#abhain

“That’s not – ” The hand on Samie’s arm tightened.  Still shaking. “What I – mean – I don’t need you to risk – ”

“Ferg, you are shite at having a bodyguard.” Samie shook his head. “It’s the point of it, right?  Why we got this whole Diolain thing going on in the first place – ”

He didn’t get chance to finish because Fergal interrupted, muscles in his throat tensing visibly as he spoke:

“You know damn well I don’t support the droit.”

Samie stopped.  Time might as well have stopped.  Even the background sound of State gunfire seemed to hesitate, off-footed by the shock of those words piercing the air.

Fergal Callaghan.  Diolian.  Ambassador.  Close enough to legitimate that the circumstances which could put his fancy arse on the throne weren’t totally impossible.  Saying, out loud, where representatives of three other nations could hear clearly – even if Crawdibs was only half-awake – that he opposed the reason that either of them existed at all.

Of course Samie knew.  You didn’t spend this much time around someone without getting at least an inkling of their bugbears, and he was one of the few people Ferg’d drop his political guard around.  He’d almost said as much, half a dozen times.

Wasn’t sure he’d actually said-said it, though.

“We do not have time for this,” Najwa hissed, breaking the frozen moment. “They find us, or we find them.  Decide now, Abhain.”

Samie stared down into Fergal’s frozen expression, and shook his head.

“Sorry Ferg; it’s been too close already.  You aren’t allowed t’die on my watch.”

Without waiting for a response, he strode out into the open and glanced around.  The space was a wide diamond of paved ground, with low planters in those geometric arrangements Statey architects had such a hardon for.  Two hulking armoured cars were parked across the main routes in, metal shields deployed from their sides to block the roads, and the tops of State helmets were visible crouched behind them.  An ornate two-storey tower rose out of the plaza’s centre, its narrow windows overlooking each entry road and Samie caught a brief muzzleflash from inside, followed by the spark of ricochet from one of the vehicles.

Alright lads.

He started to run.  About halfway across the surprise of his appearance seemed to wear off, and the first splinters of shot-out paving burst around him.  Gritting all his teeth, Samie ignored the misses and managed not to stumble when the first bullet hit home, gouging a line of hot pressure across his back, followed by a bulging shiver as his plates rose in response and finally shredded his shirt.  He swung his arms up, shielding the sides of his face as more shots whizzed past; one catching him in the leg, sending his gait into a loping stumble until the flesh pulsed back out; another pair punching quick-succession impacts into his side.  He reached the tower wall still upright; there wasn’t really cover here, but he lurched around the base until he was at least out of direct sight from the trucks.

One of the hits on his side had gone deep.  Spasms of wet pain spilled through his chest as he dug a claw into the bloody puncture, which didn’t help in the slightest.  Definitely didn’t have time for that.  Tensing, Samie reached back, opening himself further to the feel of the Scout’s infinitely-close attention.  Pain died abruptly, washed aside in the warm pulse of strength that came through with Her, and he felt bullet fragments scrape bone the other way as his tissue swelled – shivered – and pushed the invasive shrapnel back out again; accompanied by a sensation he could only describe as like a meaty sneeze.  

Through his ribs.

…there was probably a reason the Cineal had never had any famed poets in their ranks.

More gunfire rattled, this time above him, and Samie blinked reality back into place as he peered upwards at the window above.  Shapes were visible inside, moving rapidly back and forth between cover, and shouting – which he couldn’t exactly blame them for.  Now he was closer, he could see the oddly-ornate design of the metal shutters that covered the openings.  If they were closed, and no one was shooting out of it, the little building probably just looked like another piece of architectural artwork.

Seriously.  Who hid a gun post in the middle of a diplomatic-themed town square?

Samie took a few steps backward before starting to run again, willing as much speed as he could from legs that were increasingly built more for bracing than sprinting; then leapt.  His hybrid wasn’t one that leaned heavily into agility, but he wasn’t fully through yet, and even an unreasonably bulky eight-foot tall man can clear a fair height from personal altitude alone.  Samie’s claws slammed against the metal, bone screaming against steel for an uncertain moment before he got purchase.  His limbs tensed, bracing with his feet – his shoes were lying in sad tatters below, but it was easier now to grip with the pads of his fused toes – and he pulled.

Half a dozen bolts resisted for a moment and then sheared at once, the decorated gunnery slats crumpling under the alien strength of his hands, and Samie let out a grunt as he ripped half of the shutter free.  A frantic spray of bullets tore through his shoulder in reply – burning, electric beestrings that sent odd echoes running down his arm – but he just growled and lunged further in. The dark mouth of the mounted machinegun greeted him, and he bent the hot metal back against itself.

“Lay off,” he rumbled, looking around at the handful of figures inside, all staring at him with unconcealed horror.  They looked a more varied age group than the trigger-happy youths in full armour, and it smelled like half of them had already pissed themselves.

Damn.  It was a lot easier to stay angry when your opponents were a bit less pathetic.

“You party guys?” he hazarded, trying to remember the terms Crawfog had used. “Not – warded?  Wards, I mean?”

Gunfire rattled again from outside but it cut short this time; the interruption accompanied by a strange whoosh sound and a thin scream.  Najwa must’ve got started.  The nearest Statey – a crow-haired fella who could’ve given Crawfek a run in the chinless race – managed a small nod, even if he looked like he was about to swallow his own Adam’s apple in panic.  Samie let out a long breath, which apparently was enough to make the man wince.

“Okay.  Now you keep your fuckin’ heads down, don’t shoot anyone, and I’ll be returnin’ the favour.  Right?”

There was a general terrified shuffle, and a couple of the figures started inching towards the floor.  Samie nodded, in what he hoped was a vaguely encouraging fashion.

“Right.  And don’t any of you try shootin’ me in the back; I feckin’ hate that.”

He slung himself back out, dropping back onto the plaza slabs and looked over in the direction of the new commotion.  The eastern vehicle now had a dead dark figure hanging down over its barricade.  He couldn’t spot any more helmets upright there either, so it seemed that –

“Surrender, Aberrant scum!”

