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[bloodandflowers]

Kell almost expects it when they come.

He keeps to himself in Darrow, but even he's heard murmurs of people disappearing, and every name he recognizes is someone from whom he's felt power. Now, woundless yet bleeding in an alley, Kell thinks he ought to have been better prepared.

He doesn't fear fighting another being with magic, but this is something else, some perversion of science or birth, something more than simple human or magician. The first person to attempt to grab him had been able to summon storms in the air, not the individual elements of air and fire and wind as Kell can, but the very tempest itself. The next had seeming skin of solid metal, a material Kell is more than capable of manipulating, but the third seems to have power over blood itself, drawing it from Kell without a wound, as neatly as Holland ever had with the stone.

His own fault, no doubt. Kell doesn't hide that his power is best used when channeled by his own spilled blood, but his enemies now know it, too. It's clever of them to attempt to drain him, though Kell has no intention of letting them. He could place his bloody hand on the wall and travel safely home, but they might be waiting for him there, and regardless - Kell wants to fight.

Thankfully, his attacker's power seems to require that they meet eyes, and hidden as he is, the seep of blood from Kell's palms and mouth has slowed. He places a red hand on the ground and murmurs, "As Osoro," Darken, filling the air with an unnatural shadow that grows to fill the alley. "As Athera," he continues, Grow, standing as the darkness fills the alley's opening and beyond. "As Enose," Kell snarls, and steps into the growing black.

Find.

He dearly hopes this bloodletter isn't wise enough to run.

[this is an open post but i felt weird putting it in the comm, tag if you like. i don't know why i'm like this either 8D]

Comments

[thebloodtraitor]

The style of this particular side seems a far cry from the few others Sirius has seen on Kell. Kell's smile is quiet and warm and Sirius wonders what it is he's remembering, though he doesn't ask. Not yet at least.

Instead, his smile widens as Kell takes his bait. Sirius only replies with a shrug of his good shoulder, however. "You'll have to wait and see, I'm afraid. Right now isn't the best time."

It wouldn't be the worst time either, of course. Shifting while injured is something he's done before, after all, the aches and bumps and bruises of a hard night spent distracting a werewolf with him into his human form. It isn't exactly a pleasant transformation is the thing and he's never taken bruises with him into Padfoot.

"But I promise to show you soon enough," he adds, still grinning. "Provided we aren't captured and sold before then, of course."

[bloodandflowers]

Sirius' smile becomes unrepentantly gleeful to make Kell wait, and Kell ducks his head to hide his own, wondering at Sirius' seemingly boundless good humor. What Kell worries and agonizes over, Sirius dismisses with a quip, and even if Kell thinks Sirius is more fearful of capture than he lets on, Kell won't let the man be taken.

"I don't fear capture," he says. "Are there others dear to you who might be taken? I will do what I can for them."

[thebloodtraitor]

The idea that the men who had cornered Kell, who had fought them both, might just as easily go after someone Sirius cares about hadn't honestly occurred to him. His smile fades instantly, replaced with a heavy drop of guilt and worry. The pain in his shoulder seems hardly more than a faint bruise in comparison as Sirius sits up instantly.

"Harry," he says, a dagger of panic slicing through him. Sirius is on his feet instantly, the spell holding both sling and ice to his shoulder. "I can take us," he says, grabbing for Kell's hand.

Harry could be anywhere, of course. Darrow is no London, but it's large enough on its own that Sirius can't often keep tabs on the daily whereabouts of his godson. But Harry's flat is the most obvious place to start and so Sirius pulls Kell there, landing them both in the familiar front room.

The familiar empty front room.

"Harry!" Sirius calls out, instantly hurrying for the back bedroom.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell has time for only a bracing gulp of air before Sirius is on his feet and tugging him through reality. He reels for a moment in an unknown home, but Sirius is off and running, calling into what must be Harry's room.

Kell stays where he is, stretching out his senses for any sign of danger or trespass. But the outer room is quiet, and he can feel no unkind power in the air. He follows where Sirius has gone.

"Any sign?"

