Zitekné Báthory Zsuzsanna (zsuzsanna) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2009-01-14 13:02:00 |
|
|||
Current mood: | frustrated |
Thursday afternoon, 17 September 1942, at the Royal Academy of Wizardry...
Zitekné Zsuzsanna was beginning to wonder if they oughtn’t go looking for everyone themselves when Jenica Popescu thrust her head in through the door of the Avalon prefects’ office.
“Nadya, look, it’s your cousins and my god-brothers,” said Jenica, laughing a little. “Sorry we’re late. We went to the visitors’ parlour first, but some foreign professor has it reserved all day, and of course he’s not even in there, he’s wandered off with his sweetheart I bet—they were still in the lecture room when we left.” She rolled her eyes, then shrugged, and opened the door to let Nadezhda Kiryakova in. “Nice of Chattox to let you use this room. Was my letter so worrying?”
“Of course we were concerned,” said Zsuzsanna. “When we heard about your mother, Nadezhda…?” She stood up and opened her arms.
Nadya ran straight into Zsuzsanna’s arms and hugged her tight. “I’m so glad you came,” she whispered. “I should’ve written, I know I should’ve, I just didn’t know how to say…I mean…”
“Hush, hush,” said Zsuzsanna, rocking her a little and stroking her hair. “I won’t say it’s all right, darling, because it isn’t, we don’t even know what happened, but she has to be at peace now, and we are here for you. And we’ll talk to Yegor, too.” Zsuzsanna remembered the death of her own parents all too well, and Anna—the Kiryakovs’ mother—had been her own father’s sister. She stroked Nadya’s hair and wondered if she would ever grieve Anna herself, or if there had just been too many losses that one more made no difference, and nothing seemed real any more, because people she’d thought long dead had turned up safe and sound. “We’re family, we’ll take care of each other.”
“Thank you,” Nadya murmured, just holding on, as if for dear life. “Just talk to him, he won’t talk to us, he’s insufferable.”
“He’s that,” said Jenica with a nod. “He talks to us, but not much we want to hear. It’s hard to train him when he thinks he has to protect us, and it’s ridiculous. I’ve seen action; he hasn’t.” She glanced at Vilém. “Maybe he’ll listen to you, since you have a dick.”
Vilém snorted. “Yeah, I’ll work on him. I’m good at handling stubborn.”
Jenica walked over and looked up at him. “Have you forgotten how to greet people,” she said with her hands on her hips and a grin.
Vilém chuckled, rolling his eyes fondly, and hugged her for a moment. “I hear you’ve been up to your eyeballs in it up here.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Jenica. “It wasn’t an incubus, no matter what they tell you. It was Azazael, from Azazel out of Igrat-bat-Mahalat.” She made the warding signs as she spoke the names, but they had to know.
Stepán’s eyes widened. He shook his head slowly, with a long, low whistle.
“You’re fucking shitting me,” Vilém said, boggling a little. Why would something like that be harassing children? Other than because it could, of course.
“I wish,” said Jenica. “van Rensselaer’s pretty good—we sent him packing back to home. And then we had a little argument about what to do with the focus object, a knife he left in some dumb girl’s chest—yeah, I know, don’t blame the victim, but she was shacked up with him and after I warned her, over and over—because he wanted to fucking study it, but Goyle backed me up.” She shrugged.
“Of course he wanted to study it. And bears shit in the woods,” Vilém grumbled.
Stepán sighed. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to study these things, if only they ever got destroyed when people were done studying,” he said, and didn’t expect Vilém or Zsuzsanna to agree. “But you always get people who think they can use what they learned.”
“Out of all the people who are going to do the studying, is he at the top of your list to do it?” Vilém asked his brother pointedly.
“Joscelin van Rensselaer?” Stepán shrugged. “I don’t know. Better him than some, but probably not.”
Jenica nodded. “So, it’s all fixed up, and you can tell Dr Červenka not to worry so much, because I know he is. Nadya’s the one I’ve been worried about. This was big, and bad, and unpleasant, and I couldn’t have handled it without van Rensselaer, but we handled it.” She shrugged. “All the same, I’ve had a bad feeling all day. There was a drill last night, and it was completely cocked up, and ever since then I’ve felt this pricking at the back of my neck. It doesn’t go away even if I wash with bay rum. I don’t think it’s related, after all we are at war, but something’s up.”
