"You are the one known as Lord Puppy, I presume?" The man at the door had a voice that was chilly but not cold. Like a cold hand warmly caressing your spine.
Weird.
They all had left the horrifying people who had horrifying things done to them in the inner apartment while Merrick had gone to see what the bloodsucker at the front door wanted. Left the wonderful pile of loved ones and home and family to... be here. At the request of another vampire. Ines assured them she tried to send him away, but he insisted he was here under orders and couldn't leave without delivering his package. He also said that outright killing him, as Max had suggested, would probably bring the Conclave's negative attention to them.
Merrick decided to just see what he wanted so the vamp would leave. He was getting kind of tired of vampires, in general. He rarely ran into them before, and now it seemed that if you threw a rock, three would scurry out from under it. Maybe not-- maybe he was exaggerating. But it seemed his last day or so had a definite theme. That he didn't like.
He had planned on going by himself to rid them of the visitor but was followed by everyone present in the apartment, plus Hugo. Only Em and Thom didn't come all the way to the door, but he could hear them whispering to each other from the interior door further inside the mound.
The elder vampire standing on the abandoned shop door's stoop was trying to look as if he were above it all, in all his aloof magnificence or something probably grandiose and stupid like that, but his eyes kept drifting from Merrick to Max who was hovering over his shoulder in his surgeon body, complete with threatening, outstretched wings and Miles around his neck, over to the dark elves glaring at the vampire viciously, glancing to Hugo sizing him up, back to Merrick, and then back to Max.
No one invited him in.
"That's me. What can I do to... uh?" Merrick searched his vocabulary frantically for a way to say "Get You To Please Fuck Off" pleasantly but came up wanting. "What did you want?" Merrick knew he-- and the vampire for that matter-- wasn't the biggest threat in the vicinity so he didn't even try to pretend that he was.
The vampire's eyes lit with amusement but the rest of his face did not change. His roving eyes didn't stray from Merrick after he spoke.
At first glance, Merrick thought this guy was feeding into every stereotype someone could have for vampires. Pale, wearing a big black hood blocking the sun, long dark hair, dark eyes. Stoic and sharp features. Pretty, but he was surrounded by elves all day every day, so nothing to turn his head. Then Merrick considered how old this guy probably was, just based on his smell-- old blood and earth. His voice was like grinding stones. Someone out there, somewhere, would describe him as a macabre beauty.
The stereotypes were probably based on him. Just dandy.
"My progenitor wanted me to deliver this to you." He handed Merrick the box. It had a big red bow. There was a card on top. Merrick's eyes narrowed as he laid the box on the floor and pulled the card out from the envelope.
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My Dearest Bride,
As a gift in exchange for the hundred flavors you have given me, I give you the head and heart of the one who threatened you. Tell the child at the door if you want more and he will deliver them. I will gladly feed you a hundred sanguinas in return, if you but return to me. I was serious when I said I wanted to know my brides.
Remember your word that you would visit me soon.
Tell the alien, that should side effects happen, to come to me before control is lost.
Your princess who is ever Waiting patiently,
Aldred, Herald of Blood, Terror of the North Slopes
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He handed the note over his shoulder to Max and glanced at the elder before opening the box. The bow was extravagant and yards and yards of extraneous ribbon long, all tied by an expert hand. Inside of an ornate and heavy wooden box was the snapping head of a female vampire and her still-beating heart. Her eyes were spinning around in anger, spitting the words of condemnation and threats she had no breath to say with her mouth.
Max shouldered Merrick out of the way. Not rudely, but more like Max was overcome with his curiosity and couldn't help himself. "You'd figure that beheading would have killed her. Beheading is usually good enough to kill most things..." His voice trailed off in thought. "How do you kill them if they can survive that, then?" Max mumbled. He held a hand over her snapping head and cast something at it. The head stopped moving and the heart stopped beating. The eyes closed. "Oh, never mind. It's just an animation curse with a nasty soul tie to it. Yeesh. I guess that's how." Max shook his hand off like something unpleasant had touched it, said "fucking gross," and looked at the now extremely uncomfortable-looking elder at the door. Max asked what Merrick should have wondered when he opened the envelope, "So, he's realized that we didn't restrict communication. Is your dad liking his cell?"
