Chapter Text
The initiation ceremony had left a bad taste in Hawk’s mouth. He still did not want to turn on the Kreese Regiment – to do so would be to turn on the person he had decided to be – but it did leave him feeling like perhaps he should look into some of the accusations Demetri had been making in the paper.
Right now he felt wrong, like he had blundered in some terrible way he could not take back, but maybe he was just being paranoid?
At the gathering after the ceremony, Hawk pushed all thoughts of discomfort as far down as possible and smiled his best shark smile as others detailed the ways in which they wanted to humiliate their enemies in the Miyagi Regiment. In the days after that he trained with Lieutenant Barnes and the new recruits and tried not to think too much about how young Bert was doing in the dungeon.
The manor was full to the brim with both experienced fighters and knew training and sparring, with experienced fighters only being sent out on recruitment missions. Patrols were no longer necessary.
…which did not make sense. Other regiments were still patrolling, were they not? Duke Silver, master of necromancy though he may be, had not stopped all of the zombie risings in the whole nation. Had he? He had not said as much. Hawk had several opportunities to speak with the man in the weeks following the ceremony and all he ever spoke of was how excited he was to finally be taking down ‘the little bastard’ for ‘Johnny’.
“Are you going to be our next king, your lordship?” Hawk ventured to ask once, when the Duke invited him for a walk around the perimeter of the property. He got bored when the colonel was busy and said that Hawk was better company than Lieutenant Barnes (“Not that the lieutenant isn’t good for a laugh now and again, but he’s got a worse case of ‘dead behind the eyes’ than any zombie I’ve met.”).
There were still zombies everywhere around the manor, just standing and occasionally groaning. Hawk hated it, and he knew it was making a lot of the other fighters uncomfortable as well, but everyone seemed determined to get used to it.
“That is the plan, birdie-boy. I’ll be king, Johnny will rule by my side, and this world won’t know what hit it.”
“And the zombies will be gone?” Hawk asked, looking at one that was a bit too close as they passed and fighting off the wave of revulsion when it seemed to follow his movement with its eyes.
“Not much sense in that. I think they’ll be pretty useful in the long run. Watch this!” Duke Silver stopped him by tugging the back collar of his jacket and gestured to a pair of loitering zombies. With a dramatic wave of the nobleman necromancer’s hand one of the zombies was suddenly attacking the other with as much viciousness as Hawk had ever seen from the monsters.
He'd never seen a zombie attack another zombie before, so it was clearly acting directly on the duke’s will.
“But why would we need zombies to attack zombies when your lordship can just control all of them?” Hawk blinked, willing himself to be confused even though his heart knew the answer. He wanted to look away from the scene before him but forced himself to stare onward so Duke Silver would not think him squeamish. He did look back to the duke, however, when he heard him laugh softly.
“You are young, aren’t you?” Was all he said before patting Hawk patronizingly on the cheek and resuming their walk.
It was that eerie interaction that finally spurred Hawk to take a chance on more serious digging. He wanted to trust the colonel, to believe in what they were doing. He told himself this would grant him that peace of mind.
He did not quite believe the things he was telling himself by this point, but he persisted in clinging to them even as he snuck down the manor’s halls in the dead of night. He repeated it in his head as a mantra as he climbed out of a hall window and shuffled along a thin ledge to the window of Colonel Kreese’s office. He even whispered an ‘I won’t find anything’ to himself as he let himself in.
Before the duke had arrived, Hawk would have bet the colonel was there working at all hours of the night. He had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case now.
The Colonel’s office looked much the same in the dark as it did in the light. Plush chairs by a fireplace where dying embers still glowed, a big desk of sturdy, expensive, wood, and shelves of thick books. Hawk moved cautiously – the embers in the fireplace made him think perhaps the colonel had retired not so distantly in the past that he might not still find reason to return – as he climbed down from the window and approached the desk. In the drawers he found…
A whole lot of boring patrol and training schedules. Good. Part of Hawk was tempted to just leave and tell himself he’d looked into it and found nothing, but he knew this wasn’t enough to bring him peace of mind. There was clearly a locked drawer at the bottom of the desk. He could not claim to have truly investigated while he was unaware of its contents.
