Night's Omen

Continued from here.

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Amaltheia was mostly dry by the time they got to the Lounge, but it still didn't speak much for her. As white as moonlight, with hair so blonde it seemed almost lilac against the dark of the night, she wound through alleys with Brennan, trying to take the fastest, least conspicuous route there. With every step, every breath she drew, she could feel the pressure building. Her own magic was running rampant in her blood, as though it even knew as she did that Brennan was on a wire at the moment.

She came through the front door, arm firmly linked around Brennan's. She'd gotten disgusted with his constant zoning out into things that were there/not there, and she'd finally taken to dragging him with her, using her own power to try and ground some of him out. It worked, but only so well. By the time she got foot inside the Mojo Lounge, she felt nausea like she'd never experienced before. Her two-toned eyes were also more lovely now, a shade of violent emerald green and one of the richest indigo. Gem-like, almost like a Serpiente, and yet still they had that stardust glimmer to them that only a Falcon could possess.

"I need to see Aristide. Now," she demanded, teeth clenched. She lashed out with her power, sending the human running and jumping down the long, five-and-a-half minute hallway to the looming iron door at the end where Aristide sat behind, no doubt as pleased as a pig in shit over the entire situation.

He'd tried to stay focused, really, he had.  There had been times when he felt his attention wandering, and he'd tried to pull himself back to the present, tried to snap his reserve in place over the rest.  Even so, he still found himself caught a few times by more subtle shifts in reality, and it was Theia who pulled him back in.  She'd finally grabbed him physically to drag him along, which was really for the best where he was concerned.  It helped, though it wasn't perfect, more like a double-edged sword.  If he slipped in and out, he wouldn't run into something while she was dragging him along.  There would be no sharp reminder of what was real when he ran into something, because she wouldn't let him.  Fortunately, her own magic and the solid touch of her helped to ground him, even if she occasionally looked as though she wasn't even there.  The inanimate objects around him weren't the only things slipping in and out.

He could have stopped on a dime when he got into the Mojo Lounge, feeling suddenly blasted with something he did. not. like. from the hallway the human had disappeared into.  His violet eyes were wide, staring after the human.  The rest of the place didn't feel like that.  "Where are we?  What is that?"

Was this really where the man who had 'helped' them was?  Brennan wasn't so sure if talking to this guy was such a good idea.  It didn't feel like one, but what was the alternative?  Dying, again.  This time, potentially bringing others with him, like Theia.  He'd hurt himself badly to save her once, and he didn't want to endanger her himself anymore than he already had. 

If he was going to 'self-destruct', he'd rather go someplace far away from people to do it.

He felt the two of them approaching long before they arrived, so he wasn't at all surprised by the sudden intrusion upon his private space.  Amaltheia could be frightening to someone who was powerless, and he didn't blame his employee.  Instead, he calmly nodded at the quick explanation he was given, and made his decision regarding the human.  He was already decided on the rest.

"Send dem t'me, an' ask Paris t'join us," he instructed, leaving the man to follow his orders.  He already knew what was going to have to be done, and it wouldn't be easy.

He wondered if Paris had anyone available that would make this any easier, but knew that asking would be the only sure way to know.  He had his own ideas, but he wasn't going to bet on any of them.  In the meantime, he'd enjoy 'watching' and 'listening' to the two falcons making their way down the long hallway to this office.

Amaltheia strode forward, her pace only as fast as Brennan would allow. She had been trying not to panic him, but the magic that he contained was starting to spill forth, and it had begun to affect her - she nearly clashed with a wall as the hallway, like a maze, suddenly angled out. Illusions all the same, as Aristide had no doubt had them built for the purpose of confusion, but Theia was generally more perceptive, and gave a little snarl in her companion's direction - not at him, but at his magics.

From her perch at the bar, watching amused as the girl with the hair the colour of a birthday cake and the snake woman squabbled and laughed, Paris was less than pleased to be called from her station. The man who'd come to get her was not her favourite, but the swiftness of his movements told her that it was not by his own choice that he'd been sent. She dutifully left the area, moving only just behind the Falcons enough to give them room. She could hear their minds, and the cacophony from them both was enough to make her head split. The sound was violent, like a string quartet out of tune, and then beautiful, and back out again. She couldn't tell who was doing which, and assumed it was coming from them both. Rhapsody and discord strewn out along the hall was enough to ward anyone else from coming, and Paris knew she traversed the winding path alone.

