The King in Yellow

==Lamplight and Flight==
Heat roared up canvases and cracked wood sheathed in smoke. It raked over his skin, the Summer Boss was lost instants after he'd barreled in.
"BUUUZZ!" He hollered, picking his way over dim obstacles, squinting through the swirling shadows. He heard snapping and rushing and voices, yelling. "SUSAN!"
He thought he saw it in the corner, Buzz's bulky wheelchair silhouetted in golden firelight, some form slumped in it. "Buzz?! Dammit, I told you keeping kerosene in here was a bad idea! AH, sonofabitch!" Something swept under him, and Bill fell forward onto his arms. Something was on him in a second, knee in his back, kicked away the half-drawn gun, a flash of yellow scarf looped around his throat.
"You knew, you knew She was coming for me!" As he listened, he felt his eyes light up and lava roll down his face. He felt glowing horns like fire pokers curl out of his head, the Iron Crown manifest as the Wyrd squirmed under his assailant's oaths. "Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think I couldn't see her black claws closing around me?!"
I dunno what you're referring to, compadre, but sounds like we should talk about it, he would have said. His nails gouged skin clawing at the garrote, his crown clawed at the dread power invoked. He heard someone screaming, he heard Buzz cursing him. He could visualize the thing around his neck, with all its filthy spatters, pulling tighter. The Kingslayer. It should have been in its shoebox. Hope was gonna be pissed. Sacred Wrath itself roared and slashed against the forbidden token's urging. The noose debated, commanded the seething Wyrd, seared the king's skin. Undeserving, it insisted. Bill's fingers slipped over the silk, the world dimmed. The crown snapped and crumbled. A rush of cold air, like a shield ripped away. Screaming.
The weight was thrown off his back, he was flipped over, being shaken awake.
"-Between me and Bill, Jessie!" Buzz hollered, and Bill heard the great golden calf stomping away from him.
"What is WRONG with you?!" He heard her yell back. He struggled to get up on his elbows, but a hard point shoved into his chest.
A grinning man stood astride him, sun hat cocked back, his walking stick pinning Bill down. Snakes twirled out from it, open mouths darting into the smoke. "One, two, three, four..."
"Shit." Bill breathed, feeling his empty holster. "Who are you?"
"I am He who is on a schedule," The man winked at him as his fingers found Sunset's curved handle. "Five... And you." He blasted the thing, but it was a mirage. His body felt like lead. Sunset slipped out of his hand. "That's six." Six shots fired. Thorns swallowed the inferno, twisting and flying past. "There's six Mishna, six points on the David Star." Six Lost dragged howling from the freehold. It was like the beginning, the agony of the Briars tearing his soul away, his sanity rent with verdant knives. He overheard inane musings, friendly quips, brief conversations. He may have joined in on them. His eyes opened again, and there was his old boss, oozing black oil, bidding sixty for him, but the rail baron didn't win.
==Ariadne's Thread==
"I feel like we're at different points in our lives."
The ambiance in the bistro was warm and romantic, but the shared sliver of cake between them was nearly untouched. Aden had taken one bite, and Lisa wasn't sure why she was afraid to take two.
"Yeah?" It came out a whisper. Her nervous black and white butterfly eyes fluttered at him.
"Don't do that," He set his fork down, and clasped his hands in his lap. Ever-steady was his gaze. "Yes. We've both got a lot going on."
Had he figured out she bore the Winter crown? She started to duck, then remembered to maintain her posture. "I guess there's filing, but I don't understand what you're-"
"You're writing a book," His cadence cut her. "I'm getting ready to take the throne. I'm not sure we have time for each other."
The words came on their own, her mind racing to think of some way to stop what was coming. "I-- I'm sorry, I could make more time."
"Lisa--"
"Is there anything I could do to help?"
"Lisa, I'd like to break up with you. I never meant for things to be this serious between us."
"You--" The temperature around them chilled. She knew he felt it, she saw the long-suffering line his mouth made, and she was so humiliated. "Never meant for us to ... ?"
"Er," He waved a manicured hand, "Not so quickly. I'm really sorry you got the wrong impression."
"No, I should have, um, picked up on it." She looked down at the cold dessert, alone on the plate. Poor cake, she thought. They never even got to the good parts. "I can back off, if you want."
"Stop it," the socialite rolled his eyes. "You're embarrassing yourself. We had fun, but we're not very compatible. It's not a negative thing."