He could not risk breaking the lock and did not know how to pick it.
Hawk crawled under the desk to see if perhaps there was another way in, seeing as it was the bottom drawer. He ended up prying the bottom of it partially off with one of his daggers, peeling a corner down just enough for an envelope to fall through.
It was a letter from Duke Silver to the colonel dated early this year, soon after New Years. Hawk felt more awkward reading it than he had sneaking into the office, but he persisted through the first paragraph of ‘how melancholy it makes me to begin the year without you’s until he got to…
Oh.
-
Summer wasn’t officially over yet, but the feeling of it had faded by the time Demetri and Sam were back in the region of the Miyagi Estate.
It was nightfall and they were still about 3 hours out. They could either push it and arrive in the middle of the night, or play things safe and spend the night in the town they were already passing through. Travel at night was more dangerous, but they were two of the people best equipped to handle that danger and if there was an issue they’d be the ones called to handle it anyways. They decided to go for it.
“It wasn’t too long ago you would have been nagging me to stop.” Sam laughed as they left the last town before the estate.
“I’m pragmatic. I would insist we stop if I did not think we could handle the trouble we might run into. I’m simply confident we can.” Demetri wanted to argue that he did not ‘nag’, but he wasn’t sure if that was true or not.
“So your head has inflated some since we last trained with my father?” His partner teased. She was clearly in a good mood, probably excited to be so close to home. Demetri knew it had been hard on her to be away from her family after nearly losing the general.
“Perhaps.” Demetri shrugged. He was getting steadily more confident in his combat skills.
They were not that far out of town when a shaded figure stepped into the road ahead of them. It was not a zombie. Zombies did not stand and wait.
Demetri supposed he and Sam could probably handle bandits if it came to it, but why chance it if they didn’t have to? They looked at each other briefly before turning around.
Eli was in the road behind them, a sour look twisting his face. They were being ambushed by the Cobras.
Eli had made his choice, then. Demetri had grown to expect this as more and more time went by without seeing his old friend, but disappointment still settled heavy over his heart.
The man who had been standing in the road ahead of them approached, a grin visible on his face as he neared.
“This one is mine.” Hawk gestured to Demetri, and wow was that not the tone of voice Demetri wanted him saying that in. “You handle the lady.”
Demetri breathed deep and got into a defensive stance. General Miyagi and Lieutenant LaRusso did not train them to attack a living opponent unless it was in self-defense, and so it would be up to Eli to attack first if that was what he wanted to do. Demetri already knew it was, but he could still hope…
When Demetri’s eyes met Eli’s there was something there besides aggression, though. Something nervous. Something that wanted to be understood.
And Demetri was surprised to find that, even after all that had happened these past few years, he did understand.
When Eli moved to attack he did not block and counter, he simply stepped out of the way and let Eli knock his ally out with the handle of his dagger. The other Cobra had been gearing up to attack Sam, so he was completely caught of guard.
“This is Mr. Douglas Rickenberger, the one who tried to poison your general earlier this year.” The LaRussos would be happy to have this man in custody.
“It could have been me, though.” Eli continued, staring down at his unconscious comrade as he spoke. “I planned to do it.”
“But you decided not to.” Demetri said with certainty, recalling their conversation under the cherry blossoms as well as Eli’s resolve from later that evening.
His words did not seem to reassure Eli, who simply shook off his mood and turned to Sam.
“An offering of good faith.” He gestured at the unconscious man and Sam hesitantly shifted out of her combat stance.
“I’ll accept it. But if perhaps you are here to fight Demetri again, I’ll remind you that he bested you last time.”
“He got lucky.” Hawk snapped, seeming honestly bothered, and Demetri couldn’t help but be amused by that. He supposed he had gotten lucky, in a sense, but it was a combination of luck and strategy.
