(no subject)

[iniquiticity]

wellreadfan asked:

More of the supernatural/demon Ironflint? I do love Washington being extra evil.

Washington disliked the abyss, but he acknowledged it as being a part of his regular existence, not unlike accountants. [ ] slithered next to him, a step behind. He kept it out of his sight, even though he could feel it, close. It slithered; it flew; it crawled; it wriggled. Even with his greatest attempts, it was hard to expand his mind to understand the dimension of a place so hellish.

He walked without walking, to a shrine. The shrine writhed around him. It did not understand him, mortal thing, albeit demonbound and armored. He understood it just fine, and he reached into his jacket pocket and emptied the few drops of blood into the basin from the silver vial. The shrine reached out, touched him. You have offered well. What do you request?

Show me George William Frederick III, he told to it. Magic prickled and burned, but he was long tolerant of it. In the air in front of him, a tiny sandstorm grew, and in that sandstorm the colors changed and he saw the man he had crushed. The shrine and the demon that it touched could feel him now, and there was interest. [ ] snarled at them, and wrapped around him like armor. The demon’s hatred of his enslavement empowered him. The shrine-demon pulled away, even if only a fraction.

He set his thoughts away from that conflict. Under normal circumstances, he might have thought of hell-curses as an overreaction, but not in this case. The man in the sand had dogged him for years, in an almost incomprehensible number of ways. He had conquered, finally. He had ripped the man’s holdings from him, and his business, and his employees, and his intellectual property. And now, the last thing. The end, that men would never understand.

He reached out to the shrine-demon and offered him the sand. The shrine-demon seemed puzzled, at first, but then then he reached again into his jacket again, this time for a swatch of red silk cloth and a crusted, used tissue. The shrine-demon understood.

You have already offered. And you continue. Why? The shrine-demon asked. You offer too well.

This man has damaged me, he explained, I do not offer well. I punish. You punish, for me.

An alien laugh reverberated in his chest. You seek to be owed.

[ ] laid at his feet. The shrine-demon took notice.

I will owe, the shrine-demon said, after a moment, and I will punish.

Washington flicked a ring on his finger, and was in his office. He studied the newspaper.

THE MAD KING? read the front page, with a picture of Fredrick with wild eyes.