Igneous Impervious (1143 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: Necro
Rating: 2 on 27 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Snark << snarkk.at.gmail.com (View user info) at 2005-12-27 21:59:26 EST
IGNEOUS IMPERVIOUS
There's a piece of paper on the wall that say's Kingley is a Loremaster, but he looks little more than a tired old man to me.
His thin black mustache is peppered with the same grey that lines his thin greased hair. His cheeks are pale and sunken, and his eyes are narrow and dark. They're rimmed with red and they dart back and forth as if he's in search of something without really knowing it.
He's got the burn alright. I can almost feel it radiating off him. He's been bouncing himself, back and forth, between the Seductress taint and Ngana's cure for too long and it's wearing him as thin as a whore's stockings.
He's listening to my story with a half grimace, and his thin body fidgets under his royal purple bed clothes, as if they are made of fire ants. He's got half his attention on me and half on his discomfort, and I'm hoping half is enough, cuz I'm feeling the strain of the day in my bones now.
His servant bade me wait in the Library after my Roscoe convinced him that I would not wait to make an appointment. I sat here, wrapped in my pain and the strangely comforting gloom; the smell of leather and parchment and the whisper's of things dark and forgotten. I sat and cursed and when the door finally opened, I half expected to see Delaney and the rest of his blue clad goons bust in, guns blazing, or a horde of dead men teeth bared and arms outstretched, come to add me to their numbers, but I found myself greeted by this wraith instead.
I'm careful to leave Delaney, and Martini out of my story. As far as I'm concerned, that's a different score to settle. Yeah friend, that problem is only a couple of lead slugs away from being gone. It can wait.
I finish up by recounting my visit to Ngana, and the result of her cure but I don't go into detail about the ritual itself, by the looks of him, he knows more about the Sorceresses ways than I do.
He nods then coughs. He peers disapprovingly at me from the high-backed throne on the other side of his thick oak desk, then uncorks a bottle of something golden and pours himself a glassful.
When he finally speaks, his voice is raspy yet clear, like a dry wind through brittle reeds.
"You say your name is Kane?"
"Yeah."
"The same Kane the papers made all that fuss about a year ago? What was it... something about a countess..."
"Countess Delouchez."
"Yes. Yes. Tell me, is it true she kept an enchanted armor suit as her lover?"
He pushes the broach back to me with a frown when I don't respond.
"It is not magical in any way that I can discern, and the initials mean nothing to me."
He's lying. I can see it in his eyes. He's afraid of something, but there's no point in pushing him, at least not yet, so I answer his question instead.
"Don't believe everything you read."
One thin glinting eyebrow darts up and he takes a long pull from the glass in his hand before replying.
"Ahh, but it's what I do Mr. Kane." He sweeps his free hand out dramatically to the book lines shelves surrounding us. "I read, and I believe. There isn't much room for skepticism when one immerses ones self in the study of all things arcane."
No point in replying, I know his kind well enough. Scholars, Politicians, it don't make no matter. They live by the subtle word. They feed off the curiosities that drip from between their lips as if the difference between honey and bullshit is a secret only they possess.
"I must have a talk with our Sorceress friend. I would prefer she did not idly hand my name to blood soaked men in the middle of the night. Point-in-fact, I have half a mind to turn you from my home, but I find myself more than a little intrigued by certain aspects of your disturbingly suspect tale, and my assistant tells me you can be more than a little convincing. Tell me, if I should refuse to give you the answers you seek, is it your intention to shoot me down?"
There's no point in replying to that either, at least not with words. He can see the end of me written on my pale face. He can see the desperation that brought me here, shining bright from my own bloodshot eyes. I'm thinking about Pitt and the raw deal I gave him, and I'm thinking that I'll do what I need to, to see my last hours end the way I want.
He leans forward and looks hard for a minute, then nods and grunts.
"Hmmm perhaps not, but I think you might not be above other forms of persuasion, should I refuse... very well. Let us start with Lust then. May I see it?"
A couple of fumbled buttons later, and I'm glaring at my numbing finger's while Kingsley leans close enough to see the snake wrapped around my arm, through his newly donned spectacles. He stares, blinks, and then rubs his eyes and stares some more. His cheeks fill with the slightest tinge of color, and when he leans back and addresses me again, his voice is almost to low to hear.
"Snake indeed... the embodiment of a Seductresses magic... I think not. No Mr. Kane. This is something much worse I'm afraid. If I'm not mistaken, this is something I thought to never see. You are a lucky man, luckier than you know. The thing that came to you that night in your office, was something far beyond a Seductress. I'm somewhat of an expert in the removal of the Seductress taint. Even a very powerful infection does not take a form such as this when removed. A seductress cannot burn skin at a touch. It's not in her power or nature to do so. The magic that did this to you is much older, much darker."
Kingsley frowns at the desk for a moment, lost in thought, then turns his face back to mine and speaks matter-of-factly.
"The woman that came to you this evening was a Succubus."