Before Aristide could even speak, Theia began. "You knew we'd be back, didn't you?" she demanded. She was unwilling to release Brennan, but he was beginning to warm beneath her hands, burning her. She tried to stay him with her own cold, silent spellsinging, but it wasn't enough, and the small reaction between the violent magics caused her to release him harshly, nearly flinging him at Aristide with a surprised cry.

Well, if Amaltheia was trying not to panic him, it wasn't working.  Between her reaction to HIM and the problems he was having with the unexpected force of the magic he suddenly possessed, he wasn't exactly as calm as he could have been.  That wasn't helping his case, and the whole hallway felt like some sort of M.C. Escher painting come to life with a great big splash of Hieronymous Bosch.  It was like he could FEEL the horrors behind the doors in the hallway, and they were fighting to force their way through the wood and walls in the physical realm as much as they were reaching to him in the metaphysical.  That idea scared him.

He actually tried to HALT in their mad dash down the hallway when Theia approached the door at the end, feeling this huge dread and feeling of death and the sum of those horrors behind that door, but she didn't let him.  She forced her way in, and was suddenly demanding answers of the man before them.  He felt like he was on fire again, burning, and he would have blamed it entirely upon this man before him if he hadn't felt something like it before.  Even so, he wanted to blame him.  Suddenly being FLUNG towards the dark man didn't help his situation, and he landed on hands and knees at the man's feet, staring up at him with wide, not entirely focused violet eyes.  With all of this magic floating around, his eyes looked almost violently purple, rather than the more subtle hue they'd been before.  He was going to love that later, but he'd be relieved if he didn't have streaks of unnatural color in his hair and wings.  It didn't look likely, though.

The 'dark man' would have been lying if he said that he hadn't thought they'd be back, but he had his reasons.  Returning the raven to life and then tearing out half of who he was would have probably negated the effort of bringing him back to life.  Too much trauma at once.  He knew what he was doing, despite Theia's reaction.

"Calm yourself, chil'," he told her, his deep voice not quite angry, but not quite pleased, either.  They had enough trouble without her getting explosive, as well.  "Ah don' have t'do anyt'ing here but put a knife in his t'roat t'stop him explodin' in mah place.  It couldn' be helped before now."

Well, that was a lie.  It could have been helped while Brennan was still a little less volatile, but not much more.  His magic had manifested too quickly, and really, he was like a time bomb.  As long as he'd blown up away from the Mojo Lounge, Aristide wouldn't have cared.  He glanced at Paris and pushed back some of the magical static that kept his mind safe from her, letting her see what he needed her to do. 

"De magic dat made him a raven and de magic makin' him a falcon now are at war, and dey will rip him an' all of us apart if dey stay dere.  Ah can remove one, but de physical changes are permanent.  He can be a raven wit' de look of a falcon, or a falcon.  One side mus' be stripped," he explained, looking to Theia.  One look at Brennan's eyes made it clear that he really couldn't be asked to make a decision.

Theia breathed a laugh, and squinted a little, shaking her head at Aristide. "You need even ask what I would prefer?" she said, still wondering a little if it wasn't in Brennan's best interests. Nevermind that, though. Theia was selfish, and she didn't want to be the only Falcon wandering aimlessly, damn those consequences. She'd deal with them as they came. She gazed at Brennan from her vantage point, wondering when his wings had dusted back out into form. She sidestepped getting brushed in the face by them and distanced herself from the mad lot.

Paris watched silently for a moment, and then smiled a little. She walked directly into the fold of magics that were oozing out of the people in the room, and snatched a feather off of Brennan's wings. She ran it lightly against her jaw for a moment, and then glanced to Aristide. "Ah'll be right back," she sang. "I know just the place for this." She left as quickly as she'd come, and it was apparent for those who knew Paris only to be sweet and innocent that she was a bit more sinister than she appeared.

"What's that, then?" Theia asked, blinking rapidly. "Where is she going?" she demanded. "And why...?" she trailed off. What was he doing? She wisely stepped back again, unsure of what was about to happen, but the low hum of magic unfamiliar to her was mixing quickly around the air, and she wasn't interested in getting caught in the wake of it.

