last gambit

jeremiah tsked. “i do not have time for your games. by the constraints of the circle, the points on the pentacle, and the chain of runes, i am your master. you will obey my will.”

the games he played, tickling formality like an old tune off the ivories. it was still satisfying to hear himself say it, he found. he was glad.

but when he moved his lips to speak his charge, he found himself unable to draw breath. he stood inside his pentacle like a stupid fish drying on a pier. he knew what he wanted--he wanted to rip the entrails from every last one of those awful beings--but he had to be more specific than that. he found that he didn’t know where to start, and it had rendered him speechless. and his silence bred fear.

he stared at the shifting form--like some monster poking and prodding from under a blanket--and the whites of his eyes shone dimly in the dark.

XAVI i dont know if those words are customary or if nathaniel was just feelin poetic but i put em in anyway flies into the sun

“you’re to obey,” he repeated, almost disbelievingly. “me.” the word was spat out like old gum, a word that had been chewed and sucked and popped for too long and subsequently lost its sugar. it had always been about him.

his hands found their way to his head, his nails to his scalp, points to his skin. how did he get here?

the tip had been from some informant--he couldn’t be bothered to remember who anymore, only how it felt when he found out: fingers the colour and consistency of talcum powder wrapping around his neck--whose loyalty was dubious at best if the lingering echo of their giggle was anything to judge by. had he been a fool? had he been so quick to believe the rows of teeth that he hadn’t noticed the lie between them?

there was no time to dwell on it now, if it was true. they could be here any minute now. they could be outside, tearing down his barriers like so much cobweb.

“you--you remember that. you h-have to listen to every word. tell me your name!” he flinched at the volume of his own words.

XAVI

“you cannot think i am so stupid as to give you my name,” he spits, and the magician, unthinking, slaps away the hands that found their way to his face, feather-soft and light, a tenderness he’s never known. he falls to the floor like a bag of sticks. he’ll come away with a bruise, a small voice notes, but jeremiah’s never been concerned with what people can’t see. what he sees is a monster peeling the layers of his dignity strip by strip, on the tips of black lacquer claws. “away, get away!”

he doesn’t see that his fingers have breached the boundary of his protective circle.

XAVI this child smh

“y-you . . .” he begins, but he’s unable to precisely articulate the nail-hammering train wreck that are his thoughts throwing freight cars against the sides of his skull. he can’t seem to find himself a way out of the whirlwind.

instead, he digs his nails into whatever purchase he can find on the djinn’s corporeal figure, cradled like a child. he’s a veritable mess; somewhere inside, he knows this, and hatred surges within him like a lighthouse lost in the fog of animal, hind-kicking fear.

he says, “i just want them to leave me alone.”

XAVI