Content warning for discussion of physical and sexual child abuse, suicide, and maximum Dio Brando.
13. The Devil Went Down to London
George’s eyes were downcast as he rested his head in his hands. His hair looked blacker and sleeker again, more like it had before this most recent bout of illness started, and he sat straighter in his chair. It stabbed Jonathan deep inside to mar his father’s face with such an expression of sadness, but there was no better option.
“Just for Christmas Eve, then,” George insisted, “I promise I’ll let you throw me back in here as soon as the sun rises on the twenty-fifth.”
“Didn’t my father tell you to avoid traveling in this chill as much as possible after your release?” Erina sighed, shaking her head. “Even if it weren’t the middle of winter, if I’m right about the wallpaper it might only take another brief exposure to undo
days of recovery.”
“Please, Father,” Jonathan continued from his seat across the small sitting table in George’s hospital room, “just wait until we can complete those chemical tests. It won’t take more than a week, and probably less.” He scratched a spot on the side of his nose as he spoke of the chemical tests, blocking his eyes from his father’s. He made eye contact again when telling him about the expected timetable; that part, he was telling the truth about. From where she stood beside him, wearing the same dress she’d had on under her winter jacket when they’d set out for Windknight’s Lot, Erina nodded her head meaningfully.
George’s head remained in his hands, elbows pressed down against the table. His moustache twitched. “Have you informed Dio of this?” He asked, his voice still defiant, but with a note of morose resignation beginning to set in. “I just told him I’d be home tomorrow. He was making arrangements.”
Jonathan looked back down at the table and rubbed some imaginary sleep out of his eyes as his mind raced for a response. Thank god – or sunfather and moonfather, whoever there even was for Jonathan to thank anymore – Erina was there to rescue him.
“We’ve spoken to him, yes. He argued, of course, but that’s his calling in life. Mine is medicine.”
She didn’t skip a beat, or look even a single degree askance, as she lied smoothly to George Joestar’s face. Jonathan himself, he realized, would have believed her. Nearly anyone would have. He found himself remembering their encounter with Dio in the back garden, and how the two of them had fought a battle he could barely follow without raising their hands or even dropping their smiles. Thinking back to what Erina had said about her father, and Dio about his, Jonathan wondered how skilled a liar he himself might have turned out were Father a different sort of man.
A long, bitter silence passed. George kept his head in his hands, not looking up from the table’s surface. Jonathan felt the weight of the pause on his own shoulders, and looked into his father’s downcast eyes as he spoke. “If it really is the wallpapers, I’ll have them out in time for New Year’s Eve. Without fail.” He allowed himself to smile at the thought. It was, after all, his genuine intent. “Dio and I will spend our Christmases elsewhere, and we’ll save our own pies and turkey roast for the thirty-first.”
George nodded his head, though without much enthusiasm. After a moment, he rested his hands back on the table top and looked up at Jonathan. Despite the sadness and frustration in his eyes, Jonathan was reassured once again to see how much brighter they looked, and how much higher he held his head than he had during the last visit. “I’ve spent decades in that house. So has Rory, and he’s far older than I.”
“It’s not a matter of who the oldest is,” Erina said, shaking her head with a frustrated, sympathetic smile, “the body develops new frailties as it ages. Your butler may never have such a reaction, just as you never did until the year before last.”
Jonathan wondered if that was true, in the case of at least some patients. “I’ll be sure to visit you again on Christmas day, and the afternoon before.” He had intended to follow that up with something to the effect of
and I’m sure Dio will as well, but he knew before he got there that he couldn’t do it. Not convincingly. Not without his voice breaking. Instead, after an awkward pause that concealed some frantic thought, he said “Ahem. There…may also be something else to celebrate, not long after the New Year.”
That had the desired effect. George’s eyebrows rose, his head slightly perked up. “Oh?”
Recognizing her cue, Erina sidled closer to Jonathan, and rested her hand on the corner of his right shoulder. Jonathan, swallowing some nerves that he really hadn’t been expecting to have about this, raised his own right hand and rested its fingers on her forearm. The feeling of her skin against his own emboldened him.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve decided to get the paperwork taken care of now, while I have the free time for it, but you’ll be in perfect health in time for the celebration.” He felt himself blush, an involuntary grin coming on that he decided it wasn’t worth resisting. “Erina and I are going to marry.”
George’s eyes brightened further. Jonathan thought he heard a muffled choking sound from outside the door, but his attention was too focused on his father to be sure. It took George another moment before speaking, but when he did his voice was far more cheerful. “Hah! Why, I was right after all then, all those years ago.” In response to Erina’s raised eyebrows, George chuckled and spoke further. “The first day JoJo came home beaming and telling me about the girl he’d met, I had this thought, but I told myself it was just boyhood infatuation, and then when your family moved away I nearly forgot all about it. I suppose I should trust my instincts more often.” He chuckled again. His eyes looked damper, and for the first time in more than a year it wasn’t because of pain or frustration. “Congratulations. And…I’m so glad for you, JoJo.”
He reached out across the table, bracing his other arm beneath him, and rested his right hand on Jonathan’s left. Jonathan felt lightheaded, for a moment, as he realized he had the two people he loved most in the world in either hand. The last time this had happened must have been before he’d begun to form persistent memories. A burning sting began in the corner of his eyes, and he grabbed his father and lover (bride, or bride-to-be, Jonathan didn’t care to worry over the distinction just now) tighter in each set of fingers. They each clutched him back.
“Although,” George’s tone of voice changed, taking on the interrogative aspect Jonathan knew well, “I must say this came rather soon after your reunion.”
“Ah…yes…well…”
“We decided there was really no point in waiting, when it was really just so obvious.”
“It…it wasn’t as if I was going to…well, what she said, of course.”
George shook his head, shutting his eyes and grinning tiredly. “Well, I suppose I was young myself once, a very, very long time ago.” He leaned back in his chair, releasing Jonathan’s hand. “I doubt you’d permit me to say anything more.” Jonathan grimaced, but fortunately his father indeed did not delve any deeper into the subject. “Do you have a date for the ceremony?”
“Not yet,” Jonathan said, leaning a little further toward Erina in his seat, “it might be best to wait until I’ve graduated.”
“It’ll give me some time to make some arrangements of my own as well,” Erina said. She then cast a suspicious look toward the door, and said “Besides, it’ll give the guests more time. I’d love to invite all my monk friends from India.”
There was a louder, more distinct choking sound from outside, this time recognizably the voice of Doctor Pendleton. When the room fell silent again in its wake, the sound was followed by a slow, reluctant opening of the door. Jonathan felt Erina squeeze him tighter, and a quick meeting of their eyes told him that she’d much rather do this with himself and Father at her side than alone. Jonathan nodded understandingly, and turned around in his seat to greet his new father-in-law.
