Twice Born - Chapter 01 - Twice Born

Twice Born - Chapter 1 (Twice Born)

FRIULI, ITALY – September 19th, 1835
There should have been thunder. There should have been lightning tearing the skies and the very heavens weeping. There should have been portents and comets and demons of fire riding skeletal horses of ice-white bone—but if there had been, this would have been a movie. Probably with very artistic lens flare. So there wasn’t. What there was, was a small house. A small house in a small glen in the Southern Limestone Alps of Friuli, Italy. And yes. Friuli is a long, loooong way from Ne… but no. We’ll get to that. And get there. But not yet. Spoilers, OK?

Ahem. Where was I? Oh. Right.

There was a house, small and lost in the little glen. There was a single window casting candle-light into the falling evening. Which was exactly how it was supposed to be. What was to come next? Not so pretty. But that’s how it is, when you do what I do. You have to start somewhere nobody will ever miss, if you’re going to make it different.

Ahem. Yes. Right. Stop talking May… I mean, stop talking.

On the hill above the house, a dark figure stood in the lee of the great oak there. And a single tear fell from my—I mean, like, her—eye. And the tear wasn’t of blood. I mean, yeah. It should have been blood. Like, it would have been, like, really cool if it was. But it wasn’t. So there. Ahem. And as the tear fell, she lifted her hand and caught it on a finger. And she looked at the drop of tear-that-wasn’t-blood-but-should-have-been for a moment, then looked up at the moon and the stars and the sky-bowl… and she smiled a smile set in pain. Which I didn’t. Me being me, I mean. And my job being… well, my job being what it is, I bloody didn’t. But it’s really cool and artistic. So pretend I did. Or pretend whoever she was did. Because it wasn’t me, right?

And where the figure stood, shadows danced and twisted. And the figure knelt, and she pulled a wolf skin from the pack she wore. Or should that be bore? I mean, us being back in 1800 and change? I don’t know. Wore, bore—well. Let’s hope not bore. I’d hate to bore you. I’d probably have to kill you, just to keep my street cred. So anyway. I—I mean she pulled the wolf skin from her pack, and drew a blade from her belt. And I know the blade was inscribed with eldritch symbols, because I watched Waylan draw them myself. I just have no idea what ‘eldritch’ means. So she drew the knife and stabbed it through the wolf skin, pinning it to the old oak tree she stood under. Was standing under. Will stand under. Look, time shadowing is a bugger. It’s one of those, OK? Then she pulled a bottle from her pocket. It would have gleamed red in the sunlight, being blood and all. But as we’ve established, it’s falling evening. So no sun, right? And she opened the bottle, and drew more eldritch symbols on the wolf skin. And they glowed. Which was a really good thing, or I’d have had to go do some really not-good things to the one who’d told me how to draw them. Er—told her, I mean. Or try to–him being a nearly-not-quite-god-of-Smiths and all.

