Partner

Two chapters in one day!

The mentioning of Ayato somewhat made sense and I'm playing in the lifetime I mention in here. It is good amounts of fun. This does introduce some oddities, but I did it for what Paw said last. It was a poke and I got a surprising reaction.

And the entire time I thought...

Car sex.

*facepalm* Mik would never be up for car sex unless they were the only ones in the car and I'm not certain I can make that happen. I'm not even certain Mik knows how to drive.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





The elevator doors opened just as Mari slammed the door on the dark coloured car sitting in the parking lot. It was not a program vehicle.

Paw stepped off first, stance of angry something, he made a motion to Mik as he looked about for any threat. Mik frowned and stepped off the elevator, patting Paw’s arm affectionately as Mari approached them.

She was all decked out. Perfectly tailored business suit, black hair pulled back in a tight bun. Not a speck of dirt anywhere.

And every line of her screamed ‘give me a reason to gut you.’

Mik took a step away from the angry woman as she reached up behind her and flicked whatever was holding the bun up. Her long, silky hair dropped to her shoulders and she huffed out.

“Rel’s father come for a visit. He’s dying and rights and privileges and such. So he came for a visit. Hate that…”

“Let it out,” Mik muttered.

“Affore head ‘splodes,” Paw murmured.

Mari huffed out a breath, “he’s dying, in a few weeks it won’t matter what I think of him. He’ll be dead and he will be Ill’s problem, not mine.”

The stairwell door snapped open and Hohi came at them at a full run. The Sidhe skidded to a stop and looked around, chattering all the while. Something had agitated the big male, or more like, someone had and Hohi was looking for them.

“What…”

“Shh…” Paw hissed.

Hohi continued on for a long moment, making wide arm movements and the like, before he stilled, huffed and glared at Mari.

“Rel got beat. Bad. Muan healed him up, but Rel could have died. He’s wondering where the … the father beat the son?” Paw didn’t sound like he believed it.

“Impossible I would have-” something vibrated in Mari’s pocket and she got that look. The look that Mik thought only female Sidhe got when they were proved wrong and some male, somewhere, had proved he was incompetent and should be shot. She answered the phone and walked away as Mik glared at Hohi.

“What were you doing up there? How did you get up there? Were you the one who climbed the side of the building? Do you know how hard it is to explain to window washers why there are finger prints on the side of the building?”

Hohi looked sufficiently guilty as he slunk back to the stairwell. Besides the guilty look, he gave no sign of having heard Mik at all.

Mari returned a moment later, phone still in hand, pissed look on her face, “cameras went off, when they came back up, Rel was a bloody mess. They did, however, catch Muan healing Rel faster than any work Essuan has ever done. Three days to emancipation and we’re getting ass raped by the government to hand Muan over. I’m telling them no, foot down, however…”

When Mari didn’t continue on, Mik said, “however…?”

Mari huffed out, “his father asked me to keep others from knowing Rel’s secret. I told him that homosexuality is not a secret and he said that with power comes the homosexuality, a tainted evil that he didn’t want … get this… marring the LeAniege line.”

“Well I suspected Rel has power,” Mik muttered.

“I knew,” Paw murmured quietly, lowering his head just slightly, as if expecting a rebuke.

Mik shrugged and Paw copied Mik as Mari’s mouth dropped open.

“So he has power, why does it matter?” Mik walked up to the program car as it pulled to a stop and opened the door for Mari, “Is Ayato the only Aniege allowed to have power?”

“No,” Mari slid into the car and Paw and Mik followed close behind her, “however, no Aniege has had power in… well, we will be talking about that once we get to the building. But if the Aniege has power, then he is now the Aniege instead of an Aniege. Everyone will call him the Aniege if it hits media. Wars start over those who have been called the Aniege, Mik. Wars. They are the key to change, if only because everyone else is so power hungry that they try to control the Aniege and end up killing themselves.”

Paw perked up at the word key.

The car pulled out of the underground parking lot and off towards the program building.

The ride involved a long debate as to whether people were really as stupid as Mari claimed they were. As they pulled into the program building, their debate calmed a bit. They moved to the elevator and up to one of the meeting rooms. Long and wide, it held all of the partners. At one end was a wide screen, a projector was attached to the ceiling.

Mari motioned for them to sit in the front row. Mik and Paw sat obediently beside Koln and Taln. Taln had a bit of a glazed sort of look in his eyes and a small smile on his face.

A flick of Mari’s fingers and the lights dimmed, the projector lit up the wall.

“This,” a picture popped up, “is Amados.”

Amados’s image was a painted, formal portrait of a lord. He wore tailored clothing and a gold medal about his neck. High cheekbones, straight back. Black hair and green eyes and …

There was something about the curve of the jaw that reminded Mik of Rel.

“Aniege?”

“No. At least, not proved to be an Aniege. Amados and his line had a very rare commodity, the land that Cayallista sat upon. After the territorial wars, after the gods ‘returned’ and Illuva became a full fledged god, this family found themselves as unofficial owners of the land. To keep it from the Life line, his ancestor, Amdien, cemented the relationship between Cayallista and themselves. Each generation, the children, those who might be heir to the title of lordship, would go to Cayallista for a year and a half.

“Amados’ father, Amn, was a notorious pervert. He raped children, he raped men, women, no one could really stop him without knowing the location of Cayallista and Cayallista was afraid to react.”