He's waiting for my reply with a kind of childish glee. He wants me to feed his scholarly hunger with an outburst of denial, but he ain't gonna have it. The word means little to me.
"I thought they were myth."
"Almost... I had thought them all but faded from the world, but it is the only explanation. Yes, it MUST be so. Only the touch of a Succubus can sear a man's flesh as you've described, only her lust can invade a man deep enough, to result in the reptile encircling your skin. You are indeed lucky Mr. Kane. A Succubus kiss is made for one thing and one thing only; to suck the soul from a man."
I don't like the feel of his explanation. It's raising more damned questions.
"So why am I sitting here? Why ain't I stone cold on my office floor?"
"That is not an answer I can provide, except to say, if you survived her touch it is because she willed it. Perhaps the markings on your back might provide additional insight."
My shirt's already mostly unbuttoned so it takes little effort to get it all the way done, and a couple seconds later I'm standing with my back to the professor, and I'm peeling the stained fabric away from the blood caked gouges in my back.
I can almost feel Kingsley shudder as my shirt comes free, and when he speaks, his voice is shaky with fear, disgust and wonder.
"What is this? This is wrong... all wrong. Necromantic ruins of a sort... yet not like any I've seen. Where would a Succubus learn Old Necromantic? Why would she burn it into your flesh? Is it a curse, a ward, something else? Oh, they are deep, you must be in a great deal of pain Mr. Kane. No! Don't move. I need to copy them, or take an imprint... this is something... new... something impressive. Give me your shirt! That should do. I have a tome, an heirloom of some value, stolen an age ago from a Necromancer King."
He catches the bloody bundle as it sails over the desk, then spreads it out over the wood before him, as I strap my shoulder holster over bare skin and put my jacket back on.
He either doesn't notice the bruises on my ribs and swollen belly, or doesn't care, and I'm grateful either way. He's caught in the blood stained mystery before him. He's lost in the devastation of the Succubus touch and he's mumbling to himself as he runs shaky fingers over it.
"This here... a Mobian symbol, but too much curve in the ascending lines, and here, a Dalgothic rune yet inverted, everything Necromantic in origin - but twisted... the tome."
He turns to the bookcase, almost franticly, and places a hand over a red leather bound volume. His eyes close and his lips let slip words, guttural, ancient, and too low for my ears.
A warm breeze fills the room and suddenly the bookcase isn't a bookcase anymore, but a empty wall with an old fashioned safe in the middle. The old man is too caught up in impending discovery to remember I'm here, and he dials the combination, then throws the grey metal wide open. There's a single tome inside. It's thick and bound with dark leather and a voice in my head is telling me it's human skin.
Kingsley pulls it out with a grunt, then blows dust from it and carries it gingerly back to the table. He places it beside the outstretched shirt, passes a hand over it, and whispers it's name into the shadows surrounding us.
"Necrosiad."
The muscles in my back twitch painfully, as if in disapproval of Kingsley's utterance. Lust tightens on my arm and hisses a warning into my ear, and the Professor looks up as if remembering, for the first time, that he's not alone.
"The book is a trap you see. It's ripe with secrets but it guards them with fervor. It is meant for a line of men of a particularly pure Necromantic bloodline. It is not a place for a man, even as knowledgeable as myself to dwell for long. It is my greatest treasure, and the knowledge that I possess it can never leave this room."
I nod cuz there's nothing else to do, then search the room with my eyes. I got a sense about these things. I smell danger, and I think Lust does too. I'm thinking its squeeze is a warning now, just like it was when Martini's man burst into my room, just like it was when I turned into the alley behind my office. There's a frigid cold settling in around us and the runes in my back are itching. Something's setting them off. Something's making them come alive like a nest of writhing insects deep in my flesh.
I squint and put my hand on my Roscoe. Kingsley looks up at me, his face quizzical, and paler than it should be. The veins on his head are bulging and blue. There's something wicked at work here, something Necromantic, but I don't think he feels it. I don't think he feels anything but the familiar sedition of the Seductress burn.
I got a horrible feeling about the book, and an even worse suspicion.
In my minds eye, the dead men burst into my office, and the Succubusses words echo in my feverish skull.
"I did it for you..."
Did what damnit? What part of what she did was for me?
I'm thinking about the dead men, how they were intent on her, intent on stopping her. They were unarmed, they came to take her, not kill her, but she wouldn't have it.
They took her body from my office, but they didn't drag her. The blood pool was left pristine save a few footprints. They carried her, because their master commanded them to be gentle. There is intent there. There is purpose.
I was put on this path against my will but I'm thinking it wasn't by her, at least not directly. She was doing someone else's bidding, she was filling me with someone else's lies. Yeah, she was a pawn then as much as I am one now, except for one thing, and I'm guessing it's the runes in my back, or the snake on my arm.
Maybe she was meant to burn me with her touch.
Maybe she was meant to leave the clues that would eventually lead me here... or not here specifically... but to where the one thing that could decipher them was. Where the book was.