Samie swung around towards the bellow, and ice pulsed down his spine.  A State figure was stood atop the other vehicle with one arm wrapped around the chest of one of Najwa’s team.  The woman had been unmasked, freeing a wave of thin black braids, and blood was already running down her face from a gash at her forehead.  Yet what drew attention the strongest was the rifle pressed into the side of her face.

Another golden figure lay on the floor a few metres away, unmoving; a dark stain spreading out over the plaza slabs beneath.  The soldier who had spoken was in cover at the side of the vehicle, holding a megaphone.

“You are in violation of Mother’s generous terms, monsters!” they shouted again, the boosted tones bouncing off the nearby walls. “Submit now to her mercy!”

“The fuck, ‘violated terms’?  Aren’t you the ones shootin’ your own mates?” Samie shouted back as he took a few steps out of the shadow of the tower.  He couldn’t cover that distance fast enough, but he could try and hold the fucker’s attention...

“Stop!  No further!” the amplified voice cracked a little as its owner ducked back even more at Samie’s movement. “I swear on the Chain, Aberrant, this cur dies if you take one more step.”

Samie stopped, fingers flexing, and bared his teeth.

“And then?  You gotta a plan fer stop me rippin’ your murderin’ head clean off after?”

“Samúiel, you stay put!” Fergal’s shout was soft in comparison, but it caught attention, and Samie’s heart leapt into his throat.

Ferg, this ain’t time for your diplomacy bollocks.

Yet there he was, walking slowly into the open space; hands raised, face set in a constipatedly-calm expression.  He focused on the vehicle, speaking gently.

“Please.  There must be a peaceful way.  We do not want to harm you.”

Speak fer yourself.  Samie bit back the comment as his gaze strayed to the unmoving golden shape on the ground.  He suspected Najwa wasn’t exactly going to be on board with any –

-something is wrong-

It wasn’t exactly the same instinct as before, but still something flared violently in Samie’s extended awareness.  A glint, a corner vision flicker – the ghost-echoes from corners not yet manifest – and a sense of sudden danger pulsed like a scream in his mind.  Apparently he wasn’t the only one who noticed – Fergal had opened his mouth to speak again when he let out a yelp, clutching at his ear and wincing so physically that the first shot went through his shoulder rather than his throat.

“Sniper!” Samie roared; and it was a roar, a guttural rattle that rolled up his throat like distilled thunder as he broke into a sprint, lunging for Fergal out of instinct more than planning.  Another shot came, passing through Samie’s leg again and this time the limb buckled under him, tendons snapping and wavering beneath his ruptured flesh.  He kept his momentum, arms taking the weight as he pounced the next few steps.  A third shot missed his changed posture by inches, burying harmlessly into a planter, and he finally noticed the new commotion happening on top of the armoured vehicle.  The unmasked woman had clearly taken a moment of distraction to her advantage and was now straddling her captor, her hands clamped either side of theirs along the rifle’s length, wrestling for control.

Fergal was flat on the ground, half-curled and clutching his shoulder, his face set in a rictus of agony.  Open.  Exposed – at least until Samie’s armoured bulk skidded to a halt over him.  His back plates flared out, spreading and flattening, and he felt another shot shatter one, embedding into the muscle underneath.  He didn’t care.

“You fucking eejit,” he snarled down at his brother, trying not to panic. “Let me be your fuckin’ bodyguard!”

The bullet had gone through clean enough, but the wound was still a gory rose against Fergal’s tattered dress shirt, and that arm was kinked at a strange angle, barely even shaking compared to the rest of him.  Samie wasn’t a medic – he really wasn’t a medic – but this didn’t look good even to amateur eyes.  Was there anything in the diplomatic bag for this size of hurt?  There had to be something, but his memory was skipping, caught between fear and fury and that this shouldn’t have happened, he was supposed to… he was supposed…

Something shattered high above them and Samie whipped around, blinking at the rain of falling glass from near the top of one of the surrounding buildings.  He was in time to see a flash of gold, hear a distant choked-out scream, before a figure came tumbling out of the broken window and hit the ground hard.  Gold flashed again, zigzagging like gilden lightning across the paving – and then Najwa was suddenly beside him, a long coil of strangely-animate fabric twisting back up around her arm.

“No further sniper.”

“Thanks,” Samie replied absently, hesitating as he reached towards Fergal, who just groaned. “Fuck… fuck fuck fuck…”

Najwa gestured towards her troops – including the unmasked woman, who now had a lot more blood on her clothes, and the State rifle slung over her shoulder – snapping instructions that Samie couldn’t understand.  He wasn’t paying attention. He needed to do something, but his thoughts were going through treacle.

Snap out of it.

One shot did this. Just one.  Everything about Fergal suddenly seemed impossibly fragile, as if he would just shatter into dust as soon as something like Samie touched him.  One shot. There were at least two of those same bullets rising up through Samie’s back right now, being rejected by his unquiet flesh like metallic time-lapse pimples.

They’re supposed to shoot me.  I’m the one with fucking horns. They’re supposed to shoot me.

If he breathed too hard he might just blow away.  Break something else. A weird giddy horror danced through Samie’s thoughts, dragging paralysis with it.  This brittle creature.  He shouldn’t be here.

Snap out of it, Samúiel.

He’s bleeding.  He’s bleeding so much.

Do something.  Do something-!

“We must move.”

Najwa’s voice was like a blade cutting through the mess of Samie’s thoughts, and reality slammed back hard along with it. What the fuck was he doing?  He needed to -

He blinked as he finally registered what was happening.  One of the golden guards – the one who had been working on their Ambassador – had ducked in under the shadow of him and knelt down next to Fergal.  An array of strange tools were laid out on a cloth to one side, and her quick fingers were already dancing across the injury, leaving glistening silver sutures like cobwebs behind them.  She uncapped a small vial of something colourless, revealing a fine needle, then stopped and looked up at Samie questioningly.

“Trust, Abhain,” Najwa said softly and Samie just nodded, mesmerised.  Fergal’s expression relaxed as the needle bit in, the whole of him going limp moments afterwards.  The medic worked rapidly, doing some other complicated things to the wound – which had stopped bleeding now, like a paused film – before she pulled out a silken wrap and quickly covered the site.  She nodded, and helped Najwa lift the still, slender figure into Samie’s huge arms.