It didn't matter if Amaltheia knew what Aristide was doing, because she'd made her choice.  He personally didn't care which part was stripped, so long as Brennan didn't explode in his building.  Let them all live with the consequences of her choice.

He smiled at Paris' declaration, using that as a cue to get started.  By the time Paris found a new home for that feather, he intended to be finishing.  That left him minutes to do quite a bit of work.

He turned to his desk, grabbing a bowl of what happened to be sea salt, evaporated from sea water Paris had collected and then purified through Aristide's own methods.  He dipped his thumb in some liquid that couldn't be seen well enough to identify it, then dipped into the salt and rubbed it on Brennan's forehead, already muttering in another language and raising his own power.  The salt and mystery fluid, along with what he was already chanting, were to ease Brennan's own magic back.  Aristide wasn't about to fight with it the whole time.  Not that this would take long.

Rather suddenly, his voice rose into a thunderous shout, and his hands shot from the falcon's face to his chest, his fingers digging into the flesh there through his shirt as his chanting increased in volume.  He wasn't shouting, but if someone had understood the language he was speaking, they could have heard it for an instant before Brennan screamed.  Then, Aristide's words were drowned out, but it didn't matter.  No mortal had to hear it, and he instead put more pressure on the falcon's chest, to the point that he actually lifted the man a few inches off of the floor, his knees hovering there.  It shouldn't have been possible, not with the fact that the black man's fingertips were all that was in contact with his victim subject, but the falcon was screaming as though it wasn't just Aristide's fingertips there. 

Just as quickly as it had started, Papa Aristide jerked now bloodied hands back, leaving Brennan to drop heavily back to the floor, and he turned his hands towards the sky.  He let whatever it was he'd taken go, and he knew exactly where it was headed.  It had been stripped violently of Brennan's body, so it was following the only other part of him in the building, the feather that Paris had taken.

Aristide hoped, for her sake, that she wasn't still holding it.

Of course Paris hadn't been holding the feather. She'd given it to the loud-mouthed pink-haired girl from the bar area. She leaned against the counter and positively beamed as Holly admired the feather stuck in her hair for a moment in the reflection. She watched as the girl fluffed her cotton candy locks and then continued talking to her companion, completely unaware as to the changes on a sub-molecular and genetic level.

Theia covered her eyes when Aristide drew bloody hands back, but only for a moment. She resisted the urge to race forward and cradle Brennan's body, knowing Aristide wouldn't let him physically die twice. "What did you do?" she whispered, her eyes wild and bright. She felt an absence of unstable magic, and it washed over her like an icy breeze... or was that her own power, shielding her from the mayhem of Aristide's blood magic as it swirled 'round the room?

In all actuality, Aristide wasn't worried about Paris.  She knew the risks surrounding what she did for him, and he'd let her see what he was planning.  It shouldn't have taken her long to do her part, so he assumed she'd have finished in time.  If not, then she'd work just as well for it as the pink-haired young woman, even if it wasn't Aristide's preference.  This wasn't too harmful, though. 

Amaltheia wasn't the only one who felt the absence of unstable magic, and Aristide smiled.  It had worked, just as he'd known it would.  Brennan would just need a new shirt, again.  There were holes burnt into the fabric of the one he was wearing where Aristide's fingers had been pressing, and there was blood, but not all that much.  Considering the way the hoodoo man's hands were coated, one would have thought that he'd ripped something from deep in the smaller man's body, but Brennan seemed mostly unharmed.  He may have burn scars from this, but nothing like what he could have.

Hey, at least he hadn't exploded.

Aristide completely ignored the way the male falcon dropped, panting and holding himself up on his forearms, wings brushing the floor on either side of his body, ignored the female falcon's worry and fear, ignored it all.  He grounded his power with his bloodied hands pressed to the floor, and then turned to an old stone sink that was rarely noticed in the back corner of the office to wash his hands.  Then, he answered.

"Ah tore half of him out.  Raven an' Falcon couldn' stay in one body, so ah took de one you didn' want.  He's stable."  That's what mattered.

"Well, then," she said, brows raised. She really hadn't anything else to say passed that. She'd been waiting for bad news, end of the world sort of news, delivered on a silver platter by a sharp-tongued man. No such. "How about that," she said softly, marveling to herself as she regarded Brennan again.