And I'm here. I'm staring at the thickly bound reason I'm dying, and there, behind Kingsley's whitening visage, the shadow of a face in the gap between the drapes covering the window.
I pull my cannon and aim, but Kingsley stands straight and blocks my view. He looks at me in shock, and then turns as he realizes that I'm intent on something behind him.
Frail arms grab the curtains and throw them wide, despite my shouted warning, and the cold filling the room increases ten fold.
The runes in my back burst into life. The itching becomes a burn, I scream and fall to my knees, and when I pull myself back up, Kingsley is on his back, on the desk, and shuddering.
He holds out a trembling hand and the locket glints bloodstained light into my eyes as he chokes his last words.
"Dara Penance."
He shudder's then goes still, and there in the soft light streaming into the night, an old man and a child.
His face is hawkish and yellow, and he's holding the boy tightly by the wrist. He's mumbling his Mobian curse with a smile, through cracked lips.
I raise my hand to put a bullet in his undying head, but my gun is on the floor.
He raises his free hand in front of him and the tome flies through the window with a crash, as I kneel and reach for my pistol.
A second later, I'm up, aiming, and swearing revenge into the darkness beyond the shattered glass, but they're gone. They've disappeared into the night like ghosts, and I'm alone with the Kingley's corpse.
For a second, I'm tempted to put my gun to my head and end this whole damned mess right here.
Whoever the old Necromancer was, I've played right into his bloodless hands. I've been manipulated like a two bit hood, and the realization of it is almost overwhelming.
Every step I've made since the bitches nails burnt there way into me has been a mistake, and now I'm paying the price, but they've made mistakes too.
They left me alive and they've left me with nothing to lose.
I got an abomination on my back that protects me from their magic and I got a name and a face:
Dara Penance, the Succubus.
I know that name. I know her family and what they are.
I'm done seeking answers. It's time for the killing to start.
User Reviews
Submitted by rubbermaid (user info) at 2009-03-10 09:37:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't read this but I'm not one to fuck up a streak.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-23 19:39:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks Dude! That's awesome but please don't.
I don't want any of my Necrosiac related stories used.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-03-23 16:39:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I have labeled this. this series was entertaining. love you long time.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2006-01-28 15:32:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
working on it...
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-01-25 10:33:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
fucking money.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-01-18 10:28:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
happy now?
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2006-01-17 19:22:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
knew i already read one of these.
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2006-01-12 00:09:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That was awesome. I love your terminology (eg Mobian, Dalgothic). Do these names just come to you or have you read literature that uses such terms?
One thing that puzzled me was that there was dust on the tome. If it was in a safe I would have assumed that was a dust free environment. Unless he put the book away dirty then why would there be dust on it?
Submitted by Falconer (user info) at 2006-01-02 19:07:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
mmm antihero.
This series is really starting to gain momentum; keep at it man!
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-28 19:10:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-12-28 11:22:22 (#)
Ranking: 0
Everything in good time bro.
*******************
Oh, don't get me wrong. I have total faith in you.
Submitted by Clark_Kent (user info) at 2005-12-28 18:57:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I totally agree. Same thing happened here http://www.ubersite.com/m/81643
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-12-28 13:37:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-12-28 11:22:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-28 07:45:18 (#)
Ranking: 2
Very cool. As always, your descriptions and imagery are top-notch.
I hope you're going to explain things a bit more...at the moment the notion that all this was a set up to manipulate Kane into going to this greasy dude's house so they could get this old book is a little thin to me.
====================
Everything in good time bro.
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-12-28 10:53:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
yummy
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2005-12-28 09:49:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-28 07:45:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very cool. As always, your descriptions and imagery are top-notch.
I hope you're going to explain things a bit more...at the moment the notion that all this was a set up to manipulate Kane into going to this greasy dude's house so they could get this old book is a little thin to me.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-12-28 07:39:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Necromantic ruins of a sort...
I think you mean "runes".
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2005-12-28 01:48:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bang-up job.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-12-28 01:47:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fookin' great.
Submitted by Cracked_out_cali (user info) at 2005-12-28 00:39:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking showoff
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2005-12-28 00:10:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Amazing.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-12-27 23:03:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2005-12-27 22:17:01 (#)
Ranking: 2
gotcha.
sorry.
*goes to read earlier posts.
=====================
No worries, thanks for reminding me to link the previous stories.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2005-12-27 22:44:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ah Ha!...now i remember what this site is about
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2005-12-27 22:19:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
<Too happy to comment>
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2005-12-27 22:17:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
gotcha.
sorry.
*goes to read earlier posts.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-12-27 22:14:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Igneous Fall - http://www.ubersite.com/m/79673
Igneous Intent - http://www.ubersite.com/m/79748
Igneous Ngana - http://www.ubersite.com/m/80031
Igneous Interrupted - http://www.ubersite.com/m/80458
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2005-12-27 22:10:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Is this going to be continued?
Also, I like your word usage.