He was so light.  So fucking light.

The women stood back, and both immediately stared down at Samie’s leg.  There wasn’t a lot left of his trousers by this point – from bulk and bullets – and already-knitted flesh could be seen clearly through the tatters, reduced to a cracked, coppery scar that was already fading.  The medic stared, muttering something unintelligible, then slid her kit back into a pocket and she turned towards the rest of the group.

Najwa waited until she had moved off before looking back at Fergal.

“He is not like you, Abhain?” she asked, quietly, although it wasn’t really a question now.  Fergal was barely larger than the arms that cradled him – arms that were thickly layered in bronze scales, with a demon’s thick heartbeat pulsing through the blended blood beneath.

Samie took a long, slow breath, and shook his head.

“No.  He isn’t.”

Najwa held his gaze for another moment, then nodded towards the others.

“We must go.”

The door on the next landing was locked.  Nice try, lads.  He dropped Fergal and swivelled, driving a newly-plated elbow into the pale woodwork.  The crunch ran up his arm, the door buckling under enhanced impact, and he shouldered it open past the now-bent lock.  New danger flared in his blended senses and he jerked back again, a heartbeat before a rattle of small arms fire punctured the wall by the broken frame.

“We’re Abhani, ye trigger-happy bastards!” he barked before stepping back through, arms raised this time.  The air was sharp, threaded with a peppery variation on gunsmoke, and another shot skimmed past his shoulder as he emerged - but no more followed it.  Samie caught a brief image of raised weapons and golden cloth, before he hauled Fergal in and slammed the damaged door them, searching around for anything to block it off again.  Damn Statey decoration was a sparse as it was boring, but there was a long metal display case full of framed (boring) paperwork a little further down, bolted to the floor.

Not bolted enough.  The screech of rending metal seemed shockingly loud, and Samie ignored the commenting mutters that followed as he hefted the case on-end and wedged it across the door.  Not a moment too soon: there was a crash from the other side and the injured woodwork shook violently.  Samie bared his teeth in a humourless grin and threw an obscene gesture towards the door, before grabbing the bags and hurrying back to where Fergal had vanished after the already-retreating group.  He vaguely remembered seeing them at the soiree, which seemed like a fuckin’ lifetime ago.  A fancily-dressed bunch with hair in loops, heraldin’ from someplace he’d never heard of.

They sure weren’t State though, and that’d do for now.

He followed into their room and came up short against the array of elegant weapons he’d seen earlier.  Their wielders were clad in gold-and-bronze, the kind of efficiently simple body armour that tended to lie hidden under much more elaborate detailing, right up until it needed not to.  Samie rolled his eyes.

“Ah, c’mon! We ain’t got bigger problems?”

“Samúiel is with me,” Fergal said quickly, from somewhere off to one side. His tone was steadier now, more business-like.  Got an audience. “My bodyguard, and my brother.”

Samie could feel the wash of suspicious attention, back and forth between them.  Comparing Fergal’s slim, dark figure, and Samie’s own ginger-topped bulk.  He grinned again.

“I take after ma.”

There was another stretched moment of wariness and then the weapons tilted down.  It was just in time for another sound of impact to rattle down the corridor, so Samie stopped paying attention to people who weren’t his concern.  One of the armed figures had moved first, and something in their stance suggested leadership, so he focused there.

“Said no t’the wine then?” he asked, more to fill the silence than anything else, adding: “Mostly, anyhow.”

Across the room, Fergal was stooped over in front of a slumped woman - unarmoured and still dressed in her party frock.  She was blinking rapidly, eyes half-focused, and an attendant fidgeted with a sleek-looking syringe as they ran assessing fingers down her arm, checking and re-checking vitals.  

Good to know they weren’t the only ones who’d brought along In Case Of Fuckery emergency kits.

“You have an exit?” The probable-leader stepped in front of Samie, pulling up the headgear’s eyepiece to reveal a strip of deep copper skin and black-brown eyes, narrowed towards him in suspicion.  He shrugged.

“Couple, though they involve not bein’ stuck in this feckin’ rat-trap.  Other’n that, it’s kinda at ‘not via the stairs we came down, because they either exploded or are full of bastards’.”

The commander snorted and flipped her mask closed again.  He was guessing at ‘her’, mostly from the lashes and the height.

“Try not to die. Do not get in our way, or you will be shot through.”

Samie swung one enlarged hand upward in as sarcastic a salute as he could manage.

“Aye, I’m well aware that ‘bullet sponge’ is in my job description.”

“Samie,” Fergal didn’t look up from where he was muttering softly to the other presumed-Ambassador, and the commander had already turned away, motioning at the rest of her squad, so Samie’s replying shrug was mostly for his own benefit.

“Well it is,” he muttered.  He dropped back as the golden guards began to move out again, staying near Fergal and eying their new friends.  They were, he’d admit, very slick about all this.  Each gilt figure moved like liquid, smoothly taking positions and covering each other as they started back out into the corridors.  Hardly ever a step outa place - and Samie couldn’t help feeling a little bit lumbering in comparison.  Being a good head taller than everyone around you, and at least twice as broad, would do that to a body.

His makeshift barricade was shaking noisily as the mismatched group made their way along the main corridor of this floor.  There was another similar door at the far end, which seemed to have a gold-weave scarf nailed across it, and Samie glanced back at Fergal.  He saw his brother find the incongruity, squint a little in that way he had when he was Looking with his less-standard senses, and nod towards Samie in silent confirmation.

UnGated Diolain were still Abhani, after all, and the mageblood ran as thick in them as anyone else.  Samie was about as magically-inclined as a dishcloth - barring the huge otherworldy-technicality that mingled through the fabric of him - but Ferg had always been good at seeing what was really there.  Couldn’t actually do much active, but he’d got Sight on him enough to make professionals take note - and what he was notin’ now, was that there was something altogether thaumic going on with that “scarf”.

“Someone else lied on their border forms,” Samie muttered, and Fergal grinned back.

