy.” It was true. Angus couldn’t help Anatoliy’s anxieties about working, aging, and survival if he didn’t stick around to receive his gift. But most of all, Angus just wanted Anatoliy to choose him, not his god —certainly not damn money.

Anatoliy winced at Angus’s words. He got up, and stood at the opposite rail of the door to look Angus in the face, slipping the arrowhead into his pocket. “You don’t respect my beliefs. —I understand. Please don’t make this harder, zolotse.”

“What’s that one?” Angus choked.

Resting his hand on the door handle, Anatoliy’s chest rose and fell with calm breaths. His eyes trailed over Angus’s face. Angus stared back, hoping his expression gave the man the correct answer to whatever he was searching for. Anatoliy’s nose twitched. Then he left.

The blankets had been too ripped apart to cover the window. Instead, Angus crawled under the bed, covering himself in Esther’s raincoat. It didn’t matter if Anatoliy saw him. The man already had enough questions, and he would not stay unless it was the Khors-Dazhbog’s will. Angus knew what must be done. He had to give an offering better than semen or gold. —An offering of blood. The first step had already been taken care of shortly after Anatoliy departed their wrecked room.

Angus had barely slept that day. By the time the sun had set, Anatoliy had not returned to the inn. Perhaps that was good. Angus pulled out Georgette’s navy blouse with the deep neckline and her tight riding leggings, put the articles on, and shaved his face. He went down the stairs, left through the back door, and walked to the edge of the trees.

There was a monster in Blithe-Rock. One might think it was a witch, a wolf, a vampire, or even a ghastly hound, but Angus knew the truth. He rang the bell. One of the wolves appeared, the youngest male. Angus looked into his eyes and spoke to him.

“I have more meat for you. Come hunting with me.”

Angus already knew where to go. There was a tower visible in the skyline no matter where you stood in Blithe-Rock. As he approached, the bell in the tower rang seven times. Angus did not need to instruct the young wolf to hang back as he led —it was an experienced hunter. He mentally prepared for his part as he got closer, tried to feel it in the movements of his body, tried to think like Edwina. If he looked into the right places of himself, he could find the grace in his steps, fluidity in his joints, aloofness in his voice. It didn’t feel like himself —the ease, the comfort. Far too often, Angus felt like he was a dirty, vicious animal puppeteering the shape of a man. There were monsters in Blithe-Rock; in every city, town, and settlement in the world. Angus would devour as many as he could find.

“You’re late,” the lieutenant said, inspecting the back of his hand from the stone bench where he sat, his long thin legs crossed into jagged peaks. “You made this heathen garbage seem awfully important when you chased me down at Green Side. —One would think you’d be more punctual.”

“Do you have it?” Angus asked pertly, languishing his palm outward with a bored, heavy-lidded expression.

The lieutenant scoffed and hung a burlap sack open in front of him with one hand, his nose tilted up at an angle and the upper row of his teeth visible from his sneering, raised lip. Angus bowed down to peek inside —the idol of Khors-Dazhbog was there. His eyes flicked up to the lieutenant’s face, too supercilious to look back at him. He reached for the bag, but the lieutenant pulled it back.

“Nuh-Uh-Uh. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Put this on.” The lieutenant tossed a black strip of fabric from the sack to Angus, waggling his cane at him with his other hand.

“What’s this?” Angus asked irritably, holding the strip up.

For just a moment, their eyes connected as the lieutenant glared at him, but it wasn’t enough. “For your eyes,” the lieutenant said to Angus, “I’m not just going to show a little slut like you where I live.”

Angus’s jaw twitched. “And the idol?”

“The bag with your shit stays beneath the bench. You can have it when I bring you back.”

Angus covered his eyes, tying the blindfold behind his head. The lieutenant stood up and grabbed Angus’s arm, yanking him away from the tower. They walked in silence, taking a number of turns —probably on purpose to keep Angus from knowing where they were. They stopped, and the lieutenant roughly jabbed Angus on the back, pushing him forward with the end of his cane.

“Up the stairs. There’s four steps,” the lieutenant ordered.

Angus sought his footing, stumbling once as he climbed the slick, stone steps. He held his hand out and felt weathered, peeling paint on wood. The lieutenant pushed past him to open the door. Angus stayed where he was.

“What are you waiting for?! Get inside before someone sees you!” The lieutenant snatched Angus’s wrist and wrenched him through the threshold. The man’s fingers dug into Angus’s skin as he dragged him through the house, knocking Angus into walls as he led the way. Angus stumbled when the lieutenant released him, thrusting him against what Angus felt was a bed. He patted around, trying to feel his way around his environment. The bed came up around three feet high, covered with the raised stitches of a quilted blanket.

“Clothes off. Leave the blindfold. And put this on.” The lieutenant threw an object on the bed, landing with a clink. Angus reached out and touched it: a strap of leather, about an inch and a half wide, too short to be a belt, but with holes and a buckle —a dog collar. His lip hitched as he bore his teeth.

“This wasn’t part of our agreement,” Angus snarled.

The end of the cane rapped harshly against the corner of Angus’s jaw, sending a sting all the way to the base of his tongue. “You are going to bend over and bark like the bitch you are, or I will have that heathen that’s been buggering you arrested,” the lieutenant growled, drawing the cane back to threaten a less forgiving blow.

Angus turned around, pulling the blind fold free. He hadn’t expected this rouse to inspire so much anger in him. It didn’t even matter to Angus anymore if he could influence the man; he wanted him lucid, aware of how he was going to die.

“Make me,” Angus spat, “That’s what you like, right? Force? Take my clothes off your damn self.”

