The next day was pretty much dedicated to people I didn't want to talk to. The FBI were first, and bemusedly brought in a cup of coffee for me, so pretending to be John's boyfriend was a go.
I reeled off our official 'we're not criminals' cover story with no actual attempt to convince anyone it was true. Tilly knew better anyway, and he was writing it down seriously while his partner tried to intimidate me. He wasn't as funny as that asshole Rudolph, but still pretty funny.
Tilly did tell me that Rudolph had gotten Murphy fired, which was expected but still hurt. They told me about what was going on in Central America; accusing Marcone of moving to take more control of the drug and firearms trade in the wake the cartels loss of cohesion. Which would have been expected if I'd thought about it. I told them the truth, that I didn't know anything about that, but that theoretically if someone was taking over, they would almost have to be better than the monsters who'd been running things before, or the civil war that they described going on now. If they weren't in reluctant agreement, I'd already be in custody.
Tilly's head came up sharply at the word monsters. He'd taken the whole ordeal at the headquarters better than nearly anyone I'd ever see. If he hadn't helped Murphy strong arm the more resilient agents into manning a barricade to keep anything from getting further upstairs, there could have been a whole lot more casualties. As it was, none of the Eeb's minions could do an end run around me and Susan to get at the people having nervous breakdowns on the top floors.
The power of the city had been a torrent running through my veins; I'd been having to hold myself back from using it. Later, I'd had to carefully gather in more energy than I ever thought I'd be able to hold in order to carry it with me far out of my territory, but then? In the middle of downtown, in a building dedicated to the defense of innocent lives and the punishment of the guilty? I'd had power to burn, and I did. Susan had guarded my back while I'd cut down the vampires like a chainsaw. Afterward, Murphy declared herself impressed at the lack of structural damage, but I hadn't needed to bring the building down. I'd been able to just kill them.
The Eebs themselves had run as soon they saw what I did to their Ick, and Susan and I had chased them. It was all very satisfying. When we caught them, we'd broken their kneecaps in honor of my new mob affiliation, and dragged them in triumph back to Marcone's office for interrogation. I'd had an embarrassed moment on arrival, abruptly remembering the way Mister sometimes brought me half-dead things as presents, but John's "It's not even my birthday" had been darkly pleased.
Anyway, the point was Tilly had been attacked by vampires without gibbering or going into denial. He knew that when I'd said monster, I was speaking literally.
“If you and Ms. Rodriguez hadn't...given yourself up to those people, we'd all have died.”
I shrugged. “And we'd have had to face them anyway. They had our daughter. Why should we have wanted a bunch of other people killed as well?” There had been enough of that already.
“It was a brave thing for you to do. Strange coincidence, though, that everything in Mexico started while you were missing. A whole lot of people are dying.” They were. I'd been trying not to think about the numbers that the two of them were talking about. The sheer number of thinking beings that I'd directly killed the night before last and the many, many more who were dying now because of actions I'd taken. I'd committed genocide. I'd murdered a woman I'd loved, the mother of my child, in order to commit genocide.
My stomach lurched.
If you ever do significant damage to your ribs, take my advice and don't throw up. It isn't fun. I concentrated on that for a while, and the fact that the vast majority of my direct victims must have had it coming, and after a while Tilly and Other Guy went away and left me alone.
Later on the delegation from the White Council came. John and Gard were there for that meeting, I guess to protect me. The whole wizard community apparently had mixed feelings about what had happened and some of them were pissed off. I mean on one hand, yay the Red Court were dead, and on the other they'd disavowed responsibility for me so thoroughly that they couldn't take credit. After years of war and centuries of hostilities, this jumped-up vanilla mortal Free Holding Lord goes in and his forces annihilate the Reds entirely. I'm sure that was very frustrating for them. Laughter is also bad for injured ribs.
My brief good humor ended when it was suggested that by using the death curse on mostly human half-turned Red Court servants and members of the Order of St Giles, I'd broken the First Law. That debate had apparently already taken place though, since John shut it down hard and no one brought it up again.
Luccio, at least, was genuinely concerned for me. There are very good reasons why it's against the Laws to bind people with magic, and I was bound irrevocably. Rituals involving primal forces are no more reversible than they are predictable. A good healer might be able to dig Chicago out of me in several years, by destroying my magic and most of my higher brain functions, but a good healer wouldn't do that. From what they could tell, the spell wasn't doing very much damage to me, much less than they were expecting. I could live with it.