Vilém made a little face. That didn’t bode well in the slightest. “We’ll check things out, then.” Did they always arrive just before all hell broke loose, even on social calls?
“Good,” said Jenica, and went over to hug Stepán, and then sat down, watching Nadya and Zsuzsanna.
At that moment Endymion Dashwood opened the door, and his little brother Jonathan rushed in ahead of him, throwing himself into Vilém’s arms. “Where have you been? You said you’d come if there was trouble! Jenica and Constable Nutter and Professor van Rensselaer got the demon, it was fantastic! But you should have been here.”
Endymion sighed. “They were looking for Maria, Jon,” he said, shaking his head, and smiled at everyone sheepishly, as Hadrian Kyteler followed him into the room.
Vilém caught the young boy easily. “He’s right, we were trying to take care of that. But it sounds like everybody here did pretty good without us, I’m glad we’re still appreciated,” he teased Jon.
Stepán looked up and caught Endymion’s gaze. “Milačku,” he said in a soft voice, still unable to look at Endymion—no matter how well-mated he seemed to be—without remembering the feel of that soft brown hair laced through his fingertips, or those hands at the small of his back, when he had been in so much pain. “You look like you’ve had a rough time of it.”
Endymion shook his head. “I missed the worst of it, actually.”
“That’s not true,” said Jonathan. “He read a demon’s mind when he was in Cornubia!”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Endymion, and gave him rather a cross look. “It was a stupid mistake. All I needed to know was that there was something there that wasn’t human, but instead of accepting that, I pushed, and then I spent the better part of a day lying down with my nose packed with herbs. Andromeda Tzitzinia lectured me inside my head and out.”
Vilém made another face; Andromeda Tzitzinia had looked after him and his brother when they had been children, after their mother died. He hadn’t expected Endymion’s ability to develop into the kind of telepathic gift Andromeda Tzitzinia had…but he wasn’t really surprised, given Endymion’s brilliance generally. “Oh, she’s good at those lectures. You’re okay, though?”
Endymion nodded. “I didn’t know what it was, I just knew there was someone there! She’d have done the same damn thing in my shoes; we just walked down there looking to help a friend of ours recover some things from his old house, and the place was covered with sigils! Anyhow…”
“Anyhow,” said Hadrian, “you and Florian may have just saved the entire country.” He kissed Endymion’s cheek, looking right at Stepán pointedly. “What he isn’t telling you is that the sigils were there to aid and abet an invasion of the sacred queen’s own lands, and probably another attempt on her life.”
“I had a feeling you were going to do something awesome one of these days,” Vilém said, a little amused at Hadrian’s jealousy.
Endymion laughed. “I hope it’s not the most awesome thing I ever do, because I still want to make the Philosopher’s Stone. But I do hope the future awesome things that I do are a bit less blindingly painful and involve smaller amounts of bloody snot. None at all would be even better.”
“I’m all for none at all,” Stepán agreed pleasantly. “Good to see you too, Hadrian. I’m glad you’re getting along well.”
Hadrian nodded to him.
“Aw, c’mon, it’s not really awesome if you don’t get a little blood involved somewhere, that’s bonus points,” Vilém teased.
Endymion laughed. “I don’t mind bleeding for the cause, but I’d rather not bleed from my brain. I am using that, you know, Vilímek.”
Vilém laughed, too. “Right, you smart ones, always so protective of those brains.”
“It is what he uses to save people,” said Jenica after a moment. “He can’t shoot for shite.” She’d insisted that Endymion join her training sessions after his return; his misadventure with the demon, which he’d meant to entertain her, had scared her senseless.
“He’ll learn,” said Hadrian firmly, and wondered how she knew. “Is that what you have been doing with those girls? I wondered what they were dragging you off for.”
Endymion shrugged. “Surely you didn’t think anything else,” he teased.
Nadya looked up. “That’s not all. Sometimes we complain about people. Then go shooting.”
“And there’s a lot of running involved,” said Endymion. “Not that I’m good at that either, but if Frankel can do it…” He was not going to be outdone by a mundane-born foreign boy who was still recovering from a protracted bout with typhus. That was too humiliating, even for someone who’d never had much in the way of physical pride.
Hadrian snorted. “You.”
“Good,” said Zsuzsa. “Though, I wonder when you sleep.”
Hadrian shrugged. “We dropped all the courses we were taking that didn’t pertain to what we intend to do later.”
“Who’s Frankel?” Vilém asked, curious.
