Chapter 572 - Tying up loose ends.

“Lord Domini.”

“Red, come in! Make yourself at home.”

John winced at the greeting but didn’t hesitate to take the hand of the exquisitely handsome ageless man dressed in a shimmering white toga that John knew was enchanted to ward any blow. His employer possessed the mien of a young scion of a bygone era, the sleekly powerful frame of eternal youth, and the eyes of a jaded Contender.

Breaking off the uncomfortable measuring gaze long enough to drop to one knee and press ring finger to temple, John received a clap on the shoulder and a gentle tug back to his feet as a young woman dressed in sheerest silks bowed before John. He found himself with a bowl of figs and dates and a glass of rich red wine in hand as they entered a domain of rich perfumes, music, dancing, and opulent splendor, the air thick with the scents of hashish and poppy and sounds of revelry and laughter.

“Excuse the party, Red. There’s a birthday. And seeing as my manor’s the most opulent…”

“Of course, sir.”

“Come on up stairs. I think we need to have a little chat with Tory and Sing.”

John couldn’t help but flash a hard smile. “So, we know who sponsored that particular stomper.”

Domini snorted. “Know? Of course I know. I’m the one who establishes clan contacts with everyone of importance.” His gaze hardened. “This should have been brought to my attention from the start, but never mind that. We have a call to make, old friend. And my associates have some very pointed questions to answer.”

John’s lips curved in hard satisfaction as he made himself comfortable on the padded leather chair across from Domini’s own as the man he had admired and fought beside for decades picked up a call and asked some very pointed questions.

Yet his smile was strained by the time the call was done.

For long seconds, Domini peered thoughtfully at his old employee and friend. “What do you think?”

John sighed. “I think I need to head to the cannery and question those stompers myself.”

Domini smirked. “Agreed. Come on, we’ll take my levi.”

John blinked at that. “Sir, I wouldn’t want to trouble you in the middle of…”

Domini snorted. “What, this farce of a party? Ha. As if my cousins or their brats had any idea what sybaritic delights a real party entailed! No, let them enjoy their tame little evening and think its memory worth savoring. I, for one, am eager to see how a Terran boy managed to intimidate a whole cannery’s worth of stompers, aren’t you?”

John winced. “Sir… yes sir.”

For some reason, his hesitancy earned a chuckle from his employer, who managed to change from robe to fully kitted lorica segmentata radiating fearsomely powerful enhancements just as impressively fast as 600 Quickness and Finesse would allow.

“Hesitating, Red? That afraid to find out just how fierce a kitten you’re now sharing your home with?”

The man smirked at John’s expression as they made their way to Domini’s souped-up levi. “Domesticity has definitely sunk her claws deep into you, old friend. Aren’t you curious to see what your boy might be capable of? His world is in play, after all.” Domini gave his old employee a goading smile. “There was a time, not that long ago, when you would have been chomping at the bit to sign up for the Earth incursion, with the bounties that the Bloodtear Syndicate was offering. But you and half the corp just had to go and get married and settle down. Ha!”

Domini frowned, rubbing his temple even as he tore along the boulevard, earning a curious look from John.

“Bloodtear Syndicate, sir?”

“Never mind, Red. Just… never mind.”

“Of course, sir.”

“So, how are Hanna and the kids?”

John’s tension eased into a warm smile. “Hanna’s a bit tired these days, but she’s never been happier, with three war orphans to nurture and open our home to.”

Domini gave a gentle chuckle. “I still can’t believe how much you’ve changed, Red. You were once my fiercest hound. But then you met a wounded dove and she melted your heart.”

John winced. “I don’t know if I’d describe it like that, precisely…”

“Oh, I would,” Domini dryly said as he whipped past a dozen vehicles driven by mortals all honking their horns or shouting at the vehicle darting past them so abruptly. “The day you called me to say, well… you know what the hell you said. I won’t pain us both, repeating that dribble. But suddenly you’re a happy father-to-be and even I couldn’t deny that you’d earned the right to settle down. Hell, settle down and be happy for a few decades! You and half my crew, growing a conscience and falling in love after a few chance encounters… a few bad dreams.”

John stiffened in his seat as the lights from nearby buildings whipped by them, ignoring the screams he could almost hear in the back of his head.

“It’s been an honor to serve you all these years, Lord Domini.”

