Chapter 36: Cleaning Up Messes

--- Miles Kennedy ---

“Well, kid?” The golden eyed man pressed.

He grimaced. “That’s, um… I didn’t mean to?”

The man gave him an unimpressed look. “You didn’t mean to gather all of the death magic -which is very different from normal magic- in the graveyard into this little corner where the only bodies not buried are?”

“I- I was set up!” He defended, deciding to throw Kriminel under the bus since it was technically the Baron’s fault he was in this mess.

“Oh, really? By who?” The man asked, clearly not believing him.

A faint growl drew his attention back to Kriminel inside his head. (“Oi, don’t forget snitches get stitches before winding up in ditches.”)

Feeling that if he gave an answer either of his observers didn’t like it was going to end very badly for him, he scrambled for an explanation on why he was here before his mind latched onto the only other magical event he could remember.

“I, um, I’ve got a, a Death affinity!” He blurted out. “This… this guy with glasses told me and, and this girl-” He sure as fuck wasn’t going to drag Cory into this. “-that we had death affinities at that magic convention last week. And this punk goth lady told us about this magic thing and I, I wasn’t feeling it because who wants to have a Death affinity but at the same time the cute girl was so excited and I couldn’t say no and, and…”

“So let me get this straight.” The man pinched the bridge of his nose. “You broke into a sealed graveyard to raise the dead, nearly getting yourself killed, so that you could impress the chicas?”

It sounded significantly worse when worded like that. A fact underlined by Kriminel’s laughter in the back of his head.

He couldn’t stop himself from wincing at the embarrassing excuse, even as he said, “Yes?”

The man inhaled deeply before exhaling and giving him a glare. “You’re lucky I’ve done stupider at your age to impress a girl.”

“R-really?” He blinked, not quite believing that the man was accepting this excuse.

“Sí.” The man sighed, looking embarrassed at whatever he was remembering. “Also, don’t try reading any books with faces on them, especially if the face is ugly. The worse it is to look at, the worse you’ll regret it.”

“O…kay?” He had no intention of doing that in the first place, but felt that voicing that would hurt his case.

The man gave him another once over, this one with notably less irritation than before as he ran a hand over the back of his neck before looking towards the bodies on the ground.

“Come on.” The man told him, moving towards the bodies. “You want to play with cosas muertas, then you can help clean them up.”

“W-what?”

“You took these people out of their grave, you can help put them back in.” The man explained, picking up one of the corpses with surprising gentleness in spite of the grimace on his face.

He looked at one of the bodies and grimaced himself.

“Hey, none of that!” The man frowned, his eyes growing harsh once more and making him feel like he was being looked at by something much higher up on the food chain. “Be glad I’m not making you put them all back yourself, niño.”

“R-right.” He swallowed before getting close to one of the bodies and almost gagging as he actually noticed the smell of the corpse without a healthy distance between them.

(“Better get used to it if you want to stay in this line of work.”) Kriminel chuckled.

(Does it matter whether or not I want to?) He wondered dryly.

(“Not really no.”) Kriminel admitted, a cruel smile to his voice.

Pushing past his reluctance he reached down and tried to pick up the body of the thing that had been trying to kill him just a few moments prior, only to find that it was significantly heavier than he was expecting.

“Sí, deadweight is a puta.” The man commented, stepping out of one of the crypts as he started on his second body. “If you’re going to stick to magic, there’s this strengthening spell you can pick up pretty easily by pushing magic through your muscles and bones. Just be sure to keep the flow low, if you go too fast you’ll tear something.”

“Um… how… how do I do that?” He found himself asking. “I uh, I just figured out how to… feel magic today.”

“And the first thing you did was raise the dead?” The man asked, looking like he wasn’t sure whether he should be impressed or disappointed.

“I… didn’t mean to do that.” He told the man once more.

“Affinity that strong, if I didn’t know it would kill you, I’d think you were a Death Incarnate.” The man told him with a shake of his head, as if Miles was supposed to know what that meant.

(“Think mortal death god, slowly killin’ himself because he was never meant to be alive.”) Kriminel explained for him.

“Still…” The man scratched at his neck as he thought about it for a moment. “The best way to think of it, is to picture your blood pumping through your veins. Then take your magic and put a little bit into the blood, picturing it spreading. Cut the magic off once it spreads everywhere and then just sort of hold the image while doing what you’ve got to.”

(“That won’t work for you.”) Kriminel told him before he could even try it. (“Your magic is coming from me not you. Doing what he’s suggestin’ will just give ya a more advanced state of possession.”)

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He considered that for a moment, a faint amount of suspicion growing given the Baron’s actions so far. (Then why are you stopping me? I thought you wanted to possess me?)

(“Boy, trust me when I say now is not the time or place for that.”) Kriminel practically hissed.

In spite of -or rather because of- the Baron’s words he began reaching for the magic within him, only to feel a chill down his spine and his heart stopping once more.

(“Don’t.”) Kriminel growled.

The man gave him a curious look, when he started breathing heavier.

“I… I can’t do it…” He swallowed, half ashamed he was giving into the Baron’s demands and half terrified about the fact that this was the third time that Kriminel had nearly killed him today.

“Eh, raising the dead takes a lot of power. You probably drained yourself doing that, give it a try after you get a chance to rest.” The man shrugged, misunderstanding why he couldn’t do it. “Either way, I’ll grab the head, you grab the legs.”