“You’ve seen sense, then? You’re defecting from the Kreese Regiment?” Demetri wanted some kind of verbal confirmation before he let himself get too excited.
Eli shook his head.
“I have something for you.” He pulled from his coat a roll of papers tied with string. “Colonel Kreese and Duke Silver communicate through letters. Their intentions are plainly stated. They do not say when they will strike, however. They’re together now so I suppose there’s no further need to put that in writing.”
“We assumed they were planning an ambush already.” Sam said dismissively as she dug in her bag, Demetri assumed for something they could bind Rickenberger with. Demetri supposed she may still think this was some sort of trick and that Hawk was only faking like he was trying to help them.
“I doubt you could have predicted what’s coming.” Eli scoffed, then got a distant sort of look to him as his eyes found Demetri. “Well, maybe you could have.”
“She’s got more combat experience than me, so –“
“No, your column. The most recent one about Silver and his…hobbies.” Eli was not referring to Silver as ‘his lordship’ or even ‘Duke’. What could he have learned to so thoroughly kill his regard for the man?
“He fancied himself some kind of magician. Has he been killing livestock around your training grounds?” Demetri asked with some amount of irony, then remembered the rest of what he’d dug up about Silver. “Has anyone gone missing?”
“Miguel used to be your partner.” Sam shot up from where she’d been crouching to tie Rickenberger’s hands. “Is he –“
“Miguel and Lieutenant Lawrence left the regiment a while ago. They didn’t disappear, they just… left.” Eli was frowning and Demetri didn’t know if it was because of the nature of his friend and mentor’s departures from the regiment or because he hadn’t gone with them. “Nobody’s gone missing yet. Or at least not any of our fighters.”
“Good, then –“
“Silver can control the zombies.” Eli blurted out. And he was wrong about Demetri maybe being able to predict that because Demetri had not seriously entertained the prospect of magic existing. He had toyed with the possibility – the world had proven itself too strange not to consider it – but Demetri was a skeptic at heart. Even when he was writing about Duke Silver supposedly trying to summon demons in his youth he had never truly in his heart believed he had succeeded in wielding actual magic. Only that he may have committed ghastly crimes while attempting it.
Dread gripped Demetri tightly. Wild, feral, zombies were enough trouble. Zombies wielded as a weapon by an intelligent master were an infinitely more horrifying prospect.
“You’re sure?” Demetri asked anyways, for the sake of due diligence and because he did not want it to be true.
“I’ve seen it. He pretends that it’s a recent breakthrough he’s made, but he’s lying. It says in those letters… I don’t know if it’s been the whole time, I didn’t have a chance to read everything, but he was controlling them before Christmas at least.”
“The horde that night, at the party. It was an attack.” That’s how it had felt to Demetri even at the time, even having no basis for how something like that could be possible.
“Yes. He writes to Kreese that he’s sorry it wasn’t successful. They wanted to kill Miss LaRusso.” Eli nodded in Sam’s direction.
“Me? Why?”
“To break the general’s heart, and your father’s. They thought your death would demoralize the Miyagi Regiment.”
“Why would he send them while you were with us?” Sam wondered aloud. Demetri was already fairly sure of the answer. He had always believed Kreese capable of throwing Eli’s life away, it was one of the certainties that had started him down this path.
“He wanted us to die. One of us, at least. It was a…political move. If we died he could spin it like we were protecting Miss LaRusso. The Kreese Regiment would be the regiment of heroes, and if General Miyagi ever criticized Kreese again the public would think him rude and ungrateful.”
Eli was maintaining his composure, but Demetri knew the truth of how easily the colonel would discard him must be eating away at him.
“Anyways, there are letters in there going back to June of last year. I don’t know how useful they’ll be, I didn’t have a lot of time to read them.” Eli tried to shake off whatever unpleasant thoughts his own recounting of matters had inspired. “I’ll be in touch if I can find out when we’re attacking.”
