A Hyacinth for His Hideousness

by Tharah Meester

  As if Petticoa had read his thoughts, he stated apologetically: “I tried to steer your husband in the right direction, Sir. I told him he should leave you, but he didn’t want to listen. So, unfortunately I couldn’t prevent your brother from intervening himself.”

  “Andrew wanted to hide from me the fact that you’d sinned with that filthy whore, but after you laid hands on Abney for his sake, the whole city was talking about it!”

  “He’s not a whore!” Vrila roared and raised his voice against Dimitri for the first time.

  “You dare speak to me like that? How low has that mangy piece of shit brought you, my brother?”

  “You aren’t my brother! You’re the devil! And Hyacinth is everything to me! He loves me!” He didn’t know why he said that. It came out of his mouth so easily. So matter-of-fact.

  In disgust, Dimitri grimaced and slapped his hands to his head. “I don’t want to hear anything about it! Nauseating, filthy thing! Dragging our name through the mud, you blemish! I want you back under my control. You will subject yourself again to my authority, will improve yourself and atone for your sins under my guidance. You will obey me or I’ll…” He lowered his arms and raised his head to look him directly in the eyes. “Or I’ll find your whore and make him suffer.”

  An icy chill gripped Vrila. At that moment it was clear he wouldn’t see Hyacinth again. And with that realisation, his heart again turned into stone and ice. Its beats faded. It froze.

  “Throw your weapon to the floor,” Petticoa demanded as he had him look down the barrel of his own. “I see you have it in your pocket. Throw it away. It won’t do you any good.”

  After gulping, Vrila slowly pulled out the revolver. A second time he submitted himself to the monster who so mockingly called himself his brother. He had no choice if he wanted to protect Hyacinth. Or did he?

  Instead of dropping the pistol, he grasped it unyieldingly and stared at it. Was this the price for his love? Did he have to pay it to be happy? In Hyacinth he’d found the happiness he’d never expected to feel. Now he could no longer just let go of it.

  His cheeks were wet when he pointed the weapon at Dimitri. They stared each other in the eyes, and in his brother’s he read sheer rage.

  “What’s the meaning of this insanity?! Put the weapon down, damn you!”

  Vrila didn’t react; his trigger-finger quivered, as much as his entire body did. He no longer saw Dimitri clearly. He had to shoot. He had to...

  “Andrew!” Dimitri’s nod in his direction was enough, and Petticoa squeezed the trigger.

  The shot echoed loudly through the air, cutting it asunder.

  Gasping in pain, Vrila dropped the revolver and grasped the wound on his upper arm where warm blood was flowing. It was a miracle; he would have thought it must be frozen in his veins.

  His brother emitted a howl of anger reminiscent of a wild animal’s. He gesticulated and stamped his feet like a raging child. “Are you trying to make me angry? Do you want me to kill your little whore?! Do you want me to slit open his throat? Do you want that?!”

  “No, Dimitri, please,” Vrila choked out, stumbled a few steps toward him then fell to his knees. His tears of despair dripped onto the stone floor. Pleading was all he had left. “Please don’t do anything to him!” His shoulders, his entire body convulsed while quietly sobbing. “I’ll do whatever you demand, but please let him go,” he whispered and reached for the seam of his brother’s coat as Dimitri closed the final distance between them.

  “Stop bawling, you piece of shit,” he snarled and kicked him in the abdomen. “It disgusts me how nauseating you look when you do that. Besides, you’re a man, dammit! I haven’t been able to teach you manners. I’m ashamed for you, do you hear? I’m deeply ashamed!”

  Vrila nodded, bent over the fabric of the coat, and restrained himself with effort. He barely succeeded. His innermost being was so painfully inhibited that he believed he’d die of grief. Dimitri’s words caused him to be ashamed of himself. For his weakness and his ugliness and his character. “I’m sorry, Dimitri. It’s not your fault. You made every effort to raise me properly. It’s my fault. Mine alone.”

  “It’s the defiler’s blood in you that makes you so abominable. I’ll teach you to be a proper man. We’ll try it again after you’ve atoned for your sins.”

  Vrila was about to reply when they were interrupted by a voice emanating from the darkness: “How about you atoning for yours first, Dimitri?”