The elevator on these floors sat off the middle of the corridor, flanked by panels of metal inset with stern State geometry.  It was disabled - because of course it was - but two of the golden guards had already forced the doors, and were aiming small torches up and down the shaft.  When they seemed satisfied, the commander turned back towards Samie.

“You can climb also?”

“Well, yeah - ” Samie followed her gesture, towards where another guard was gently wrapping a fine fabric webbing around the drugged Ambassador.  The cradle was attached to what looked like a lacework harness, and he started to object as realisation kicked in. “Hey now, I got Ferg t’ - ”

“I’m fine,” Fergal interjected, tapping the smears of drying blood still clinging to his chest. “Shaky, but I’m set.  I can climb; she can’t.”

“...right,” Samie sighed as he turned around to present his back.  Path of least resistance.  He was very aware of the feel of unfamiliar fingers deftly hooking straps around his chest, around his shoulders, and tried not to react when the pressure halted - just for a second - on an unexpected outcrop of solid tissue along his spine.

“It ain’t tender,” he said gruffly, and was relieved when the hands continued without voiced question.  There were a few extra grazes across some of the other manifestations hidden beneath his shirt, but no more reaction, and the weight of the barely-conscious woman was soon nestled in against his back.  The commander scooted in, tugging on a few parts of the harness - which was a hell of a lot sturdier than something that looked like it was made of lingerie had any right to be - then stepped back, giving a curt order in her own tongue as the group began to move into the open lift shaft.  There was a narrow maintenance ladder set back into a groove in the wall, flanked by cable bundles, and the guards began to climb down it.

The actual elevator carriage was in there as well.  Above them, in fact, and Samie eyed the base of it warily as bobbing torchlight patterns wove in and out of the gears beneath.  This’d be the third time he’d climbed an elevator shaft in the line of one duty or other, but generally the big metal box of potential-crushing had been below him.  He was suddenly very aware of how thin the ladder rungs - only big enough for three of his current fingers - seemed to be, and of the translated shiver of movement running back up towards him.

He’d survive a fall, of course.  It would hurt like a motherfucker (appropriately enough) but if there was one thing that’d bring Scout through all-guns it was that horrible moment of plunging when you became so suddenly aware of all your internal organs.  Still, he doubted he’d make a good crash-mat; and just because something wouldn’t kill you, didn’t make for good reason to let it happen.

So when the witchlight came rolling up the walls, Samie managed to restrain his shock to nearly biting through his tongue, rather than yanking any rungs out of their sockets.

“ - th-uck!”

Traceries of blue-white crackled as they rose, sharply-angular fractals that made your brain ache if you tried to focus on the patterns too hard, and Samie could feel a shiver in his skin as the waves passed over him.  Like static, with a bizarre sense of upended vertigo trailing behind it, but it was gone as fast as it had come, and the eerie wisp glow swept past.  An awful moment later the bottom of the elevator jerked violently, something above it going ping, and the cage began to move.

Upwards.

Samie swallowed hard, trying to get his heartrate back where it was meant to be.  He leaned over and looked down, to where Fergal’s upturned face was dimly visible below his feet.

“The hell was that?”  From the muttering that was happening from their new friends, he wasn’t the only one wondering, even as the group began to climb again.  A little faster this time.  After all, what went up…

“Isuanai mechis-pulse,” Fergal said, loudly enough that his voice bounced echoes from the walls. “Broad spectrum with visual bleed - someone’s hacked something together real fast.  My guess is ‘up’, for anything that can.”

Isuanai.  Now, that one Samie did know; he’d even been there a few times.  Nice country.  Lot of plastic.  Full of people who’d start waxing lyrical about ‘techno-thaumic integration’ at the drop of a hat.  Yeah, he couldn’t see any of them being all that keen on toeing a ‘no magic’ line either.

It seemed to take an excruciatingly long time before there was a new sound from below, a shifting hiss followed by the screech of forced metal, and new light burst into the shaft.  Craning around, Samie saw the lead guards dart out of the newly-opened door, quick as you like.  A tense few moments followed, his ears pricking at the sound of rapid footfalls in whatever space lay beyond, before a gold-masked face appeared at the doorway again and beckoned them to continue.

They came out into… some sort of service area?  Sure wasn’t another corridor of fancy rooms, and Samie looked around while the drugged Ambassador was detached from his back.  There were a lot of shelves, stacked with piles of towels, bottles of presumably-cleaning stuff, and other general maintenance paraphernalia.  

There was something almost offensively mundane about the space, considering what was happening mere floors above them, and Samie’s teeth gritted together.

“Where now, Najwa?” Fergal asked quietly as he brushed himself down, making an attempt to tidy up his bloodied shirt.  The commander’s head snapped around, surprise running through her body language for a second, and Samie pushed away a grin.  Of course Ferg had picked up her name from somewhere.  He wasn’t sure if it was a subtle ‘I can understand you, you know’ dig - since he didn’t put it past his brother to have managed to have a bit of fluency in whatever they were chattering in, on the off-chance - or just emphasising situational-camaraderie.

“...sewers,” she replied, finally. “Lead under walls.  After that; our business.”

“Oh good,” Samie muttered, even though his attention was only half-on what was going on inside the room.  His extended senses were twanging again - up, up, rapid feet with a panic in their urgency - quick quick - and he tilted his head, frowning. “This day just gets better, doesn’t it?”

The commander - Najwa - rounded on him.

“What do you do, Abhain?” she snapped. “Walk out door?  How many bullets do you sponge?”

Samie grinned.  It wasn’t a diplomatic expression.

“Plenty enough, love.  I - ”

“Samie - ” Fergal’s warning was cut off by a curt bark from one of the other guards, and Najwa dropped her interest, falling into instant formation with the rest of her squad.  Samie knew why, could hear the sound of approaching bootfall, and he shoved Ferg firmly back towards the other Ambassador, behind a metal cart that was the closest the room had to cover.  He hunched down beside it, tensing, and drew a slow breath.

Focus, Samúiel.

He was staring so hard at the door that he missed the start of it, as Najwa’s team began to shimmer.  The harsh white lights overhead seemed to lose their grip, illumination and shadow alike going grainy across each figure; breaking apart like falling sand to leave a shape in the world that blurred and slid away from clear vision.  It wasn’t invisibility, not exactly, but it was going to be interesting to see how the Statey fuckers handled it.