“So… how is Amados special?” Mik asked, “his father-”

“Was executed three hundred and seventy nine years ago when Amados was given reign for a month, it is tradition. By tradition Amados can pass one law and only one law and that is only if he has the votes of every lord within his land. What Amn didn’t count on was that those who were voting were all his victims. Amados put it to the council to execute Amn on the matter of rape, murder, torture and all around bad behaviour, and the council voted unanimously without discussion.

“Amados then ruled for seventy years, giving the land over to his granddaughter and leaving off the traditions his father had so abused, he freed Cayallista and shortly after, Cayallista was abandoned. Until recently, no one knew.

“Two months ago Amados’ tomb was found,” Mari flicked another button, “with fourteen journals and various tomes all in a code. We’ve cracked the code.” another flick, “The first line of the first entry reads:

Cousin taught me a unique writing system today, that he says will not be
understandable by any, at least no one in living memory. Father called him
crazy but no one can talk about love without sounding at least somewhat crazy.

“Amados wasn’t talking about the emotion, love. Amados took a wife and had three children by her but it was rumoured that he had a… lover on the side. Male. It was also rumoured that he had Aniege blood, he had power and that his lover was either Sidhe or shadow daemon.”

“Okay, nice history lesson,” Koln murmured, “where do we come in?”

“There were two sets of bones in the tomb,” Mari flicked her little remote and an image of both sets of bones came up, “one is obviously an elder male, the other, we are fairly certain it is male. Taller than the people, would have been wider at the shoulders, but narrower than Amdos at the hips. Several key attributes on the skeleton tell us it is not people. After studying the Sidhe, we’re fairly certain it isn’t Sidhe, either. Nor does it match any skeletal structure of any previous race on the planet. Clutched in his hands was,” a flick and a dark grey metal amulet, “it’s called star metal, Sidhe metal, weapon of the gods, many things. It is the only thing through myth that supposedly can kill a shadow daemon. It’s mere presence renders them powerless and thus, the Sidhe have never been bothered by them.”

Mari stopped speaking and looked pointedly at Paw. The Sidhe considered the image on the screen for a long moment before looking to Mari.

“Shadow daemon are real. So?” Paw shrugged, “Amdos is not familiar. No Sidhe near Cayallista during that time. Illuva asked none to be there and so none were. Free life, good life. Ayato did the gods a great service and so Rahl-ta decreed that he should live a pleasant life. Good family, good friends. Sidhe bring out the worst in people with dark souls. So. Stay away she said. Amdos owns land,” Paw shrugged again, “oh well, means not much. If Amdos was Ayato’s cousin then it is possible that he met a shadow daemon or twenty. His father was bad stuff, was in Ayato’s life, Rahl-ta kept daemon on Ayato at all times. Always ready for…” Paw made a motion that meant sex, “and to protect. What has this got to do with…”

Mari flicked her little button and an excavation site popped up, “the lines have declared that there is an airborne virus leaking from a body found here. Ravya, myth and legend tells us it was the site of an epic battle and… well it was. The first two years of excavation they recovered people bones, bits of armour. The such. A week ago they uncovered this.”

Whatever the hell the skeleton belonged to. It wasn’t people. Or Sidhe. It hardly looked humanoid. Spikes of bone came out of the skull, arching upward in a crown as the head turned almost cone shaped upward. The arms were too long, the legs too long, spikes came out of the shoulders, had obviously been filed down on the hips. Hands ended in claws and a mouth full of row after row of teeth.

“Oh,” Mik cocked his head to the side, “what was that one called. Eb… ebi…”

“Ebyansh, oldest daemon around, Shey-har’s first attempt at people bore it for the first generation. He was said to have been killed…” Koln trailed off as he thought. “Fighting as general to a daemonic army. But I’m sure there were several daemon that looked like that.”

“The lines are in an uproar and you two are calmly deciding this is a daemon?” Mari asked quietly, “why?”

“Why not?” Mik asked, “we’ve got the Sidhe and power and Whisper and gods. Why not daemon?”

“Why, if there are daemon, are there not daemonic remains at other archaeological sites?”

“Uhm. Because,” Taln still had that dazed look on his face, “the daemon are consigned to the seventeen levels of hell. If one of them dies, they take the body back there for burial or some such.”

“Why are you dazed?” Mari snapped at him, “have you been taking something?”

Taln got a silly grin on his face. The mental image popped into Mik’s head and he tried very hard to scrub it from his mind.

“So,” Mik had to change the subject, had to, “we have daemon bodies. Could cause mass hysteria. Or. We could bait the Aniege group with it. All conspiracy stuff and ambush them.”

“Clever,” Mari said to Mik, “considering they had nothing to do with the Valeasans getting nanotechnology.” a flick of her finger and it was back to Amdos, “Amdos was the last lord with power, if his cousin was Ayato, then it would be the last life of Ayato. The last time the gods were involved in us. It was the last war before the lands aligned, it was the last mention of Rava in history, the last time Una was sighted. And that last part is the one we’re looking at. Una sleeps for three hundred to four hundred years and while he sleeps, the gods are inactive. We’re right about the time for him to wake up.”

“And we, the partners care because?”

“Old man’s waking up!” Paw squealed and clapped his hands excitedly before he caught himself and smoothed out his shirt.

“The Sidhe absolutely love Una.”

.