Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5958447.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Kingsman:_The_Secret_Service_(2015)
  Relationship:
      Harry_Hart_|_Galahad/Gary_"Eggsy"_Unwin
  Additional Tags:
      Dubious_Consent, Dubious_Morality, Occult, Extremely_Dubious_Consent
  Collections:
      Dark_Kingsman_Block_Party
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-02-10 Updated: 2016-02-20 Chapters: 2/? Words: 5934
****** Liber Regibus ******
by SilusLocke
Summary
     What's left of Lee Unwin comes back in a box. That's the problem.
     Sometimes the burden chooses the bearer.
     Sometimes duties are monstrous, particularly when inflicted upon the
     young.
***** The Lamen *****
The box was the first mistake.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when it was dropped off. It was standard
practice for the armed services, after all. Michelle Unwin accepted the small
box of belongings and the lack of bodily remains with as much tearful grace as
she could muster. Lee’s former coworkers offered their consolations and two
doors closed: the one into a small flat on Rowley Way, and a chapter in the
lives of the Unwin household.
No door closes without another opening.
===============================================================================
Gary Unwin, who insisted on being called Eggsy, didn’t quite believe his mother
when she explained that his father wasn’t coming back. Lee was often gone on
trips, and this absence didn’t seem all that different to Eggsy’s nine year old
mind. His mother often cried when his father left on longer trips, so to Eggsy,
Lee wasn’t really gone. He couldn’t be. His father was strong, with all the
invincibility that being good and being a protector could lend to a person.
He’d simply just gone away for a while, and so it made no sense to him that his
mother had immediately put away the delivered box from Lee without opening it.
The contents had to be presents, to Eggsy’s way of thinking, or perhaps hints
about where Lee had gone on his latest mission and when he was coming back.
The boy waited until his mother indulged in her routine, tucking him in for the
night and retreating to her own bedroom with the clink of a glass and a bottle.
Eggsy kept quiet and counted in his head as long as he could stand to wait
before he got out of bed and snuck into the den. His mother couldn’t hear the
squeak of a chair being moved while passed out, and the box would be returned
to its spot on the high shelf before morning.
Eggsy was surprised at how heavy the container was, and a bit disappointed with
the contents at first glance. The bulk of it was taken up by a folded blazer of
soft cloth. Underneath were the everyday small tokens that collected during his
father’s life – a metal case for business cards, now empty; a leather wallet
full of photos, some of the people in which Eggsy didn’t recognize; coins from
foreign countries; a silken tie. Eggsy had been hoping for something for
himself, to hold on to until his father returned. So the boy told himself.
Eggsy knew on some level, as he draped his father’s large blazer atop his
shoulders, that this time was different, but he couldn’t bear to think about
that or accept it. He couldn’t. His father wasn’t really gone. He’d be back
eventually.
It was only when Eggsy pulled the blazer around himself like a cloak that he
felt it; something firm on the inside of the jacket brushed against his hand.
Eggsy felt around, and sure enough, something was trapped inside the jacket
behind a layer of cloth. Eggsy had seen similar on clothing before, where the
company that made it included extra buttons sewn somewhere in case you lost
one, but whatever this was, it was much larger than a plain old button.
With some searching, Eggsy found a little seam. A short trip to the loo got him
a pair of his mother’s nail scissors, and Eggsy carefully snipped at the
threads holding the hidden pocket closed. The boy’s fingers slipped into the
newly opened hole and nearly jerked back when he touched something unexpectedly
warm. After a moment when nothing moved, his fingers closed around the object
and he easily extracted it from the pocket.
A disk sat on Eggsy’s palm, or something like it. It looked like a pendant, or
perhaps some kind of military medallion. Metal knotwork formed a sideways K
encased in a circle, ringed itself by pink enamel. Other designs were embedded
into the shiny outer ring, asymmetrical and like nothing Eggsy had seen before.
The boy flipped the medal to the other side to find it covered in more strange
designs and… his father’s name, engraved in a half-circle across the top.
Eggsy’s fingers curled around it. This was different from the usual keepsakes
his dad brought home. This was Lee’s. Eggsy didn’t know why it had been sewn
into his jacket, but he guessed that it might have been something like a good
luck charm. It could be his own charm now, something of his dad’s to keep with
him, and besides – nobody would notice that he’d borrowed it. His mother would
never know, since she hadn’t checked the box, and if - when Lee got back, if he
wanted the medallion back all he’d need to do was ask.