The lieutenant twisted the hilt of his cane, revealing the edge of a polished blade. “I’ll slit your throat for breaking into my home. It’ll be the last thing that brute hears before he’s beheaded.” He drew the thin dagger free and advanced, pointing its tip at Angus’s neck.

Angus lunged at his face. The dagger clipped at his ear, but Angus tore the lieutenant’s nose free from his face. The man screeched like white-hot iron submerged in water. He swung the blade haphazardly, catching only air. The two men collapsed on the ground, both having lost footing from the force of Angus’s impact, the back of the lieutenant’s head cracking on the wooden floor. Angus mutilated the man’s eyes next. Cartilage and retinal jelly dressed his teeth. The lieutenant drove his dagger again, this time wedging it between a pair of Angus’s ribs. With a labored groan, Angus withdrew the dagger and planted it with both hands through the lieutenant’s disfigured face.

Though much blood had seeped into the carpeted floor, some of it his own, Angus drank all he could. The volume was not ideal. He’d probably have to siphon more from one of the horses before the night was done.

Angus rose off the man’s body, pulled the dagger free from the lieutenant’s face, and positioned it back in the lieutenant’s hand. Across from the man’s bedroom, he found a washroom. He rinsed the blood off his face and hands, pocketing the stained washcloth afterward so that it would not be found.

In the lieutenant’s office, he found the bag of seized goods propped against the side of the desk. Sensing he was getting close, Angus investigated the desk more thoroughly until he found a flat, unlocked strongbox in a drawer. It overran with coins. Dragging his fingers through it, he was able to find the one he was searching for; tapping into that bizarre intuition one has when one has held an object before. He pocketed the coin intended for Khors-Dazhbog and left the rest inside, placing the strongbox back where he found it.

A pair of unsent letters on the desk caught his eye, the ink on the paper still not fully dry.

The first letter read:

The second was much shorter, and just a confounding.

Angus wasn’t sure what to make of the messages, but they left him feeling quite disturbed, and with greater resolve of the justice he’d delivered. For a moment, he considered searching for the basement entry to liberate the poor mongrel that the lieutenant was holding captive, but he had wasted enough time already. Besides, Angus had had more than enough of dogs over the past few days. The letters would be found shortly after the body was in the morning, and it’d be taken care of then.

With only the idol remaining to be retrieved, Angus opened the front door of the house. He held his arm through the threshold and rang the bell. Seemingly out of nowhere, the young wolf burst from the shadows of nearby buildings, releasing a single bark as he rushed past Angus into the house to receive his meal. In the morning, Lieutenant Macleod would be found mauled to death by a freak wolf attack.

Angus stepped outside. It had started to rain while he’d been searching the house, but not so heavily, so that it only caught in beads which gathered at the tips of his locks. The road here was clear of people, even though it was still fairly early in the night. Scents of autumn drifted in from the not so distant farmlands, though the iron of slaughter still dominated the air. He searched the skyline for the clock tower and navigated his way back to the bench where the lieutenant had been sat before. The sack with the idol of Khors-Dazhbog was still there below the seat, where the lieutenant had said it would be. Looking at the god made Angus feel a rising anxiety as he held it in his hand. Its hollow, carved gaze bore through through him, judging the worth of his lost soul. He swiftly stashed the idol back into the sack.

Angus found the road where he and Anatoliy had ridden in on Zorya’s back. As he walked further out from the town grass began to spring out from the ground. At first, in narrow desperate places free from the threat of footfall, but as he started to less frequently pass homes and storefronts, it burst out in thick clusters, and in little more time the road was thick with it on either side. Beyond that, thick crops waiting to be sown flattened the environment in every direction, save the massive boulder which grew with each muddy step.

The stone felt so much larger up close than it had when they’d first passed it on the horse. The mossy layer rose inches thick from the surface, hairy and lush and so green it seemed to glow with the color even against the velvet night sky, and it glistened all the more for the fresh sprinkle that moistened the dense peat. Angus found a clear spot along its edge that would not be overlooked. There, Angus positioned the idol with the coin propped against it. A message straight from the divines —with Angus’s help, of course. Seeing Khors-Dazhbog out of the sack once again left Angus feeling a significant unease, so he fled the boulder back to town quickly. For far too long he felt its presence behind him.

His mind swarmed with difficult thoughts as he walked back to civilization. The rain was dying down again, and Angus had done all that he possibly could to get Anatoliy to stay with him; the rest was up to the god of gifts. When he had arranged the items he hadn’t felt sure if making an offering to a god was supposed to feel any different from placing objects at the base of a giant, moss-covered stone, but in his head, Angus tried as best as he could for it to be so.

Angus didn’t really believe in gods, but to Anatoliy, Khors-Dazhbog was real, so that was all that mattered. The way that Anatoliy had experienced things, the reality was that Angus had stolen from his god, making him right about Angus not respecting his religion. Angus was sure this was how it felt for Anatoliy when he made his offerings. He would give, then hope that it was the right gift; hope that it would be accepted.

Buildings grew larger along the glittering, black skyline. The cut in Angus’s side had not closed and had begun to nag furiously at him, jolting blinding reminders into his core anytime he successfully started to ignore the pain. As he passed the first of the man-made structures, further down the middle of the road, about a block away, Angus saw an tall dark-haired greyhound walking across, ichor dripping from its jowls. It stopped briefly to look in his direction, then continued crossing the street, disappearing behind someone’s house.

Angus glanced down at his right hand and imagined how small it had looked pressed up against Anatoliy’s the night before, then continued back to Green Side. His mouth felt very dry.