The answer turned out to be ‘badly’.

Clearly, the squad that entered hadn’t been expecting much resistance; or likely, anyone at all.  The sight of Samie’s hulking figure brought them up short, rifles rising - and then Najwa’s group struck hard.  It wasn’t perfect: a few rounds loosed, skimming through the air whistle-close to Samie’s right ear, and the guttural crack of gunfire bounced violently around the tiled space, but soon the three intruders figures were face-down on the floor.  One was deathly still, the second with some residual twitching, and the third wriggling furiously under two restraining feet.

The Abhani exchanged an impressed look.

Najwa hunched down on her heels in front of the surviving State solider and reached out, wrenching his mirror-sheen helmet away.  She stood up again quickly, nodding as the restraining guards yanked the man onto his knees.

Well, ‘man’.  Boy, really, and Samie felt a different twinge in his gut as he stared at the State-kid.  He was pale, without even the burnt-in scatter of freckles that seasoned Samie’s own natural pallor, and his mousey blond hair was buzzed into near-transparency, but the most obvious thing about him was the stark tattoos stamped harshly across his face.  Samie didn’t recognise many of the symbols - they were mostly geometric, sharp black angles that didn’t follow the line of his bones - but there was something particularly unsettling about the silvered, stylised eye that took up about half his forehead.

That, and the look of disgusted rage distorting his features.

“Sonofafuck,” Fergal muttered, peering around Samie’s shoulder. “We’re being hunted by guys who don’t even shave yet.”  There was a shake to his voice, a tightness in his expression that reminded Samie that, worldly that his brother might be in some ways, he didn’t get shot at very much.

“That’s diplomatic-speak, is it?” he muttered back, as Najwa brought her own weapon up, resting it against the boy’s clavicle.

“How many are you?” she asked, and the pale figure bared his teeth in reply.  It would have looked comical if it wasn’t for the pure hate in his eyes.

“Aberrant scum,” he hissed. “You are poison.”

There was a soft sound, metal on metal, from somewhere within Najwa’s weapon as she raised it higher, hovering over the bobbing bulge of the boy’s adam’s apple.

“Wait - ” Fergal ducked out around from behind Samie, slipping past the wary hand he swung to halt him, and took a few careful steps forward.  He held his own hands out, placatingly, and looked between Najwa and the captive. “Please.  Let me talk to him.”

“You waste your breath, Abhain,” Najwa replied, not even looking back. “They do not know mercy.”

“But we do.” Fergal came a bit closer again, edging himself into her vision. “Please.” He followed with something that Samie didn’t understand, a few words with surprisingly-smooth similarity to the guards’ earlier chatter, and Najwa’s shoulders tightened.

“Talk swift,” she said, finally, and moved her gun back.  The State boy didn’t relax, still near-vibrating with anger and poorly-hidden nerves, but his washed-out gaze did flick between her and Fergal a few times.  His lips moved, silently; breathed words that didn’t catch in his throat, as Fergal turned to the boy and smiled, opening his hands carefully.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told about us,” he said gently, and it was probably only Samie’s practised ears that caught the slight shiver under his voice. “But we - ”

“...binds... the Chain…” The boy was looking at Fergal, but didn’t seem to be focusing on him as he kept muttering.  Frankly, it was creepy, and Samie shifted uncomfortably as he watched his brother try and make contact.  These Statey bastards had always been a weird lot, but they seemed damn-near alien now - the irony of which wasn’t lost on him.  Fergal tried again.

“I didn’t catch that,” he encouraged, leaning in a little further.  The boy’s shoulders had slumped, some of the shivering tension dropping out of his stance, and his eyelids fluttered half-closed.

“The Chain,” he mumbled, “the Chain is - only as strong as it’s - weakest link.”

He said it like a mantra.  Fergal blinked.

“Er… I suppose?”

The boy looked up, and all of Samie’s senses went off at once.

“I am not weak!”

He lunged forward violently, tearing himself free from the restraining grips of the guards behind him, who had relaxed a little when Najwa moved out of range.  Metal flashed, Fergal jerking back fast enough to avoid the blade that cut air a hairsbreadth from his face, but the Stateboy didn’t stop, taking both their balances as the first shot from Najwa’s guards swished past above the falling pair.  Metal came again, a wide, wild arc that just missed Samie as he dived towards Fergal, who was struggling arms-locked with the shaking youth - then the second round of fire hit home and the Stateboy crumpled forwards, the curved knife clattering away across the floor.  Samie grabbed him, feeling bone creak under his grip and yanked upwards, blood and spittle and worse raining from the bullet-torn mess of the boy’s neck.  Shock and anger sent strength into Samie’s movement, as he swivelled and hurled the body into the wall with a heavy, wet crack - then dropped down, swinging himself over Fergal in a guarding crouch.

Blood was pumping in his ears - his blood, and then some - and he could feel the plates along his back pressing up, spreading out over each other as he tried to hold them back.

“Enough!”

Samie hadn’t shouted, but the booming growl that broke his lips went bouncing from the walls anyway.  The golden guns raised again - wary, again - but as Samie blinked himself back to focus, he realise Najwa’s wasn’t among them.  It wasn’t possible see her expression under her mask, but she was clearly looking at him, nonetheless.

“...what are you, Abhain?” she asked, after a few moments of tension, and Samie forced his lips to slide back down, over the jutting angles of tooth that she couldn’t have failed to see.  His muscles were twitching, his clothes were too fucking tight, and the sharp-iron scent of blood and spicy gunsmoke seemed to be swirling like a hurricane through his head.

The blood didn’t smell like Fergal’s, though.  The knife had missed.  The bullets had missed him.  If the boy had been just a fraction closer…

Too close.  That was too fucking close.

Samie rolled his shoulders as he stood up - a few inches further up than before - and met Najwa’s hidden gaze.

“I’m getting the fuck outa here.”

The end of the evening came as a relief.  A couple more short, simpering speeches from the State hosts – the words sliding past Samie’s attention like they’d been greased, leaving no sense of what was actually said – followed by the general winding-down of conversation as guests began to filter away.  Wobbling, in many cases.  