  They turned toward it, but no one could be seen. Except for a narrow strip of moonlight, the hall lay in darkness.

  Heavy steps could be heard on the bare concrete, and shortly thereafter, Bartholomew stepped into the point of light falling through the damaged roof.

  So there he was. The Wesselin who was causing trouble among them.

  At once Vrila wondered, how could he have ignored the aristocratic refinement in Bartholomew’s features? Why didn’t it occur to him that a tattoo might be hidden near the ear behind his long, snow-white hair?

  No one muttered a word, but the atmosphere changed. Dimitri slumped over. He was no longer the highest-ranking presence in the room. Another one had commandeered that role for himself.

  Petticoa was praying in a foreign language and had retreated a few steps.

  “Andrew may gladly keep you company in our dungeon, my friend. Now lower your weapons. You’re surrounded,” Bartie continued in apparent delight. He turned to Vrila: “Maybe you’d like to stand up? We’ll soon have visitors.”

  Vrila didn’t understand what he meant but obeyed and raised himself up, barely capable of standing on his quivering legs. The flesh-wound throbbed with pain, so he pressed his fingers against it.

  While Petticoa dropped his pistol, Dimitri only lowered an arm. He regained his composure, at least a part of it. “How did you find me, you old son of a bitch?”

  “Your brother’s marriage was exceedingly convenient for me. I knew you’d intervene as soon as things had culminated. After the situation with Abney and people’s gossip, all I had to do was seemingly disappear from the city and give you ample room to manoeuvre,” Bartie explained.

  So that was the reason he’d joined their group – to be close to Vrila in case Dimitri made his presence known. For the same reason it had been of utmost importance that Vrila’s relationship with Hyacinth succeeded. That explained why he’d been so strongly in favour of it. Bartholomew wasn’t a friend; he was a spy. The entire time they hadn’t noticed the enemy directly in front of them. A shudder ran down his hunched spine. His breaths were rapid while the pain coursed throughout his entire body; he couldn’t hold himself upright. Everything was spinning around him, and he backed up a few steps to put more distance between Dimitri and himself.

  “You know what punishment awaits you. You two committed high treason against our organisation,” Bartholomew continued and appeared satisfied, even serene. However, beneath the surface brewed anger and deep gratification. “We can’t and won’t tolerate that.”

  Dimitri snarled as if to himself and glared at Vrila. “How could you have led him to me, you shameful bastard?!”

  With head bowed, Vrila stood helpless before his brother. More tears shed to augment his shame. More shame. More despair. Would his martyrdom ever come to an end?

  “Disgusting creature! Filthy traitor! You dirty piece...!”

  “Stop it, Dimitri. It’s not his fault,” Bartholomew admonished him.

  But Dimitri wasn’t to be admonished nor forced into submission. Quite the contrary. That someone had interfered in his family’s affairs seemed to stoke the coals of his wrath. “Nauseating wretch! You disgust me! I wish father had killed you while you were still in mother’s belly as he’d planned to! You’re an aberration!”

  *

  “That’s enough!” Hyacinth stormed out of the hiding place where Sergei had already succeeded in holding him back three times, but not on this occasion. At that point, nothing could keep him away from his husband. Unlike before,
in this situation Vrila needed protection, and he wouldn’t deny him the help. “Leave him alone!”

  With a burst of resolution he’d never before felt, he leapt in front of his wounded, defenceless husband and looked the devil in his glaring eyes. The pistol in his right hand gave him a sense of security.

  “Hyacinth,” Vrila stammered behind him and reached for his arm to draw him back, but he didn’t budge.

  “So, there he is? That’s your little whore?” Dimitri demanded then spat at his feet. “Piece of shit!”

  “Stop! You’ll leave these people in peace!” Bartie once more intervened. Why would it make a difference to him? In any event, they had led him to his target. Why was he defending them; he didn’t need them anymore.

  “He’s my brother, and I can shout at him if I so desire!”

  “You’ll no longer assault anyone, Dimitri! Your game is over and you are not the one who’s leaving here victorious!”

