Chapter 22: An Impossible Possible Plan
Bazel took the data from a slightly flustered Neto and gave it a look over, not bothering to hide it from the large man towering over him with curious eyes from behind, and understood why his friend would say that he would have trouble believing him.
The enemies that had attacked Neto's men were first in the form of a swarm of bats that latched onto the windshield of the van, forcing them to come to a stop lest they risk killing themselves with a deadly car crash.
The moment they stopped, however, the bats grouped together and turned into people with skin so pale one might have thought that they were translucent. Neto's men were then engaged in combat, with the attackers eventually dispersing into bats once more to chase the fleeing Lily.
Looking at the picture of the single one they killed all but confirmed his guess, although he had no idea why the corpse looked the way it did.
"Confused about the corpse?" asked Tiernan, easily reading Bazel who looked back at him and nodded. "It's simple, the gift of house Sanguis comes in many shapes and forms but the most basic ability that all of them have is Blood Manipulation. What you see is the result of it such a gift, with every wound that they receive automatically healing by burning one's own blood to heal themselves. The damage that particular sucker in the picture took was too much and he ended up dying simply by healing himself to death, which is a lot more common than you might think."
With this information Bazel confirmed who the enemy was: House Sanguis.
He thought in silence for a moment, wondering why he had guessed that it was them in the first place as well as a possible motive when his shadow cat leapt up and pawed him in the face...delivering another set of memories.
'This little trip to pick up a forgotten household member seems to be even more fruitful, being ordered to harass the mutts has turned out to be a blessing in disguise....'
Bazel remembered this line being uttered by the Sanguis member who had almost succeeded in assassinating Zaira, if not for his intervention at the last moment.
'I hope that does not make this messier than it needs to be' thought Bazel, regretting his earlier actions somewhat.
A pat on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to meet the sculpted face of Tiernan.
"House Sanguis nabbed your little sister, that is quite a nasty piece of business. I only know of a few reasons as to why they would grab a random girl under protection, especially if they had to devote enough resources to take them from those oddly strong commoners, and none of the reasons are pretty. While my debts to you are many, I am not able to risk myself and by extension Zaira and follow you to their lair. However...if you join my family...everything changes. You do not have to fully join, as in adopt the name McGrath, but you must tie yourself to my family in some other meaningful way. There are plenty of titles to choose from: visiting elder, champion, informer, coitianta, da-"
"Hold it," interrupted Bazel, "The situation is not dire enough for me to preemptively choose a side. That may make it even uglier for me, as right now I am in a unique position of neutrality."
Tiernan was clearly not buying it and said with a huff, "How is she not in danger? Who knows what vile ritual they will undergo with that innocent dame?"
"I believe they took her not to do whatever you are thinking of, but instead because she is a member of their family that they went to take back. The reason for Zaira harassing Lily in the first place is because she is a 'mud blood', but either Zaira was wrong in her guess and she is actually an active member who was abandoned at one point or she recently regained her gif-" explained Bazel, who got a taste of his own medicine and was cut off by Zaira.
"Rogue, you dare suggest I was wrong?" said a grumbling Zaira whilst stamping her foot on the ground, "The McGrath family is famed for its sense of smell, and I as one of the prime heirs have an extremely powerful sense. I know a mud blood when I smell one, and she was definitely one of them."
Tiernan pinched Zaira's ear to calm her down, while saying, "I agree with my sister, there is no way that she would ever be mistaken when it comes to smell. Which means that your sister would have had to have recently activated her gift for the first time, but for one of her 'condition' that is easier said than done. As the only known way of someone who failed to properly receive their gift to have a second shot at doing so is to be killed in a way that leaves the body in tact, such as suffocation. There is a chance that the gift awakens in the moment between life and permanent death, forcibly reviving them in the process. So for your theory to hold...has your sister died recently?"
Bazel's immediate reaction was to sneer and deny that she had died, but a cat punch to the face stopped him from saying that.
'The time when I had rescued her from the jail in the basement, when I rescued her from the first kidnapping. Her breathing had indeed stopped, only restarting when I came into close contact with her. That was the result of the gift activating...'
He did not know how to feel about that, understanding that his sister had indeed died once already and that he had the feeling that it was completely his fault for some reason. There was also relief for coming back to life, but mostly there was a deep anxiety that descended upon him that could be described best by the thought that repeated in the back of his mind over and over again:
'I already lost her once, I cannot lose her again. No. Matter. What.'
"She did die, and she came back to life. When I got to her after she was taken away the thugs that Zaira hired, she was dead. Thankfully her gift came through, thus returning her back."
Zaira who had been silent for a moment, a rare sight indeed, yelled out, "WAIT! I did not have any thugs go after her, I swear. I did give her a fake job, but all I wanted was for her to try and steal something so I could teach her a lesson and scare her. I," she paused for a moment, noticing the glare from the two older brother figures of Neto and Bazel as well as her own brother, "I..thought that since all mud bloods are evil or evil waiting to happen, I would try to educate her early when she inevitably committed a crime."
"All right, all right, enough. When I have enough time to care I will ask more about what happened between you and Lily, but right now I have other problems," said Bazel, quieting the easily excitable Zaira,"such as approaching this Sanguis family. Knowing that they took her in as a prospective family member means she should be fine, but I want to hear their explanation for taking her randomly out of the blue."
"They are not the most reasonable people, if they believe they are in the right they will never budge. Although that is just my perspective as their life long enemy," interjected Tiernan, "but allow me to give you the basic information on them so that you can make a more informed decision. I do owe you after all, so this information should help alleviate some of that debt."
"Go on."
"The Sanguis family is a match for my own McGrath, a family of powerful blood manipulators that also dabble in shadow manipulation and shapeshifting. Although dabble might be a bit of an understatement, as they have more than just one master of each. Regardless, what you will be dealing with is most likely a branch family that has been sent over ahead of the main force to gain a foothold in the area. At the lowest will be the commoner organizations they own, which off the top of my head are several blood banks located in what you people call the slums and 'hood' areas of this town.
"Next would be the rank and file members, called blood servants as they also tend to double as experimental subjects for new techniques. From these rank and file certain people of promise can be elevated in rank, these are known as the blooded ones. Once these members rise to a certain level of strength, power, but most importantly reputation...they are promoted to the elder equivalent, Genus. Which if you are familiar with their funny way of naming things, means that they are the ones that the main family chooses new blood from when they need to diversify. There are other more specific roles, but to estimate their strength that is all you need to know. To really hit it home, the strongest Genus I ever met was just a little stronger than me, but not by much.
"You can imagine that if things turn ugly, you will be fighting at least three weaker versions of myself alongside dozens of blooded ones, and a horde of blood servants" explained Teirnan.
All the information dazzled Bazel for a moment, but eventually a vague picture of the structure known as House Sanguis came to mind...or at least a lesser branch family of the House.
Bazel knew that the odds were not exactly in his favor if things came to a fight, which is why he hoped that his first plan of negotiation in peace would work out. But he would still need a reliable plan incase things went south, a plan that would make the impossible possible...
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GodOfWriting
GodOfWriting Welcome to the start of Volume 2. For this novel(atm) the volumes will basically just be arcs, for you it is just a neat way to visualize the chapters but for me it is how I plan out my writing.
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