“Good afternoon, Misters Joestar.” He gave Jonathan and George a polite, formal head bow without taking his eyes off of his daughter. “Riny, when were you planning to speak to your mother and I?”
“Just as soon as we finished speaking with the baron, Papa. Marina said you were busy when I asked at the front.”
The broad faced man was silent, staring at the three of them with an expression Jonathan couldn’t readily decipher. “And you decided this since sending the letter last night?”
“Well,” Erina said, “I wasn’t going to say anything until Jonathan and I were completely sure.”
“Really, Thomson,” George said, “you must have been expecting this yourself.”
“Hmm.” Thomson’s head bowed down slightly before straightening again. “Yes, we have been, of course. The circumstances could have been otherwise, but, well.” He let out a very quiet, subdued sigh and let his face soften just minutely. “Congratulations, Riny. Mister Joestar Junior.”
…
“That went so much better than I expected!” Erina said excitedly as she and Jonathan strode back out into the slushy afternoon. “It was a lucky thing that he was listening. I think it would have been worse without both you and your father present.”
Jonathan shook his head, looking down bemusedly at Erina’s hooded face. “Really? He looked awfully disappointed.”
She scoffed, shaking her head dismissively. “He looked exactly as disappointed as usual.” She took Jonathan by the hand again. “Well then. I suppose we find Speedwagon, now?”
He squeezed her hand harder in return, and nodded. “Well, of course. We’ll at least want him to be our best man.”
Erina tilted her head at him as he looked for a coach to wave down. “Wait…we’re doing that before looking into…well, into your suspicions?”
A strained, almost painful, breath escaped Jonathan’s lips, as if some of the tension was tearing its way out of him and doing even more damage in the process. “I don’t know what he’s going to do, Erina. Or when he’ll do it. He’s surprised me too many times, and with the way his mind works I’m not sure if we could see it coming. We…I…may have handed him some ammunition, letting everyone see us after last night. I don’t know how he’d leverage it, or what other thing he might try even regardless of that, but…I want our marriage in writing
now.”
The look that she gave him in response, somewhere between surprise and concern, hadn’t been
quite what Jonathan expected. Perhaps he had unsettled her, letting the extent of his fear and anxiety show itself. He wondered if it had yet occurred to her that it wasn’t very much for his own well being that he feared. Whatever Dio attempted, especially if it involved their courtship, Erina was almost certain to be at the greatest risk. Socially, and otherwise.
It seems so backwards, he thought, as he watched her silently nod her head and place her other hand on his as well,
she’s so much better able to defend herself against vampires than against mere mortal Englishmen. He wondered, then, what it was that protected himself the most; his father’s name and wealth, or the deferred boons of his mother’s ancestry.
All things I was just born with. Not because of anything I’ve actually done.
A cab coach finally caught sight of him, and turned their way at the corner. As the cloudy sky darkened and the wind took on its first really stinging chill, he led Erina to the vehicle that would take them to East End. It was a long, uncomfortable, frustratingly slow ride to Spitalfields, which was as close to Ogre Street as the driver was willing to drop them. The afternoon had given way to a pale, chilly sunset by the time they arrived. A pair of crouched, shadow-hugging figures sidled along the crumbling brick walls after them as they started down the path, but after Jonathan pointed them out and he and Erina gave them a sort of look that only one who has faced demons in hand to hand combat can manage, they slinked back away. When Jonathan knocked on the door of the Respectable Establishment, he was somewhat surprised to be greeted by Clara herself rather than one of the bouncers or employees.
“You’re looking for your husband, I’m guessing?” she asked, looking back and forth between Jonathan and Erina as if unsure of who she should be addressing.
“Well.” Jonathan wasn’t sure if he was relieved or annoyed at Speedwagon for disclosing what he’d disclosed. Beside him, Erina clenched her jaw. “Yes, madam. Would he happen to be here?”
Clara stared at him silently for a moment. “It’s true, then? How the hell does that even…well, he’s probably off at Kempo and Na Ying’s. Sit down in the…well, you know the room I mean. I’ll have someone fetch him. Try and keep it quiet if you can, we’ve actually got business tonight.”
Eliza’s old room remained cold, barren, and seemingly untouched since their last visit, accumulating dust. Jonathan started to wonder how long it normally took Clara to find new employees, before he remembered that it had been less than three weeks since Eliza’s death was confirmed. How could it have only been that long? Jonathan reached back to what he thought he was and the life he thought he’d been living until this Christmas holiday, and found them evading his mental grasp. He was as different from the man he’d been a month ago as
that man had been from his nursery days. A moment after they entered, the door behind them opened again, and Clara tossed an armful of stained linens onto the cot.
“You lot drop by enough that I might as well make it cozier.”
“Thank you,” Jonathan and Erina said in unison. Clara was already closing the door again though, and didn’t have time to visibly react.
“Well, she’s certainly treating us like family now,” Erina half-smiled up at Jonathan.
“Your family and mine have some different customs in that regard.” Jonathan started to chuckle, but stopped before he could so much as smile. Had the Joestar house actually been the warm, loving place he always thought of it as, for the last several years? That sobering thought, of course, brought him back to his purpose here in London. Unsure of what else to say, he turned back to Erina and clutched her tightly against him. When she embraced him in return, and he felt his heart rise, he looked down at the top of her blonde head and found his eyes beginning to tear.
“God,” he whispered, “you were the only one, all along.”
“Jonathan? What do you mean?” She tilted her head up at him, expression turning concerned as she saw the dampness of his gaze.
“I remember when Dio first arrived. I tried to tell Father about…well, about
some of the problems. He told me I had to be patient with him, that he’d had a terrible childhood. But then…he had better marks than mine. Better
table manners than mine. And soon Father decided it was jealousy that was making me say the things I tried to tell him.”
Erina’s eyes widened. “You never told me any of this,” she whispered up at him.
Jonathan’s eyes closed, burning hot as he felt the first two tears squeeze themselves out under the descending lids. “I was ashamed. Of how he always won. He even won Father from me, so many times. My…my entire life, there’s only one person, one thing, he could never take from me. Even when he did his absolute worst.”
Her own, normally bright eyes began to dampen. He felt her arms encircle him more tightly. “Your father?
Really?”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Jonathan raised one hand to his face, wiping his eyes as best he could while keeping the other clutching his wife. “
Everyone believed Dio. To this day, everyone still believes him. I…I believed him too, after enough years. Once your family left, especially. But…not you. Never you.”
He took her in both arms again. She raised one of her own, and rested the fingertips against his quivering cheek.