Eggsy tucked everything else back into the box and replaced it on the shelf.
His mother would never know anything had been touched. Before he snuck back
into his bedroom, he opened the front closet. A spare pair of old work boots
were tucked in the back. Eggsy took the skinny black laces out of one of them,
slid the medallion on, and knotted it into a makeshift necklace. When he
settled back into bed, the medallion was warm and comforting where it hung
against Eggsy’s chest. He fell asleep feeling like a part of his father was
there with him.
===============================================================================
Three days later, the man started to appear.
Eggsy hadn’t thought anything of it at first; having people in bespoke suits
around his neighborhood and school wasn’t exactly common, but it also wasn’t
unheard of. Eggsy had glanced at the figure in dark wool without really looking
at him and turned back to his friends, far more intrigued by their tales of
recent exploits and talk of rugby than in a strange adult waiting by the
school’s office doors.
Eggsy, in fact, quite forgot all about the man in the suit until the afternoon.
Bored to tears with the teacher’s lesson, Eggsy’s gaze wandered along with his
mind until he spotted a pair of dark rimmed glasses peering through the
classroom door’s little window. The serious-faced man on the other side was
staring, with complete and stoic focus, at Eggsy himself and no one else. Eggsy
had no idea who he was, nor why he’d be commanding such rapt and intimidating
attention from a complete stranger. Seconds crept by, and not only did the man
not look away, he didn’t so much as blink.
“Unwin, try to make it a little less obvious that you want to be anywhere but
here.” Eggsy’s teacher, Mr. Patterson, startled Eggsy and the boy’s gaze turned
away from the doorway towards his disapproving teacher.
“Sorry, I was just-… ain’t you gonna let him in?”
“Let who in?” A bit of Patterson’s critical expression slipped as he turned to
crane his neck towards the door, the window now entirely empty. “I don’t see
anyone, and I didn’t hear a knock.”
“There was… I dunno, someone’s dad or something? Was lookin’ in. Same bloke I
saw near the office this mornin’.” Eggsy was disturbed by the man’s sudden
disappearance, more so when his teacher crossed over to the door, worried that
a school official or inspector was passing through and taking notes without him
knowing. Patterson opened the door and peered both ways down the hallway, then
shut it again.
“Unwin, I suggest you channel your overactive imagination towards your studies,
instead of interrupting the lesson.”
The rest of the day, Eggsy glanced now and then at the doorway, but the window
stayed empty. The absence of a presence didn’t make Eggsy feel any better. He
kept remembering the way the man had been staring at him, full of intent, and
he still felt watched. The hair on the back of his neck tingled for the rest of
the day and all the way back home. Eggsy kept looking over his shoulder,
expecting to see something and finding nothing at all.
He didn’t notice the figure standing in the shadow of one stairway at Rowley
Way, watching Eggsy steadily climb the stairs up to the flat to let himself in
with the key in his pocket.
 
Once Eggsy was home, his worries from earlier that day disappeared to the back
of his mind. The idea that he’d been frightened of a random man in a suit
looking at him and then going away seemed ridiculous indeed when surrounded by
the familiar comforts of home. Michelle cooked dinner and talked about her day,
then asked Eggsy questions about what he’d been learning in class, and he
didn’t think to mention the stranger he’d seen. His mum was likely to think him
making up stories, just as his teacher had. Eggsy began to wonder if, indeed,
he’d just imagined it all.
Homework and telly took up the rest of the night. Eggsy changed for bed and
tucked his father’s medallion into his pyjamas and, with a glance at his closed
bedroom door, dug a torch out of his bedside table. Staying up late to watch
more telly wasn’t going to happen on his mum’s watch, but she’d brought him to
the local library a week back and a stack of books about pirates now rested on
his bedroom floor. Eggsy grabbed one from the top of the stack, burrowed under
the covers to hide the light, and clicked the torch on to read for a bit.
The sound, at first, was subtle and quiet. It slowly grew in Eggsy’s awareness
as he realized the soft hiss of static was not, in fact, coming distantly from
the telly out in the den, but from beside his bed. The electric hum grew louder
and louder while Eggsy froze underneath the sheets. Beeps and clicks joined the
static and turned into a cheerful little tune. The hair on the back of Eggsy’s
neck stood on end. He couldn’t move. He didn’t dare look. The noise had to be
coming from his radio alarm clock, but his alarm wasn’t set to go off for hours
and hours yet, and it had never made any sounds like that before.