"He does." The elder had a half grin on his face.
Max's blue eyes narrowed and his wings trembled in a poorly subdued threat display. "Are any of his children going to try to rescue him any time soon?"
The elder's face lit up with a happy grin. "He was very clear that he would kill us all to the last if we did."
"Good." Max looked at Merrick and then his eyes drifted to the ceiling. "Do you know why your sanguina here would fill her blood slaves with beating hearts and metal nails?"
The elder's smile fell flat and his eyes narrowed in question. "Sounds like forbidden magic, but I could only guess. And my guesses wouldn't be good." The elder also added, "She's not my sanguina. She's not any of ours. Her maker died years ago. He went on a rogue spree of siring and was put down, but it seems as if we missed some of his leavings."
Max looked back at the man in black. He stepped closer to the door. "So, if I put a nasty curse on her bloodline going one generation up and one lower, what consequences, if any, would my mound face? Her stable hands threatened my Scion. I have the right of retribution." Max stared directly at the elder, looking down at the scary man who would have terrified Merrick if he didn't know Max. As it was, Max was a half-head taller than the vampire and, not counting the wingspan, was much broader and just a little paler due to his current blue tint. Max's magic was like a living aura of both threat and protection. "Conclave law says I could declare a war, you know." Max faintly smiled.
"As the first infraction was not made by you, you'd be within your right as a Lord to defend yourself and your progeny..." The vampire trailed off and took a breath through his nose, "I mean, Scion. The law is clear on that." Eyes full of troubling questions, the vampire looked at the box that was starting to ooze a mixture of smells and a bile-like substance out of the bottom. "What did you do to kill her so quickly?"
Max shrugged as if the question bored him."I decursed her and untethered her spirit. Any middling witch worth his salt should know how." Max was staring at the ceiling again as if his mind had already left the room. "Ines, be a peach and clean up the puddle for me, yeah? I'm going to..." He turned to walk out, but stopped midsentence, "Wait." Max spun around at looked at the interloper through the doorway. "If you could bring me, alive, one of her siblings or someone she sired, that would be great. I'll offer amnesty to them if they come peacefully and don't plan to be a menace. I just want to do a little research. I know you're here to woo Puppy on behalf of your dad-- which is weird, but whatever-- but I'd be a lot less mad at your whole fanged faction if you did that and then fucked off for a bit. I've had about enough of the literally bloodthirsty for today." And left.
Merrick was standing at the counter near the door, still holding the card. He couldn't remember the last time he got one. It was thick and heavy, made of expensive paper, and had gold leaf on it. It had been a while since he got one, but he'd never gotten one this nice. That it came from the prisoner in the basement was just fitting for his weird-assed life now. He cleared his throat when he saw that the vampire at the door was still staring at him. "Was there something else... or?"
The dark eyes on the marble face quirked in question. "Did you really give him a box full of a hundred different types of human blood?"
"Yes? I mean, not exactly a hundred. I think I stopped at one oh four. I ran out of stasis field spelled vials." For some reason, Merrick was blushing. He rolled a shoulder as if to roll off his pink cheeks. He still didn't quite understand what the big deal was.
The elder gestured toward the door Max went through. "And the winged one made him a palace in a realm where the sun doesn't burn his skin and no one else lives there?"
"Uh... It's just a tower in what is technically a prison, but, yes?" Merrick was confused.
The old-as-shit vampire smiled like he had seen someone important to him win the lottery. Like he was seeing someone's dreams come true. "I'll see to it that --how did your Lord put it?-- our fanged faction gives yours a wide berth. But, should you have any questions, you can call or text me." He flipped a business card perfectly through the door of the shop into Merrick's hand that was holding the expensive card. The elder tipped his head and was gone between one blink and the next.
***
Mounds, being an extension of the Sidhe Lord's magic, were highly customizable, as they had been explained to him for weeks prior to this day. All of everything inside was subject to the will and whim of Max. This was why Merrick was not shocked when he walked back up the stairs to the inner apartment to find it significantly changed in a short span of time.
Instead of an apartment that was the carbon copy of the outer apartment, there was now a medical ward that could rival that of any major city, with twenty people on twenty beds. Soft white walls and clean white tiled floors. Soft and muted lighting.