She moved closer to him, and knelt down just enough so that she could see his face. "Well, now you won't kill everyone - at least, on accident," she said, relieved. It was sort of troubling how Amaltheia was behaving, but really, what else need be said on the matter? She stood, looking to Aristide, and nodded a little. "Is there any reason he can't continue his flight tonight?"

Prioritized. She knew what they'd set out to do, and now that he was fully Falcon, she was going to make him do it. Sever those ties, Brennan.

Through the whole situation, Brennan had once again endured more pain than he'd thought possible.  It seemed that, since he'd lost his wings, he'd had nothing but pain or numbness, nothing in between.  Was it really finished now, or was he headed for a whole new painful encounter? 

If he thought about it, he could probably guess.

Not on accident?  That suggested he could still do it, which wasn't exactly a pleasant thought for him.  He didn't argue, but instead nodded.  He could hear the relief in her voice, even if he didn't know whether she was relieved that he wasn't a threat anymore or because she actually gave a shit about him.  Either way, it was still there, and it was still appreciated.  He started pulling himself shakily to his feet, aching all through his body.  Lovely.

"He should rest, but dere's no reason he can' fly.  Your man's jus' gonna be hurtin' awhile," Aristide told her simply, drying his hands and standing beside his desk to watch her.  Unless there was something else, he was finished with them.

Theia owed him.  Big time.

Amaltheia knew she owed Aristide, and she intended to find out the parameters of that at precisely that moment, but first, Brennan was more of her priority. "We'll cancel talking to Avalon tonight," she said softly to him, rubbing his neck a little where she knew he had built up tension. "Go outside and wait for me by the bar, get some water, okay? I'll be there in two shakes, and then we can go back to my house and you can rest."

She gave him a light kiss on the temple and all but ushered him out of the room herself. Once she was satisfied he'd gone, she looked evenly at Aristide. She knew better than to tap her power, but she still had everything on standby in case he went wild with magic again.

"So what now?" she asked. "I'm racking up some huge debt with you, I know." For a Falcon, it wasn't an easy thing to admit, but Theia wasn't stupid. "What do I need to do to settle up?" Blunt, brisk and to the point. She didn't want to dwell on this.

If Brennan had any intention of arguing, he gave up on it in the face of Amaltheia's concern.  She ushered him out, and so he went, though he shot Aristide a backwards glance.  He couldn't have said why, but perhaps it was to assure himself that everything he'd just endured was real, and not part of the hallucination he was suffering as he walked this hallway the first time.  It all looked normal now.  It still felt creepy, like it was a place he didn't belong, but it wasn't the same.  None of it was the same.

At this point, that felt like it was for the best.  That had been hellish.

With the door shut, he hesitated a moment, but reined in his wings once more, tried to straighten his shirt (which was already beyond repair, again), and went to do exactly what he'd been told.  He'd get a glass of water, sit there and catch his breath so he could figure out what the hell had happened to his life.

When he'd decided that he was finished with them, he'd been set in his decision.  Amaltheia need not worry about that just yet.  She may want to, but she couldn't rush the 'settling up'.  Aristide called in his favors when he was ready.  Just as nobody came to him unless it was necessary, he didn't call in what he was owed unless he needed it.  Something as big as this would mean a big favor, and he wasn't going to just throw that away.  If she'd just asked for a love spell or the like, that may have been easier for him to clear up for her.  This was going to linger.

"Now, you wait.  Ah'm in no hurry t' settle up, an' ah'm not needin' a favor from you now.  When ah do, ah'll call."  It was simple, really.  Not many liked it, but it was simple.  Considering the favors Aristide had in the wings, he was either going to do something VERY big and probably VERY bad one day, or he was set for a very long time.  Either way, he preferred it this way.

"Fine," she said sharply. She sighed a little, and then extended her hand to him. "Thank you. Seriously. I know this is going to cost me, but... thank you." She meant it.

When she was shown out, she sought Brennan rather quickly, placing a hand very lightly on his shoulder. "You ready to go? We're going to take a cab back, thank God it isn't far." Not that money was a serious issue, but even Theia's bank account didn't stem from trees, so she was thankful that the ride wasn't a terribly long one.

"When we get back I can fix you some tea and we can relax. If you want, you can just go right to sleep," she offered. She didn't think she needed to be in his hair for the rest of the evening, given the fact that she was now fully understanding what had happened.

Be careful what you wish for.