Black Angus – Chapter 12

This is a working draft and not a final product.

Content Warnings: Asphyxiation, Forced Drugging [poison], Paralysis, Battery, Abduction, Dismemberment [implied], The Usual Blood and Gore

In which Angus hallucinates from a deadly poison.

Beneath the tiny bed on the second floor of Green Side Inn, Angus struggled to sleep, though he knew he’d need rest for the night to come. He was glad Anatoliy had changed his mind, but he wasn’t sure what he had said to change it. Of course, this stuff about vampires was all frightening and new to Anatoliy. Perhaps the distraction of going someplace new was what he needed to do to cope. If that was so, Angus didn’t mind going along with it. It was no trouble to him after all, and it meant Anatoliy would not leave his side.

He stayed belly down on the cool wooden floor, watching the light shift in color through the shabby curtains from harsh white morning rays to the gentle orange glow of sunset. Near the end day, Angus heard Anatoliy’s familiar footfall ascending the stairs. As he shifted free from the underside of the bed, he saw the crumpled-up letter he’d drafted from the night before. He grabbed it on a whim —probably not very bright for him to leave a confessional of his activities for the innkeeper to find after they’d left. The paper felt different somehow from how Angus remembered it. Anatoliy entered the room, and Angus slipped the paper ball into his pocket as he stood upright.

“I just fed Zorya all her favorites. She’ll have plenty of energy for to-night,” Anatoliy said, lifting their bags. “The sun will be down soon. I was about to start packing.”

“One moment,” Angus interjected. From the corner table, he took a small jar of mustard pods, which he’d sorted from Anatoliy’s herb pouch earlier that day. There were two hundred and forty-one seeds. Angus had counted them.

“Are you quick with that flint you used to light the candle?” Angus asked.

Anatoliy nodded. “I can light a fire without even thinking about it.”

“Good,” Angus said. He drew the Hand of Glory from his pocket, still wrapped tight in the pall cloth. Slipping the jar of seeds and the bundled hand into Anatoliy’s belt purse, he continued, “If you ever think you’re near one of my kind, spill these out. Smash the jar open if you have to. That will buy you time to light the artifact in the bundle. I know it’s disturbing to handle, but it will let you escape. —Oh! And there’s money hidden in one of Zorya’s haystacks. It’s not much, perhaps enough for two weeks, but it’s there.”

Anatoliy nodded. Gathering the remainder of their possessions over his broad shoulders, he responded, “I’ll be right back, lapochka.”

Angus grinned and stood on his toes to kiss him.

“And I’ll be here waiting.”

Deep in his focus, Anatoliy departed with their bags down the stairs. The sunlight had dispersed enough by now for Angus to approach the window. Though he couldn’t see them, he could hear the wolves outside had already begun howling. Absentmindedly, he stuck his hand back into his pocket and felt the crushed ball, remembering it once more. The paper was definitely thinner than the sheet he’d written on the night before; it had finer fibers and felt rather cheap.

Angus withdrew the paper ball and unfurled it. His stomach curled into a sour knot.

The paper was a poster flier. In large letters across the top, it read: LOST DOG. Below was not an illustration of a dog, but a cherubic young man with dark eyes and curly, shoulder-length black hair. The face was familiar to Angus, even though he had not seen it in fifty-three years. The bounty on the poster paid a little over the average soldier’s annual income in exchange for information that to capture.

Behind him, the door opened. How could Anatoliy be back so soon? Had he forgotten something? The flier slipped out from Angus’s hands.

Before Angus could turn, a length of rope slipped around his neck, pulling tight against his voicebox. Angus clawed at the cord strangling him, asking himself if he was still underneath the bed, finally asleep and having some deranged nightmare. The taste of brass curved over his tongue as a large hook pried into his mouth, yanking him back by the cheek, along with the rope tugging at his throat. Angus felt the rope slacken unexpectedly as it was pulled taught in the other direction, towards the hook. Acting on the brief opportunity as space freed between hemp and skin, his fingers wrapped around the rope, and he gasped wide for air, compliant with the hooked instrument wrestling it agape. But just as he did so, a glass vial was forced into his mouth, sweet floral liquid pouring inside. Belladonna —Angus recognized the taste from his study of the dark arts.

Though, a moment ago, the room had appeared to be growing quite dark with the sunset, it suddenly seemed too bright to stand. The furniture blurred into the floor. Angus spasmed, his heart squeezing tight inside of him as it beat too quickly, like it might burst.