The tune cut off and a man’s voice filled the air – muffled and distorted as
though through a great distance. “One, one, seven. One, one, seven. Ol sonf
vors g, goho Iad Balt, Ionsh calz vonpho, sobra zol ror I ta nazps od graa ta
malprg…” Tears began to well up in Eggsy’s eyes from fright. The words should
have been laughable nonsense, but they weren’t. Something about the voice
didn’t sound right. Like they were almost human words, coming out of a mouth
that was anything but human.
The radio droned on for another minute, repeated its sequence of numbers twice
more, then fizzled back into static and faded. Eggsy stayed perfectly still.
Minutes passed. He could hear the telly still going out in the den where
Michelle was watching it. Whatever had happened, his mother hadn’t heard it.
Eggsy finally gathered up enough of his courage to lift a bit of the blankets
and peer out. His alarm was sitting just as it usually was, the time lit up in
cheerful green digits. No supernatural horror was perched on the table or
crouched beside his bed, waiting for him to look. His bedroom was dark but for
the nightlight plugged into one outlet and completely, utterly normal.
It took several minutes more before Eggsy gathered enough courage to step down
from his bed, torch gripped in white-knuckled hands. Michelle was surprised
when he came out into the den and asked if he could sleep in her room for the
night, but when he was insistent that he’d had a nightmare and wouldn’t be able
to get back to sleep in his own room, she gave in and prepared herself for a
night on the couch and a sore back the next morning.
Eggsy finally fell asleep to the comforting sounds of what, to his mind, was
Michelle standing watch from the den outside. Michelle turned off the telly an
hour afterwards and fell into dreams herself. Both slept so hard that no one
heard the soft creak of footsteps coming from Eggsy’s bedroom.
===============================================================================
“Eggsy, bruv, you alright?” Jamal slid into the empty seat next to Eggsy in the
cafeteria. Jamal normally wasn’t big on heart to heart talks, as most of the
boys at school weren’t, but no one could pretend that something wasn’t up with
Eggsy. As the days had passed, dark circles had appeared underneath the boy’s
eyes. He’d been paying even less attention in class than usual, but in a way
that had his classmates spooked. Instead of horsing around and passing notes
like they all did, Eggsy was lost in his own thoughts or staring at random
spots with an air of frightened panic.
“It’s… You’re not gonna believe me,” Eggsy mumbled. Looking Jamal in the eye
was difficult. Anything that stopped the boy from constantly scanning his
surroundings was difficult, these days. “Like, if I tell you, I’m gonna sound
like a nutter, and I ain’t.”
“I don’t think you’re a nutter,” Jamal protested. “Somethin’s been going on
with you, and we’re all worried. I mean, is something happening at home? You
don’t have to put up with stuff, you know, if that’s what’s going on. If
someone’s hittin’ you or something.”
Eggsy shook his head. “No, no one’s hitting me, it’s just… There’s some guy
following me. Everywhere.”
“What do you mean, ‘some guy’?”
“Just some bloke, I dunno! I dunno who he is. He’s always wearing a dart suit,
like one of those posh businessmen types.” Eggsy’s gaze wandered again, turning
from one side of the room to the other in order to check all the doorways and
windows. “He just started showing up. I thought it was weird before, like maybe
I pissed off some rich kid and he told on me to his dad, but it’s weirder than
that. He keeps showing up in places he shouldn’t.”
Jamal frowned. “What d’you mean? I haven’t seen any guy in a suit.”
“That’s just it, no one has. Nobody except me,” Eggsy agreed. “I know it sounds
completely bonkers, but no one else seems to see him. He’s been in the school
hallway and nobody looks at him. They walk around him but no one looks and
wonders who he is or why he’s there. I went to the loo yesterday, and it was
empty ‘cept for me, but when I got into a stall and shut the door, I heard his
shoes. Clicks against the tile. I get all ready to run for it, ‘cause I don’t
want to get trapped in the loo with some adult stalker, but when I open the
door, it’s empty again. He’s…”
Eggsy swallowed and fidgeted nervously, well aware of the wide-eyed and
incredulous look on his friend’s face. “My alarm clock has been goin’ off at
weird times, too. Some… Look, I know how this sounds, but some voice keeps
sayin’ numbers and words that aren’t real words, and then it stops, and I feel
like I’m being watched but no one’s there. This guy started showing up around
the same time that started.”