When he finally caught back up with Fergal again, it was clear he was no exception.

“Gotta admit, Sam, m’impressed y’managed not t’deck that Ministry wanker,” Fergal’s voice was lowered, features set into a concentrated expression as he very deliberately didn’t lurch forwards.  Samie shrugged, discreetly taking his half-brother’s elbow to steady him in sight of other party guests.  Didn’t do for the Ambassador to seem unbalanced, even if everyone else was looking equally worse for wear.

“Hadn’t the foggiest what he was goin’ on about, t’be honest,” he replied quietly as he steered them through the sprawling building towards their designated suite.  

Embassies were weird in general, in Samie’s opinion – all pomp and posturing; part museum, part national peacocking – but this place took it to a new level.  The State apparently kept all its embassies in a walled offshoot town, stuck on the end of an umbilical train line north of what was otherwise the capital City. If the political village hadn’t been built exclusively for the purpose, it had sure been refitted for it.  Everything was all very Ambassadorial, sure, and with heavy-handed heaps of Glorious State reminders emblazoned everywhere they would fit, but there was… something false about it all.  Like if you went around the wrong wall you’d find yourself surrounded by sawdust and sandbags and spare lighting rigs.

“S’all staged.”

It wasn’t until Fergal gave a distinctly undignified snort that Samie realised he’d spoken out loud.

“Y’not that green, Ss’me - ” he started, but the jibe blurred out as he slumped sideways, Samie’s supporting arm only just preventing him crumpling to the floor.

This wasn’t right.

“Ferg?” Samie hefted the smaller man back upright, feeling another jolt of worry as he realised how unstable he was as well. Fergal was barely upright now, head lolling, and that sure as shit wasn’t right.  His brother might have been on the slender side, but he could hold his drink with the best of them, and he didn’t lose track of glasses.

Which meant – which meant –

Samie grunted, shaking his head as if that would dislodge the thickening fuzz.  Get back to the room, first.  He could deal with this, just not – not in public.  Not this public.

Try not t’be an Incident.

I’m trying, Ferg.

It seemed to take a ridiculously long time to get back to the allocated rooms.  The State guards who had been installed at intervals along the corridors were missing now, which was worrying, but made the fact that Samie had to do the last hundred metres or so with Fergal pretty much bridal-style marginally less embarrassing.

In.  Vision swimming, he lurched through the reception space, accompanied by a few muted crashing sounds as he bounced off decorative tat, and deposited Fergal’s slumped form down on the first bit of long-enough soft furniture.  Think.  Diplomatic bag in the safe.

Other bag was – was in the...

Samie sank into the chair beside Fergal and breathed out hard.  Had to focus.  Had to –

-wake up-

It wasn’t a voice.  It was never a voice, not really – how could it be?  More a shape – an echo of intent – bleeding up from the impossible depth – distance – that lay behind Samie’s own awareness.  The faintest trace, the lightest brush of attention across the back of his blurring mind.  Utterly alien, and yet more familiar to part of him than even breathing –

Gate of Abhain.  Voidwalker.  Worldweaver.

-wake up-

Consciousness broke like a wave and Samie gasped as he jolted back awake. A rumbling spasm ran down his body, fresh heat rising in his blood, as she came to the fore in instinctive answer to his fading thoughts and he felt himself shift.  Just a little, just a bit – he hadn’t Called completely, after all – but the sense of alien familiarity folding open beneath his bones was enough to haul him back to conscious awareness.  If nothing else, the momentary ache and give as his shirt cuffs popped, his collar rupturing like burst paper when the flesh underneath bulked out abruptly, was enough to draw a small curse from his cracked lips.

He usually managed to take off the expensive tailoring before he went and sprouted several extra inches of torso.  Siobhain was going to be really terse when he explained this one.

No time to worry about that.  Samie stood up again, sending the chair crashing back, and looked around.  There was nothing immediately obvious in the room that he should have noticed already, even if an angry litany of things he should have clocked on the way up was already running through his re-sharpened mind.  Starting with all those weird looks between some of the State bastards – not all of them, but there had been a good chunk looking more and more nervous as the evening progressed – plus the missing guards and domestic staff.  Someone had a plan for this, and he got the definite feel that they did not want to be here to see it out.

First thing first.  Fergal was still slumped out on the long sofa, drooling and unresponsive, and Samie’s heart lurched in his thickened chest.  He really should have picked up on the drugged wine.

“Really dropped the ball on this one,” he muttered as he hurried towards one of the far wardrobes, where his own bug-out pack was concealed within the camouflage of general luggage debris.  Plus a level three distraction glamour, set to deflect attention from the black rucksack nestled amidst suit cover cases.  Samie could feel the press of it as he grabbed the bag.  It was a dumb spell, and it was keyed to his base state, but there was a mismatch now.  Thankfully he knew it was there – and even if he hadn’t, there was enough demon mojo through in him at this point to render narcotics ineffective, so a glamour wasn’t much different.  Everything set up to act on a fully-human system was gonna be a bit confused.

A lot more confused, later; if he had to.

Sorting quickly through the pack’s contents, he found what he was looking for: a sterile dressing package, plain white except for a serial code and the B-ZoR label.  Its crinkling plastic paper was sealed at the edges, with a capped silver needle taped alongside.

And he felt her move.

-Samúiel-

His connection was open now, even if only slightly, and he could feel the press of the Scout’s presence across the back of his mind.  Like a wall – no, like a doorway – Gateway – through the heart of him, opened out into somewhere else and instantly filled again with a sense of size, of overlapping gold-sand scales and strong flesh beneath.  Samie knew that technically that sense was all a matter of ‘synaesthesic transference’ – or as anyone who hadn’t spent half their lives swallowing library tomes’d call it: ‘your brain making up the best lie it can about what the dithering fuck is going on’ – but honestly, he’d never had much time for descriptions of his nature by folks who’d only ever be looking in from outside.

Who had never heard the whispering echoes of another place entirely twisting in through the cracks around their thoughts; things that weren’t sound, or words, or even close to those, but that there were no better ways to describe.  Who had never been on the inside of the Binding circle – a very simple name for that cavernous space, with its impossible mandala of interwoven sigilwork runes carved and etched and bled into every surface – as it searched, and filtered, finding the familiar “voices” within the maelstrom clamour that opening yourself brought forth.