And then he was walking away.
He had only taken a couple steps when Demetri caught him by the arm. “If you imagine you will be returning to the cult run by the man who tried to kill you and his necromancer friend, I think you’ll find you are quite mistaken.”
“I’m more useful there.”
“You stole your colonel’s personal property, if you go back you’ll probably end up sacrificed in one of Silver’s rituals.”
“I already framed another culprit for that.”
“Eli –“
“The boy I framed should be in good health and safely hiding somewhere by now. I’ve got everything planned out. The ‘thief’ was a prisoner who will have ‘escaped’ while Rickenberger and I were gone. Rickenberger was defeated by you two. So was I. I’m angrier than ever and can’t think about anything besides revenge on you.”
“He’ll buy that?”
“He doesn’t think much of me.” A fact that clearly still hurt Eli, despite his best attempt to seem gruff about it. Or his feelings were clear to Demetri, in any case.
If Eli really did have everything planned out then he was right; he was most useful back at his post in the Kreese Regiment gathering more intel. Nonetheless…
“It’s still too dangerous. Just stay with me.”
Eli placed his hand over where Demetri’s was still gripping his arm and stroked it once with his thumb. When prompted, Demetri let him lace their fingers together.
“I’m going to ignore your advice a bit longer.” Eli smiled a regretful smile. “Sorry.”
He kissed his knuckles briefly and then walked away. Demetri knew he would not be able to stop him.
“Has he accepted your offer, then?” Demetri had told Sam about his attempted engagement during the months they had been on the road.
He wasn’t sure if that was what that last interaction meant or not, but he didn’t have the energy to worry about his love life at the moment. If Eli would just come back in one piece that was all he could ask for.
It was nearly dawn when Demetri and Sam arrived back at the estate, a conscious and swearing Rickenberger in tow. They woke everyone up anyways. ‘Duke Silver is a necromancer and he’s getting ready to sic an undead army on us’ was the kind of news they thought the general and lieutenant would want right away.
Not knowing how much time they had to prepare, everyone got to work building up the estate’s defenses the next day. There were already some measures in place, of course, but not at the scale they needed to fight off an actual invasion.
General Miyagi was hesitant to call back the rest of his forces to defend the estate given that, based on everything they had heard, the zombie threat continued. The duke had not called all the zombies to himself and was still letting many roam wild, while Kreese had apparently called all of his living fighters to him rendering many areas without protection. The general had to choose between concentrating his forces to wait however long for an attack, or continuing to defend the nation’s people as best he could. Demetri doubted he even considered it a choice.
“If I may, sir…” Demetri questioned once in the days following Eli’s warning. “Why don’t we abandon the estate? You could command us from some secret location.”
“If we stay, they come here.”
“Yes. That’s why I think we should consider leaving.” Demetri had never gotten the hang of controlling his tone when speaking to superior officers. Outside of the present extreme circumstances, the military life was not for him. General Miyagi never seemed to mind Demetri’s manners, anyways. He just smiled and went to help some of the others with digging a trench.
“Kreese has a personal, petty, grudge against General Miyagi. If he can he will want to kill him before they make their big move on the country.” Lieutenant LaRusso noticed Demetri’s obvious bafflement and took pity on him. “If they can’t find General Miyagi they might skip right to invading the capitol, or they might tear the countryside in this region apart looking for him. If we stay here, they’ll come here, and we’ll have a chance to stop them before they either do more damage or seize more power.”
While they tried to prepare, Demetri also worked on a new column and managed to get it sent off to the city for publishing. He assumed that was part of the reason why Eli had brought the letters to him; so he could publish details like how the attack at Lord Melvin’s party had been staged. He also wrote about how the Kreese Regiment was not currently fighting to protect the populace from zombies, and how the top Cobras apparently became suddenly ill for mysterious reasons. Demetri had never published that before because he did not truly have any information about it, but the addition of actual magic to the situation made it all the more distressing. Maybe some of Kreese’s fighters would read it and realize that it was not a normal part of fighting zombies.