Cora, Max, the King, and all three dark elves were all gently changing the poor saps that got pressganged into blood service for a vampire, into more comfortable, hospital-themed clothing. Thin but soft gowns that opened in the front were put on skeletal frames, tied closed, and then fresh and soothing blankets were spread atop them. The six of them handled the twenty like they were made of the thinnest of glass and tried to not move them overly much. Even though, going from the description, it should hurt to move, none of the patients made a sound when adjusted. They spoke lowly and offered comforting tones and words to people who probably couldn't tell what was happening to them and remained deathly silent.
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It was highly unsettling.
Miles was lining up surgical equipment. Scalpels, sutures, pans to put the nails in, intravenous bags of fluids Merrick had no clue about. Scissors. Forceps. Clamps. When he was done unloading and lining up all his hospital goods on one table, he'd scurry off the waist-height tabletop and over to another, to stock it exactly the same.
Thom was on the floor, carving a circle of runes around, what looked like, his third bed, directly into the floor. The people in the previous two beds, the ones around which he had already completed, had closed their eyes and looked like they were resting peacefully. Like they had been unplugged from a wall socket. Thomas's forehead was dotted with a light sweat and his eyes were laser focused. His gaze was intent.
Em was casting a [Cleanse] cantrip, wiping the dead-eyed people's lips with a cool wet rag, and tucking their blankets around their feet. Tucking them in like Ma used to do to them when they got a fever. Merrick's throat got tight. He looked away. She went from bed to bed, offering a small sip of moisture, cleanliness, and a small grant of mercy to these people who obviously hadn't had any of that in so long.
"Beasty, would you help Flower with his etching? Let him fill the finished runes with his mana, but it would save him time if you could help with the carving, please. It's a sleep rune with a cleanse rune intertwined." Max said, finishing washing his hands to his elbows and looking at the occupant of the first bed that Thom had apparently etched around. When he was done rinsing, he walked over to the person's sleeping side and sat down on a stool. Guess that's the first one who's getting the surgery, then. At least it's not one of the kids.
Hugo walked in right after Merrick did. "Could you two help change the last few? Thanks." Max had the hospital gown pulled away from the sleeping old man's stomach.
Merrick was not prepared for what their torsos looked like under their dirty linen tops. They were all covered in black stitches like the thread was the only thing holding them together. Signs of multiple, multiple surgeries. It smelled like infection and old and new blood. Onions and rot. Old hamburger meat. Mildewed inner liquids. Pain and terror. These people had been hacked open over and over again. Like a patchwork quilt, ones that the maker couldn't get just right. There was more thread than flesh on them. The extra hearts underneath were visibly pulsing through the thread and the scraps of skin. They were all beating at different times.
His stomach pushed up through his throat and a splash of bile landed on the back of his tongue. He came dangerously close to puking all over the floor. His head got light and maybe he'd get lucky and puke before he passed out so he'd have something soft to land in.
"Puppy, you and Ines. You two go to the vault and get me as many mana and health pots as you can carry. Put them on the table at the back wall, please." Max said absently. His eyes never left the torso of the old man sleeping in the bed. His hands moved slowly over to the scissors and picked them up. He started cutting the black thread, gently snapping it with scissors to pull it apart.
When Merrick got out of the operating room, he breathed a sigh of relief. He leaned over to put his hands on his knees and did his best to talk himself out of having his head spin.
Ines snickered from a stool in the hall. "Can't handle blood either, huh?"
"Like this? No. Apparently not." He swallowed back the last of the pre-vomit that had made its way into his mouth. "I don't think it was the blood so much as it was the... well, all of it. Fucking all of it."
She stood up. "Come on, kid." She smacked his back relatively hard. "Let's go and get them some potions and then we'll slip out and find Hugo's hidden wine. Me and you are no good to them right now and you've looked like someone kicked your puppy all day." She snickered. "Ha! Puppy's kicked puppy. Anyways, let's get you drunk and you can forget about the heartbeats in the stomachs."
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I can do this. It's fine. Everything is fine.
After cutting away the amateur-affixed and hacksawed sutures of what appeared to be upholstery thread (fuck the ever-loving hells) and digging down shallowly, Max considered that maybe he should have assigned himself to go get potions and let the others handle the fucking horror show happening inside of these luckless bastards.