Mikael relentlessly jerked the rope back one last time before releasing it, kicking Angus in the gut before he could break his fall on his outspread palms. The blow was too much to register amidst the torrent of other sensations, the potent extract efficiently working its way through Angus’s body. It seemed his abdomen ached as much from the outside as it did from within. His limbs fumbled about, trying to find their balance as the paralytic effects of the poison took over. While he was struggling, Mikael heaved a strongbox, placing it onto the corner table where the idol of Khors-Dazhbog had sat before.

“Were you,” Angus asked, his elbows wobbling as he tried to lift himself, “sent by Friedolf?” The floor felt as uneven as the thick mud in the gallows yard, and one of his arms began to sink below the surface.

I never left. I’m still here. I must have blacked out from the pain of the noose. None of this is real. I was hung at the gallows, and I survived, and now all I have to do is lift myself from the mud, Angus thought encouragingly.

“Don’t know him,” Mikael answered. He scoffed and kicked Angus’s ribs, pushing him over. Useless limbs scattered across the floor like fallen dominoes. Angus felt like he was submerged under the torrent of a rushing river, his vision blurred and his body mobilized by some force not his own.

Mikael picked up the raincoat Angus had been using as a blanket under the bed and draped it over Angus’s head and torso, then he lifted Angus from the ground. Under the cover of Esther’s coat, Angus saw rippling trails of wool fibers swaying into each other like blades of grass catching a breeze. The floaters on his eyes had all gathered together in one pulsing mass. When he was a boy, a crow had laughed at him with a female voice and said that they were faeries.

Despite the brass hook digging into Angus’s side, he felt like he was floating. Mikael carried him down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Angus could hear Mikael joking with the patrons of Green Side, asking them to excuse his drunk friend, and then the sound of one of the patrons getting the door for them.

Turn to the left. Go towards the stables, Angus pleaded silently in his mind. Anatoliy would take care of this when he saw them. The bastard was a twig compared to Anatoliy.

Mikael turned to the right.

After a few yards, he stopped and squatted low to hook a door handle. The raincoat slid off Angus as Mikael tossed him into a dark carriage, his immobile limbs spilling slovenly about. Angus’s hands were bound with rope.

As Mikael struggled to tie the knot with one hand, assisted only by his simple brass appendage, he cursed at Angus, “See what you did to me? I’ll have to spend the rest of my life like this, even when I become immortal!

“There are going to be better precautions this time. First, I’m going to extract most of your teeth. Remove your legs, so you can’t run away again. Your arms, so you cannot grab or crawl. I imagine you’ll be begging for death before I’m done with you. After you give me what I want, I’ll give you what you deserve. I’ve lost too much not to have it.”

Too much ambition. Esther had told Angus that most of the overly ambitious vampires died very young. Hopefully, you never have the misfortune to meet the ones who survive. Mikael would have certainly become one of the former if Angus turned him. That wasn’t Angus’s hateful bias; that was just common sense.

He broke into laughter in the back of the carriage as Mikael continued ranting to him. The fool couldn’t cut off his limbs —Angus didn’t have any. He was a mound of serpents. He was a glaucous cloud of mist drifting over the loch. He was the sweet, untapped potential of the night.

Angus laughed until moisture dewed up in the corner of his eyes. He was a small, helpless creature that had endured a life of pain, without ever knowing love, soon to meet his pointless and cruel end. Nobody would even notice he was gone, or know that he had once walked the beautiful green hillsides of Ériusíde. He hadn’t seen those hills illuminated by the golden rays of the sun in over half a century. Could he still call this country his home? Did he belong anywhere —other than deep beneath the dirt?

Though Angus was very sure of some parts of his situation, there were other elements of which he felt less certain. Mikael must have seen the papers about Angus’s missing body, just like the others had. After that, he would have printed the bounty and distributed the fliers amongst the returning soldiers. Angus knew Anatoliy had sold him out, likely the morning after they had first met. And why should he have not? They had been strangers, and Anatoliy’s job, by its very nature, was to send others to their doom —typically by messier means. Few could have resisted such an opportunity.

And yet, in some ways, Anatoliy had shown resistance. Surely, he did not turn to his gods for guidance every time he had to take a life? In his desperation, Angus coped that the kind of man who’d pray to be led down an honorable path would not be so cruel that he’d have sex with his bounty simply for the thrill of it. There had been too many times that made it seem like Anatoliy had actually cared for Angus. Perhaps he had performed a compelling con, but there was still a chance that Anatoliy was his one remaining lifeline.

Angus faded in and out of consciousness as the carriage traveled the road back to Midgate. The upholstered walls dissolved into sludge which trickled down into pools of thick tar around Angus’s limp appendages. His stomach then cramped something vicious, sending Angus into an unbearable nausea unlike anything he’d ever felt, the pain forcing him into lucidity for an indeterminate moment, until it became so overwhelming he’d slip back into oblivion.