Who had discussed, and lawyered, and obsessed over infinite minutiae of a Deal-bind, but had never – could never – actually make one.

Some things, you just gotta be.

-‘I’m okay, Scout.’-

Sense.  Feeling.  Reassurance.  And a surge of images, moments of his own recent life flickering away across the Gate of him, to be translated – hallucinated – ‘synesthetically transferred’ – into the Scout, as she made her sense of him as well as he did of her.

-Concern.  Danger?  Hurt?-

-‘Not yet.  Might need you more soon.  You safe?’-

-Safe: Yes.  Kin: Secure-

It didn’t make anything about this clustering fuck of a situation better, but the Scout had never let him down before.  From the sense of sheer size that he felt from her connection, he was pretty sure that he wasn’t diverting all that much of her even in dire straits.  But still, it was reassuring to know she was safe, if he needed more.

Whatever safe meant there.

He hurried back to Fergal, rather unceremoniously flipping his brother over, and tore his shirt open.  Buttons pinged away violently into corners, but no way was he going to try fiddling with fastenings with these fingers.  Picking up the sterile packet again, Samie bit it open and peeled it apart, scrutinising the shiny yellow sigil he uncovered.  A jagged circle of overlapping runework, with eight small satellite points around the edges and a line of rust-red down the centre of the main pattern.  He hesitated, taking another moment to check the small sticker in the top corner of the paper, which confirmed Fergal’s name and the date of haemothaumic snapshot.

Seemed right.  You didn’t want to mix these up.

“This is gonna be shite, Ferg, but we need to move,” he apologised as he slapped the sigil down against Fergal’s chest and peeled the backing paper away; its yellow lines bright against brown-tan skin and sweat-coiled hair.  The needle uncapped easily, fragile in his grip, and Samie carefully stabbed the tip into all eight activation points.  He waited, trying not to fidget, as dark spots spread out under the paper – and then the sigil caught. Witchlight bloomed as its lines lit up, fresh crimson racing out along the pattern, and Fergal jerked violently, an all-over spasm like a broken doze.  His eyes bulged open and -

Impressively, he actually made it into the bathroom before he started throwing up.  

Right.  Second thing’s second, then.  With Fergal occupied, Samie quickly retrieved the diplomatic bag – without trying to open the innermost lining, because he really didn’t want to have to deal with the levels of Locked that thing was – and spread out as much as he could between it and his pack  They had come into this bloody city on a special-arranged train and were supposed to be going back that way, in two days’ time, but he wasn’t holding out much hope for that being an option now.

He had co-ordinates, memorised names, and emergency codes.  He was callin’ this.  Let the black-and-white bastards make their own excuses.

Bags finished, Samie was in the process of stripping off his busted posh clothes, replacing the tatters with his more active gear, when Fergal lurched back into the room.  A sickly flush was still spread across his cheeks but while his eyes were watering, they were mostly focusing in the same direction.  Right now, his attention was due-Samie.

“Al-right there – Sam?” he managed before being cut off by a belch and dry heave, and pressed his hand over his mouth, grimacing.  The sigil was still bright against his chest, paper cover fallen away, and its bloody lines pulsed along with his heartbeat.  

Samie had never personally needed to experience that sort of blood-magery.  As he understood it, the sigilwork kind of reset your whole system to the condition you’d been in when the blood in it had been drawn.  Rapidly, forcibly, and powered with the kind of thaumic kick that emergency meds tended to pack.  He’d seen it in action a couple of times, though.  Looked like going through the mother of all hangovers, compressed and accelerated into five minutes of fuckin’ awful existence.

Fergal swallowed a few times, settled, then reached around and pulled the bathroom door primly shut behind him. “Don’t – be going in there.  Bit grim.”

“Had t’make the call on the bloodwork,” Samie said, part by apology, as he continued to dress. “Y’look like hot shite – how you feeling?”

“Like hot shite.” Fergal ran a hand through his hair, shoving the black locks into a more deliberate disarray, and squinted at Samie. “Y’got a bit of – demon – on you, there,” he added, gesturing, and Samie automatically reached up to the side of his face.  His fingers encountered ridged, raised scaling: curves of plated flesh that had spread up his cheeks, reaching all the way into his hairline.  He tilted around until he could get a look at his reflection in one of the fancy mirrors.  The ridges had pushed his expression into a set scowl – or that might just have been an effect of the situation, since no hybrid form was exactly the same twice – and, as ever, the bronze-gold hue of the Scout’s features were already clashing with his base ginger.  Particularly the beard.

“Ah, it’s not that much yet,” he said dismissively, even as he jigged back and forth, trying to work out what else had changed.  Now he was concentrating, deliberately focusing on his body, he could feel more manifestations down his back, his replacement shirt pulling slightly against the plated skin there now.  His shoes were pinching too, but not enough to worry about them.  Still.  Enough to mark him out…

Samie fished around in the spare clothing until he found a dark knit cap and tugged it on, as far down as it would go.  The result left him looking like he was having a particularly lumpy eczema outbreak, but that was better than nothing.

“Right, I’m subtle again.” He gestured to the smaller pack and the clean, more mobile clothes he’d laid out for Fergal. “I dunno what these bastards are playing at, and I’m not keen on findin’ out.”

Fergal hesitated.  He was still blinking rapidly.

“I should –”

-Something is very wrong-

Instincts flared so hard that they hurt, a strange combination of snapping senses and the fact that Samie’s nerves were already twanging like musical strings.  He wasn’t sure exactly what it was – a flicker perhaps, somewhere outside the long windows of the room; half-heard, distant sound; or something far less clear – but suddenly his heart was in his throat.  A moment later and both packs were slung around one thickened arm, Fergal was yelping a protest at being physically hauled off his feet with the other, and the door of the suite stood no chance against a headlong charge.  Woodwork splintered back against the wall outside but Samie was already through, diving towards the spiraling staircase a few doors further down.  Heartbeat and panic sang duet in his ears, moments before the whistle and smash of breaking glass from somewhere behind them burst into a concussive whump of detonation.