“Of course it has.” His boss waved the words away. “And hell, you were right. I thought Marcie would just be a pleasant distraction while our corp spent a year here, hiding from Lord Song on my ancestral lands, because that bastard is never happy to have his contracts turned down. Yet here I am, married to my former employee, making sure that the twins are asleep before the rest of their idiotic clan wakes them up with that party.” He chuckled at his own expense. “Never thought I’d be a father...or at least stick around. But Marcie and the twins make it easy.”

“That they do, sir.”

“So, you think you’ll be chomping at the bit for fresh adventure in twenty years? Maybe we’ll have another go at racing up the ranks, maybe hitting Silver one day?”

John forced a smile. “Maybe one day, sir.”

Domini snorted. “Sure, you will, Red. When I brought it up with Marcie last month, the look in her eyes… and now she tells me she’s pregnant again.”

“Congratulations, sir!”

His boss chuckled. “I think we’re stuck here, Red.”

“Could be, sir.”

“Worse places to be.”

“Definitely, sir.”

“We could be dead.”

John winced at that. “I have nightmares about that every night, sir.”

“Yeah… me too. You ever feel like we just barely got out by the skin of our teeth?”

John laughed at that just a bit too long. “Every day when I hold my wife, sir.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

***

“Lord Domini! It is an honor to host you,” declared the deferential woman dressed in silk kimono, her hair done up with silver and jade pins. “Mr. Tory will see you immediately.”

This earned a cool smile, but Lord Domini was clearly willing to let the true mastermind play at being geisha, though John kept his eyes open, just as he openly carried his sigil-enhanced Deathblaze III, working quite well here, in the low Qi density docks.

He didn’t even take pleasure in the way the occasional stomper flinched and looked away. If anything, he felt a twinge of what might have been guilt when he thought of his old self, and the dark glories he had once embraced.

But that didn’t matter.

The past was in the past, and he liked the present version of himself so much more. And like his wife always said, it was the present version of John that she cherished and worried about, not the wild mercenary called Red who they had gently let slip away, years ago.

But when it came to facing trouble head on… when it came to protecting his family, he was Red through and through. His stare hard and cold, no one even daring to meet his gaze.

Not even Malcolm Tory.

“Honored clients, it’s awfully late! But never mind that. How may this one serve you, today?”

Domini, surprisingly, dipped his head John’s way as they stared at the nominal head of the stomper organization who was just now getting up from his table to greet them, hand half-raised to shake their own.

But Domini’s smirk that a less charitable individual might have called a sneer, and the way John held his Deathblaze, a man clearly ready to clean house, had Malcom stepping back, lowering his hand with a swallow he transformed into a graceful bow.

“Of course we are honored to have you both, whatever the reason. Sing, if you would bring our guests refreshments?”

“At once, Master Tory.”

John clenched his jaw, feeling the old hot hate welling up in his heart, just like old times.

Bitter times.

Sweet times.

“So. I understand you received a contract on my foster son.”

Tory flinched and lowered his gaze. “I… yes. A most regrettable understanding, it seems.”

The slightest nod from Lord Domini, and John understood that he had free reign to do whatever he wished. To take things just as far as he wanted them to go.

John casually approached the man empty-handed, his blaster rifle now in his boss’s masterful grip. “I think we should start from the beginning, don’t you?”

Tory flinched and paled when John let Red fully out. He never quite understood what cultivators meant by ‘killing aura,’ but certainly there was fear in Tory’s eyes when John leaned over the man.

“So start talking.”

Tory lurched back. “Look, it was just a standard meet and greet contract. I swear it! All my men were supposed to do was encourage the boy to switch majors. That’s all!”

John stiffened at those words. “You said men.”

“That’s right. Standard squad.”

John ground his teeth. “A full squad, in Westwind’s revered halls. Full of children.”

Tory paled. “Everyone was dressed professionally. No one not involved had a clue what was going down!”

“Four men sent to intimidate a sixteen year old boy.”

Tory blinked. “That’s how old he is?”

“How fucking old did you think he was? You cornered him in a school! How many fucking rules of engagement did you break with that bullshit alone?”

Red snarled, hands acting of their own accord as he grabbed and shook his target, glaring at the powerfully built man who’s strength and attempt to resist had earned him nothing but a scream and a bruised jaw, now trembling in Red’s tight grip.

Then he turned his gaze to the window he coldly dragged the man to.

“No, please, man. It’s not like that!” Tory frantically begged. “Nothing happened! Hell, that kid got the best of us!”