“It did help that you beat him up after he did that,” she said.
Jonathan snorted, sniffing back the last of his tears. “Really, though.”
“Really.”
When he looked back into her face, she was earnest. She rose her shoulders in a shrug before continuing. “It’s not like anyone else has fought for me like that. Or risked as much, given that…what did your father even say afterwards?”
Jonathan sighed, shaking his head slightly. “Scolded both of us for fighting in the house and sent us to our rooms.” He felt his mouth pull itself into a slight grimace. “And scolded me extra because I’d kept hitting Dio when he was already down, when he walked in. I…suppose I expected to get much worse from him than I did.”
“Maybe he didn’t believe Dio’s lies quite as much as you thought, at least at that point?”
“Hmm.” He raised one of his hands to stroke Erina’s hair. “Thinking about it in retrospect…perhaps you’re right. At least a little bit.”
He wiped his face again to make sure it was completely dry before leaning in to kiss Erina. She pushed herself up on her tiptoes, pressing her face into his and locking their lips, one hand grasping the back of his head. Their mouths had only parted again for a moment when Speedwagon walked in.
“Oye! I was just planning to write you two myself. I’m guessing Wamuu went ahead and invited you over without giving Clara and me a notice?
Just like him.”
When he saw the blank looks on their faces, he cocked his head to the side and held his hat up in front of his chest.
“Oh, he didn’t tell you then? Well, I suppose I oughta’, if that’s so. We think we’ve found the last mask already. Some bodies were found all cut up and buried together in some town out east, by the channel.” He paused again, finally seeming to notice the vestiges of distress. “What
does bring you up here, then?”
Jonathan started to clear his throat, trying to get himself grounded again. Thankfully, Erina was as quick as always to pick up the slack. “The other night, you said you caught Dio coming out of an apothecary, didn’t you?”
Speedwagon raised his bushy, dark blonde eyebrows, clearly surprised. “Aye. That was the night Jonathan and I first met.”
“Do you know what he might have been buying there?”
Speedwagon snorted. “No idea. Maybe he’s got himself a dependency that he’d rather keep secret?”
Jonathan’s teeth clenched. Calming himself down took a moment longer than he thought it would, but Erina waited for him. “I don’t think that that’s it. Can you take us to that shop?”
“Well, of course. It’s just down the street a ways. Though Mr. Chan - that’s the Chinaman that owns it - isn’t usually open ‘til later.”
“Alright then,” Jonathan said, stepping away from Erina and toward the door, “while we’re waiting for that, would you mind accompanying us to a Vicar? It’s related, we can explain on the way.”
The other man shrugged. “There’s no place I haven’t gone with you yet. Me and Tattoo were planning to take care of some business tonight, but…well, I guess that’s not so important anymore, is it?” He clapped Jonathan on the shoulder and led the other two back out.
…
“Well, s’like I said,” the one-eyed man repeated with a shrug of the tattered coat over his shoulders, “slanty eyed bugger’s slanty-eyed-buggered-off. Shop’s empty.”
“Do we still get paid?” The taller, younger ruffian asked. “We can still burn the place if it helps.”
The rushing of blood and the pounding of his own heart in Dio’s ears nearly drowned their voices out. Teeth clenched so hard they nearly fused together, he reached into his pocket and slammed a pair of florins down on the table. They each grumbled as they took their coins, but then fell silent and just bowed their heads and backed away respectfully when they met his glare.
It was
at least four shillings more than these two were worth. But he didn’t want them getting bitter at him, either. He had more than enough problems as it was.
He got to him first. Somehow the muscleheaded OAF got to him first!
Outside the shuttered windows, heavy, wet snowflakes tumbled artlessly to the slush below. Inside the dimly lit and foul smelling pub, more men like the two that had failed him milled about. Shouting. Babbling. Drinking. Dio rested his hooded head in his hands, lips pressed shut tight, the pounding and rushing noises getting worse with every passing minute.
I had it. I had it all. It was just inches
away.
As he’d long ago trained himself to do, Dio recounted the last month or so worth of events to himself.
What did I do, and what should
I have done? Determining where he’d gone wrong, experience had taught him, was always the first step to finding the way forward again. It had been seven years since the stakes had been so high. Perhaps they’d really
never been. But nothing was beyond fixing. There was nothing he couldn’t do if he just set his mind to it.
I should have killed JoJo. The night of the break in. If I’d killed him in his sleep and then cut him up enough, it wouldn’t occur to anyone that the robbers hadn’t
done it.
JoJo had become increasingly unpredictable, really, for months leading up to that night. Perhaps he should have acted at the first sign of trouble, instead of waiting for the escalation. Even if not, the
instant that anyone from the Joestar household had begun keeping company from Ogre Street, Dio should have foreseen this possibility.
I should have killed him months ago, if I had a good opportunity. I should have killed either him or Speedwagon after I read the first letter.
No. No, no, he wasn’t being honest with himself. Clenching his teeth so hard they nearly cracked, pulling at his bangs with each hand, he finally gave in to that voice that part of him had known, all along, represented his better judgement.
I had no business keeping JoJo alive in the first place. I let myself get…no, not attached to him, but invested
. I wanted him to see it, when I took everything. I wanted to make sure he understood exactly how and why he and George brought this on themselves. Stupid. Egotistical. I gambled too much of actual value on mere feelings.
Another long-suppressed thought breached the already turbulent ocean of his mind. With an audible growl, he looked up from the table and fixed the flabby, gray-haired barmaid in his glare. She froze in place, eyes going wide. Good.
“Rum.” Dio barked. “Now.”
As she hurried off to fetch the cup, Dio looked at the dirty wooden shutter that covered the window by his table. Wine stains. Vomit stains. Little patches of cleanliness, more likely the work of ants or cockroaches than people. He stared at the filth, layer caked upon layer, and thought about George Joestar.
That was the other mistake, wasn’t it? It had gone hand and hand with his first one, and once again his own ego was to blame.
Dealing with George first and JoJo afterward was idiocy. Sheer idiocy.
His vision turned red, as it always did when he thought too long or too deeply of his adoptive father. He’d told himself, during that first ride from London to his new home at age thirteen, that he could shrug it off. That he could swallow his pride and let one of those self-righteous blue blood fucks think he’d made a
pet of Dio Brando. That he could live his life as a monument to some self-congratulating piece of shit’s ego, a token of superiority no different from the foreign curiosities displayed in the foyer, without succumbing to the need to lash out.
There was a time, however brief, when Dio had gone soft and begun to think that maybe George was developing some sort of genuine fondness for him, as a person rather than as a decoration. But then, of course, JoJo had had his miraculous growth spurt and become a star athlete, and just like that he was the favored son and Dio was the family pet again. Of course, it would have been a sudden growth spurt. Victories always just
happened to JoJo. It wasn’t as if he ever
did anything, any more than he’d chosen to be born rich.
