Iron Quill - Identity - Luciano

[Laatija Gray]

(works the very best with flamenco music playing in the background such as this)

 

 

Luciano

 

 

      

They were always asking about his name. Always. Every single time. Was it important? Perhaps, under the right circumstances, it might be helpful to know his proper title but it wasn’t as if you absolutely needed to know the given name of the person who was saving you from an inter-dimensional stagecoach hijacking.

 

And yet, the four dumbfounded passengers all looked at him with the same question mirrored in their collective faces as the coach tore across the badlands at unthinkable speeds.

 

“Who are you?!” shrieked the Younger Woman.

 

The devilish part of him – a part called Antonio – wanted to slap her for her insolence. But Louie – the part of him who was decent and kind – just kept him smiling, if a bit madly

 

“Perdón,” he said with a bow of the head, “but could you please hold this?” He handed Young Woman a small glass tube to distract her. It contained a carved matchstick – one of dozens of similar grimorie that he kept.

 

Little puta, Antonio sneered.

 

“Hola,” he said lightly to the other passengers. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that the stagecoach is no longer traveling at a safe pace. I’m afraid you’re all in danger.”

 

Tortured Soul started wailing from the back corner of his mind: Peligro! Todos vamos a MORIR! MUERTE!

 

“Poppycock!” the Aristocrat snapped. “You’re mad! I say again, who are you, sir?!”

 

“Someone please alert the driver!” shrieked Aristocrat’s Wide Wife.

 

“Sir, cease this foolishness,” ordered the French Man next to him.

 

“Just give us your name!” yelled Young Woman.

 

He channeled Antonio’s frustration into a well-controlled eye twitch.

 

Overhead, tucked away with the luggage, a dangerous mechanical box began to whine. The bright red soulstone on his ring began to glow. Tortured Soul screamed in anguish.

 

Time was running out.

 

“If you will look outside, por favor,” he said with an obvious gesture to the window. It was amazing how doggedly these passengers were clinging to the wrong facts of the situation.

 

What had happened thus far was this: the stagecoach left town at 8:00 am – the weather dry and hot. At 9:34, a monster had sprung out of the oversized steamer trunk that was lashed to the top of the coach. A scarce minute after that, the driver had been dispatched and the guardsman shared a chummy smile with the demonic stowaway. At 9:39 am, the incantations had started and a dashing dark haired man of unlikely origins had leapt bravely aboard the runaway stagecoach. At 9:40, for a fraction of a moment, it was dark and wet and cold.

 

Wide Wife opened the blinds and fainted.

 

It was like a thaumatrope. Two pictures on opposite sides of a disk, twirling back and forth to create the illusion of one image. However, magic here was much stranger than an impression than a bird in a cage. One moment, they were in the bright desolate badlands with the dust and distant mountains. And then, in a flicker of change, they were somewhere else. Docks, a darkly churning ocean, the whisper of pre-dawn light, early morning fog...

 

And then back to the badlands again.

 

He frowned. The flickers were getting longer than He'd anticipated - a half second now at the docks to the five seconds of badlands.

 

"What's...where..." Aristocrat sputtered.

 

“Mon dieu,” the French Man mumbled.

 

"We're being pulled back into Malifaux," He explained to them. "It's dark out because we’re going into the past. Two days—"

 

Another flicker – this one lingering for a full second.

 

It’s time, Antonio hissed.

 

Be careful, por favor, Louie insisted.

 

Ai, don’t smother, Antonio snapped at the pleasenter self.

 

Alguien tiene que ser su madre... Louie chided a bit sarcastically.

 

He smiled at the passengers brightly. "Please, excuse me."

 

He plucked the tubed matchstick out of Young Womans hand and tucked it back into his breast pocket, feeling the familiar thrum of wild magic against his chest.

 

"Wait!" Young Woman yelped. "Stop! Where are you going?!”

 

Louie grinned and winked but it was Tortured Soul who answered for them. "Morir por las almas del hombre..."

 

And then he climbed out of the window.

 

The wind whipped back his wide brimmed hat, snapping it taut against the string around his neck. He pulled his torso out of the window and used the sill as a foothold. It was an easy climb to the roof. Or should have been, anyway. But there was a Nephilim on the roof and that made things difficult.

 

As soon as His head cleared the coach, he saw it. It saw Him. They shared a brief moment of consideration for each other. He – a mystery man who was not quite as ‘man’ as he should’ve been. It – a young Nephilim with thin wings and spindly limbs and horns that were just beginning to curl.

 

Moriremos! screamed Tortured Soul. Seremos asesinados por la sangre de mi sangre!

 

The Nephilim pounced first, clawing at his arms. He let the thing pull him the rest of the way to the coach roof, like one of the many pieces of luggage that was stowed on the small flat space. Pain zinged up through his shoulders, sending Tortured Soul into such a panic that Louie had to escort the splintered self into the furthest reaches of His mind, where the wails were reduced to ghostly echoes.

 

Kill the guardsman, Antonio said, break the box!

 

To stop the stagecoach and destroy the magical device, Louie clarified, calmly.