He looked from the golden eyed man to the corpse. “Um, can’t you pick it up by yourself.”

“Sí, I could pick them up by myself, but you are helping me clean up your mess.” The man told him. “Now get over there and lift.”

--- Morris Brown ---

“Please tell me these reports aren’t true…” He groaned, looking over the documents in front of him.

“They are sir.” His intelligence officer Meyers confirmed, looking like it was the last thing he wanted to do.

“How is recovery looking for the infected?” He asked the head of medical.

“Possible, though it requires prolonged isolation and a full scrubbing to do so.” Robinson told him. “At first we thought it wasn’t curable with most subjects seemingly prone to reinfection, but Diaz’s scans have confirmed multiple times that they are cured.”

“Fantastic…” (Because of course when it rains it pours…) He turned his attention to the head of research. “Normally I wouldn’t ask, but how accurate are the scans?”

“They take longer than I’d like, but they are functional, sir.” Diaz assured him, looking an odd mix of determined and nervous. “They’re not… quite as powerful as what we had before the Event, true, but at the very least we can perform short distance scans indoors and away from the energy storm the Cracks are causing across the city. I’ve, um, I’ve started production of additional scanners… to be set at every entrance and exit to the building. It won’t give us an early warning for what’s going on in the city but I figure it’s better to know if something is walking in through the front doors than not know at all.”

“A fair assessment.” He nodded, knowing that Diaz was unsure of himself as the youngest at the table. “Unfortunately, if this continues we may need to quarantine our staff to the building. At least until we develop a method of resistance to the infection given how little aid our current equipment is providing.”

“I, I can try to get something working with our equipment, but… the infection itself is outside of my specialty, I’d recommend requesting outside aid.” Diaz confessed, looking ashamed of himself for it.

He couldn’t help but grimace at that. “I’ve already used the landlines to request aid, given the sheer scale of our current circumstances. In response, nearby cities have begun shoring up their own defenses in case this event spreads like the original riots. This unfortunately leaves us high and dry for the time being, though if they deem their own cities safe the excess force will be sent our way to help stabilize our own. We just have to last until that help gets here.”

(And hope things don’t get even worse before then.) He left unspoken.

--- Eric Campbell ---

He watched Alex continue to go over a stack of paperwork, part of him wishing that Catherine hadn’t left this to him, but also sort of getting where she was coming from.

“You're still caught up on that mess with the kid aren’t you?” He eventually told the other man.

Alex grimaced before running a hand down his face. “Yes, I suppose there’s no point in hiding it. I’ve never had one of my kin… reject me in such a way.”

(Part of that’s because of how strong you came on.) He wasn’t blind to the fact that they had come on kind of strong with Aurelio, but he’d kind of been hoping the magic of learning magic would’ve eased things up a bit. (Of course that doesn’t really do anything considering Alex’s whole ‘family’ deal.)

“Given how he was talking, the kid probably has a story with his father. Your habit of ‘adopting’ our kin was probably too much for him.” He pointed out. “It’s good with the people who don’t have families, but the ones that do…”

“I’m aware…” Alex sighed, looking pained to do so. “It’s just… you know I was an orphan before Grayson took in William and I. To me we -no, all of the Bloodline- are a family.”

“Eh, we are.” He tried to console Alex, knowing the man meant well, even if the whole ‘nephew’ thing would’ve grated on him a lot more if not for being young enough when Pierce took him underwing to not be entirely creepy. “It’s just more like… cousins than parents and their kids.”

Lord knows if William ever called him his son, he’d break the man’s nose.

Alex nodded, looking conflicted. “I know… I was just hoping we’d be something similar. Especially since when he was awakening he asked me to be his father. I understand he was likely out of it but…”

(Father?) He frowned, because while people did tend to be a bit out of it once they first turned he doubted the kid would want to call Alex dad, even if he was drunk. (Wait…)

“Uh, what exactly did he want to call you?” He really hoped he was wrong.

Alex gave him a curious look. “When he was waking, he asked if he could call me daddy. I understand that that was likely a childish regression due to his mental state, but I was hoping the desire for a paternal figure would hold.”

He inhaled and exhaled, because he wasn’t wrong, before deciding, (I am not paid anywhere near enough to explain this to a sixty year old man.)

And so looking for a distraction he glanced down at the papers Alex had strewn about the table with a giant map of the city stapled to it. More specifically the one with red tacks, marking it as a priority in Pierce’s mind. “What’s uh, what’s this about here?”

“Hmm, oh, um, one moment.” Alex told him, apparently thrown off by his change of topic before remembering what that batch of tacks was about, though he didn’t seem happy about whatever he recalled. “Ah, yes, if you remember we have a base in this area. With the incident they’ve gone dark, with none of their regulars answering our calls. I sent someone to investigate just a quick trip there and back to see if anything looks off, but they never came back, quickly making it a higher priority.”

“You want me to take a look at?” He offered, happy to go out and do something now that his schedule was looking more free thanks to the kid’s independent streak. “Can’t be anything bigger than I can handle.”

“If you could, I'd appreciate it.” Alex smiled before taking on a concerned look. “Though do be careful, with me having to recall all of our kin we don’t have anywhere near as much information as I would hope. If this happens to be the wolves making their move…”

He nodded. “Don’t see them making this big of a play with everything going on, but I’ll keep my eyes open and run if things look sketchy.”