The day of his arrival at the manor. That knowing, condescending smirk on JoJo’s face when he’d dared to put his hand on him.
I’m everything. You’re nothing. Here, let me help you.
Dio was relieved, at least, when George never laid a hand on him. He’d been preparing himself for it for the entire lead up to his adoption, and continued expecting it for months afterward. To this day, Dio wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t. Perhaps he’d just been lucky, for once, and come under the power of the one blue blood in England who didn’t feel the need to express their mastery in that particular way.
It wasn’t as if Dio couldn’t have taken advantage of it, if he had, though. He’d swallowed his pride, held back his tears, and dropped his trousers for enough blue blood fucks. He’d have starved, otherwise. This was mostly in the time after his mother’s death, before he’d learned to win at cards or chess and make a few shillings that way. She’d come back from the factory after dark every evening, barely awake enough to hug and sing to him. His father would, evening after evening, assure her that this next scheme would set them up for life, and then drink and wench through her earnings. Dio was eight years old when she died. He was only two months older when his father had sold her wedding dress and ring. His first business transaction with a noble gentleman had been later that same year.
Where did you learn such impeccable table manners, Dio? JoJo, I think you could stand to learn by his example.
How he would have loved to actually answer George’s question, that first week after he’d moved in, and just watched the looks on him and his spawn’s faces. He’d kept it in, though. He’d kept it all inside. And then, after biting it back for so many years, he just hadn’t been able to help himself. George
had to die. All throughout secondary school, all throughout college, George’s money and influence had been behind him, sucking away all of Dio’s achievements like a horsefly gluttonous for blood. George reminded him of it with every vapid smile, every empty platitude, every timely “rescue” that he didn’t need. No matter what Dio did, it would belong to George, unless George was removed.
His rum arrived. He snatched it from the girl without looking at her.
Stupid. Stupid. I was so unbelievably
stupid.
He took a drink. It burned much hotter than he remembered. How long had it been since he’d had hard liquor? Not long enough. It was acrid. Toxic. It tasted of vomit and dirty snow. He took a bigger gulp.
He’d kept too much in for too long. His judgement had been clouded, his patience eroded. It led to him making bad decisions, and left him with insufficient attention to devote to the real threats. JoJo had only started getting willful after Dio began buying the poison again. He hadn’t made the connection until now, but as was often the case it was obvious in hindsight. The prospect of getting rid of George Joestar, of finally being
free for the first time in perhaps his entire life, had made him overexcited. He’d paid less and less attention to JoJo, and in that window of opportunity, well…
He took another sour, fiery chug, and slammed the cup down on the stained wooden table, burying his face again in his hands.
Maybe this December was all just an ongoing fever dream, and he’d wake up and breathe the most earnest sigh of relief he’d enjoyed since he killed his father. A more recent memory broke through all the years of layered humiliations and outrages inflicted by George, and it was one that brought terror rather than hate. Blazing yellow eyes and teeth like hatpins, set in a bearded face the color of the surrounding snow. Cold skin and monstrous strength like a frenzied horse’s that threw him – picked him up and
threw him – to the ground. The knowledge, the absolute, undeniable KNOWLEDGE, that he was about to die, that he would be killed by a monster straight from a children’s fairy tale out by the roadside, where no one would ever know what had happened and there would be nothing he ever could have done.
Until JoJo rescued him.
Of
course.
He’d been grateful. He’d actually, for that one, pathetic, animalistic moment when he was too overwhelmed by raw fear to think rationally, been
glad for JoJo’s intervention. However he’d done it. Whatever it was he’d done, when his muscular frame had surged into view and there’d been confusing heat and noises. Which had just made Dio all the more humiliated when he came back to his senses.
That wound was still open, and hurting. Then, just this afternoon, JoJo had torn it open so much wider, and now his very heart and brain and entrails were pouring out. Monsters were real. Demons were real. Magic was real. And JoJo took it all for himself. Without even trying, as always. Because he happened to own a mask, just like he happened to own everything. Even those swelling arms and chest and rocky, crystalline cheeks and brows. Dio had trained his body as relentlessly as he’d trained his mind. He’d ran, lifted, fought, swam, the lot of it, to gain the muscles that he had. Every morning, he went over his face and hair like an owl inspecting a field for mice, making sure Dio Brando was as beautiful as he knew he should be. And yet, Jonathan had been stronger –
immensely stronger – just because he had a growth spurt. Women blushed and stared after him even when the oaf had clearly just stumbled out of bed and stank of sweat as if they were actually
drawn by it. And yet, he’d completely ignored all of them, as if totally oblivious. As if nothing and no one else mattered to him at all. Except for that one conniving little
whore of a nurse who, as far as Dio could tell, he’d picked out of a hat.
His grip on the cup was getting painful. He didn’t care.
Killing JoJo as soon as possible was probably the only option. He’d wanted to take his time with this, but that sentimentality was over now. Poison, of course, was Dio’s tried and true method, but JoJo would surely be taking precautions against that now. Kill him in his sleep, and let everyone assume his new friends were responsible? Possible. Not even Jonathan would be so foolish as to spend another night at home while Dio was alive and free, but it would be just like him to go spend them in Aldershot. Yes, that was the beginning of a plan now.
Check the Pendleton residence. If he’s there, then Doctor Pendleton leaves his pipe burning and burns down the house with everyone in it. If he’s not, then pick up a trail from there to wherever he now sleeps.
He raised the cup to his lips to finish the last putrid sip, but choked on it, sputtering on the sour, burning sludge when he saw the man standing in the middle of the pub. Dio grabbed his blazing throat, sure that this really was a nightmare after all, either it was a dream or the world itself had never actually existed, that was the only way this could make sense.
“…Jojo…”
He started to whisper, but then the man spoke, and Dio realized – to his great embarrassment – that it wasn’t Jonathan Joestar after all. But sod it all, the resemblance! The towering, barrel-shaped chest that tapered down into steely curves and ripples. The mighty shoulders, connecting to arms impossibly graceful and agile despite their bulk. He managed to cough the last of the alcohol out of his larynx and steel himself against the residual burn as his heart slowly calmed down again.
“That’s it?” The tall, muscular man was asking someone sitting at the table he’d just stood up from, “no best of two out of three?” He clucked his tongue, and then almost immediately puckered his lips into a lilting little series of whistles that sounded like no tune Dio knew, but somehow conveyed disappointment. He spoke with an
almost perfect upper London accent, but there was a hint of something foreign buried under it. Which country, Dio couldn’t say at all. Nor could he place the juxtaposition between the man’s bronzed skin and the flaming, almost
unnaturally bright red hue of the hair that poked out from beneath his shadowy cowl.