Demetri cited his source as someone who had escaped the Kreese Regiment, which both Eli and the person he had set up to seem responsible had done in different ways.
Every day Demetri hoped Eli would show up, for reasons both emotional and practical. If he arrived with information about the invasion and gave General Miyagi a timetable he might call more of their forces back for that specific timeframe. They’d stand a better chance at defending the estate. Mostly, though, Demetri just wanted to see him alive.
In late October two former Cobras arrived at the Miyagi Estate, but neither of them was Eli. Lieutenant Lawrence and Mr. Diaz had apparently read his latest column and known an attack on the Miyagi Estate must be imminent, so they’d come to help.
They were also hoping he might have more information on the sickness he talked about as it had started to effect Miguel more and more often.
They had planned to continue fighting zombies alone, maybe found the Lawrence Regiment, but they had been hindered in that by Mr. Diaz’s persistent on-and-off illness. He confirmed that it was the same sickness he used to think of as adrenaline sickness from fighting zombies and that it had started happening much more frequently since they’d left the Kreese Regiment.
Lieutenant Lawrence claimed to not have realized there was anything strange with the way some of the fighters he led got sick from time to time until recently. He said that he didn’t experience it himself.
In any case, their forces were up by two (provided Mr. Diaz was well on invasion day) and Demetri had still not heard from Eli.
It was only about a week after that that the Cobras arrived. The Cobras and the zombies.
-
Hawk surprised himself a little with how well he took to espionage. Playing the part of the loyal Cobra was easy in that he only had to lean into the identity he had been trying to live up to all along. It was only through intentionally playing the part that he could see the degree to which he had always been playing a part. Separating what was really him from that mess was a task he was happy to put off in favor of more pressing matters.
The pressure of the task before him – the knowledge that if he failed Kreese and Silver would rule the nation (potentially multiple nations in time) through oppression and fear of their undead army, the knowledge that if they were successful Demetri probably wouldn’t live long enough to be horrified by it, and the reality that he could be caught at any time – was stifling. As was knowing that he had had a hand in making the situation so dire with his, until recently, unrelenting support of Kreese, a man who didn't care a whit about him and might still end up executing him whether as a traitor or as a sacrifice to his master plan. His heart was nearly always flooded with panic.
Still.
He laughed louder, grinned wider, and spoke more cruelly than he ever had before.
He also did his best over the week’s following his theft of Kreese’s letters – a crime he had successfully arranged for Bert to be blamed for after escaping his imprisonment – to cozy up to his superiors. He was sure that was what they expected of him: to try and ingratiate himself to them and climb in the ranks. Kreese remained amused by him. Barnes became amused by him. It was Silver, though, who yielded the most enlightening – and terrifying – information.
He enlisted Hawk to help him set up a workspace one day, apparently wanting his occult paraphernalia out of his quarters. Hawk went to move the glass orb from the ceremony, intending to finally ask the questions about it that had plagued him since then. Framed as fascination with the duke’s power, of course.
The duke stopped him before he could lay a finger on it. “No, that one stays here.”
“Is it how your lordship controls the dead?” Hawk asked in put-on awe.
“You’re real devoted to the cause, right Hawk?” Silver asked, towering over Hawk with the full force of his height as he approached him. Hawk backed away from the orb and Silver smiled.
“Yes, your lordship.”
“Johnny says you’re one of our most devout, in fact. Maybe the most devout.”
“You flatter me, sir.” Hawk did his best not to flinch when the duke laughed.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret, then. Johnny won’t mind, since it’s you. He’ll want you to be real proud of your contributions. All of them.”
Silver touched the orb and it glowed brightly where his finger traced a pattern. “Life is a resource, birdie-boy. Same as everything else. This artefact helps me to direct the flow of it and distribute our stock however we need to meet our goals.”
“Our stock?”