So we have the cottage. Which is a good start. And nobody in the cottage weeping. Which, in a different world, maybe they should have been. But not this world. And not this cottage. The woman not-weeping had a reason to be weeping, but she wasn’t doing it. What my Leupold BX-4 Pro Guide HD binoculars (yes, I know. Year 1800 and change. Remember that whole ‘time shadowing’ thing I mentioned?) told me she was doing, was opening her door and coming out of the cottage. And in low light, you can’t beat a pair of Leupold BX-4s. I could see them. The placenta. The umbilical cord. Which meant—yes. The bottle. Birth blood, mixed with grappa I’d bet would have had to move up town to even know what a bathtub was, but would be sixty per-cent proof if it was even trying. And a burning stick. Then the woman, she puts down a mess of kindling, and she puts the placenta on it and the umbilical cord. And she dances round the pile widdershins, which is counter to the sun’s course, or anti-clockwise if you don’t have some of the friends—or the not-friends—I do. And she’s muttering something to herself. All of which, if she only knew, was a total waste of time. She dances three times, then she stops, shouts something she probably thought was esoteric, pours the bottle on kindling and co., then throws the burning stick on it. The huge flame leaping up is fairly normal. The bird that swoops down and transforms into a bent over old woman is normal too—but only if you live in my world, and not yours. Then the bitch from the cottage bows to the old, bent woman, opens her door and ushers her in. Which makes her, local puttana with bad-for-business-issue or not, a whole lot more bitchy. But exactly the reason I’m here. So I wait. I wait until the Bruxa comes out of the door, and runs off as a rabbit. Then I, I mean, like, the girl on the hill, she starts down into the glen. But half way down, she stops. Because I nearly bloody forgot. So I put on the ring, and the girl isn’t a girl anymore. She’s a Mikumwessuk. You say it like ‘mee-kum-oo-wess-uk’. Which wouldn’t mean a thing in Friuli. But it would to the Mi’kma… well, I mean to some other people in some other place we haven’t got to yet. The Mikumwessuk are little people, like dwarves or fairies. They’re generally OK forest spirits (because there’s a lot of forest in Ne… in where they live, I mean), but they can be really kick-ass dangerous if they’re disrespected. Anyway, girl? No. Mikumwessuk? Yes. And she doesn’t knock, because when you’re what she is, you don’t knock at human doors, especially to the kind of bitch who’s inside this door. But, like they say, it’s always good to make an entrance. So I touch—I mean she touches—the door. And it explodes open. Amazing what a little tiny blasting cap on your finger can do. She goes in, and she goes over to the not-crying woman by the bed. She looks down, and she stands in silence. Because, like, it’s more impressive and commanding that way. She looks down, but not at the puttana who hadn’t taken care of not having business interruptions. She looks down at the small, silent body lying in the bitch’s bed. A body still red from birthing, but not a breath in him, with a rag stuffed over his face and in his mouth. So the Mikumwessuk, she looks down. And she scribes some more eldritch, whatever eldritch is, in the red blood on the dead boy’s skin. Which is really not important. What is important is the cut she makes on the dead boy’s thigh with something that just shouldn’t cut it–a small emerald that she slips inside the cut. A cut which closes and seals without a trace left behind. Then she takes the part-full bottle from her pocket, opens it, pulls the rag away and puts it to the dead boys lips. Which would have been kind of dumb, him being dead and all, but turned out to be kind of not dumb, since he drank. And even though nobody could see it (because I’m damn good at what I do, and only my Dad is better, but if you tell him I said so I really will kill you), up the hill, the wolf skin dagger-ed to the tree disappears, and the dagger falls to the ground. And it vanished, because it wasn’t that dagger’s time yet. And I look at the puttana-bitch, and I say “You touch one hair on his head, and I will find you. And you will wish the Bruxa had taken you.” And I look down at the boy. “You owe me. And I always make sure my debts are paid. Remember that.” Then I turn round, and I walk out of the door. Because, like, drama, you know? And I, I mean, whoever the girl was, she walks up the hill. At the top, I turn and look down at the cottage. Because this is where it begins. The only plan I have to get Dad back. Or rather, to make sure I never have to get him back in the first place. Something like that. Which is when it happens. Because someone taps me on my shoulder. Which never happens, because nobody can sneak up on me. I spin round, my Glock in my hand, and he’s there. He’s there, and he bows, and he stands up, and he’s doing it. He’s bloody smiling! And he says it. The thing he can’t possibly say. He says “Ciao, Mamma.” I mean, Mamma? Fuck. Like, as in, what-the. Because this? This wasn’t in the plan. And I know I can pull the trigger on my Glock–but I know I can’t. Because I see. I see what’s in his hand.

***

There should have been thunder. There should have been lightning tearing the skies and the very heavens weeping. There should have been portents and comets and demons of fire riding skeletal horses of ice-white bone—and possibly even lens flare. There wasn’t. But on a hill above the glen more than the tree—waited.