  Hyacinth used the opportunity to turn and face his dearest one while the deranged man’s attention was diverted. Vrila’s cheeks were red, his eyes blood-shot. Their gazes met only fleetingly before his husband lowered his own. Overcome by emotions, Hyacinth drew Vrila to him and pulled him against his body. Vrila wheezed and pressed against him firmly while Bartie and Dimitri roared at one another.

  “I remember now, Vrila. I remember the night we met in the gutters,” he choked out because his husband needed to know. “I don’t know how I could have forgotten you. I also wanted you, but convinced myself in my drunken stupor that it was only your honour that mattered to you. I believed you thought yourself better and too good for me. I never had a client after that night because I couldn’t get that pale image of you out of my head. I turned away everyone, wasn’t with anyone anymore because I only thought about you. I also wanted you, do you hear? I love you!”

  In response, Vrila wept at his ear. He gripped him more tightly.

  On the way to the church, Hyacinth had been overtaken by panic, by the fear they might have done something to Vrila. He could hardly breathe. Had his husband not spoken about Saint John, the patron saint of that church, they couldn’t have followed him, Hyacinth couldn’t have stood up for him. God alone knew what might have happened… God alone knew what would still happen.

  However, at the exact moment he reached for Vrila’s chin, encouraging him to stand more erect, nothing else mattered to him. He perpetually searched the depths of that dark gaze then bent and kissed his husband. His fingers became lost in dishevelled, silky hair.

  Indeed, there could be no more unfavourable time and no more inappropriate place. Nevertheless, he had to do it. He needed that fervent, despairing kiss. Apparently it was the same for Vrila because he gasped as he searched for his lips as if only they could preserve him from doom.

  As though from far away he heard Dimitri’s hysterical screaming: “Stop that! Stop! Keep your hands off my brother, you damn whore!”

  A second later he was grabbed from behind and fell to the floor under Dimitri. The bastard tried to punch him in the face, only Hyacinth’s quick reaction ensnared him in a scuffle.

  “Don’t shoot! You could hit the boy!” Bartie ordered sternly.

  Snarling and puffing for air, they rolled on the cold stone until the devil punched him in the nose then was yanked off of him. It was Vrila who overpowered his brother then glared directly in his face. “That’s enough.” Vrila made a rapid movement with his fist. Dimitri groaned and collapsed in his arms.

  “What have you done?” Dimitri staggered back to the support of his accomplice who was anything but a fucking pastor, but merely played God in a gruesome manner. The handle of a knife was protruding from Dimitris lower body, and he extended his fingers carefully toward it.

  “Leave it, Dimitri. Leave it there,” the blond man admonished him in a husky voice.

  Bartholomew grimaced in displeasure. “Gavrila, if the stab kills him, then you’ve delivered him from his well-deserved punishment.”

  Hyacinth was panting. He couldn’t grasp what Vrila had done for him. Faltering, he reached for his husband’s cold hand and felt secure in its grip.

  Sergei stepped out of the shadows. “Gavrii, now you have to take the youngster and disappear. I want my revenge and I want it right now.”

  In confusion he stared at his friend. What did he mean?

  Bartholomew laughed gruffly and so much darker than he ever had in their presence. “Oh, Sergei, poor, dumb Sergei. You left the boy standing in a side street to fetch something from the cellar of an abandoned building. What was it you needed so urgently?”

  How could he know that? Had he kept them under constant scrutiny? His request to be informed had only been an additional safeguard. In case they planned something he couldn’t foresee through their actions.

  Sergei removed his overcoat and left some of those present holding their breath. He had encased himself in a vest holding sticks of explosives. “I’ll blow you bastards to pieces. All of you together.”

  An ethereal silence spread like a cloak over the scene. Hyacinth could barely think, hardly understood what Sergei planned. Did he want to sacrifice himself to avenge his lost love?

  Vrila forced him a step back, tightening his grip more tenaciously while Dimitri quietly laughed.

  “Is that really what you want? Well, perhaps there’s someone whom you would not want to blow to pieces,” Bartie replied with complete calmness then whistled between his lips.

  Footsteps echoed off the walls as more people entered the hall.

  Hyacinth wrapped his fingers tightly around his husband’s when a tall, corpulent man appeared in the light. He was dressed elegantly and held a heavy iron chain in his hand. Impatiently he jerked on it and elicited from it a quiet but harrowing noise. “Come here now.”

