Mahjicke Chapter 13

It took a week for the engineer to get there, having to find a guide to take her in and out of the Undercity. Small, plump, and young, she was nothing like what Michael would have expected. She couldn't have been over twenty years old, meaning that she would have been twelve when she built Grigori.
That wasn't right. Michael couldn't help but think it was a trap.
Still, James let her in without a worry. The android's body was still in the doorway and as she saw it, she squealed with delight and fell to her knees at it's side. Her grey eyes were wide and sparkling as she picked through the exposed machinery, making Michael even more certain that she hadn't been involved in his creation. She pulled pieces apart and took detailed looks into them, as if she was trying to figure out how exactly everything went together.
"This is your first time seeing Grigori, isn't it?" Michael asked, not taking his eyes off of her.
She bit her lip, "Not in person. I've been seeing photos of him and the designs since I was a baby though."
So that was it. One of her parents was the one who had designed and built Grigori. He sighed, feeling much more comfortable. If it had been a trick, she wouldn't have let it slide that easily.
She pulled out some papers, unfolding them on the floor. There were a lot of them and every one of them showed a different part of Grigori's body. She seemed to be taking special consideration of one that looked like it was all nerves and blood vessels.
In the bottom corner of the paper was a number.
1941.
Even if her parents couldn't have built Grigori.
"It's weird." she smirked, pulling out a tangle of wires from one of her luggage bags, "This was supposed to be my dad and now I'm repairing him."
Michael's eyes widened. Her father? This was an android, not a living being. There was no way that it could be someone's father. Not only did it not age and wasn't human, that probably didn't matter considering how many strange and varying creatures he had learned existed. Android's can't be parents of humans, they don't have the right genetic material. Michael doubted that it could even produce sperm.
The girl chuckled, reading Michael's face easily, "I know, I know. Grandad built him to marry my mother. He used a donors genetic material and put a spell on it, so Grigori here would be able to have children. The spell made it so that the, uh, semen wouldn't die or run out. He made Grigori as human as possible."
So it wasn't her parents, it was her grandfather. That made the most sense.
"What happened?" Michael asked, "Why isn't Grigori your father?"
She sighed, running some of the wire through the metal bones in his arm, "Grigori was initially programmed to love my mother, he was completely devoted to her. She knew what he was though and grew up around him, so she only saw him as a robot, not a person. She used him as a tool.
"She broke his heart. She told him that she wanted nothing to do with him and then went and married another man. I don't know what happened to him after that. I've watched parts of his backup memory and that part was blank. I think he switched off and went into autopilot until he got here."
Delicately, she started to unbutton  what was left of Grigori's jacket and shirt. "Poor guy. When he came out of autopilot his programming was encrypted. It worked but it didn't care about who it was. He fell in love with everyone, to an extent."
She turned, looking over at James, who had been leaning in the doorframe the whole time, "Except for you. He cared about you more than anyone else. Loved you almost as much as he had my mother, but for him it was absolutely real."
James lowered his head, not wanting the attention she had brought to him.
The attention was removed quickly enough, as she became absorbed in Grigori's body. She traced her fingers along all of the contours in his chest, as if she were looking for something specific.
Not finding it, she hisses, under her breath, "#0010001101."
Lines, all over his body, an outline of each muscle, glowed for a moment before revealing themselves. She pressed against a few, just over his heart and they popped open, sliding over one another until his insides were exposed enough for her to work.
It was not like a computer, not like any kind of machine that Michael had seen, except for the organic one. There was a heart, lungs, ribs, tissues, and muscles, all made out of shiny metal and wires. It was exactly like the human body, only with rivets and bolts. Nothing was moving though. It was dark and sad, a shallow shell.
None of this seemed to bother the creators granddaughter though. She just cracked a few glow sticks and dropped them casually into the chest cavity, illuminating what was left of the robotic carcass.
She hummed and rewired, speaking in her strange computer code whenever she hooked a new wire to one of the ruined ones, making them melt and fuse together.
She didn't seem to need any help, so Michael left the room, heading back to the kitchen, which had been restocked with food and a mini-fridge. Even for furniture it seemed that no one used money down in the Undercity. James had paid for it all with talismans and a few odd jobs, usually security work. It looked to Michael as if Blood magic was the most desired by all creatures. It must have been true that no other magic could tear it down.
He'd even gone and done some security work for Lefu, charging her a boon for the work. Michael was against it, he knew that James was probably planning to use it to get his heart in some way. He didn't want the mechanic to be dragged into their problems. She would probably be killed if she got involved.
James was at the sink, leaning against the counter and looking out the window. He looked tired and thin, even though he had had food and rest. He was worried about Grigori, worried it wouldn't come back to life, and he was worried about the future. He hadn't said any of this, but Michael could tell that it had been giving him restless sleep.
They hadn't spoken much in a week, had hardly made eye contact. Michael felt bad about that. They should never have kissed. Sure, he was being kissed, not the other way around, but he shouldn't have let it go that far, shouldn't have kissed him back.