Of course, that was when he acted, meek fear turning to a furious scowl as he struggled to escape, but not before ramming his shiv in Red’s—“No, please!”

Red froze, right hand having already caught the holdout dagger that Tory had actually thought he had a chance of stabbing Red with in his panic. And now Red was just a hairsbreadth from shattering Tory’s forearm to kindling and throwing him right out the window.

“What the hell do you mean, he got the best of you?”

Tory’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, you don’t know?” He gave a short, tinny laugh. “You have no idea, do you? No fucking idea about the fucking monster you let into your house… NO!”

His voice cut off in a scream when Red SQUEEZED the fucker’s forearm, and was rewarded with the sharp crack of bone as the dagger dropped to the floor.

Domini’s soft chuckle filled the room. “Good to have you back, Red.”

“What the FUCK are you talking about?” Red snarled, before slamming the ridge of his forehead against Tory’s nose, the man screaming when cartilage shattered, blood and teeth spattering the space between them.

“He killed him!” Tory screamed through broken teeth, wild terrified eyes meeting John’s own. “He fucking killed him!”

John froze, then slammed Tory down in a shuddering heap beside the window he damn well had every intention of throwing the fucker through, if that was what it took to neutralize the threat...or intimidate him so badly that John’s family never need worry about this particular band of stompers again.

John glared down at the man. “Quit blubbering like a bitch and talk. What the fuck are you going on about?”

“Your boy, Eric Carpenter! He comes in here wearing nothing but blue pants with a fucking mithril blade at his hip, and my man’s head in his hand!”

John blinked at this, thoughts stuttering oddly as Domini roared with laughter.

“Oh, I think I want to meet your foster boy, John. Sounds a fuck ton more interesting than most of the sops around here.”

“Why… he came here?”

The air filled with Tory’s terrified laughter. “Yes! He actually let himself be dragged here by my men. And those fools thought they were in control. The idiots! He was a cat letting the mice lead him right to our nest!”

John blinked, still trying to process the shocking accusation with the good-natured boy who clearly cared for all three of his sisters, and did the dishes every night. Because he had lost a bet with Louise. A bet he had deliberately thrown, just so she could laugh and feel like a winner, when he could so easily have shown her up. And the tender look of concern he had for Hanna… the woman John loved so fiercely.

The woman Eric gazed at like his own son used to gaze at Hanna before he had been lost to them.

John glared at the man trembling before him. “I think you’re full of shit. Why the hell would Eric even bother coming here into the heart of a threatening faction, like a complete idiot?” John coldly shook his head. “I’m not buying it.”

“Honored Domini associate, please, everything Malcom told you is true!” Pled Meriam Sing, dragging a trio of pale-faced men before her. Stompers who looked like they wanted to be anywhere, save right where they were… and one of the three was holding in trembling hands a box John really, really didn’t want to open.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see what’s in the box!” Domini cheerfully enthused.

Meriam Sing straightened up. John suppressed a wince at the awful pain he saw in her eyes when she gazed upon the broken form of Malcom Tory.

Her pawn. Her lover. Cradling broken forearm and face.

Her look of horror became one of instant composure as she curtseyed once more.

“My underlings will of course make a full report, for your pleasure.”

And they did.

John was forced to hear from the bumbling fools how they thought that their assignment would amount to no more than gently coaxing a silly boy to shift to a theater and communications major, where he’d no doubt be far happier… pretty and charming as he was purported to be. They didn’t even think they’d be going in with anything harder than smiles.

That was, at least until the boy gazed at them with alien, mocking eyes. All but daring them to put him in his place. And just the faintest bit of pressure… and suddenly they were all tripping like fools, hurtling out of the second story window!

“Let me get this straight,” a disbelieving John said to the trio of fallen fools. “Experts like yourselves, veterans of multiple melee engagements by your own words, go from intimidation to falling out a window, to giving my boy a lift in your levi, taking him right to this very cannery, and somehow its you all that’s locked in the cage and Eric’s holding the keys and laughing at you!?”

The largest of the men who, for some reason, looked like he should be named Sausage with his bloated beefy build and sausage-like fingers, quickly nodded. “And that’s when he took Ku’s head!"

John glared at the thug. “That’s when who took who’s head?”

The man’s glare was equal parts outrage and terror. “That’s when Ku went from talking shit to spurting blood from the stump of his neck and the psychopathic freak was gone—ow!”