“He’s a Jew from Poland,” said Jenica. “That should tell you right there how much he wants to kill things. Maybe when he’s sure we can do that he’ll believe we can save people too.”
Zsuzsanna shuddered. “Yes,” she said softly. She knew little about the Jews (mostly, she knew that they had invented gematria, and she knew they were hated by many people for no apparent reason), but she knew that the Germans were killing them. Everyone in Europe knew that, though a lot of people pretended they didn’t.
Vilém considered this, then nodded. “Hell, the more the merrier at this point. It’s not like we’re running out of evil sons of bitches any time soon.”
Jenica nodded. “Also, he wants to be an alchemist like Nadya and Endymion. We’re going to have a scary pack. We’re getting some of the little ones asking about it now, aren’t we Jon?”
Jonathan nodded enthusiastically. “Kat and Meric and Angus and Florrie and some of the others…”
“People are scared,” Nadya said softly, still clinging to Zsuzsanna. “After the demon and everything, they want to do something, at least, some of the smarter ones. Heaven knows we seem really viable at this point, after how the drills are going and how the teachers act. And Goyle encourages us…”
“Good,” said Zsuzsanna. “Good. Doing something is better than nothing. Children…well, eleven is not so young. We had all been handling guns for a while when we were eleven.” She glanced at Vilém. “It’s better if they can have more of a childhood, I know, but to have a whole childhood you have to live through it.”
“Yeah, well,” Vilém acknowledged, shrugging. “I know it’s hard to get a whole childhood in wartime. At least they got part of one.”
“I don’t know what childhood is,” said Endymion. “Of us all here maybe only Hadrian does.”
Hadrian flushed, because it was true, and he didn’t like it, and he felt like he should apologise when Endymion said things like that.
“Yegor and I had part of one,” Nadya offered, as if trying to soothe Hadrian.
Hadrian nodded. “I just feel…very privileged, lately. And like it’s a moral failing, somehow.”
“Only as long as you refuse to see it,” said Zsuzsanna. “Everyone should have what you’ve had, but we don’t. So, that’s that.”
“That’s the problem,” said Hadrian, sighing.
“No,” said Stepán. “The problem is whatever’s going on here that we have to figure out.”
“Stepa’s right,” Vilém said. “And we’re going to figure it out.”
“…there’s something going on here now?” Hadrian sighed in bewilderment. “I thought we took care of all the demons already. Well, that you did, Jenica, and Professor VR and Constable Nutter.”
Endymion squeezed him around the waist a little. “Of course there’s something going on, there always is…” He glanced at Vilém.
“Yeah, pretty much. We’re just checking some stuff out. I mean, not that we don’t like you all, but we didn’t come for the food,” Vilém said. He wondered how many things would have to go catastrophically wrong at this school before people realised it was vulnerable. Too many, he decided.
“Great,” said Hadrian. “I thought you’d learnt something new about Maria. Rumours have got back to us here that she’s been seen all over Londinium with your father.” He was a little irritated that they’d had no word. Less irritated, he had to admit, than he would have been if Endymion and Jonathan hadn’t lionised the Ziteks so—but it was a valid point.
“I told Stepa,” said Endymion quietly. “I told them that he exorcised her and that they left the Leffoy estate at about the same time. Andromeda Tzitzinia came with him—she’s Melina’s mother after all—but she stayed. She’s probably still there, driving Lady Dracaena the other half out of her wits.”
“Better her than us,” Vilém said, trying not to think too hard about their father. That anger, that was for later, when he actually saw the man again and could swing at him, or there was no-one around but Stepa and maybe Zsuzsanna to watch him swing at walls again.
“Now, now. Lady Dracaena can’t be too pestered, she’s got to help run the country somehow,” said Hadrian with a sour little shrug. “But anyhow. At least my sister-in-law, to be, is not possessed any more.”
Endymion smiled at him sweetly and elbowed him. Behave yourself, my love, he thought loudly at Hadrian.
“Picked up any of Kyria Tzitzinia’s bad habits?” Zsuzsanna inquired, amused.
Endymion smiled his very best ‘angel, fallen’ smile.
Vilém snorted, amused. “That’s a yes.”
“He’s gentler about it than she is, at least,” said Hadrian, chastened.
“He couldn’t not be,” said Stepán.
“I think she can spell ‘gentler,’ but that’s about it,” Vilém added.