“Eggsy… bruv.” Jamal looked a bit frightened, but when he placed a cautious
hand on Eggsy’s shoulder, the boy realized that Jamal wasn’t frightened of what
he’d been describing. He was scared, just a bit, of Eggsy himself. “It kinda
sounds like… well, you look like you ain’t been gettin’ too much sleep. I’ve
heard that can do all kinds of wacked out things to you. Like if you don’t
sleep well for long enough, you start seeing and hearing things. I think they
have pills or something for that, if you’ve got trouble falling asleep.”
Jamal continued, but Eggsy’s attention was no longer on his friend. Through the
east cafeteria doorway, the familiar silhouette had appeared. As before, staff
and students drifted past or through the door, ignoring the man who was
completely out of place and whose presence should have demanded an explanation.
The man leaned forward slightly. Expectantly. The brown eyes behind dark
eyeglass frames gleamed with a yellow predatory light for a moment.
“S-sorry. Sorry, I gotta go,” Eggsy cut Jamal off and stood, ignoring his
friend’s protests and the untouched lunch tray he was leaving behind. There
wasn’t enough air in the room. No one would believe him. No one would help him.
Maybe no one could help him. Eggsy would be asking people to go up against a
spectre that only he could see, after all. How could you fight something you
couldn’t see, hear, or sense?
Eggsy didn’t even have to pretend very hard to get sent to the nurse’s office.
The nurse took one look at him, felt his clammy skin and racing pulse, and
minutes later phoned Michelle to come pick him up. His mum fussed over him the
whole way home, and Eggsy knew that none of her concern would do any good. All
the way home, the medallion he’d taken from his father’s coat sat too-warm
against his chest. Eggsy had looked at it again after the first night and
promptly tried to throw it away once he discovered that Lee’s name had
disappeared from the back, but whenever he wasn’t looking, the weight of it
resettled around his neck and nestled against his breastbone.
He didn’t need a doctor. Eggsy wasn’t quite certain what he needed. Maybe
someone who could fight a ghost.
===============================================================================
Eggsy was almost resigned by the time his alarm clock began to hiss and crackle
later that night. He’d snuck a knife from the kitchen when Michelle hadn’t been
looking and had crouched down in the middle of his bed, watchful and ready for
a fight. He didn’t know if it was a fight that he could win, but he also didn’t
have any other options. Running and hiding weren’t working, and no one else was
going to help him.
The knife almost slipped from his fingers when Eggsy spotted the man in the
full length mirror tucked in the corner of his room. Eggsy glanced sideways in
panic at the equivalent spot in the room, found it empty, and looked back just
in time to see the man in the suit climb through the mirror. A scream stuck in
Eggsy’s throat and choked him. Dark wool drew closer on nearly soundless feet,
and then the bed creaked and sank as the man sat beside him.
Eggsy slashed at him with the knife, but the stranger moved too quickly for his
eyes to follow and fingers caught his wrist. The blade was pried away from his
hand. The man was no longer entirely blank-faced – a hungry sort of longing
suffused his features, lending a bit of warmth to his eyes. It wasn’t
comforting, even less so when the expression stayed but the man’s eyes lit up
with an inhuman glow.
One hand gripped Eggsy’s hair and pulled his head back. A gentle mouth touched
his, and it burned. Eggsy tried to scream, but no sound left his throat.
Something else did. Something that tugged and clung and fluttered like a
panicked bird deep in his chest until it a piece of it tore and was pulled
away.
The man hummed in pleasured. Eggsy struggled and coughed as something else
flowed down his throat, gentle as air filling his lungs until it twined around
the ache inside of him.
The medallion grew hot against Eggsy’s chest, and darkness swallowed him.
***** The Lantern *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Friday brought a knock to the door.
It hadn’t been difficult for Eggsy to convince his mother that he wasn’t
feeling well, but she also couldn’t afford to miss work or to hire a sitter.
Their neighbors and her local friends were all in a similar situation, which
meant that Eggsy was home alone. Michelle had stocked the kitchen with food fit
for an upset stomach and told Eggsy to call if he suddenly felt worse, and the
door had clicked shut behind her with a sort of finality that only made the boy
all the more aware that he was not, in fact, alone.