He wasn’t alone in the back seat. Angus wasn’t sure how he had not noticed the man sooner, dressed in his fine clothes, whiter than daisy petals and intricately embroidered with red thread, which were tied with a red braided fabric belt around his waist. Over his strawberry-blond hair sat a heavy, golden circlet, sculpted into the shape of woven flowers at various states of bloom. And on his arm, he held a circular shield which seemed to be consumed in flame. Angus couldn’t bear to look at the disc directly. It dizzied him and hurt his eyes just being near the object. Angus looked into the man’s eyes and saw that they were orbs of carved wood.

“You owe me fire,” the man said to him. He sounded a bit like Anatoliy or the humming insects of late spring. “I demand fire.”

He lifted the shield so that Angus could not look away. Its glow seared his delicate skin. Angus smacked at his arms, legs, face, and clothes as embers whorled out in patches all over him. He couldn’t keep up with the burns, the heat overtaking him and scalding off indiscriminate chunks of flesh. His jaw trembled in mourning as he gave in. Angus shut his eyes and reclined backwards into the inferno, accepting his fate.

Stitched into the burning seat far behind him, Angus felt the beating of a heart. Radiating over his spine, he felt the individual thrums rolling through its four chambers in succession, from atrium to ventricle. By the jostling of the wheels, he realized that the beat was rising not through the seat cushions, but the from ground below. It gradually pounded faster, more forcefully, closer together. The drumming itself was coming nearer. What Angus was hearing was the racing feet of a large animal approaching. The carriage suddenly dropped in one corner as one of its wheels was fiercely torn loose from behind, driving the vehicle to an abrupt halt.

Mikael’s horse let out a shrill wail. Unearthly sounds pierced the air from the front, which may have been the sounds of two men struggling against each other, but it was hard to tell. Clangs of metal met with splintering wood and sickening, wet squelching. The thick, iron scent of blood flooded the air —deliciously so. Angus fought to disbelieve the horrors that pealed around the dark chamber. It must have been another nightmare brought on by the belladonna. He couldn’t possibly be this lucky.

The doors to the cabin burst open, the panting outline of a large man behind them. Cold hands grasped Angus’s shoulders, trying to shake a reaction free from his incapable body, flopping him about like an articulated doll.

“Are you alright, my child? What has he done to you?”

The familiar, hollow voice killed all hope that remained in Angus. He wanted to laugh, and also cry, but he could do neither.

“Ph-puh. Puh. Pzzzz,” Angus struggled out. It was the best his lips could manage.

Friedolf pulled Angus’s eyelids wide to inspect his dilated pupils. “I see. I’ll help you get it out.” He stuck two clawed fingers onto the tip of Angus’s tongue, making him gag.

“That’s a good boy, just a bit deeper,” Friedolf encouraged. His long nails brushed the back of Angus’s throat, making him spew black bile and congealed blood onto the cabin floor.

“It will stay in your system for likely a few days, but at least it won’t progress any further,” Friedolf assured him, stroking Angus’s hair. “My wolves have had eyes on you for nearly a week, but I came as soon as I saw that fool’s vile poster. I’ve been paying off the man who handles Esther’s mail so he’d make copies of any letters you sent, so I knew exactly where to find you. We’re lucky you have been so talkative lately.”

Angus stared at his vomit-spattered shoes as he searched his mind, trying to remember what he had written to Edwina. He had mentioned the hypnotisms and staying with a companion for sure —what else had he said? His head felt like it was full of coins clacking together.

“You will feel better soon after we get you back home and fed. —Oh, actually, what’s that . . . ?” Friedolf leaned back from the cabin door. He moved smoothly and looked so clean, as if he had not just been in a struggle. “A rider. Looks healthy, too, though he’s turned the other way now. Not the type to help a poor gentleman with a broken wheel. Shall I go get him for you?”

Angus didn’t want to incite Friedolf by protesting too strongly, whether it was Anatoliy he’d seen, or some other innocent. At best, Angus would be able to get out one word. But perhaps he could appeal to Friedolf’s ego. His eyes rolled heavily, like a pair of steel marbles, as he dared to look Friedolf straight in the face for the first time. His Sire looked like a smudge that he couldn’t focus on, like ink dropped in a clear glass of water, slowly dissipating.

“Sa. Stuh. S-st-stay,” Angus forced out, using all of his strength to do so.

Friedolf looked at him gently and ran his knuckles down Angus’s cheek. “Of course, my love. Papa’s here. Let’s take you home.”

He hoisted Angus up without any effort. Hooping the neophyte’s bound arms over his head, Friedolf draped Angus’s flaccid body over his back, then took the shape of a massive, copper-coated wolf. He darted down the forested path —back to Ulvenkeep.