He paid for the meal, and Lisa texted four different people before someone agreed to pick her up. Outside, she stared at her phone in the fading light, pretending not to notice gorgeous, glittering Adonis slip into a car full of laughing mortal girls.
That's it? You're just going to bend over and take it?
"Stop talking to me," she mumbled, a sleek hearse sliding up to the curb.
"Hey," Even the undertaker was guarded, her white claw-fingers curled over the wheel as the Mona Lisa eased into the passenger seat.
You're not a little girl anymore, Lisa. You don't have to let everyone fuck you.
"Thank you for coming," Lisa quirked a polite smile, and Stephanie returned it.
"I am at your disposal, Sovereign, until the Onyx Crown passes to another. Need to talk about it?"
You know what we need, and we know you can kill two birds with one stone. It doesn't have to be your blood we taste tonight.
She watched the pretty restaurant shrink away. "Are you happy with the way things are, Armiger?"
"Which things, Sovereign?"
"Politics. Kings."
"If I may be so bold, Sovereign," Stephanie's dark, lidded gaze flicked over her passenger. "It's a pity our reigning Lord was so manipulated by her vernal successor."
Well, she'd asked for it. "How would you advise me to proceed?"
"With caution, in the future." Stephanie paused, "And, perhaps, the Emerald Emperor should be gifted some new clothes."
We know of a scarf that might look dashing on him.
"Hm." He didn't deserve to be punished for just being honest with her. Adonis was right, she shouldn't have thrown herself at him, shouldn't have assumed.
The hearse moved over the road like a gleaming wraith. The rest of the ride was silent, but the glass slippers kept murmuring in her head, pleading for blood. That night, she awoke in the art barn behind Hope's desk, a black shoebox in hand, her head spinning.
Go, quickly! Hissed the slippers.
"No, no, no, what is this?"
Do you want to die? Go, you stupid cow!
It'd been a dream, she was sure of it. She had a dozen wretched visions that night, feeling a greasy silk noose between her fingers, the bloody spatters making patterns that were prophecies of evil kings and twisted tyrants brought low. The slippers chattered in her head, so thirsty, so furious with her.
A throat cleared, and light shone through the open doorway. "Lisa."
She opened her eyes, terrified that it was Adonis, that the vile garrote would still be clutched in her hand and ready. "Wh-- Liberty?" The noose was gone, evaporated like her dreams.
==Amarillo Cavaliero==
Hope hunched over his skin-bound journal, scratching equations and encrypted sigils onto a white sheet. 
 'Tonight, I've indulged a wretched vice. I can't afford to take chances like that, but neither could I stand by and permit Phobos' mania go on, unchecked.' 
Phobos had moved into one of the residencies weeks before. It had been Crow's suggestion, and Crow tended to get what she wanted. Clinging to his pacifist persona, Hope had agreed to the lenient treatment. 
Gone now like the daylight was his beatific smile. Cicadas screamed from the trees, and the long honey grass whispered dark gossip. The Knightmaster slipped over the rooftop like a cloud's shadow, one greasy yellow tag clutched in his right hand. He knelt beside the white sun window over the Warbringer's unit, sparing his weapon a glance. In its blossoming bloodstains, he saw again what he'd witnessed in the dojo's mirrors, and he saw the righteous actions he would take. The accursed silk whispered to him, and he opened the little window.
Down the cabinets and countertop, creeping over the cool tile, the invader followed the sound of slow breathing. Lamplight streaked the floor in a golden band from the open bedroom door. He saw the guilty bent forward, an aged volume in his lap, vile eyes shut in slumber. The assassin's heart thudded like a war drum. His crawl was a predator's, his hungry gaze locked on the still form he slunk behind. 
He will guard the steps of his faithful servants, the killer mouthed, as the light flickered and burnt out. In the blackness, silk unfurled like a marauder's flag. Sickly yellow wrapped round a bubbling crimson throat, white hands pulled back the horrible reigns. War's offspring Fear woke and thrashed, but Hope hung on, teeth flashing, time an ally. The beast strangled and weakened. 
Then fell dead the Warbringer. His executioner made double certain of his charge's demise, and, raptured in the euphoria his annointed token fed him, whispered the end of the eulogy. 
"...But the wicked will be silenced in darkness."
Category:Fiction