The man turned around, flaming eyebrows slightly raised as he studied the pub for challengers. “No one?” He repeated, his cockiness joined by a note of truly
artful affected loneliness. “Not another chess player willing to barter?”
Dio squinted.
To be quite honest, there was one other person who this man reminded him of, now that he was paying attention. The size, the almost fluid motions as he maneuvered his bulk around the pub as if it all weighed nothing at all, the dark skin and bright hair. If one were to take that man Wamuu’s complexion and dexterity, and apply it to Jonathan’s slightly slimmer body and features, the result would look quite a bit like the redheaded man seeking chess opponents. And yet, there was a…
poise…to him that none of that covered. The sort of confidence that doesn’t come from just accumulated victories, but from a place of…Dio’s brain was already a little tipsy, but he could come up with the words...of
not even having to fight. The confidence of a cat idly hunting birds it didn’t actually need, or an eagle in its own ability to fly. And yet, it wasn’t the brash, heedless comfort of someone like JoJo that guided every movement and word. It was all calculated. All deliberate. The body language of a man who knows exactly what he has, and exactly how best to leverage every ounce of it, at all times.
The man’s slim, light olive face with its subdued, feline smirk roved across the room until his dark, ruddy brown eyes met Dio’s. Dio sucked in a sharp breath, and of all things found himself raising a hand to fix his bedraggled bangs. By the time his hand had so much as reached face level though, the towering stranger’s gaze had moved on.
“Come on now, I’ve been told this is the place to come if one wants a challenging game and decently priced drink. Let’s make this interesting, then. How many of you would be interested in playing for
this valuable little heirloom?”
He reached into his thick brown coat, and pulled out a pale stone mask with a serene expression and a pair of downward-pointing fangs.
If he’d had anything in his mouth, Dio would have choked on it again.
From around the half-populated room, some murmurs and head turns began to make their way into Dio’s frazzled senses. Dio didn’t have time to think about how this could be happening, what this even was, how he’d simply stumbled into another of those Mesoamerican
things whose JoJo’s pursuit of had led to Dio confronting a demon in the flesh. All he knew, down to the very core of his being, on a level beyond doubt or analysis, was that he
had to take what was before him. Coincidences were rare, incredibly precious things. All of the best turns of Dio’s life had come from seizing them before they passed by.
“Here!” Dio projected, raising his baritone above the rest of the interested babbling. He sat up straight against the stained wooden backrest, and tilted his chin up at the tall man, letting his own well-practiced confidence cover the anxiety and confusion like thick curtains coming down. Most heads around the bar and tables turned to face him. Good. Attention always brought more attention in turn. “I’ll play.”
The stranger’s head turned back toward Dio far more slowly than most of the others. When his gaze reached him again, though, it was bright and curious. Appraising. “Well,” he said, raising his crimson eyebrows almost bemusedly and tilting his head a little to the left, “aren’t you the enthusiastic one. Certainly.” He raised a mighty arm and beckoned to Dio with a tanned finger. “Come along over here, then.”
Dio scoffed. A condescending grimace of his own moving into place to counter the challenger’s. “I’m already sitting. If you’re that desperate for someone to play against you, you can bring the chessboard here.”
There was a round of chuckles from around the room. Dio’s grimace turned into a smirk. Cocky as this fellow was, he’d rather turned the room against himself, and now Dio was the hero of this performance. Off to a very, very good start.
“Suit yourself.” The tall man’s tone and expression were both perfectly gracious as he glided around a pair of central tables and was sitting down across from Dio with the chessboard on the table between them before the latter could even acknowledge the act of him sitting. It was almost as if he’d vanished from one spot an arm’s length away and reappeared sitting across from him, dark, reddish-brown eyes still narrowed appraisingly. Now that he was this close, Dio noticed the faint, blue marking – like a subtle tattoo – under the man’s left eye. A curving line running along the edge of his eye socket, with spokes pointing out toward his cheek and ear like the teeth of an engine gear, or perhaps a stylized eyelash. Hadn’t Wamuu had a tribal mark of that color, somewhere on his face? Dio thought back to the part of the conversation he’d overheard. What had the foreigner said about others of his race? He’d claimed that masks like the late Mary Joestar’s were their craft and rightful property when Dio was still in the room, but he hadn’t come back in time to hear much more about whatever obscure and alarmingly tall tribe he belonged to.
“So then,” the man asked, “what have you to bet against my artifact?”
Another overheard detail of that night returned to him, and a half-amused sneer spread across Dio’s face. “A pair of gold cufflinks.”
The man’s crimson eyebrows rose, letting a little more of the light fall on that gear-like mark over his cheekbone. “Perhaps something a little less prosaic?”
Dio kept his sneer in place. “If that old piece of rock were actually worth anything, you wouldn’t be wagering it
here. Call it prosaic. I’ll call it charity.”
The handful of people still listening to the conversation erupted in another chorus of barely-suppressed chuckles. Dio straightened up, feeling more confident by the moment. One or two were also eyeing him appraisingly at the mention of gold, but the revolver tucked away under Dio’s jacket was there for a reason. The tall man, for his part, just winced dramatically before allowing Dio a deep, oddly melodious chuckle.
“Add three pounds to that scale,” the man said, “and a drink.”
“One pound. And you owe
me a drink just for offering you that.”
The tall, tattooed man sighed. “Deal.” He began arranging the pieces on the board. “Shall we flip for white?”
“Take white.” Dio tossed his hair dismissively. “You’ll need it.”
Dio Brando felt alive in a way he hadn’t realized he’d been missing all these years. It wasn’t as if he needed money, like it had always been when he’d played in pubs like this in his childhood. But the atmosphere, the memories, the
feeling of fighting to live and winning that fight, it all came back and animated him like electricity flowing through a copper wire. They were silent, for the first game. It was a short one. Whatever part of the Americas this tanned giant hailed from, he obviously hadn’t encountered some of the cheaper pub game exploits that Dio had added to his repertoire.
“One out of three,” the man said, looking and sounding as confident as ever, but his dark clay-colored eyes betraying him. “Interesting trick. I’ll have to use it next time.”
Dio smiled as he helped him replace the pieces on either side of the board. “What is that mask you’re so desperate to be rid of, anyway?”
The man shrugged. Dio had almost forgotten how wide his shoulders really were until that moment, so disguised were they by his catlike poise and fluid arm movements. “Merely a trinket from my homeland. Though one with some curious old legends attached to it. Many of us are still so superstitious, it saddens me to say.”