“All of you fighters who’ve been sworn in – you’re young. You’ve got life to spare. The puppets in the yard? Not so much. This orb lets you share. It’s just another way in which you contribute to the cause. You can be proud of that, right?”
Hawk was good at leaning into his boisterous persona, but he was not a good actor in general. He could not school the horror off of his face as the truth of the ‘adrenaline sickness’ dawned on him. Duke Silver did not seem to mind. He seemed pleased, if anything.
“Of course sir.” Hawk said because there was nothing else he could say. “Thank you for telling me.”
The duke clearly didn’t believe him sincere, but he also clearly did not want him to be. He had probably not bought Hawk’s attempt at seeming unaffected by the zombies in the yard. He enjoyed knowing Hawk was afraid of him, Hawk realized, just as he enjoyed watching him play the brute. This was perhaps even why he continually sought his company out over that of Lieutenant Barnes, who seemed numb to things such as fear if he had ever felt them at all.
Hawk knew what needed to be done now, at least. He had to go for the orb. But if he went for it too early, how did he know they couldn't fix it somehow? It had to be the day of the invasion, and to get to it then he'd have to stay close to Silver.
That meant he couldn’t return to Demetri no matter what he learned. Not until this was all over.
He kept up his act for another few weeks, but let Silver see his fear. That was how he managed to be a part of the entourage Colonel Kreese brought with him when he walked ahead of both of his armies, living and dead, to demand General Miyagi’s surrender. The colonel, Barnes, and himself stood facing the general, Lieutenant LaRusso, and – confusingly – Lieutenant Lawrence on the vast front lawn of the Miyagi estate for a moment of false negotiations between gentlemen.
It was a position Hawk might have been proud of if he had remained ignorant to his commanders’ true natures, but not actually an ideal location since Silver had remained farther back behind all of the zombies he controlled. He had refused Hawk’s offer to guard him, however, and Hawk could not insist without seeming suspicious. The warrior he framed himself as would want to be on the front lines.
The general did not agree to surrender. He did try to challenge the colonel to that one on one duel Hawk had once deluded himself into believing Kreese wanted, and perhaps he did want it, but Miyagi’s terms were that Kreese send his armies away and that was not going to happen.
The delegations parted and returned to their own sides of what would soon be a battlefield. Kreese returned to sizable forces both living and dead. Miyagi returned to a considerably smaller number of skilled fighters as well as some walls and trenches that might at least slow down the dead. They would lose the battle, however, unless Hawk’s plan worked.
-
When the fighting broke out Demetri and the rest of Miyagi’s fighters quickly began to be overwhelmed with the size of the force they faced. They had probably about half as many people as the enemy force had in its living army alone. It seemed like many of Kreese’s fighters were newer recruits who had perhaps not been training that long. If they were only fighting the living then perhaps it would have been manageable despite being outnumbered, but the zombies made it so they could hardly defend never mind dream of countering.
Eli had never shown up to warn them about the coming attack. Demetri thought he would have even if he had been only a few hours before Kreese’s armies. He thought he would at least come to fight with them. That he had not did not make Demetri think his dear friend had turned on them again, only that he must have some other plan in mind. Eli was always quite the strategist, back when they were boys playing games.
Demetri had faith that Eli was trying to help in some way, but that did not mean he approved of his doing so alone. Turning on the Cobras meant he was not supposed to be alone anymore. Demetri had to go to him.
“He must have a plan, I – “ Demetri tried to explain to Sam and Mr. Diaz, who were fighting closest to him.
“Go to him.” Sam cut him off as she planted her knife in the skull of an approaching zombie. “He should have better intel than we do, at the very least. It might be our only shot.”
Mr. Diaz nodded his approval as he kicked a living enemy back. “Watch Hawk’s back. We’ll handle things here.”
The two of them created an opening for him to break away and begin running across the battlefield. Even when he’d been dreadfully out of shape, Demetri had been a fast runner due to his long stride. He did not know exactly where to find Eli, but he knew he had been with Kreese at the start of all this so he headed vaguely in the direction the colonel and his entourage had seemed to walk in.
