Fanfiction for Deadhaus Sonata

Some fanfiction I've been slowly writing. The setting is pretty grim and dark so reader beware if you're squeamish. I'll update this as I go for those might enjoy reading this.

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The sun beamed through the window and lit the room in a soft glow. It was full of soft colors: yellows and robin egg blues and green rub that popped on the cherry floor. The oak wardrobe, stained a deep red, had been her grandmother’s. They had commissioned a big four-poster bed together that took five of the house staff to get moved-in. It rocked as she rolled her hips on top of her husband. She looked down on him with hooded eyes, as he looked up at her with love and lust in his. His hands were rough as they slid over her body and it sent goosebumps spreading down her arms. Joric pulled her down into a kiss and murmured into her ear as she straightened.

She felt a tingle and looked down and a maggot was squirming on her shoulder. She shrieked and brushed it off and then she looked down and Joric was turning purple and his eyes were sinking. He was shouting at her, but she couldn’t hear him and his skin was sloughing off his face. She started screaming and then she was outside in the plum grove and she could see Joric walking into the mist. She tried to follow him, but she couldn’t catch him. She ran as fast as she could, but it seemed like she wasn’t going anywhere. “Joric!” She screamed and he looked over his shoulder at her, but didn’t stop.

She ran harder but then hands were bursting from the soil and pulling her down. She couldn’t get free and she was reaching for Joric but she was up to her knees and then her breasts as they dragged her down.

They pulled her under and there were so many bony hands grasping at her body and then her belly was swollen with worms and crawling things and she would be a mother and would stay in the darkness in the rotting soil forever.

The half-mad gibbering screams woke the household; they were the screams from someone desperately pushing against reality and unable to accept it.

She knew.

***



Rachel was gazing up at the granite walls as she passed through the blackened iron gates of Nachtholm. The square stones lining the city were enormous and she had to crane her neck to see the top of the wall where guards walked in gleaming armor.

“Business?” A solidly-built guard stepped forward as she reached the head of the queue. He had a limp and was older and scarred, but she could tell the man knew his work.

“I’m here for the inquisition,” Rachel said. The guard looked her up and down with an inscrutable expression, hand resting on the well-worn grip of a hammer. She was armed with an unstrung bow and quiver on her back. On her belt was hung a shortsword in a fine dark leather sheath. She wore a forest green travel cloak and finely-made boots on her feet. She was pulling a rope lead that was affixed to a donkey that had walked up beside her and had begun nuzzling at her hand. The donkey was pulling a cart that had canvas sacks, a barrel, another open barrel full of arrows and a pair of quality leaf-bladed spears that gleamed keen in the sun.

“Go on then,” he said, eyes turning from her toward the group waiting to get in.

She didn’t come to Nachtholm often. It was a city as big as it was old and anything one could want was here, whether that be in a lit storefront, or down a gloomy back alley.

She didn’t want anything here. She wanted her husband, who was dead, and her home for which the receipt of sale was growing damp in her pocket. The city was oriented like a wheel, with the central part being for offices of government, and then the outer sections being designated for commercial, residential or public spaces like slices from a pie.

Not even ten years ago, the city had been much fuller and more vibrant. One couldn’t enter the city without at least three hawkers approaching them for this and that. That energy had been squashed. People were out, but they were furtive, gazes skittish and wary. They looked like cornered mice, she decided. Cornered mice caught in a big stone trap.

It wasn’t long before she stopped outside the building. It was stone and looming, and seemed demanding.

“Peachy,” she called to the donkey that was looking up at her and trying to press into her side.

“Wait here, girl.”

She patted at her shirt for the letter folded into her pocket with a shaky hand. It was there, and she took a deep breath and then entered.

***



“It’s been a long time, Rachel. I’m happy to see you of course, but your visit certainly wasn’t expected,” he said. He was a slim man with a well-fitted tweed suit and a pair of circular reading glasses. Rachel was seated across from him in a hickory chair topped with a purple cushion in front of a large fireplace that crackled and popped. “Thank you for seeing me, Benny. I know you're busy. I know the inquisition is always busy,” Rachel smiled at him, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. A foot was tapping and she was toying with the ring around her finger,

“We are,” he said with a deep breath. “We’re losing ground everyday. I wonder if the empire will survive another decade at this rate.” He straightened his jacket and sat back in his chair. “We’ve had some success here and there, but the loss of Fort Zeistra was devastating to morale. It seems we’re always on the backfoot.”

“I heard about that, and I always heard the official report wasn’t entirely..truthful,” she glanced at the guard in the distant corner of the room. Benny raised a hand and waved at him, “speak your mind without fear,” he nodded at her with a troubled expression. “But you heard correctly. It was a single abomination. A revenant, I’m told,” Benny took his glasses off and wiped at his forehead with a kerchief. “Allaric was there. Why he didn't have a Hound with him I do not know.”

“Benny. I came here about the Grave Hounds,” Rachel reached into her breast pocket and pulled the vellum note free. She unfolded it and handed it to Benny who put his glasses on and sat back. It was quiet in the room, only the snap and pop of the fireplace and the shuffle of Rachel’s boot on the thick wool rug.

Benny lowered the letter and sighed. “Rachel, this was three years ago. Are you?” He took a deep breath and refolded the letter. “Why are you here?”

“Benny, I’m here to serve.”

Benny refolded the letter and handed it back to Rachel. He sat looking at her with furrowed brows. “Why?”

“It’s Joric, Benny. He fell.”

Benny stood and walked across the room. He opened a cherry rack and pulled from it a purple bottle with no label. He popped the cork and poured two glasses. It smelled like berries and cinnamon, and Rachel’s hand was shaking as she took it from him.

“I see,” he said after a spell, and then took a deep pull from the glass.

He watched the fireplace, his lips pressed into a hardline as Rachel dabbed at her eyes. She’d cried enough over the past few days that she felt like she would never stop.

“Rachel. The hounds escort the inquisitors out into the field. We protect them; even if you weren’t three years removed from our offer, it is unlikely any inquisitor would help you..what? Get revenge?”

Rachel’s face flushed red and she sat forward. “Revenge? Benny, I’m not leaving his body out there! I thought you would understand.” Her voice had gone as cold as the grave as she stared at him.

“Even if. Even if this request of yours was somehow granted. You’ve been doing what for the past three years? Playing house?” Rachel tensed, eyes hard, and Benny removed his glasses just before her hand clapped his cheek.

“Playing house?! Fuck you, Benny! We were trying to start a fa-” her voice ended in a little gasping choke.

Benny stood, waving the guard back into the corner and went to his desk that sat in front of a large stained window that cast reds and greens and blues on the granite floor of his office. He pulled free a sheet of vellum, dipped the pen and began writing. “Rachel. I’m sorry. Truly.” He said to the page as he scratched away.

“This is a note of commission.” Benny said, looking back up to her as he fanned a hand over the inked page. “It will open some doors for you.”

“But Benny! I-”

“Rachel, this is the best I can do, and I shouldn’t even be doing this. If word trickled up to Allaric I would be looking for a new job at the least of it.”

Benny folded the letter, corners dressed, stood and handed it to Rachel. He sighed and shook his head, cheek still smarting. “One last thing. Stop and see the quartermaster on the way out. We’ve had a new development that’s shown very promising results against the dead.”

Rachel turned and marched from the room, all the white draining from her eyes and clutching at the hope threatening to slip through her fingers.