When Eggsy went to answer the door, he’d expected it to be a salesman, or
perhaps one of the neighbors who’d come home early and come to check on him.
Eggsy’s throat closed when he peaked out through the door crack and, beyond the
safety chain, he saw two men in suits. One darted forward and stuck the shaft
of his umbrella into the gap before Eggsy could slam the door shut.
“Gary Unwin?” one of them asked. At Eggsy’s look of terror, the men exchanged a
glance. “You don’t need to be afraid. We used to work with your father and…
well.”
“Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?” the other man prompted. Everything about
him contrasted with the first – sharp-featured and bald compared to his
companion’s soft features and delicate brown hair. Even his vaguely Scottish
drawl set him apart. “Something that’s happened within the last few days, since
your father passed. Isn’t that right?”
Warily, Eggsy nodded. His visitors looked very much like the creature haunting
his footsteps, and yet not. Their eyes were normal and didn’t glow when they
looked down at him. They used more words. Had they been creatures too, they
wouldn’t have bothered knocking or trying to talk to him from the other side of
the door. They would have been inside already. “Yeah, um. You’re not… How’d you
know?”
“Because we’ve seen… well, not this before, but something like it.”
The Scottish man cleared his throat, interrupting his companion. “Introductions
first, I should think. I’m Landon, and my colleague here is Briston. If you’d
be kind enough to let us in, we’d like to ask you a few questions. We’re here
to help.”
“You don’t have to worry about us not believing you,” Briston added. “I know
adults tend not to believe children about things, but if you’ve seen anything-“
“Can… can you make him go away?” Eggsy whispered and then flinched, quickly
glancing behind him. He couldn’t imagine that the creature would take kindly to
attempts to get rid of him, but no wrath was forthcoming. The den remained
quiet and empty behind him.
“Harry’s here?” Briston perked up and Landon elbowed him in the ribs with a
warning glance. “Er, right. May we come in? Best not to talk business on the
doorstep.”
“How do I know you really knew my dad?” Michelle had warned Eggsy not to talk
to strangers, and he was also reasonably certain that he wasn’t supposed to let
strange men into the flat… but they also seemed to know what was going on.
Eggsy was desperate for someone to believe him and help him.
“Lee Unwin was married to your mother, Michelle, for the past eleven years,”
Landon replied. “He’s won several awards for marksmanship, which I am guessing
are displayed at home unless your mother has put them away. He told both of you
he was getting sent on a very short term mission in Bosnia, right before he
left. His wallet always contained a photograph of you seated on his lap, both
of you wearing matching kits. Do you need me to go on?”
Eggsy’s answer was in the click of the safety chain as it slid from its groove,
and a moment later the door opened to let the men in. Both of them kept a
respectful distance, and Eggsy mimicked what he’d seen Michelle do before for
visitors, getting them settled on the sofa.
“So, Gary-“
“Eggsy.”
“What?”
“M’name,” the boy explained. “Call me Eggsy.”
Briston gave him a quizzical look. “Very well. Eggsy, can you tell us when you
last saw Harry? He looks a bit like us, but…”
“Diff’rent, yeah. He shows up in weird places, and sometimes his eyes ain’t
right, and…” Eggsy grew quiet. He didn’t want to tell these men about the rest,
about a mouth covering his and whispers in his ears and the dip of his bed as
the creature curled up around him every night, somehow unnoticed whenever
Michelle checked on him. “Nobody else seems to see him. He’s still here
somewhere. He doesn’t leave.”
Briston’s eyes widened and he began to dig in one of his pockets. He withdrew a
small drawstring pouch and began to fiddle with it nervously. “Is he always
somewhere in particular? Around your mother, or a family friend? Near something
your father owned?”
Eggsy shook his head. “No, he’s around me. All the time. Followed me to school
and back, even, but nobody could see him when I pointed him out. They all
walked around him but didn’t know what I meant when I pointed it out, like they
didn’t remember why they moved.”
Both men took this in stride. “He follows you all the time, you say. Did your
father ever mail you something, from when he was away on work? Any personal
keepsakes, or mementos from his travels?”