He made it through the battle and to an area where Kreese’s forces had left their carts and horses. That’s where he found Eli.
And Duke Silver, the necromancer.
“I was worried for your lordship’s safety.” Hawk was lying well enough, but earning himself much smirking amusement from the duke.
“Were you now? Well birdie-boy, I think you’ll find I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
He certainly looked it. Despite being of a station where it would never be expected that he fight or do any manual labor, Duke Silver was visibly powerful.
Eli struck first, apparently not through with all of Kreese’s teachings, and the massive nobleman easily redirected him off to the side with one hand.
“Come on, boy, at least put up an effort.”
Demetri barely restrained himself from running in to help Eli because he knew there must be more to his plan than fighting the duke. If the key to all of this was just defeating Silver he could have come and told them that. What did he think he needed to wait for the invasion to do?
Demetri snuck through the trees to get a better line of sight on Silver’s carriage. There was something inside. Something shining on a pedestal.
Well, that was obviously important.
As he watched Eli fight the duke – and put up quite the fight, once he got into the swing of things – it was clear he was trying to get to the carriage.
That meant he was steadily trying to turn them. Demetri made his move as soon as the duke’s back was to him, running out from the cover of the trees and jumping on the towering man’s back. He held on with his sheathed cane-sword pulled against the man’s throat. “Now, Eli!”
Eli made a run for the carriage and reached it just as Silver threw Demetri off of him. Silver stared down at Demetri like he was a particularly offensive ant for a moment and even raised his boot as if to stomp down on his windpipe. He was falling to the side suddenly, however, as something made contact with his head.
Glass rained down as a soft light flitted up and dispersed into the air.
Duke Silver snarled as he got up. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Probably something worthwhile if it’s got you this upset.” Eli snarked, far too fond of tempting fate. Not that Demetri was one to talk.
An angry shout sounded from the battlefield and the duke suddenly stopped his advance on Eli.
“Johnny!”
The duke ran off and Eli came to offer him a hand up.
“You came to find me,” He marveled, like it was noteworthy and not the only thing Demetri could imagine himself doing.
“Always.” Demetri let himself be pulled up. He wrapped Eli in his arms the moment he was on his feet “You ran off alone and bit off more than you could chew.”
Demetri was happy to see Eli alive and well, but that didn’t mean he was letting him off the hook for that. Eli just laughed next to his ear and squeezed him back.
“Alwa –“
“Do not say ‘always’. I do not care how clever a reply it is. We stay together from now on. Alright?”
“…alright.”
-
The zombies fell all at once and the Miyagi forces used the surprise of it to turn the tide of battle. The Kreese Regiment was defeated.
There was no grand celebration party the night after the battle. Everyone was too tired for such a thing, and there was no guarantee the threat had passed. Kreese’s fighters had been defeated, but they may have come back to try again. Silver’s hold on the zombies had been broken, but they did not know for a fact he could not make them rise again. It seemed to have been something he’d worked years to build towards, but they still didn’t know exactly how it worked.
Hawk was in no mood for parties. He was in the mood for little besides sleep. After reuniting with Miguel and Lieutenant Lawrence briefly – he was truly glad to see them both – he had said goodnight to Demetri before heading to the room he was being allowed use of. He collapsed onto the mattress and slept until past noon the following day.
In the coming days they learned that all the zombies in the nation had fallen at the same moment. Silver had always been the one animating every single one of them, using vitality stolen from Cobras (and likely others in the beginning). Duke Silver did not return to court or to any of the fashionable high society circles he used to move in. Colonel Kreese never reported for duty again. They were still out there and may still strike again, but it seemed the threat had truly passed for the time being.
Lieutenant Barnes did not disappear with them and the few Cobras that remained loyal to Kreese even after being told what he’d done to them rallied around him. That would be a problem for another day.
…Hawk had had thoughts of hunting down Barnes as soon as he heard the news, but Demetri had threatened to lock him in General Miyagi’s garden shed.
