The rain came down in a gray cloud, nothing more than a heavy, sodden drizzle.
Yet it was enough to soak everything and make the world look dingy for all that
it was being laved. It was the perfect day for him to be doing business in
London.

Which made it a pity that he was in Chicago.

( Read more... )

Through memories she held of him, Ereshkigal showed that he was once a Greek Underworlder. Protogenos of Darkness. This felt right. But who he was. That. Knowledge of. Self. Still eluded him. He did not know why. He did not ask Reshi. She already seemed. Uncomfortable.

This lack of knowledge was what led Erebos here -- here, to the temple in Erebus that struck within him a feeling of belonging. A feeling of correctness. His temple. It appeared as columns of ebony reaching upwards, topped with a great canopy of living darkness that slid past the ebony columns to the ground, only to rise again in restless undulation. He felt the restlessness as he felt it within himself.

This was home.

He did not know it.

Erebos stood, silent and still. And watched his temple.

Anyone who knew him also knew that the front door was for show only. If pressed, Styx would have had a hard time even describing Deimos' front door. She always went around through the garage. More often than not, she didn't even knock; she just showed up in his living room or in his kitchen or wherever else she managed to track him down. Styx had all manners of brothers -- brothers who were her closest companions, brothers who were her lovers, and brothers who were hated above all others -- so it was ironic that the one brother she actually treated LIKE a brother was the one who didn't share her parents' blood. Well. Didn't share much of it. She'd traced their heritage once - a long twisting tree - and found that they were still distantly related. But those ties meant nothing. The ties they made together, those were the ones that counted.

"Dei!" she shouted at the door in the garage that led into the house. "I've got Akheron with me!" Still at the mouth of the garage, Styx shimmied and hopped her way through the maze of masculine car stuff everywhere. Dei kept his tools neat and tidy -- but wow, there were a lot of them, and she knew better than to disturb one fucking thing. He'd know it.

She squinted at the Jag. He'd already finished? Huh...

"Dei!" she shouted again, and this time, she was pushing the door open to the house, fingertips lingering just long enough to feel Akheron catch the door behind her. In she went. She should have brought some Jack. They could all use a drink. "Jag looks nice," she said into the air in front of her.

Occasionally, the managing director of Peel Inc.'s HR department politely advised the CEO that she simply must take some time off -- otherwise, Ada's bank of comp time would exceed the already-extended limit set for executives. The rules she and her co-founders set to combat overworked employees was never meant for them. Ironically, it seemed that the rules she never meant for her were serving to protect her, whether she wanted it or not.

That's how Ada came to be sitting in the Coc d'Or at the Drake Hotel, casually thumbing through the quarterly reports while keeping her eye on the newscast streaming on her laptop open just to the side of her left wrist. They were talking again about The Cleansing -- that is, the way that the atmosphere suddenly became clean of pollutants. Various government officials had taken credit for it, but the news this week was that none of them were producing the proof of their "accidental discovery" or any lick of science behind how the pollution had suddenly been removed from the air.

It was all very suspicious, and yet most everyone was agreeing that it was all such a good thing and setting in motion plans to preserve the cleanliness for as long as possible. Ada thumbed her bottom lip gently. No, she decided, as she watched a sound bite of the latest official -- she wasn't sold on the stories. Then again, what if she didn't? Somewhat annoyed, she turned back to her earnings reports.

There was a shift. He had been walking a silver river shore. The only thing in his world that seemed to mean something. But what. What. He could not say. There was nothing behind him in his memory. Nothing before him. He was. And that was everything belonging to him.

And then came the shift, the night. Cool air. Red Square. There was no lack for lighting from the large buildings surrounding him. But there was a darkness about the place that transcended visual understanding. It seemed to Erebos that no amount of floodlighting could displace the hold that darkness had on this part of Moscow. It oozed between the cracks of the snow-swept pavement. Curled around the slender bits of death-clad mortality crossing in waves through the wide open spaces. Settled in yawning expanses between the great structures a long-ago dictatorship established. Stalked the backs of old women. Ate the shadows of sharply-dressed men. Although it was not his own, the city embraced him. Scattered his power throughout the streets. Feasted on him like a starving beast -- but made him only stronger. Here was a sanctuary for the Dark One. Something that meant something more to him. He breathed deeply.