“Come here, milačku, say hello to us properly?” Stepán had had enough of this; he stood up, and Endymion came forward and allowed himself to be hugged. Stepán kissed his forehead, and only held onto him a second more than was proper before pushing him gently in his brother’s direction, but Jonathan was still in Vilém’s lap, so Endymion just bent over to kiss Vilém’s cheek before returning to Hadrian’s side.
Stepán looked up at Hadrian while Endymion was kissing his brother’s cheek. “If he’s running and shooting,” he said, “I expect you to do likewise.”
Hadrian sighed, and nodded. He was a prefect and on the Inquisitorial Squad, and he suspected none of this would count for an excuse, even though he would have gone, if Endymion had asked him to.
“Look at it this way. The next time there’s a gun full of rock salt involved, maybe you can be holding it,” Vilém offered with a smirk.
Hadrian laughed. “All right,” he said, nodding along.
“Cheer up,” said Jenica. “It’ll probably turn out to be one thing you’re better at than he is.”
Vilém opened his mouth to begin the discussion of what they’d learned about the Dashwood estate, hopefully to lead into more questions and answers, but then Nadya’s younger brother Yegor entered the room. He was usually carefully dressed—it had made an impression even on Vilém—and today he had put in even more effort than usual. Otherwise he looked drained. Vilém was glad to see him, but he suspected Yegor was not someone with whom Endymion wanted his business shared much.
Yegor had not hurried to see them; he was not looking forward to talking about his mother any more than necessary. “Hello cousins,” he said to Zsuzsanna and, by extension, the Zitek brothers. “Thank you for coming to visit.”
“Hello Yegor,” said Zsuzsanna, and smiled at him hopefully over the top of Nadya’s head. Conscious of his feelings, she let Jenica take Nadya gently from her arms, so that she could greet him with a hug as well. “I will not ask how you’re doing. I know it is awful and not to be borne.”
Yegor nodded. “Thank you for your kind thoughts, cousin,” he said carefully and respectfully.
Zsuzsanna wasn’t sure what else to say at that point. Yegor had never been very open with her. She knew he felt she liked Nadya better, and she did—but that was mostly because she always felt that Yegor judged her for many things that were none of his business, and even if he kept his mouth shut because she was older and stronger, he didn’t hide it very well.
“Hello, Yegor,” said Jenica. “Kyteler’s going to join us on our afternoon trainings,” she said with a nod to Hadrian. “It’s always good to have more boys to train…as long as they understand that I’m in charge, of course.” She smiled, a little wickedly; she didn’t want Yegor to feel picked on, given that his mother had died, but a challenge to her authority before everyone was trained could be deadly for all of them if the trouble she was expecting came too soon.
Endymion laughed softly. “I don’t even think Valeria Malaspina would challenge you,” he said with a languid shrug.
Hadrian smiled uncomfortably, not sure what this was about, except that his name had somehow come into it. “Valeria Malaspina’s not a boy, last time I looked,” he said. “And believe me, I got a good enough look.”
Endymion laughed, and kissed his cheek. “Sorry about that.”
Yegor nodded to Jenica. “More is better,” he agreed simply, feeling uneasy about the two boys: Dashwood and Kyteler were both smart and witty and he certainly wasn’t one of the people they’d hesitate to sharpen their claws on. But he knew well enough that he would have to figure out how to work with Dashwood in order to get away with his new plans.
Endymion raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Cheer up, Yegor, it’s better for you with both of us there. Being better at running and shooting than me is nothing to be so very proud of. But if Hadrian’s better than you there’s no shame in it, because he’s older, and if you can beat him, you’ll feel you’ve accomplished something. Even if none of us are half so good as Jenica.”
“Well,” said Zsuzsanna, “she has been doing this since she could walk.”
“It compliments her natural talent,” Nadya said, looking up at Jenica with a sweet smile.
“I’m waiting for little birds to appear and flutter around their heads, I swear,” Vilém teased, but it was gentle, all the same. He wasn’t sure what to do about Yegor, not yet. He understood not wanting to hug and talk things out; that was pretty well a female inclination, though Stepán was plenty good at it too. Clamming up, he understood. He just wasn’t sure what to do about the kid yet, aside from making him keep running. It had worked for him as a kid, anyway. Maybe Jenica busting his tail would make a difference. And if not, Vilém was pretty sure he could handle it when school was out.
“Seems to me I’ve heard you say that before,” said Endymion, nodding sagely. “But in their case…you’re probably right.”
