Title: Black Rose, Part II

Part: The Wicked

Author: Cyberpunk2909

Webjournal:

Fandom: Sweep Books series

Rating: R

On Going series: Roses of Binding

Classification(s): Song-fic based chapters (All chptrs)

Warnings: See previous chapters

Pairing(s): Cal/OC, Cal/Every character (with obvious exceptions ppl :p) Cal/Ciaran (Yes! I am a sick and twisted soul!)

Author's Note: Here it is……Whatever this is…Um, yeah…On with the show!

CHAPTER EIGHT: Shadows In My View

Unsettled is what he felt as he shut the door to his bedroom and leaned against it with a heavy sigh. What he'd seen in Carl Meyer's eyes left him slightly breathless and shaken.

Something…

Just something…

Something strange… A kind of…Devotion?

Cal didn't wanted to think about it, didn't want to see those eyes—those inky, brown depths—widen in his mind and see that man's hand reaching out for him…Reaching to…

Cal looked up at the sudden whistle of the wind as it blew like a raspy whisper in from the bay window to his left. His mother had been right; his room did look as familiar as it had been in Missouri, as it had been in every other city they'd traveled through: the bed was set facing the window with thin, silkened draperies hanging from four posts standing proudly at the bed's corners. His dressers, wardrobe, mirror, traveling chest and rugs were almost exactly as he remembered them, his desk and book shelf standing side by side with candle holders mounted in the walls beside them. Cal turned, and in a cleared space near his wardrobe, sat a small, unopened chest made of cedar wood with criss-crossing metal work playing across its front, back and sides, ending in a large, ornate lock. He didn't go to that small chest right away. Instead, he went to his mirror.

It stood taller than his smallish, five foot three inches height, an ovalish shape with writing in old Latin along its outer edges. Cal stood in front of it for a moment, studying his reflection: eyes, the same, odd gold that Carl had spoken of, gleamed from the unblemished surface with a glittering intensity like fractured crystal, gleaming out of a face with soft curves, a mouth that would grow wider in coming years of puberty's assault and dark hair that curled along his neck in soft, wisping strands. He flecked at one of them absently with an olive-toned finger that would become longer and more spider-like in grace in the future.

His gaze traveled back up to his eyes.

Golden.

Golden eyes.

Carl had been about to reach for him, but why? And that look in his eyes, the gleaming in those inky, brown depths—Cal swallowed, glaring at himself.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Calhoun," he hissed through gritted teeth. "Just some dirty ol'man's fantasies of greatness."

But he was afraid. Afraid of what his golden eyes could mean. Afraid of the whispers that were passed around about him amongst the other Amyranth chapters.

Cal swallowed again and blinked—

—A shadow flitted across the mirror: a flutter of a long black robe, the gleam of red from a cowl covered eye, a flash of steel and a low, ghostly grunt that left Cal breathless with familiarity—

—He turned with a start, but he was alone in his room. Cal breathed and frowned, stepped forward then stopped. He looked around again.

"Are you here?" he asked in a low voice. The wind blew in from his window, hissing and whispering through the air, stirring the bay window's shutters. They banged against the manor walls with low thumps as Cal turned and looked up.

Smiled.

"You warned me, didn't you?"

Cal smiled again.

"You always warn me of trouble."

There came the mournful echo of something old and ancient in the air as the winds died down and silence fell upon the room once more. Cal stepped forward, reached out his hand…

…And a large, glove-clad hand took hold of his in a grip that was surprisingly gentle for something so large. Cal looked up and stared deeply into eyes that gleamed red underneath the folds of a black hood…

"Carl's bad, isn't he?" Cal asked, the question sounding juvenile to his ears, but he didn't care. The mournful note hung in the air again, like the echoing silence after a church bell tolls and leaves a deafening quiet in its wake. Red eyes gleamed deeper this time, with a malice that was not directed at him.

"I figured." Cal turned and looked behind him at the bedroom door where he imagined Carl still stood at the bottom of the stairway beyond. He shuddered. The large hand tightened around his own, feeling surprisingly solid and warm for something so intangible. Cal turned back, meeting gleaming red eyes again with a small grin pasted across his face.

The silent bell tolled again.

"I'm not afraid," Cal replied undaunted. "You're here."

There was a low creak from beyond his door and Cal gave a start at the intrusive sound. He turned again, almost imagining he heard the breathing of someone standing very close to that slab of polished wood, trying not to make a sound, only listening, straining to hear. Cal held his breath and frowned. Was it Carl?

Soon there was a definite sound of someone moving beyond his door, a rustle of clothing, louder breathing. He almost imagined a hand poised to knock. Cal nibbled his lip, kept his eyes on the door, hoping to whatever powers could be listening that it was not Carl.

Not Carl.

Not Carl.

Please not Carl…

The man had made him uneasy even before that little fiasco downstairs, but the unease had been so small that Cal had ignored it. He kicked himself mentally now. Perhaps if he'd told his mother about it, perhaps if he'd informed her of Carl's strange out-of-place-ness among the others—Mitchell and Ricky—she might have listened to him and left the man and his strangeness in Missouri. Sometimes, she listened to his little hunches about people and had been saved from many stupid mistakes.

Cal swallowed and released the breath he had been holding when whoever it was had knocked, but that didn't stop a lurch of fear from twist his stomach into knots.

"Come in!" he called, reciting his new found mantra: Not Carl. Not Carl. Not Carl…

And it seemed the gods were kind: his mother stepped into his room with a perplexed look.

"Cal, are you alright? Who were you talking to just now?" And cast her eyes about his room suspiciously, golden eyes, so much like his and yet totally different. He wondered why her eyes weren't like his.

"No one," he answered and turned away from her, knowing that red eyes gleaming under black hood with an intangible hand that still felt real and solid and alive—well, all those things to his mind anyway—was gone. Disappeared like the breeze, as if none had ever existed at all.

"Are you sure?" And it was a stupid question—she must've known—and Cal felt it his duty to tell her how stupid of a question it was, but froze when he turned back to her. Her golden eyes were narrowed in that way of her's that made him afraid to think his secret thoughts within his conscious mind.

"No one, Mom." He added the 'Mom' bit to get her off his case; it always worked before. This time it didn't. Her eyes just narrowed further and she said in a low, silken drawl as if she didn't care (But Cal knew she did): "You would tell me, though, wouldn't you? About anything? If you were…" She trailed off and Cal got the message: If something were happening in his head, if he were seeing things and knowing things that she wouldn't ever know, or fathom, that he would tell her. Tell her everything.

Cal nodded, smiled off-handedly, like she had trained him to. She smiled, just as off-handed, and they—mother and son—left it at that.

When she finally closed the door and left him to his own doings, Cal sighed. There was no way life could be as simple as leaving "it", whatever "it" was, at that.

(8.8 . . o.0)

Author's Note: Okay, how crazy was that! o.0 Cal the crazy kid. Jingkies, I don't know where this stuff is going or coming from, but eh, I'm rolling with the punches here people. So yeah…

Reviews are golden! Thanks!