“Hah.” Dio moved his queen’s pawn out and began the second match. “Your countrymen are the superstitious ones, you say? And yet here you are, searching so desperately for someone to take it.”
The giant scowled. “I was looking for a good chess opponent. That’s all.”
The undertone of defensiveness in the man’s voice was unmistakable. Of course, Dio knew flattery when he heard it. However much this man knew or didn’t know about his own possession, he was definitely trying to make Dio
think he’d rattled him more than he actually had. It gave Dio the same rush it always did, spotting the attempt at manipulation in action. However cocky this foreigner might be, there was no challenge Dio couldn’t take on if he set his mind to it.
“Tell me about these legends you don’t believe in, then.” Dio watched his opponent’s pawn move out in return, and then paused for a moment as he decided between his bishop’s pawn and his knight. “We can laugh at them together.”
The man gave him a severe look. Oh, that stung him, didn’t it? Dio would normally be wary of provoking an opponent of this man’s size and musculature. He’d had all too many experiences with sore losers and short tempers, back when he was small and weak himself and had been playing against adults in places like this. But he felt the hard, comforting weight of the dagger against his hip, and he didn’t back down.
“Supposedly,” the foreigner said as he moved his own pawn against Dio’s, “they turn any who wear them into gods.” He clucked his tongue. “That’s not always a good thing in my part of the world. Our old gods were a bloodthirsty lot.”
Chess pieces moved across the board. The pauses between moves took longer and longer, as pawns disappeared and more valuable pieces began to suffer attrition. Perhaps the man wasn’t so overconfident after all. Aside from how he’d fallen for that earlier trick, he was clearly a skilled player. The match became one of those grinding, crawling games, in which the winner would be whoever didn’t run out of pieces first. For much of it, neither of them spoke.
“Another round, sirs?” The young woman who’d brought the refills returned, approaching them rather cautiously.
“No, thank you,” the foreigner said, rather curtly. His castle had just gone off to join his knight on the table next to the chessboard, and Dio wasn’t giving him any escape routes.
“Water,” Dio said, smirking at his opponent and giving the barmaid an acknowledging nod. Alcohol was a sure path to defeat. Keeping well hydrated, on the other hand, had made everything from board games to law exams that much easier to handle.
“Are you sure?” The stranger’s own cocky smile suddenly came back, as he placed his massive fingers around the black queen. Then, in a blur of motion, Dio was suddenly facing checkmate. “I think you could use a drink about now.”
He stared at the board, eyes darting along each trajectory, and then each trajectory
from and
to each of those. No. Also no. Could he…no, not that either. Slowly, Dio brought his eyes back up to the towering foreigner’s.
“Two of three. I’ll have plenty of time to drink afterward.”
A catlike grin spread across the stranger’s craggy lips. “I admit, it was rather a cheap strategy of my own. The queen wasn’t always so powerful, you know. I imagine this might have been a more interesting game, back before then. Say, in Parsa, or Baghdad.”
Dio snorted derisively, and took another sip of water. “You sound like my foster brother.”
“Oh?” The man looked at Dio over his gear-shaped blue tattoo. “I imagine I should be flattered?”
Dio answered with a very loud, cold, and contemptuous laugh. His opposite number didn’t react. No more words were exchanged until Dio rotated the board and began arranging the black pieces in front of himself, while the foreigner got to work on the white ones.
“Two of three,” Dio repeated.
“Two of three,” the tan giant smirked with his insufferably perfect face.
What did I do, and what should I have done? The same two questions that he asked after every defeat, and before most of his victories. In this case, the answer was simple. His opponent was a patient, almost passive player. Reacting to each minor push and feint with one of his own. Exchanging pieces liberally as he waited for Dio to show a vulnerability. The first game, the one that Dio won, had conversely ended in just a few moves.
Ironic, isn’t it? He’s doing what I’ve done all these years, with the Joestars. And now, as for what I should have done before...
Knights and bishops came out in quick succession, wiping out half the white pawns that had emerged and sniping a white bishop out of its home square. The reckless sacrifice of a black knight, but one from which opportunity was born. Dio saw his opponent’s murky brown eyes widen as he suddenly brought out a castle, realizing too late why he’d let him take that pawn. Attack, attack, attack. Dio didn’t need to declare a checkmate, when it came. They both knew as soon as it had happened, his castle, queen, and pawn pinning the white king against its native edge of the board in a deadly vice grip. The foreigner’s queen was, once again, on the brink of securing a victory of its own, but he was just one move behind. Dio had seen what was coming, and made sure to act faster.
“Actually,” Dio grinned through narrowed eyes, “I think I’d rather have a glass of hot tea. You can order what you wish.”
The tall man’s smirk was gone. He was holding still, as if turned to stone. Dio started to reach for his belt, where his dagger was hidden. And yet, somehow, he had the strangest notion that the blade
wouldn’t help if this man really were to attack him. He remembered how the man had moved, seeming almost to vanish from his feet and reappear in the seat across from him. So swift, so
soundless despite his size. Would he be able to draw before the man struck? Even if he already drew it, would he be able to connect in time? And Dio knew, one blow was all that this immense, stalking panther of a man would need.
“I’m not thirsty anymore,” the foreigner said, his voice growing almost petulant. Despite the fear and adrenaline coursing through him, Dio felt a rush of elation. He’d managed to knock that perfect swaggerer down a few pegs. “Enjoy your artifact. And, yes, of course, it’s not
actually worth anything.”
Dio laughed again, shaking his head. “I’m sure I’ll find a use for the thing. I hope you found the game you were looking for, sir?”
The foreigner stood up. Once again, the blur of motion was so fast Dio nearly missed it. The chair somehow didn’t make a sound as he pushed it out of his way. Was it just his imagination, or was the wooden chair cracked where the tall man had put his weight on it? How big
was he, really?
“I think I did. Yes. Just pray our paths never cross again.”
Dio rolled his eyes and gave his defeated opponent the most unimpressed expression he could manage. Without another word, the tall man placed the stone mask on the table, and then stalked out the door into the snow.
…
There had been nothing more to do in London. Wang Chan the apothecary might have been a fixture of Ogre Street for as long as Dio could remember, but the chinaman was as slippery as he was old. How many times, during his childhood, had Scotland Yard come pounding on that particular door to find it closed and empty? He always came back, somehow, a week or two later. No one knew where he vanished to, or how he knew when the heat had passed him by. If Dio had a week or two to wait, he would do just that.