“No, but…” Eggsy’s hand reflexively touched his chest. Beneath his shirt, the
medallion felt heated against his skin. “When my dad wasn’t comin’ back, mum
got a box of his stuff. Only she didn’t seem to want any of it, so I took a
look at everythin’. His jacket had a little medal sewn into a pocket, or
somethin’ like that. I thought it was from the military.”
Eggsy felt the sudden, intense weight of scrutiny. Both of his visitors stared
at him and where his hand pressed against his chest. Somewhere else in the
room, the creature these men had called Harry was watching and listening. The
space between Eggsy’s shoulder blades itched. The air turned heavy and laden
with threat.
“Eggsy,” Landon said, drawing the boy’s attention back to him after he’d begun
to scan the room in search of Harry’s unseen presence. “Will you show us this
medal?”
Perhaps it was Eggsy’s imagination, or the product of nerves, but the pendant
strung around his neck seemed heavier as he lifted it out from where it was
hidden and over his head. Landon reached out to grab it, turned it over, and
immediately barked out a curse in Gaelic.
On the back of the medallion, Lee Unwin’s name had been replaced with that of
his son.
===============================================================================
Before Eggsy quite knew what was happening, he was bundled out of the flat
along with a small suitcase of belongings. Briston made nonstop hushed phone
calls, often using cryptic words so that, even when Eggsy managed to overhear
the man, he didn’t follow what he was saying or who he might be talking to. A
car came to pick them up, and Briston got into the front passenger seat beside
the driver. Landon coaxed Eggsy into the back section, and once Eggsy was
inside he noticed that a soundproof panel separated them from the front of the
car. The interior looked very official, far too posh for it to be a vehicle
meant for kidnapping… but one never knew.
“I don’t understand why I gotta go anywhere,” Eggsy protested as the doors
closed and Landon settled in beside him. The car began moving away from Rowley
Way almost immediately. “My mum won’t know where I’ve gone, or when I’m gonna
be back! I’m supposed to be home sick, and she’s gonna worry, and you haven’t
even told me where we’re going!”
“Somewhere where we can help you with this problem. Don’t worry about your
mother, Eggsy. Everything will be taken care of,” Landon assured him. “You’d be
in grave danger if we left you there as things are right now. I’m afraid you’ve
stumbled onto territory that was never meant for most adults, much less
children. Your father wasn’t in the more conventional armed forces serving
Queen and country. He was part of a top secret organization, which often works
closely with MI6. The medallion you found was highly volatile and should never
have left our headquarters.”
Eggsy blinked. It took a moment for Landon’s words to settle. “Wait. So you’re
tellin’ me that my dad wasn’t a British soldier, but a spy? An’ he worked with
you? Why am I in danger?”
“The danger comes with the territory of your father’s work. He wasn’t what you
imagine a spy would be. Your father was a magician.” Eggsy gave him an
incredulous look, and Landon smiled. “No, not a stage magician. A real one. The
spells aren’t mere sleight of hand and misdirection.”
“Shut up,” Eggsy breathed, not quite daring to believe it. He tried to picture
his father in robes and a pointed hat and couldn’t quite manage. “You’re takin’
the piss. Professional wizards? Magic isn’t really real.” No sooner had the
words left his mouth than doubt took hold of him. He was being haunted by
something that looked human, but wasn’t, and that no one else could see. Magic
wasn’t too far of a stretch from there.
“Magic is real, although not quite what pop culture envisions it to be. Magic
and espionage have been intertwined for longer than you might imagine,” Landon
replied. “Even the father of the British secret service made use of magic.
Witches and magicians, after all, are practiced at gathering information and
achieving goals while staying out of sight. The tradition predates even Sir
Francis Walsingham or Dr. John Dee back in the days of Elizabeth the First,
although of course methods and organizations have changed since then.
Governments used the occult to spy on one another, influence events, and
predict the outcomes of battles during war. Court astrologers and alchemists
gradually became espionage consultants. Our own organization, which your father
worked for, came into being around the same time that Aleister Crowley worked
with MI6 during the World Wars.”
“I dunno who that is.” Landon frowned, and Eggsy shrugged. “What? I don’t know
a bunch of old people celebrities. History class is boring and full of
unimportant junk anyways.”
“I trust that you’ve at least heard of James Bond?” At Eggsy’s nod, Landon was
a bit mollified. “Ian Fleming was an agent that invented him and drew upon his
professional knowledge of the spy world. He was also involved in the occult.