  A young man with fine features and a sad expression stepped into the circle of light.

  It only took Hyacinth a moment to recognise Laurent des Carnasses.

  Clothed in the finest garments and properly combed, he left no doubt for what purpose the members of the secret society were holding him.

  “Laurent,” Sergei choked out and appeared on the verge of losing his balance.

  “Sergei,” the man whispered, and a barely noticeable smile crossed his lips while his eyes filled with tears.

  “I didn’t ask you to speak, little dog,” the fat bastard snarled and jerked again on the chain, the end of which was attached to Laurent’s iron collar. He cringed and raised his narrow shoulders.

  Sergei – who under normal circumstances would have taught that obnoxious fuck a lesson – simply rubbed his bloodshot eyes. Every trace of decisiveness had been swept away.

  “Take that thing off,” Bartie said, somewhat softly. “Surely you wouldn’t want to harm Laurent, would you?”

  “Never,” Perkovic stated almost inaudibly and started to remove the explosives. Hopelessness could be seen in each of his agitated movements. “All of these months, when you pretended to be our ally, you knew who I was and where my Laurent was as well. You mocked me without ever saying a word.”

  Bartholomew didn’t react, but the corners of his mouth twitched in amusement. How could they have been so mistaken about him?

  As he waved a hand, one of his men stepped closer and took the vest from Sergei then drew back with it into the dim shadows. He looked at the sticks as though he were holding the burning hot tail of the devil in his hands. Should the fellow stumble and fall on them, he’d blow away the warehouse and bury them all under its heavy roof. That thought caused a shudder to pass through Hyacinth’s body. Despite the cold of the night, beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “You may go,” Bartie suddenly muttered in their direction. “Keep to your plan and leave the city. You can take Perkovic with you. No one will stop you. I give you my word.”

  “How much is the word of a filthy traitor worth?” Sergei interjected trenchantly.

  “What did you do to Haggard’s sister? And to poo
r Mr Genwood?” Hyacinth demanded, assertive only because he could hide behind his husband.

  Bartholomew turned and surprised him with a soft expression. “Florin took his own life, boy. We had to ban him from our inner circle because he became too talkative in his old age. We suspect he no longer could abide not being a Wesselin anymore. We got rid of him without having to do anything ourselves.” His voice was terribly cold. “I had nothing to do with Gina and Helen Haggard. That was Dimitri’s handiwork.” He pointed to the insane man who could be heard gnashing his teeth.

  “The dirty whore got herself pregnant and wanted someone from our ranks to pay for the filthy brat,” Dimitri exclaimed. A grin flitted across his horrid face. “She sought out the wrong attorney when she stumbled into my office, the stupid bitch. I had to teach her a lesson, that sinner!”

  Hyacinth struggled for breath and fought against his oncoming tears. A desperate mother and her innocent child had had to die because of that beast.

  “You say, we can go. What about Laurent?” Vrila raised his voice, seemingly himself again, giving Hyacinth a sense of relief.

  The fat man shook his head violently even before Bartholomew could say a word: “You don’t get him! He belongs to me!”

  “Regrettably I can’t give you Laurent. I took him with us tonight because I knew that Perkovic would do something stupid. He’s now seen him one last time, just as he always wanted to. Go now.”

  “I won’t go anywhere without him.” Like a cliff on a shoreline, Sergei stood rigid amid his enemies, his back extruded, his gaze fixed on Bartie.

  Laurent gasped. “Sergei, you must. They’ll harm you. Please, I don’t want that to happen. I love you.”

  “Shut up!” the fat man interjected and rattled the chain.

  That was more than Sergei’s tormented soul could stand. His shoulders trembled as he sobbed, and he covered his eyes with his left hand. “Oh, my sweet boy.”

  Hyacinth wanted to go to him, console him, drag him away if he must, except Vrila held him back. With the palm of a hand against his chest, he shoved Hyacinth behind himself. “You will not put yourself in danger. Not again! Enough of the craziness you’re demonstrating here. What in hell were you thinking by following me?” he hissed and narrowed his eyes.