And yet. Something troubled him. He could not name it. Erebos paced, unseen, through the throng of late-night revelers. Something troubled him. Stalked him as the darkness stalked the square. But here there was a peace that he could not find on that shore in Haides, in that realm belonging only to the gods and to the dead. He walked, shielded from mortal eyes by instinct rather than intent, and waited for the city to clear his mind. He knew himself. He was Erebos. The Darkness. He was Greek. And he was everywhere in the world. But more than that, he knew none of it.

Deimos had no idea where he was. He knew it wasn't home. Things were too different. His cars were in the garage, just like they should be. But some of them were just a little bit off. The first run Jaguar he'd recently bought to restore was already finished, for one. They weren't in the spots he'd left them, for another.

The world around him felt different, too. He couldn't place it. Couldn't have named it if he'd tried. But he knew in his gut that it was off.

None of it particularly mattered to him at the moment, though. There was another thing that was consuming the whole of him. Something that he couldn't ignore. Something that was making him feel a little light headed and giddy, all in a good way. This place, wherever it was, whatever it was, was rampant with Fear. Not just the Fear of mortal beings, either. The Fear was powerful and enormous. He'd not felt anything like it for a really long time. It seemed to be everywhere. Floating in the very air around him, though there was nobody else around.

Deimos let it flow through him, into him and then back out again. Amplifying those things that others were feeling. Faceless others that he might have known, but couldn't bring himself to care about just at this moment. The steady stream soothed and ramped him up all at the same time. He wanted to create more so he could absorb more.

There was enough of his rationality left to know that he couldn't just go storming around in this place, filling everything and everyone with his essence, but not enough to stop himself from touching that which he already felt.

He knew that eventually he was going to have to get off of the couch and try to figure out what was going on in the world outside, but for now, Deimos was content to sit.

He had no habits in this regard. One day, he would find himself in a hospital. Another day would see him standing toes-forward in the middle of a gun fight. Still another, and he was by the water, slick stone and faltered wood bringing him home as surely as his will. And yet that was a pattern unto itself. Enough that without intention he sometimes found himself before the same souls. Their pain was not new. There was no sharpness to it. It would not cut their heart as a knife. It would not stir feelings of remorse in them, or hatred. These were the ones with whom he felt the greatest kinship. Insofar as anyone could have understood a god these mortals would have felt his pain if he'd explained it.

( He never did. )

Even in this everynowhere place, she didn't stop caring about her creations. Endless worlds spun around them, almost mirrors of each other -- and she was watching all of them, looking for the worst (and the best). It was something he admired greatly about Khaos -- just one of the somethings he loved about her. Together, they were two ancient, ancient deities -- both responsible, in their own way, for the creation of their civilizations and the world in general. Only after their time had passed in the world did they find each other, and found each other to be good company for the long yawn of interminable years before them. But neither of them had expected to discover that their joint creative powers would give rise to this.

Clothed in the ancient Egyptian linen that he still favored after millenia, Sia sat on a very modern-looking La-Z-Boy recliner positioned in the center of an island covered with grass and blossoms. A shade tree with whimsical leaves curled over his head. And instead of sea beyond their island, rings of Earths circled in geometric patterns in the black void that supported everything else. They were at a Crossroads, a place where one could see every possibility, every creation -- and be part of none of it. It was a place reserved for creators, a place only the very wisest could imagine, much less manage to access.

There at the edge was Khaos, her graceful Greek form casting a shadow at the border between Where They Were and Where The Rest Began. It was time. He knew, as he knew everything, when to stand from where he'd been gathering his strength. When to come behind her. When to set his hands on her shoulders.

"Have you found the ones you want?" he asked her quietly.

FRAGMENTED opens for play on April 1st!