It had been the best kiss of his life. He was a straight man, he'd never been attracted to another person of his gender before, but he was also single. Close enough, anyway. He had loved Mariah, she was still very important to him, but these feelings in his heart confused him.
He wanted to be with James. He wanted his goals to go forward. He wanted to touch him, be a part of his life.
He wanted to love him.

It took Manja three days to finish repairing the interior of Grigori's body. She worked in a fever, hardly eating or sleeping. Nothing was working yet, but when she shocked things with a small, battery powered reflex wand, its fingers bent and its shoulders turned in their sockets.
It would take more than wires to bring Grigori back to life, but she was tired and had to take a break. Michael had been trying to get her to the whole time she had been there, bringing her food and reminding her of the time when it was getting late. She had always ignored him though, but now she was finally happy enough with her progress that she could take a real break.
Leaving her tools scattered on the floor and Grigori lying, nude other than a sheet, beside the door, she finally went to bed.
Michael and James still hadn't spoken about what had happened between them, or made eye contact. He desperately wanted to, stealing glances at him every moment that he could, but their eyes never seemed to meet, not even by accident.
He had to stop it.
Making up his mind, he tightened his hands into a fist and walked to James' side, certain in himself and not in what he was going to say.
He hadn't even opened his mouth when there was a knock on the door.
Without glancing at him, James passed, going slowly towards the sound. There was a pause as the door opened, creaking slightly, and then a slam. Michael looked around the wall separating the kitchen from the main room. James was panicked and sweating, his back against the door as if that would keep it shut.
There was another knock.
This wouldn't do. Whoever was out there would just keep knocking. Michael touched James' shoulders, lightly, and moved him to the side. His eyes were crazy, he didn't want Michael to open it.
He ignored James.
The man on the other side of the door had his head bowed, his black hat covering his face, but Michael didn't need to see his face to know who he was.
He wanted to slam the door, keep the priest out. He was there, his pockets more than likely filled with talismans filled with electric energy. Michael wanted to hide, to run, to get as far from him as possible.
Father Devin looked at him, his hat sliding back as his haunted face turned to him. He looked worse than he had before, even more ashen and dark. He was serious, even without Cor and his lightning rod, he could, and most likely would, kill both of them.
"Please." he whispered, his voice soft and broken, "Do not desert me. I come in need of your assistance."
Michael did not slam the door.
There was something in the man's sad blue eyes that held him, made him believe that he truly did need their help.
"Can I come in?" he whispered and Michael felt that was the loudest he was able to speak, "We could be spotted like this."
Michael nodded and stepped back, holding the door open for the strange priest. He kept his head down as he entered, trying to ignore James as he glared at him. He couldn't take his eyes off of Grigori's form, the mess of tools and parts scattered around it.
"What you want?" James barked, his hand touching one of his blood drenched charms.
Father Devin tore his eyes from Grigori and onto James. He always seemed to be on the verge of crying, this fake Man of God.
"Please, I did not come to fight you." he whispered, raising his hands, "I am unarmed as well. Search me if you must."
James nodded to Michael, who, with trembling hands, patted down the priests robes. He was glad to find nothing on him.
"Cor has your heart." he mentioned, his hand on his chest where his own should lay, "I know how that can damage you."
"Point." James interrupted, growling.
"He has mine too."
Michael stopped, staring at the man. He wasn't sure if he had heard correctly, the priest's voice so quiet. If he had heard correctly, if he had lost his heart to Cor, surely he wasn't really their enemy.
"He saw my magic and liked it. He wanted to conquer it on his own. I was glad to help him, for a price, but it wasn't a price he could pay. Not at that time. Now it would be no ordeal. He stole my heart and forced me to teach him.
"He was supposed to give it back to me once he had mastered it, but he is a demon, he is cursed. His life as such has not taught him to do right. Thus I stay at his side, a loyal slave, waiting for the opportunity to get my heart back."
"What you propose?" James asked, his head tilted slightly to the side.
"I have to return to Cor soon. I'll pretend I didn't talk to you. You need your heart back and I need mine. I need you to distract him so I can turn off the electrical coils. This will leave him powerless. One of us will then get our hearts."
"Why should trust you?"
Father Devin sighed and put a hand by where his heart should have been, whispering even more quietly than before, "#раскрывать."
There was spark of electricity, even without any talisman or charm, and the priest's chest and robes concealing it became transparent, allowing them to see inside of him. Michael could see the blood traveling in his veins, dark and hot, and the organs pumping away beneath the ribcage.
There was a hole in the ribs, hairline cracks around it, as if they were broken. Amongst the breaks was a dark, black hole.
There should have been a heart in there. There needed to be a heart in there. Instead, there was nothing. Just a deep black pit.
James pulled back, having seen enough, "Alright." he agreed, "No jokes."
"Heh." Father Devin chuckled, the opacity of his form crawling back over his body, "No jokes."