He had thought of visiting the hospital, but decided quickly that there was nothing to be gained from that. There was nothing he could tell George that would help, if JoJo really had the proof (or worse, the antidote) already. Not even killing the vile old moneybags would help, with what was now suspected, even if Dio could devise a way of doing it at the hospital without being seen or heard. Hunt down and kill JoJo? If he hadn’t already spoken to the police, it might work, provided the opportunity was perfect and there were no witnesses he couldn’t dispose of as well.
And besides, there was only one place where he knew he’d have a chance of catching JoJo alone. So, one more reason among all the others to return to the manor. For what could, if Dio made so much as a single mistake from this point forward, very well be the last time. He hoped not. For all its pomposity and pretension, for all the miserable memories he’d accumulated there, he’d begun to think of the place as his home. More than the apartment he’d shared with his parents. Much more than the rotting old factory attic he’d later moved into with his father. His dormitory room at Hugh Hudson was, in some ways, a more comfortable and liberating environment, but for the constant reminders that it would never be his to keep. He really did want to keep this manor house. He wanted to be able to sleep in it, content and secure in the knowledge that it was
his, that he’d
earned it.
No, he realized, there was no mere wanting here. He
had to have that house. He’d invested so much of himself into it, and everything that came with it. Dedicated so much of his life. If he ended up having to flee the country while
JoJo kept the manor, he knew he would go insane. And there’d be no thinking his way out of that.
As the coach bobbed its way over the freshly snow-covered road, he shifted his fingers along the edge of the concave stone oval in his lap. In the darkness, it looked almost like a real human face, peeled off of a real human head and turned a ghastly marble white. The fangs pointed downward, like an exaggerated royal sneer, while its lips – full and perfectly formed – wore a look of dreamlike serenity. He thought back to the man he’d won it from, the Red Indian of whatever strange tribe had once created these artifacts. It was that same feeling that he’d read in that man’s swagger, before he’d beaten him. The sense of one who had not just won, but who lived in such a state of being that
fighting itself was never necessary.
It was beyond the human condition, he knew. To be a man was to struggle for that which one desired. He’d come to that conclusion on his own, when he had fewer years to his name than he did fingers, long before he’d read any of the philosophers and authors who nearly all concurred. But the idea of passing beyond this, into a realm of…peace was too prosaic a word, as was contentment. Regardless, it was a dream that Dio Brando knew he was not the first man to have. So many Greek myths of mortals taking their place among the gods, even if a price had to be paid along the way. The “heaven” that the priests and vicars babbled about. He saw it, when he looked at the ageless face portrayed by the stone mask. He knew, with the familiarity of a child recognizing its mother’s smile, that this was the dream that had guided the hand who carved it.
And of course, just as in all those double edged Greek myths, there would have to be a price. The fangs, pointing coldly, sharply downward.
He wasn’t entirely sure he believed it all, just yet. If he was wrong, then the mask would simply be his death. Still, perhaps, if he couldn’t find another way to solve this problem, that would be better than the alternative. He couldn’t let JoJo take everything Dio had labored for. Not wouldn’t;
couldn’t. He would do his best. Fight tooth and nail. Use every trick, every resource, every ounce of physical and mental strength he possessed, to keep himself in the will and out of prison. There had to be a way. There was always a way. But, if he
did fail. If the
only alternative proved to be dying by his own hand, at the time of his own choosing, well. Dio had long ago learned that sometimes, you could only choose the lesser evil.
He held the mask by the chin, raising it up to a safe distance above his lap. He poked it again with the tip of his left index finger, leaving a little red smear next to the others. Five curved spokes, as big around as fingers and with razor sharp barbs running along the edges until their needle tips, swished out from behind the stone face’s brow, eyebrows, and jawbone. Easily sharp and strong enough to puncture a skull and impale the brain from five directions. If the device in his hands really granted nothing but death, then it would be a painless death. Dio would never have to suffer the knowledge that he’d failed one last time.
But if it didn’t do that. If it actually did what he suspected. If this really was a world of witchcraft and sorcery, and the mask was of those forces…
The coach turned a familiar corner along the road, and the light coming from the foyer windows of the manor caught Dio’s eye. As the masks blades slowly withdrew back into their sheaths, almost reluctantly, as if disappointed to have not tasted blood and brain tissue, Dio turned his head to look at the approaching house. It was awfully late for so many lights to be on. “Early” might be a better adjective, at this point. At the next bend in the road as it circled around the little snow-covered hillocks, Dio had another good look at the forecourt. There were already two coaches parked in it.
One was a cab, like his own. The other, larger vehicle bore the dark coloration and glinting, metallic highlights of a police wagon.
His heart froze harder than the snow adorning the hills outside.
No.
The world fell into a sickly, spinning stillness. The sound of the horse’s hoofs fell away, as Dio’s jaw hung open.
No. Not already.
He’d taken too long nursing his wounds before going to London.
He’d been too afraid of showing his face on Ogre Street, after what happened the last time he’d gone.
He’d taken too much time finding thugs to hire.
He’d spent too long in the tavern, wasting himself on thoughts that led nowhere, until the foreigner bearing a mask came looking for worthy opponents.
He could see the scene inside. JoJo, face grim and arms folded over his sculpted chest. The look of pitiful, childish accusation, of
sympathy, that would be waiting for Dio in those baby blue eyes as the officers slapped him in chains.
“I’ll visit you in prison, Dio,” he’d say something like,
“I’ll visit you every day until the hanging.”
As he was marched to the gallows, JoJo would be standing in the front row, handkerchief held to his face, crying stupid, doglike tears. And beside JoJo, slimy fingers oozing their way between every ripple of his stomach and breast, Pendleton would just stare at him as JoJo sobbed. She’d stare at him, and she’d
smirk.
There was no room to turn around, with the road this slick and snowy. He doubted the coachman would do it even if he could, no matter what Dio offered him. Putting his knife to the man’s throat…no. Too complicated. What would the destination even be?
The window was open. As the coach slowed down at the next winding curve, Dio flung himself out of it, falling into the deep, wet snow filling the roadside ditch. He coughed as the snow forced its way into his mouth and nostrils. Suppressed a shout as the impact reignited the pains in his leg and back where JoJo had injured him. The muffled scrunching of hoofs and wheels pushing their way through snow was loud, at first, but in just moments it had left him behind.
Dio stood up. He was wet from the ruined golden hair that clung to his skin to the numb toes in the ends of his boots. Shivering. Before too much longer, he knew, he’d be freezing. The sky overhead was starless, dropping its silent, clammy load of snowflakes down all around. With the house and the departing vehicle both blocked by the hills, there was only the snowfall, the hills, and the road. Nothing else.
Despite himself, Dio felt a mad grin cross his face.
Back to where I started. That’s just perfect, isn’t it?