Things between them were good in a way. Hawk could again relax in Demetri’s company and he thought they were both enjoying having down time to catch up. There was something lingering over them, however, that was quickly growing to the size of an elephant hovering above their heads.
Hawk had never answered Demetri’s question.
He hadn’t let himself consider it much while he was undercover with the Cobras. He had thought that he didn’t know what he wanted and would need to puzzle it all out. He was wrong. He knew exactly what he would have said if Demetri had asked him before he’d decided to join the Kreese Regiment (after a great deal of blushing), and he knew that however they had both changed that it was what he wanted now too. To make new plans with Demetri. To carve out a new life together.
Demetri had never really been his enemy. He’d always been the person his heart considered ‘home’, even when he was trying to run away.
Demetri had asked him months ago, though, and even though he thought they were on the same page… he hadn’t actually asked again. Maybe it was too soon after they’d all been fighting for their lives. Maybe there was a certain amount of time he had to let pass before he could bring it up again.
Hanukkah was upon them before long. Hawk and others at the estate who celebrated it did so in a subdued and reflective manner. Nobody was ready for much excitement yet. On the eighth night Hawk took the brooch from his jacket – a hawk in flight – and made a decision.
“Walk with me?” He caught up to Demetri after dinner. The night was cold and bright with the light of the moon bouncing off the snow. Hawk led them to the bridge over the stream and hoped that would make his intentions clear enough that Demetri would stop him if he was about to make a fool of himself.
“So. Here we are. A good twenty-minute walk from the nearest fireplace.” Demetri complained because he was Demetri. Hawk rolled his eyes.
“Just let me do this, okay?” He shoved a small box into Demetri’s hands.
“You could have given me a present back at the house.”
“Yeah, but, this place… you know. Just open it.”
“It’s your pin.” Demetri blinked down at the brooch in the box.
“I bought that for myself after Lieutenant Lawrence gave me the name Hawk. I had decided to kill any weakness in myself and work on being someone I thought was more worthwhile.”
“I always thought you were worthwhile.”
“I know. I don’t need all… that, anymore. Just you. If you want to accept that as a token of… as a sign of our promise.”
“You’re proposing to me!” Demetri smiled, delighted. “I hoped maybe you were bringing me out here to finally answer me, but this is better. You have to get down on one knee. I did.”
Hawk moved to kneel down but Demetri grabbed him by the shoulders before he could. “I’m kidding. It’s snowing. You’ll get all soggy, stand up.”
Hawk did so and was immediately pulled into a kiss, Demetri’s hand moving to the back of his head.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long. Yes, by the way.”
Hawk smiled so wide it actually hurt, but he didn’t care.
He kept kissing Demetri until he started complaining again about being cold, and then they went inside to find a fireplace and get cozy.
1823 ended with Hawk happily engaged and ready to leave the unpleasantness of the past few years behind him.
-
Epilogue:
Zombies had been real. Magic still was. There was a great deal about the world that was strange and difficult to explain, it turned out. Now writing under his own name, Demetri ventured to try.
It turned out that Duke Silver was not the only person to ever dabble in the dark arts, that zombies were not the only monsters stalking the night. General Miyagi had already known this – it was part of why he had trained Lieuten – Mr. LaRusso in his youth.
After the fall of the Kreese Regiment, most of the key players in the zombie conflict that Demetri was aware of had resigned any military commissions. Mr. LaRusso and Mr. Lawrence had opted to continue fighting, though, and had founded a small organization devoted to protecting people from other supernatural threats. Eli, Mr. Diaz, Mr. Keene, and Sam had all signed on fairly quickly and eagerly.
Demetri had sighed a lot about it, but had decided to join too when he saw how pleased Eli was for the chance to use his hard-earned skills for something purely good. He needed a new subject to write about anyways.
As long as it didn’t interfere with their summer wedding date, he could stand to keep on kicking supernatural ass.