The air rang with the crack of Red’s fist smashing in Sausage’s teeth.

Red glared down at the oversized body cultivator whimpering as he gathered his broken teeth.

“You want to try that again, Sausage?”

Sausage crumpled into a terrified ball.

For some reason, the other two were gazing at Red in genuine horror.

“What?”

“That’s what he called him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

The largest of the quartet, clearly a Tubbs, whimpered. “Your boy called Guong Sai ‘Sausage!’ all the time. Taunting him with it! Before he cut off Ku’s head.”

John took a shuddering breath, bloody fists clenched tight, struggling for control.

“You assholes still haven’t given me a good reason to believe that my boy would take any of your heads. Though I might take all your fucking heads, if you don’t quit giving me bullshit!”

Red pointedly ignored the wild mirth he saw in his employer’s twinkling eyes.

Tubbs blanched, gazing at Red with unmistakable horror.

Red’s nostrils flared, old long dormant perks flaring to sudden life as he darted low like a serpent, yanking the man’s arm behind his back as he slammed him into the wall, vibroblade against the man’s kidney. “You’re hiding something from me. I don’t like it when shithead punks think they can HIDE ANYTHING FROM ME! ARE WE CLEAR, TUBBS?”

“Please! I’ll tell you anything, anything! Please don’t kill me!”

“What are you HIDING?”

“Ku said he was coming for your daughter! He said he’d… deal with her, even if your son played nice and apologized! Even if our guild was satisfied, even if your son left school entirely, Ku would still make you all pay for humiliating him!” Tubbs sobbed, shuddering with his confession. “But he didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean any of it! It was just hot air!”

Red took a shuddering breath and stepped back, letting the man collapse in a heap. “This… Ku. He… he threatened to hurt my daughter?”

The blood was pounding in his head so loud that he hardly heard the whimpered affirmation. Or Domini’s cold snort.

“Wake up, Red. You know he wouldn’t have stopped there. It would have been just like Cilon Prime, all over again.”

Red’s fists clenched, mind inundated with remembered screams, and so many bodies. An orgy of pitiless slaughter that he really didn’t want to remember at all. Not ever.

“Where is he?”

The air grew thick with sudden awful tension when Meriam Sing dove for the box.

Just a heartbeat before Red reflexively disemboweled a moving threat in his hyper-vigilant, hyper-furious state, she revealed what could only be Ku.

Or, more accurately, Ku’s head.

Perfectly preserved.

Eyes gyrating widly.

Mouth wide open.

Gasping for air that would never come.

Meriam then revealed his forehead… covered in blazing crimson runes.

Red’s fury became a look of horrified dismay. “The head. That.. that’s Ku’s head?”

Meriam’s eyes glittered. “Yes! His soul, locked inside his skull in eternal torment. This was the price he paid for daring to piss off your boy!”

Tory sobbed. “He smiled like a madman. He made it clear that would be all our fates, if we ever moved against your family again. And we won’t. We swear it! Just like we swore to him!”

Domini whistled. “Impressive bit of necromancy, there.”

John’s gut clenched with those words.

A single glance with his old friend, and they both knew how this night had to end.

“No, Meriam,” Red quietly said, calmly taking his blaster back from Domini. “That’s the price Ku paid for daring to threaten my daughter. For daring to come after my family. And yes, I agree. My boy made a major mistake, when he took Ku’s head.”

Meriam’s eyes flared with sudden heat, fear replaced with fire, when she saw the regretful look in John’s eyes. “You’re damn right, he did.” She crossed her arms. “Contenders are forbidden, this early in the season, and restitution must be paid!”

“You’re right. It must.”

She flinched before Red’s cold, pitiless gaze.

“And what mistake did your beautiful boy make, Red?” Domini queried with a chuckle.

“Never leave an enemy at your back.”

Red glared at Meriam who was stumbling back with a look of horrified dismay. Her wounded henchmen gazed on with wide, disbelieving eyes, as if unable to comprehend how this night would inevitably end.

“No, please, you don’t have to—we can sign an exclusive contract!” Meriam sobbed, visible tears in her eyes. “We’ll work to serve you and your clan without reservation, we’ll swear cultivator’s oaths—”

Red coldly shook his head as the air filled with screams and plasma fire.

“You threatened my family. Now you pay the price.”

*

“There was no other way,” Domini quietly said as they drove off, the midnight sky lit by the roaring inferno left behind them.