He just had time to swing Fergal around, hunching down over the increasingly-smaller man, as he felt hot air roar past over his back, peppering him with splinters and chunks of dislodged masonry.  The stairs underneath lurched violently and Samie gave it a few more breaths after the initial impact before he turned around, staring back up at the billowing smoke and smouldering wreckage just visible through the now-wonky doorway.

Had big windows.  Lights were on.  Lotsa places to shoot from out there.

Fuck me.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Fergal muttered, and Samie could feel his brother shaking beneath his arms. “Fuck – Sam – I didn’t even – I didn’t – fuck!”

Samie eased back a bit, wincing as he shrugged off debris.  He could feel the Scout too, pressing closer again as his own pain echoed back through their bind – insistent, urgent, worried – and he tried to take a breath without choking on brick dust.

“Bonds of international friendship, my arse,” he growled, as they began to scramble down the creaking stairs.

He let his gaze wander again until he found the slender, frock-coated figure whose safety was the pertinent point of Samie’s uncomfortable attendance.  The Abhani Ambassador looked typically relaxed, and it was only familiarity with the subtleties of his half-brother Fergal’s expressions that suggested the current conversational partner was being hard work – although not dangerously so.

Not a huge surprise.  Hadn’t met one of these State-y bastards yet who could hold a half-decent chat.  Case in point: the simpering streak o’piss who was still trying to drag Samie’s attention back to his explanations about… something or other.  The word ‘ward’ had come up a few times, but since one thing Samie knew for certain about this damn country was they were balls-clenchingly terrified of even a lick of magic, he was getting a bit lost.  Possibly he should’ve paid more attention to the social bits of the brief.

“...has always been a matter of genetics – bloodlines, you see – heck, it’s all in the breeding.  With a bit of planning, bit of foresight in the pairings, and you can whittle out unwanted traits in a few generations.” The man paused to deposit his empty glass onto a passing tray, then selected two fresh ones and proffered one towards Samie, accompanied by the raise of a narrow eyebrow. “Don’t you think?”

Samie took the drink and tried to cover his hesitation with a long first sip.  ‘Samúiel, if you could manage not to be or cause an Incident for a whole week, it’d be grand.  Just talk polite shite, and don’t have opinions.’  Fergal’s voice echoed in memory, side-spoken in privacy, but no less pointed for it.  Diplomatic.  Right.  He tilted his glass towards the ferret-faced State boy.

“Oh, sure.  Had a dog myself, when I was a lad,” he hazarded. “Proper pedigree – it’s amazin’ what’s bred in.   Tricks, and all that.”

The man – name, the fella must’ve had a name.  Crawford?  Something like that – blinked and then followed it up with a not-quite-right smile.  Looked like he’d learned to do it from a book.

“That’s… certainly the principle.” One skinny hand flapped at the air, like he was trying to sweep something invisible together.  Sense, maybe. “Of course there’s a fine old history in the canine work; domestication, breed standards, and it has legacy value – but really more like a – a prototype than anything else.” About half of maybe-Crawford’s drink vanished in another enthusiastic swig, and a wash of wine fumes rolled into Samie’s face as the man suddenly leaned forward.  A weirdly conspiratorial expression settled onto his thin features as he spoke again.

“But you’d know all about the importance of breeding, of course?  I did my homework on your Abhain, you see  – ” he tapped his nose, seeming oddly proud of the statement. “Such quaint old traditions.  The idea of nobility.  A backwards way of approaching the principle, I suppose, but as long as it’s been strictly applied…”

Same was trying to listen, he really was, but the reedy gobshite had a voice like a strangled fart and he kept finding his attention sliding away towards… well, pretty much anything else in the room.  Threads of nearby chatter.  Curtains.  The backless dress of the tall, olive-skinned lady who Fergal had moved onto talking to…

And the warning eyebrow that arched above his brother’s deep-emerald gaze.

Damn.

Samie blinked himself back to some semblance of focus, seeing Craw-fish starting to look affronted, and struck out for the nearest point he had recognised.

“I can’t put claim for nobility,” he tried. “Now m’boy Ferg over there?  His ma’s got successional line in her own right.  Legit.  We’re both Diolan, yeah, but I’m a rivers’side lad - so graces come with the tux, not much else.”

It was Crawfolk’s turn to look puzzled as he glanced between Samie’s bulky figure, and Fergal’s elegant back.

“Dear-o-lion?” he mangled the word; Abhani tongue sitting awkwardly on State lips.

“Diolain.” Samie corrected, if only for the novelty of being at the front of the conversation for once.

“Ah, yes.  I’m afraid I’m not… familiar?  With the term?”

Didn't do that homework so well, then.

“Close enough’d be ‘King’s bastard’.” At the man’s raising eyebrow, Samie shrugged. “There’s an… arrangement, y’know?  Family means a lot.”

That wasn’t exactly the truth, but he sure as shit wasn’t going into the details of why Abhain had that particular tradition.  

Crawdad blustered, his social gyroscope wobbling in the face of the unexpected, and Samie’s thoughts slid sideways in the gap again.  King’s bastard.  Not the current King, mind; there might’ve been going on for 20 years between Samie and Ríg-Brayden, but his more regal half-brother had only been under the big hat for a few years, after the utter fuckstorm that had set unexpected succession in motion.  The less said about the previous incumbent, frankly, the better, and Samie hadn’t ever had much feeling towards their father.  A fair enough man, by all accounts, but of grand-age to him.

“So, you any more up on what this party is for?” The question jolted out before Samie was really aware that he’d said it, and Crawfeed rallied  The skinny man plucked yet another glass from a passing tray and waved it expansively.

“Oh, the usual, I’d expect!  Cementing of the bonds of international friendship.”

Samie was abruptly treated to a painfully wide version of that waxy, practised smile.

“It’s about time our fine State was properly positioned on the world’s stage, don’t you think?  Legit – and all that.”

There was something in the way he said it.  A sudden, slick-sharp edge that send a shiver down Samie’s spine.  Nothing he could put his finger on, just…

Something.

You gotta trust your instincts, right?

His own.  And the rest.