 

Something clunked inside of Him, like a key of understanding turning the tumblers of his will. The parts of Him settled into a watchful silence as he regarded the young nightmare that was preparing to rip into his face with sharp eager teeth.

 

His face darkened, cheeks flushing to the color of a deep bruise. The wind blew His shaggy black hair away from narrow stubs of sawed off horn. Confusion and hesitation breathed over the monsters face as it smelled the black blood seeping from the claw wounds in His arms – those arms that were not as human as it had assumed.

 

“W-who…what…?” the young Nephilim started.

 

He kicked it between the legs, head-butted it in the nose, and wrenched at its innards with a sharply barked command from Antonio.  

Howling madly, the Young Nephilim lurched away, winging into the air with an expression like rage on its face. He scrambled then for the front of the coach where the guardsman was pulling a shotgun around. It was disturbingly simple to drive a knife through the man’s eye, even with the blast of buckshot zooming past His head.

 

The dead guardsman flopped over the side of the stagecoach. A flicker swallowed the body into the past which was as it should be. It was exactly where He would find the body, two days ago. The loop was closing nicely.

 

The next handful of things happened within the same handful of breaths. He reached out with his majik, grabbed hold of the reins in his mind, and yanked backwards to slow the horses. Then He lashed out with his booted foot and started to kick away the trunks and boxes and bags that were carefully arranged on the roof. The stagecoach came to a stuttering stop. One of the box's hit the dirt in a crunching, popping, fiery sort of way and suddenly…

 

…the world was still and silent.

 

In the Badlands.

 

For a breath.

 

And then He was flying over the edge of the coach, propelled by an angry blood-lusting Nephilim. They hit the ground in a great whomp, jerking Tortured Soul back out of his respectful silence with a spray of unintelligible gibberish.

 

He fought with the snapping, biting, monstrous thing. It was enraged and stupid in its youth but also unpredictable and Antonio made sure to explain just exactly how weak and un-hero-like it was that He took so long to throw the damned thing off. But he did it, eventually. He shoved the Nephilim away and scrambled backwards to open a space for fighting. His knife came into his hand and he—

 

CR-CRACK!

 

Gunfire.

 

He crouched instinctively. The Nephilim crouched as well…then crumpled back, face twisted in horror, black blood spurting from a fist sized hole in its chest.

 

He looked around, brow furrowed in confusion. There, standing with pistol raised, long hair whipping wildly in the hot wind, was Young Woman. The look on her face was an interesting blend of concern and irritation.

 

“You crazy sonofabitch,” she snapped.

 

All of his voices were stunned but Louie managed to slide a hesitant smile onto his face. “Sí.”

 

Young Woman shook her head and huffed, looking back the way they’d come. “Do you know how long I’ve been planning, you mad Mexican bastard?”

 

She’s a good shot, Louie said appreciatively.

 

We’re not Mexican, Antonio groused.

 

Nuestro cuerpo está cayendo a pedazos…murmured Tortrured Soul in a wistful tone.

 

He instinctively pulled his hat over his head, hiding the more obvious evidence of his heritage before she got too close.

 

She glared, hands on hips. “I suppose you want me to thank you.”

 

“No, I—”

 

“Good. You aren’t getting thanks. I’ve been tracking that man for three months!”

 

Indignant, Antonio pushed his way to the front of the collective consciousness. “The guardsman? He was about to rip a hole in time. If he had succeeded—”

 

“He’s not the one in charge,” she interrupted. “He was a minion. No more. The man who made that box– ” she pointed sharply to the smoking crater a few yards away “ –is the one responsible.”

 

He pursed his lips. “Sí. And I intend to find this man and kill him.”

 

She opened her mouth and closed it again. Thought for a moment.

 

She really is quite lovely, Louie insisted. Hair of gold. Eyes the color of the Alboran Sea…

 

“You’re hunting him?”

 

“I am.”

 

They looked at one another with narrowed curious eyes.

 

“Well, come on then,” she finally said. “We’ve got a deadly Arcanist to find and we haven’t much time.”

 

Yes, ok, Louie said immediately. Antonio scoffed but didn’t protest.

 

She marched back to the stagecoach, where the other passengers were panicking. He studied her for several moments longer.

 

“Luciano,” he called to her, after a pause.

 

She looked back at him. “I’m sorry?”

 

“My name. You can call me Luciano.” He dusted himself off, grinning at her.

 

She slowly smirked. “I’m Emma.”

 

“Muy contento de conocerte,” he said graciously.

 

She curtsied politely. “The pleasure is all mine.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End.

 

[Haunter]

Interesting piece.  I liked the style, and did totally imagine flamenco music overlaid.  I really liked all the action sequences, and the thaumatrope (complete with link!) idea was very cool and cinematic.  The multiple voices in his head felt sort of awkward.  I liked their interplay by and large, I just had a hard time integrating that layer into the action of the story.  It felt jarring going back and forth.  At the risk of butchery, if I were to do a big hack I'd keep pretty much everything that happened outside his head, and maybe change all the internal division and banter as him conversing or debating with himself.  Rather than peeking inside his mind, actually have him talking to himself in the same way he speaks to the passengers.  

[Laatija Gray]

Thanks Haunter I'll mess around with the story and see if that works a little better.