Sins of the Father

Sins of the Father Chapter Fifty One (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta... *werewolf happy goodness * lol InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are 'smores goodness for archiving/hosting! ProPhile: *POKE POKE POKE * Morgan: *candles * Readers/Reviewers: *GLOMP * Seriously... *GLOMP *


Pietro took several deep breaths and finally let all the air in his lungs out in one sharp, loud sound. "FUCK!"
Tarot rolled her eyes and shifted so that she leaned against the hood of the car like an imitation Tawny Kitaen without the skimpy top.1 "You should have gotten fuel at that last place we stopped at." She looked around the dark road, lit only by the full moon and the astonishingly bright stars. The woods were deep and velvet darkness on either side of the road, seeming to swallow the warmth from the air around them. She exhaled a puff of crystalline breath and turned hooded eyes to Pietro. "No use worrying now, eh? I am taking a rest in the backseat."
Pietro swore under his breath again and stomped a circle around the car, thinking all manner of derisive things about Tarot then promptly feeling guilty for even entertaining the notions. On his second circle, he considered running back to the nearest gas station and filling the gas can but he could not remember where the nearest station was. His third circle brought him to the realization that they were not alone in the woods. He slowed his steps, a feat for him, to something like a normal stroll instead of a campus stride. He could not hear whatever or whoever it was but he just knew, knew it like he knew Tarot was laying in the backseat, staring at the roof instead of sleeping. He knew it like he knew his own breath. He was being watched. He debated for a moment about whether he should call out, bring on the confrontation, or wait. He wanted to get in the car and lock the doors, but then he would be trapped, as would Tarot. At least out here, he thought, he could run. Tarot shifted, making the car rock slightly, and a new worry occurred to him. How to get her out without slowing his own steps? She could fend for herself, he reasoned, but he could not just leave her, even though she was more a pain in his side than anything of late...
The decision was made for him before he could complete his sixth circle. A breeze became a wind and rushed over him, almost pushing him off balance as it seemed to gain form, solidity almost, and then it stopped as suddenly as it had began. Pietro groaned, knowing before he was even told. "Miss me much?" Incubus asked idly, taking his usual amorphous shape, presence without true certainty.
Pietro saw him as an indistinct figure, cloaked in the tree-lined darkness. He glanced quickly at the car and asked, "Did my father send you? Has something happened?" Part of him was glad for Incubus being there-that meant, he thought, that his father was aware of his present situation and he would be able to get back to civilization soon. The rest of him was wary to the point of nausea.
Incubus seemed to smile in the dark. "Nothing has happened. And Magneto is quite involved at the moment. He's about to unleash hell, or so he thinks... " The indistinct figure laughed hollowly. "He dares to play god with the Pantheon itself."
"The...oh..." Pietro blinked. "That project. Yeah, and? So? If he didn't send you, why are you here?" He knew that it would be impossible to fight Incubus but he tensed to spring nonetheless. Tarot shifted inside the car once again and out of the corner of his eye, Pietro saw her sit up, her red hair a distinct shade in the moonlight night.
"I'm here because you interest me, Pietro. It's been a long while since I've had someone like you..."
Pietro stepped back involuntarily, even though Incubus had not moved. "Get the fuck out."
"Out? We *are * out... And if I left, how ever would you get home?" Incubus moved forward, seeming to smile even larger. "Pietro...." His voice trailed off and anger swept off him like a wave. "Caliban, get away."
Pietro felt disoriented. Could Incubus go schizo, he wondered even as he realized someone else had come into the roadway, this time from behind. Pietro whirled around, leaping aside at the same time to put the two intruders into the space at angles from him. Caliban stared back at him with watery, baleful eyes. Before Pietro could ask who or what or why, the newcomer spoke. "Leave him be, Incubus. You know better."
Incubus snarled, a feral and wet sound as if hissing through teeth and saliva. "Back off, Caliban!"
Caliban stepped into the pool of moonlight spreading across the road. "Incubus, you know better. He is not yours to have. He is not yours to use." His eyes slid to Tarot, now sitting in the front seat of the car, her eyes uncharacteristically wide and lips parted in startlement. "Neither is she."
Incubus had not moved. "You're playing the fool's game, Caliban. Go back to the goddess and her blood, go back to the rejects of the rejects. You have no place with the Elohim."2
Pietro shook himself. "What the fuck? Tarot, don't get out," he snapped as an aside, seeing her each for the door handle. "Stay in the car!"
"She won't listen to you," Incubus and Caliban said as one, neither seeming to notice the other one mirroring the statement. Caliban continued, "None of us are Elohim, Incubus. Especially those who lack definition." He opened his hand in a palm-up apologetic gesture. "Pietro, I ask you to come with me of your free will. You are in danger here, and not simply from this hungry Incubus."
Pietro sucked in a breath and stared at Caliban openly. "Come with you? Why should I? I don't know who you are! You could be worse than him, for all I know..."
"He knows where Magneto is, true," Caliban replied smoothly, "but so do we. We are also safe from the coming fire."
"Fire?" Tarot had opened the car door as the Morlock had spoken and was now standing in the road. "There's a fire? Where?" She fisted her hands on her hips and looked for all the world like a little girl caught doing something bad and trying to bluster her way out of it.
"A scourge," Incubus murmured, shimmering faintly, "a cleansing fire."
Caliban looked steadily at Pietro. "You have a choice, go with him, or come with us." At some unseen signal, the woods suddenly seethed with life. Morlocks came out of the shadows, some hissing breath or sliding on fin-like limbs, all varying shades of horrific to see.
Incubus made a spitting noise. "Monsters! Freaks!"
Tarot fingered a card nonchalantly. "Back away, all of you."
"No!" Pietro did not know where the voice came from until he realized it was his own, issuing from his own throat. He looked at Caliban then at the others behind him. "We'll go with you."
"What?" Tarot's shriek rent the night air. "Are you infuckingsane?"
Incubus seemed to fill the empty spaces around them. "Fool!" his voice hissed. "Fool!"
Pietro was not shaking visibly, but his knees were threatening to give way. "Caliban, is it? Show me whatever it is you think we need to see... But if you so much as try that goody two shoes crap on us..."
"You're calling Daddy?" another Morlock chuckled. "Come on..."
1 I can't be the only one who remembers Whitesnake videos and Tawny Kitaen on the hood of the car...
2 The Morlocks live below ground, the Elohim above. The Elohim were the opposites of the Morlocks in every way... From The Time Machine by H G Wells.