If John had been anyone else, he would have been in deep trouble for having it done to me, but the Accords specifically give Signatories the right to enthrall their own people, and Viaggiatore, who had actually been the one to cast the spell, had very much not been human. When I'd looked at him with True Sight, he'd reminded me more than anything else of the ocean. Something so big you couldn't look at all of it at one, that could be cruel or kind and was always changing, but fundamentally unaltered. The name he'd given had apparently been picked at random out of the air when Gard had hesitated in her introductions, and good luck even finding him if he didn't want to be found. He wasn't subject to their authority.
Someone suggested that I was not John's 'own people', that I owed allegiance to the Council, and I broke in with incredulous anger. “Owe you? What could I possibly owe the Council that you'd want? You've given me nothing but death threats and contempt- do you really want me to start repaying that? John's done more for me in two days than any of you have done in my entire life.”
Luccio frowned, and I knew I wasn't being fair to her, that she'd tried, but goddamn it, it wasn't enough. When she'd dragged me into the Wardens I'd honestly thought I might finally have a chance at acceptance, and instead I'd been their pet boogieman. Darth Vader on a leash. And whenever it looked like I might go off the leash, it was straight back to trying to execute me.
“The Red Court is dead. The war is over. You don't need me anymore. I quit. I'd offer you the cloak back, but it was in my apartment.”
“I believe any further discussion might best take place elsewhere.” John got them out of the room somehow. There were a lot of strong personalities in that room, but I guess none of them wanted to stay enough to argue with him much.
I closed my eyes and let focusing on his heartbeat calm me. He wouldn't let them touch me. I was safe.
When we caught them, we'd broken their kneecaps in honor of my new mob affiliation, and dragged them in triumph back to Marcone's office for interrogation. I'd had an embarrassed moment on arrival, abruptly remembering the way Mister sometimes brought me half-dead things as presents, but John's "It's not even my birthday" had been darkly pleased. This is... horribly wonderful
Anyway. adoring this whole fill. It is made of awesome. :)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: AU to Changes FILL 5/?
Date: 2011-03-25 12:00 am (UTC)I reeled off our official 'we're not criminals' cover story with no actual attempt to convince anyone it was true. Tilly knew better anyway, and he was writing it down seriously while his partner tried to intimidate me. He wasn't as funny as that asshole Rudolph, but still pretty funny.
Tilly did tell me that Rudolph had gotten Murphy fired, which was expected but still hurt. They told me about what was going on in Central America; accusing Marcone of moving to take more control of the drug and firearms trade in the wake the cartels loss of cohesion. Which would have been expected if I'd thought about it. I told them the truth, that I didn't know anything about that, but that theoretically if someone was taking over, they would almost have to be better than the monsters who'd been running things before, or the civil war that they described going on now. If they weren't in reluctant agreement, I'd already be in custody.
Tilly's head came up sharply at the word monsters. He'd taken the whole ordeal at the headquarters better than nearly anyone I'd ever see. If he hadn't helped Murphy strong arm the more resilient agents into manning a barricade to keep anything from getting further upstairs, there could have been a whole lot more casualties. As it was, none of the Eeb's minions could do an end run around me and Susan to get at the people having nervous breakdowns on the top floors.
The power of the city had been a torrent running through my veins; I'd been having to hold myself back from using it. Later, I'd had to carefully gather in more energy than I ever thought I'd be able to hold in order to carry it with me far out of my territory, but then? In the middle of downtown, in a building dedicated to the defense of innocent lives and the punishment of the guilty? I'd had power to burn, and I did. Susan had guarded my back while I'd cut down the vampires like a chainsaw. Afterward, Murphy declared herself impressed at the lack of structural damage, but I hadn't needed to bring the building down. I'd been able to just kill them.
The Eebs themselves had run as soon they saw what I did to their Ick, and Susan and I had chased them. It was all very satisfying. When we caught them, we'd broken their kneecaps in honor of my new mob affiliation, and dragged them in triumph back to Marcone's office for interrogation. I'd had an embarrassed moment on arrival, abruptly remembering the way Mister sometimes brought me half-dead things as presents, but John's "It's not even my birthday" had been darkly pleased.
Anyway, the point was Tilly had been attacked by vampires without gibbering or going into denial. He knew that when I'd said monster, I was speaking literally.
“If you and Ms. Rodriguez hadn't...given yourself up to those people, we'd all have died.”