Hadrian frowned, then laughed, shaking his head, as he realised that even if it had been a reference to what Vilém had said about Endymion and Stepán, it had been a reference to the fact that Hadrian had won Endymion, as well.
Zsuzsanna rolled her eyes at all of them. “Well, I’m very pleased to see the two of you so happy together. In times like these, with so much to be sad and sorrowful about, it’s good to have something to be happy about. And someone to share things with, whether or not they are joyful.”
“That’s true,” said Hadrian after a moment, and smiled at Endymion, who smiled back at him and put his head on his shoulder.
“Speaking of little birds,” Stepán said, and laughed. “Well, Yegor, any prospects for you? We really didn’t get much of a chance to get to know you before school began.”
“I am keeping my eyes open,” Yegor said portentously, although in truth he was still smarting badly over Ianthe’s attack on him and the resulting mockery from many Avalon girls. But that, he figured, would all change once he was properly established in his business. In the meantime, he just had to put up with the teasing, and with Jenica essentially running his family.
“Maybe you should consider Letty Quirke,” said Endymion, grinning; Letty Quirke was dying to get rid of her virginity, and he thought a little sex would be good for Yegor. “You’ve got better liquor than Ashford or Blackwell, or at least you know where to get it. Or Maeve Pritchard,” he added, which was not very nice, being a reference to Ianthe, and especially since Maeve would be unattainable for a while. But he couldn’t entirely resist that temptation; Yegor needed to learn that nothing was gained by making other people suffer for your pain. “Perhaps you can sell her more than a bracelet.”
Yegor gritted his teeth and reminded himself yet again that nothing got done in Avalon if Endymion Dashwood stood in its way. At least, nothing he was currently interested in doing. “We’ll see,” he said.
“Letty Quirke is pretty, I’ve heard,” said Hadrian mildly. “I’m a very bad judge, you must understand, but now that she’s given up on Dylan Vieira…”
Yegor nearly had to bite his tongue off to avoid voicing his thoughts about Letty Quirke, which he knew from the fuss over Ekaterina Rasputina would not be appreciated by Zsuzsanna. “She’s all right,” he eventually said, scuffing one of his shoes against the ground. “I’m not really looking,” he added, wishing for once that his family were more like most of the English in considering him too young for things like that.
As badly as Nadya felt for her brother—and she did, she knew he was upset about their mother and he was entirely awkward at times, which wasn’t really his fault, not exactly—she knew full well that he needed to learn that he wasn’t the top dog here, not with Jenica around. They weren’t in Russia anymore, and being male didn’t give him any special privileges as far as Zsuzsanna was concerned, nor, it seemed, with her husbands. He was just going to have to learn the lesson, as many times as it had to be taught, and it seemed to her that it would have to be taught the hard way. Maybe it would even stick.
She hoped so. She loved him, even at his most insufferable. And as far as Nadya was concerned, she wasn’t about to lose anyone else she cared about from this point onwards, not if she had anything to say about it. Whatever it took, she was willing to do. That was one thing she’d realised with Jenica, and it was one lesson she wasn’t about to forget.
“Well,” said Zsuzsanna. “Perhaps we should begin by going outdoors, and seeing what you’ve learnt. After tea, of course, it’s nearly teatime here, I know.” She caught Vilém’s eye, and nodded in Endymion’s direction. “We can talk to Endymion later this evening, about our detective work?”
“Sure,” said Vilém. There hadn’t been as much as he’d have liked, what with chasing all those ghosts in Bath; but maybe Endymion knew something about that, as well. He came from money; he must have heard something about the García-Malaspinas.
Hadrian was mollified; at least there had been some. “That sounds like a good idea. After Rosenthal’s seminar? Endymion wants to go.”
“Supper,” said Endymion speculatively. “I do want to go, but I don’t want to wait that long. And the food here is awful. Goyle might let us eat in town, if we’ve got guardians about.” He turned to Yegor. “Sorry, Yegor,” he said quietly. “We’ll bring you back something good.”
“It’s all right,” said Zsuzsanna. “I can take Nadya and Yegor to supper, and Vilém can fill me in later on what you’ve discussed.”
Vilém nodded. “Well,” he said, “it’s true that we don’t come here for the food.”
divine_alchemy, fairlight, hadrian, jenica, pan_ili_propal, stepan, swallowsflight, vilem and zsuzsanna