There were hands around the hearts making them beat. Severed hands with nails skewering them and the hearts both, and they would squeeze the hearts and blood would squirt into the abdomens of these people. Splashing the surrounding organs in blood, but not being used in the closed system. There seemed to be no fucking point but cruelty. The hands weren't attached to the circulatory systems either. They weren't attached to anything. Just hands, holding hearts, inside of people's torsos. Three hands for three hearts. Surrounded by metal shards that looked like random industrial debris and upholstery nails.
Max spent a few moments just staring at what was shockingly in his top ten list of grossest, weirdest, and wildest shit he'd ever seen. He was surprised and a little pissed that it had happened here. Maybe he had underestimated what kind of world Miles had landed them on? Everything that he had experienced was soft and maybe it had a little run-of-the-mill, mediocre evil-- baseline humanity always had that-- but not Dark Lord evil. Maybe they were wrong and a little proto-Dark Lord was trying to amass power? Did those happen naturally? Max had only ever seen them as a result of god or system action, but what did he know? He usually only showed up as the Dark Lord or as the Hero to stop them. Maybe this was just the natural order of things?
A hand grabbed his arm and it snapped him out of his thought spiral. Max looked at the hand. It was the old man's. The one who he was wrist deep in guts on. His lips moved to mouth frantic words and his eyes were begging.
"One second, okay? One second." Max told the man in a calming tone.
Max used the bloody scissors to cut the slave collar on the man, ending the silencing spell. They had kept it on so long because of the minor healing it gave them and they worried that stopping it after they had worn it for so long would cause adverse effects, but with Max running his aura and with all the healing bullshit he had going, the sleep spells, and the basic aura he had, he could easily (he hoped) keep the man alive long enough to get through having what guts he had left rearranged.
The old man gasped and whispered, "The hearts. Keep the hearts. Keep the hands. They are all that's left of them. Keep them safe." And then, the old man stopped fighting the sleep runes so hard and went into a blessedly deep sleep. Probably because his insides were missing. And he had hands, more than Max's, inside of him. Or maybe because he had been torn to shreds by whoever had done this to him. Which, if he were advocating to save these abominations, maybe he had answers.
Max blinked. "Cora! Bring me three brain jars and fill them with healing potions! I get my mad scientist lab after all!"
***
It took three days of painstaking digging to get the shards of metal out. Three days of rooting around in these sad fucker's bellies. Three days to remove the severed hands that were holding the beating hearts and put them into jars full of healing potions.
As for the people...
In other settings, in other universes, no intestines would not be a major issue. He'd pop some hardware in them and they'd be right as rain. Hells, better in some cases. True, usually it was discouraged to give children such operations because they needed hardware that grew with them, so it was a childhood filled with upgrading surgeries, but needs must and all.
In other worlds and universes, they would have been dead when their abdomens got cut into because of the bacteria. Both inner and outer.
In this one, this world in this universe, especially in this mound, he was running the show. They'd get sleep and cleanse spells until they were able to wake without pain, they'd have some specialized diets and maybe some plastic innards for a little bit, and then Max would make them cyborg parts. They'd have to make due until the development stages were done, and admittedly, he was only really specialized in limbs for war, but it knew enough to muddle through. It would be fine.
It seemed almost kismet since he hadn't yet disbanded his cybernetic program and still had a nanite forge on hand. Almost as if something had sent...
"Max, I need to talk to you about something." Puppy looked hungover and smelled like he slept in the bottom of one of Hugo's wine barrels. It was actually a better smell than what Max had been smelling the past few days.
Max blinked long and hard as he was wiping his hands after closing up the last kid. "Is it urgent? I'm going on very little sleep, here, Pup."
"It's not urgent, but it is important."
"Okay. Can I shower while you talk?" The Pup's eyebrows gathered together in his 'confusion' look. Max decided to tell a truth. "Ever since 'the anchor incident', I think my nose has decided that it likes to smell everything a little too well-- and honestly, it is almost migraine-inducing. Smelling myself is overwhelming, and the smell of others on top of my own smells is beyond that. Especially with the influx of rot these past... how many days have I been in here?" Max's mind fuzzed a bit. "If your nose is better, I don't know how you can cope so well all the time." Max quirked a blue eyebrow and whispered, "And you're totally right about all the king. And Cora. And Ines. I'd be jealous of how much they are pulling if it didn't gross me out so much. The dark elves to a lesser degree, but damn." Max hung his head and shook it. "I need to make higher-powered showers. And more of them."