England was hostile territory now, or would be by morning. The manor, a hostile fortress, held by his enemy. All he had to his name, now, besides the ice cold and sopping clothes on his back, were a pouch with a dozen pounds, the knife on his belt, and the stone mask he’d clutched in his hands while rolling through the snow.
His finger shivered as he raised the mask before him, staring into it like a mirror.
“I will die here,” he said, aloud.
He waited, as if expecting to hear a reply. Why, he didn’t know.
“This is mad. The mask will pierce my head and kill me. I am committing suicide.”
The snowflakes kept falling. The black, lightless dome of the sky pressed in overhead.
Dio looked down at his finger. The bleeding had died down, thanks to the cold, but when he squeezed it he still saw the red spot grow and bulge damply. He lifted the mask, and turned it around so he was facing its concave back. There were no holes connecting to those uncaring, perfectly carved eyes. Just a blank, empty bowl of stone.
He raised it to his face, holding his shivering breath before pressing the ornately carven rim to the edges of his face. It was so easy to believe that it was just a harmless, useless pagan knick-knack. It looked, felt, tasted like any other stone.
And so, the story of Dio ends here, alone in the snow. Or else, the introduction ends, and the real novel finally begins.
He pressed his finger to the mask’s cheek, and felt a sharp, jarring twitch all around and
inside of him. Snow. Wet. Sparks dancing. He smelled smoke, and tasted ashes. He kept falling after hitting the snow, plunging in a mad spiral downward, downward, ever deeper into an ocean of still, silent black.
…
He didn’t feel cold anymore. That was good.
He felt the snow all around him. He moved his fingers through it, and felt it shift. He felt that it
was cold, but it didn’t make
him cold. The strangest feeling.
The blackness around him was still spinning, a little. But not as badly. And, after another few moments, he became convinced that it was only spinning behind his eyelids. He opened them, afraid for a moment of what he might see. There was only flat grayness. The feeling of stone against the skin of his face.
He reached up, and placed one hand under each side of the mask, pulling. As if responding to his desire, there was a familiar click from within the mechanism, and he experienced a sensation that there had never been a word for in the English language as he felt them emerge through his head. Without even the slightest hint of pain. Just a feeling of motion, disconcertingly coming from beneath his skin and skull, and then an unpleasant emptiness, followed by a peculiar, light burn that he somehow knew meant that he was healing. There were heavy gray clouds behind the mask, dotted with the heavy, falling snowflakes.
Placing the mask down beside him, Dio pushed himself up. He blinked, staring around at the hills and snow-covered meadow as the sides and top of his head gently burned.
It was so
white.
He stood up now, raising his hands to the puncture wounds just above each ear. They were tiny, barely the width of a carpenter’s nail, and closing even as he felt them. The snow all around him, so much brighter and whiter than before. Staring up into the sky, he suddenly realized he
wasn’t seeing the darkness. There were the clouds, darker gray rolls passing along under the black layer above. He could see them. He could look up and
see the clouds in the winter night.
On an impulse, he drew his knife again, and – hesitating only a moment – drove it through his left palm, so that the dripping blade emerged from the other side. The blood that dripped from it oozed out slowly, though, and it wasn’t red, but black. He pulled the blade out again, to that same painless sensation that was followed by the soft burn as the hand began healing itself shut before his eyes.
He turned toward the road, and threw the dagger, as hard as he could. It whistled through the air so fast, he could swear it whistled like an arrow. His eyes followed the object as it shot over the road, over the little mounded snow on the other side of the road, and thirty meters further until it hit the side of a hill. There was an
eruption of snow there, as if the hill had been struck with the force of a boulder.
Confusion melted away. Elation replaced it.
It worked.
I…I’m…it worked
.
The corners of his mouth rose again. Another grin, but not a mad one this time. For the first time in so many years, perhaps in his entire life, Dio Brando smiled for sheer, unalloyed joy. Before he knew it, he had begun laughing.
I’m free. After all these years. I did it. I’m finally, finally free
.
His deep, exulting peals echoed around the little hills and valleys. He feared they’d hear him all the way off at the manor, but just for this moment he didn’t care. As he laughed, though, another feeling came over him. This one, unlike the painless empty wounds, the low burn of his healing flesh, or the otherworldly feeling of cold that didn’t chill him, was familiar. Very familiar. It was probably the first thing he ever remembered feeling.
He put a hand to his stomach. His laughter stopped, and his teeth sliced painlessly at his tongue and the insides of his own cheeks. With acknowledgement of his hunger, they had grown into a cage of razors that filled his entire mouth.
“I told you to pray we’d never meet again.”
The clear, crisp voice rang out across the snowdrifts.
Dio whipped his head around, knees bending and arms rising up at his sides. What he saw perched along the side of the road made his eyes widen, and his mouth hang open. The man. The man who had wagered the mask. It was him, but not as he’d seen him. He stood naked in the snow, save for a loincloth slick and dripping with blood. Where the hot, red fluid dribbled down the swollen muscles of his thighs, Dio saw, it quickly vanished, as if sucked down into his skin like water into dry sand. His eyes burned a frightful gold that he’d seen only once before, and the blue mark beneath his left one gleamed a luminous blue. From the top of his head, rising from the vermillion hair that had previously been hooded, he saw…
“What...” Dio shouted, his eyes darting from the bronze-skinned devil that stood before him back to the manor, and then to the interloper again. “Where did you...?”
“I snuck along in one of the horses,” the giant said. “I left the coachman alive for you, with four broken limbs and a gag. You’ll need energy.”
Dio needed energy, he knew. His powers, as great as they were, would always need fuel. There was no apotheosis without price. No serene, beautiful face without downward-curling fangs.
“And what’s that to you?” Dio demanded, trying to keep himself defiant and unafraid even as he dreaded the possibility that the man should take even one step closer across the snow.
“After feeding,” the creature said, ignoring Dio’s question, “you are to hide the remains of the carriage, and then follow my footprints to where they lead. That is all it is to me, for now.”
Dio opened his mouth to retort, but the naked, otherworldly demon had already turned around and was quickly retreating around the snow-covered mounds. Fists clenched in rage at being shrugged off, he knelt low to the ground, preparing to spring after him, when he realized something.
I really do need to feed. I won’t be able to show him up unless I’m at my full power.
He thought again, frozen in place just as he was about to take his first step.
And I can follow his tracks easily in this fresh snow. There’s only a little bit still falling, it won’t hide them from me.
He turned back toward the manor. He saw the top of the coach protruding above the hills and drifts, unmoving. A smell of hot, living blood, full of life and pungent energy, wafted over. Eat, yes, and then hide the evidence. A perfect test of his new strength.
Free. He almost cried for joy as he started toward the carriage.
Finally, finally free.
TO BE CONTINUED ->