“I know,” John said, voice far more ragged than it should have been as he glared down at his own trembling hands.

“There was no way they didn’t have tapes of that head, John. And we both know that necromancy is a death sentence, here.”

John silently nodded.

“On the plus side, there’s no way they’d actually be stupid enough to risk those tapes falling out of their hands, so they stored the evidence on site. Still, those fools were playing with fire. And not the kind that’s now incinerating their cannery! The minute they tried to maneuver that evidence—the instant a Highland Inquisitor caught wind of their game—crucifixion would be the least of their torments. And anyone and everyone they ever associated with would also be paying a similar price.”

John sighed. “You’re right, boss.”

“Mix, Red. Nights like this, call me Mix. Just like old times.”

John helplessly clenched his fists, blaster rifle already stored away. “The boy’s belt. Any leather he might have on him…”

“Don’t worry about it. Enchanted leather, even shit radiating some pretty dark magics, can be classified as a classer’s crafting skills. And hell, some of that stuff is so fine that there is no match, not even topside, from what I hear. And the elites upstairs do like their crafted treasures.” Mix sighed, shaking his head. “It was the silently screaming head that would have been all our doom. Not a fucking leather belt.”

John winced. “Good. Because I really don’t want to have this conversation with Eric.”

“The don’t.” Lord Domini smirked at the incredulous look this earned him. “What? Hell, you could argue that he did everything right! Once the assholes made it clear that your daughter would pay the price if Eric didn’t play ball, he joined their little farce of a crew back to base and had a long talk with those conniving cowards. He took out the one ‘I will fuck you over and kill your sister, no matter what you do,’ threat, and thought he could play nice with the rest of the team. Kid’s practically a boy scout. Especially compared to veteran assholes like us. It just needs to be made damn clear that necromancy’s absolutely forbidden, here.”

“Unless it’s mimicking crafting skills,” John said with a bitter chuckle. “What a fucked up world we live in.”

“Isn’t it? Same as the entire universe below us that my clan still calls the underworld. Oh, interesting factoid popped up on my radar, the other day. Did you know that necromancy’s no longer banned, down-low?”

John blinked at that. “No kidding.”

“Not a bit! It’s now forbidden to kill practitioners, no matter their supposed crimes. But any sovereign can demand their exile for free, and an imperial convoy will personally pick them up to serve in the Imperial Legions. Crazy, huh? Rumor has it that our lovely empress below is actually using Elite Necromancers and an entire legion of flying revenants to help seal some of the galactic rifts that really do lead to hell. But that shit’s just rumor. Still, if the golden ones up high aren’t careful, they really will be importing some Contender Necromancers from our old haunts, next gauntlet. So that’s something to look forward to, right?”

Mix roared with laughter at the look his old friend was giving him.

“Oh, the look on your face!”

John sighed. “What a fucking night.”

“Isn’t it? But at least it’s over. Now let’s go home and get some sleep, Red. We’ll hold our wives, and by tomorrow morning…”

“Tonight will have never happened.”

Mix winked. “Just like old times—what the fuck is that?”

The levi came to a complete stop.

John blinked and stared at the massive billboard, as speechless as his old friend.

“So. That’s your boy, huh?”

John just stared at the picture of the fierce-looking youth with piercing blue eyes and golden locks whipping about in an unseen storm, wearing blue jeans and a designer shirt and vest, of all things.

Of course, what really caught his eye was the dachi covered in flames the exact same hue as the sigils that had blazed upon Ku’s skull that his foster son held in one hand, with Rachel Domini wrapped in his other arm, the girl gazing up at him with wide, adoring eyes with the head of a Black Sea spirit beast at their feet.

“Legendware. For the hero in all of us.”

Domini snorted. “Catchy. So this is what my niece was so giddy about working on in secret, devoting clan resources to her new clothing line.”

John said nothing, just staring at the picture in dazed disbelief. “He’s not hiding shit!”

“Nope!” Domini cheerfully agreed. “Your boy couldn’t look more a wild Contender if he tried. And is it just me, or is that the body of a fallen kraken in the background of what can only be the Black Sea Coven’s deep sea rig?”

John groaned, rubbing his face with his tired hands.

Mix began to chortle. “The very fucking kraken that’s been worrying the local highland sects to the point that they let loose their pet Inquisitor, your wife’s former girlfriend, to interrogate half the fucking city. My, your boy does get around, doesn’t he? And he even brought my niece along for the ride!”