Everyone of note in the spy world is. Wherever you find secret agents and
intelligence workers, you also find magicians.”
“Yeah, alright, but what’s any of this got to do with me?” Eggsy asked. London
rushed by outside the car, turning from familiar territory into richer shop
fronts and flats. Landon still hadn’t told him where they were going. “Is this,
like… ‘cause my dad was into this stuff, this medal of his was cursed, and you
gotta take me to someone who can make this ‘Harry’ stop botherin’ me?”
Landon exhaled slowly. Eggsy felt a chill come over him; he’d seen that kind of
reluctance before, always when someone was bracing to deliver particularly bad
news. “No, Eggsy. Unfortunately, things, have progressed too far at this point.
Under normal circumstances, we screen and test adult applicants who show the
potential to be agents, and only after they pass the screening and accept the
consequences do we allow a bond to form between a new agent and their… spirit
partner. Your father was Harry’s handler, his controller. By accident or
design, you stumbled across your father’s lamen, a sort of talisman that ties
into the bond and allows for better control and protection. The bonding process
has already started with you. It can’t be broken, and it’s a lifetime
commitment.”
Eggsy went pale. So much of what Landon had told him had gone over his head,
full of the dry and boring speech of those adults who considering themselves
intellectuals, but Eggsy understood the important part of this. "So... I can't
get rid of it? Him? What do you mean, 'bonding process'?"
"Your connection with Harry is only going to get closer," Landon explained, not
looking any happier about the idea than Eggsy felt. "It has to be carried out
to the end. Harry is going to be your partner, and you're his new... owner, if
you like. You'll be trained as a Kingsman agent, and as Harry's new handler.
Each handler only has so much control over their spirit partners, but once you
learn more, you should find much of the situation... less distressing than I
imagine it's been thus far."
Landon didn't meet Eggsy's eyes, not really. He looked slightly off to one side
and through the boy instead of at him. Eggsy knew from experience that that was
never a good sign, and dread trickled through his veins for the rest of the
ride.
The journey to Kingsman headquarters passed like something out of a dream.
Landon guided him out of the car right into the middle of Savile Row,
surrounded by glamerous and expensive shops and people. Inside one shop, past
bolts of cloth and shining leather, a dressing room served as a lift. Eggsy
stared up as they descended, watching as the bricks seemed to stretch on for
forever and the dressing room lights grew smaller and fainter. It felt fitting,
as his hopes faded. Landon said he couldn't be rid of the demon haunting him,
and so there was nothing left but to join him in some dark hell.
A bullet train underground took them away. Landon talked for a bit, then
stopped once he realized that Eggsy was in shock and no longer paying
attention. Stone and soil rushed by for what felt like hours but was likely no
more than 30 minutes, and they got out on a platform much like any other in
London but for the view of a massive hanger full of cars and aeroplanes.
Eggsy couldn't feel enough right then to manage excitement. A hand passed over
his head in a comforting motion, and Landon took him down the halls. Eggsy was
shown to a room underground that looked little better than a cell, or an army
barracks. A narrow cot was tucked against a wall, flanked by equally sterile-
looking furniture, and a doorway that led into a small lavatory. It was a room
for an adult soldier, not a small child.
"I'll... let you get settled in and have a moment to yourself," Landon finally
said. He pointed to a small box attached to the wall near the door. "If you
need anything, the phone is there. Pressing zero will get you in touch with an
operator. I'm going to be your mentor while you're here, so I'll be back to
check on you frequently. If you need anything, call 972, and we can talk or I
can stop by if I'm able. I have to go check in with our Head of Operations, but
then I'll be back. Will you be alright on your own for a bit?"
Eggsy nodded, completely numb. It wouldn't matter if he agreed or not. Landon
was going to leave him there regardless. From what the older man had told him,
there wasn't any escape. He wouldn't be going back to school or seeing his
friends for a long time, if ever. He'd never be rid of Harry.
Eggsy sat down on the edge of the cot. He didn't look up when he heard the door
click shut around Landon. Seconds later, arms drifted into his field of vision
and twined around him. Hands pressed against his chest and stomach, pulling him
back into a lap and against a warm chest.
"Welcome home," Harry whispered into his ear.
Chapter End Notes
     Relevant reading:
     The British Occult Secret Service
     http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=3683
     Secret Agent 666
     http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Agent-666-Aleister-Intelligence/dp/
     1932595333
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!