I shrugged. “And we'd have had to face them anyway. They had our daughter. Why should we have wanted a bunch of other people killed as well?” There had been enough of that already.
“It was a brave thing for you to do. Strange coincidence, though, that everything in Mexico started while you were missing. A whole lot of people are dying.” They were. I'd been trying not to think about the numbers that the two of them were talking about. The sheer number of thinking beings that I'd directly killed the night before last and the many, many more who were dying now because of actions I'd taken. I'd committed genocide. I'd murdered a woman I'd loved, the mother of my child, in order to commit genocide.
My stomach lurched.
If you ever do significant damage to your ribs, take my advice and don't throw up. It isn't fun. I concentrated on that for a while, and the fact that the vast majority of my direct victims must have had it coming, and after a while Tilly and Other Guy went away and left me alone.
Later on the delegation from the White Council came. John and Gard were there for that meeting, I guess to protect me. The whole wizard community apparently had mixed feelings about what had happened and some of them were pissed off. I mean on one hand, yay the Red Court were dead, and on the other they'd disavowed responsibility for me so thoroughly that they couldn't take credit. After years of war and centuries of hostilities, this jumped-up vanilla mortal Free Holding Lord goes in and his forces annihilate the Reds entirely. I'm sure that was very frustrating for them. Laughter is also bad for injured ribs.
My brief good humor ended when it was suggested that by using the death curse on mostly human half-turned Red Court servants and members of the Order of St Giles, I'd broken the First Law. That debate had apparently already taken place though, since John shut it down hard and no one brought it up again.
Luccio, at least, was genuinely concerned for me. There are very good reasons why it's against the Laws to bind people with magic, and I was bound irrevocably. Rituals involving primal forces are no more reversible than they are predictable. A good healer might be able to dig Chicago out of me in several years, by destroying my magic and most of my higher brain functions, but a good healer wouldn't do that. From what they could tell, the spell wasn't doing very much damage to me, much less than they were expecting. I could live with it.
If John had been anyone else, he would have been in deep trouble for having it done to me, but the Accords specifically give Signatories the right to enthrall their own people, and Viaggiatore, who had actually been the one to cast the spell, had very much not been human. When I'd looked at him with True Sight, he'd reminded me more than anything else of the ocean. Something so big you couldn't look at all of it at one, that could be cruel or kind and was always changing, but fundamentally unaltered. The name he'd given had apparently been picked at random out of the air when Gard had hesitated in her introductions, and good luck even finding him if he didn't want to be found. He wasn't subject to their authority.
Someone suggested that I was not John's 'own people', that I owed allegiance to the Council, and I broke in with incredulous anger. “Owe you? What could I possibly owe the Council that you'd want? You've given me nothing but death threats and contempt- do you really want me to start repaying that? John's done more for me in two days than any of you have done in my entire life.”
Luccio frowned, and I knew I wasn't being fair to her, that she'd tried, but goddamn it, it wasn't enough. When she'd dragged me into the Wardens I'd honestly thought I might finally have a chance at acceptance, and instead I'd been their pet boogieman. Darth Vader on a leash. And whenever it looked like I might go off the leash, it was straight back to trying to execute me.
“The Red Court is dead. The war is over. You don't need me anymore. I quit. I'd offer you the cloak back, but it was in my apartment.”
“I believe any further discussion might best take place elsewhere.” John got them out of the room somehow. There were a lot of strong personalities in that room, but I guess none of them wanted to stay enough to argue with him much.
I closed my eyes and let focusing on his heartbeat calm me. He wouldn't let them touch me. I was safe.
Re: AU to Changes FILL 5/?
Date: 2011-03-25 12:14 am (UTC)This is... horribly wonderful
Anyway. adoring this whole fill. It is made of awesome. :)
Re: AU to Changes FILL 5/?
Date: 2011-03-25 02:44 am (UTC)Re: AU to Changes FILL 5/?
Date: 2011-03-25 12:30 am (UTC)This. I wonder if Marcone has a clue how much Harry already trusts him.
Re: AU to Changes FILL 5/?
Date: 2011-03-25 12:40 am (UTC)JFC, authoranon, you are just... wow.
Re: AU to Changes FILL 5/?
Date: 2011-03-25 01:50 am (UTC)Re: AU to Changes FILL 5/?
Date: 2011-03-25 01:36 pm (UTC)Harry's never had anything like this before, someone who would take his side against all threats. It's got to be both unnerving and comforting.