[thebloodtraitor]

There's no sign of Harry in his bedroom, but noticeably no sign of struggle either. Everything is just as Sirius might expect of a seventeen year old boy, the room looking not so very different from his own. There are no shattered windows or flickering lights, no indication at all that Harry's been captured.

Yet Sirius can't say he feels much better.

"Nothing," Sirius replies, his heart still thumping as he meets Kell once again in the front room after stopping quickly to check the loo. "And you don't feel anything, do you?" he asks, though it comes out as a statement. Kell would've mentioned already, he knows. "If they've taken him, it's not been from here."

And there's Kieren too, of course. Would they know to look for him? Whatever good humour Sirius might have earlier possessed is entirely gone, replaced instead with mounting dread.

"Where can we look? How? Kell, can you feel them?"

[bloodandflowers]

"At present, I can feel no power other than your own," Kell answers, watching Sirius' face grow more agonized with every passing moment. It makes what he says next easier, even if Kell still dreads the act itself. "Once, in a time of great need, I was able to make a door to a person rather than a place. I could try again now," Kell offers.

"It will take everything I have. If we arrive in the midst of a fight, I won't be able to help you," Kell adds softly.

[thebloodtraitor]

The idea is excruciatingly tempting. There isn't a doubt in his mind Kell will be able to do just as he claims, will somehow be able to pinpoint Harry's exact location and take them there directly. There's no telling if Harry's in any danger, but there's every possibility given what he and Kell have seen today already.

"Yes," Sirius says, a rush of breath as he crosses to Kell, reaching for him with his good arm.

It's only when he's close enough to really see the look on Kell's face that he stops. The pitch of Kell's voice registers then too, quiet and hesitant, steeped with dread. It's a sincere offer, but one that comes at a great price. Kell has told him once already that his powers, like his blood, are finite. Require replenishment. And there's still a streak of drying blood smeared across Sirius's shoulder, not to mention the amount spilled in the fight itself.

Letting his arm fall, Sirius shakes his head. "No. No, we'll--" He pauses then, frowning as he considers the option. Then, "Let me take you somewhere safe first. Back to your treasure room, perhaps? Then I'll go looking for Harry and Kieren myself. I'm not so injured I can't do that."

[bloodandflowers]

Part of Kell aches for sleep, for rest, to even sit a while in silence, but a larger part of him has no desire to leave Sirius to this task alone. He knows what Sirius feels - he's felt it himself when Rhy was taken, a fear and a helplessness without resolve.

"I can still help you," he says, drawing himself taller. "Elemental magic is less draining, and surely it's better to face any attackers together than alone."

[thebloodtraitor]

"Less draining, but still draining," Sirius replies, less statement than question as he doesn't want to presume. "I won't argue that your help would be invaluable, but I won't entertain the notion if it'll make you any worse off."

But, given the men they've already encountered yet today, Sirius also isn't at all sure he could fight them off on his own.

He's already let James and Lily down once. He won't again.

"If we leave the traveling up to me maybe," he says, stepping closer. "There are a few places yet we can try. And you promise not to use your own blood again unless absolutely necessary."

[bloodandflowers]

"I've been in worse battles," Kell promises, thinking of Holland, of Athos and Astrid Dane. If he can face monsters like that and their puppets alike, he can face whatever nonsense Darrow has made to hunt them. "I won't use my blood unless I must."

Looking down, Kell checks that the sheathes beneath his wrist cuffs still contain their metal spikes. He would prefer not to kill anyone today, but if it becomes necessary, it's only because their enemies have made it so. "I'm ready."

[thebloodtraitor]

"Yes, I don't doubt that for a moment," Sirius responds, though not without a flicker of a frown. Kell has, of course, spoken of some of what he'd encountered back in his world. Much of it still makes very little sense to Sirius, but he's well aware of the dangers Kell has found himself in, the battles he has fought that, in some ways, are not dissimilar to those Sirius has faced.

For now, all Sirius can do is promise himself he won't let anything happen to Harry and he won't let anything happen to Kell either. He owes them both that much.

"Alright, hold tight," he says, curling his hand over Kell's wrist once more and apparating swiftly to the other side of the city.