Max motioned to the door that would lead them down into their family bunker. They both started walking that way. Slowly. Everything could wait. All of the insides were back inside and all the metal was on the outsides. The luckless bastards could sleep and do some low-level healing and maybe grow some skin back.
The pup nodded. "That's kinda what I have to talk to you about."
"The elves fucking?" Max was confused but he was very, very tired. His face was a little slack, but he just kept walking. He really wanted his shower and his bed. He had daydreamed for hours about how wonderful his pillow would feel against his cheek. How his sheets would sound when he slid his clean body against them. Bliss.
Puppy was walking beside him and kind of steering him when he slowed down. It was nice. "No. The anchor incident. I think that's one of the side effects the basement vampire was talking about. It seems you got my sense of smell. And let me apologize because I am going to embarrass myself with that. Probably a lot."
Max waved a blood-smelling hand. He cringed away from it but said, "No big deal. I know I am probably embarrassing enough on my own. But that's not what you came to me to say. Is it the lying thing? How much lying do you need to do in a day, man?"
"No, that's not it," Puppy said softly.
They were both quiet as they walked into the bunker and back into Max's bedroom. Max stumbling every few steps, and Puppy correcting his stumbles and gently coaxing him back on track. Max wandered over to his shower and started it on the highest heat, at full blast. He started taking off his clothes. His blinks were slowing and mostly his eyes were just closed. Puppy watched as his hands moved to remove the last of the clothes he was wearing.
My bathroom smells nice, at least. Max closed the glass door to the shower and stepped under the spray when he was done divesting himself of crunchy, stinky, bloody clothing. He left them on the floor and they were gone after a bleary blink.
Damn, she's fast. I need to get her some more candy.
Puppy blurted, his voice starting low and going up and up and up. "I, um. I kind of. Well. I kind of want to drink a few people's blood." His hands were raised in the air. "Not everyone! Just a select few. And it's getting. Um. I couldn't sleep? Even after I drank most of the wine? Every time I tried, there were... dreams?"
Max rested his head on the shower stall wall. "You drank most of the wine? In the mound or the apartment?"
Puppy made a sad doggy noise. "The mound. Sorry."
Max made a humming sound and opened an eye to gaze blearily at Puppy. "Why did it keep you awake, Puppy? Was it because it was something new, because it scared you, or because you were having a hard time controlling it?"
The pup was-- Max breathed in deeply, testing his new nose. Embarrassed? Turned on? Scared? And ashamed? "No! No! I can control it. I just... It's new and I was afraid that I'd fall asleep and wake up sucking on someone I didn't wanna suck on is all. What if I dreamt I was sucking on one of the select few and woke up to munching on one of the kids?" He shuddered. "I'd never be able to live with myself! What if, instead of just blood, I ate someone?! I'm a devourer! I devour! I could eat the world! That's what you say. What if I accidentally ate someone?!"
Max took a moment to lather his hair and let the soap work its way down his wings. His brain sleepily ran through thoughts and consequences. He realized he was just too tired and emotionally wrought after the past few days to really fear much. He turned around to rinse all the soap off. ”The ‘select few’. I’m guessing it’s the three of us who are tied to the anchor, huh?”
Puppy’s voice broke and he swallowed thickly. ”Yeah.”
Max sighed and threw open the shower door. "Get in here and wash off the wine, Pup. We are gonna take a shower and remove all the bad smells. We’ll keep our hands mostly to ourselves until I have the ability to smash more than two thoughts together.” He turned his back to the pup and scrubbed his face. “When we get out, I’m throwing on my coziest pajamas. You are gonna nibble on me a little bit and then we are gonna crawl into bed and sleep in a puppy pile until either I'm well-rested or the world ends. You can do your best to not eat me and I'll do my best to not crush or smother you with my wet and weighed-down wings." Max gave the Pup a soft, sleepy look. "We can talk about what it means later, okay?"
The pup nodded slowly while looking at Max's naked body. He hesitated but agreed. "Okay."